During the slow spells, Mr. Becker and I watched the Watergate hearings
on a little black-and-white TV. Mr. Becker was captivated by John
Dean's wife, Maureen, who sat behind her husband when he was
testifying and wore elegant clothes and pulled her blond hair back in a
tight bun. "Hot damn, that's one classy broad," Mr. Becker would say.
Sometimes, after watching Maureen Dean, Mr. Becker got so randy that
he came behind me while I was cleaning the display case and rubbed up
against my backside. I'd pull his hands off and walk away without saying
a word, and that horndog would return to the television as if nothing had
happened.
When Mr. Becker went across the street to the Mountaineer Diner for
lunch, he always took the key to the display case that held the diamond
rings. If customers came in wanting to look at the rings, I had to run
across the street to get him. Once he forgot to take the key, and when he
returned, he made a big point of counting the rings in front of me. It was
his way of letting me know he didn't trust me in the slightest. One day
after Mr. Becker had come back from lunch and ostentatiously checked
the display cases, I was so furious that I looked around to see if there
was anything in the entire darn store worth stealing. Necklaces,
brooches, banjos—none of them did anything for me. And then the watch
display caught my eye.
I had always wanted a watch. Unlike diamonds, watches were practical.
They were for people on the run, people with appointments to keep and
schedules to meet. That was the kind of person I wanted to be. Dozens of
watches ticked away in the counter behind the cash register. There was
one in particular that made me ache. It had four different-colored bands
—black, brown, blue, and white—so you could change your watchband
to match your outfit. It had a price tag of $29.95, ten dollars short of a
week's salary. But if I wanted, it could be mine in an instant, and for
free. The more I thought about that watch, the more it called to me.
One day the woman who worked at the store Mr. Becker owned in War