The two women shared a soft giggle, and Monica was just about to point out that they’d managed this long without a receptionist when the telephone rang.
Zelda rolled her eyes and exhaled big enough to puff the soft clump of hair in front of her eye.
“Again, the phone. Always ringing.” She walked over to the little desk at the front of the office that, as far as Monica could remember, had never been occupied, and took the earpiece from the stick. “Capitol Chatter. What may I help you?” A pause. “Stay, please, on the line.”
She hung up the phone and walked to Harper’s office, knocked twice on the door, and said, “Phone for you. Advertising,” before sitting back at the table. “It is this all day.”
“I still don’t see why we need to hire anyone new. You’re perfectly capable of answering a telephone, obviously.”
“It is not good for a newspaper to have a telephone answered by a woman who does not speak English so good.” Zelda’s downcast eyes spoke more to modesty than shame; surely Max hadn’t made such an observation.
“Even I could, I suppose, in a pinch.”
Zelda looked up, a sly smile tugging at her lip. “I think maybe you do not want another young girl working here at the office. Most specially not all day, every day.”
Monica steeled herself from squirming. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I don’t think so ridiculous. I know you had dinner together a few nights ago.”
“And it was delicious, by the way.”
“Is this week’s recipe. And I may just be a nosy old woman, but I hope the rest of the evening was just as good?” She waggled her eyebrows like some character from a comedy short.
“It was a nice evening.” Monica shifted her eyes to Max’s office, looking for any sign that Mary Alice was on her way out. She felt Zelda patting her hand.
“I am glad. He is a nice man, Miss Monica. You could use a few more nice men in your life.”
A wave of defensiveness came and went as Monica let the comment pass.
She heard the scrape of Max’s chair, and seconds later Mary Alice Murray, looking both hopeful and bemused, emerged from his office. Had Mary Alice been privy to the expression on Max’s face behind her, she might have skimped on the hopeful.
“We’ll let you know as soon as we have made a decision,” he said, his voice on the kind side of a promise. “Look for a letter by the end of the week.”
“Thank you, sir,” Mary Alice said, turning to face him as she reached the door. “I’m a hard worker, just a little clumsy.”
“We wish you all the best.” Max held the door open for her, and the same rush of hushing came from the girls in the hall. He poked his head out the door saying, “Wait a few minutes, ladies,” before closing it on Mary Alice’s exiting form.
“Sweet girl,” he said, turning around.
“She seemed so,” Zelda said.
“Too thin,” Monica said, capturing a skeptical response from both Max and Zelda. “I mean, she looks too much like a little girl. People will think she’s Harper’s daughter playing grown-up.”
“I’ll be sure to write as much on her rejection letter,” Max said. “Better yet, I’ll let you write the letter, since you’re so gifted with a turn of phrase.”
“I have other writing to do.” Monica stood, holding out her column. “You might want to read it first and decide if it needs a fatherly disclaimer or not.”
In response, Max gestured toward his open office door, following Monica inside and closing it behind her.
“I’m glad to see you made it home safely the other night.” His voice took on a quality more suited to their privacy, though he came nowhere close to touching her as she sat down.
“I do know my way around this city,” she said, scooting to the edge of the seat in order to keep her feet flat on the floor. “It’s not the first time I’ve had to get myself home.”
“I telephoned Sunday afternoon to check. I spoke with a Mr.—”
“Davenport? He delivered your message.”
“Did he really? Because I asked you to telephone me.”
“He’s old. Forgetful.”
“I was hoping to see you yesterday.”
“My column wasn’t due until today.”
“I needed to see you.”
She felt a twist, then a flutter at the thought of Max pining away these past days. Not enough to send her flowers, or even make a second phone call, but needing nonetheless.
“I’m here now,” she said in a perfectly modulated way that would have made Alice Reighly proud.
Max leaned against his desk, and she watched, breathless, as he took off his suit jacket. In the outer office, the telephone was once again ringing, and Monica hoped against everything the call wouldn’t be for Max. He extended his hand, and she inched farther up on her seat, stopping only when he hitched up his sleeve, revealing a series of long, raw scratches covering most of his forearm.
She exhaled. “Are you and Paolo not getting along?”
“Does it look like we’re getting along? He hates me.”
“That can’t be. He’s the sweetest cat in the world.”
“Who doesn’t like to be moved. Or touched. At all.”
She dreaded his answer to the next question. “Do I need to take him back? Maybe he’s better suited to roaming the streets than settling down in a nice home. Some cats are like that.”
“No,” Max said, and she tried to mask her relief. “I’m learning to let him stay wherever he plants himself, and if I do need him to move, I can lure him away with a toy rather than picking him up.”
“A toy?”
He looked sheepish, embarrassed, like a little boy. “A wad of yarn tied to the end of a pencil. Endlessly entertaining. That’s what Chaplin should use in his next movie.”
“I’d love to see that.” The minute she said it, Monica regretted having done so, especially given how the self-invitation fell between them like a brick.
Max rolled down his sleeve but left his jacket on the desk. “You have your column?”
“Yes.” She handed it to him as he made his way around to his chair, then swung her feet nervously as he read it, brow furrowed.
