The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers [134]
Then Hazel come home. Her high heels clopped up the steps and she leaned back lazily on the banisters. In the half-dark her fat, soft hands were very white as she felt the back of her braided hair. ‘I sure do wish Etta was able to work,’ she said. ‘I found out about this job today.’
‘What kind of a job?’ asked their Dad. ‘Anything I could do, or just for girls?’
‘Just for a girl. A clerk down at Woolworth’s is going to get married next week.’
‘The ten-cent store--’ Mick said.
‘You interested?’
The question took her by surprise. She had just been thinking about a sack of wintergreen candy she had bought there the day before. She felt hot and tense. She rubbed her bangs up from her forehead and counted the first few stars.
Their Dad flipped his cigarette down to the sidewalk. .No,’ he said. ‘We don’t want Mick to take on too much responsibility at her age. Let her get her growth out. Her growth through with, anyway.’
‘I agree with you,’ Hazel said. ‘I really do think it would be a mistake for Mick to have to work regular. I don’t think it would be right.’
Bill put Ralph down from his lap and shuffled his feet on the steps. ‘Nobody ought to work until they’re around sixteen.
Mick should have two more years and finish at Vocational--if we can make it.’
‘Even if we have to give up the house and move down in mill town,’ their Mama said. ‘I rather keep Mick at home for a while.’
For a minute she had been scared they would try to corner her into taking the job. She would have said she would run away from home. But the way they took the attitude they did touched her. She felt excited. They were all talking about her--and in a kindly way. She was ashamed for the first scared feeling that had come to her. Of a sudden she loved all of the family and a tightness came in her throat.
‘About how much money is in it?’ she asked.
Ten dollars.’
Ten dollars a week?’
‘Sure,’ Hazel said. ‘Did you think it would be only ten a month?’
‘Portia don’t make but about that much.’
‘Oh, colored people--’ Hazel said.
Mick rubbed the top of her head with her fist That’s a whole lot of money. A good deal.’
‘It’s not to be grinned at,’ Bill said. ‘That’s what I make.’
Mick’s tongue was dry. She moved it around in her mouth to gather up spit enough to talk. Ten dollars a week would buy about fifteen fried chickens. Or five pairs of shoes or five dresses. Or installments on a radio.’ She thought about a piano, but she did not mention that aloud. ‘It would tide us over,’ their Mama said. ‘But at the same time I rather keep Mick at home for a while. Now, when Etta--’
‘Wait!’ She felt hot and reckless. ‘I want to take the job. I can hold it down. I know I can.’
‘Listen to little Mick,’ Bill said.
Their Dad picked his teeth with a matchstick and took his feet down from the banisters. ‘Now, let’s not rush into anything. I rather Mick take her time and think this out. We can get along somehow without her working. I mean to increase my watch work by sixty per cent soon as--’
‘I forgot,’ Hazel said. ‘I think there’s a Christmas bonus every year.’
Mick frowned. ‘But I wouldn’t be working then. I’d be in school. I just want to work during vacation and then go back to school.’
‘Sure,’ Hazel said quickly.
‘But tomorrow I’ll go down with you and take the job if I can get it’ It was as though a great worry and tightness left the family. In the dark they began to laugh and talk. Their Dad did a trick for George with a matchstick and a handkerchief. Then he gave the kid fifty cents to go down to the corner store for Coca-Colas to be drunk after supper. The smell of cabbage was stronger in the hall and pork chops were frying. Portia called.
The boarders already waited at the table. Mick had supper in the dining-room. The cabbage leaves were limp and yellow on her plate and she couldn’t eat. When she reached for the bread she knocked a pitcher of iced tea over the table.
Then later she waited on the front porch by herself for Mister Singer to come home. In a desperate way she wanted to see him. The excitement of the hour before had died down and she was sick to the stomach. She was going to work in a ten-cent store and she did not want to work there. It was like she had been trapped into something. The job wouldn