“Uh, she’s a go-go dancer in here at the shop. For the lunch hour. The union demands it.”

“Where, Harry?”

Her weary dismissive insistence pleases him. She is growing in confidence, like a child at school. He confesses, “I sort of picked her up in a bar.”

“Well. That’s being honest. How long is she going to stay?”

“I haven’t asked. These kids don’t make plans the way we used to, they aren’t so scared of starving. Hey, I got to get back to the machine. Pajasek doesn’t like our being called here, by the way.”

“I don’t intend to make a practice of it. I called you at work because I didn’t want Nelson to overhear. Harry, now are you listening to me?”

“Sure, to who else?”

“I want that girl out of my home. I don’t want Nelson exposed to this sort of thing.”

“What sort of thing? You mean the you and Stavros sort of thing?”

“Charlie is a mature man. He has lots of nieces and nephews so he’s very understanding with Nelson. This girl sounds like a little animal out of her head with dope.”

“That’s how Billy described her?”

“After she talked to Billy Peggy called up Ollie for a better description.”

“And that was his description. Gee. They got along famously at the time. She was better-looking than those two old crows Ollie had along, I tell ya.”

“Harry, you’re horrible. I consider this a very negative development. I suppose I have no right to say anything about how you dispose of your sexual needs, but I will not have my son corrupted.”

“He’s not corrupted, she’s got him to help with the dishes, that’s more than we could ever do. She’s like a sister to him.”

“And what is she to you, Harry?” When he is slow to answer, she repeats, her voice taunting, aching, like her mother’s, “Harry, what is she to you? A little wifey?”

He thinks and tells her, “Come on back to the house, I’m sure she’ll go.”

Now Janice thinks. Finally she states: “If I come back to the house, it’ll be to take Nelson away.”

“Try it,” he says, and hangs up.

He sits a minute in Pajasek’s chair to give the phone a chance to ring. It does. He picks it up. “Yeah?”

Janice says, near tears, “Harry, I don’t like to tell you this, but if you’d been adequate I would never have left. You drove me to it. I didn’t know what I was missing but now that I have it I know. I refuse to accept all the blame, I really do.”

“O.K. No blame assigned. Let’s keep in touch.”

“I want that girl away from my son.”

“They’re getting along fine, relax.”

“I’ll sue you. I’ll take you to court.”

“Fine. After the stunts you’ve been pulling, it’ll at least give the judge a laugh.”

“That’s my house legally. At least half of it is.”

“Tell me which my half is, and I’ll try to keep Jill in it.”