Jane Gallagher 2

Sitting in the lobby I suddenly found that my thoughts wondered to Old Jane Gallagher again. I started to think about how I first met her. Her family lived next door to me, and they had this dog that always used to come over and relieve itself on our lawn and my Mom got all irritated about it. She called-up Old Jane's Mom and made a very big stink about the whole damn thing. A couple of days later I saw Old Jane in the swimming pool at the club and said 'Hi' to her, after that Jane and I got to be friends. She killed me did Old Jane, she really did. She was the only one that I ever showed Allie's baseball mitt to. I remember one afternoon when Jane and I nearly got to necking. We were playing checkers at her house and she was keeping all her kings in the back, as usual. All of a sudden this booze hound that her Mother lived with came out and he asked Jane if there were any cigarettes in the house. She didn't answer, she just kept on looking at the checkers board. So he asked her again. Jane made out she was concentrating on her next move and all. Finally he went into the house and this big tear rolled down Jane's cheek and onto the checkers board. She just rubbed it into the board and carried on playing.

At that moment I went over and sat next to her. Then she really started to cry. The next thing I knew I was kissing her. All over. Her, nose, her forehead, her cheeks even her ears. But not her lips though. She kinda wouldn't let me get to that. Anyway, that the furthest we got to necking.

Anyway, that's what I was thinking about when I was sitting in that vomit-coloured chair in the lobby. Old Jane. There was hardly anyone there anymore.