"Cat got your tongue?" she asked, standing at my doorstep like a newspaper no one wanted to read. "How's it going, Tyler Willard?"

"My tongue? No. . . uh. . . fine."

"Well, are you gonna invite me inside, or just let me freeze my fanny off?"

"That would take several ice ages," I thought, perhaps loudly enough to get that deviant look I get in my eyes when I'm thinking something really bad. "Don't be silly," I really said. "The door's open; come on in. I just made some coffee. Throw your jacket wherever, and I'll be right back."

All those years of my crush on Lisa suddenly seemed wasted, not that romantic precepts popped up everywhere in Acorn. I never looked all that great myself, not even after I got my braces removed. Some of the acne went away when I hit twenty, but the freckles took up permanent residence. My hair would never give up its tumbleweed look, and my body still resembled a pencil; in fact, some of the kids in school used to twist those pencils with the little wig over the eraser, then say, "Look, it's Tyler Willard." So, I figured, if I can't see a good-looking guy in the mirror, I should at least see a primo babe by my side. God owed me that, didn't He?

"I took it you wanted creme and sugar," I said, as I walked back into the fallen living room, carrying two cups of coffee, finding her sitting on my low-riding couch. Fortunately, it rested on bricks instead of wood. I hated seeing her, sitting with her coat in her lap, looking around at the place. The people who rented the house before me tore off pieces of the wallpaper and spilled paint on the floor. Maybe someone from New York would say it made a statement, but I never went for that other-side-of-the-tracks look and felt embarrassed for Lisa to see it--even if she looked a bit out of shape herself.

"No sugar," she said. I guess I looked annoyed, because she gave me an apologetic smile. Her smile still looked nice, even with rolls of fat trying to swallow the sides of her lips. "Oh well, it's too late now. I don't think a little sugar can hurt me." I sat down beside her, telling myself the living room needed more furniture. Somehow, a dying couch and three upside-down crates seemed like they would make a poor impression on a woman who lived in California, the state with interior decorators on every corner.

"So, what are we going to see?" she asked.

"See?"

"Duh--" she said in a deep voice, tossing her blonde curls about with a jerk of her round head. "Movie. You asked when I called if I'd like to go see a movie with you."

"How 'bout Pizza Party Massacre? Or can you stomach--stand--horror movies?"

"I can do without. I prefer romantic movies."

"Oh, well, we'll find something." I suddenly noticed the cluster of diamonds strangling one of her fat fingers. "Hey, is that a wedding ring?"

"Yes." She stared at the ring as if she had never noticed it before. "I was married for two years."

"It didn't work out, huh? That's too bad."

She looked down. "It worked out. He passed away three months ago, three long months ago."

"I'm sorry," I said, fidgeting. I looked around, as if hoping someone would hold up a cue card telling me what to say next. "So, how did it happen?" I blurted, but then doubted the cue card person would suggest that particular question. I started to go open the window, just to hide my red face, but I knew it would just fall right back down, like always, so I turned on the a.c. Fortunately, she took over the conversation, which women always enjoy.

"He was trying to swim the California coast in record time, and he. . . he contracted pneumonia. It was early April. I told him, 'Bailey, please wait another month or two,' but he wanted to make history. He wanted to accomplish something, instead of having everything handed to him by his father."

I looked around again. Still no cue card. "How terrible. Uh. . . how did you meet?"

"You remember Bolton Briggs, Jr., don't you?"

"The rich little. . . guy? Yeah." I thought I should bring her some potato chips or something, but her mouth kept going too fast for me to suggest it.

"Well, he heard where I'd moved, and decided to get my address, so he could write and tell me he had a cousin near where I was living. I called Bailey, and we hit it off. We've hardly been apart since, until. . . Well, I didn't come here to depress you."

"You're not. Besides, we've been listening to each other's problems since we were old enough to have problems."

"That's true," she said, looking at her watch. "Remember that time you wouldn't walk home, because that big bird kept dive-bombing you?"

I felt my face turning red again. "Yeah, the kite. I. . . I made dinner. I've had to learn to cook since the divorce."

"Oh, I heard about that. I'm sorry. I come in here acting like I'm the only person in Creation who's ever suffered."

"I suffered more when she was here."

"You can't mean that." Lisa drank the last drop of her coffee and looked at the empty cup in udder amazement, like a redneck used to drinking straight from the keg and not knowing that cups need refilling.

