Gotta be able to tip the scales at 110 and besides you’re probably not old enough.”
“No one can stop me from getting old but I’ll never hit 110!”
“Maybe you should be a jockey instead of a Liza. There are quite a few women riding nowadays. You’d have us on easy street.”
“Ever wish Dawn the worthless hadn’t deserted when you were framed?”
“Once in a deep purple moon I think, maybe.”
“Will you ever have a tie-wearing job again?”
“Never can tell, never can tell.”
Pam turned up the radio, a loudmouth political talk host was blathering. “The bitch should date him. They both have all the stupid answers.”
The Clover’s Uniform Shop was located over a jewelry store. Pam charmed the staff into fussing over fitting her cap. Hooper chatted with a tall redhead named Georgia under a skylight where exotic planters hung.
“I want to be a Navy nurse,” Pam explained when she was allowed to ring up the sale. She lifted the change tray. “God, hundred dollar bills,” she exclaimed. “May I touch one?”
“Sure,” said Alice, the owner. “And you take your money back. It just warms my heart that you want to serve our country some day. My grandaunt was a nurse at Pearl Harbor.”
“Is she still alive?” asked Pam.
“No, God rest her soul. The missed her in ’41 but a drunken Honda got her last year.”
Pam fell to her knees and mumbled prayers. Her head was between shelving under the counter. Hooper glanced at her and started to roll his eyes but instead finished writing Georgia’s phone number on his wrist.
Leaving was like trying to go off to war with a house full of tipsy relatives. Pam egged her fans on.
“Pam, we’re going to be late for the blood bank,” warned Hooper.
“Bless you Mr. Hooper,” said Alice, swooshing them out the door.
“Damnation, daughter, you’d think you were at Disney World.”
“I got you plenty of flirting time. I went through the purses under the counter while I was praying. There was a big pack of Trojans in hers.”
“How do you know it was hers?”
“Bag matched her hooker shoes, hope she doesn’t find out you’re an ex-con.”
“Take it easy, Pam. How’d you like to test drive this machine?”
“Don’t have to bribe me, Dad, date the slut if you want. It’s none of my damned business.”
Hooper pulled over, let Pam drive exactly five miles. She sat on his rolled up blazer and the Riviera owner’s manual.
On the way to the blood bank, Pam had her nose in The Sterile Cuckoo, a novel Hooper thought was too advanced for her but Liza had starred in the film. The video tape of it would be one of her thirteenth birthday gifts. Hooper sang “Yellow Submarine” a song she loved. He thought she might still be upset about Georgia.
“Dad, may I drive one more time, by my friend Cindy’s house after you donate?”
“That’s a sure as sure thing, kiddo.”
The blood bank shared a building with an artificial flower company. They parked in a sheltered garage near trucks that were decorated with sunflowers. A man in a baseball hat embroidered with a drop of blood logo, held the door for them. Pam noticed a gun holstered on his wide belt. The hallway was lined with framed photos of flowers. Pam stopped to admire tall red hollyhocks. They made a sharp right and entered a door where a nurse sat at a desk. Hooper was directed to a row of chairs in the next room to wait for his interview. Pam went to the restroom. She heard a booming voice as she returned.
“Thanks Hooper,” said a man leaving a cubical with his sleeves rolled up. Pam thought he had the voice of a grizzly but the bulk of a koala.
“Russ Tate, this is my daughter Pam.”
“Hey, you look like…”
“Liza Minnelli,” snapped Pam. “She’s my mother.”
Russ’s puzzled head bounced between them like he was watching Olympic ping-pong.
“You mean he…” stammered Russ to Pam, thumb aimed at Hooper.
“Love at first sight,” explained Pam.
“You don’t say?”
“I’d say it several times if you like,” said Pam.
Russ waited for some kind of yea or nay from Hooper but nothing came. “Arky is in there now. Remember how he talked against George and his illness. Don’t know what happened. I think he must have buckled when he heard you were donating. I believe you are his hero, thinks you are Superman.”
“Maybe all the ornery will drain,” said Hooper, “like the Middle Ages when leeches sucked out a man’s bad humors.”
“Pretty heavy stuff,” said Pam.
Pam talked the nurse into accompanying her father. She sat in on the interview. Pam giggled at the questions about sex. She helped with his blood pressure. Her eyes were six inches from the needle as it entered his arm. Sitting on the floor, she watched the bag fill, told the nurse the blood going through the tube reminder of red licorice strings. She hummed, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”
Hooper dozed, snored. Pam kissed his forehead. She walked him to the canteen like he was wounded. Nurses autographed her cap. Hooper drank eight cans of Ocean Spray cranberry juice.
“Dad,” whispered Pam, “how’s the Daddy Luck? Need some wagering help? I got $50 from your henna friend’s purse while praising the Lord. I have $35 left from paying the cheesecake check.”
“You’re a piece of work! I’m thinking about going cold turkey.”
“Did you leave the habit in the blood bag?”
“I wouldn’t mind.”
“What about our exercises, quitting them too? You think we couldn’t do that skylight? I know you didn’t find a way from the Clover down into the jewelry store, too busy with sweet Georgia red rubbish. But you’re not giving up our practice are you?”
“There’s no skylight that’s not easy as pie crust,” assured Hooper.
Lips trembling Pam said, “We’ll just break & enter, forget about taking anything. We won’t need to with you quitting the ponies. We’ll just prep for our circus act.”
“Okay with me,” said Hooper, concern in his eyes. “Is that the one where I catch you when you fly out of the cannon?”
“Precisely, so, do you want the dough?”
“Hold on to it, use it on bananas so you can make 110 to donate.”
“Next time I’ll put lead fishing sinkers in my pockets,” she said, laughing. “Let’s shake paws on the new you,” she added. Hooper complied. In a flash, she reached into her pocket, pulled out a soaped paper towel, flipped his hand and wiped away Georgia’s phone number!
“Back to the drawing board,” said Hooper, smiling.
They left holding hands.”
Pam was showing Hooper a handful of gold blood drop pins signifying gallons donated that she’d lifted. Russ and Arky interrupted the pinning of a twenty pin on her father’s lapel.
“Let’s go to the track for the 9th,” shouted Arky. They backed off when Pam slid behind the Riviera wheel and turned the key.
“His mustache is lush enough fro two bank job disguises,” said Pam, driving away and leaving enough rubber for the Russ and Arky jaws to bounce on.
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