3 E-Books: The Argotist Online

#32
The gossip goes round: Jess kicked her house-boy out. He’s back to the farm. Who will wait
for Jess’s water to break? Who assembles the crib? The office and the old crowd are abuzz,
as Jess knows. So what? She has two or three friends in her back pocket that have lasted,
will last. She’s too old to fly blind, even if she’s forced to hover near the ground (as she is).
You should’ve seen us at Manny’s, she tells them. All the baked-skin beauties went for my
little man-child. Yet there is an edge of regret in her voice, for what age does to a human
heart. Degradations never end— she has never weighed more, and the spics (she thinks)
on the train (God help her if her water breaks) laugh at her jerky movements, appalled
lurches. But I’ve got my back up, she thinks, because I passed this test: to get rid of the
pest (who is, her friends note with half-smiles, the father of her child). Oddly, Jess often
feels like a little girl; her mind bounces around, just like the child within her (who could
be either: no ultrasound). She sees the future through her child’s eyes. There are joys,
panics, outbursts, setbacks, but all impelled by a clear sense of forward motion.
The chorus of her song falls a full step back, and juts a step up again.
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