I liked Cassie right away because she had the aura of a flawed survivor. It looked as if someone had set a bowl on her son Tommy’s head and cut around the edges. His hand was firmly planted on a purple azalea on the back of his mother’s sarong and he was about the same age as my own son, Sean. It was the summer of the gas crisis of 1975 and it was my job to pick up customers at the airport so they wouldn’t cancel their reservations when they saw cheaper places to stay than at my mother’s motel.

“I coont wait to get here,” said Cassie, smiling so that I could see that her eye teeth needed to be filed. “I’ve never been out of Ohio before.” When she reached to grab her beat-up old luggage from the conveyor belt, the shiny, brown hair running from the crown of her head down her back separated, revealing nickel-sized boils. I asked her if they didn’t have tetracycline in Ohio.

“My aunt had boils and so did my grandmother,” Cassie answered, tossing that mane of hair, imperiously. “Boils are hereditary in my family.”

“Stress,” I muttered, leading the way through the terminal. “If a shrink can’t figure you out in fifteen minutes, he’s wasting your time.”

Cassie’s boyfriend had paid in advance for their room and booked them on the cheap midnight flight. Poor Tommy was having a hard time keeping his eyes open. I piled them into my Bugatti, one of those home-made jobs with a Volkswagen engine, unsafe at any speed over forty. It had a leather strap across the nose and an imitation teak interior made of contact paper. People judging me by the car thought I was filthy rich.

With the wind in my hair and barefoot, I could imagine myself some kind of free spirit, despite the fact my husband was having me followed by private detectives. Back then, divorces didn’t come easy. Infidelity had to be proven. Both of us were on our third lawyer, but I had my sights set on collecting his social security in my old age, even if it meant keeping my legs crossed until the time ran out. Meanwhile, let the worm squirm!

The Bugatti puttered across the causeway separating us from the mainland. In the day, the panorama of Tampa Bay would take your breath away, but at night, the water was smooth as obsidian, a lure for potential suicides. Something about me must invite confessions. I was concentrating on the road when Cassie whipped out a picture of her triple-chinned, beady-eyed boyfriend, a pasty-faced redhead twice her age.

“He’s rich,” she said, “with three little kids and a stable full of horses. We live in an eight-room mansion and he pays me a hundred and fifty dollars a week.”

“If you want to be a whore, as pretty as you are, you could make a hundred and fifty a night!”

Cassie didn’t seem insulted. “The kids are brats,” she conceded. “They all leave for school at different times. My boyfriend’s up at dawn and wants fresh Danish made from scratch. For dinner it’s gourmet. In my spare time I have to muck out the stalls.”

“I suppose he’s offered to marry you?”

“Not exactly, but he did give me a mink for Christmas.”

If I sounded a bit cynical, I spoke with authority and Cassie listened, patrician jaw outthrust. I’d been provident enough to have a child while still legally married, but Cassie had been disowned by her mother when she got pregnant. She had as little to do with her mother as she could and even less with the used-car salesman father who’d abandoned them. Her mother had flipped in and out of insane asylums, but Cassie finished high school, carrying Tommy, for as long as he hadn’t complained, into a darkroom to develop pictures. The housekeeper job was only the second one she’d ever held.

At the motel, Cassie stripped Tommy of his clothes and let him sleep in his underwear. She unpacked a hoard of perfume bottles and neatly folded T-shirts. The room wasn’t fancy, but it was clean. Despite the fact that we were across the street from the beach, we were one step from foreclosure because hardly anyone was driving to Florida. Vacancy signs flourished and small motels like ours were in a price war, offering everything from free barbecues to dirty movies. I went into my efficiency next to the office and got some alcohol to swab Cassie’s back.

When I was done, Cassie handed me a bottle of Frangipani cologne. “Just a little something I picked up for you at the airport. You’ve been so nice.”

My eager-to-please soul felt as spoiled and bloated as a dead fish. The more I tried to hide my anger and disappointment with life, the more it festered. In my dreams, I rode Harley Davidsons naked and robbed 7-11’s. If ever I got cancer there were certain people I was taking with me, from the mechanic who charged me twice for an air conditioner, to the judge who’d agreed with the guy I’d sued in small claims, about a disputed set of andirons. The hit list was long as my arm, but as long as I was under surveillance, I intended to be Mrs. Milquetoast and better than good.

