“Of course; Miss Baker,” she purred with that quaint rattling voice. “We weren’t introduced, but I remember you from last week—I admired the blouse you had on. I remember thinking what nice taste you must have.” I looked at her. She was hypnotic. I felt myself strangely compelled to believe her compliment in spite of my acute awareness that none of the blouses I owned were particularly admirable. But then I thought of the brooch and questioned whether this might be a veiled reference to its disappearance. I felt an icy apprehension creep into my veins. I hesitated.
“The other typists call me Rose,” I said finally.
“Rose,” Odalie repeated. She managed, somehow, by the tiniest trick of inflection, to make it sound more like the actual flower and less like the plain girl seated before her. “Well, Rose, it’s lovely to meet y—”
Before she could finish her sentence, the door that led to the precinct’s little holding jail burst open and an elderly wino ripe with body odor swayed wildly into our midst. The Lieutenant Detective, I noticed, stepped ever so slightly closer to Odalie, as if to shield her. But contrary to everyone’s expectations, she did not require shielding. The buzz of activity around the precinct fell quiet and everyone looked on as Odalie composed herself and strode very calmly toward the escapee.
“Sir,” she said in an unfazed, smooth purr while linking arms with the wino in a friendly manner, “you seem to have slipped away from your accommodations, and I’m afraid the establishment isn’t quite ready to part with your company.” The wino, a man who was perhaps in his sixties and was dressed in a badly tattered brown suit, looked at the arm that had so smoothly looped itself through his own and, with the combination of extreme confusion and intense concentration that is unique to the very, very drunk, followed the arm’s length up to its owner’s face. What he saw there shocked him into an awed, docile sort of submission. Odalie moved as though to imply great deliberate care of his person, and, unaccustomed to such treatment, he was caught off guard. He allowed her to lead him back to the holding cell as naturally and happily as if she were leading him to a dance floor or to a next hole of golf. Once there, she let go of his arm, patted his shoulder, and gave him a wink. Meanwhile, two deputies quickly stepped in and locked him back up safely behind bars. In spite of his reimprisonment, the old man grinned at Odalie euphorically as she walked away and did not appear to regret having allowed himself to be tricked.
When she reemerged from the hall that led to the holding cell and returned to the main floor, the officers and other typists collectively held their breaths for a moment, and then suddenly the whole room erupted with applause. Odalie smiled in a pleased way and nodded her head modestly, but—as I noted—did not blush.
“Well done, Miss Lazare,” the Sergeant called in an approving bass from across the room.
The Lieutenant Detective walked over to her, extracting a handkerchief from his inside jacket pocket. He shook the handkerchief out, snapping it once through the air, then took Odalie’s hands in his own and gently wiped away a few smudges of sooty dirt that had been transferred from the wino onto Odalie’s own person during the course of her escort.
“Well, it certainly appears you are not above getting your hands a little dirty,” he said to her, giving her a wink and allowing the corners of his mouth to curl up devilishly. I am not the sort of woman to whom men often utter double entendres, but I know one when I overhear one. To her credit, Odalie appeared uninterested. She smiled politely at the good-looking detective while he cleaned the soot off her hands, but then looked away absently, as though her attention had been caught by something more fascinating just over his shoulder.
As for our own aborted introduction, it appeared it had already been long forgotten. After the fuss over Odalie’s smooth handling of the rowdy wino died down, the Lieutenant Detective handed Odalie off to Marie, whereupon she was shown to a desk and given her first police report to type up. For the remainder of the day, I watched her closely from my side of the precinct floor, but she seemed utterly impervious to my existence and did not look up or glance my way a single time. So much the better, I decided. I remember thinking at the time, aside from the simple fact of our gender, we did not appear to have much in common.
4
Of course, the mistakes seemed entirely genuine and unintended at first, and had very few irreversible repercussions. I suppose no one thought much of the little typos that began turning up here and there—if they even observed them in the first place. I noted them, but did not know yet the whole truth about Odalie’s tactics, and so did not say anything. Like most people, I quickly arrived at the assumption that Odalie was simply careless at her job and told myself I would only bring it to the Sergeant’s attention if she did not improve her accuracy over time. Out of a completely voluntary but enduring sense of conscientiousness, I took it upon myself to keep careful watch of her.
For the most part, we typists are expected to be incapable of mistakes. It is a curious phenomenon that whenever something is typed up it becomes, for better or for worse, the truth. I’ve sat in on a few trials myself and listened to words I’d typed with my own two hands read aloud by a prosecuting lawyer. The reading aloud of this transcript is always treated as though the information it contains is just as accurate and inviolable as the pair of tablets Moses brought down from Mount Sinai—even more so, for after all, Moses smashed those tablets on the first go-round and had to go back for a replacement set, and these transcripts seem more ironclad.
