Code 61 - Donald Harstad [131]
“Must have been really fun.” Harry took a rattling pull on his milkshake.
“Oh, yeah. And, it paid less than teaching, let me tell you. And I finally figured out that since I was a young woman, they wanted me on the 'Responsible Usage Team' so the farmers could look at my legs while I talked.” She half giggled. “Really. I was sort of an agricheesecake girl.”
I couldn't help grinning at the image. “With your attitude?” “I couldn't bite people, we had a script,” she said.
“Anyway, I could see I wasn't going to get out of that job until my legs went. And I liked chemistry. And the real chemists made pretty good money. Well, better, anyway. I had to keep living with Mom, because I couldn't pay off the loans, and help her with the bills, and pay rent at the same time. Mom knew I hated that job, but she kept telling me that it was the responsible thing to do, so I did it. I hated myself for it, though.”
She turned on the overhead light. “I can't find all my fries…. ”
“How long did you stay?”
“Three years, Carl. I'd send resumes out all the time, but the longer you've been out of school…. Anyway, the only decent offer I got was from this place in California, and the money just didn't work out. It did after the first couple of years, or it would have. But I just couldn't get away. And all that time, Mom was entertaining suspicions that I was failing. That I wasn't really trying, you know?”
“Yeah,” said Harry. “I had a wife used to feel that way about me.”
“She wondered why I didn't get married. She asked me once. I said I didn't want to. It really surprised me, that she'd ask. Like she didn't know that if I got married, I'd leave and she wouldn't be able to make ends meet. A job close to home, that paid okay, was going to be the only way out, for me, anyway. So I heard about the criminalistics lab in Des Moines. I applied, and got an interview, and it wasn't too far from our house. I got the job. Better pay, and I started to make headway on my student loans.” She pulled three or four fries from the bag. “Found some,” she said brightly.
I watched her bite the ends off the little bundle of fries. “And then?”
“What bothered me was that my sister, she'd gone ahead. Like I told her to, I admit it. She got hired as a geologist with a big oil company, met an engineer, married him, they moved to Scotland to work the North Sea Oil, she even sent me and Mom tickets so we could visit.” She shook her head slowly. “We went, all right. Mom just went ape over their house, the fact that it was in Scotland, that they were friends with important people. Hell, there was even an honest-to-God still-life painter living next door.” She'd turned toward me, and now leaned back against her door. “My sister was living my ideal damned existence. My little sister had achieved my ideal life, while I stayed home and all I had accomplished was, I had disappointed Mom.”
Ouch.
“That'd be tough,” said Harry. “Really tough.”
Hester took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “I mean, you know, good for her, and all that. But, anyway, I was really depressed. I honest to God hoped for a plane crash on the way back from Scotland. I really did. I'll tell ya, guys, I would have run to just about anywhere, just to get out of that. But, there just wasn't any place to go. No Mansion, with free rent and people like me.”
It was silent for a few seconds. I took another bite of my first burger. It was starting to cool.
“So, the reason for sharing all that garbage with you,” said Hester, straightening up, “is that those girls up there, especially Huck and Melissa and poor dead Edie … life was just not cooperating with them. And they were just looking for a place to run. Hell, probably even Toby and Kevin, for that matter.”
“Yeah.” Harry had fished