Free We Five by Mark Dunn Page B

Lucky Aces needed cocktail waitresses, and Ruth thought this was something she and her friends could do.
    By choice, Ruth had never gone to college, choosing instead to pursue a path of “self-education.” The term she used for herself, but which she never said aloud, since most people would think it had something to do with an interest in cars, was “autodidact.” Whenever Ruth wasn’t assisting Ms. Mobry around the parsonage (the house where the Mobrys lived was called the “parsonage,” though it was owned by the siblings free and clear) or helping out at the church, Ruth read. She’d set out at the age of fifteen to read from cover to cover every book at the Bellevenue Library, as well as all the hundreds of other books which she’d bought at garage sales and second-hand book stores throughout Desoto County. (Except, that is, for the bodice-ripper romances; these she got for Ms. Mobry. It was a secret passion of Lucille’s, which no one at the church was supposed to know about.)
    Ruth hoped someday to write professionally. This was her dream.
    Now that she was grown and Reverend Mobry had turned the pulpit over to a younger man, the waitressing job seemed a perfect fit for her. It would give her time to read. And write. Bringing drinks to people at their slot machines and gaming tables didn’t sound like a very taxing kind of job; it was definitely one she wouldn’t have to take home with her every day in the way of frets and regrets. Ruth would also have the chance to see more of her four friends from childhood, Maggie, Jane, Carrie, and Molly, both at the casino and during the free hours the five liked to spend together.
    We Five applied for the waitressing jobs together and were all hired. The head of Human Resources, a Ms. Touliatis, liked it that her new applicants got along so well; they seemed much more like sisters than friends. “You’re all so, so, so cohesive !” she had marveled. “And Lucky Aces Casino needs cocktail waitresses who are cohesive.” Then Ms. Touliatis, who was forty-one and looked to Ruth as if she’d been twice run over by the ineluctably trundling steamroller of life, added through a wistful sigh: “I wish I had friends who were as dependable and devoted to one another as I see ya’ll are. By way of contrast, I just last week caught my best friend Lawanda in bed with my husband Mack. Well, not just my husband, but also our Irish Setter, Dakota. Can you imagine that? Both my husband and my dog were cheating on me!”
    â€œI don’t think we can imagine that at all,” replied Jane, who felt a response of some sort was required.
    â€œAnd then,” Ms. Touliatis went on, “there’s my other good friend— former good friend, Heidi. Heidi once made fun of my lazy eye over the loudspeaker at Kmart.” Ms. Touliatis pulled a tissue from the box on her desk and blew her nose. “A good and true friend is one of life’s great treasures.”
    â€œThat’s a fact,” said Jane.
    The Mobrys had taken news of Ruth’s new job very well. “How convenient,” said the Reverend, “with the casino just down the road. And nowhere in the teachings of our socially progressive Lord and Savior do we find objections to cocktail waitressing in riverboat casinos, though the Southern Baptists would certainly have you think otherwise.”
    â€œBut do be careful,” Lucille Mobry added. “Men do get drunk in those places and try to take advantage when they can.”
    Ruth nodded. “Yes, the woman who’s in charge of all the waitresses—Ms. Colthurst—she’s gonna have us all watch a training film called ‘How to Keep Their Mitts Off Your Tuches.’ I think it was put out by the New Jersey Gaming Commission.”
    Lucille suddenly looked tristful. “Does this mean you won’t be living with us anymore? Are you gonna be moving in with one