The Slipper Read Online Free PDF Page A

was in the wholesale jewelry business, but his shop was in Brooklyn and business had never been exactly booming and Sadie could hardly look her sisters-in-law in the eye on the rare occasions they condescended to acknowledge her existence. She constantly reminded Irving of her humiliation, of his own ineptitude and lack of success, and he didn’t dare defy her, not even for Nora’s sake.
    The scholarship would take care of tuition, dorm, lab fees and such, but she was going to need money to live on, quite a lot of it, and Irving reluctantly informed her it wouldn’t be forthcoming. He couldn’t let her go so far away. It would break her poor mother’s heart. She’d just have to settle for Columbia or NYU. Then she could live right here at home, take the subway to and from the city just as she’d done when she was attending all those fancy private schools they’d scrimped and scraped to send her to. He knew she’d had her heart set on Claymore, but … well, it just wasn’t in the cards. Nora gave him a hug, knowing how much it hurt him to tell her this, loving him none the less because he had no spine, but she wasn’t about to be defeated. She’d sling hash if necessary, but maybe she wouldn’t have to. She was a writer, right? Now was the time to prove it. She was going to write as she had never written before.
    Not those thoughtful, profound, beautifully wrought stories that impressed the hell out of her English teachers. They were terrific—almost as good as Katherine Anne Porter, far better than Faith Baldwin—but there was no market for them. Every last one she’d sent off to the slick magazines had been rejected. Not commercial enough. No punch. Not what our readers are looking for. So what were readers looking for? What kind of stories could a seventeen-year-old wunderkind write that would earn her some money? Nora went to the corner drugstore and took a good look at the racks. Old Mr. Abromowitz told her he could hardly keep the confession magazines in stock. The housewives and high school girls snatched them up as soon as they came in every month. He couldn’t understand why anyone would want to read such trash. He was shocked when Nora bought copies of all of them, carting them away with a determined look in her eye. She didn’t just read them. She studied them. Carefully.
    So little Nora Levin became Queen of the Confessions. The first story she wrote was stilted and patronizing, full of big words, clearly written down, and the second wasn’t much better. You’re not writing ’em for your English teachers, kiddo, she told herself. You’re writing ’em for the gum-chewing waitress at the Truck Stop Cafe. You’re writing ’em for the high school girl who sells ribbons at Woolworth’s after school is out. She began to get the hang of it with the third story, and with the fourth she’d definitely developed the knack. Modern Romances bought it immediately, bought four more in the weeks that followed. True Confessions bought three and said they’d be interested in seeing anything else she happened to have on hand. Both magazines paid peanuts, of course, but if you sold enough stories you could make a mint. Nora spent all summer long at her typewriter, pounding away, burning the midnight oil, Sadie wailing that she needed to get out, get some fresh air, meet some boys, it wasn’t healthy for a girl to stay shut up in her room, typing all the time.
    By the end of summer Nora had earned well over two thousand dollars, and Irving was secretly proud, secretly delighted she had foiled her mother. Sadie was appalled. Sadie was apoplectic. “I Had a Sex Change Just Like Christine.” “I Was a High School Call Girl.” “My Months in Rio as a Love Slave.” “Seduced by My Gynecologist.” “His Love Sent Me to the Public Health Clinic.” Seventeen years old, and she’s