I was stunned. Nothing Mr. Turner was saying made sense. My mouth moved but no words came out. Miss Everett had said there was no earthly reason I needed to be at the office so late at night. I was being blamed for Mr. Frederick’s advances, as though I’d invited them.
“But . . .”
“That’s enough, Miss Katz! You’re excused.”
• • •
I don’t remember leaving the building, but the next thing I was aware of was finding myself on a bench in Central Park. I was in such a daze I barely registered the familiar shape of Judy as she came huffing along the path after me, awkwardly cradling a cardboard box in her arms. I realized she must’ve been trying to catch up to me for a few blocks, but being lost in a state of shock I had marched on, blind and deaf to her pursuit.
“I thought you might be headed here,” she said once she’d caught her breath. “They wondered where you’d gotten off to so quickly, and I volunteered to come after you.”
For a second my heart leapt, seized by the sudden idea that perhaps Miss Everett had successfully made the case to Mr. Turner that I ought to be kept on; but then Judy set the cardboard box beside me on the bench, and I caught sight of the contents: my pocketbook, the ceramic mug I’d brought in for drinking coffee, the African violet that had sat in a little yellow pot on my desk.
“Boy, was that something! Mary Sue said you tore out of Mr. Turner’s office so fast you practically left behind a trail of rocket fuel. You sure do know how to make an exit, Eden.” Judy sat down with the box between us and sighed. “I’m awfully sorry it happened, though.”
My eyes filled with tears. I realized I felt sorry for myself, and was annoyed. I clenched my teeth.
“Oh, Eden . . . It’s not your fault, you know,” Judy said, fishing in her purse and producing a handkerchief. As she handed it to me I noticed what appeared to be a catsup stain on the bottom corner. “I’m sure she planned on it . . . you know, that whole business with Mr. Frederick.”
Avoiding the catsup stain, I wiped my eyes and looked at her in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“Miss Everett,” she said matter-of-factly. “I’m sure she wanted Mr. Frederick to come around and bother you.”
“Why would she want that?”
Judy looked at me in disbelief. The red line of her mouth puckered in a scornful way. “Because, dummy, Miss Everett likes her job and doesn’t appreciate you sniffing around as though to take it.”
“But . . . but . . . I wasn’t trying to take her job,” I said. Judy rolled her eyes and shrugged at this. “And besides,” I argued, “I was sure she liked me! I got this job on recommendation from a trusted source.” Judy looked at me with curious eyes.
“What do you mean?”
“Mr. Hightower wrote me a letter of introduction. He said they were good colleagues. I thought she wanted to help me.”
“Horatio Hightower?”
I nodded.
“Oh, well,” Judy said. “That settles it. She didn’t just want your resignation; she wanted your head!”
“I don’t understand,” I said. I suddenly felt very tired.
“Miss Everett and Mr. Hightower worked side-by-side for years. She was always after him to marry her, but he never would!” Judy said, suddenly breathless. “I think he knew if he did he’d be in for a lifelong headache.” She elbowed me and gave a wink, then turned thoughtful and gazed off into the trees. “She probably figured you got the recommendation by going to bed with him.”
“Judy!”
“I’m not saying I think you did, just that Miss Everett probably thinks that!” she said, waving her arms defensively. “She has an awfully low opinion of women.” Judy paused to consider. “I’d wondered why she’d assigned you, of all people, to Mr. Turner. I guess now we know she was out to get you.”
“How’s that?”
Judy peered down at her feet and shrugged. “Well, just that everybody knows Mr. Turner is funny about Jews.”
I blinked. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, you know; he’s just funny about them. Some people are.” I looked at her, horrified, but she didn’t notice. Instead, Judy suddenly sat up straight and snapped her fingers. “Say!” she exclaimed. “Boy oh boy, that Miss Everett, now that I think about it—she’s a sly one! I’ll bet she framed you up good and proper right from the very start.”
My stomach turned over, and Judy continued.
