now “like” and “I’m like” got stuck in everywhere, at least as much as “you know” used to be.
Eloise, like the other girls, was supposed to be looking for work if not employed, but—of all the years to land in!—2010 was a bad year for job-hunting, especially for a girl who’d been majoring in theater and was mainly skilled—well, maybe not so skilled after all—in magic. She could type but knew nothing about computers (her little secret); thanks to the father her other self must have had somehow, she could fix things around the house, knew quite a bit of carpentry and plumbing, could give a car a tune-up if it wasn’t built too long after 1970, was a good cook, and knew how to take care of horses, llamas, and poultry, including doves. She was good with people and, she figured, could do fair to middlin’ as a waitress, a housekeeper, a live-in domestic, a ranch hand, a cook, a bottle washer, a feather duster … just give her a job!
But besides there being so few jobs available, there was one nagging little hitch she couldn’t get around, and she ran smack into it every time she was handed a job application: that little blank space on the application that required her Social Security number. Mandy, born in 1951, thought she had one, but of course Mandy born in 1951 thought a lot of things that weren’t necessarily so and were best not talked about. Eloise, born in 1991, did not have a Social Security number, and since she had no ID, driver’s license, or even a birth certificate, she had no way of getting one. Too bad— bummer! —because it would have to be Eloise who got hired.
Too bad the Gypsy Girl idea didn’t work out. She didn’t need an application or a Social Security number for that, just a can with TIPS written on it.
Who was that guy? What if he was right about everything?
She cleaned up the shower, put her towel in the laundry basket, gathered up her toiletries—courtesy of the Durhams, God bless them !—and went to her bedroom, a nice room with two beds for two girls, but occupied by only herself at the moment. Her deck of cards was lying on the dresser, banished from her life for, oh, forty minutes or so, at least until she reached for the box once again, pulled out the cards, and started shuffling them from her right hand to her left in an overhand shuffle and a three-way cut; reviewing how to do a double undercut, left hand to right; controlling the top card, controlling the bottom card, retaining the top stock—all the things Daddy first showed her and she knew since she was in junior high …
Now, what did the man on the sidewalk show her? Cover the break. Be more subtle. Watch that right side, don’t look at the cards so much when you shuffle them …
She sat on the bed and went through that card trick again. And again. And again. Her hands were warm and fluid, and the cards were so obedient… .
“No way!” Darci, a lanky blonde fresh out of jail for drug possession, had the best expression on her face a magician could hope for: eyes wide with the white showing, mouth dropped so far open you could see her fillings. She was holding the deck of cards in her hand and had just discovered her selection, the three of hearts, faceup in the middle of the deck.
“How did you do that?” squealed Rhea, a cute and hefty Hispanic who’d just fled from an abusive husband. She was the hairdresser who cut and colored Eloise’s hair for free.
Ah, what a feeling! Eloise smiled, receiving her cards back, lithely shuffling them and doing a waterfall, just milking the moment. That trick had gone so well.
So the guy on the street was right. Now she wanted to remember the other things he told her.
“Okay,” said Sally, still applauding. “Let’s get going on dinner.”
Sally and her husband, Micah, had been youth pastors at the same church that ran the thrift store, but they saw the need for a halfway house and mentor home for young women and opened up their place. Micah went
Eloise, like the other girls, was supposed to be looking for work if not employed, but—of all the years to land in!—2010 was a bad year for job-hunting, especially for a girl who’d been majoring in theater and was mainly skilled—well, maybe not so skilled after all—in magic. She could type but knew nothing about computers (her little secret); thanks to the father her other self must have had somehow, she could fix things around the house, knew quite a bit of carpentry and plumbing, could give a car a tune-up if it wasn’t built too long after 1970, was a good cook, and knew how to take care of horses, llamas, and poultry, including doves. She was good with people and, she figured, could do fair to middlin’ as a waitress, a housekeeper, a live-in domestic, a ranch hand, a cook, a bottle washer, a feather duster … just give her a job!
But besides there being so few jobs available, there was one nagging little hitch she couldn’t get around, and she ran smack into it every time she was handed a job application: that little blank space on the application that required her Social Security number. Mandy, born in 1951, thought she had one, but of course Mandy born in 1951 thought a lot of things that weren’t necessarily so and were best not talked about. Eloise, born in 1991, did not have a Social Security number, and since she had no ID, driver’s license, or even a birth certificate, she had no way of getting one. Too bad— bummer! —because it would have to be Eloise who got hired.
Too bad the Gypsy Girl idea didn’t work out. She didn’t need an application or a Social Security number for that, just a can with TIPS written on it.
Who was that guy? What if he was right about everything?
She cleaned up the shower, put her towel in the laundry basket, gathered up her toiletries—courtesy of the Durhams, God bless them !—and went to her bedroom, a nice room with two beds for two girls, but occupied by only herself at the moment. Her deck of cards was lying on the dresser, banished from her life for, oh, forty minutes or so, at least until she reached for the box once again, pulled out the cards, and started shuffling them from her right hand to her left in an overhand shuffle and a three-way cut; reviewing how to do a double undercut, left hand to right; controlling the top card, controlling the bottom card, retaining the top stock—all the things Daddy first showed her and she knew since she was in junior high …
Now, what did the man on the sidewalk show her? Cover the break. Be more subtle. Watch that right side, don’t look at the cards so much when you shuffle them …
She sat on the bed and went through that card trick again. And again. And again. Her hands were warm and fluid, and the cards were so obedient… .
“No way!” Darci, a lanky blonde fresh out of jail for drug possession, had the best expression on her face a magician could hope for: eyes wide with the white showing, mouth dropped so far open you could see her fillings. She was holding the deck of cards in her hand and had just discovered her selection, the three of hearts, faceup in the middle of the deck.
“How did you do that?” squealed Rhea, a cute and hefty Hispanic who’d just fled from an abusive husband. She was the hairdresser who cut and colored Eloise’s hair for free.
Ah, what a feeling! Eloise smiled, receiving her cards back, lithely shuffling them and doing a waterfall, just milking the moment. That trick had gone so well.
So the guy on the street was right. Now she wanted to remember the other things he told her.
“Okay,” said Sally, still applauding. “Let’s get going on dinner.”
Sally and her husband, Micah, had been youth pastors at the same church that ran the thrift store, but they saw the need for a halfway house and mentor home for young women and opened up their place. Micah went
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