Last Night at the Blue Angel by Rebecca Rotert Page B

efficient. It would boil down to that , he said. Think you can manage?
    Yes , sir .
    Well, then, let’s start you today , he said, and it occurred to me that with love as my motivation, I might be capable of just about anything.
    The work was easy. Math mostly. And writing numbers in tiny boxes.
    Laura and I ate lunch together on the bench in the alleyway. Her mother packed her twice as much as she could eat and she shared with me.
    She’s trying to fatten me up for Alan Lawry , she said, handing me a piece of cold fried chicken. I took a bite.
    She what?
    Nothing .
    I imagined Laura with Alan and had to force myself to chew the food in my mouth and swallow. It was all temporary—us, work—and would end as soon as some man came along and put us away in a little place in town or back on another farm. We were something to exchange hands, like cattle. I thought of Mother. I’d never seen her do anything but work and pause to catch her breath.
    My Mother played the piano. When she was young. Back in Poland .
    Your mother? said Laura. She any good?
    I’ve never heard her. It’s just a story now .
    Well, that’s terribly sad , said Laura.
    We finished our lunch and leaned our backs against the building’s warm bricks.
    Sister I’s brother sent her some new records , I said.
    Laura looked straight ahead. That so?
    She said we could listen to them if we wanted. Saturday .
    Laura became very still. Then she ran back into the bank and came out with a sheet of stationery and a pencil. She tapped her pencil on the paper.
    What are you doing? I asked.
    A plan. If we’re going to do this , we need a foolproof plan .
    O n Saturday, Laura and I prepared an elaborate lunch in the Miller kitchen. I had the plan fixed in my head and every move I made passed through it.
    Mr. and Mrs. Miller sat at the table, he with the paper, she with the latest copy of Look magazine. “Margaret . . . the Girl and the Princess” was written across the cover below side-by-side images of Margaret the woman and Margaret the Princess. She was somehow entirely the same and entirely different and it gave me hope for myself.
    Are you planning to feed the troops? asked Mrs. Miller, scanning the food on the counter.
    No , said Laura. Just us . She lined a basket with a linen towel.
    And Sister , I said.
    Laura scowled at me.
    Mrs. Miller bent to check her lipstick in the toaster. I could’ve sworn Sister was going to Topeka for the day .
    No , said Laura.
    And what is it you’re doing? Mrs. Miller asked, folding wax paper around a sandwich.
    We’re helping her strip the desks. Horrible things written on them , horrible little pictures , said Laura with a shudder.
    Seems like she could make the boys clean ’em up , said Mr. Miller, suddenly listening. No doubt they did it . Unless it was Naomi , he teased. Like I belonged to him, to them.
    I told you , said Laura, she’s reformed .
    Bad girls don’t reform , doll. They just get better at hiding . He stood up and stretched. Isn’t that right , sugar pie? he asked his wife.
    I’m not even listening , she said.
    I’m off, then , he said.
    On a Saturday? complained Mrs. Miller
    Money doesn’t know from Saturday , he said. And he kissed her.
    Mrs. Miller strolled into the parlor with her cigarette case. Everyone’s leaving me .
    Mother , David said I could get something from his room before he left. May I?
    Mrs. Miller glanced at her as she lit her cigarette. It was a look that said, None of these matters interests me at all .
    We ran upstairs into David’s old room. Black-and-white pictures of musicians that had been cut out of magazines were taped to the wall. Laura opened the third drawer of his bureau and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, tucking it in her shirt. Then she flipped through a stack of albums and took two. She hugged them to her as we ran down the stairs.
    I followed her out the front door. As the screen