The Viennese Waltz(54)

“I know, but I don’t want to drown people in debt. I just want to make them think about paying cash.”

“I’m not at all sure this will make them think hard enough about paying cash.”

February, 1635

Carla was back in Race Track City with her girlfriends. They were in the little shop that sold casein buttons and other knickknacks. It was a pretty place, with lots of glass windows in little diamonds along one wall so that there was plenty of sunlight. Carla’s paisley shirt had lost a button, and they were white plastic buttons. Utterly irreplaceable. But if she took off all the buttons that were left and replaced them with the casein buttons . . . that would work. Besides, the casein buttons were actually prettier. There was a set that had little 240Z embossed on the buttons and another set that had little crosses. She picked a set of cream-colored buttons with pale blue crosses to go with her shirt. They weren’t expensive, but she was broke.

Her girlfriends weren’t exactly flush either, so there was quite a bit more wanting than buying going on. Then a dumpy middle-aged woman came in and picked up three casein canisters with lids. She went up to the counter and said, “Guten Tag, Maria.”

“Guten Tag, Katharina. Do you have cash today?” the woman at the counter asked.

“No, not till I fill these and sell them. Things have been tight.”

“All right then.” The woman behind the counter pulled a sheet out of a drawer and wrote something on it, then the woman buying the canisters signed it, took her canisters and left.

Sofia Anna, seeing this, grabbed a set of casein thimbles she had been eyeing and marched up to the counter.

“That will be eight pfennig,” said Maria.

“I will charge them,” Sofia Anna proclaimed. “I am Sofia Anna von Wimmer.”

Maria looked at Sofia, then at the other girls. Then she carefully said, “I am most sorry, ma’am, but I must have your parents’ approval before I can even start the process of setting up a credit account.”

The others sighed and Carla had an idea. She recognized Hayley Fortney in this. She didn’t know how Hayley was involved, but she was pretty sure that the Barbie Consortium’s mechanical genius was involved somewhere. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to get my parents to agree,” she said to the other girls. “They’ll probably have to come out here to set up the account, too. So the buttons will have to wait till that’s done.”

Maria looked cautiously grateful as she nodded to Carla.

* * *

While the girls were eating apple strudels, Carla excused herself and went to see Hayley. She wasn’t at all sure what she was going to say. Hayley, can you get me a line of credit at the casein shop? didn’t seem quite the right thing to say.

“Hayley,” she said when she found Hayley—as usual—in the steam shop. “Can you explain how credit works out here?”

“I’ll try, Carla,” Hayley said, looking around the shop.

Carla looked around the shop and saw the people looking at her and Hayley. “Well, I would have gone to your mom, but I figured she’d be busy.” Then she switched to English. “Sorry, Hayley. I didn’t mean to out you.”

“It’s okay. But I am trying to stay in the closet on this.”

Carla grinned. Who down-time was going to get what “staying in the closet” meant, even if they spoke English?

“Come on,” Hayley said, still in English. “I’ll take you to Mom and she can help you out.”

Once Hayley had bundled up and they were out of the shop, Carla continued. “Thanks, Hayley. I haven’t had time to make much money. The English Ladies have me teaching math and science. Meanwhile, I lost a button off my favorite shirt.

“Also, you need to know that the girls at the school are probably going to be trying to get their parents to set them up with lines of credit. I don’t know how you’re going to deal with that. Some of them are people you don’t want to say no to.”

“Well, the English Ladies ought to be paying you for teaching.”

“I know that, and you know that, but I don’t think you’re going to convince them or my parents of that. Come on, Hayley. We’re kids and putting kids to work for the grownups’ benefit is standard practice. More here than up-time.”

“Sure. But if they sent you off to be a maid, you’d get paid. Maybe not much, but something. And if you were apprenticed, you would be learning a trade.”

“Right. But money is supposed to be beneath our notice.”

“It’s not beneath Prince Liechtenstein’s notice,” Hayley said.

“Sure, it is,” Carla shot back. “That’s what he’s got the Barbies for.”