You Dropped a Blonde on Me Read Online Free PDF

mother, she allowed her humiliation to drive her eyes to the rooster clock on the wall above her mother’s head. “But before I found that out, I shared every pathetic detail of my life with the poor manager. And I babbled . . . endlessly.”
    “Well done. Pity’s always a hallmark to every successful job interview. So we concur that the Cluck-Cluck Palace sucks weenies?”
    God love her mother and her sharp tongue. Never afraid to say what she felt, it had sometimes embarrassed the shit out of Maxine, and sometimes it had been what kept her hanging on. She only wished she had at least half of the set of balls her mother did. “We concur.” Blowing out a puff of air, she rested her head in her hands. A loud clanging from the far end of the house made her head throb. The heat and Campbell Barker had left her with a headache.
    Her mother pinched the back of her daughter’s hand with affection. “Doesn’t matter. That hat would have looked stupid on you anyway. Your neck’s not long enough for all that beak. You’ll find something, dear. I know it.”
    Maxine’s laughter was colored with a million shades of bitter. “If only I had a hundred bucks for every time you’ve said that after another failed attempt to find some kind of employment, Mona Marie Henderson, I could at least afford to put some food on your table. Maybe buy toilet paper in bulk.”
    Mona dropped her crocheting to the table, waving a hand at her daughter. “Don’t be silly. I don’t need your money, and I don’t need nearly the amount of toilet paper I once did before I started that bladder-control medication. Besides, we have plenty of food.”
    Did creamed tuna on toast really constitute food? “Ma, you say that every time I don’t get the job, too. But Connor and I can’t keep sucking you dry. The money you keep spending on every little thing we need, not to mention feeding us, is trashing your retirement fund.”
    Money she wouldn’t need if she hadn’t made the most naïve mistake of her life. That very mistake was at least on par with Chernobyl.
    “Nonsense. I don’t feel sucked anywhere, and the only credit card you had when you left that egomaniac is maxed out on lawyer fees for that nimrod attorney who bills you for these imaginary hours he claims he’s worked. You have nothing, but I don’t have nothing. So stop worrying, Maxie. My finances are in fine shape.”
    “Says who?”
    “Says that Elmer Roy over there on Gladiola Avenue.”
    Maxine’s head shot upward, hoping to catch a glimpse of the emotion her mother’s light blue eyes held when she spoke Elmer’s name, but she came up dry. Her mother remained a total rock of deadpan. But Maxine had seen her mother giggle like she was at the prom on more than one occasion where Elmer was concerned. “So when did you see Elmer?” She cooed his name, teasing and light.
    Mona shot Maxine an exaggerated look of disinterest with a shrug of her slender shoulders. “Bingo—or was it Waltzing with Sherry on Wednesday? I can’t remember. So it couldn’t have been much of a hoopla. Doesn’t matter, he told me I’m solid. He should know, retired accountant that he is. Your father, God rest his cantankerous soul, left me in tip-top shape. Now stop worrying your pretty head about it. I won’t hear about sucking and things that’re dry. We’ll be fine.”
    More tears stung her eyes. Her mother said that every time they had the unemployed conversation, too. If it hadn’t been for her mother on that long-ago, tear-filled, agonizingly ugly night when she’d left Fin, she and Connor really would be at the local homeless shelter.
    Another loud clash of metal against metal reverberated through her mother’s small house. The humid air, combined with her lack of sustenance, left her feeling like whoever was swinging that tool was all up in her head, knocking around her brain matter. “What do you have against an air conditioner, Mom? It’s eight billion degrees outside, and what