"I really do. We weren't meant for each other. I was bored; she was boring. And she had more annoying habits than anyone I've ever met." I caught myself almost telling Lisa my true feelings about women: that they serve certain purposes but try to act too independent and zoological, though they get everything taken care of for them. Who wouldn't want that? Free meals, free clothes, free everything. Like someone wrote on a bathroom wall, "Women, can't live with 'em, can't become one for under two thousand dollars."

"Well, maybe it's for the best, then. At least you didn't have children."

"Yeah, that would be a pain. Do you still live in California? I remember when you were going to move to Orange County."

She giggled and pointed at me, as if pointing me out to her imaginary friend. "I remember you telling me 'Okay, send me an orange some time.' You say the strangest things. We stayed there after we got married, and I'm still there now. Just before I met Bailey, I found out you had lived in Houston for a while, and that your parents sold their house and moved to Alaska. No one knew how to contact you."

"I would've stayed in contact, but Sandra was insanely jealous, and I was sick all the time from the pollution and humidity in Houston. I had to move back to Acorn or die. Of course, moving back was easy, since she got everything I owned during the divorce settlement. I stayed with my parents for a while, before I got this place."

"Do you ever see her?"

"No. Sandra's parents don't care for me. Rich snobs, you know? Oh--nothing against your new relatives. Let me nuke the sketti real quick. You can call the movie house while I'm getting it ready. Find something romantic. Do you have a place to stay?"

"Yes, I'm house-sitting for Bolt's parents."

"Oh. . . good." I handed her the phone book from off the floor then returned to the kitchen, thinking of Bailey's stupidity. Why would someone try to swim that far, like some Russian Olympics guy on deltoids? Most people who try to swim those records only end up getting stung by jellybean fish, just so they can get mentioned in a book about who pulled the dumbest stunts.

As its timer rolled to zero, my yard-sale microwave made a buzzing racket worse than fingernails on a chalkboard. I opened it up and saw that the spaghetti noodles had dried out in the places not covered by sauce, so I poured sauce over those places. Mom always made her sauce in a pressure cooker, but I won't use those things, because of that time the little cap on the lid of hers popped off and went through the ceiling. As much as she always talked about not playing with something that could put your eye out, I can't see why she gave me a pressure cooker when her and Dad moved to Alaska.

I set the kitchen table as if dealing cards: plate for her, plate for me, fork for her, for--fortune. My mind jumped to that word and stayed there while I continued dealing. I hollered to Lisa to come get it, then I reached into the fridge for the sun tea I made the day before. I like exotic stuff like sun tea, and I knew Lisa would too.

"Sun tea," I said, as she stampeded into the kitchen.

"Unsweetened?"

"Unsweetened. Now sit down and prepare for an Italian feast." I spread butter on some toast and sprinkled garlic salt on it, while she poured tea into the glasses of ice.

"These are pretty glasses," she said, looking at the flower design on them.

"Yeah. I can't believe Sandra let me take those. She kept everything else."

"Tyler, let's don't." She looked at her chair as if trying to move it with her mind, like one of those telepathetic people. Eventually, she simply pulled the chair away from the table, sat down in it, then pulled herself to the table, which worked much better than the mind trick.

"Let's don't what?" I asked, sitting down beside her at the tiny table.

"Let's don't worry about the past right now, at least not the past after high school. We were good friends. Let's just enjoy each other's company."

"Okay. So what are you waiting for? Don't you like Italian food?"

"I love Italian food. I just thought you'd wanna say grace. Bailey always said grace; I guess I got into the habit."

"Yeah. . . Well, close your eyes and all that." I closed my eyes and bowed my head. I'd never prayed aloud before. My parents never went for religion, except to say "God help us." In fact, Lisa never seemed religious in high school. I couldn't help but wonder if gaining weight made her religious, or if gaining religion made her get fat. Still, I offered up my prayer: "Oh, thine awesome, excellent, lordly God, thanks thee for thy lovely kindness and thy biblical mercy. Thanks thee for thine sending forth home mine friend Lisa, and that she isn't starving like those nonChristian people therefore in India. Amen."

"Amen," said Lisa, smiling as she opened her eyes.

"Well, dig in." Lisa barely managed to cut the hard spaghetti without knocking the whole twisted mass off her plate. She chewed for a minute, swallowed in slow motion.