“Think about it: She paired you with Mr. Turner, thinking he’d hate you instantly and find some reason to fire you. But then, when you surprised her by getting promoted to reader, she figured she’d better up the ante, so she gave you all those manuscripts to work on and didn’t let you take them home, knowing Mr. Frederick was bound to come around. She wanted Mr. Turner to catch you in the act! She made sure it would look like something immoral was happening!” Judy was suddenly breathless with the momentum of her own conclusion.
“You sound impressed,” I said. By this time I was nauseated.
Judy shrugged again. “Well, she may be a bitch, but she is clever, that’s certain.” She looked over at me, paused, and reached out a hand to pick out a tree blossom that had fallen in my hair. “Anyway, you shouldn’t feel so bad about it. It’s not your fault, and in any case there are other perfectly nice companies where you’ll likely fit in better. You were kind of barking up the wrong tree to begin with.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing. It’s just that, well . . . you know how it is, Eden. Who knows—maybe Miss Everett won’t even be able to poison those, ahem, other places against you.”
“Those other places?”
Judy looked uncomfortable. She cleared her throat. “Of course, I’ve always been a friend to you, haven’t I?” she asked. I nodded. “And that won’t change. We’ll still go for martinis and chew the fat. That is, if you want to.” Again all I could do was nod. Judy smiled. “Listen, it’s going to be all right. I pinky swear, it will be. But I better be getting back,” she said. “Here”—she picked up the cardboard box from where it rested on the bench and set it gently in my lap—“let me know if you think you left anything else behind. I’ll try my darnedest to retrieve it for you.”
With her final promise still hanging in the thick space between us, Judy patted me on the shoulder and strode off. A crisp spring wind kicked up and a shower of blossoms were shaken loose from the tree branches above, resulting in a brief flurry of white petals that fell softly around me. I sat there trying to take in everything she had said.
18
I was determined to find another job in publishing. I typed up letters on creamy stationery I couldn’t afford and sent out résumés to other publishing houses. And then I waited.
All at once spring slid into summer, and the pace of the city changed. With nothing to occupy me during the daytime, I took aimless walks and spent long hours hanging about the main branch of the public library in Bryant Park, growing increasingly nervous about my rapidly dwindling savings. After a month of receiving no response to the résumés I’d sent out, I telephoned Judy one Friday, feeling discouraged and a little depressed.
“I’ve heard nothing,” I complained. “Not a single peep.”
“I’m not surprised,” she said, then hesitated.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, to be honest, Betty said she overheard Miss Everett talking to someone on the phone about you. I think maybe she’s calling around town,” Judy said in an apologetic voice. “I told you when she had it out for somebody she could be vicious.”
I didn’t even know what to say to this.
“Listen, I’d better go,” she said. “I’ve got a ton of typing to get through. It was swell hearing from you, Eden. I hope you find something!”
I hung up and sat staring stupidly at the wall of the telephone lounge for several minutes. Miss Everett was callin
g around to poison people against me. After I’d worked so hard. Everything Judy had told me in the park had been true: Miss Everett really was out to get me. I had been blind. Purposefully, stupidly blind.
I needed a drink.
It was a foolish impulse, but I put on a fresh blouse and skirt anyway and took the subway down to the Village. It was still early in the afternoon, and if I had been being straight with myself, I couldn’t really afford the drink. By virtue of extreme resourcefulness and discipline, I’d managed to save a bit of money, but without my regular paycheck—meager though it had been—I was going to go broke in no time. Still, I took the train downtown and found my way to the Minetta Tavern, where a bartender named Sal wiped the perspiration from his upper lip and shoved a paperback into his back pocket long enough to make me a deliciously cloudy, olive-juice-laden martini, the toothpick spear of jade-green olives winking their red pimento eyes at me. There is a sense of inherent embarrassment that comes with drinking in the middle of the day, and I was relieved when the bartender didn’t want to talk. He retreated back into his corner and promptly returned his attention to the paperback. He only came out again when I waved him over to request another round. Two was my limit—financially speaking, that is. Since moving to New York, I’d certainly developed a taste and tolerance for one or two more, but my wallet hadn’t. After whiling away the better part of an hour and a half, I paid and rose to go. But as I moved to make my exit, the tavern door opened. The afternoon sunshine was so bright, I couldn’t make out much more than a silhouette.
