Once during an evening of lotto down in the front parlor she
pushed back from the table suddenly, hand flashing up to her throat.
"Em!" said Mr. Jett, who was calling the numbers.
"It's nothing," she faltered, and then, regaining herself more fully,
"nothing," she repeated, the roundness out in her voice this time.
The women exchanged knowing glances.
"She's all right," said Mrs. Peopping, omnipotently. "Those things
pass."
Going upstairs that evening, alone in the hallway, they flung an arm
each across the other's shoulder, crowding playfully up the narrow
flight.
"Emmy," he said, "poor Em, everything will be all right."
She restrained an impulse to cry. "Poor nothing," she said.
But neither the next evening, which was Friday, nor for Fridays
thereafter, would she venture down for fish dinner, dining cozily up
in her room off milk toast and a fluffy meringue dessert prepared
especially by Mrs. Plush. It was floating-island night downstairs.
Henry puzzled a bit over the Fridays.
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