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  When she and Vicky arrived at around eleven, they discovered a full living room heaving with people and a kitchen rammed with liquor. The perfect combination. They remained a close partnership for the first half hour to ensure no octopus hands got fresh while the night was still young.

  After midnight, different rules applied and they split up. Vicky hunted for Jamie, a sweet kid with his own Harley. Mary Lou spent another hour chatting and dancing with a string of guys but none of them held her eye for longer than the record took to play.

  One fella caught her eye. He sat on the edge of an armchair, laughing with another guy. The way he rested on the end of the furniture grabbed Mary Lou’s attention. Self-assured but not arrogant. Grounded. She headed past the two of them, wending her path among the herd of twentysomethings congregating inside this single apartment.

  The men were laughing about who knew what and she stopped as she sauntered past, clinked a glass with the brown-haired one and joined in the conversation.

  “The thing is, you know...”

  Calling it a conversation was generous: these were drunk musings and no more, but Mary Lou enjoyed hearing him talk and she liked looking at his body, hidden under a skin-tight white tee shirt and a pair of jeans. Nothing special: like he was trying to appear as though he hadn’t tried at all. His friend wandered off to get more drink.

  “I’m Mary Lou.”

  “Frank.”

  A clink of glasses again.

  “You from round here? I don’t think I’ve seen you in the neighborhood.”

  “Lived here for years but I’ve been ... away for a while.”

  Mary Lou recognized that code. Jail, but the guy was an attractive felon. She liked the sparkle in his eyes and the muscles of his upper arms. And the small twitch in the corner of his mouth as he tried to smile but didn’t know how. She understood that facial tic only too well.

  “I moved here two weeks ago so that explains it.”

  “Sure does.”

  Mary Lou was leaning on his shoulder: her heels were hurting and, besides, she wanted an excuse to touch him.

  “You wanna dance?”

  She nodded so he grabbed her hand and they walked a few feet to where the rest of the room was gyrating to the beat of the music. Mary Lou and Frank hopped from one foot to the other for over half an hour. Occasionally, she’d lean into him and say something in his ear and he would respond. Twice he did the same.

  They smiled, laughed and danced. Like everyone the world over, each checked out the other to decide if they were attractive enough for more than a dance with or without booze.

  Some wise guy changed record to a slow number and half the people moved to the edge: either not drunk enough or not interested in getting that close to their current dance partner. But Mary Lou and Frank stayed on. She took half a step towards him and Frank placed an arm behind her back. Mary Lou laid her head on his shoulder and she felt his chin on her hair.

  Frank’s thumb stroked the back of her neck - slow, slow - until little tingles erupted from the point where he touched her down her spine. She nuzzled closer and he put his other hand on the lower portion of her spine.

  Three-and-a-half minutes later the music stopped but Mary Lou and Frank remained stationary. She turned her head to look into his eyes and their lips touched. All around them bodies jumped, hopped and wriggled to the fast tempo but they remained as they were: kissing and stroking, enveloped in the moment between them.

  Mary Lou opened her eyes to find the world had moved on and she parted their lips and smiled at him.

  “You wanna go somewhere quieter so we can talk?”

  “Sure thing, babe.”

  Mary Lou stole some red wine from a nearby table, led Frank out the party and over to her apartment. She opened the bottle and poured two glasses but they never got to consume them. Instead, by the time Vicky came home three hours later, a spent condom lay on the floor and snoring emanated from the room.

  Part 4: Saturday October 27, 1962

  5

  Next day, Frank left early but not before he scribbled down an address for Mary Lou to find him if she wanted. Under any other circumstances, she’d have scrunched the piece of paper into a ball before going to the stove to make herself a morning coffee. But she had to admit this man was different.

  Although she couldn’t pin down what it was about him, Frank made her feel something: an emotion. Not that she’d hit the sack with him on the first night. Mary Lou had done that countless times before. What else was the point of going to a party? The difference with Frank: there was more to the experience than the thudding scream of an orgasm in her head spread across her entire body.

  Despite only being with the guy for a few hours, she felt a strong affection for him. Crazy. And he fit so well inside her too.

  On Monday she found the address he’d given and popped over. When she buzzed the apartment, a different male voice told her to wait. Then Frank appeared about thirty seconds later.

  “Hi.”

  “Hiya, babe. You free for a coffee?”

  She nodded and they headed to a place round the corner and chatted for an hour. The man explained how he wasn’t getting on with his step-dad otherwise he’d have invited Mary Lou in.

  “I understand. Families are strange beasts. Never trust a step-parent.”

  Frank eyed her and nodded. Conversation twisted and turned until his time was up.

  “I gotta go or I’ll get shit at home.”

  “Sure. Why don’t you move out?”

  “It’s complicated. If you’re free on Saturday, we could have a bite to eat and I’ll tell you all about it. If you want.”

  Mary Lou thought for less than half a second.

  “Yes. I’d like that a lot.”

