“But Mrs. Cross said the carton might have been left on the—”
“Mrs. Cross is all wet,” he snapped. Then, more calmly, “Besides, if something got left out on the dock that shouldn’t be there, we would have noticed it by now.”
I glanced at the loading dock. “Do they always load the trucks so late at night?”
“All the time,” he shot back. “We’ve got a huge shipment going out first thing in the morning. Now beat it.”
“But tomorrow is Sunday.”
“It’s for the . . . the big charity drive. You know. Gotta get all this stuff out to the nursing homes and whatnot, get it outta the way outside of regular working hours.”
“Hair tonic? For nursing homes?” I said, but he was already hurrying back toward the trucks. I pondered that as I trudged back upstairs. Goodness, how much hair tonic did old folks need? How many of them even had hair anymore?
When I arrived back at Ladies’ Nightwear, panting and sweating from the climb, someone had sent out for sandwiches and coffee from an all-night deli. We ate a quick meal and then worked through our tiredness, excited about the improvements we were making to the department. I reported on the missing peignoirs, and we shared a chuckle over the old people’s hair tonic.
One by one, the other clerks went home, until the only ones left were Mrs. Cross and me. Sometime after midnight, although she hadn’t complained, I noticed she looked fatigued and remembered she was still recovering from her injury. I suggested a rest break.
We settled into chairs near the fitting room, the ones normally occupied by fidgety husbands. Mrs. Cross glanced around the department and nodded her head. “I think even Mr. Simpson will be pleased with this new arrangement.”
“Has he complained?”
“Not in so many words,” she said, “but we must show him we aren’t stuck in our ways. New and different—that’s what he wants to see, especially after meeting with the Selfridge’s people.”
So this upheaval was all for Mr. Simpson’s benefit. We sat quietly for a few minutes. Then she said, “It’s time for me to retire.”
I nodded. “Yes, a good night’s sleep will do us both a world of good.”
She shook her head. “No, I mean retire. For good.”
With this revelation, my tired brain snapped back into gear. “Retire? You?” I blinked. “I don’t believe it.”
“It’s true,” she sighed. “I’ve been working at Field’s for a long, long time. Longer than most of you youngsters have been alive.”
I thought she was going to launch into one of her “in my day” reminiscences. But she startled me by saying, “I know you younger women think I’m a dinosaur.”
I gulped. What had she heard? I began to protest, but she silenced me.
“Now, don’t patronize me, Miss Corrigan. I still have my eyes and ears. I see the looks you girls exchange. I overhear your whispered remarks. ‘Old Rugged,’ indeed.” Her lips pressed into a thin line.
A hot wave of shame washed over me as I remembered all the times I’d complained about her behind her back. “Oh, Mrs. Cross. Please forgive me. We were just—why, that was just silly nonsense. Ladies’ Nightwear simply wouldn’t be the same without you. Everyone knows that.”
“Hmm.” She sat silent for a while, staring off into space.
Thinking our conversation had drawn to a close, I started to stand up. “Well, I guess I’ll start picking up the—”
“I didn’t always work in Ladies’ Nightwear, you know,” she said suddenly. I sat back down. “When I first started working here, straight out of high school, I was assigned to the candy counter. I was hired as temporary help, just for the Christmas season.”
“Really?” My eyes widened as I struggled to picture the aging woman before me as a young slip of a girl, parceling out licorice and peanut brittle.
She nodded. “At the end of the Christmas season, Mr. Field told me I was doing a fine job, and asked me to stay on. Even after I married Mr. Cross, may he rest in peace, I kept my job. Field’s was a marvelous place to work.”
I briefly wondered if Mr. Cross had known about her alleged feelings for Mr. Selfridge, then firmly decided that was none of my business.
“That’s interesting,” I said, and I meant it, too. “Did you enjoy working in Candy?”