"Good sauce," she said.

"Thanks. You should try my Mexican food. I make some stuff so hot, it'll make your tongue slap your brains out. Oh. . . I'm sorry; I didn't mean to be gross at the table."

"That's okay. Do you still work at the Mexican restaurant?"

"No, I got in trouble for not getting along with the other workers. You know, all that political rainbow culture club, or whatever you call it."

She cocked her head. "I don't understand."

"Well, I told this new employee I bet she could make me some good tamales, because she was Mexican, but she said she was Cherokee, not Mexican, and that I shouldn't assume she's desperate for someone to cook for. And then I found out you aren't supposed to call Mexicans Mexicans; you're supposed to call them Chicago, Latino, Hispanic, or all these other terms that don't have anything to do with their country. And the other two employees are black, and one of them said 'That was very white of you.' Can you believe how racist minorities are?"

"Maybe you took it the wrong way. You can be a bit. . . intense."

"Intense? Me? No, I'm just a laid-back kinda guy. And I don't let all that bother me. I think the woman boss just didn't know how to handle minorities, so she let me go, since I was the only white guy. Now that everyone's rainbow or a woman, they get along okay, which works great, unless you're a white male."

She sliced up some of her spaghetti, which looked like a red octopus, resisting the knife and fork with its technicalities. "But you found another job, didn't you?"

"No, I'm still in a transcendental phase."

She smiled. "Well, don't forget the Briggs clan practically owns Acorn. I'm sure I could find you something."

"I'd 'preciate that." I wanted to point out that Aragon Carsons practically owned just as much of Acorn, but I knew that those feminist-type women don't like each other or hearing about each other, so I resisted. Besides, I couldn't stand any of the Carsons clan. "A man just lacks dignity if he doesn't make an honest living."

She swallowed in slow motion again. "I know what you mean."

"Let's forget about the sketti. We have to save room for sweet potato pie."

"Don't worry. I always have room for sweet potato pie."

"Y--eah. So, what's playing at the movies?"

"The only one that sounded worth seeing is Hormonal Disturbance, and I'm not sure about that one."

"Oh, I saw that. It's great. These fourteen-year-old boys go out one night, and . . ." I took a sip of sun tea. "Come to think of it, it wasn't that great. Hey, this new restaurant in town, next to the tanning salon washeteria, shows old movies on the wall."

"Okay. What's playing there?"

"Probably The Grapes of Wrath. That's what they've shown both times I've been."

"Would you like to see it again?"

"That's fine. I didn't understand it the first two times. It's one of the really weird movies where people move around and the story just goes on and on. I never understood why they just didn't get a job and stick with it. Maybe you could explain it to me."

She smiled and leaned forward a bit, as if finding a purpose in life. "Sure."

I sliced a piece of sweet potato pie for her. The canned sweet potato filling sloshed off the ready-made piecrust as I lifted the slice--or, rather, the piece of crust--to her plate. "A little too thin," I said, throwing her slice into the nearby trash can. "Never mind the pie. We'll get dessert there. They have great brownies, and all that."

"I love brownies." Her eyes moved across the pathetic pie, mournfully. It probably reminded her of one of those California mudslides. "Some things just don't turn out like you hope they will. It's easier just to go somewhere and buy what you want."

"Well, that's what we'll do. The movie starts at seven, so we'd better leave now. Could we take your car? Mine's been giving trouble."

"No problem."

We got to the restaurant just before time for the movie to start. I hoped the waiter with the fake smile and perfect hair wouldn't recognize us, and that Lisa wouldn't recognize him: one of the many losers from our graduating class.

"I'd like a mixed drink," I told him. "Something moderate, yet flavorful."

He smirked. "I see. Might I suggest the Citrus Collision?"

"Yes, you might. And a piece of apple pie. What about you, Lisa?"

"I think I just want a large Diet Coke," she replied, as her blue eyes devoured everything listed in the dessert section of the menu. "And I'm not sure about dessert."

"You should try our Chocolate Chaos." He said the name as if he had invented it. "It's a chocolate chip brownie with Dutch chocolate icing, hot fudge syrup, and a layer of broken chocolate bars, topped with chocolate mousse."

