Women Drinking Benedictine Read Online Free PDF Page A

arranged so that the cheapest items were the most accessible for customer inspection. If she was going to sell anything that month, it would probably be one of these pieces.
    â€œHow about a few extra bucks added to that paycheck this week?” The man had a salt-and-pepper goatee that needed trimming. “Does that interest you?”
    Not really, Winnie thought. Though he carried no briefcase or portfolio, she guessed he was from Amway or one of the other pyramid companies. They had been by before. Winnie always enjoyed talking to people, but knew they were disappointed by her steadfast refusals.
    â€œI bet I know what you want,” the man said.
    â€œReally?” Winnie asked.
    â€œSure,” he nodded. “And I’m just the person to help you get it.”
    What Winnie wanted was an ocean. She would have liked to have beach property where at night or in the morning, depending on where the ocean was located, she could watch the sun setting or rising and feel the cool sand moving between her toes. She would like time to work on her tan. Of German and Irish descent, when Winnie spent time in the sun, she burned or freckled. But with the right creams, the right breezes, she was certain she could eventually change the color of her skin. She was fifty-three, too old to worry about skin cancer.
    Money was not something she particularly wanted. “Are you building a casino?” she asked. Perhaps he wanted to talk to Suzanne. Suzanne and her husband were always talking money. She told him she was not interested. She undid the rubber band from her book and tried to remember where she had left the main characters.
    He continued talking money to her, but she stayed with the book, wishing he would go away. A few minutes later he left, promising that she’d see him again soon.
    She was tired. Had it been her shop, she would have gone home, closed the curtains, turned the air-conditioning unit on high, and slept straight through the afternoon.
    Winnie was slightly irritated when the man came in again the following afternoon. It was two o’clock, her normal break time, and she was anxious to leave the store.
    â€œI’m back,” he announced, all smiles.
    â€œI can see that,” she said. She flipped the OPEN sign around and stood jingling the keys. This was as rude as she could be.
    He leaned into her. She took a step backward when suddenly he touched her face with his open palm. She slapped his hand away.
    â€œDon’t be afraid,” he said.
    Working in the shop bored her. Fear was not something she considered in her daily routine, though one time a guy with a gun had asked her to empty the cash register. She showed the would-be thief the credit card slips she collected in a pearl-laden jewelry box and tried to explain that they were not a cash kind of retail store. She invited him to take his choice of black leather jackets.
    â€œI’m here to help you, not hurt you,” he said. “I don’t want help,” Winnie said.
    â€œAre you afraid of something, little lady?” the man asked. “Is that why you won’t talk to me?”
    Winnie, especially opposed to people who called her lady, dear, or darling, did not know why she was talking to this man.
    â€œCome on,” he said. “Let me hear your fears.”
    â€œYou want to know what I’m afraid of?” Winnie eyed the man suspiciously.
    â€œYes,” he said. “Tell me your nightmares. What keeps you up at night?”
    She thought for a minute.
    â€œRats,” she told him. “I’m deathly afraid of rats.” She had lived in New York for a short period of time when she was in her midtwenties, and she never forgot the sound of the rats scurrying in the wall beside her bed. She would have died if she had found one in her kitchen. She had seen the movie Ben , about a boy who befriended a rat, and while she liked the title song, the movie had given her