of that stuff hidden away so well I doubt I could find it all,” Maggie said from the doorway. She handed the padlock to Nadine. “Ladies, please don’t forget to turn off the light and lock up. I’ve got to start my phone calls. Friday is less than a week away. When it comes to civil disobedience there are never enough hours in the day.”
After Maggie left Nadine crept a few steps into the garage to watch Mary Jean maneuver through the clutter. Nadine looked around the room. “Geez, look at all this stuff. When Eddie—I mean when we brought your stuff over here I guess I was too, uh, tired to notice what a tight fit it was.”
“U-huh.” MJ was lifting some of her clothes from a cardboard box, sorting them out on her large oak coffee table.
“Uh, Mary Jean, would you mind if I help you later? Judge Judy is on in five minutes. I saw the previews yesterday, and it really looked good.”
“No, go ahead, I really have to go through this stuff myself,” Mary Jean said, actually glad Nadine had found a reason to disappear.
She picked out an outfit to wear downtown to talk to Gene or whoever was managing the club that week, and some of the short skirts she wore as a uniform, just in case he wanted her to go back to work right away. Most of her clothes were either still folded and sitting in the drawers of her two dressers or still attached to the hangers stacked in a pile on the box spring of her queen-sized bed. She sorted through, pulling out socks, underwear and winter things. She found and set aside a large box crammed full of shoes , and a wooden apple crate holding her Elvis, Billie Holiday, Edith Piaf, and reggae albums. She then paused and shook her head while she thought of how pitiful it was that she was surveying most of her net worth sprawled on the cement floor of an old damp garage. She continued the inventory, happy she had had the foresight to store her jewelry box over at her sister’s, but as she looked here and there and picked through this and that, she began to worry that something important was missing.
After her first trip up the stairs, Mary Jean dumped the big box of shoes down right next to Nadine on the couch, trying but failing to snatch her out of her TV hypnosis.
She snapped her fingers twice in front of Nadine’s face. “Earth to Nadine, earth to Nadine. Come in Nadine.”
“What?”
“Have you seen my four-sided clock?”
“What?”
“M y clock that’s shaped like this. ” MJ pointed her forearms at forty-five degree angles with her fingertips touching, forming a steeple.
Nadine thought for a moment. “That ugly thing? It’s not in the garage?”
“I didn’t see it. It’s not up here?”
“No, I’d know if I brought it up here. It doesn’t even work, does it?”
Mary Jean didn’t take the time to respond. Instead she turned and rushed down the stairs and back into the garage where she began to get frantic, tearing through things, opening boxes and drawers, tossing things in random directions unmindful of the mess. She continued, fully focused and engulfed in chaos until she had gone through everything, whereupon she flopped her skinny little ass down on top of an old trunk.
“Fuck,” she said as she attempted to catch her breath, but her break was very brief. Within minutes she was back upstairs and right into Nadine’s face.
Nadine, annoyed to be missing some very meaningful moments of The Jerry Springer Show , tried to get through the confrontation as swiftly as possible. “Why is this thing so important?”
“ Well, …ah , it was a gift from my grandmother McElroy. It’s like an heirloom. It’s probably not valuable to anyone else, but it’s very valuable to me.”
“I don’t even really remember what the thing looks like.”
“It’s tall and pointy at the top. It’s shaped like a narrow triangle, like a tall, skinny pyrami d with a clock face o n one side. ” Mary Jean opened the drawer of a small end table, pulled out a packet of
After Maggie left Nadine crept a few steps into the garage to watch Mary Jean maneuver through the clutter. Nadine looked around the room. “Geez, look at all this stuff. When Eddie—I mean when we brought your stuff over here I guess I was too, uh, tired to notice what a tight fit it was.”
“U-huh.” MJ was lifting some of her clothes from a cardboard box, sorting them out on her large oak coffee table.
“Uh, Mary Jean, would you mind if I help you later? Judge Judy is on in five minutes. I saw the previews yesterday, and it really looked good.”
“No, go ahead, I really have to go through this stuff myself,” Mary Jean said, actually glad Nadine had found a reason to disappear.
She picked out an outfit to wear downtown to talk to Gene or whoever was managing the club that week, and some of the short skirts she wore as a uniform, just in case he wanted her to go back to work right away. Most of her clothes were either still folded and sitting in the drawers of her two dressers or still attached to the hangers stacked in a pile on the box spring of her queen-sized bed. She sorted through, pulling out socks, underwear and winter things. She found and set aside a large box crammed full of shoes , and a wooden apple crate holding her Elvis, Billie Holiday, Edith Piaf, and reggae albums. She then paused and shook her head while she thought of how pitiful it was that she was surveying most of her net worth sprawled on the cement floor of an old damp garage. She continued the inventory, happy she had had the foresight to store her jewelry box over at her sister’s, but as she looked here and there and picked through this and that, she began to worry that something important was missing.
After her first trip up the stairs, Mary Jean dumped the big box of shoes down right next to Nadine on the couch, trying but failing to snatch her out of her TV hypnosis.
She snapped her fingers twice in front of Nadine’s face. “Earth to Nadine, earth to Nadine. Come in Nadine.”
“What?”
“Have you seen my four-sided clock?”
“What?”
“M y clock that’s shaped like this. ” MJ pointed her forearms at forty-five degree angles with her fingertips touching, forming a steeple.
Nadine thought for a moment. “That ugly thing? It’s not in the garage?”
“I didn’t see it. It’s not up here?”
“No, I’d know if I brought it up here. It doesn’t even work, does it?”
Mary Jean didn’t take the time to respond. Instead she turned and rushed down the stairs and back into the garage where she began to get frantic, tearing through things, opening boxes and drawers, tossing things in random directions unmindful of the mess. She continued, fully focused and engulfed in chaos until she had gone through everything, whereupon she flopped her skinny little ass down on top of an old trunk.
“Fuck,” she said as she attempted to catch her breath, but her break was very brief. Within minutes she was back upstairs and right into Nadine’s face.
Nadine, annoyed to be missing some very meaningful moments of The Jerry Springer Show , tried to get through the confrontation as swiftly as possible. “Why is this thing so important?”
“ Well, …ah , it was a gift from my grandmother McElroy. It’s like an heirloom. It’s probably not valuable to anyone else, but it’s very valuable to me.”
“I don’t even really remember what the thing looks like.”
“It’s tall and pointy at the top. It’s shaped like a narrow triangle, like a tall, skinny pyrami d with a clock face o n one side. ” Mary Jean opened the drawer of a small end table, pulled out a packet of
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