The following morning, Tommy and Sean, were splashing in the pool, such fast friends that Cassie didn’t have the heart not to bring them both to Busch Gardens and Disney World, a few short hours away. Every night, Cassie would return, park the rental car, laden with presents, and spend the night talking to me. Everything I had was tied up in the motel. I couldn’t leave, even for an ice cream cone, or someone was bound to drive up and inquire about rates. Mom had had a fight with her partner over what color to paint the walls, so I sold my house and lent her the money to buy him out.

Sheets, sent out to some Mafia-connected laundry, were costing us twenty-two cents apiece and whether we used them or not, electric, trash and water bills had driven my mother to the edge. While it was her fondest hope that I would latch onto some sucker, Mom lay awake at night worrying about paternity suits. Craig, my younger brother, had a prediliction for escorting tourist daughters on lonely stretches of moonlit beaches. Instead of checks, our mailbox was always full of teenage lust letters from every state in the Union.

Mom was a Born-Again fanatic who let everyone sign Mr. And Mrs. as long as they didn’t ask for fresh sheets. Sometimes we had moaners. Mom would turn a deaf ear. She lived in a waterfront house, but never came around unless it was to collect the cash or sniff the air for marijuana. My penance for marrying someone she hadn’t approved of: 18 toilets and 18 baths, where I acquired an abstemious repugnance for pubic hairs. Humility was beyond my ken.

When Cassie’s vacation was over, we hugged and kissed as if we’d never see each other again. “Pack your bags and tell your millionaire what to do with his mink,” I said. My mind was already working on a better job for her, no boffing the boss, and without all that fresh Danish business at 4. A.M. One week with me, and Cassie built up some righteous indignation, wanting more out of life than a roof over her head and three squares a day.

Still, she was surprised when I called and told her about eight-year old Kurt, who lived across the street from us at the La Playa. His father was always on the road servicing slot machines. A succession of housekeepers had left the child emotionally stunted. My son, Sean, could read and write better than Kurt, who was four years older.

“He’ll pay you twice as much as you’re getting now, Cassie. And the best part is we’ll be within hollering distance. Anyone in their right mind would rather live on the beach side of Gulf Boulevard than a farm in the middle of nowhere.”

That wasn’t the whole story. The La Playa had cockroaches as big as your finger. The plumbing was bad and every drunk, every dope dealer, redneck or construction worker in town had a key because Kurt’s father didn’t like his friends driving drunk. The La Playa had a bar on the first floor. It also had a cigarette machine I would frequent every morning, holding my breath, stepping over vomit sometimes, feeling very superior from someplace else and most of them didn’t have the money to get back.

“Give me a minute to make up my mind,” said Cassie.

“Kurt is a darling child, blond, with blue eyes, grateful if you just throw him a cookie. All he needs is love.”

“Okay,” said Cassie, a few seconds later. “Isn’t that what we all need?”

Kurt rallied under the power of love that was Cassie. Within a few short months, there was talk among his teachers of double promoting him on probationary status. He quit eating paste and we bought a puppy named Toke and a baby chicken, named Sam, who followed me, cheeping, as I made beds and folded towels. I had never been happier.

But Cassie grew weary of never knowing who would show up in the morning on the living room couch, leery of dope deals in the bathroom when Kurt’s father was home. When someone stole the Thanksgiving turkey right out of the oven, Cassie and Tommy moved into my efficiency. The tiny refrigerator always needed defrosting. The drapes were sun-bleached and there wasn’t hardly space to turn around in. Though we worried about warping our kids for life, sleeping with them in single beds, it never crossed our minds to buy sleeping bags and let them sleep on the floor. My child support would only stretch so far and though Cassie did as much work as I did, Mom said she couldn’t afford to pay her.

Cassie swatted each of the boys with a hairbrush whenever they needed it. In a motel, there are a thousand places little fingers don’t belong, the petty cash, for example, and the slot to the pop machine. As the season came upon us, we kept the kids busy, picking cigarette butts out of the sand-filled ashtrays and delivering toilet paper to the residents.

Cassie couldn’t resist the best cuts of meat. I’d be at the check-out counter, talking about the weather, and Cassie, pretending she’d come along to carry the groceries, would plunk down a quarter for a Coke, and walk out as calm as you please, cold cuts under her arm pits, juggling that night’s roast between her thighs. Since she did most of the shopping, I didn’t get wise until I caught her in a drug store, palming crayons for the kids, who were deeply engrossed in the funny books.