“A change of heart?”
“Somewhat.”
“You’re taking on the challenge?”
“Full steam,” she said with a plucky gesture.
“No flirting.” He took off his glasses. “At all?”
She glued her feet to the floor once again. Resolved. Outside, the phone rang again, but this time she hoped it would bring Zelda to the door, knocking for Max’s attention. The way he was looking at her fell short of being a leer but was clearly one of heightened interest, even if humorously so.
“Nope.”
“Not even with some slick, dandified cake eater?”
She held a straight face. “I see you read the rules. And it’s a good thing, too, because I think most of the girls waiting in the hallway haven’t. You might have a hard time maintaining your sense of propriety with them. One of them thinks you look like Tarzan.”
“Really?” He puffed up his chest. “What do you think?”
She bit the inside of her cheek, not willing to give him the satisfaction of knocking her off the flirting wagon.
“I’ll tell you next week.”
“Fair enough,” he said, the spell broken. He stood in a clear gesture of dismissal, and she followed suit. “By the way, I think the column’s good. Maybe we should move it? Might get lost in some of the new advertising.”
“Page one?”
“Maybe four.”
“I’ll take it.”
Max opened the door to reveal Zelda standing there, about to knock.
“The telephone. It was for Miss Monica. I take name, not wanting to interrupt.” Her subtext was so clear, Monica dared not look up at Max.
“Who was it?” Monica asked, dreading that the next word out of Zelda’s mouth would be Charlie.
“It was Mr.—�
�� she brought the slip closer—“Everett Bentworth. At the bank.”
Monica took the slip. “Uncle Everett? What would he want? I’m not due to visit him until next week.”
“He says only that you need to visit him. Sooner rather than later.”
Monica thanked Zelda, folded the slip of paper, and put it in her purse. She looked up at Max. “Any chance I could take the key to Edward’s safety-deposit box? I might need a drink after this.”
“Let me know, and we’ll see,” he said, giving her about as much hope as Mary Alice Murray had a right to claim.
He followed her to the front door, where he once again faced the gathering of potential receptionists, asking if there were any new names to add to his list.
“I am,” a female voice said.
Monica ducked underneath Max’s arm and would have passed by the girl entirely if she hadn’t felt a hand on her shoulder and heard that same voice say, “Maxine?”
Oh no.
There was no sense hurrying away. She’d been seen, recognized, called out. The best she could do was rely on Max’s participation in one more lie.
“Well, hello, Emma Sue. What brings you here?”
“Same as you, I suppose. Applying for the job.”
“Well, good luck to you.”
“Nice of you to say, since you just came out of an interview.”
“She’s not here for an interview,” said Tarzan girl, looking victorious at the opportunity to respond to Monica’s previous attack. “She says she’s a writer here. We happen to think she’s Miss Monkey Business herself.”
“Don’t be silly.” Monica ducked her head and tried to walk away, but Emma Sue’s friendly touch turned into a viselike grip that stopped her midstep. She looked beyond her to Max. “Thank you for the opportunity, Mr. Moore.”
The shake of Max’s head might have been imperceptible to the other girls in the hall, but Monica couldn’t miss it. In it was an apology—for suggesting this story, for allowing the ruse, for the fallout that was surely to come.
“Emma Sue, I can explain.”
She watched the girl’s face change. Her normally soft, heart-shaped lips stretched, as if barely containing the seething within. Her pinkish skin inflamed, making Monica want to duck away from the onslaught of some anticipated rush of anger.
“Explain what, exactly? How you played us all for fools? After everybody tried to be so nice to you. Then you write about us like we’re a bunch of old sour apples?”
“I’m so sorry—”
“We should have known, you with your flapper hairstyle and all that makeup on your face. You’re not a nice girl, Maxine. If that is your real name. Not a nice girl at all.”
At this, Monica found herself slapped into uncharacteristic silence. She wanted to run back into the safety of the office, if only to grab her article and prove her change of heart, even if that meant admitting to the ugliness of the ruse. Then again, what was there to admit? Emma Sue stood there as accuser, judge, and jury. “Not a nice girl.” A sentence delivered by a peer.
“I can explain,” she said once she’d found her voice.
“Don’t bother. How would we ever know you weren’t just spouting out another bunch of lies?”
“Now just a minute,” Max said, stepping in, garnering Monica’s appreciation and pity. He’d obviously had little experience dealing with an enraged woman. The term fair when applied to her sex was nothing if not misleading.
“You!” Emma Sue let go of Monica’s arm and pointed an accusatory finger. “You’re just as bad! This is not a nice paper at all! Never has been, and I don’t care if you are turning over some new leaf; you’re deceptive. Didn’t even list the name of the company on the sign downstairs. And no wonder. Who would want to work for a rag like this?”
“Now just a minute,” Monica said, her intervention exactly as effective as Max’s had been.
“All of you girls—” Emma Sue turned to the row of shocked faces lining the hall, undaunted in her rant—“you’d do good to stay clear of this place. They’re liars. And betrayers. And just, just—”
Depleted of words, Emma Sue burst into tears and ran the length of the hopefuls, her sobs and her footsteps echoing as she clattered down the stairs in retreat. A few of the girls silently gathered their things and followed, though Tarzan girl wasn’t one of them.