Even more interesting to me is how, as the confession is being read aloud by the prosecuting lawyer, the court reporter simultaneously types these same words in turn, creating a second, repeated record of the truth. Out of professional courtesy, I would never doubt the court reporter’s accuracy (as I would not appreciate somebody doubting my own), but it is interesting to contemplate the number of hands—feminine hands, no less—and machines that must handle the content of the confession until it translates itself into a verdict and, finally, a sentence. This is, of course, a function of our modern times. Whether we’ve made the wisest choice or not remains to be seen, but either way we’ve gone and placed our faith in the fidelity of machines, in that we’ve chosen to believe what these devices reproduce will stay true to the original. Furthermore, we typists are considered an extension of the typewriter and the mechanical neutrality of all it produces. Once we’ve positioned ourselves in front of the machine itself, our legs crossed at the ankles and tidily tucked under our chairs, our fingers poised over the keys, we are expected to become inhuman. It is our duty to take dictation or transcribe everything exactly as it is. We are thought to be mere receptors, passive and wonderfully incapable of deviation.
I suppose this is also the paradox of justice. The disembodiment, I mean; that justice is supposed to be all-seeing and yet blind at the same time. We typists are expected to give up our opinions, but I suppose Lady Justice is expected to be even further deprived of her faculties, in that she is not even entitled to the prejudices of first impressions. Lady Justice may be obliged to be blind in order to properly do her job, but I’m not certain I could stand that particular handicap myself. I’ll admit outright, I have always been something of a voyeuse, and I feel very little shame in this. I am quite skilled at watching people, and I believe this habit has given me something of a true education in the world—perhaps in more ways than one.
From the time of my early childhood years, the nuns at the orphanage often commented on my ability to successfully gather information by simply remaining silent and spying, unobserved. Of course, they did not put it this way. They only called it spying when I had been mischievous, and this was rare. Most times, they said things to me like, My, but what an observant little thing you are, Rose! Always soaking up everything around you! See that your observant ways don’t lead you into trouble, and you will go far in this life. I heeded their advice. I was always good; I minded my manners and kept my hands and fingernails clean, an
d they never had to scold me about my chores or scrub at my face with the rough, wetted cloth of a washrag.
It was there at the orphanage that I learned that to be plain was a sign of superior virtue. Lucky for me I discovered I had a special talent for plainness. I had not been cursed at birth with any innately remarkable talents or features, so maintaining this lack was simply a matter of never cultivating them. I made a great study of plainness, and this was how I won many of the nuns over. As the years passed, I took care to absorb the criteria that informed their judgment. According to them, a plain girl would not grow up to be a vain girl, and thus would be forever safe from at least one of the seven deadly sins. A plain girl required very little fuss to be made over her, and was just as happy to make polite conversation as she was to extract a book from the pockets of her skirt and read quietly to herself. A plain girl was in little danger of getting romantic ideas in her head—or worse still, inadvertently stirring up romantic ideas in the heads of her male counterparts—and thereby causing a scandal. If there’s one thing we’re sure of about you, Rose, it’s that you’ll never disgrace us by preening indiscreetly before the milkman, they would say in approving voices.
The milkman who delivered our daily milk was a jolly bear of a man whose eyes twinkled with dark mischief as he heaped flattery on every girl at the orphanage who crossed his path, no matter her age or status. He heaped flattery on every girl, that is, except for me. Whenever it was my turn to receive the milk, his wide grin froze into a rather flat, stiff line as I threw open the door, and the curt exchange between us was polite enough, but unmistakably all business. I overheard one of the other girls ask him why it was he spared me so thoroughly from his many winks and compliments. There’s something not right about that one, he diagnosed, shaking his head. Can’t put my finger on it exactly, but it’s like the milk: Even when it’s not yet spoiled, you just know when it’s getting ready to go off. To those of a more sensitive disposition, this would’ve caused great offense. But, of course, hearing this comment didn’t upset me in the least, as only an utter ninny would align her personal conduct with the ideals of a milkman. At the tender age of ten I already had the wherewithal to intuit my own mental and moral superiority.
The nuns seemed to intuit it as well. For a couple of years they were thoughtful enough to send me to work as a maid during the afternoons for the elderly wife of a very wealthy Catholic businessman. The idea was I would learn manners and diligence, while also learning how a proper lady lived. My employer (I use this term rather loosely, as I was not actually paid an income—although it must be said the orphanage did benefit from a few extra donations during those years) was a silver-haired, thin-lipped woman whose Arcadian ancestors had long ago followed the Saint Lawrence River out of the French colonies and into the British ones, until one day they woke up and found the world around them had changed and transformed itself into a newfangled thing called America. All roads lead to Rome, or some version of it, and as far as I can tell this is how Mrs. Abigail Lebrun’s forebears ended up adopting an eastward trajectory again, with the eventual result that the Lebruns took up residence in New York City.
As I knew them, Mrs. Lebrun spent her days overseeing a rather large four-story townhouse in an outer borough of New York, while Mr. Lebrun governed one of the city’s largest furrier workshops. Mrs. Lebrun had quite a lot of other maids, but she managed to find work for me. Under her watchful schoolmarm eye, I learned how to polish silver, how to care for fur, how to clean diamonds without disturbing them from their pronged settings, and how to mend the most delicate of lace patterns. I also learned the great virtue of frugality from Mrs. Lebrun, who was something of a master at it. I believe she felt she was doing me a great service, and perhaps she was. According to her, my generation had gone and made the world disposable—we had filled the world up with cheap, ephemeral things and had neglected to learn the art of how to make anything last. In teaching me to extend the life of this or that feathered hat or silk ball-gown, Mrs. Lebrun had set herself the task of correcting my generation’s flaws.
