by Monica Nolan
Maxie supposed the administrator and cook were conferring about lunch menus—with poor results, in Maxie’s opinion. The debt-ridden girl had hoped to take full advantage of the free lunch that was one of the few job perks, but the food Mrs. Atkins dished up was disappointing. Her sloppy joes had more tomato sauce than meat, and were unappetizing poured over mushy white buns. The apples were bruised, and even the gingersnaps that alternated with Jell-O for dessert were stale. Maxie supplemented with sandwiches from the deli.
However, the exhaustion, the bruises, and the bad food were all worth it when at the end of the second week she was able to pay off her May rent and give Mrs. DeWitt something toward June. By the next week Maxie felt like she’d gotten her second wind. Pat no longer called her “Miss Society,” and even took her out for a beer one afternoon, explaining to Maxie what enrichment activities were—“she means taking them to the museum or something”—and why the kids found “your mother” such a provocative phrase—“classic Freudian psychosexual confusion,” she said confidently. She told Maxie the only reason she’d returned for a second summer in the Recreational Program was to collect data for the thesis she was writing, “The Wild Child.”
The children, too, who had once seemed a frightening, faceless mob were now becoming individuals to Maxie. Some of them, Maxie discovered with surprise, she even liked!
Nadia Nemickas was undisputed queen of the playground—her father had been a champion wrestler in the Ukraine, and had taught his little girl everything. After Nadia showed Maxie several simple holds, the Recreational Aide found breaking up fights much easier.
She was intrigued by Roseanne Jones, a small girl with a fast mouth, whose casual references to hot-wiring cars and hijacking hubcaps made Maxie glad she had nothing worth stealing. One day, when Roseanne mentioned “the new mob in town,” Maxie asked the girl in astonishment, “How do you know there’s a new mob in town?”
The ten-year-old rolled her eyes. “Everyone knows about the new mob! There are new people running the numbers racket!”
Roseanne returned to mending Maxie’s torn taffeta cocktail gown—it was craft hour, and Maxie’s latest bright idea was to bring in garments in need of mending for the kids to work on. Terrific, the ex-journalist thought. The Sentinel refused to print a story even little girls on the street were talking about. All because those DAPs think it will be a black eye on our town’s reputation! Maxie snorted. Rich people made her sick!
Maxie even had a certain fondness for Fernanda Ruiz, although the underweight girl had a weak stomach, and had upchucked on Maxie’s shoes her first week. But every morning Fernanda cried, “Oh, Miss Maxie! You look so pretty today!” even when the chief of the Sioux was wearing a faded cotton from three years ago. The young girl’s unfeigned admiration brightened the aide’s day, Maxie had to admit.
“Miss Maxie, there’s someone watching you,” Fernanda told her leader one morning. The Sioux were playing softball in the courtyard, and Maxie had sent Fernanda to the sidelines as soon as the delicate girl said she felt unwell.
Roseanne dropped the ball and came to look. “Are the fuzz after you?” she asked Maxie with new respect.
Maxie looked across the street. Kitty Coughlin was standing in front of the shoe repair shop. When she saw she’d attracted the attention of Maxie’s tribe, she crossed the street and called, “Hi there” through the wrought-iron bars that caged in the courtyard.
“I’ve just been getting my shoes resoled,” she explained. “So this is where you work!”
The children were crowding around the fence curiously. “Are you a cop?” Roseanne asked.
Kitty gave a high-pitched laugh. “No, I’m a psych student.”
Maxie shooed the kids back to their game. “If no one’s bleeding at the end of the inning,” she promised, “I’ll tell you more ‘Stories from High Society.’ ”
“You certainly know how to handle children,” Kitty said, as the kids pounded away.
“I’m learning,” Maxie said modestly. She wondered what the psych student was doing in this part of town. Weren’t there any shoe repair places closer to the Arms?
“Would you like to join me for lunch?” Kitty asked. “My treat.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t,” Maxie said regretfully. She would have enjoyed a feed at someone else’s expense. “I have to eat with the kids.”
“Oh well.” Kitty backed away from the bars. “Perhaps another time.”
