Desert of the Heart: A Novel (4 page)

Janet and Ann separated to take positions on their assigned ramps.

“How’s it been?” Ann asked the girl she was relieving.

“Slow,” the girl said, stepping down onto the floor. “I wouldn’t want every day to be Saturday, but eight hours is a hell of a long time with nothing doing. I’d rather work downstairs.”

“How long’s he been here?” Ann nodded to the single customer in the area, a young man who was playing three quarter machines at once.

“Him? Three hours maybe.”

“How much has he lost?”

“Oh, he’s got lots of money. He’s changed a couple of fifties since he’s been here. But he doesn’t tip. He doesn’t talk either. Real friendly.”

Ann stepped up onto the ramp, careful of the weight and swing of her apron. “Remember, they also lived through their first day….” No one had told Ann, on her first, that a quick turn, with the swinging weight of fifty pounds, could knock you down. Only a slot machine had saved her. And she had had nightmares for weeks after that: falling down the escalator in the brutal storm of six hundred dollars worth of change with a floor boss (Bill?) standing at the bottom waving her IOU. Was it a more significant anxiety dream than she had thought? Or prophetic?

Ann looked down at the young man, who had put his hand up but would not look up. With his free hand, he continued to play two of the three machines. Ann walked over to him, bent down to the machine to check the jackpot reading and the number. Then she returned to the center of the ramp, reached for the microphone, and called the jackpot in to the board. As she spoke, she could hear her own voice, separated from her, magnified over the noise. A key man came to pay. Ann witnessed.

“Will you play it off now, sir?”

The young man, still not looking at either one of them, stuffed the bills into his pocket, put a quarter in the lucky machine, and returned to the full rhythm of his work.

“You’d think he was getting paid the way he works at it,” the key man said to Ann.

“Maybe he figures it that way.”

“Maybe.”

Alone, Ann leaned back against a slot machine to rest her back. She looked beyond the young man to the guns hung along the wall, the shelved violence of another time. In themselves they did not interest her, except as shapes, but through other people, who so often studied them, she had discovered nostalgia, possessiveness, fear, and she had sketched these attitudes into stances of the body in its alien clothes. Sometimes she overheard and remembered remarks of Freudian embarrassment exchanged between a tourist husband and wife. These had become the captions for at least two successful cartoons she’d sold to
Saturday Evening Post.
But now, without people, the wall was a meaningless pattern. Her eyes shifted away only to catch themselves suddenly in a ceiling mirror. There was her own face separated from her, but not magnified as her voice had been, instead made smaller. What a device of conscience that mirror was, for behind it, at any time, might be the unknown face of a security officer, watchful, judging; yet you could not see it. You could not get past your own minimized reflection. “I do look like Evelyn Hall,” Ann thought, “and what does that mean?”

“I’m ready.”

Ann started slightly, embarrassed. “Right. I’ll take you over.” She signaled to Janet to cover her ramp for a few minutes, then led Joyce to the cashier’s desk. “Did reading some of that help?”

“There’s so much of it,” Joyce complained. “I’ll never remember it all.”

“I’ll give her just three hundred tonight,” the cashier said. “Now, you count it, kid. Don’t ever sign an IOU without counting it first.”

“What happens if I lose any of it?” Joyce asked.

“Nothing,” Ann said. “If it’s over ten dollars, the floor boss has to sign you out, but you don’t have to make it up.”

“That’s Bill?”

“While you’re working on this floor,” Ann answered.

“Won’t I stay on this floor?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“Count your money,” the cashier said.

Joyce resented the order but obeyed it. Ann felt sorry for her. She was the kind of girl who would not learn to give the cashiers the respect they demanded. In return, they would make her work impossible. She would always be given the bottom floor locker. She would have to wait for change. And she would always be the last to be checked in or out. Delayed in her work, she would be criticized by the other change aprons. The key men would hold up her jackpot payoffs. The customers would complain. Ann watched her counting out her money and gave her a month before she quit or was fired.

When they got back to the ramp, two or three other customers had joined the young man, who was as oblivious of them as he had been of Ann.

“How old do you think Bill is?” Joyce asked.

“That lady over there wants change.”