Lisa found the item on her menu so she could read along, like one of those book and record sets my mom used to buy me, where you turn the page whenever you heard a "beep." I never saw the point of that, because when you run out of words on one page, but the voice keeps gabbing away, you should have enough sense to turn to the next page. No one went "beep" for Lisa; she kept staring at the dessert page.

"Do you need more time to decide?" asked the waiter, which meant, "I don't have all night, I want to leave this one-horse town for an acting career on Broadway, my mother keeps fixing me up with the ugliest women in the history of Texas, I'd rather be at home playing on my computer than wearing this ridiculous bow tie, and you know you're going to order it after talking to yourself about calories, so let's get it over with."

Lisa looked up at him, her widening eyes showing that she recognized him, or just that she wanted to thank him for offering the ultimate sugar rush. She smiled and surrendered the menu to him.

"I'll take it," she said, making it sound like torture. "I'd like some fried cheese too."

"A full order?" The waiter's eyes lit up like headlights, screaming "Tip! Tip!" What an exciting life he led.

"Yes. And don't forget my Diet Coke."

"I'm changing my order to just a small glass, and no dessert," I said, hoping to humiliate her into eating less, maybe losing a hundred pounds. I couldn't help but remember how she used to bring grace and sophistication to the high school cafeteria, cutting her chicken fried steak into perfect little portions. Since she spent so much time dicing and arranging, lunch break would end before she could eat much. She obviously needed to get back on a strict schedule, and she needed someone to tell her what to do.

"Wasn't that Roger Holloway?" Lisa asked, after he left. "I wasn't sure."

"Yeah." While wondering if she knew anyone else with such a scratchy and squeaky voice, I caught my hands fidgeting, pulling on some threads where my jeans were torn at the left knee.

"He's gotten cute," she said, emphasizing the word "cute" the way my landlady would emphasize how much money I owe. My conversations with the landlady sounded like we spoke some sort of number language, like people on the stockade market.

"Stay away from Hollowhead," I whispered. She rolled her eyes when I called him "Hollowhead," his official high school name. I could feel the threads coming loose on one side, so I started tugging on the other side, all the while hoping the bottom half of my pants leg wouldn't fall off. "He's a class M womanizer."

Lisa's eyes bounced around in confusion. "Roger?"

"Yes, sweet little ole Roger is a little more swuft than we thought. And girls think he's attractive. You even said he's cute, and you're not someone who's taken in by outside exteriors. But he uses whoever he can, whenever he can. He's bad news."

"We should witness to him," she whispered, leaning forward, as if to tell me a secret.

"Witness?" I asked, smiling and placing my hands on the table. The threads had come completely loose in my hands, so I pushed them off the side. "I'm afraid witnessing doesn't help. In fact, he goes to church every time the doors open. But he just goes there to pick up girls, and to make them think he's a nice guy. He joins everything: YMCA, Ducks Anonymous, whatever. He even--well, Jesus doesn't like for us to gossip."

"Maybe he just wants attention." She watched him as he walked up with our drinks.

"He certainly gets that."

Roger smiled at Lisa, apparently recognizing her, despite her newly inflated mass. "Here we go," he said. While I tried to think of any expression dumber than "Here we go," Lisa and Roger stared stupidly at each other. Not wanting to talk to Roger, I excused myself to the bathroom. Few amusements in the dead town of Acorn matched the messages left on bathroom walls, though some of them shocked even a sophisticated person like myself. On the way there, I bumped into a former girlfriend, who attempted a smile.

"How's it going?" I asked, and passed her.

"Terrible," she said, as I opened the bathroom door. An old man with a cane walked between us, so I ducked quickly into the bathroom, not wanting to hear her whining.

I got back to the table in time to see the movie just starting, and Lisa dipping her last fried cheese stick into the tiny bowl of ranch dressing. I couldn't believe she gobbled the first seven down in my few minutes away. The Chocolate Chaos came and went as quickly. We kept quiet during the movie, but she looked contented, like a lioness after a kill. As I hoped, she picked up the check after the skeptic-length movie finally ended.

On the way home, she let me drive her rental car, some luxury number with a high-tech foreign name, air-conditioning, and velveteen seats. I cranked up the Unpleasant Odors--a local band that eventually got too uptown for Acorn gigs--on the radio, loud enough that we wouldn't try to talk, and went cruising down the road like I owned the road, the car, and all of Acorn. Lisa just smiled, and I held her flabby hand, because holding hands makes women feel good and shut up for a while.

