Working For A Living
Flicka von Hannover
I didn’t recognize him at all.
I should have.
The next morning, Flicka found a well-reviewed, licensed daycare that was accepting children for the second shift, though she gasped at the price.
“How can Americans afford this?” she demanded of Dieter.
Dieter raised his hands in defense. “I didn’t make the system.”
“In Europe,there are creches for children so their parents can work. There are income supplements and state support. This will cost more than our rent!”
Dieter said, “I can’t stay home with her. I can’t let you wander around out there alone. If you don’t stay with her while I go work, then we have to send her to daycare.”
“I didn’t mean that, butjeez.This is insane.”
It was, however, a cute little daycarewith mushrooms and ferns painted on the walls.
Flicka counted out nearly all her money from her tips the day before as a deposit for the week.
She blinked back tears.
She didn’t need to cry. She was on her way to work now, and she would get more tips. Smiling would probably help.
Alina walked right up to another baby and started babbling.
Flicka leaned toward Dieter. “She’s an extrovert.”
He nodded. “She is everyone’s best friend. I thought she loved me, but she loves everyone.”
“She loves you.”
He shook his head. “I’ve been away too much, and her mother left her with a sitter for hours every day, sometimes overnight. She doesn’t really know who I am.”
Over in the middle of the room, a little boy was playing with a car on the floor, and Alina was practically standing on her head,trying to make eye contact with him to get his attention.
“Dieter, you did what you needed to do. Wulfie needed you in Paris and Montreux so much. I don’t think either one of you realizes how much he depends on you. And Alina loves you. She curled up against you last night like a puppy.”
He shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Every parent must go through this. You can’t beat yourself up for it.”
“I suppose,”he said. “Come on. Let’s go. I think she’s fine.”
They took a car over to the Monaco Casino, and Dieter went in to play blackjack while Flicka changed into hercostumeand started her shift.
By the time she started making the rounds at the gaming tables, the afternoon gamblers were well on their way to losing their money. Someone had to pay the casino’s electric bills.
She slipped between thepeople—mostly men gambling away their life’s savings and their children’s daycare money—taking orders for drinks.
Dieter sat at the far end at a blackjack table, playing hands and scowling.
One college-age man ordered an appletini. When he ordered another one, she talked with him a second or two and suggested a lemon drop. He loved it and tipped her two blue poker chips.
Another man told herto surprise him, so she surveyed him to see what he might like. He was a white man and significantly older than she was, perhaps in his early sixties. His thinning gray hair looked like it might have some blond in it—though in the multi-colored, flashing lightbulbs that carpeted the ceiling, it was hard to tell—but his eyes were a pale shade of light blue. He was slim, so he probably didn’t eata lot of rich food, but he didn’t have the ripcord-tough body of a distance runner who burned off whatever they ate.
