“This might sound crazy,” Roberta said, “but my friend Ellen from the store told me that they’re interviewing for Bunnies at the Playboy resort. I already mailed in my application, and they called me for an interview.”

“You did?” Sherri had a hard time imagining Roberta without her leather jacket on.

“Sure, why not? They pay serious money, more than I make at the mall, that’s for sure, and it sounds fun, doesn’t it? Think of all those men.”

“I wouldn’t know what to do with them. I’ve never even had a boyfriend.”

“What about Tommy?”

Sherri rolled her eyes. She’d dated Tommy briefly when they were sophomores. He played the clarinet and made patterns in the spit that fell on the band room floor. He took her to a dance at the youth center, and then on a date to see Exorcist II. He put his arm around her, but he might as well have placed a dead cat across her shoulders. When he leaned forward to kiss her good night, she saw his greasy forehead and thought of all the drool that came out of his mouth. She closed her eyes and winced as his lips, like two earthworms, landed on her own. She hadn’t enjoyed it at all. That was the only time she’d ever been kissed, and it was nothing like the passionate kisses she’d seen on her mother’s soap operas.

Roberta said, “You don’t want to date anyone from around here. Besides, you already know everyone. The men at the resort have good jobs. They open doors for you and chew with their mouths closed. You could find someone decent to marry.”

Sherri felt like her life was just getting started. “I don’t want to get married.”

“Not yet, but someday you will, so you might as well find someone handsome and rich.”

“At the Playboy resort? Aren’t the guys there a bunch of perverts?”

“No, are you kidding? The guys there, they have an outlook.” It had always struck Sherri as strange that someone as tough and seemingly independent as Roberta would worry so much about having a boyfriend and a husband. She’d already designed her own wedding dress. Sherri figured it was because her family was more “normal” than her own. Mr. Fletcher worked in management at Trent Tube, and she had siblings. They always ate dinner together as a family, drew lines on a special wall in the basement where they marked each kid’s growth on their birthdays, and they went on beach vacations to Florida every other year. If it weren’t for Mr. Fletcher’s short temper, Sherri would have given her eyeteeth to be part of their family.