The next day, before going out, we went to the Briggs house to watch a Bogart movie on the VCR. Their living room, which could double as a football stadium, looked like a cross between an antiques store and the inside of a spaceship. Between the fireplace and the grandfather's clock stood a giant screen TV, with two VCR's, a laser disk player, a stereo, and two speakers the size of phone booths. Patchwork quilts hung on the walls in the few places not covered by shelf after shelf of books on every subject: the Bible, business, politics, stamp collecting, income taxidermy. Still, it made me wonder how they could find time to pursue any of that if they spent all their time reading about it, but rich people mostly just want to look smart.

After we got relaxed, on separate couches, Bolton Briggs the Second walked in, dressed in a preppy yellow sweater and looking as bony and goofy as ever, still wearing glasses wide enough to shield the president. At least he finally let his hair grow long, instead of the uniform Briggs military cut. It still scared me to no beginning to know that he would soon become a doctor.

"Lisa, what are you doing here?" he asked, as we stood up. She ran over and hugged him, but he recovered quickly.

"Bolt! I wasn't expecting you! I'm in town on business for your uncle, and your parents asked me to come and housesit. You remember Tyler, don't you?"

He squinted his eyes, as if focusing, then shook my hand. "Of course. Good to see you, Tyler. Lisa, did you say you're house-sitting?"

"Yes. Your parents are in San Antonio for some kind of Texas history festival."

He slapped himself on the forehead. "Now now now I forgot all about that Lisa I just tell you they've been just going places all the time I mean all the time go go go Lisa Mother needs to get out bless her heart she's started on her dieting again and she started to make some peanut butter cookies in total violation of her diet then she realized what she was doing and you know what she did she took the cookies out of the oven half-baked went out and got a shovel and buried them in the back yard but she worked up such a hunger doing all that that she ate the rest of the peanut butter right out of the jar using her fake fingernails as scoops and I'm not talking about any little trial-size peanut butter not fake fingernails I'm talking about the buy-it-in-bulk-for-the-family-and-the-neighborhood size chunky not creamy. Can you imagine that?"

I couldn't imagine that, or anyone talking so fast or waving his hands around so much. He spat out words even faster than Lisa chomped down food. If Lisa could eat his words, they would form a star consternation and keep each other busy for all eternity. Never mind--that's too poetic.

Lisa asked, "Is she doing better now?"

He swung his hands forward then outward, as if pushing through a crowd. "Oh she's fine she just has her little spells listen I know we could just talk talk talk all night but I need to go lay down before I fall down so y'all just pretend I'm not here."

Fortunately, Bolt bolted upstairs, and the movie soon ended, so we went to Cow House, one of my all-time favorite restaurants. I didn't mind going somewhere expensive, since I figured Lisa would pay for it. Neither of us knew the waiter this time, so we didn't have any distractions.

"I'm not sure if I want the Big Texas Rib Eye," I said, looking at the menu. "It's $18."

"Order whatever you want," said Lisa. "I'm paying."

"I can't let you do that. You paid last night."

"I'm the only one who ate last night. Besides, it's only money. And if I weren't here, you'd be eating at home, instead of thinking of such nice places to take me." She waved her menu at me, like an obese fairy godmother waving her wand. "The least I can do is pay for everything when we go out."

"Well. . . if it makes you feel better."

"It does," she said, smiling. "I think I'll get the same--oh, and it comes with a salad, and bread. I think I also want cheesecake."

Our pimple-faced waiter either had hearing like a hound dog or could see the food lust in Lisa's eyes, because he walked over from across the room just as she finished listing the food groups.

"So, how did you spend your Saturday afternoon?" I asked, after the waiter left. I had spent the whole day trying to think of questions to ask her, since I wanted to court the big hog and needed to sound interested in her as more than a rent check. Of course, I really did care, and I knew I could shape her back into a woman worth having around, instead of just a round woman.

"I took care of all the business Papa Briggs had to take care of. I'm glad he sent me here as his representative, even though Bolton Sr. and Jr. could take care of everything. The rest of the clan needed some time off, and I enjoy the work. I didn't marry for the money, but now that I have it, I feel like I should be working for it. And it's nice to see West Texas again."

"Really? I was afraid you'd get bored here, after living in California."

"California's great, but Acorn's still home to me. I called some more people we know today. I even ran into Roger Holloway. His sister works at Briggs Co Home Office."

