Free Folly by Maureen Brady Page A

went about making it. Loudly, vigorously, she flipped the steel refrigerator covers over the ice creams open and closed. She distributed a handful of chopped nuts on the sundae as if she were shooting craps. The instant whipped cream farted out. Then she pinched the cherry with her agile fingers, poked it onto the white mound, and glided to Peters, napkin and spoon in one hand, sundae in the other. She glided back to Lenore’s end, put her elbows on the counter, her back to Peters. She rolled her eyes up in a gesture of frustration. Lenore felt as if her own eyes were furtive, almost hidden by comparison to Sabrina’s, whose eyes seemed to talk more than any she had ever known. Sabrina took Lenore’s empty coke glass and refilled it from the fountain. They both watched while the foam ran down the sides of the glass before she brought it back. Lenore leaned over and whispered, “Hey, is there still mold in that hot fudge?”
    â€œYeah, all around the edges,” Sabrina laughed. “How’d you know that?”
    â€œMy ma used to tell me. You never saw me order hot fudge in here, did you?”
    Sabrina inclined her eyes, this time to signal who was eating the hot fudge mold. She bent over, laughing. Lenore snuck a glance at Peters who was licking his lips, oblivious. She restrained herself, thinking it was just as well that Peters remain oblivious, otherwise he’d take it out on her. But this had been a point in opening up the two of them together, which had led to Lenore coming more and more to find the times when the counter would be empty and she and Sabrina could talk.

    The counter was empty now and Sabrina had one shoe off and was massaging the bottom of her foot on the corner of the ice cream cooler.
    â€œEasy day?” Lenore asked.
    â€œEasy to starve with business like this. Slow . . . real slow. Must be connected to them being out at the factory.”
    â€œYeah. It’s slow at the store, too.”
    Lenore had finished her pie. She squashed the few small crumbs on her plate with the fork.
    â€œWhat’s eatin’ you?” Sabrina asked.
    â€œMy ma.” Lenore looked down, weighed her need to tell against her shame.
    â€œSo what else is new?”
    â€œYou know what she’s done?”
    â€œWhat’s she done?”
    â€œShe’s gone down and took a job at the factory. She hasn’t worked since she left here three years ago. Now those guys want anybody they can find with two legs and two arms . . . . They’ll take her and that’s all she cares. She thinks she’s going to get herself all straightened out this way.”
    â€œMaybe she will.”
    â€œMaybe,” Lenore said, without conviction. She had a momentary flash of her mother getting ready for work in the mornings back when she was younger. She could see the crisp, white uniform suspended in that short period of staying-clean-time before the ketchup and mustard stains of midday. “It’s not that I don’t want to see her work. It’s just that she doesn’t understand how people like her willing to do it ruins the whole thing for those women on strike. And she’ll be dumped right out when they do go back. I told her that. She says, ‘Oh, no, they won’t dump me. They don’t want them women back. That Mr. Blossom told me, once the women went out on them that way, no way they’d ever take ’em back.’”
    â€œReckon she’ll find out,” Sabrina said. “One thing for sure, you can’t tell her nothing. My ma says when it comes to work, you gotta take everybody on her own terms, because how hungry you are makes a lot of difference.”
    â€œYour ma sounds nice,” Lenore said.
    â€œShe’s okay.”
    Lenore tried to picture Sabrina’s mother but couldn’t. Her imagination was blank and she didn’t understand the vacancy there. She felt uneasy, as she had when she’d watched Peters