Maxie turned back to her tribe, puzzled. There’d been a queer flicker of relief in Kitty’s eyes when Maxie had refused her invitation. Was Dolly correct in thinking Kitty had a crush? Or was the psych student still working out her own traumas about same-sex romance?
Maxie had no time to speculate. It was shaping up to be one of those days. Roseanne cut off Barbara’s braids instead of making stencils during craft hour, and Fernanda threw up just as lunch was served, starting a chain reaction of stomach sickness among the rest of the Sioux.
“The milk makes her sick,” Nadia informed Maxie.
At the end of her rope, Maxie turned on the Ukrainian girl. “That’s not true, Nadia. Milk is good for growing girls. It’s full of vitamins and nutrients—in fact, it’s the most wholesome beverage you can consume!”
After all, this was Mainwaring milk the disadvantaged girl was maligning. Maxie had seen the Sunshine Dairy truck delivering its load to the Eleanor Roosevelt School just the day before, and felt a trace of pride, thinking of her canny great-grandfather, who had founded Sunshine after the wheat failure, and become a leader of the state’s dairy industry. The ex-deb dimly remembered that her parents had received some kind of good citizen award for providing fresh milk to the Recreation Program at cost.
“No it’s not, it’s nasty!” Nadia declared now.
“If you like it so much, you drink it,” challenged Roseanne, making a gagging noise.
Maxie snatched Roseanne’s cup, intending to set a good example for these irritating girls, but she stopped short at the sight of the thin, bluish liquid. This wasn’t the milk of her childhood!
“Someone must have tampered with the milk supply,” Maxie stammered. “Honestly, it isn’t supposed to look like this!” That Mrs. Atkins! she thought. But why?
Whoever and whyever, the Recreational Aide intended to get to the bottom of the mystery, especially if it would solve Fernanda’s upset stomach!
It was easy to snag Mrs. Atkins’s keys—Roseanne had demonstrated the finer points of picking pockets earlier that week. As soon as everyone was gone for the day, Maxie tried the keys until she found the one that fit the storeroom door.
Her mouth fell open and her eyes widened as she beheld the cornucopia of comestibles that filled the room to the bursting. Canned delicacies like oysters and pineapple chunks lined the shelves. There were flats of strawberries, and red, ripe tomatoes. Wandering into the walk-in cooler, Maxie found whole chickens, boxes of bratwurst, orange rounds of cheddar, and even slabs of smoked salmon. And milk! Crates of wholesome whole milk labeled SUNSHINE DAIRY were stacked high.
None of this had made it to the mouths of the disadvantaged youths, Maxie realized. Inspecting further, she found on the other side of the storeroom burlap sacks of musty potatoes, cans of spaghetti and beans, bruised apples, and boxes of gingersnaps—the familiar fare she’d seen served each noon. And, yes, there was an enormous plastic tub of white powder. Maxie pinched a little between finger and thumb and sniffed it. Powdered milk! Her mouth twisted in disdain.
Mrs. Atkins must be making a mint, Maxie thought, cheating those poor kids to the point of sickness!
Then, “That dumb dame left the door open!” The raspy voice came from outside the storeroom. Instinctively Maxie ducked behind the wall of milk crates.
“I’ll speak to her,” said a second voice.
Mrs. Olssen! The corruption evidently extended to the highest reaches of the Summer Recreational Program.
“Start with the perishables,” ordered the unseen Mrs. Olssen.
There was the rattle and thump of a hand truck. Before Maxie could react, the stack of milk crates concealing her was removed and the flustered Recreational Aide stood revealed.
“You! What’s your name?” Mrs. Olssen snapped her fingers. “Miriam, Minnie—what are you doing here?”
“It’s Maxie,” said the dairy heiress with hauteur. “Maxie Mainwaring. And, apparently, I’m witnessing grand larceny!”
“Don’t be silly.” Mrs. Olssen was unfazed. “You haven’t seen anything.”
“The police may not think so!” Maxie moved toward the door, but the man with the hand truck blocked her way. He was a burly fellow, with a curiously deformed ear and small, beady eyes beneath a brutish brow. He wore a shirt that read, SUNSHINE DAIRY.
“You ain’t going nowhere,” he told Maxie menacingly.
“You don’t dare do anything to me!” Maxie was indignant. “Don’t you know who I am? My father owns Sunshine Dairy!”