Joyce was clumsy and inattentive. Twice she gave the young man nickels instead of quarters. She could not remember machine numbers and so called the wrong jackpots in to the board. But she liked the microphone. It reminded her of this movie where this girl was announcing the trains and this guy heard her voice and couldn’t get it out of his mind and just went back to the train station all the time to listen and try to imagine what she looked like. The fourth time Joyce called in a jackpot, one of the key men was sent down to complain.

“Look, kid, you’re not running the late night show. You don’t have to whisper. Speak up. And get the number right next time.”

“What’s the matter with him?” Joyce asked.

The elderly gentleman who had hit the jackpot pinched Joyce on the thigh, winked, and handed her five dollars. She bared her teeth at him and slipped the bill into her pocket.

“Take it out,” Ann said quietly.

“What?”

“The five. You have to turn it in to the cashier. She splits the tips at the end of the shift.”

“Well, but don’t you think I earned that one?” Joyce asked, watching Ann. “Why don’t I just split it with you?”

“Look,” Ann said, “do you see those mirrors? Behind any one of them, one of the security officers might be watching you. If you’re ever seen putting money in your pocket, they don’t give you time to explain. You’re out, and that’s that. And you won’t get police clearance for any other job in town.”

“Pretty tough, aren’t they?”

“Go turn the five in to the cashier,” Ann said.

“Anything you say.”

When the relief arrived for Ann’s half-hour break, Ann longed for a few minutes to herself, but she took Joyce with her. Joyce had so much trouble getting her apron off and into the locker that they had time for only a quick Coke at the bar before they had to go back.

“Half an hour!” Joyce said. “More like ten minutes.” She struggled against the weight and clumsiness of her apron while Ann strapped her own on. “It looks so easy when you do it.”

“It takes practice. Here. Turn around and lean up against the locker. For one thing, you’ve got it too low.”

“Too low? Where am I supposed to wear it, around my neck?”

“It rides down,” Ann said. “You can’t carry fifty pounds on your kidneys.” She reached to lift it, her hands grazing the under-curves of Joyce’s full breasts. She tightened the top strap around the small, fragile rib cage. Joyce was not built to carry the weight. “Okay, now try the bottom one yourself.”

As Joyce turned around, Ann saw the dampness of the hair at her temples, the whiteness of her face.

“Sit down. Sit down right on the floor.” Joyce obeyed her at once. “Put your head on your knees.” Ann looked down at her. After a moment, Joyce raised her head. “Better?”

“Yeh. How did you know?”

“The first night’s always rough,” but, if it was as rough as this, a girl was usually dismissed. Joyce did look better. Should Ann risk letting her back on the floor? How badly did she need the job? “Come on. You’ll be fine.”

Their section was more crowded now. The young man had to guard his machines from tourists who did not understand that, in the etiquette of gambling, to put hands on another man’s machine was a greater offense than to put hands on his wife. Ann was grateful to be able to keep Joyce busy. While she had something to do, she would not have time to worry about herself. But, standing back to let her do the work, Ann had time to worry. The bravado and bitchery were gone. Joyce was as attentive to the shabby grandmothers as she had been to the affluent business men. Instead of talking, she listened to Ann’s instructions with a desperate patience. Ann watched her with growing respect. Joyce was not simply afraid of being sick. She was determined not to make a fool of herself. But she was very white. It was Ann who saw Bill come into the section and signal her off the ramp.

“Ann,” Joyce said, as she, too, caught sight of him, “don’t tell him, will you? I’m okay now. I really am.”

“I won’t tell him,” Ann said. “I’ll be right back.”

“How’s she doing?” Bill asked.

“Fine.”

“There’ve been some complaints up at the counter.”

“Not lately,” Ann answered. “She’ll be all right. She’s quick.”

“How’s her back?” Bill watched Joyce as he spoke.

“Killing her, I should think, but she hasn’t complained.”

“She’s pretty white,” Bill said. “And she’s not built for it. I was wondering about putting her on the elevators for a while.”

“Well, don’t do it unless you can persuade her it’s a better job.”

“All right. I’ll leave her with you for a week,” Bill said. “But she’s had enough tonight. I’m going to check her out.”