“Why, hello there,” a voice said. The figure moved inside.
“Oh—you again!” I said, surprised to have run into Cliff a third time. I laughed, momentarily forgetting my depressed state.
“Were you just leaving?”
I nodded.
“Stay and have a beer with me.”
“I really oughtn’t,” I said, biting my lip and mentally counting the money I had left in my pocket.
“Say,” Cliff said, as though an idea had just dawned on him, “it’s a weekday, isn’t it? Shouldn’t you be at Torchon and Lyle, slaving away in the typing pool? What are you doing here in the middle of the day?”
I felt my smile crumple. “Oh. Well, the truth is”—I paused, alarmed to feel my throat was constricting; I fought it off and collected myself—“I was fired.”
Cliff regarded me for a moment, his blue eyes hovering on my own. “Well, in that case, you have to stay. I can’t think of a better reason to have a beer.” I hesitated. “C’mon,” he cajoled.
“All right,” I said. We sat down and Sal came back over. I wasn’t much in the mood for a beer, so I ordered a third martini.
“I suppose I ought to ask you the same question,” I said to Cliff, once we had settled in and were sipping our drinks. “What are you doing here in the middle of the day?”
“I spent the whole morning writing,” he said, “so I figured I owed myself a reward.”
We chatted for a bit about our passions: writing for him, editing for me.
“I suppose I’ve been a little fool. I came to New York really believing I was meant to be an editor,” I said, suddenly feeling very sorry for myself.
“You’re not giving up already, are you?”
I explained to him about Miss Everett and Mr. Turner, and about what had happened with Mr. Frederick, leaving out the part about the two letters Mr. Hightower had given me and what Judy had said about “Mr. Turner being funny about Jews.”
“Listen,” Cliff said, “it’s too early to throw in the towel. Something’ll open up; it’s a question of timing. Gals are always getting engaged and leaving publishing houses. Why, just the other day I went to Bonwright to see My Old Man and his secretary—an old battle-axe!—quit to go marry some old widower. Can you imagine, at her age?”
“Your father works at Bonwright?”
He nodded. “Roger Nelson.”
“Oh,” I said, impressed. “He’s well-known.” Cliff looked both pleased and irritated to hear I’d recognized the name. I began to worry that it wasn’t what I’d said but how I’d said it—with a tiny hint of a slur. There is an exponential difference between a second martini and a third martini, and I’d been foolish to order it; the third martini had begun to take its toll. I felt very self-conscious around Cliff, and I didn’t want to embarrass myself. I decided to go home.
“Good luck, Eden,” he said as I left. “Don’t give up.”
“I won’t,” I replied.
19
On the way back uptown I wondered if it was true. The optimism I possessed when I’d arrived in New York had fallen into some dark, irretrievable place, like a key dropped down a sidewalk grate; I’d begun to doubt I’d ever get it back again. Then a funny thing happened on my way back to the Barbizon.
A bit more sober but still very warm and slightly pink-cheeked, I passed a beauty salon and peered into the window. I’d passed by before and knew it was a cheap place that smelled of permanent solution and bleach. A young hairdresser was stooped over the back of a barber chair, leaning idly on her elbow while she flipped through the pages of a magazine propped open in the empty seat. She yawned with boredom. I could see someone had instructed her not to sit while on the job and she was waiting out the end of the day, which was likely near now. All of a sudden, an impulse seized me. The bell over the door tinkled as I pushed my way inside.
“Cut it short,” I said, once she’d scrambled to scoop up the magazine from the empty chair and I’d climbed in. “I need a change.”
“How short do you want?” she asked, looking at my long black ponytail with the skeptical expression of someone who is uncertain whether or not she is talking to a crazy person.
