by Amy Scheibe
* * *
The lunch bell rang, and Emmy rose from her desk in the study hall, passing by Mr. Utke’s darkened office once more before heading to the cafeteria. She had sought him out before school, and at least twice since, hoping he would have some suggestions on where she might find a new job. The pungent smell of boiled meat permeated the short stairway leading down to the lunchroom, and Emmy’s stomach lurched against the idea of the hot lunch that she had requested and paid for in first period homeroom. Josephine’s larder contained only coffee and eggs—no bread or milk, nor even a pat of butter—and Emmy had been unable to pack any sort of lunch for herself. She took her place in line, picking up a metal tray and utensils and moving along the service counter, where scoops of pinkish beef, orange macaroni, and slippery halves of peaches were loaded onto plates and bowls. Following the lead of the girl in front of her, Emmy selected her meal, moved down the line, and chose a small glass that she filled with milk from a large stainless steel dispenser. Turning, she momentarily froze at the sight of so many rowdy students swirling effortlessly among the tables and benches, free of the kinds of challenges she had brought to rest upon her own shoulders. She saw a half-empty table near the back of the room where she and Bev used to sit together, so she wound her way there in search of a quiet place to think. Though she’d eaten her bag lunch in this room all year, the weight of the tray balanced in her hands somehow made the atmosphere feel as though the gathering were a thing of the far-distant past, or a place where she might one day come for a reunion, her hair gray and teeth long. Her outsider status within the school walls was amplified in her head by the self-eviction, and yet somehow she no longer felt it set her apart. One class after another would pass, and one day after the next as well, until all was finished and she’d turn her books in with the scant memories of being a Moorhead Spud. If it weren’t for Mr. Utke’s support of her studies, Emmy would simply drop it all and find a job. She had no intention of returning home, even though she hadn’t quite figured out an alternative solution.
Once seated, Emmy drew from her book bag a copy of the morning’s Fargo Forum, which she had bought at the grocery across the street from the school. She had already mined every line of the article about the fire, and there wasn’t any sense of how the fire had started, though it was still assumed to have been a wiring malfunction. There was a passing mention of one girl injured, but beyond that, Emmy hadn’t been able to find out how Cindy was faring. Instead of reading the articles again, Emmy opened the paper and turned to the back page, scanning through the four items she had circled in the want ads. In Help Wanted, she decided the only option was a position open at The Fargo Forum itself, for a part-time switchboard operator. It probably didn’t pay much better than popcorn girl, but it was the only job where experience wasn’t required, and after-school hours were available. She had also found a small room for rent in Fargo, though the notion of calling the number and taking the bus across the river to look at the desolate space sat less satisfyingly than the small bites of vile-tasting beef she put past her lips while she contemplated her future.
Emmy glanced again through the other ads, and was about to give up on the meal and prepare for her afternoon English exam when she looked up to see Birdie standing next to the table, a brown paper bag in her hand. Her eyes were puffy, as though she’d spent a good deal of time crying. A ripple of regret swelled in Emmy, and she stood, hugging her sister tightly.
“I’m so sorry I left without saying good-bye,” Emmy said, releasing the girl. They sat opposite each other.
“I’m just happy to see you’re okay.” Birdie opened the sack and withdrew a large wax-paper-wrapped sandwich, the sight of which made Emmy’s mouth water. Birdie held it in midair, a peace offering. “Looks like it’s going to be ham all week. Halvsies?”
Emmy took the offered triangle and sunk her teeth into the familiar yeasty white bread. Her throat constricted with emotion and she had to drink milk to help ease the food down.
“They’re waiting,” Birdie said in her delicate way. “They think you’re coming back. Are you?”
“I don’t think so,” Emmy said. “No.”
“Well, Mother says this is all your fault,” Birdie said. “We haven’t heard from the Branns at all, not even Ambrose, and she’s frantic for things to go back to normal.”
Emmy dropped her sandwich, her appetite drained. How had Ambrose known about the note? “I’ve seen him.”
“You have?” Birdie’s face tensed, a slow half smile pushing across it like a wary snake. “Will you give him another chance?”