“Oh, yes.” She looked surprisingly pretty when she smiled. I wished she’d do it more often. “Old Mr. Field had a real sweet tooth. He’d stop by the candy counter when I was the only one there, and ask me to give him a sample of something, of licorice or jelly beans or coconut clusters—usually something we were starting to run low on. With a little wink, he’d declare them to be stale and instruct me to take the remaining stock home to my family, free of charge. ‘Otherwise they’ll just have to go in the trash,’ he’d say. Then he’d tell me not to tell anyone else. And I never did.” She smiled at me. “Until now. But I guess he wouldn’t mind my coming clean, after all these years.”
I chuckled. “Sounds like he was a real character.”
“Oh, he was. To some of us, he was like a kindly uncle.” Her eyes took on that dreamy look again. “I remember his funeral like it was yesterday.” She got up from her chair, walked over to a cabinet where we kept supplies. She reached into a drawer and pulled out a bit of ribbon, once a deep lavender color, now faded to a mottled pink, with a portrait of Mr. Marshall Field encircled by a medallion. “They gave these out to all the employees,” she said. “When we received news of his death, the store closed for several days. On the day of his funeral, people lined the streets to watch the procession of carriages to Graceland Cemetery. It was wintertime, and pouring down sleet, but nobody seemed to care. They had a special memorial service just for employees, at the Auditorium Theater. The place was packed. Oh, how we missed him.”
She carefully set the ribbon back in the drawer. “After Mr. Field died, Mr. Shedd took over, and now we have Mr. Simpson,” Her voice took on a thin layer of frost. “With him, everything must be new, new, new. He has no use for the old ways.” She glanced around the rearranged department one more time, as if remembering where she was. “I think we can call it a night, Miss Corrigan,” she said. “We can finish up on Monday.”
We walked down the many flights of stairs together, which triggered my memory of the unusual hair tonic shipment.
“Don’t you think it’s odd, shipping hair tonic in the middle of the night to old people’s homes?”
She didn’t seem alarmed. “Well, if they’re shipping it, then surely the people must need it. Field’s has always been generous with what people need. And they’re probably working in the middle of the night for the same reason we are—because they simply couldn’t get everything done during the day.”
When we reached the street, she asked me where I lived and suggested we share a taxi since she was headed in the same direction. She signaled for a cab, gazed out the window as we rode in silence for several blocks. Then she said, “I know you think I’m tough on you, Marjorie.”
Leather is less tough than you, I thought, though I mumbled out of politeness, “You’re not that tough.”
She brushed my comment aside. “The reason I hold you to a high standard, Marjorie, is that I can see what you’re capable of. You’re bright, you’re creative, and you have a pleasing way with the customers. The other clerks do a good-enough job, but they will always be clerks. If you stay at Field’s, pay your dues, and put in your time, I predict your career will flourish.”
The taxi stopped in front of her building and we said our good-byes. I rode the remaining few blocks to Dot’s place with my face at the open window, breathing in the cool night air and marveling at what Mrs. Cross had said.
It was the first time she’d ever called me Marjorie.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The next morning I dragged myself to church with Ruthie, but all tiredness vanished when I spotted a familiar head several rows ahead of us.
“What’s he doing here?” I whispered
to Ruthie.
“Who?”
“Peter Bachmann.” I pointed discreetly.
“I’ve seen him here before. Not every week, but fairly often. Why?”
“No reason.”
After the service I pushed my way up the aisle like salmon swimming upstream.
“Peter, I didn’t expect to see you here. What are you doing?”
He raised an eyebrow. “What I do every Sunday. Attending church.”
“I can see that. What I mean is, this is the first time I’ve seen you here.” I didn’t mean to sound shocked, but—a churchgoing bootlegger? This man grew more intriguing all the time.
“It’s a big church,” was all he said.
“I was worried about you when you vanished the other night. We all were. Where did you go?”
His eyes scanned the departing congregation. “Can you come out for a drive?”
“Now? I suppose so.”
I said good-bye to Ruthie, not knowing whether to feel apprehensive or delighted at this unexpected invitation. I leaned toward the latter.