The nuns were quite pleased with the positive reviews I received in my stint as a maid, and considered perhaps even more could be done to help me. During the summer of my twelfth birthday they took up a collection, and it was decided when the school year resumed they would send me daily down the road to the Bedford Academy for Girls. This was so I might get a better education than the farcical one that was meted out in the single schoolroom at the orphanage by Sister Mildred, who was unfortunately eighty-nine years old and mostly deaf in both ears. I still remember how, at the time, the nuns were quite impressed by the education I was getting at the Bedford Academy and frequently expressed as much. Oh, Rose, but how well you mind your p’s and q’s! They are making a perfect little lady out of you! I don’t know if it made me into a perfect little lady, but I suppose the Bedford Academy led to the Astoria Stenographers College for Ladies, and in this way I suppose the Bedford Academy had a hand in making a perfect little typist out of me (if I may be so bold as to use the word perfect to describe my impeccable typing skills). I may have mentioned already: I’m both extremely fast and extremely accurate in my typing. I believe this precision may simply be the result of my innate curiosity and my sharp eyes.
And so it was only natural that I trained these sharp eyes on the new typist. I watched Odalie carefully from the very first moment she began working at the precinct, but it was not until two weeks into her tenure that I started keeping a written record of her movements. It began very innocently; I jotted down simple notes about her comings and goings around the office and recorded the details of our limited conversations in the pages of a little notepad I kept tucked in the back of my desk drawer—right next to the brooch that still gave me a bit of a cold fright (and perhaps a simultaneous thrill) whenever I glimpsed it glinting at me from within the drawer, still nestled there. My notes on Odalie’s activities were straightforward. Nothing terribly ambitious, just a road map, I suppose; a constellation of little landmarks I thought might lead me closer to figuring out the nature of Odalie’s character. A sampling of extracts from these notes might read as follows:
Today when O came in she threw off the little capelet she was wearing like a magician and the satin interior flashed like silvery lightning. A clumsy kind of grace, but quite pretty. Entrances are always full of drama. Am beginning to look forward to her arrivals in the mornings, if only to see the show.
O inquired where I like to take my lunches. Could be she is simply after gastronomical advice, but I doubt it. Think she is trying to work up the nerve to ask me to join her for lunch someday. Responds to me differently than to Iris or Marie or any of the patrolmen. She is clearly intelligent and perhaps she has figured out we two are different from most of the others in the precinct. Not that I’m lonely, but it might be nice to have some clever conversations. I might welcome a lunch invitation after all.
Vaguely disappointed in O’s typing skills—O botched two reports today. In six instances typed an “s” where an “a” should have appeared. When I pointed out her mistakes she blamed the typewriter and claimed the two keys have a habit of sticking together. Switched typewriters with her. Typewriter appears to be working fine.
The Lieutenant Detective came back from lunch today and deposited a small bundle of peanut brittle on O’s desk. O acted very pleased, but as with all things to do with O, it was very difficult to tell if this was genuine. He said he just “happened” to be at the sweet shop this afternoon. Dubious, because the Lieutenant Detective takes his coffee black and has never been sighted eating a sweet.
O prefers tea to coffee. Earl Grey, with a little milk. Drinks it with her little finger curled. I admit I quite like this little habit about her. Perhaps a lady after all.
O crossed the room to return a report and lingered at my desk. Asked me what kind of music I prefer. I was perhaps a little too eager; said I like everything. The truth is I can’t stand most of the modern n
oise one hears spilling out of the dance hall orchestras these days and really only like Bach and Mozart. But she put her hand on my shoulder and said we really must go to hear some music sometime. Wonder if we’ll actually go to a concert together. Might even be able to tolerate some of that bizarre Stravinsky music if it meant keeping company with O. Have such a curiosity about her; my instincts tell me she is a very refined person.
Hinted to O today that I might go to the lunch-stand around the corner and that she might like to come along. She did not seem to pick up on my invitation, but I believe she is simply waiting until we can go someplace nicer together. She has very fine taste, and I’m quite certain she would want our first lunch together to be special. It was foolish of me to imply we should go somewhere as cheap and common as the lunch-stand.
O straightened her stockings while talking to the Lieutenant Detective today and didn’t seem to care he was staring at her legs! Downright shocking. While sitting in chair, O reached right down to her left leg and began straightening the seam in the rayon. Stopped just short of reaching under her skirt and adjusting the very stays themselves, I’m sure. Very vulgar and inappropriate. Imagine the Lieutenant Detective was titillated, but the Sergeant would not have stood for it. Thank God for the Sergeant. There is such a thing as a moral and upright man.
The Other Typist Page 5