[Section opener] Birdie
Chapter 23
“You got a minute, Franny?” I said from the doorway of the parlor. It was Saturday morning, and
Frances was playing a Fanny Brice record, circa 1922, on the old Victor phonograph we’d
lugged down from the attic. We’d sold the good, newer phonograph to Mr. Fauster, but this old
one still worked, though the handle was broken off so you had to wind it up with a screwdriver.
“What is it now?” Frances asked with real fear in her eyes. At this point, I couldn’t blame
her.
“Can you curl my hair again like you did last time?” I asked.
“I can try,” she said. “What for? You going somewhere?”
I pulled over a chair with a saggy cane seat and mumbled an answer I didn’t really want
her to hear.
“You mean Jack from the bank Jack?” she said. I nodded. “He asked you out?” I nodded.
“Wull. What time’s he showing up here?”
“At one.” It was only ten o’clock, but I knew this hair procedure took a while.
Yesterday morning Mrs. Tartt and I called Mr. Allison at the bank. She told him, in all
her humble optimism, how she’d raised most of what she owed on the mortgage but was only
two hundred dollars short. Well Mr. Allison was surprised but he’d stammered that there was
still nothing he could do unless the mortgage was paid in full. So leaning into the receiver, I said,
“Put Jack Walsh on the phone!” which the coward did. He sounded thrilled to be passing the
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