"You didn't tell Roger what I told you, did you?" The waiter brought our salads, which slowed the conversation.

"Of course not," she said, between bites. "But he seems nice enough. Maybe he was just going through a phase. He told me he'd like to settle down with a nice Christian girl."

"Well, he should know you aren't stupid enough to fall for a line like that." I leaned back as the waiter placed the Texas-shaped rib eye in front of me, on a metal plate with a slice of Texas toast. He took our salads away, though even Lisa still had lettuce to go.

"My eyes might have been bigger than my stomach," she said, staring at all the food on the metal plate. I managed not to make a comment about no one having eyes that big. "Now, what was that about a line?"

"The 'nice Christian girl' line. He doesn't want you to be nice; he just wants you to think he's nice." I sliced Texas up, watching its blood ooze out, instead of watching Lisa's feeding frenzy. "See, you met a great guy and got married at an early age. Before that, you were always with the cheerleaders or some other group, instead of dating. It's dangerous out there. A lot of guys are just vultures; they use native girls up, then move on."

She set her empty tea glass at the edge of the table, knowing our waiter passed by every few seconds in his desperate search for a tip. "I hate to say it, Tyler, but you're absolutely right. Some guys are like that, and I'm not gonna let them use me."

"Good for you," I said, chewing on a piece of rare meat, watching the waiter deliver her cheesecake and fill up her tea glass.

A few minutes later, as our waiter claimed our metal plates, she picked up her dessert fork (the one with the handle shaped like a cow's face) and poked it into the cheesecake. "I really shouldn't eat this."

"It looks fattening," I said, looking down at the thin slice. "And its carbohydrates probably aren't even complex, if you know what I mean."

"Not really, but I love cheesecake." It disappeared, with no further hesitation.

"What do you wanna do now?"

"Actually, I'm kind of tired from all the running around I did today." She drank her final sip of tea. "Would you mind if I just dropped you off then went on back to the Briggs home?"

"That's fine. Are you okay, though? You're not getting a disease or anything, are you?"

"No, silly," she flung her fat fingers outwards, as if trying to fling something off her hand. "I'm sure I'll be all right after I get some rest."

Lisa fell asleep while I drove her back to my place, and I had to shake her up so she could drive back to the Briggs estate. She mumbled a goodbye then backed out of the driveway. I called fifteen minutes later to see if she got home all right, because girls like little touches like that, but she apparently slept so hard she couldn't hear the phone ring, and I always hang up on those answering machines. She never called back.

When I got home from running errands the next day, I saw someone had tacked a note to my door, like Lex Luthor with the church. Morgana Le Fay, the landlady's Siamese cat, rubbed against my leg and got between my feet as I reached for the note. Morgana apparently remembered the time I kicked her, because she backed off a little when I looked down. But then I caught myself reading her the note:

"Sorry I wasn't able to say goodbye in person. Papa Briggs needed me to take care of some problems at home. Roger's going with me. He's good people, and our Orange County division needs some shaking up, some new blood. Thanks for a good time, babe. Sincerely, Lisa."

I balled the note up, threw it on the ground. When it landed, Morgana ran to it and clawed at it, pushing it around like some mouse victim. In the corner of my eye, I could see my purser of color landlady approaching, probably looking for more than Morgana Le Fay. I told her that I was on my way to Seventh Street Baptist Church, which nearly made the poor old woman faint, but that I would have the money soon. She even offered me a ride, as 7-Bap is near the African church. I would have gone with her to the Thurber Mingus African American Church of God in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savoir, but I don't speak African. Besides, there aren't any rich people there, and it was one of the first places to get targeted for bulldozing during the Seventh Street widening project that began a few days later. You see, I had decided to follow Roger Hollowhead's example of cruising the pews; it worked for him, and he's nowhere near as intelligent as me.

After a half-deaf and half-dead old man directed me to my Sunday school class, I found that the teacher and I were the only singles in our age group, which meant we were all alone. Pam Carsons, another of my former classmates, was the teacher. She liked talking, so I let her talk. Trying to ignore the roundness of her face and her disastrous attempt at using make-up to sculpt her flabby features, I kept thinking of all the money her daddy makes from his furniture store, and all the old money her daddy had inherited. And there she was, single, desperate, pathetic. I still had hope of paying the rent.