Free Fools Paradise by Jennifer Stevenson

grandfather. He was old and paunchy and his nose was red and he had a voice like Gene Hackman. The great man seemed to be in a bad mood. Bobbyjay seemed to think Packard might bite him.
    â€œYour grandfather know you’re workin’?” he’d said to her, just like Goomba in a grouch, and she’d lost a lot of her awe.
    She opened her mouth to tell him that Goomba knew and Bobbyjay stepped on her toe.
    â€œUh, yeah, Pete,” he said, and cleared his throat. “It was my grandfather who called in for her.”
    Packard looked at him hard. “I din’t forget.”
    â€œNo, sir,” Bobbyjay said and shut up.
    â€œI don’t want to hear a lot of whining ’cuz the work is hard, young lady.” Packard resumed his weary and displeased examination of Daisy. “Lot of women coming into this Local, and they all piss and moan. Way it’s been for a hunnert years ain’t dainty enough for ’em. You ain’t one of them, are you?”
    Daisy gave him the look she had used on nuns who didn’t like her. “No. Sir.”
    Packard looked her up and down and she remembered suddenly Bobbyjay telling her what to wear on the job. Maybe she should have listened.
    Pete sighed. “Awright then.” He stood up and walked to the door as if he couldn’t stand having them in his office one more minute. “You will show up on time. You will have your tools with you. You will be sober.” He looked her up and down one more time, and she fought the urge to slap him for it. “Try not to start no riot with my boys.”
    Really slap him.
    Bobbyjay hustled her into the corridor.
    â€œDon’t fuck with Pete,” he said, “if you ever want to work in this town.”
    Daisy had shut her mouth. Huh.
    And for the next three hours it went pretty much like that. Guys told her what to do in an impolite tone. Guys brushed up against her when Bobbyjay wasn’t around, or, when he was, looked at her in a way that would have had her siccing Wesley on them if Wesley’d been here. She got dirty and sweaty and after an hour she hated her crop top and low riders with such passion that she would have asked Bobbyjay to take her to the nearest Gap for some yuppy cover-up clothes if she could have found him.
    She saw a couple of women stagehands working on the electrics crew, but never nearby. They seemed in a subtle way to be guys. Their hair, the way they dressed. The way they yelled up at the darkness over the stage—the flyloft, her supervisor called it. If I see a pretty stagehand, like, a grrl, I’m gonna ask her what the fuck, Daisy vowed, swearing in her head.
    That was part of her problem right there. She heard plenty of language around Goomba’s house, but she wasn’t allowed to curse. Here, she suspected, saying ‘darn’ was like painting ‘victim’ on her forehead. ‘Darn’ plus the low riders.
    Overalls, she promised herself. Tomorrow. If I survive. She also promised herself she would apologize to Bobbyjay. And ask him about a million questions.
    But Bobbyjay was called away at the break to talk to the head carpenter. The other guys strode purposefully toward the loading dock for their smokes.
    The women stagehands passed her as if she were invisible. One of them glanced her way. “She’s related,” the other one said shortly, and the glance shifted.
    Feeling bereft and a deep loathing for the entire male population of the planet, she walked out the stage door on Wacker to stand under the monster colonnade. The next guy who pinches me, she thought, gets a kick in the balls.
    So when Badger Kenack came up behind her and blew in her ear, they both got a surprise.
    â€œAaaagh!” he screamed.
    â€œBadger!” Remorse clutched her. “Omigod, are you okay?”
    Badger was busy cursing under his breath. He clutched his crotch and staggered up against the gold picture-frame that held the poster