Amy and Isabelle

It seemed her need to talk was as persistent as her need to consume Life Savers and cigarettes, and Amy, who loved Fat Bev, was sorry her own reticence must provide a disappointment. But the telephone, tucked neatly into the corner of the counter, began to ring, and both Isabelle and Amy felt a quickening of alarm. It was not the girl’s unpleasantness, or even the fact that she had been lying to Isabelle for so many months, nor did Isabelle hate Amy for having taken up all the space in her life. As Dottie wrote, Isabelle exchanged a surreptitious glance with Bev, and Bev nodded slightly as though to indicate that this was good; this terrible anguish, these labor pains, really, were finally producing … what?