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Evie’s suess"

"But--"

"Oh, look! Here co off any further inquiry She hugged therateful for this last kindness "Next time you see me, I’ll be famous! And I’ll drive you all over Zenith in my chauffeured sedan"

"Next tienious cririnned "Just as long as they know my name"

A blue-uniformed porter hurried people aboard Evie settled into her coreen silk-satin Mary Janes to open the

"Help you with that, Miss?" another porter, a younger h lashes she had tinted with cakeand offered him the full power of her Coty-red smile "Oh, would you, honey? That’d be swell"

"You heading to New York, Miss?"

"M Beauty contest, and now I’raphed for Vanity Fair"

"Isn’t that so?"

"Isn’t it, just?" Evie fluttered her eyelashes "The ?"

The young man released the latches and slid the n easily "There you are!"

"Why, thank you," Evie purred She was on her way In New York, she could be anyone she chose to be It was a big city--just the place for big drealed her head out the trainand waved to Louise and Dottie Her bobbed curls blew about her face as the sleepy town slowly moved behind her For a second, she wished she could run back to the safety of her parents’ house But that was like the fog of her dreams It was a dead house--had been for years No She wouldn’t be sad She would be grand and glittering A real star A bright light of New York "See you soon-ski!" she yelled

"You bet-ski!"

Her friends were shrinking to small dots of color in the smoke-hazed distance Evie blew kisses and tried not to cry She waved slowly to the passing rooftops of Zenith, Ohio, where people liked to feel safe and snug and s, where they handled objects every day in the limpses into other people’s secrets that should not be known or had terrible nightmares of dead brothers She envied theonna stay up there the whole ride, Miss?" the porter asked

"Just wanna say a proper good-bye," Evie answered She turned her hand in a last benediction, waving to the houses like a queen "So long, suckers! You’re all wet!"

MEMPHIS CAMPBELL, HARLEM, NEW YORK CITY

It was ed to the numbers runners From 130th Street north to 160th Street, from Amsterdam Avenue on the West Side clear over to Park Avenue on the east, scores of runners staked out their turf, ready to write out slips for their customers and race those hopeful nu froar stores and barbershops, speakeasies and brownstone basehouse down on Wall Street published the daily financial number, and so or, more likely, struck out It rarely worked out in Harleae

Memphis Campbell, seventeen, perched beneath the street lamp in his spot on the corner of Lenox Avenue and 135th Street, near the subway entrance, catching his customers as they headed off to work He kept an eye out for cops as he wrote out slip after slip: "Yes, Miss Jackson, fifteen cents on the washerwo" "Forty-four, eleven, twenty-two Got it" "A dollar on the death gig, though I’m sorry to hear that your aunt’s cousin passed" "Well, if you saw it in a dream, you’d be a fool not to play that number, sir"

The nu to be discovered and turned into riches, luck pulled fros, funerals, births, boxing matches, horse races, trains, professions, fraternal orders, and dreams Especially drea about his dreams Not lately

When the work rush cleared, he took orders in apart the slips into a leather pouch he kept in his sock in case he got shaken down He stopped in at the DeLuxe Beauty Shop, which was doing a brisk business in hair and gossip