Small g by Patricia Highsmith Read Free Book Online Page B

note. “It’s only natural.”
    “Yes—of course.”
    “And your famous little present! But first, can I offer you something? A Dubonnet, Coca-Cola, fruit juice—tea?”
    “I can’t stay long.”
    Dismal words. “Now, who says so? Half an hour? Have you a date?”
    “Oh no.” She had opened her jacket. “I said to Renate I was going out just to walk for a few minutes. I’ve been sitting.”
    “But—sit again, and I’ll bring you—well—” Rickie fetched the yellow package. “Only if you sit.”
    Smiling, she sat on a straight chair near the table.
    “Open it. It’s so simple—for all this fuss.”
    Luisa opened the package, took out the long scarf and held it up. “Petey’s.”
    “Yes, he left it here. I thought you might like it.”
    “Of course I like it.” She pressed it to her nose, then looked at Rickie. “Thank you. Thanks for thinking of me.”
    Rickie looked at the floor. “Now I’m going to have a cool beer—and if you change your mind—” He got a small Pilsner Urquell from his fridge. A beer, anything in his hand, would make him appear more relaxed, he thought. “Why is it,” he began, addressing the girl who was in a corner of the room, looking at a smaller photo of Petey and him in Ascona.
    “Why is what?”
    Were the girl’s eyes moist? Rickie hoped not. “Why is it this Renate keeps such a tight rein on you? Is she jealous of your boyfriends?”
    “Ha! I haven’t any boyfriends—just now.”
    “But she makes you come home at a certain hour? Eat with her too?”
    “Supper? Yes—usually.” Luisa looked embarrassed by his questions. “She’s a good cook—and by then it’s just the two of us.”
    Rickie sipped his beer. “But for instance, if I asked you to have dinner with me this evening. Out somewhere. You’d telephone her—”
    “Oh sure, telephone her. But I wouldn’t tell her I was with you.” Luisa smiled, amused.
    “No.” Rickie understood that, of course. “She bosses all the girls around like that?” He was sure Renate didn’t.
    “No. But the others don’t sleep there, you know. They live with their family.”
    Rickie hesitated. “I remembered Petey told me you’d run away from home.”
    “Yes, my family, well. I don’t want to talk about that.”
    Rickie watched her brown eyes move from one object to the next, not evasively, but as if she sought something to help her collect her thoughts. “My parents quarreled. My real parents. Then there was a divorce. Then my stepfather—I was about twelve. Then—I suppose not so many quarrels but my stepfather would hit my mother and sometimes me.” Here came an attempt at a shrug and a smile. “So finally I ran off. Took a train to Zurich—last October. I even washed dishes for a while. Don’t ask me where I slept!”
    “I won’t!” Rickie managed a smile.
    “ Not the railway station.” Now she smiled. “I met a girl where I was washing dishes. She was a waitress living with her mother. They let me sleep in the living room. Maybe I will have a Coke.”
    Rickie went to his fridge and returned with bottle and glass.
    “Thank you,” Again she seemed to struggle to organize what she wanted to say. “Then I got very depressed. I went to the railway station, not knowing where I should go with just a few francs. That was worse, the sight of young people sleeping—you know, some of them drugged. So I started walking—through the Langstrasse tunnel, you know?”
    Rickie knew, under the railway line of the main station, the Langstrasse was for cars and pedestrians and led to the district of Aussersihl.
    “I was having a coffee somewhere—with not enough money to eat, really, and I got to talking with a girl on the stool next to me. I asked her if she knew of any jobs—anything, like a salesgirl, I thought. She asked if I had any skills . Some people make it sound like a Doktorat . So I said I’d done nearly two years as an apprentice seamstress, and this girl said she knew of a woman in