“Okay.” Ann turned to go back to her station.

“Ann?” She turned back to him. “How about a drink tonight?”

“Thanks, but I told Silver I’d go home with her. Joe’s away tonight.”

“I could drop you off there later.”

“She wants company, Bill.”

“Sure, of course she does,” he said quickly. “Well, send Joyce down to me, will you?”

“Thanks anyway.”

“Some other time,” Bill said.

He was angry. It was the third time in two weeks that Ann had refused him, but she had no other choice. They had already tried going back to the old friendship, and it hadn’t worked. Awkward politeness shifted to argument, argument to passion, and there they were again in that familiar bed, faced with another impossible morning. “If a wife is what you want,” she had said to him, “go out wife hunting.” But Bill did not know fair game when he saw it. If the woods were not full of virgins, there were, at least, a number of recognizable amateurs. Bill went from whore to homosexual back to Ann again. He was incapable of understanding a woman who did not want to marry, who could not marry a man she loved. And Ann did love him. And now she would not see him. Of course he was angry.

“What did he say?” Joyce asked.

“He says you’ve worked long enough for your first night.”

“You told him.”

“No, I promise I didn’t,” Ann said. “Nobody works a full shift the first couple of nights. He wants to see you now. Take off. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

Joyce hesitated, caught between pride and relief. Then Bill himself signaled to her and she went. As they stood together talking, Ann watched. In Bill’s presence, Joyce’s color returned, and with her color came her confidence. There were weights her back could bear. Bill looked up. Ann turned away, the palms of her hands aching.

At two o’clock, there were again very few people in Ann’s section, the young man, a middle-aged couple, and several college boys with fake identification. Half a dozen old men had begun to make their nightly rounds. Two of them had the guile to inspect the gun collection, but the others searched as frankly for dropped coins as barnyard fowl do for bits of corn. Half starved, trembling from lack of alcohol, they did not collect the dimes and nickels for food or drink. Each coin was to prime the pump which would, sooner or later, flood them with vaguely dreamed-of riches.

Ann saw Walt as he came through the doorway by the cashier’s desk.

“Hi. Did you have a good time?”

“Wonderful,” he said. “We went out to Pyramid Lake and went swimming. How’s it with you?”

“It’s been busy enough, just tapering off now.”

“You had your last break?”

“Yes. I’ve just come back. I don’t think I will go home tonight, Walt. Joe’s away. Silver’s got a bottle of Scotch.”

“Just as you like,” Walter said, checking what might have been disappointment or disapproval. “What shall I do with the car?”

“Take it home. Silver will drop me off tomorrow.”

Ann would like to have had him stay for a few minutes to help pass the time, but she did not suggest it. Now, he would not be in bed much before three, and he had to be up at seven thirty. Frances had given up scolding either of them for the way they so often neglected to sleep, but her silences or forced cheerfulness made Ann uncomfortable. She would rather not appear to be responsible for all of Walter’s bad habits.

“Change!”

Ann took the young man’s last five dollars and gave him a short roll of quarters. He had lost just three hundred dollars in eleven hours. He would not have had to work so hard at roulette. Ann leaned back against a slot machine and watched him in the last slow movement of his dance. In ten minutes, his hands and pockets were empty. He stood for a moment, resting. Then he looked up at the machines, at the college boys, at the guns, at Ann, his face pale and peaceful as if he had just awakened from a long sleep. He stretched, yawned, then turned away and was gone.

The college boys drifted to another section, and Ann was alone. Slowly she began to empty her change dispenser, to count and roll the coins. Walter was home by now, sitting alone in the kitchen. Ann half wished she had told him to wait. She was restless and depressed, reluctant to be with anyone, but her own room at the top of the house would be hot, too hot for sleeping, and she would not be in the mood for work tomorrow. It had been a month since she’d done a sketch that pleased her.

The girls of the graveyard shift had begun to arrive at the cashier’s desk. The girl who relieved Janet was on the floor ten minutes early, and Janet had checked out before Ann and Silver arrived at the desk. Janet always went through first. She had a ninety-mile drive ahead of her, then only a couple of hours’ sleep before the baby woke and Ken got up to go to his summer job.