Queenpin by Megan Abbott Read Free Book Online

had me.
    There I was in his apartment, half past four, Nothing in it was paid for, not the chrome and leather sofa, the mirrored coffee table, the thick buff-colored drapes, not even me. I gave it to him without so much as a steak dinner, a wilting rose, a smooth line. Let’s face it, he broke me because I was begging to be broke, his hand so hard on my shoulder, my shoulder so hard on the sofa, I couldn’t steer the Impala for a week without gasping for air.
    The next day, I had to pick her up at the airport. I was feeling all nerves. I’d been late for some of my appointments and had forgotten to make two drops the night before. Scrambling all over town to catch up, I could hear her voice in my head, See what happens? See how quickly it falls apart if you don’t keep your legs together?
    Walking across the tarmac, she looked tired and pleased. When she got in the car, she tossed me a box wrapped in bright tissue. I opened it and it was a pair of long silk gloves in pearl gray. She had a pair like it from some famous glovemaker back east and I was always talking them up, always complimenting her on them.
    “Gee, thanks,” I said, feeling, I’ll admit it, a pinch over my chest. I felt like I’d done something lousy.
    “Let’s go get some dinner, kid. Some lobster and pink champagne,” she said, smoothing her hair back. “Things are really cooking with gas. I got an eye for talent, that’s what they’re saying Upstairs. The more they see the way you roll, the more honey for us both.”
    All through dinner, I kept saying to myself that I hadn’t done anything wrong, not yet. I wasn’t going to let it get in the way, not like she might think. Besides, I might never see the fella again.
    But I knew I would.
    And I knew, somehow I knew, that it couldn’t help but interfere, that I couldn’t help but lose control of it. I wanted to lose control of it.
    That night, as we toasted, I got dizzy with the endless champagne, the rolling piano at the supper club, the fine food prepared tableside, her glowing face. It was glowing like I’d never seen before. With her, you couldn’t tell with laughter or smiles or words even. She didn’t wear it like that. You could tell from something in her that came out once you knew her bone deep like I did. I knew her bone deep and I could see that she was so happy she was glowing. And I wanted to cry. I sat there and I wanted to cry. But I didn’t. She’d already schooled me long past the point of crying. I was better than that. Instead I smiled for her, laughed for her, and was beautiful for her. It was the best dinner I ever had.
    ∞◊∞
    I never let her see me with him those first weeks it was going on, hotter and crazier every night. I finished every run before hightailed it to his place. Some nights, she had to do numbers late for the new dog-and cockfights over in the warehouse district. They were nasty bits of business and we never had to show up at them, no woman would (Not even women like us, she said and I didn’t like the way she said it). On these nights, I was supposed to go to her place after my last rounds. Impatient to get to Vic’s, feeling things in my hips just thinking about seeing him later, I hurried as fast as I could to help her look for hits, envelopes from all over the city spread across her glass coffee table. She always wore her gloves when she did it, not to hide her worn hands, not from me, but because she knew where the betting slips had been, grimy candy stores, shylock newsstands, back kitchens, bowling alleys, those same down-at-the heels warehouses where the fights were held.
    Her gloves, in one of a dozen shades of white, rose, pale yellow, danced along the envelopes, flipping over the slips, looking for the matches. She was fast, and I was getting fast too. And I never said a word to her about him. I knew what she would say. You lost it, you little bitch. You lost it. You can’t discipline yourself, you’re of no use to me.
    But what