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Show in my father's house/353 almost unbearable. During this time, there was only one place where I felt truly comfortable. I had been working after school and on weekends since I was fourteen, and had recently obtained work as part-time manager of a greasy spoon up the street from my mother's house. My boss was an alcoholic who began his day at six o'clock in the morning with a bottle of Seagram's 7, got amorous around nine-thirty and passed out before ten. On weekend mornings I cooked, cleaned and waitressed for a group of regulars - men who came there for morning coffee because their good Mormon wives refused to brew it at home, boys who had dropped out of school and spent their days playing pinball, construction workers who hung out there on rainy days. They teased me and I flirted in return. They made special trips to see me during lunch or coffee break. They early brought me daisies andAvegetables from their gardens, and told me their latest jokes. They talked about their problems at home and I listened sympathetically. I felt necessary and real, there, where I could bring a hungry man a good breakfast and a cheerful greeting. These men expected no more of me than what I willingly gave, a great comfort after failing so miserably with my father and brothers. We were all just people in a world with problems and pleasures to be shared - and I, once more, was at the center of it. There, I felt, I would learn enough about the mysterious, exclusive world of men to ease my way into relationships where 1 could be myself. Many of them asked me on dates, and usually I had the sense to decline. But one young man caught my |