Fancy Pants

by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

  Ironically, she was defeated by Equal Opportunity. In the early seventies when employers were forced to hire women, they bypassed battle-scarred veterans like Clare, with their sharp tongues and cynical outlooks, for newer, fresher faces straight off college campuses—pretty, malleable sorority girls with degrees in communication arts. Women like Clare had to take what was left—jobs for which they were overqualified, like running backwater radio stations. As a result, they smoked too much, grew increasingly bitter, and made life miserable for any females they suspected of trying to get by on nothing more than a pretty face.

  “I just got a call from that fool at the Sulphur City bank,” Clare snapped at Francesca. “He wants the Christmas promotions today instead of tomorrow.” She pointed toward a box of bell-shaped tree ornaments printed with the name of the radio station on one side and the name of the bank on the other. “Get over there right away with them, and don't take all day like you did last time.”

  Francesca refrained from pointing out that she wouldn't have taken so long last time if four staff members hadn't dumped additional errands on her—everything from delivering overdue bills for air time to having a new water pump put in the station's battered Dodge Dart. She pulled on the red and black plaid car coat she'd bought at a Goodwill store for five dollars and then grabbed the key to the Dart from a cup hook next to the studio window. Inside, Tony March, the afternoon deejay, was cuing up a record. Although he hadn't been with KDSC very long, everyone knew he would be quitting soon. He had a good voice and a distinct personality. For announcers like Tony, KDSC, with its unimpressive 500-watt signal, was merely a stepping stone to better things. Francesca had already discovered that the only people who stayed at KDSC for very long were people like her who didn't have any other choice.

  The car started after only three attempts, which was nearly a record. She backed around and headed out of the parking lot. A glance at the rearview mirror showed pale skin, dull hair snared at the back of her neck with a rubber band, and a red-rimmed nose from the latest in a series of head colds. Her car coat was too big for her, and she had neither the money nor the energy to improve her appearance. At least she didn't have to fend off many advances from the male staff members.

  There had been few successes for her these past six weeks, but many disasters. One of the worst had occurred the day before Thanksgiving when Clare had discovered she was sleeping on the station couch and screamed at her in front of everyone until Francesca's cheeks burned with humiliation. Now she and Beast lived in a bedroom-kitchen combination over a garage in Sulphur City. It was drafty and badly furnished with discarded furniture and a lumpy twin bed, but the rent was cheap and she could pay it by the week, so she tried to feel grateful for every ugly inch of it. She had also gained the use of the station's Dodge Dart, although Clare made her pay for gas even when someone else took the car. It was an exhausting, hand-to-mouth existence, with no room for financial emergencies, no room for personal emergencies, and no—absolutely no—room for an unwanted pregnancy.

  Her fists tightened on the steering wheel. By doing without almost everything, she had managed to save the one hundred and fifty dollars the San Antonio abortion clinic would charge her to get rid of Dallie Beaudine's baby. She refused to let herself think of the ramifications of her decision; she was simply too poor and too desperate to consider the morality of the act. After her appointment on Saturday, she would have averted one more disaster. That was all the introspection she allowed herself.

  She finished running her errands in little more than an hour and returned to the station, only to have Clare yell at her for having gone off without washing her office windows first.

  The following Saturday she got up at dawn and made the two-hour drive to San Antonio. The waiting room of the abortion clinic was sparsely furnished but clean. She sat down on a molded plastic chair, her hands clutching her black canvas shoulder bag, her legs pressed tightly together as if they were unconsciously trying to protect the small piece of protoplasm that would soon be taken from her body. The room held three other women. Two were Mexican and one was a worn-out blonde with an acned face and hopeless eyes. All of them were poor.

  A middle-aged, Spanish-looking woman in a neat white blouse and dark skirt appeared at the door and called her name. “Francesca, I'm Mrs. Garcia,” she said in lightly accented English. “Would you come with me, please?”