Peter and I walked down the block and slid into his shiny roadster. It wasn’t the sort of automobile one would expect a shirt salesman to drive. But then, I supposed he hadn’t paid for it out of his Marshall Field’s paycheck.
“Let’s grab a bite to eat. Someplace where we can talk.”
He drove to a restaurant near Montrose Harbor that boasted a terrace overlooking the water. The waiter showed us to a table and soon returned with our drinks. We sat for a while and people-watched. Considering Peter had requested this outing, he seemed awfully tongue-tied. Some prompting was in order.
“So? Are you going to tell me why you left so abruptly the other night?”
“I couldn’t take it.”
“Take what?”
“Fireworks. Booming. Explosions.” He set his glass on the table, and I could see his hands were trembling. “Ever since the war, I can’t watch fireworks. Crazy, huh?”
“No. Not crazy at all.” I could feel waves of loneliness shimmer off him like heat. “Where did you serve?”
“France.”
The same area where Jack and Charlie had been stationed. My heart melted at the terrible things he must have seen. Everything in me yearned to soothe those memories away, but I knew I couldn’t. All I could do was reach over the table and touch his hand.
“I’m sorry.”
He inhaled. “I don’t know. It’s like there’s something wrong with my head. I know fireworks are just pretend, just for show, but—” He ran a hand through his hair and gazed through the window at the lake. “It’s been ten years. You think I’d be over it by now.”
I leaned toward him and put my hand on his forearm. “I understand. Truly I do. My brother, Charlie, had some problems when he came back. Nightmares and things.”
“And then there was your boyfriend who was killed.”
I sat back. “Yes.”
“I was thinking about him the other day.”
“Jack? Why?”
He cleared his throat. “Well, I was just curious. Remember the first day we met, in the train station? When you said you thought you saw a ghost?”
I cringed. “How could I forget? It was not one of my finer moments.”
“Do you still think I look like him?”
I chuckled. “Yes, you surely do. Even Helen thinks so.”
Peter smiled and adjusted his necktie. “So, he was a handsome devil, eh?”
Ice cubes clinked as I stirred the straw in my glass. “Yes, if you must know. But of course, the resemblance is purely superficial. Turns out you’re quite different, under the surface.”
“How so?”
“Well, for one thing, Jack didn’t drink liquor.”
“That you know of.”
I lifted my chin. “I knew him. He didn’t.”
Peter’s voice grew quiet. “Did you love him very much?”
“Yes. Very much.” The words seemed to dance between us on the breezy air. “I was young, not even allowed to go steady with any one boy, but we still managed to spend a lot of time together. As my brother’s best friend, he was always at our house, and my parents permitted group outings, hayrides and the like. One day I looked at him and knew he was the one.”
“But it sounds like you didn’t spend much time alone together.”
I shrugged. “True. But we managed here and there, sneaking into the warming hut at skating parties, or lagging behind the others on hikes.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “You had to sneak around? That doesn’t sound like you.”
“Well, you see, my stepmother didn’t think . . .” My voice trailed off. He didn’t need to hear all the gory details. “Anyway, we had an understanding. By the time he got out of the service, I’d be eighteen, and we’d be married.”
“And you loved him? More than you loved that Richard fellow?”
I hesitated. “That was different. For one thing, I was older when I met Richard, and . . .” My voice grew thick. “It’s not a fair comparison. You see, Jack—Jack was my first love. And I suppose I’ve never quite gotten over him. It’s as if, when he died, a piece of me died, too. So I guess I just didn’t have enough love left to offer Richard.”
A shadow of compassion passed over Peter’s face. His hand covered mine. “I’m sorry, Marjorie,” he said in a hoarse voice. “Truly I am.”
I swallowed hard. “So you see, when I saw you in the train station that day—well—”
He pressed my hand in his, warm and strong. I wished he’d never let go.
“Wherever Jack is, I’m sure he knows that you loved him.”
