They thought she was a beautiful, skinny idiot who cleaned houses and flubbed some of her words in English—bark for buck, When-es-day for Wednesday, minds instead of mine. She didn’t admire Ralph’s friends any longer for owning businesses or having office jobs in downtown Brooklyn or Manhattan. The bottles of wine they brought over didn’t impress her anymore, or the new records they had purchased at Ralph’s store. Mirella knew now this was the extent of their lives—stopping into each other’s brownstones to drink and play music and talk indifferently about the neighborhood, as if it were some
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