She gave me a hard push, sent me off balance. 'Go on now! Don't be so crazy. Hurry up or you'll be late.'

I stood back and looked at her with a sudden hard soberness. 'Do you ever wake up scared?' I asked.

She turned and looked at me then. There was a queer expression on her flat yellow face. She stepped over to me, reached up, and put her hands about my head, drew me down to kiss her. Then she pushed me away again, saying, 'Now hurry up, you'll make all your riders late too.'

'Okay, little sister,' I said. 'When Henry's gone to the Army, and you get all hot and bothered and come running to me, just remember.'

She gave a slow laugh and stuck out her tongue. I felt differently now. All the tightness and scare, even the lingering traces of jealousy, had gone out of me. I just felt pressed for time.

I hurried back to my room and put on my shirt and shorts, crossed the kitchen to the bathroom, still barefooted. It was a small, four-room cottage sitting back in a court off of Wall Street in the middle fifties, and the rooms opened into one another so there wasn't any way of getting out of a certain casual intimacy, even if I'd never had Ella Mae. My room was in the back, off from the kitchen, and the bathroom was on the other side. Their bedroom was on one side of the front, and the parlour on the other.

When I'd finished brushing my teeth and washing up I started back through the kitchen in my underwear and almost bumped into Ella Mae as she was returning to bed. I patted her on the hips and said, 'Stingy.' She switched on through the parlour into her bedroom.

I got a clean pair of coveralls out of the dresser drawer, slipped them on over my underwear, pulled on my high-heeled, iron-toed boots, slanted my 'tin' hat on the back of my head, and slipped into my leather jacket.