  TO SAY MARY LOU THOUGHT about nothing else until the weekend would be an obvious lie. The woman had a job to hold down and weekdays were filled with the dullness of life. But to say she pushed the date to the back of her mind would not be true either.

  By the time Saturday arrived, Mary Lou knew exactly what she was going to wear: dress, panties with matching bra and heels. She’d considered hair styles and nail polish. The whole enchilada.

  Frank chose a local pasta joint for their rendezvous and they settled into a corner table, sitting on adjacent sides of the square surface. He ordered a bottle of red and she suggested a glass of water on the side. First order of business was to scan the menus for something worth eating.

  “I’d recommend everything. There are no bad dishes here.”

  “Come here often with your lady friends?”

  “Don’t be like that. The food’s good is all.”

  She squeezed his nearest hand while it held the menu.

  “Only teasing, Frank.”

  He emitted another of his trademark side-of-mouth tics and she knew all was fine. Food ordered and drink delivered, they began the serious business of conversation.

  “So where are you from?”

  “Away from here. There’s nothing to tell.”

  “Really? What about family?”

  “I’m an orphan.”

  “Wow.”

  “Joking. My family’s dead - or at least dead to me.”

  Beat.

  “Papa died when I was in diapers and he really is dead. I have no idea about my mama and anyone else. Left home when I was fifteen and never looked back.”

  “What made you leave so young?”

  “God and his minions.”

  She laughed, aware this trail of conversation could only lead into a dark, cold place she didn’t want to enter.

  “Jeez.”

  “Fuck him too.”

  Frank let go her hand and pulled a quizzical face.

  “I didn’t mean to touch a raw nerve. Sorry.”

  “Don’t be. Not your fault, but some stuff will never be right.”

  “Say that again.”

  “And what’s the deal with your step-dad?”

  “The usual story,
I guess. Mom remarried after my dad died. Mysterious circumstances they said, but he was with the mob so you join the dots.”

  “Fuck.”

  “Yep. And mom found herself a loser and I don’t mind reminding them of that every opportunity I find. Means I’m not popular at home.”

  “So where do you spend most of your time because it ain’t going to be in the bosom of your family? Do you seek out other bosoms instead?”

  Mary Lou tittered and squeezed his hand again. The comment was a joke although she was intrigued to know how much Frank slept around. Vicky said he was a small-time crook fresh out of jail but Mary Lou didn’t mind. To her, Frank had some get up and go. More than most of the schmucks she slept with since she arrived in Baltimore.

  “Nothing wrong with seeking solace in a bosom, Mary Lou.”

  Another twitch at the side of his mouth.

  “And what you get up to when you don’t have your head nestled in a bosom?”

  He laughed.

  “Don’t get me wrong: there haven’t been too many bosoms in my life. Some, but not many.”

  “We’ll come back to that.”

  “Sure. I’m between jobs right now but I’m cooking up an interesting project with a friend of mine.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. Me and Louis think we can make ourselves some easy money at a drug store or two.”

  “Is that how you see yourself making a living. In drug stores?”

  “God no. I’ve got plans. Build some seed capital and invest it wisely in a convenience store. Then who knows?”

  “I’m sitting beside the next Rockefeller?”

  “Next Dillinger, babe. There’s a difference. I won’t rob from poor people. That’s not right.”

  “I do love a man with principles.”

  Mary Lou leaned over and pecked him on the cheek just as their antipasti arrived.

  AT THE END OF THE MEAL, Mary Lou offered to pay but Frank had none of it. She thanked him and they sauntered out the restaurant and walked down the block, hand in hand.

  “Fancy going to a pool hall to hang with the fellas, babe?”

  “I’d rather hole up in a bar and have another glass. Or we could pop to my place...”

  Frank smiled a full-lip toothy grin.

  “I hoped you’d say something like that.”

  With a quickened pace, they headed to her apartment where Vicky sat in the living room reading a magazine. One minute’s conversation and Mary Lou and Frank closed her bedroom door behind them.

  They threw off their clothes and, once in bed, investigated each other's bodies. The previous week had been a drunken express train of a fuck. This time, they were more sober and more interested in discovering the other as a person.

  After much kissing and licking, Frank found Mary Lou's tattooed rose, an inch below her belly button. She liked the way he didn't ask her about it like everybody else did. He accepted its existence and moved on up her body until she felt his dick near her thighs.

  Then a pulse of warm sticky liquid and it was over - before anything had begun. Frank squeezed her breast, rolled over and went to sleep. As he snored, she finished herself off and lapsed into unconsciousness too.

  Part 5: November 1968 to November 1969

  6

  Claudia Starr made a new life for herself in Canada. When she stepped off the coach, she swapped two hundred dollars for Canadian and vowed not to do it again. Her accent was a big enough giveaway she was a foreigner without turning up at a currency exchange screaming out to the world she was an American.

  She considered traveling to the far side of the country in case the Feds or the East Coast mob followed her, but she realized this was paranoia. Mary Lou changed coach en route from LA to Vancouver so there was no way anyone could guess where she ended up.