To her amazement, the thuggish dairyman laughed contemptuously. “Mr. Mainwaring ain’t the one running things. He don’t give me my orders.”
Darn Dad, and his lackadaisical attitude toward the family business! Why couldn’t he pay more attention to milk, and less to polo?
“Maxie Mainwaring, the disinherited heiress,” Mrs. Olssen said thoughtfully. “I read about you in Mamie McArdle’s column. Don’t worry, Sami,” she told her henchman. “She can’t even get her parents on the phone.” She took out a large roll of cash, continuing, “I think she’ll see reason. No one’s going to believe the story of a disgruntled employee who was fired for incompetence and chronic lateness!”
“I was only tardy twice,” Maxie protested.
“Here, dear.” Mrs. Olssen peeled off a few bills and held them out. “Some severance pay, to soften the blow.”
Maxie was mesmerized by the money in Mrs. Olssen’s hand. She hadn’t seen that much cash in more than a month! She glanced at the dairy thug, who cracked his knuckles meaningfully.
“Grab it while you can, dear.” There was just the hint of a threat in Mrs. Olssen’s friendly voice.
Maxie knew when she was beat. She reached for the money.
Chapter 12
Table for One
It was better to run from the lion and live to hunt another day, Maxie told herself as she walked away from the Eleanor Roosevelt School for Troubled Girls, unemployed again. She’d learned that maxim at the Circle School.
Maxie wondered if the Sioux would miss her the next morning when she didn’t show. She’d never had the true teaching bug, not the way Netta did, but in her own way she’d been fond of those disadvantaged youths! Besides, she disliked the way Mrs. Olssen had checkmated her.
And how was being laid off for lateness going to look on her resume? She’d appear more unreliable than ever!
Maxie had been walking without direction, driven to movement by her restless thoughts, but now she stopped and looked around. She was on the edge of the posh shopping district along Linden Lane, with Grunemans on one end and Countess Elfi’s on the other. Around the corner was Le Cheval Blanc, where Maxie had lunched in her plush days.
There’s an upside to unemployment, Maxie realized. Particularly when you have money in your pocket!
Here she was with no crafts to clean up, no need to review the rules for the next set of games, no fights to break up. Unconsciously she rubbed her rib cage, bruised a permanent purple these last few weeks from constant contact with flying fists. How much money had Mrs. Olssen given her anyway?
Standing outside the House of Henri, Maxie counted her take. Almost fifty dollars! Why, she could pay off the rent and have a little left over. Maxie thought of today’s ruined lunch, and suddenly longed for a leisurely meal, something she hadn’t concocted in her room out of odd ingredients, something eaten at a table, something with courses, even.
She knew she shouldn’t, but she sauntered around the corner to Le Cheval Blanc, telling herself she’d just glance at the menu for old-time’s sake. The dubious look of the maître d’, as the disheveled girl in the faded, stained dress approached him, did the trick. No one told Maxie where she could or could not eat! “Table for one,” she said, in her best Mainwaring manner.
After all, didn’t a girl need a little pick-me-up after being threatened by some milk-fed goon?
Just one martini, Maxie pledged, after the maître d’ had seated her at the remote end of the banquette. Now, should she have the lobster salad or the steak sandwich?
She tried not to think of what Pamela would say about this latest episode of unemployment. “No stick-to-itiveness—no stability!”
A shadow fell over her menu, and Maxie murmured, “I’m still making up my mind, but I’ll take a martini.”
A laugh tinkled out. “Maxie, darling, you haven’t forgotten me that thoroughly, have you?”
Startled, Maxie looked up—right into the big brown eyes of Elaine Ellman.
Elaine was the picture of polished perfection in a summer sheath of the palest possible pink linen. She finally got in some sunbathing at Loon Lake, Maxie thought, noting the bicycle heiress’s deep tan, while I’ve been sweating my days away in dreary old Dockside! Elaine’s lustrous locks were molded into a glossy half-moon hairstyle that had Henri’s fingerprints all over it. Maxie hadn’t visited the House of Henri since the day before that fateful DAP tea. Elaine put down her patent white clutch next to Maxie’s bread basket and pulled off her gloves. Maxie hadn’t worn gloves in weeks.
