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Show 363 The applications he had been filling out all day had been a series of exercises in ingenuity as well. His experience at the Coach and Seven, of course, could be cut different ways. Sometimes he had been a small businessman and sometimes a fry cook and sometimes a bookkeeper. Other times he had waited tables or run a small art gallery. His mission was a little trickier to handle. In most cases he described it hazily as volunteer work, hoping it would be confused with the Peace Corps or something. Where he thought it would do no harm he let a sectarian note creep in and leave the impression that he had done his time at the barricades as a young minister for an unidentified church working with underprivileged people somewhere in the midwest. At ten to five he found a phone on a corner next to a liquor store and called Gloriana to tell her he had given her address and telephone number as his own, since he didn't have either one of his own yet, and to ask if he'd gotten any calls from his morning applications. "I've been gone most of the day," she said. She didn't sound happy. "I should have asked you if it was all right," he said. "I didn't even think about it till I had to fill out my first application. I didn't use you as a reference." She didn't answer, and just then a truck roared past the corner where he was standing. "Sorry, I didn't hear you," he shouted into the phone. "This is a very noisy intersection." "No, I didn't say anything." There was another long silence, except for the traffic noises. She was making it hard for him to behave normally. "I hit quite a few places today," he said finally, putting a finger in his unoccupied ear. "A couple of them said they'd get in touch. I'll hit a few more tomorrow. |
