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Show FOR LUCK-39 FOR LUCK He reaches up to me from where he's sitting in front of his easel and tweaks the tip of my left breast. "For luck," he says, and turns back to his painting, a square in the middle of a large blank canvas which he is filling with v/hat appear to be varicolored worms. I look down at the l i t t le nipple outlined by my shirt. It tingles as if it's angry, but I shrug and walk away because I'm grieving for Oscar. Oscar lived to be twelve and had thick fur mottled like marble. He used to sleep across my feet until Tim moved in with me. My mother never let me have animals and now I live with a person who puts aging cats out at night and is afraid of Easy Living. He needs luck, because he paints seriously, but he keeps trying to market his work commercially. I illustrate animal stories for children, which sell, for money. Tim does not admire this. "Animals and children," he cries, flinging his arms up as if he's throwing away both things to opposite ends of the Earth. But that's not what he really hates. What he really hates is being afraid. Tim was stepped on by Easy Living once, and he thinks that she laughs at him, because whenever he approaches her stall, which isn't often, she curls up |