The Ballroom on Magnolia Street Read Online Free PDF Page B

a very skilled lover. Most of the time, she said, when they were in bed together, he preferred to watch cartoons on the television and eat sweets. Yellow bonbons, to be precise. And he was very selfish with the bonbons, too. He never offered her one from the little paper bag. Inevitably, Eugene Lolly and Timothy Tate became known as the Bonbon Gang.
    Marion took two weeks off work to recover from the shock of the attempted robbery but when she came back to the ballroom it was only to tell Johnny that she would not be walking out with him any more. And that to make the split less painful for both of them, she was also giving up her job behind the bar. She said that she now realized that the business would always come first with Johnny, and that she didn’t want to play second fiddle to an ugly great hangar full of smoke-damaged furniture. She gave him back the silver bracelet he had given her on their third date and kissed him gently on the cheek. Johnny was too shaken to say anything, so he put the bracelet in his pocket and simply watched Marion walk away. For a few moments, there was no sound at all in the main ballroom, except for the clickety-click of Marion’s heels on the wooden floor. Then, there was the soft whisper of the heavy foyer doors closing behind her, and then Johnny was all alone.
    Johnny was too proud to win her back. And so he did nothing. Marion would miss him, he decided, and come back to him when she was over the fright of the robbery.
    He thought he still saw love in Marion’s eyes when he spied her out walking in the vicinity one day, but when he crossed the road to speak to her, she announced that she was getting married to her childhood sweetheart, Eddy. They had set the date already. Johnny’s knees went weak with the shock.
    Eddy Greenwood! That dull stick. With his tweed sports jacket and beige slacks, and his untidy, curly hair! He couldn’t even dance properly! All he could do was shuffle about in the one spot as if his shoes were made of lead. It was the ultimate humiliation for Johnny, to be rejected by Marion for a man like that! What was she thinking of? She couldn’t possibly love Eddy. She’d told Johnny a million times that he was the only man who’d ever made her heart flutter with excitement, and her body burn with desire. It was completely beyond his understanding.
    Eddy, on the other hand, was only too glad to have the love of his life back again, and thrilled that he had won her away from Hollywood Hogan at last. When Eddy saw his chance, he did not rest for one minute until he had convinced Marion to marry him.
    Pulling pints would not be a suitable job for the wife of a respected businessman so Eddy set Marion up in business on her own. A little bridal boutique, a few streets away from the ballroom, which she called Romance And Ribbons. Seven months later, she gave birth to a son. Marion and Eddy told everyone that the child was born early, because he was big and ready, and everyone believed them.
    Johnny dated lots of women after that, but Marion was the one for him, and he couldn’t believe that he had let her go. Thoughts of her invaded his dreams at night, and even when he was counting piles of money in the office he missed her bringing in the tea and sitting on his knee for a kiss. He missed dancing with her most of all.
    Owning the ballroom lost a little of its shine for Johnny then, and all the women who loved him only made him more lonesome for the one that got away.

4. A Jar of Mint Imperials
    Louise Lowry worked in a tiny, dusty newsagent’s shop crammed to the roof with jelly worms, packets of dipping sherbet and boxes of chocolates, plastic water-pistols, tiny beaded purses and neon skipping ropes. The newspaper stand and twenty boxes of crisps prevented any daylight from coming in through the grime-covered window. A small fridge full of milk cartons and packets of butter hummed in one corner.
    In the gloomy stillness of the shop sat two young women, deep in