Louise's Chance

by Sarah R. Shaber

  Half an hour later I trundled the hand truck stacked with stencils into the conference room. Miss Osborne was waiting for me. A pile of canvas bags with drawstrings waited for us in a box on the floor.

  ‘Put a stencil in each bag,’ she said. ‘We need to get these on the next airplane to London. We’ve got a new outpost there. They don’t have most of their supplies yet, but these need to be distributed as soon as possible. They’ve got other materials to stuff in the bags there. If we get them to London quickly they can go out on the next RAF bombing run.’

  ‘Why are we sending them the master?’ I asked, grabbing a bag and inserting a stencil into it.

  ‘They’ll have enough staff soon to do this themselves,’ Miss Osborne said.

  It didn’t take long for us to finish filling the canvas bags. Miss Osborne turned them over to a Negro messenger who was waiting to drive them to Bolling Field.

  ‘Lester, don’t cut yourself on the master,’ Miss Osborne said to the messenger. ‘The edges are quite sharp.’

  ‘No, ma’am,’ Lester said, piling the canvas bags on the hand truck.

  ‘Do you think you can make the last airplane to London?’ she asked him, glancing at her watch. ‘It leaves at five.’

  ‘Sure,’ he said, ‘I know a shortcut.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, glancing over at me as if surprised to see me, ‘Lester, this is Mrs Pearlie, my new assistant.’

  I stretched out a hand to shake his. He gripped me with a calloused paw so large it engulfed mine.

  ‘I feel for you, Mrs Pearlie,’ Lester said, smiling widely despite missing several teeth. ‘This woman, she be a slave driver! Works you all day long!’

  ‘I haven’t worn you out yet, have I?’ Miss Osborne asked him.

  ‘No, ma’am,’ Lester said, wheeling the hand truck out of the conference room. ‘But it would be nice to get a break sometime to smoke a cigarette!’

  ‘That’s one project finished,’ Miss Osborne said, after Lester had closed the conference door behind him. ‘Speaking of cigarettes, I need one. Haven’t had a smoke since lunch.’ She pulled her pocketbook off the back of her chair, where she’d slung it before we began to pack the bags. She rummaged around inside it for a minute before pulling out a pack of Lucky Strikes and a trench army lighter.

  ‘Want one?’ she asked.

  ‘No, thanks, I don’t smoke.’

  She lit her cigarette and inhaled deeply. I could see her shoulders relax.

  ‘Quite a day,’ she said. ‘Have you finished the MO field manual?’

  ‘No, but I have just a few pages more.’

  ‘Good,’ she said. ‘I’ve got something else you can get done before the end of the day.’ She pulled a spiral composition book out of her pocketbook and handed it to me. ‘Would you please type up the notes I took this morning?’ she said.

  ‘Of course,’ I said, taking the notebook from her hand. ‘I’ve got a typewriter, but no office supplies.’

  ‘Damn,’ she said, ‘I forgot to requisition them.’ Stubbing out her cigarette she rose from her seat and slung her pocketbook over her shoulder. ‘Come to my office and I’ll give you some to tide you over.’

  Miss Osborne’s office was only slightly larger than mine. There was a cot with a blanket and pillow neatly piled on top, so she must sleep here occasionally. I made a mental note to keep a toothbrush and spare undies in my handbag from now on.

  Miss Osborne scrabbled around in her messy desk drawers and gathered typing paper, an eraser, carbon paper, pencils and a few file folders. She shoved them across the desk to me, then ripped a requisition form off a pad and scrawled an illegible signature across the bottom.

  ‘Here,’ she said, handing it to me. ‘I’ve signed it, but you list what you need. You might want to go to the supply room in the morning and pick everything up; otherwise it could be a couple of days before your order’s delivered.’ Or much of it would be missing! The supply department had a habit of shorting every request for supplies to save money.

  I seized on this brief moment when Miss Osborne wasn’t in motion to ask her about my job.

  ‘Ma’am,’ I said, ‘would you mind telling me what your title is, and mine? Do you know what my salary is?’

  ‘Oh, hell’s bells,’ she said. ‘No one told you? Of course. Have a seat.’

  I sat down while she sorted through the folders on her desk.