  Francesca numbly followed her into a small office paneled in fake mahogany. Mrs. Garcia took a seat behind her desk and invited Francesca to sit in another molded plastic chair, differing only in color from the one in the waiting room.

  The woman was friendly and efficient as she went over the forms for Francesca to sign. Then she explained the procedure that would take place in one of the surgical rooms down the hall. Francesca bit down on the inside of her lip and tried not to listen too closely. Mrs. Garcia spoke slowly and calmly, always using the word “tissue,” never “fetus.” Francesca felt a detached sense of gratitude. Ever since she had realized she was pregnant, she had refused to personify the unwelcome visitor lodged in her womb. She refused to connect it in her mind to that night in a Louisiana swamp. Her life had been pared down to the bone—to the marrow —and there was no room for sentiment, no room to build falsely romantic pictures of chubby pink cheeks and soft curly hair, no need ever to use the word “baby,” not even in her thoughts. Mrs. Garcia began to speak of “vacuum aspiration,” and Francesca thought of the old Hoover she pushed around the radio station carpet every evening.

  “Do you have any questions?”

  She shook her head. The faces of the three sad women in the waiting room seemed implanted in her mind—women with no future, no hope. Mrs. Garcia slid a booklet across the metal desktop. “This pamphlet contains information on birth control that you should read before you have intercourse again.”

  Again? The memory of Dallie's deep, hot kisses rushed back to her, but the intimate caresses that had once set her senses aflame now seemed to have happened to someone else. She couldn't imagine ever feeling that good again.

  “I can't have this—this tissue,” Francesca said abruptly, interrupting the woman in midsentence as she showed her a diagram of the female reproductive organs.

  Mrs. Garcia stopped what she was saying and inclined her head to listen, obviously accustomed to hearing the most private revelations pass across her desk.

  Francesca knew she had no need to justify her actions, but she couldn't seem to stop the flow of words. “Don't you see that it's impossible?” Her fists clenched into knots in her lap. “I'm not a horrible person. I'm not unfeeling. But I can barely take care of myself and a walleyed cat.”

  The woman gazed at her sympathetically. “Of course you're not unfeeling, Francesca. It's your body, and only you can decide what's best.”

  “I've made up my mind,” she replied, her tone as angry as if the woman had argued with her. “I don't have a husband or money. I'm barely hanging on to a job working for a boss who hates me. I don't even have any way to pay my medical bills.”

  “I understand. It's difficult—”

  “You don't understand!” Francesca leaned forward, her eyes dry and furious, each word coming out like a hard, crisp pellet. “All my life I've lived off other people, but I'm not going to do that anymore. I'm going to make something of myself!”

  “I think your ambition is admirable. You're obviously a competent young—”

  Again Francesca pushed aside her sympathy, trying to explain to Mrs. Garcia—trying to explain to herself—what had brought her to this red brick abortion clinic in the poorest part of San Antonio. The room was warm, but she hugged herself as if she felt a chill. “Have you ever seen those pictures people put together on black velvet with little nails and different colored strings—pictures of bridges and butterflies, things like that?” Mrs. Garcia nodded. Francesca gazed at the fake mahogany paneling without seeing it. “I have one of those awful pictures fastened to the wall, right above my bed, this terr
ible pink and orange string picture of a guitar.”

  “I don't quite see—”

  “How can someone bring a baby into the world when she lives in a place with a string picture of a guitar on the wall? What kind of mother would deliberately expose a helpless little baby to something so ugly?” Baby. She'd said the word. Twice she'd said it. A painful press of tears pricked at the backs of her eyelids but she refused to shed them. In the past year, she'd cried enough spoiled, self-indulgent tears to last a lifetime, and she wasn't going to cry any more.

  “You know, Francesca, an abortion doesn't have to be the end of the world. In the future, the circumstances may be different for you... the time more convenient.”

