“I don’t understand you one bit. Where do you come from?”
“I told you,” Sally said. “Bal’mer.”
“I can’t decide if you’re simple or evil, or some of both.”
“A girl has to live,” she said seriously, her finger pointed up in the air like she was quoting scripture.
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“Who taught you to say that?”
“My mamma, I think.”
“Your mamma? Was your mamma a . . . was she
like us?”
Sally turned away and picked up a shard of plate from the floor. “This had a pretty border on it.”
“Listen,” said Molly, taking her by the elbow. “That weasel is going to be back in a tick, and I need us to agree about what we’re going to do and what we won’t be doing.
And we ain’t going to be spreading our legs for anyone.”
“What do you mean?” said Sally. “You want to kill Johnny? Is that it?”
“Christ almighty, I wasn’t talking about killing anyone.
I just want us to be clear about what we won’t do for these johns. I ain’t given up my cunny but two times.” She grimaced. “Almost made me go back to my sister’s. But then I seen how you can make a living without. All you got to do is play the pipe, if you know what I mean.”
Sally’s face was a perfect blank.
“Playing the pipe?” Molly said, lowering her voice.
“You take ’em in your mouth. Get ’em off that way. That way you don’t get a baby, and you don’t get the pox.”
Sally clapped her hands over her mouth and squealed.
“Ooooh. That’s horrible. I don’t think I could ever . . . Do the men like that?”
“They think they died and went to heaven. I make ’em wash it first, but mostly they don’t mind, and if you wash it for ’em, it’s part of the fun. There were some fellows down in Boston who swore they’d never have it off any other way,” Molly said. “When Johnny gets back, I’ll go with him, and you can watch how I manage it. Some of the johns, they
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like being watched, but that’s extra. I’m telling him it’s the only trick we do, and if he don’t like it, then we’re off.”
“And if he ain’t fair with our money, then we kill him,”
Sally said.
“Are you teasing me?”