  ‘Here it is,’ she said, opening a file. ‘Our big boss is the Deputy Director of Psychological Warfare Operations. I’m the Administrative Assistant for the European Theater of Operations. Our branch chief is Lt Colonel Roller; I report to the deputy chief, Mr Baldwin.’

  I had never heard of any of these men. They must be new to OSS.

  ‘Let’s see now,’ she continued. ‘Your title is Junior Administrative Assistant, salary twenty-six hundred dollars. Does that sound right?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ I said evenly, trying not to betray my delight. This was a definite promotion. And a six hundred dollar raise – fifty extra dollars a month! What was I going to do with all that money?

  ‘I’m off to another meeting,’ she said, slinging her bag over her shoulder. ‘You can leave at five thirty today, if you wish.’

  She was gone before I had a chance to respond.

  Next door, in my own office, I sat at my typewriter for the first time. I wondered if I needed to make a carbon copy of the notes I was typing up. I decided to do so. I could always shred it if Miss Osborne wanted me to.

  Slipping sheets of paper and carbon paper into my typewriter, I began to decipher her notes. Much of the manuscript was in shorthand. Miss Osborne must once have been an ordinary secretary. Thank goodness I remembered most of my shorthand from business school! What I couldn’t remember I inferred. When I filled out my requisition form I’d include a copy of the Gregg shorthand manual.

  My typed notes filled just two pages, single-spaced since the government needed to save paper. I filed my own copy and went next door to deposit one in Miss Osborne’s inbox. Back in my own office I filled out the requisition form, listing everything I could possibly think of, even cellophane tape.

  It was five thirty in the evening. Time to go home. I felt as though I had just arrived; the day had sped by. Instead of typing and filing without relief as my workday at the Registry crawled by, I’d actually had varied assignments. This was a definite improvement in my life. If I ever saw Major Wicker again I’d thank him again for his reference.

  When I climbed on to my bus I saw a girl I knew from the Registry and sat down beside her.

  ‘I heard that you got a new job,’ she said. ‘Do you like it?’

  ‘I love it,’ I answered.

  As soon as my boarding house came into view my happiness with my new job dissipated. What was I going to tell Ada? The MO branch was on the other side of the OSS compound from the Registry and the vast collection of OSS files where I once toiled. How could I just waltz into the Registry and look for a list of German prisoners of war? It would arouse the suspicion of all my former co-workers and supervisors. It had nothing to do with my new job. I didn’t even know if such a list existed! I’d stupidly tried to calm Ada’s fears, but instead I’d raised her expectations of something I might not be able to do.

  Stepping inside the dark foyer of ‘Two Trees’ I strained to hear Ada’s voice. If she had a gig tonight maybe I could avoid a scene by leaving a note on her bed. What a coward I was! But it was Phoebe who greeted me, coming out of the lounge with her hands clasped and delight in her eyes.

  ‘Louise!’ she said. ‘Guess who’s here!’

  ‘Who?’ I asked, wondering if her second son was home on leave.

  ‘Joe! He’s going to have dinner with us tonight.’

  My heart leapt and choked off my voice.

  ‘Really?’ I said squeakily. ‘How nice.’ The last letter I’d received from Joe had said he didn’t know exactly when he’d be back in Washington.

  Joe himself walked out of the lounge.
I wanted to throw myself into his arms, but instead I stood rooted to the spot, folding my hands in front of me to keep them still. My ears pounded and the hallway receded from my vision as if I was going to faint. I reached for the newel post of the staircase to steady myself. Damn him for not letting me know he would be here! I felt exposed, afraid Phoebe and the other boarders would be able to read my vulnerability in my face.

  Joe wasn’t anyone’s idea of a leading man. He had a medium build, dark hair and a dark beard and wore cheap metal-framed glasses. He dressed in well-worn suits that could easily have come from a thrift shop. He was rarely without his scuffed leather briefcase, pipe and a bag of Prince Albert tobacco. He was the picture of his cover story, a refugee college professor.