“So you are the Monkey,” she said, full of unrestrained admiration.
“Guilty,” Monica said, not feeling a bit of irony in the word.
The girl glanced briefly at Max before pointing to herself, saying, “Me, Jane. And I love your column. I read it every week.”
“Really?” It was Monica, then, who glanced back at Max. “Hire this one.”
“And of this place,” thought she, “I might have been mistress! With these rooms I might now have been familiarly acquainted! Instead of viewing them as a stranger, I might have rejoiced in them as my own.”
JANE AUSTEN, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
HE’D LEFT MRS. OVENOFF with instructions to take the names of the girls interested in the receptionist’s job and caught up with Monica around the corner. It meant running at a good clip, clutching his hat to his head while his coat flapped behind him, but as he closed in on her small, unmistakable frame, he slowed himself to a long, loping walk, barely breathing hard as he pulled up beside her.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, more with surprise than suspicion.
“Needed a breath of fresh air.”
She accepted that as explanation.
“So I guess I’ve been found out. Maybe it’s time to give me a byline.”
“It’s a good piece of writing. You should be proud.”
“I should send a note to Alice Reighly before Emma Sue gets to her.”
Max thought about the fury in the girl’s face. “Oh, I’m thinking it’s probably too late for that already. But I think a note’s a good idea.”
“Maybe in the paper? Right under my column. An apology of sorts.”
He considered it for just a few seconds before responding. “Not in the paper.”
She looked up. “What about all that ‘whatsoever things are true’ stuff?”
“Journalistically,” he said, choosing his words carefully, “you did nothing wrong. At all. You were investigating. If it makes you feel better, write the note to clear your conscience, but what you submitted to me already is mea culpa enough.”
“Well, well . . .” She nudged him with her shoulder as they walked. “Look at you and me on common ground.”
“Feels good, doesn’t it?”
“I’m not getting too comfortable. I have a feeling it’s a tiny island.”
They walked in companionable silence for the rest of the way, and when they arrived at the bank, he opened the door for her in grand style, then stood back as she signed her name in the ledger.
“Here to see Everett Bentworth,” she said to the ancient man behind the desk.
“Very good,” he said, giving no indication he would quit his post to announce her.
Monica turned around. “Coming with?”
“Family business,” Max said, backing into one of the benches in the waiting area. “I’ll wait here.”
She grabbed his hand in both of hers, tugging. “Please?”
Certainly she knew the effect she had on him—on men in general, he assumed. But there was no flirtatiousness to her plea. Rather, a genuine need—that tugging again—to have him by her side. And so, hat in hand, he followed her into Bentworth’s office.
She gave only a courtesy knock before letting herself in, making Max want to apologize for her boldness, but she was welcomed with affection as Bentworth came out from behind his desk to take her in a fatherly embrace.
“There’s my Monkey,” he said, regaining some professional composure when he noticed Max in the room. Keeping Monica wrapped under one arm, he extended the other in greeting.
“Mr. Moore.”
“Mr. Bentworth.”
“I’m not due to get my allowance for another week, Uncle Everett,” Monica said as he guided her to one of the leather seats facing his desk. Upon invitation, Max took the second. “And you’ll be proud to know I still have nearly three dollars left. Do you want me to take you out to lunch?”
Bentworth’s smile was hiding something—good or bad, Max couldn’t tell. Eyes wide open, he sent up a prayer on Monica’s behalf. The girl had suffered enough for one day.
“Well,” Bentworth said, “the good news is you’re about to become a modestly wealthier young woman.”
It was the kind of news that should have elicited a joyful response, but when Max turned to offer his congratulations, he saw Monica profiled in shocked defeat and silence. He looked from one to the other for explanation.
“Her mother’s house sold. She’s due to inherit the proceeds.”
“The Baltimore house? I didn’t think it would ever sell. I had no idea . . .” Her voice trailed away as she studied the deed Bentworth placed in her hands.
“It’s a largely abandoned neighborhood, about to be destroyed. The developer bought all of the properties, including yours. Your mother didn’t list it in her will—”
“She never looked back,” Monica said, her eyes lost in the legal writing on the page.
“But as you are her sole heir, the money goes directly to you.”
“When?” There was only one word to describe the expression on her face. Hunger.
“As soon as the sale is final.”
“How much?”
He named a modest figure. “It’s not a lot of money, but since it’s not tied up in the trust, you can have it now. It may be enough for a small place here or at least a sizable down payment. I could help you secure a mortgage—”
“What do I have to do?” Monica broke in. “Do I have to sign something?”
“Not today.”
“Then why am I here?”
Bentworth cleared his throat and proceeded with a compassionate caution. “They have hired a crew to clear the house for demolition, and there are a few items—perhaps of personal significance—that I thought you might want to see before they are taken away.”
“What kinds of things?”
He consulted a list. “Papers, mostly; a few books. Some furnishings that you might want to have. It’s all gathered neatly and may have even belonged to the interim renters, but I thought you’d like to know.”
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