Runny03 - Loose Lips Read Online Free PDF Page B

walk.”
    Buster was their Irish terrier, a joyful, expressive fellow, devoted to Juts and Chessy as well as to the cat, Yoyo.
    “So? Chester loves to walk Buster.”
    “I know, but usually I go with him.”
    “He’s worried sick about the money.”
    “Well, so am I!” Juts put her shoes back on. “I think my feet are growing. Anyway, I’m doing something about the mess we made. I’m willing to work but Chessy says it takes money to makemoney. I sure hope you get somewhere with Diddy because then we won’t have to use up so much money getting started.”
    “Yeah.” Louise was worried, too. The reason she had gone to Celeste in the first place was to ask for a loan. Before she could open her mouth Celeste had asked her to intervene with Diddy. Since Diddy and Louise had gone to school together and remained friends, Celeste’s request made some sense. Louise readily agreed. It spared her the humiliation of being in debt to her mother’s boss. Once she caught her breath she asked for one year’s rent. Celeste laughed and called her shrewd. Scared was more like it.
    “You know what Chessy said to me last night?” Juts went on. “He said the most dangerous food in the world is wedding cake.”

6

    D iddy Van Dusen lived the asceticism of the extremely rich. Self-denial in such lavish proportions gagged Juts. She would gladly have taken the castoffs that Diddy dispensed to the poor. Not that Juts was terribly poor, but she realized that in the class scheme of America she was hanging on to the lower middle class by a thread. Good bloodlines shored her up although not as much as Louise, who shouted D.A.R. the minute she felt threatened. Illustrious ancestors had never put a penny in Julia Ellen’s pocket, so she abstained from the great Southern vice of ancestor worship.
    Now, walking through the grounds of Immaculata with Diddy, she tried to be cheerful.
    “We’ve built another dormitory since last you were here.”
    “Wonderful,” Louise cooed.
    “We try to keep some rigor in their lives—after all, life is filled with tests.” Diddy’s strong features balanced her fair coloring. She resembled a Van Dusen more than a Chalfonte.
    “Do you ever get tired of it here?” Juts blurted out.
    Diddy stopped by the sundial in the middle of the central quad. “No, I’ll carry on Mother’s great work.”
    “Your mother was a saint.”
    Juts fought back a smirk as Louise drenched Diddy in praise about her departed mother, herself, and Immaculata. By the time Juts got back in the car her facial muscles ached from the strain of false smiles.
    Louise crowed over her victory.
    “—at the mere mention of godless people, Carlotta quivered. But it’s true, you know.”
    “What’s true?”
    “Julia Ellen, you haven’t heard a word I’ve said.”
    “Yes, I have. You talked about the British and the Germans fighting in North Africa. It was North Africa, wasn’t it?”
    “Don’t you read the newspaper?”
    “I read the sports page from cover to cover. The Orioles are going to be great this year.”
    “Juts, no one cares about a minor-league team but you. The Orioles are small beans and the International League is teeninetsy.”
    “Baseball is baseball!”
    “Well, as I was saying, I brought up the sale of her stock and told her flat out that Celeste sent me over, knowing how I care about these important moral concerns.”
    “Ha.”
    “I do so care—anyway, I told her that bad as the world is right now, it will be far worse if the Communists sit back and let Germany defeat everyone, then come in and beat a weary Germany on their way to mopping up all of Europe. They don’t believe in God. They believe everything is about money.”
    “Isn’t it?”
    “Julia!”
    “All right, all right. Good job. Celeste will be grateful.”
    “A year’s rent!”
    Juts brightened. “How about a striped awning outside. Red and white.”
    “Green and white.”
    “That’ll look like a grocery store. We have to be