  I was attracted to Joe in a way I had never been to any other man. My first husband, Bill Pearlie, had been my best friend since childhood. I loved him, and I was devastated when he died, but it wasn’t this heart-stopping, even dangerous, sort of emotion. Joe was more sophisticated than I. He’d lived in London and knew about opera, theatre and fine food. He had an adorable accent, lightly trilling his ‘rs’. But despite his urbanity and education he never condescended to me.

  As I clung to the staircase Joe broke my indecision about what to do by taking my arm and planting a brotherly kiss on my forehead.

  ‘Louise,’ he said, ‘it’s so good to see you!’

  ‘And you,’ I managed to say in my normal voice.

  ‘Take off your hat and come into the lounge,’ Phoebe said. ‘We’re celebrating! Joe brought us champagne.’

  Milt and Henry stood up as I entered the lounge and I took a seat on the davenport. Joe took the spot next to me on the davenport and Phoebe took another chair.

  ‘This room looks so attractive,’ Joe said. ‘What have you done with it?’

  ‘Ada and Louise slipcovered the chairs and davenport for me. Didn’t they do a nice job? I love the fabric,’ Phoebe said.

  I wouldn’t have chosen the pink and green floral for myself but Ada and I knew Phoebe would love it. It had taken us many weekends to finish, but it was worth it to please Phoebe. We lived in relative luxury at ‘Two Trees’ and we knew it. In most other boarding houses we would be sharing our small bedrooms with roommates.

  ‘Where is Ada?’ I asked Phoebe.

  ‘She’s working,’ Phoebe said. ‘At a private reception at the Statler.’

  Milt handed me a glass of champagne and I gulped the first swallow. I needed to steady myself. The shock of seeing Joe had worn off, but still I had to pretend I was no more than his friend.

  ‘Joe was telling us where he’s living now,’ Henry said. ‘You know that huge block of apartments between Virginia Avenue and New Hampshire?’

  ‘You mean the Potomac Plaza?’ I said.

  ‘That’s the one,’ Joe said. ‘It’s not much to look at but it’s not far from George Washington.’ He meant the university where Phoebe and the rest of the boarders thought he taught. Except he didn’t.

  ‘You’re going back to work there again?’ Milt asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Joe said, ‘I’ll be teaching Slavic languages to classes full of soldiers, like before.’

  ‘I don’t understand why you went to New York in the first place,’ Henry said.

  Joe shrugged. ‘I expound on diacritical marks wherever I’m sent,’ he said. ‘I don’t ask questions.’

  ‘Thank God,’ Joe said, when Dellaphine, our cook and housekeeper, brought in an immense platter of fried chicken and set it on the dining room table in front of Phoebe. ‘I’ve missed your cooking,’ he said to her.

  Dellaphine beamed at him. She had a soft spot for Joe.

  ‘I’ve fixed the mashed potatoes just the way you like them,’ she said.

  ‘A little lumpy,’ Henry said under his breath.

  If Dellaphine had heard him she wouldn’t have cared. Henry was not her favorite boarder.

  She left the dining room and came back with bowls of mashed potatoes and butterbeans and a basket of homemade yeast rolls. I was disappointed we only had margarine to melt over it all. I’d thought we had most of our butter ration left.

  Phoebe served the chicken, giving Joe both a breast and a drumstick, I noticed. She scooped up a heap of already sliced chicken from the platter and served her son. Milt wouldn’t let us help him at the table. If his food needed to be cut up Dellaphine or Phoebe did it in the kitchen. Once our plates were full of chicken we passed the side dishes around and focused on eating.

  ‘I’m sorry I took your bed,’ Milt said to Joe. ‘It wasn’t part of my plan to come home before the war ended.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ Joe said. ‘The apartment is fine. I’m sharing it with a friend. It’s a two and a half roomer.’ So the apartment had a kitchen, living room and one bedroom. So much for privacy, I thought. We couldn’t be together unless we rented a hotel room, and I just wouldn’t do that. Someone might report our ‘tryst’ to the FBI, since conscientious Washingtonians wouldn’t hesitate to notice an unmarried couple, one of whom had an eastern European accent, shacked up in a hotel room. I could lose my security clearance. And I didn’t know what Phoebe would do if she found out I was with Joe instead of out of town. Even Ada came home every night, even if it was three o’clock in the morning. When I went to New York to visit Joe I pretended I was spending a weekend at a guesthouse in Maryland on the Chesapeake Bay. Phoebe was a wonderful person but she was a traditional Southern lady. If she found out I was having an affair with Joe she might evict me.