  Her final word seemed to hang in the air. Francesca slumped back in the chair, all the anger drained out of her. Was that what a human life came down to, she wondered, a matter of convenience? It was inconvenient for her to have a baby right now, so she would simply do away with it? She looked up at Mrs. Garcia. “My friends in London used to schedule their abortions so they wouldn't miss any balls or parties.”

  For the first time Mrs. Garcia visibly bristled. “The women who come here aren't worried about missing a party, Francesca. They're fifteen-year-olds with their whole lives in front of them, or married women who already have too many children and absent husbands. They're women without jobs and without any hope of getting work.”

  But she wasn't like them, Francesca told herself. She wasn't helpless and broken anymore. These past few months she had proven that. She'd scrubbed toilets, endured abuse, fed and sheltered herself on next to nothing. Most people would have crumbled, but she hadn't. She had survived.

  It was a new, tantalizing view of herself. She sat straighter in the chair, her fists gradually easing open in her lap. Mrs. Garcia spoke hesitantly. “Your life seems rather precarious at the moment.”

  Francesca thought of Clare, of the ugly rooms above the garage, of the string guitar, of her inability to call Dallie for help, even when she desperately needed it. “It is precarious,” she agreed. Leaning over, she picked up her canvas shoulder bag. Then she rose from her chair. The impulsive, optimistic part of her that she thought had died months before seemed to have taken over her feet, seemed to be forcing her to do something that could only lead to disaster, something illogical, foolish....

  Something wonderful.

  “May I have my money back, please, Mrs. Garcia? Take out whatever you need to cover your time today.”

  Mrs. Garcia looked worried. “Are you sure about your decision, Francesca? You're already ten weeks pregnant. You don't have much more time to undergo a safe abortion. Are you absolutely sure?”

  Francesca had never been less sure of anything in her life, but she nodded.

  She broke into a little run as she left the abortion clinic, and then a skip to cover the last few feet to the Dart. Her mouth curved in a smile. Of all the stupid things she had ever done in her life, this was the stupidest. Her smile grew wider. Dallie had been absolutely right about her—she didn't have a single ounce of common sense. She was poorer than a church mouse, badly educated, and living every minute on the cutting edge of disaster. But right now, at this very moment, none of that mattered, because some things in life were more important than common sense.

  Francesca Serritella Day had lost most of her dignity and all of her pride. She wasn't going to lose her baby.

  Chapter

  20

  Francesca discovered something rather wonderful about herself in the next few months. With her back pressed to the wall, a gun pointed to her forehead, a time bomb ticking in her womb, she learned that she was quite intelligent. She grasped new ideas easily, retained what she learned, and having had so few academic prejudices imposed upon her by teachers, never let preconceived notions limit her thinking. With her first months of pregnancy behind her, she also discovered a seemingly endless capacity for hard work, which she began taking advantage of by laboring far into the night, reading newspapers and broadcasting magazines, listening to tapes, and getting ready to take a small step up in the world.

  “Do you have a minute, Clare?” she asked, sticking her head into the record library, a small tape cassette pressed into the damp palm of her hand. Clare was leafing through one of the Billboard reference books and didn't bother to look up.

  The record library was actually nothing more than a large closet with albums lining the shelves, strips of colored tape affixed to their spines to indicate whether they fell into the category of male vocalists, female vocalists, or groups. Francesca had intentionally chosen the location because it was neutral territory, and she didn't want to give Clare the added advantage of being able to sit like God behind her desk while she decided the fate of the supplicant in the budget seat opposite her.

  “I have all day,” Clare replied sarcastically, as she continued to flip through the book. “As a matter of fact, I've been sitting in here for hours just twiddling my thumbs and waiting for someone to interrupt me.”

  It wasn't the most auspicious beginning, but Francesca ignored Clare's sarcasm and positioned herself in the center of the doorway. She was wearing the newest item in her wardrobe: a man's gray sweat shirt that hung in baggy folds past her hips. Out of sight beneath it, her jeans were unfastened and unzipped, held together with a piece of cord crudely sewn across the placket. Francesca looked Clare squarely in the eyes. “I'd like a shot at Tony's announcing job when he leaves.”