“I’m sorry, but I just don’t love him. No.” Emmy watched as the snake of her sister’s smile retreated, leaving behind a small, inverted crescent of relief mixed with what looked like wounded consternation.
“That’s all right,” Birdie said, her voice like the warble of a small yellow bird in springtime. “I don’t want you to.”
“You don’t?” Emmy could see it now: the limpid gaze; the high, fevered cheeks—the way she herself had looked in the mirror after reading Bobby’s second note. “Oh, Birdie, you’re too young,” she scolded, knowing full well it wouldn’t matter what she said if Birdie felt as strongly about Ambrose as it suddenly appeared.
“I wish I could help the way I feel.” Birdie bit the corner of her lower lip with a pointed tooth, looking as though she might start to cry. “But he’s really wonderful, Emmy, no matter what you may think.”
“What I think,” Emmy said slowly, “is that you should wait for your own beau.” Her memory pivoted through the drunken roughness, the indecency, and her face evidently showed this. She wanted to tell Birdie everything, but shame stopped the words.
Birdie folded the paper around her uneaten sandwich, her eyes cast down and brimming with tears. “I knew you wouldn’t approve,” she said, distraught. “I really haven’t told him anything, I swear. He doesn’t know how I feel. If you’d married, I would have taken my feelings to the grave.”
Emmy envied the easy drama of Birdie’s emotions, the childlike fluttering of her eyelashes and wringing of her dainty hands, as though the girl had stepped out of the kind of dime-store novel Bev always liked to read out loud, a hand thrown back against her forehead. Of course, this was the way Emmy felt every time she pictured Bobby in the movie theater lobby, slipping her that tiny folded square of paper. “Just don’t rush,” Emmy said with as much generosity as she could muster. “There’s no hurry for you.”
“Oh, thank you, thank you,” Birdie said, a fresh glow replacing the ashen fear of a moment before. She shifted her eyes to a point over Emmy’s head as a hand lightly settled on Emmy’s shoulder. She tipped her head to see Mr. Utke.
“Ah, good,” he said. “I’ve been looking for both of you.” The bell rang, ending the lunch period. Birdie hastily repacked her lunch bag and sprang to her feet.
“Hello, Mr. Utke,” Birdie said, staring at her shoes. “I don’t want to be late for class.”
He cleared his throat. “Girls, your mother is parked outside, waiting to take you back to Glyndon High School. I did what I could to make her see otherwise, but it seems she doesn’t feel the atmosphere here is conducive to proper behavior.”
“But that’s not fair,” Birdie said. “My concert…” Her face crumpled and she started to cry.
“You’ll have to go without me.” Emmy stood and squeezed her arm, worried that her sister had set a course for the misery Emmy had avoided. “Maybe I can…”
Birdie wrenched herself away, sniffing back the tears. “You can’t, Emmy. Not anymore.”
“She’s waiting,” Mr. Utke repeated. “Go get your things.”
Emmy turned to her adviser as Birdie ran away down the hall. “I’m not going.”
“I surmised you wouldn’t,” he replied, watching the door to the cafeteria as though he expected Karin to burst through. “But frankly, I’d rather not know the whys, if it’s all the same to you. Your mother is remarkably capable of speaking her mind,
and at great length. It seems that I’ve corrupted you by supporting your wild dreams and opening your mind to literature.”
“You have,” Emmy said, looking around the quiet room. She extended her hand to Mr. Utke. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He shook, bowing his head slightly.
“I wonder if there’s anything in your books about operating a switchboard.” She unfolded the newspaper and nervously showed him the advertisement.
Mr. Utke looked down through the bottom part of his glasses. “No, but your cousin works there—ask for Dorothy Randall. She should be able to get you in the door.”
