Fallout by Harry Turtledove

Author:Harry Turtledove
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2016-07-19T07:00:00+00:00

Like the other office workers, she brown-bagged lunch most of the time. It was cheaper. Once or twice a week, though, she would visit the diner where she’d stopped when she first came into Weed. For some reason she couldn’t fathom, Babs had taken a shine to her.

“You see? This ain’t such a bad place,” the waitress said, setting a bowl of beef stew in front of Marian. “You find yourself a fella here, you’ll have all the comforts of home.” She winked. Her heavily mascaraed eyelashes flapped like a crow’s wing.

“You may be right,” said Marian, for whom the thought of a fella was the last thing on her mind.

“Oh, you bet I am,” Babs said. “A man keeps you warm better’n a hot-water bottle every day of the week, and twice on Sundays. Twice on Sundays if he’s young enough, anyways.” She leered and laughed a filthy laugh.

“You’re awful,” Marian said.

“You can say whatever you want, sweetie. He told me I was pretty darn good.” Babs laughed again. This time, so did Marian. If you couldn’t lick ’em, you might as well join ’em.

A couple of days later, after picking up Linda from the school playground where she hung around till her mother got off work, Marian drove to the Rexall that was Weed’s one and only drugstore. She bought Band-Aids and Kotex. As she was getting ready to pay the druggist, she plucked a color postcard of Mt. Shasta from a little revolving rack on the counter and bought that, too.

“What do you need that for, Mommy?” Linda asked. “All you have to do is go outside and you can see the mountain.”

“I know,” Marian said. “But if I send the card to somebody who doesn’t live here, that person can see it, too.”

“Who would you send it to?”

“I don’t know. I’ll think of somebody. Or if I don’t, I’ll just keep it.” Marian gave the druggist a five-dollar bill. She put the change in her wallet and coin purse, stuck them back in her handbag, and went out to the car with her daughter.

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