Free The Memory of All That by Nancy Smith Gibson

just gotten a divorce and a job. I don’t remember right off where you moved here from, Phoenix maybe, but she got a job as secretary to Mr. Robert Barrett, David’s father, and moved here. Like I said, she moved in right across the hall. I was already working here in this house. I’ve been a maid here since I was old enough to work. I was part time when I was in high school, helping out with parties and such. When I graduated, I had a job working at the five and dime, but when another maid quit, I came to work here and I’ve been here ever since.
    “That sort of made a connection between me and Pamela, both working for the same folks. Of course, she was in a different class from me. She was real high class, always dressed to the nines, she was, and I’m just working folk.”
    Marnie leaned forward and rested her forearms on her legs. “What did she look like, Alice? Do I look like her?”
    “No, you don’t. Well, maybe I’m wrong about that. You have her chin and mouth. But her coloring was different. She kept her hair blond, but I think her natural color was light brown. That’s what color her eyebrows were, and that’s usually how you tell. You must have gotten your dark hair and eyes from your papa.”
    “This is so interesting, Alice. Thank you for sharing.” She leaned back in the chair. “Did I ever get to see my father?”
    “Not that I ever knew, and I think I’d know. I’d baby-sit you when your mother went out, which wasn’t very often, or when she had to work late, which she did a lot. You’d come across the hall to my place or else I’d go across to yours. She and I were friends, but she didn’t tell me her personal stuff.”
    “Doctor Means said I was always getting scrapes and bruises when I was a kid.”
    Alice laughed. “Yes, you were. You was never interested in playing dolls with the other girls in the neighborhood. You followed the boys instead, on your bike or roller skates. At that age, they’d try to avoid you or run you off, but you were a persistent little thing. You tried your best to keep up.”
    “The doctor told me I broke my arm when I was ten trying to get into their treehouse.”
    Alice gave another chuckle. “Yes, I remember that time. The boys had a treehouse in that great big oak tree in the vacant lot next to the apartment house. You were forever trying to get in there, and they were forever stopping you. So, one day you decided to climb up the tree next to it, shimmy along a branch that reached over to where you wanted to go, and get in the treehouse that way. Trouble was, the branch broke and down you came. You ended up with a broke arm.”
    “It seems like I would remember something like a broken arm.” Marnie rubbed first one arm, then the other, as if that would bring back a memory.
    “Anyway, you always did like to be where the boys were. When you was a little thing, it was funny, but when you got to be a teenager, it was a problem. You liked the boys, and the boys liked you—too much, if you get my meaning.
    “When you graduated from high school, your mother promised you a new car if you’d go to business school in Centerview and graduate with good grades. She thought you needed good training so’s you could always find work. She said she was living proof a woman needed to be able to support herself.”
    “It sounds like she had a hard life and wanted me to be able to take care of myself.”
    “Yes, she did, but Pamela always did spoil you rotten—bought you new clothes and whatever you wanted. But she didn’t have enough money to give you everything the rich kids had, and that’s what you wanted—to be rich and go dancing at the country club and swimming in the club pool in the summer.”
    Marnie got to her feet and walked to the other side of the room. “It sounds like I was more interested in the things money could buy, rather than being sure I had a way to earn my own living. Did I go to business school?”
    “You finished business school,