  A year and a half later and not a solitary fat soul turned up in Canada seeking to chase her down. Her escape was complete. She spent the first two weeks in a hotel and found a job working in a dress store. With a pay check in her back pocket, Claudia rented a one bed apartment on 13th Avenue and Victoria Drive - in between Clark and John Hendry Parks on the east side of the city.

  She kept to herself in the evenings, not wanting to make any mark in this foreign community. Within two months she came down with a bad case of morning sickness and she visited a local doctor to find out what her belly and sore nipples already told her: pregnant.

  With Medicare not implemented in Vancouver, Claudia worked her ass off to get the money to fund her antenatal care and the delivery itself. In the third trimester, her bump was kicking away in all directions. Three weeks before her due date, she gave birth to Alice and Frank Junior.

  WITH THE NEEDS OF HER two children paramount in her mind, memories of Frank and the loss she felt over his death faded fast. There was no time to pander to her own emotional state.

  By the summer, Claudia had organized a schedule at the store which gave her sufficient money to get by and had kept in contact with some of the women in the maternity suite from the hospital. They were all married and sympathetic to her plight and the old lady who lived on the same floor in her apartment block agreed to look after the twins when she worked.

  She was on as even a keel as any single mother with two babies could be, living in a strange city in a foreign land. But she kept her head down and plowed on through these worst of times.

  One ray of happiness Claudia gave herself every week was a trip to one of the parks. The area was ripe with gang related violence which ensured inquisitive folks stayed the hell away. This was the perfect cover for Claudia as her discovery was always around the corner.

  Given her background - and the fact she walked around with a double buggy - she didn’t bat an eyelid when a few young guys up to no good appeared to hang out near the swings. They knew better than to hassle a dame with babies. And if they tried anything, she’d have plugged them full of lead.

  Over time, the guys acknowledged her presence and she’d listen in on their conversations - not that they were interesting, just different from the domestic chaos that engulfed her on a daily basis.

  They talked about who did what to whom and the hourly travails of teenagers, nitpicked to within an inch of its life. She smiled inside as their chat reminded her of the snatches of conversation she’d heard when she used to go to school. Before she left home and met Frank and everything seemed to be so simple.

  Even though it was too early to say, Alice looked like Mary Lou and Frank Junior was the spitting image of his father. At least, that’s what Claudia thought as she watched the two asleep in their cots. Her daughter was four minutes older than her brother and Claudia knew this would be a bone of contention between them some day.

  In the meantime, she worked hard in the store, grabbing any shift going, and when she got home, she’d slave away to make her children happy. Although she hadn’t considered herself someone with a strong maternal instinct, truth was she would do anything to protect her two darlings. Anything.

  The apartment itself was too small for three people but it was the best she could afford. Violence erupted on the streets most nights but none of it affected her. She watched from a window as one young man beat on another or a car was broken into. Cheap robberies by little hoodlums. Nothing to get worked up about.

  Anita on the other side of the corridor complained how the neighborhood had gone down hill. She pretended to empathize to keep in Anita’s good books, but none of it bothered her. This wasn’t her place; this hadn’t been her home for thirty years.

  As the twins put on weight and grew, Anita felt more comfortable looking after them. So much so that by winter, Claudia went out once a week. She found a bar one block south with leather seated booths and a slightly older crowd who were amiable enough to welcome her into their fold. Her story was known around the neighborhood and Faye was a friendly face in the tavern.

  “How you get through the day beats me.”

  “Oh, you do what you have to, right?”<
br />
  “Sure but - I’m not being rude - I don’t think I could cope with two kids under one by myself without a man to help.”

  “And David helps with your brood, does he?”

  Faye thought for a minute, sipped her beer and laughed.

  “Hell no. He’s about as useful as a prophylactic with a hole in it, which come to think of it is how we got our third to turn up in the first place!”

  They chuckled at the futility of the male of the species and Claudia carried on as the poor girl with the dead husband and twins.

  7

  Claudia handed the kids over to Anita and went to work. It might have been in November but the same set of events recurred on a daily basis. The drudge of keeping a low profile bore down on her. The weight of knowing she was a stone’s throw from living the high life dragged her feet along the floor.

  Alice and Frank Jr were beautiful, wonderful, fabulous sparkling lights in her world. But they couldn’t talk and didn’t know or care about her troubles. She loved them with all her might but they weren’t enough to fill the void in her existence. The gap left by Frank and the absence of spending opportunity offered by the money she kept at the back of her wardrobe, hidden behind a coat and two long dresses.

  If she moved somewhere else in this country, she’d face the same set of problems. Her accent would make her a stranger and an avalanche of questions would follow. Then she’d find a crappy job so no-one would see how much she really had. Here, in the east side of Vancouver, was as good as anywhere.

  Claudia kissed Alice and Frank Jr goodbye, thanked Anita for the millionth time in her life and walked down the stairs, off to the Courtney Boutique where Mrs. Courtney held sway over the middle-aged women in the area.