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The Occupations of Muriel Thompson
Journalism The regional weekly pays ten cents a line for a report on the goings-on in this town. Required: telephone; envelopes; stamps; temerity. Muriel calls up folks with whom she has little in common, people she might envy or disdain or both, and exchanges pleasantries in the course of her efforts to gather enough goings-on to manage twenty lines or forty, to make a buck or two. She writes: Ben and Juliette Thomas enjoyed a visit this weekend from their son Matt and his wife Sheilah. The Home and School reports that the June craft sale earned $34.75, which will go toward the purchase of chemistry equipment for the senior classes. The William Blacks motored to Winnipeg last week to visit their newest grandson, William. She doesn’t write: Jack Miller is a royal ass, but his wife is a decent human being. Lance Ditchburn has had too much power for too many years on the local school board. In a show of aggregate stupidity, this town has re-elected Blaine Coachman to another term on council. If she were to write the sentences that remain unwritten, she could make more money. Clickety-qwert. Student In the city there is a secretarial school that will admit students who lack a high school credential. Required: tuition; fortitude; the generosity of relatives. For two months one summer, Muriel leaves her household in the care of her eldest daughter and bunks in her brother’s spare bedroom in the city. She stays late at the school, which occupies a second floor in south downtown, to practise on the Dictaphone machines. She waits on 20th Street, after dark, for the bus home. She slots the sharp ends of her keys so they jut between the fingers of her fisted right hand. Across the street a car slows; a man rolls down his window, says, Are you working? She knows damn well what this means. I am a student, she says. She is so much better than this. He repeats, Are you working? She looks along the block, but the bus doesn’t appear and doesn’t appear. Inside her coat pocket she hardens her grip on the keys. The man revs his motor and shouts that she’s a proud slut, isn’t she? But he drives away. Years later she’ll recount the incident to her daughters as if it makes a fine joke. She’ll tell only the first part, where the man rolls down his window and asks is she working. She’ll raise her eyebrows so the girls will know they’re to be amused. Then the bus came, she’ll say in this version of the story. |
