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Show -190 reminded myself. A few evenings at the movies, nights in the hammock gently rocking, Sundays lazing around the apart^ ment-what did that amount to? Some days around the factory Fancy acted shy and didn't even look up from her machine when I talked to her-I could have been any stranger; other times she laughed and joked with everybody. The Puerto Ricans had been converted last year by a Holy Roller missionary and they got into long loud complicated arguments about what might be a sin in their new theology. For Estrellita it was dancing. "Last Sunday the preacher told us if you dance you'll surely go to hell," she said. Juan slapped the tape on his petals with skill and speed: tape in the right hand, petal in the left, snap! slap! whap! a sixteenth of a turn clockwise, and repeat. Long beams of weak sunlight fell from the windows; the big pipes rattled and boomed. It was winter. "What sense does it make?" he said. "Playing cards, now that's different. I used to play cards but I don't any more, since I was baptized. But how is a little dancing going to hurt anybody?" Estrellita looked at me. "What you think about that?" With fingers sticky and sore from struggling with the tape, I tried to keep up with them; Fancy was in a good |
