Argosy: The Short Story Magazine — page 98: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

98 CORDELIA BAIRD GROSS baking such a swell pie you’d win that stove and the blue ribbon.” _ ‘Tony met us at the-door of the club. ‘‘ She get the stove? ” he whispered to me. “I thought I saw her pulse flutter.” “ She’s getting doves,” I said. Life went on, but there was a subtle change in Pansy. She’d often hung around the club kitchen and everyone there liked her. Leon, the head chef, was a particular friend, and when not too busy, he always watched her performance. Now she made the kitchen her second home. She no longer played three-handed solitaire with Homer and me. When we asked her a question, her answers were vague or irrelevant. She’d always looked dreamy, but she’d never heard voices before. We were deeply concerned. One afternoon, a few weeks after the birthday party, I arrived at the club and saw Leon talking excitedly to Homer. ““ Leon says Pansy’s ill,’ Homer told me. ““ She’s a sick girl, all right,” said Leon. ‘‘ She may not be in tonight.”’ ‘““How do you know?’”’ I asked. ‘“ Did she telephone? ” “She was in round noon,” Leon explained. “She’s an ambitious girl, y’ know. Been coming in early every day the las’ two, three weeks.” “Good lord, why?” asked Homer. : “ Practising,’ said Leon. “‘ Rehearsing. Picks things up fast. Why, today we worked—I mean—she worked two hours as hard as she could.’ He blushed, and Homer and I looked at each other in amazement. “Then she got pains,’ Leon continued quickly. ‘‘ The poor kid hadda go home.” ““She’s a Libra,” suggested Homer, ‘“ maybe it’s her lucky day to lay in bed.” “Don’t talk that way in front of Baby here,” said Tony who had come up to greet me. My B.A. degree always uplifted him, but he thought Texas University, my Alma Mater, was a sort of convent and he must keep on sheltering me. “Well, Baby,” replied Homer, bowing low to me, “ if Pansy don’t show, perhaps you'll oblige.” “Over my dead body,” retorted Tony piously. “I’d as soon push my mother on.” Everyone in The Tonic spoke of Pansy and wondered how she was. “Send anything but flowers,” said Homer. Twenty minutes before Pansy was due to do her show, she came running into the club. She wasn’t wearing make-up, but her cheeks were delicately pink. Her eyes, usually gentle and misty behind her glasses, sparkled like her sequined garter-belt. comiclooks.comn) «ares Rd