Waltz of Her Life

The name sounded familiar. Then Linda remembered she had considered getting a portable computer, a laptop, something called a Powerbook. They sold them at the Apple computer store. From what she remembered, they were quite expensive. "Is that made by Apple?"

"Yes."

Linda nodded. "Those cost more than a thousand dollars."

"Well, duh. I already know that."

Hayley's tendency to lapse into "valley girl" patterns was a little irritating. "Watch your mouth! Now, my other concern about you getting a computer is that your grades will suffer."

Hayley looked back at her as if she'd just told her the sun was square. "No they wouldn't. I'd be able to study better. I could use it to type assignments."

"Yes, and for that you'd need a printer. Another two hundred dollars. Chi-ching!"

"But mom…"

Linda really wanted the conversation to be over. "Look, here's my deal. You can try to get babysitting jobs after you turn thirteen. In the meantime you can help Inge with her cooking and house cleaning and we'll work something out. When you've earned half the money for a computer, I'll kick in with the other half."

Hayley broke into her smile, which showed her two rows of perfect, white teeth, for which Linda was exceedingly grateful. "Thanks, mom!" She rushed forward to hug her. They also shook hands on the deal.

"Now I have one condition," Linda said. "If your grades suffer, the deal's off. Do we understand each other?

Hayley's eyes rolled around in their sockets. "Yes, mom."

With her daughter satisfied, for now, Linda could turn her attention back to work at her part time job. She put her headphones and logged into the company's home screen. For the next several hours, she took calls about kids with runny noses and coughs, a man in his 30's with hemorrhoids that bled and concerned him, and a woman in her twenties who was suffering head pain that she called a "migraine." She kept a Mah Jong game opened in one window, which she played during the lulls between phone calls.

Talking to one person after another on the telephone and playing her game made the time pass very quickly. The next time she looked up at the clock, she saw that she had been on the system for well over four hours. The company she worked for liked to limit shifts to four hours, since this guaranteed they would always have "fresh" voices answering all the phone calls.