* * *
At three o’clock, Emmy left the school grounds in her aunt’s wagon, and ten minutes later she reached the parking lot across from a grand five-story brick building, topped on one corner by a tall spire with the letters F-O-R-U-M stacked on all four sides. Emmy studied the colored lights that illuminated the sign and tried to decipher their meaning while she listened to the engine quietly ping and tick as it cooled. Her nerves were jumping, but in a way that propelled her from the car, across the street, through the front doors of the building, and rapidly up a flight of stairs that led to another set of doors with FARGO written on the glass rectangle of one, and FORUM on the right. Nodding to herself for courage, she pushed against the brass handle and found the large oak door to be lighter than she’d expected. The massiveness of the open room caught her by surprise. It encompassed most of the second floor and soared up at least two floors, with windows along two sides and offices on the third. Filling the space in between were rows of desks populated by a number of smartly dressed people, including two women in fitted suits.
Emmy approached the long oaken counter that separated her from the news floor, and waited patiently as a young woman sitting in front of a large switchboard on the other side of the counter held up a finger and then pulled a cord from her desktop, expertly plugging it into a hole at the top of the board. The operator had white-blond hair just like Emmy’s, a reassuring sign that she was in the right place.
“May I help you?” the woman asked Emmy.
“I hope so,” Emmy replied, managing to quell her excitement at the prospect of working in such a fascinating place. She held out the well-worn newspaper. “I’m here about the switchboard job?”
“Hallelujah and hello.” A red light blinked on the desk, and the woman pressed the switch under it.
“Good afternoon, The Fargo Forum, how may I direct your call?” she said into a mouthpiece that connected to her headset. “Oh, hiya, Carlene, it’s Dot. Hang on, I’ll get him for ya.” She strung another cord, and a phone rang at a nearby desk. Emmy watched the man at that desk pick up the receiver, at which point Dot flipped another switch. She then turned to a girl passing with a stack of papers. “Louise, take the board for a minute, would you?” She handed the headset to the girl in exchange for the papers and stood in front of Emmy, extending her right hand over the counter. “I’m Dot Randall. These are edits. Follow me.”
Emmy quickly passed through the swinging half door at the end of the counter and fell into step. “I’m Emmy Nelson,” she said, expecting her name to elicit some sort of response. It didn’t. “We’re cousins, I think.”
Dot stopped midstride and gave Emmy the once-over. “Well, I’ll be damned,” she said with a distinct air of bemusement. “Did someone die?”
Emmy laughed, caught off guard by the question. “No, why?”
“My mother said we’d meet over your mother’s dead body.” Dot shrugged.
“I’m staying with Josephine for now.” Emmy lifted her shoulders. “I don’t even know how you and I are related.”
“Let’s see.” Dot scratched her head at the point where her blond ponytail was secured with a red piece of ribbon that matched the gingham blouse under her gray split-front jumper. “My father’s father was Aunt Jo’s older brother—right, and Adelaide’s, too—which makes you and me second cousins. Technically, she’s my great-aunt, since she was my grandfather’s sister. He died in the First World War, long before I was born. So did his older brother, Hans. Tragic story—they died within two days and ten miles of each other in the battle of Meuse-Argonne, probably killed by distant relatives on the German side. Jo and Adelaide had some sort of falling-out after that, and Adelaide left, never to be heard from again. Though I guess you know that part. Anyway, Aunt Jo find you on the side of the road?” Dot tilted her head in a way that made her ponytail brush her right shoulder.
“You call her Aunt Jo?” Emmy asked, holding back the flood of questions that Dot’s easy information sharing prompted.
“Yeah, but boy, does she hate it.” Dot laughed. “Says it’s too Little Women for her taste, though if you ask me, that’s a pretty great book, and she’s a lot like that Jo.”
“I haven’t read it,” Emmy said, increasingly won over by Dot’s patter.
“Well, you should.” Dot put her hands on her slim hips. “You ever run a switchboard?”
“No,” Emmy replied, surveying the rack of pegs and holes. “I’ve never even seen one.”
“It’s not trigonometry or anything. My mom used to run it, and Aunt Jo before her. It’s sort of in our blood, I guess.” Dot waved Emmy around the counter and led her past the desks, only half of which seemed to be occupied. “The job’s a few nights a week, while I study for my exams. Though we could also use a copygirl, if you’re interested in more hours. Louise is leaving at the end of the month to get married. We have a lot of turnover in that job, for that reason.”
