"Whatcha reading?" Tate asked, peering. "One of those sexy books?"

She appraised him in her fashion: calmly, with no intention to do harm, merely wanting to know. "I wish I was sure about you.

"What do you mean?" Tate said uneasily.

"One day I saw you standing around the Greyhound terminal with a couple of sailors. Are you a fairy?"

"My cousin!"

"Gordon isn't a fairy. But he's too stupid to tell the difference; he thinks you've got class." Her eyes widened; the sight of poor Eddie Tate's dismay amused her. "You know how you smell?

You smell like a woman."

The man's companion, interested in a girl who would speak so, waited close by, listening.

"Is Gordon at the gas station?" she asked Tate. "I-wouldn't know."

"Weren't you hanging around there today?" She didn't let him go; she had the creature stuck.

"I was by for a minute. He said maybe he'd drop over to your house tonight. He said he came around Wednesday and you weren't home."

Tate's voice diminished as she, collecting her coat, started off, not looking back at either of them. Not caring, really, about either of them. She was thinking about home. Discouragement set in, and she felt her pleasure, the lift that fairy-baiting gave her, fade.

The front door was unlocked; her mother was in the kitchen fixing dinner. Noise clanged in the six units of the building: television sets and kids playing.

She entered, and faced her father.

In his easy chair Ed Reynolds sat waiting, muscular and small, with gray hair like strands of wire. His fingers gripped the chair and he half-rose, gurgling and blinking rapidly; a beer can fell to the floor and then he swept newspaper and ashtray aside. He wore his black leather jacket and beneath it his undershirt, his cotton undershirt, stained with sweat and dirt. Smears of grease crossed his face, his neck; by the chair were his heavy work boots, lumpy with grease.

"Hello," she said, startled as always to see him, as if she had never seen him before.

"Just getting home?" His eyes glowed and his protruding Adam's apple wallowed in brisk little quivers of skin and bristling hair. As she walked toward her bedroom he came after, close on her heels, treading in his sticky socks across the carpet.

"Don't," she said.

"Don't what? Why you just getting home?" He pursued her. "Stop off with some of your nigger friends?"

She closed the bedroom door after her and stood. On the other side his breathing sounded: a low rattle, like something caught in a metal pipe. Not turning her back to the door, she changed to a white shirt and levis. When she came out he had returned to his chair. Before him the TV set radiated.

Entering the kitchen, she said rapidly to her mother: "Did Gordon call?" She avoided the sight of her father.

"Not today." Mrs. Rose Reynolds bent to inspect the casserole steaming in the oven. "Go set the table. Be some help." Back and forth, scurrying between the stove and sink. She was thin, too, like her daughter; here was the same sharp face, eyes that moved constantly, and, around the mouth, the same lines of worry. But from her grandfather-now dead, now buried in Forest Slope Chapel Cemetery in San Jose-Mary Anne had got her directness, the aloof boldness; and her mother lacked that.

Mary Anne examined the contents of pots and said: "I think I'm going to quit my job."

"Oh, good Lord," her mother said, tearing at a package of frozen peas. "You would, wouldn't you?"

"It's my job."

"You realize Ed won't be working a full week for the rest of the year. If it wasn't for his seniority-"

"They'll always make pipe. They won't lay him off." She didn't care; she wished him no good luck. Seating herself at the table she opened the Leader to the editorial page. "Want to hear what morons people are? Here's a letter from somebody in Los Gatos saying that Malenkov is the Antichrist, and God will send angels to destroy him." She turned to the medical column. "'Should I be concerned about a painless sore on the inside of my lip that doesn't seem to heal?' He probably has cancer."

"You can't quit your job."

"I'm not Jake," she said. "Don't make me a Jake."

"Who's Jake?"

"He's been there five years." She found the help-wanted columns and smoothed the newspaper flat. "Of course, I can always marry Gordon and sit home sewing while he fixes flat tires. Little soldier in a uniform. So obedient. Wave a flag, Jake. Gordon."

"Dinner's ready," her mother said. "Go tell Ed."

"Tell him yourself. I'm busy." Absorbed in the help-wanted columns she reached about for a pair of scissors. The ad looked good, and it was the first time it had appeared.

Young woman wanted for retail selling.

Must be able to meet public and be personable in dress and appearance.

Knowledge of music valuable but not essential.

Joseph R. Schilling MA3-6041 9 A.M. to 5 P.M.

"Go get him," her mother was repeating. "I told you; can't you help me a little? Can't you be of some use?"

"Lay off," Mary Anne said nervously. She cut out the ad and carried it to her purse. "Get up, Ed," she said to her father. "Come on, wake up."

He sat there in his chair, and the sight halted her with dread. Beer had leaked on the rug, an ugly stain that grew as she watched. She didn't want to go close to him; at the doorway she stopped.

"Help me up," he said.

"No." She felt sick; she couldn't imagine touching him. Suddenly she shouted: "Ed, get up! Come on!"

"Listen to her," he said. His eyes were bright, alert, fixed on her. "She calls me Ed. Why can't she call me Dad? Aren't I her father?"

She began to laugh, then, not wanting to but not able to keep from it. "God," she said, and choked.

"Show your father some respect." He was on his feet and moving toward her. "You hear me? Young lady. Listen to me."

"Keep your goddamn hands off me," she said, and rushed back into the kitchen, by her mother; at the cupboard she took out plates. "If you touch me I'll leave. Don't let him touch me," she said to her mother. Trembling, she began setting the table. "You don't want him to touch me, do you?"

"Leave her alone," Rose Reynolds said.

"Is he drunk?" Mary Anne demanded. "How can a man get drunk on beer? Is it cheaper?"

And then, once more, he had hold of her. He had caught her by the hair. The game, the old, terrible game.

Again Mary Anne felt his fingers against her neck, the very strong little hand at the base of her skull. His knuckles dug into her skin and smeared her; she felt the stain grow and spread and seep. She cried out, but it was hopeless; now the rancid beerbreath billowed into her face and he was twisting her around to face him. She, still holding plates, heard the crackle of his leather jacket, the stirring of his body. She closed her eyes and thought of different things: good things and quiet things, things that smelled nice, things distant and peaceful.

When she opened her eyes he had gone; he was sitting down at the table. "Hey," he said, as his wife approached with the casserole, "she's getting nice little tits on her."

Rose Reynolds said nothing.

"She's growing up," he said, and pushed back his sleeves to eat.