If her boy friend had too many beers on the night before, she hurts
your ear.
This mug must have been rolling.
"Hello, dear."
Rickey's voice was as clear as heaven's door-chimes.
I could feel my heart jumping around inside me, trying to straighten
things up in a hurry.
"Hello, Tud." It rhymes with "good" and doesn't mean anything to
anybody but us.
"How are you--you sound--worried?"
My banging heart must have left a chair out of place somewhere. I took
a good breath and pushed whatever it was back into the regular design.
"Naw. Maybe tired. Been working. Paul was here. I'm worried about
him--if that's what you mean."
"I guess so. I called up because I thought maybe you were planning to
call me this evening."
"Was."
"Mother and I are going up to Brookses to play bridge. So we'd have
been out, if you'd have called. What about Paul?"
"He's living in sin with a dame he's nuts about--and he found out after
he went overboard that she's an old understudy from Hattie Blaine's
finishing school for young ladies."
"Oh, dear." Rickey can put all her compassion into two syllables--and
it's compassion enough for a saint.
"I was dawdling around here cogitating ways and means--"