“I’d be happy to take whatever you have,” Emmy said, following Dot through the room. “Though don’t I need to formally apply? Mr. Utke at Moorhead High said you could call him on my behalf.”
“To be honest, we’ve only had a few applicants,” Dot said, winking. “The job’s pretty much yours if you can do it. How is old Reinhold, anyway? Have you read The Caine Mutiny?” She said the title with a deep, dour accent. Emmy laughed, making Dot smile at her own cleverness. “Do yourself a favor and skip right to Marjorie Morningstar. To, die, for. Just don’t tell him I said so.” They stopped at a larger desk, set apart from the others in the front of the room, where a heavyset man wearing a sweat-stained white shirt rapidly drew lines and circles on a typewritten sheet with a thick red pencil.
“This is the boss,” Dot said, and the man looked up from his work. “He looks big and mean, but he’s as harmless as a baby wasp.”
“Stan Gordon,” he said, sticking the pencil behind his ear and extending a hand. Emmy shook it.
“Emmaline Nelson.”
“She’s our best shot,” Dot added. “If you want, I can get her trained and see how she goes.”
“Carry on, then,” Stan said, reclaiming his pencil as though he’d been temporarily missing one of his fingers.
“He likes skirts, if you know what I mean,” Dot whispered, leading Emmy to a door marked ARCHIVES. “This is the morgue. Don’t let the name scare you; it just means where all the dead files are kept. There’s a nice big table in there for doing research, should you need it. Some people take naps in there, don’t ask me why. Those are the ladies and gents, and this is the most important place of all.” She stopped at the final open door. “The break room, where we do our best work.”
“Where you do your only work.” A man’s voice echoed from inside of the room. Emmy followed Dot in and realized the fellow was the reporter she’d met the night before. Hatless, and with his sleeves rolled just above the elbows, he looked much younger than she’d thought at the time. She watched him fill a cup with coffee from an aluminum urn that took up a good portion of the short counter. An odd sense of familiarity hit Emmy, almost as though she’d been waiting to see him again after a long time apart.
“Oh, Jim, you’re so droll,” Dot said, handing him the stack of papers. “Here’s your slug copy.” She hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “That’s my cousin Emmy Nelson, aspiring switchboard operator and probable copygirl. Be nice.�
�
Jim crossed the homey room, having to weave his way around two leather armchairs and a low-lit lamp that had a topaz-colored glass ashtray encircling its brass post. “Aren’t you the girl from the fire?” He squinted and sniffed, as though trying to smell the evidence of smoke on her.
Emmy nodded.
“Your friend’s going to live,” he said, sliding his hands into his pants pockets and shrugging. “But it’s going to be a hard few months.”
Emmy nodded again, sick to the heart that she’d ever asked Cindy to take her place. She attempted to change the subject. “I read your article three times today. It was really good.”
“Only three times?” he cajoled. “It couldn’t have been very good if you didn’t read it four times.” Emmy smiled at him, thankful for the lightening of her mood.
“I said be nice,” Dot said. “At least until she says yes to this crazy place, though I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”
“Too late.” Jim lightly punched Dot’s shoulder as he went through the door. “You are your worst enemy,” he said with a laugh.
“Droll, droll, droll,” she said to his back, and then turned happily to Emmy. “He’s a little more puffed up than usual. We just heard this morning that the paper got a Pulitzer for our tornado coverage last summer.”
“Is that a good thing?” Emmy asked.
“Yeah,” Dot said with a bemused shake of her head. “Real good. So when can you start?”
Emmy peeled off her lightweight jacket and hung it on an empty hook on the wall, readjusting her A-line worsted beige skirt and tucking her blue nylon blouse firmly down the front. “I wouldn’t mind starting now, if it’s all right with you?”
Dot’s smile was as big as it was instant. “Okay, cuz, I like your attitude. Monday’s always quiet, so it’s a good time to train. If you can’t hack it, we’ll know right away.”