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Show 179 tightening on the scissors. "Yes, he is," the girl said. "But he makes time for people. He always takes a few minutes to talk." Sharon handed over the package. "Everyone around here likes him." "I'll tell him that," the girl said, "At lunch." She turned and walked down the aisle, her ponytail swaying in time with her hips. Was it a dig? Had the girl purposefully said that about lunch? Sharon suddenly wished so: for wouldn't that mean the girl looked upon Sharon as a potential rival? But then,, it would be difficult to compete with a girl like that. Thirty pounds. She was still thirty pounds overweight-she felt every one of those pounds now. They weighed down on her, like bricks. That day she ate lunch at the bowling alley, the diet plate. No, she decided while eating, the girl had not been baiting her. She had simply had Steve on her mind. And right now, right at this very moment, they were having lunch together. Would they talk about her? What would the girl say? More importantly, what would Steve say? The image of the girls on the sidewalk in Westwood rose in her mind: the lucky ones. Yes, the girl fit the image. She gave flesh to it. While she-Sharon-did not. Would she, one day? She put that question away, out of her mind, and returned to work. It was mid-afternoon when Steve came by the cosmetics counter. On his way out on a run, the box of prescriptions under his arm. He looked smaller somehow, with a tiredness in his face. "The old salt mine, huh?" |