“Real smart, Cassie. For two boxes of crayons, we could lose our kids.” Those private detectives were just waiting for a whiff of scandal. I could feel their telephoto lenses beaming in on my cleavage. My husband had enough money to pay for round- the- clock surveillance and I’d become paranoid enough to think that maybe Cassie had been sent just to set me up, ease her way into my life, then spill her guts.

“I can’t seem to help myself,” said Cassie, paling a bit behind her tan, slightly shame-faced. “I’m a kleptomaniac. Besides, it’s not fair for you to be carrying the whole load. I feel like such a mooch.”

The evil eye of the store’s security mirror caught my nervous glance as I clamped my fingers around her wrist, slipping the crayons with one easy motion onto the rack. It was hard for me to be angry with Cassie. I loved her, dammit. A person has to make allowances. She was the best thing that ever happened to me. Lowering my voice so the kids wouldn’t hear, I narrowed my eyes, and resorted to blatant extortion. “If I catch you again, I’ll break your fingers! Enough said?”

Some day the motel would sell and my mother would pay me back. This thought sustained me through what was a most impecunious time. Cassie hadn’t even bothered to chase her boyfriend for child support, and if we had to make do, wearing each other’s clothes, eating hamburg instead of steak, drinking water, instead of alcohol, it was a small price to pay. Cassie made being single fun.

Every night, no matter how tired we were, Cassie would look at me, and I would look at her, and we’d decide to go dancing. Someone at the motel always offered to look after the kids. Late at night, about an hour or two before last call, after everyone was blitzed, Cassie and I would arrive, fresh from the shower, dressed in our cumulative best. Strobe lights blinked on the Quarterdeck’s dance floor and lions and tigers roared fluorescently from the walls. But when the moon was full, we couldn’t stand to be indoors, so we went to Skip’s tiki bar on the beach, famous for its rock music and macho men wearing black-banded Panama hats.

More than once, I had to tear Cassie away from someone I thought wasn’t good enough. She had hips, which flared from a wasp-like waist, a ready smile and the carriage of a woman with a Dunn and Bradstreet. I always felt apologetic dickering about room prices, but Cassie could look a stranger in the eye and get twice as much as the law allowed even though the rates were posted behind every bathroom door. Mom was so proud of Cassie she began calling her an adopted daughter.

Things were swell until the day mom brought us to her health club. In the locker room, I found a wallet. Larceny bloomed in my heart like one of those desert flowers that only lasts a day. We left my mother in the steam room. Cassie had the Visa. The Master charge, clutched in my hot little hypocritical hand, was mine.

How pleased mother would be… “Get sheets, towels… lamps,” I remember saying, voice of reason amidst temporary insanity. Cassie, in her glory, was flush with a lust no sheets had ever seen. Her cheeks took on a sunset glow, her eyes, the look of a soldier going into battle. I was brave for all of two seconds after she left, limiting myself to a pair of real gold earrings, hemming and hawing at the cash register, breasts heaving through my tank top, distracting the salesman. Three very obvious peeks at the card before I could sign. The guy had to be stupid. What the hell was this lady’s name?

For what seemed like the longest hour of my life, I waited. As the sun disappeared, the cars in the parking lot began to disperse. I looked frantically up and down the mall for Cassie, surprising last-minute shoppers in dressing rooms and peeking under bathroom stalls. I must have gone back to the car five times. Finally, I moved the car to the parking lot of a Dairy Freeze, lurking under the palm trees, hoping against hope, that the good Lord would forgive us for what would amount in that arcane legalese world to grand larceny.

Escorted by security guards, Cassie was waving her arms in the gloom, telling some crazy story about a man who had put a gun to her head and threatened her son’s life if she didn’t do what he said. They took her away in cuffs. A property owner had to sign for bail. “Mom,” I said, in a phone call for which she would never forgive me. “Don’t ask any questions and bring your check book.”

Tight-lipped, my mother went with me to the bail bondsman’s, explaining that I hadn’t been quite right since my husband had left me for another woman, how the devil had possessed my soul. My mother and I had never gotten along well, but this was the first time I’d done anything to shame her. Even with all this evil gestating inside me, I’d been the perfect daughter… obedient, kind, generous.