“Very short,” I said. She raised her eyebrows, a bit frightened.
“Say, I’m not trying to chase away business, but I’m new here. Are you sure?” she asked, biting her lip. Across the room a woman was gossiping to a manicurist. They paused and turned to look me over, intrigued.
“I’m sure.” I glanced at myself in the mirror. A reckless fire smoldered in my eyes.
“Would you mind picking out a photograph at least? Something for me to model the cut on,” she said, handing me the magazine she’d been reading. I took it and turned a few pages, then stopped.
“That,” I said, pointing to a starlet in a Max Factor ad.
“Boy, you weren’t kidding!” she exclaimed. “That is awfully short.” She tried to smile, but when she picked up the scissors and comb, her hands were trembling slightly. She took a breath and set about her work. I didn’t watch. Eventually she needed to reach around to the other side of my head and pivoted the chair away from the mirror. She frowned. Her brow furrowed. She bit her lip. When she was done, she took a step back and looked me up and down very carefully, squinting. Then she giggled with proud delight.
“Gosh!” she said, covering her mouth.
The haircut was striking: Suddenly I looked very modern with my dark hair clipped close to the back of my neck and my bangs trimmed across my forehead in a tidy black line. I had wanted to emulate a New Yorker, and now that I had failed in all the important ways I had finally—and ironically—gotten the trick of it, if only on the surface. The manicurist in the salon whistled and winked, exclaiming, “It’s Roman Holiday all over again! Look out, Gregory Peck!” I thanked the hairdresser and paid for the cut and left in something of a daze.
I bought a bottle of vodka on my way home—another purchase I couldn’t really afford, but I was so far down the rabbit hole, I figured I may as well reach the bottom—and snuck it upstairs into my room at the Barbizon. I sat on the floor and stared at myself in the mirror, taking swigs directly from the mouth of the bottle and breaking down in sobs until I could barely breathe. Finally, I passed out lying facedown on the rug, my skin hot and sticky with the brine of evaporated tears.
It was not
until I woke up and looked in the mirror the next morning that I realized: My hair was different. But moreover: I was different. I looked like a new person. And just at that moment I remembered something else, a seemingly tiny insignificant detail I’d forgotten about. I flashed back to that day on the university lawn. Mr. Hightower had written me two letters of introduction. I had given one to Miss Everett. The other was still tucked away in my underwear drawer along with my passport.
An idea occurred to me.
MILES
20
The day after the Hamilton Lodge Ball, I was preoccupied with the worry that someone from our neighborhood had seen me there. Janet was not one to jump to conclusions, but I pictured the gossip reaching my mother, and the look that was likely to appear on her face. I knew I would never be able to convince her it was all a big mistake. Unable to put this worry completely out of my thoughts, I decided the best thing to do would be to go straight home after finishing my messenger shift. If she had indeed heard about it, she wouldn’t have to say anything; I would know. My mother was capable of many feats, but hiding her disapproval was not one of them. Besides, I reasoned, it was time I paid some attention to my younger brother, Cob. “Cob” was a nickname; his given name was Malcolm. He was called Cob because by the time he was three years old he’d adopted a habit of smiling so wide, folks liked to say you could fit a whole corncob in there. He was an impressionable boy on the verge of turning eight that year. To look at Cob made one’s heart fill with joy; there was still a happy, unspoiled innocence about him. It was an innocence that made me glad, but also nervous. Wendell despised teenagers, and every year Cob inched closer to adolescence he likewise unwittingly inched his way closer to becoming a scapegoat for Wendell’s wrath.
As it turned out, it was a good evening to spend some time at home, because Wendell was not around. According to my mother, Wendell had left the apartment that morning with his rod and tackle in tow. This meant he was likely to spend the entire day fishing at the East River and wouldn’t come home until after sundown. I never understood the men who did that—men who sat sipping a bottle of beer wrapped in a brown paper bag, staring sullenly at their giant fishing poles jerry-rigged to the fence along the East River. But if there was any man who was suited to this curious variety of sport, it was Wendell.
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