Eliza Looks for Softy

Eliza didn't have a good way to contact Softy. She just had to wait and endure Alfred's foul breath and torrential wrath.

As she went to bed that night, with her head on her new pillow, she positioned her body as far as she could from Alfred. She turned her head toward the door and thought about how her life with Softy might be. They could be a real team since she had such a flair for selling and Softy knew his way around the country.

Eliza had no idea that Softy was married, and that he had abandoned his wife, Dusty. And she did not know that he was supposed to not only be dead but disintegrated as well.

As she laid on the pillow, she decided to run through a day with Softy, starting with how she'd wake up early one morning while Alfred was still asleep and get her packed lavender bag that was hidden behind the bushes on the side of her house and then she'd meet Softy down at the corner and they leave her little hick town behind in the fog.

They stop at roadside truckstops and eat apple pie and chocolate ice cream for breakfast, and work out the details for scoring a few pillow sales to get her through the day. Each day, except Sunday, she'd work hard with Softy. On Sunday she and Softy would sleep in until noon, and then after a leisurely lunch, would take a walk and look at store windows discussing what they'd buy with all their pillow money. Maybe some day they could buy a house and a swimming pool. Of course, she'd have to start doing something about the way she looked so that Softy would like to see her in a bathing suit.

After their daily strategy sessions, they'd separate and she'd focus on selling and he'd focus on leads for the following day. As well, it would be Softy's job to buy pillows from the pillow companies, which he'd be able to do because he knew them all and was able to get the pillows on consignment.

As she daydreamed on, only to be interrupted by Alfred's repeated nudges for sexual favors, she imagined how at the end of each day they'd have dinner at some expensive hotel, and she'd tell Softy about all the pillows she had sold, and also how she was going to clinch some sales tomorrow where she had left pillows today.

Each evening they would watch television in their hotel room and zone out from a hectic but fun day. As the late movie ended, they'd go to bed and hold each other tightly as they slept. It would be a much better life that her existence with Smelly Alfred, she thought.

Before long Eliza dropped off to sleep, only to be awakened periodically by Alfred's awful snoring. She'd repeatedly give him a sharp elbow in the ribs, and he'd shut up for a few minutes giving her a short and punctuated respice.