“Whatever you do, honey, don’t go down there,” said the dour-faced bondsman, chomping on an unlit cigar. My eyes were fixed on his calendar, on this silicon bombshell, straddling a Harley. Oh God, was I having a nightmare or was this really happening? My mother signed the papers in perfect penmanship, with a steady hand.

Zombie-like, I followed my mother into the police station. Cassie was passing us in the hall. She handed me my wallet and her peat-black eyes flashed a message my mind was too numb to decipher. Behind the bullet-proof glass of the booking desk, Cassie was signing some papers. A policeman wearing a gold badge ushered me into a room with bright lights. I didn’t cry, but I groveled plenty.

“I know where the stuff is and I’ll bring it all back, I said. “Full restitution.” I folded my arms across my chest, to keep my body from quaking, willed my eyes to keep dry. Ingénue eyes of an innocent mother, caught up in the whole Florida experience. Everyone and their mother was up to something illegal, how was it that I had to be caught my very first try?

“And if you weren’t with her, how would you know? She didn’t even make a phone call.”

“We’re close. Like sisters. But that’s all I’ll tell you without an attorney.” My fingers toyed with the gold earrings and came away as if they were burnt. I had no idea why they didn’t arrest me.

“You’re pretty smart,” said the detective, tuning in to something I wasn’t aware of. “Are you a lawyer, or something?”

If I were so smart what was I doing there? A thief, of all things, with my one badge of honor, motherhood, hanging in the balance. A voice came out of my lips, almost as if I were under water. I hoped I didn’t sound impudent. “No, but I watch a lot of F.B.I.” On Sundays, when the show was on, my husband would give me the option of making love during the commercials or not at all. The humiliation flooded my thoughts so that I blurted: “The Miranda decision was first written on a roll of toilet paper.”

“Your friend,” said the policeman, non-plussed by this non-sequitur, “is free on bail, pending a pre-sentence investigation. If you want to help her, the department stores might be willing to settle for restitution. The rest, of course, will be up to the state.” The grilling was over. I drove my car into the bowels of the police station to be unloaded, too paralyzed by fear to remove the earrings.

That night, as Cassie and I talked, my hair turned white, imagining me and the kids on the lam in South America. Cassie’s foot had been injured in a scuffle with one of the security guards, who’d tackled her as she’d tried to escape. Her ankle, blown up to twice its size, was sitting gingerly on a pillow by the pool. “Never again,” said Cassie. “There was a pregnant woman in my cell for stealing a piece of cheese. Can you imagine? No one to pay her bail and she’d been there for six months. I’m so grateful to you for getting me out.”

“It was the least I could do.” I leaned my head back on the chaise lounge and looked up at the sky. The stars seemed so close and the moon so full. The air smelled sweetly of coconut oil and gardenia. How lucky I was to have met Cassie. There was no way I would ever settle for anything less in another relationship. Without knowing it, Cassie had given me more than I ever gave her. Nothing could stop me from thinking the worst. We were both going to jail. Tommy would go to the state, and my husband would get custody of Sean. Other than Cassie, there was no one I trusted to raise my son. Mom just wouldn’t do. She had a short temper, and although she kept the house well and was a whiz at business, nurturing wasn’t her strong suit.

The enormity of the crime I’d committed was just beginning to sink in as I remembered what had been in my wallet. “Tell me about the hash oil, Cassie.”

“The matron grabbed the vial out of the change purse and held it up to the light. I grabbed it out of her band. ‘Give me my expensive perfume,’ I said.”

Cassie was a quick-thinking girl. I would have fainted dead away. I was under so much stress that I was always on the verge of collapse, anyway. The doctor was giving me adrenal cortisone shots. Cassie pumped me full of fresh vegetables and iron, but the fear of losing custody was driving me crazy.

“We might as well forget about going to the Quarterdeck,” Cassie said. “We’d better enroll the boys in Sunday School.”

Cassie couldn’t do more than hobble about on a sprained ankle for a few weeks, and by then, she’d been assigned a probation officer who told her that no charges were going to be filled against me. I sold my Bugatti to pay for the lawyer. Cassie married a construction worker because she thought it would look good to the judge, but the case never went to court.

I redeemed my green stamps to buy a Mickey Mouse clock for her new apartment, one that Tommy, who was beginning to tell time, would enjoy. After a decent interval, my little boy and I paid a visit to Cassie.

“I can’t let you in,” said Cassie, opening the door a crack just wide enough to slip the clock through. “My husband thinks you’re a bad influence.”