Refund by Karen E. Bender Read Free Book Online

pediatrician—”
    â€œSo? That’s all temporary,” said Ginger. “But the noticing, that’s yours.”
    Ginger had never allowed herself weakness, never told anyone how it felt to walk into a new city, how she chose her new name just as the train slowed down. Everyone rushed by, gnarled and worn down by the burden of thwarted love; she was free of that, new. She would wash up in the station bathroom and walk out, erased of her secrets: the fact that everything she did with a man was faked, so the only way she could feel pleasure was to give it to herself; the fact that her broken right hand had healed crooked because she couldn’t afford to see a doctor to fix it; that she often ate alone on holidays. In empty coffee shops on Thanksgiving, Ginger looked at the food on her plate, and she knew a strange, burning love for the things the world offered her, real and surprising, again and again.
    E VELYN AND G INGER RENTED A ROOM IN A S ALVATION A RMY, AND Evelyn began to weep. She curled up on the hard, stained mattress and cried so hard she screamed. Ginger sat beside her sister, a hand on her shoulder. Sometimes, she had an urge to laugh. Other moments, she wished she could put her hands around Evelyn’s throat and strangle her. She was shocked by the private nature of her emotions. Evelyn seemed to believe she was comforting her, and Ginger was surprised that she could.
    During the day, they walked down Hollywood Boulevard,trying to decide what to do. Their breath smelled, darkly, of bananas. In the light, Evelyn talked rapidly; they both listened with hope to the sound of her voice.
    â€œWe will be cigarette girls,” Evelyn announced one afternoon.
    They walked into sixteen bars before they found one that had jobs for both of them. Every night the two of them strode in wearing black tights and rhinestone loafers, selling cigarettes to heavy, sad-looking men with liquored breath.
    Once, Evelyn told Ginger that she tried not to be afraid for five minutes a day. Ginger was impressed that Evelyn could identify when she was afraid, for her own fear floated just outside her skin, like a cloud; she experienced nothing but a heavy numbness. She watched her sister closely, trying to catch her in those precious five minutes when she was clearly not afraid. In those five minutes, Evelyn owned something mysterious, and even the claim of strength made Ginger ache to experience it, too.
    At home, Evelyn’s grief metamorphosed into a bloodthirsty envy of the loved, the parented. She wanted their expensive possessions: the jeweled brooches, the feathered hats.
    One night, she leaned close to a man clad in a velvet jacket and said, in a husky, unfamiliar voice, “I have a baby at home.”
    Ginger, walking by with her tray, stopped.
    â€œHe is sick,” Evelyn said. “Bad stomach. He needs operation. Look. Please.” She brought out a wrinkled photo of some stranger’s baby. His mouth was open in anguish. “I need just ten more dollars—he cannot eat—”
    â€œAll right,” he said. He dug into his pocket and handed her a bill. His face was haughty with a perplexing pity, and Ginger stared at it, awed.
    Later, Evelyn walked with Ginger down the sidewalk and smoothed the bill, like green velvet, in her hands. “I have a baby athome,” she said, laughing. She looked at the people walking, lifted her hands, and said, almost gently, “Fools.”
    T HE NEXT MORNING , G INGER SAT IN HER CABIN, LOOKING THROUGH the nine photographs that she owned. They were souvenirs from fancy occasions, set in cardboard frames so old they felt like flannel. She had kept them because she liked the way she looked in them, as though she had been enjoying herself.
    She heard a knock at the door. It was that girl again. “I wondered if you wanted some company. Can I come in?”
    Darlene was dressed in imitation of a wealthy person. She wore a sequin-trimmed cashmere