I forced a laugh, tried to lighten the mood. “I doubt that men sit around in heaven thinking about old girlfriends.”
“He knows, Marjorie,” Peter insisted. “He wants you to live a happy life, whether it’s with Richard or—or somebody else.”
I tried to read his expression. Did he mean—? But my reverie was broken with a thunk. Because at that moment, as he turned to signal the waiter, his jacket flapped opened a bit, just enough for me to catch the unmistakable glint of gunmetal strapped to his side.
He was armed. Armed and dangerous, as they said on those detective radio shows.
A soggy disappointment washed over me. Of course he was armed. What did I expect of a gangster? My appetite evaporated. What was I doing here? I pushed back my chair. “I think we should leave now. All this talking is giving me a headache.”
He looked mystified. “But what about lunch?”
“I’m sorry. I really need to get back.”
We left the restaurant and climbed into the roadster, but he didn’t start the engine. “Marjorie,” he said, slinging his arm around the back of the seat. “I wish I could—look, you know I care about you. But there are things about me that are hard to explain. I’m not free to be as open with you as I’d like to be.”
“Please don’t.” As long as he didn’t tell me, then I could pretend I didn’t know.
I kept my gaze fixed straight ahead, knowing that if I looked into those eyes, I’d be a goner.
He lapsed into a tense silence. Then he switched on the ignition and pulled away from the curb. On the quiet ride home, I longed to beg him to pull over, to fling my arms around his neck and tell him it didn’t matter what sorts of underworld activities he engaged in, I would follow him anywhere. This, I realized, was how good girls got into deep trouble with bad boys. Because they were so darned attractive.
When we reached the apartment, he killed the engine. Looking straight ahead through the windshield instead of at me, he said, “Marjorie, you must know I have feelings for you. If I’m not mistaken, you have feelings for me, too. But to get mixed up with a fellow like me—well, you don’t know what you’d be getting into. There are a hundred fellows out there who’d be better for you than me.”
I could hear the struggle in his voice. My defenses melted. I took his chin in my hand and gently turned his face toward me. Made h
im look me in the eye.
“I don’t want a hundred fellows. Just one. The one who makes me happy.” My throat felt thick.
Before I knew what was happening, he took me in his arms and held me against him. He bent his face to mine. Our noses bumped, but our lips met tenderly, clumsily, then hungrily. I hadn’t had a kiss like that since . . . well, since I was seventeen years old.
When we came up for air, I said weakly, “I-I should go in. It’s the middle of the day. The neighbors—”
His eyes searched mine. “Forget the neighbors.”
I could feel his breath on my cheek. All sensible thought swirled out of my mind. The very nearness of him made it impossible to think clearly. I couldn’t bear to say good-bye, to watch him drive out of my life and back into the arms of Stella Davenport. The heat of his kisses laced around my heart. I was playing with fire and I knew it.
I pulled away slightly to catch my breath. “Would . . . would you like to come in for a minute? Dot should be awake by now, and there’s some fresh lemonade in the icebox. And I can return your jacket—the one you loaned me the other night at the lakefront.”
A smile played at the corners of his mouth. “You are one hard girl to figure out. One minute you act like you never want to see me again, then the next minute . . .” He gently twirled a lock of my hair in his fingers. “Well, under the circumstances, I’d be crazy not to accept.”
Arm in arm, we climbed through the insufferably hot stairwell. I made a mental note to excuse myself and powder my nose the minute we got upstairs, since I was no doubt a sweaty mess. That would give us both a moment to cool off, to get our heads on straight. And then we’d calmly sit on the sofa, and sip lemonade, and talk this whole business out like two rational adults.
I turned the key in the lock and pushed open the door.
“There you are,” Dot said in an overly bright voice. Her wide smile looked stiff as she glanced toward the kitchen. “Where have you been? You’ll never guess who’s here.”
I followed her gaze. There, in the kitchen doorway, stood Richard.
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