Johnny’s love was the surface kind, never going deep enough to bruise. She had made her mind up, after Johnny, that never again would she let herself be hurt.
She liked men; she enjoyed their company. But she determined that never again would she allow herself to fall in love.
It was over a year since she had made that promise, and her heart was still safe inside the invincible, love-resistant shield she had built to protect it.
Sighing, Arleen glanced down at her notebook. One more call to make in the building. “Mrs. Mario Luigui. Eight months pregnant. Missed last two check-ups at clinic.”
The Luigui apartment was on the floor below. Thinking that it was easier walking downstairs than up, Arleen headed for the stairs.
CHAPTER 2
THE LUIGUI apartment was in startling contrast to the Ryan place, where at least an attempt was made to keep it neat, and the window plants had provided brightness and color.
Here there was appalling squalor. Arleen had difficulty repressing her dismay at the filth and ugliness of the three rooms into which were crowded, as a quick glance at her notebook told her, ten human beings.
Anna Luigui was half lying, half sitting on a cot against one wall. Her coarse red face looked puffy and bloated. Incredibly dirty feet stretched out from beneath an equally dirty skirt.
Arleen turned her attention to the thin, undersized boy who had let her into the apartment. His nose was running and there was a patch of scaly skin on one side of his face that looked like ringworm. But it was impossible to tell, under all the dirt.
She started to hand him a tissue from her purse, but the moment she bent toward him he pulled back wildly, dashed to the far side of the room, and huddled against a wall.
A young girl of perhaps fifteen or sixteen, in a sweater a good two sizes too small, and a skirt that hugged her slender body as if she had been poured into it, laughed. “Poor Pietro. He’s so used to getting banged he thought that was what you were going to do.”
Arleen turned her gaze on the girl. She was quite pretty, or would be if she would wash off some of the heavy make-up she wore.
She returned Arleen’s look with mockery.
Arleen shook her head. “I’m sorry your little brother got that impression. I only wanted him to let me look at that patch on his cheek.”
The woman on the cot laid down the comic book she’d been reading. She put a finger to the side of her head and tapped. “Pietro ain’t right in the head,” she said. “That’s what makes him act like that.”
The girl swirled around to glare at the woman. “Pietro isn’t any more crazy than you are!” She flung at her. “If you’d stop banging him around the head every time he comes near you, he wouldn’t be so scared of people!”
The woman glared back. “Two years you go to high school, and you think you’re so smart! You make me sick. And them bad boys you run around with. Don’t think I don’t know about them? You want to get put in jail, huh? Answer me that. Huh? Girls who think they’re so smart, that’s what happens to them. Ain’t that right?” She turned her attention to Arleen.
Arleen ignored the attempt to bring her into the argument. “I’m the visiting nurse, Mrs. Luigui. You are Mrs. Luigui?” The woman nodded sullenly. “You didn’t show up for your last two appointments at the clinic,” Arleen said, speaking slowly and firmly. “These check-ups are for your own protection, and for that of your unborn baby.”
The woman shrugged and spat out the words. “Eight kids. That’s enough. Huh, that’s enough? Them doctors at that clinic, they’re always saying, ‘Now, Mrs. Luigui, you got to be careful you don’t lose your baby. You got to be careful!’ ” Her laughter rasped. “And why I got to be so careful? Huh? One less kid and the others don’t have to shove over in bed to make room for another one. Huh, how do you like that?”
Arleen wet her lips as she stared at Mrs. Luigui. It wasn’t possible for a woman to feel that way. It wasn’t possible! The way she talked it sounded as if she didn’t care if something happened to her baby. No, it wasn’t even that. She talked as if she wanted something to happen to it!
Arleen felt a tug at her skirt. A small grimy hand was gripping a fold of the blue cloth. Wide, dark eyes in a small, dirty face gazed upward. “Pretty,” the child lisped. “Pretty lady.”
Arleen felt her heart jerk as she stared down at the child. Mrs. Luigui hadn’t meant what she’d said. She was a victim of prenatal blues. It happened in young wives afraid they appeared ugly in their husband’s eyes. And in women like Mrs. Luigui, who had quite a few children and were exhausted by the endless demands made upon them. Of course she had not meant what she’d said.
The child’s wide, wistful eyes touched Arleen’s heart. She wondered if she still had the candy bar she’d bought last night. She could not remember having eaten it.
She opened her purse, being very careful to make no sudden movement that would frighten this child, as she had frightened the little boy when she’d first come in.
He still leaned against the wall, solemnly watching her and the little girl, one grimy thumb stuck between his pale lips.
Arleen found the candy bar and handed it to the little girl clinging to her skirts. The child grabbed the candy, her small hand closing around it fiercely. She turned from Arleen, letting go of her skirt, and it was suddenly as if Arleen had set off an explosion.
The child clutching the candy bar was surrounded by screaming, clawing children who bit and kicked and grabbed to get the candy for their own.
Arleen was shocked into silence for a moment. Then she said to the woman on the bed and the girl lounging against the rickety table, “Make them stop! Don’t let them fight like that!”
The woman shrugged heavy shoulders. ‘Oh, don’t mind them; they always fight. They’ll stop after while.”
Arleen looked helplessly toward the girl. There was bitter mockery on the young lips as she stared back at Arleen. “What’s wrong? Haven’t you ever seen kids fight over something they want? How much candy do you think they get? Of course they’d fight over who was going to get it. You should have known that!”
Arleen said unhappily, “I didn’t realize. . .
The dark head cocked to one side. “No, I guess you wouldn’t. I guess you never had to fight over a piece of candy. I guess you had all the candy you wanted.” The dark eyes slid over Arleen in envious scorn. “All of everything!”
Guilt stabbed Arleen and she could no longer look at this bitter child. It was true. Her parents had provided her with all of the necessities and a lot of the luxuries. There’d always been enough money. She had never known what it was to be without money.
The guilt stabbed harder. “It’s not my fault,” she told herself. “I’m not to blame!” Nevertheless she felt the need to make amends because she’d never known what it was to have to fight over a bar of candy.
There was the five dollars in her purse she’d been saving to put down as a deposit on that green dress she so liked in Arden’s window. She didn’t need the dress, and five dollars would provide the Luigui children with a generous supply of treats.
Impulsively she got out the five-dollar bill and handed it to Anna Luigui. The woman’s head jerked up. She looked at Arleen with real interest for the first time since she had come into the apartment.
Arleen said, looking at the mother, but in reality speaking to the girl by the table, “Use it to buy some treat for the children.” With sudden firmness she added, “It will also give you bus fare to the clinic.”
Anna Luigui was turning the bill over and over