“You!” said Maxie with distaste.
Elaine sat down, ignoring Maxie’s truculence. “I feel terrible about that . . . contretemps in the powder room,” she confided, pulling out a compact and examining her makeup. “I’ve been wanting to tell you, but of course I didn’t dare be seen with you after what happened.” She looked warily around the deserted restaurant.
“You threw me to the wolves, you two-faced temptress!” said Maxie hotly. “And ruined my life in the process!”
“Am I so tempting?” Elaine smacked her lips in the mirror and shut the compact with a decisive click.
Maxie hated to admit it, but Elaine was still a dish of dessert that she’d like to taste. But would the taste be worth those extra calories she could no longer afford?
The waiter finally appeared. “Madame?” He bowed at Elaine, pencil ready, increasing Maxie’s ire.
“Oh, I’m just visiting,” Elaine told the waiter sunnily. Turning to Maxie she added, “I’m sorry, I have a date already.”
“Martini and a lobster salad.” Maxie handed the waiter her menu and glared at Elaine. “And I didn’t ask you to lunch with me. You’re the girl who lost me my allowance!”
“We all have to cut back, these days,” Elaine told her chummily. “Daddy had to close five stores in Indiana alone!”
“I had to get a job as a Recreational Aide!” Maxie lashed out.
“I used to be a candy striper, but it was too much for me,” Elaine confided. She lit a cigarette, and suddenly Maxie noticed that Elaine, too, had lost something. She was missing the big diamond that had once twinkled on her left hand.
“And you’ve cut back on fiancés as well.” Maxie nodded at the ringless hand. Elaine blushed faintly.
“Daddy’s finally letting me go to Europe this fall,” she said, as if this explained everything, and Maxie would understand the debutante accounting by which a fiancé could be exchanged for an airplane ticket abroad. “He doesn’t think Ted’s such a good catch anymore.”
Elaine hadn’t the faintest clue about managing money or the difference between a dollar and a dime, Maxie realized. She wouldn’t recognize a budget book if Maxie bopped her on the head with one. She may have a hairdo from Henri, Maxie thought with a growing feeling of superiority, but she’d be like a sheep without a shepherd if Daddy pulled the plug!
Elaine was rising. “There’s my date. I’m co-sponsoring her for the DAP, isn’t that a scream? Oh, you probably know that already since—”
“Since Mumsy�
�s the other sponsor,” finished Maxie as she watched the platinum blonde approach their table. It was the woman whose unexpected luncheon with her mother had ended her raid on the Mainwaring Manse.
“Velma Lindqvist, may I present Maxine Mainwaring.” Elaine made the introduction in her best style.
The woman Maxie rose to shake hands with wasn’t as youthful as the ex-deb had first thought. There were tiny wrinkles in the corners of those gold-flecked brown eyes, and her platinum hair was too perfect to be natural. It curved in short, becoming waves around her square jaw. Today she wore a silver shantung suit.
“Maxie Mainwaring—I’ve heard a lot about you.” The Lindqvist woman smiled as she clasped Maxie’s hand. “Your mother, Mabel’s, been one of my staunchest friends since I arrived in Bay City.”
Her grip tightened, and Maxie felt her eyes widen. Was it her imagination, or did the warm brown eyes mirror her startled expression?
Maxie had always prided herself on her ability to pick out a sister from a crowd of girls. The talent had fueled her reputation as a flirt and caused many a fight with Pamela. She wasn’t collecting scalps, she’d tried to convince her angry girlfriend. But once she got the signal from someone, she simply had to find out if her instinct was on the money.
Shaking hands with Velma Lindqvist had set her Sapphic geiger counter clicking madly. She’d struck variant paydirt with this one, for sure. Maxie glanced at Elaine with renewed interest as she murmured automatically, “Any friend of Mumsy’s—” Was this why Elaine had ditched Driscoll Dry Cleaning?
Velma loosened her clasp, and Maxie made herself drop the older woman’s hand. The signal was lost. “You live in Bay City, I understand,” Velma continued as if nothing had happened. “Your mother tells me you’re interested in the arts.”
“I don’t have much time for art anymore,” Maxie replied. “I have a job.”