  Clare's eyebrows rose halfway up her forehead. “You are kidding.”

  “Actually, I'm not.” Francesca lifted her chin and went on as if she had all the confidence in the world. “I've spent a lot of time practicing, and Jerry helped me make an audition tape.” She held out the cartridge. “I think I can do the job.”

  A cruel, amused smile curled at the corners of Clare's mouth. “An interesting ambition, considering the fact that you have a noticeable British accent and you've never been in front of a microphone in your life. Of course, the little cheerleader who replaced me in Chicago hadn't ever been on the air either, and she sounded like Betty Boop, so maybe I should watch out.”

  Francesca kept a tight rein on her temper. “I'd like a chance anyway. My British accent will give me a different sound from everyone else.”

  “You clean toilets,” Clare scoffed, lighting a cigarette. “That's the job you were hired for.”

  Francesca refused to flinch. “And I've been good at it, haven't I? Cleaning toilets and doing every other bloody job you've thrown at me. Now give me a shot at this one.”

  “Forget it.”

  Francesca couldn't play it safe any longer. She had her baby to think about, her future. “You know, I'm actually starting to sympathize with you, Clare.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “You've heard the old proverb about not understanding another person until you've walked a mile in his shoes. I understand you, Clare. I know exactly what it's like to be discriminated against because of who you are, no matter how hard you work. I know what it's like to be denied a shot at a job—not from a lack of ability, but because of the personal prejudice of your employer.”

  “Prejudice!” A cloud of smoke emerged like dragon fire from Clare's mouth. “I've never been prejudiced in my life. I've been a victim of prejudice.”

  This was no time for retreat, and Francesca pressed harder. “You won't even take fifteen minutes to listen to an audition tape. I'd call that prejudice, wouldn't you?”

  Clare's jaw snapped into a rigid line. “All right, Francesca, I'll give you your fifteen minutes.” She snatched the cassette from her hand. “But don't hold your breath.”

  For the rest of the day, Francesca's insides felt like a quivering mass of aspic. She had to get this job. Not only did she desperately need the money but she absolutely had to succeed at something. Radio was a medium that functioned without pictures, a medium in which sage green eyes and a perfect profile held no significance. Radio was her testing ground, her chance to p
rove to herself that she would never again have to depend on her looks to get by.

  At one-thirty, Clare stuck her head through the door of her office and beckoned to Francesca, who set down the fliers she'd been stacking in a carton and tried to walk into the office confidently. She couldn't quite pull it off.

  “The tape isn't terrible,” Clare said, settling into her chair, “but it's not much good either.” She pushed the cartridge across the desktop.

  Francesca stared down at it, trying to hide the crushing disappointment she felt.

  “Your voice is too breathy,” Clare went on, her tone brisk and impersonal. “You talk much too fast and you emphasize the strangest words. Your British accent is the only thing you have going for you. Otherwise, you sound like a bad imitation of every mediocre male disc jockey we've had at this station.”

  Francesca strained to hear some trace of personal animosity in her voice, some sense that Clare was being vindictive. But all she heard was the dispassionate assessment of a seasoned professional. “Let me do another tape,” she pleaded. “Let me try again.”

  The chair squeaked as Clare leaned back. “I don't want to hear another tape; it won't be any different. AM radio is about people. If listeners want music, they tune into an FM station. AM radio has to be personality radio, even at a rat-shit station like this. If you want to make it in AM, you have to remember you're talking to people, not to a microphone. Otherwise you're just another Twinkle.”

  Francesca snatched up the tape and turned toward the door, the threads of her self-control nearly unraveling. How had she ever imagined she could break into radio without any training? One more delusion. One more sand castle she had built too near the water's edge.

  “The best I can do is use you as a relief announcer on weekends if somebody can't make it.”