  ‘But,’ Joe said, without looking at me, ‘my roommate’s gone most weekends. His family lives in Virginia, in Manassas. He visits them as often as he can.’

  Joe’s words gave me hope that we could spend time together, and I felt a flush climb up my neck. I willed it to stop, and held my glass of cold milk to my face. I thought I must be bright red, but nobody seemed to notice.

  We cleaned up every morsel of our dinner.

  ‘My turn,’ I said, getting out of my seat to help Dellaphine clear the table. The word ‘turn’ meant either Phoebe or me. The men kept their seats.

  In the kitchen I said hello to Madeleine, Dellaphine’s twenty-year-old daughter. She helloed back at me. She was still dressed in the neat suit that she’d worn to her clerical job at the Social Security Administration. She’d already washed the pots and pans – as shown by the stack on the drain board end of the big sink – and was back sitting at the kitchen table, turning the pages of the Negro Digest.

  I stacked the dishes in the sink while Dellaphine ducked into the pantry. She came out beaming, carrying a beautiful iced chocolate cake on a serving plate.

  ‘Miss Phoebe told me Mr Joe would be here in time for me to bake his favorite cake,’ she said.

  ‘Is that where the last of the butter and sugar went?’ I asked.

  ‘Sure is,’ she answered. ‘I don’t think anyone will mind.’

  ‘I’m sure no one will,’ I said, my mouth already watering just thinking about buttercream frosting.

  ‘Why don’t you take it in?’ she said. ‘I’ll get started on the dishes.’

  Everyone at the table murmured happily when I presented the cake. Milt picked up his fork in anticipation before Phoebe cut the first slice.

  I took the first two pieces Phoebe sliced back into the kitchen for Dellaphine and Madeleine. Mine was waiting at my place when I returned to the table. It was delicious, a real cake at a time when we often had to settle for canned fruit.

  Joe went back into the kitchen and thanked Dellaphine for the cake, then joined us in the lounge. There was a little champagne left, and Phoebe divided it up into our champagne glasses so we could each have another swallow.

  ‘Do you mind listening to the radio?’ Henry asked. ‘Bing Crosby’s on.’

  I’d heard enough of Bing Crosby to last me a lifetime, but I couldn’t complain as long as my fellow boarders allowed me to listen to the Grand Ole Opry on Saturday nights.

  Joe and I sat beside each other on
the davenport. The hair on my arms prickled when I felt his hand rest next to mine while we listened to Bing croon. It was a struggle not to lay my head on his shoulder.

  The program ended and Joe stirred. He turned to me.

  ‘Do you know if the Western Market is still open?’ he asked. ‘I need to pick up some groceries.’

  ‘You’ve got thirty minutes,’ I said.

  ‘I’d better be off, then,’ he said.

  After hugs from Phoebe and me and firm handshakes from Henry and Milt, Joe left.

  I slipped into the kitchen where Madeleine and Dellaphine were drinking after dinner coffee.

  ‘I’m going to feed the chickens and check on the garden,’ I said to them.

  On the back stoop I filled a bucket with corn and almost ran to the chicken coop in the backyard. Dumping the corn in the coop and the bucket on the ground I went around the house to the front, opened the gate, walked quickly down the street and met Joe in front of the Western Market.

  Out in the open we didn’t dare embrace. Instead I whacked him on the arm. ‘Why didn’t you call me and tell me you were in town?’ I asked. ‘I could have blown everything.’

  Joe rubbed his arm. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t call you at work, could I? When I arrived at Union Station I called my friend who’d offered to share his apartment with me. Then I thought I should call Phoebe to give you some kind of heads-up. She invited me to dinner and I couldn’t think of a reason to decline. So I just showed up. I knew you could handle it.’

  ‘I thought you weren’t sure when you were coming back to town.’

  ‘I got my instructions this morning, with barely enough time to pack and catch the train. Sorry I surprised you.’

  ‘I forgive you,’ I said. ‘I’m so glad you’re here.’

  He glanced up and down the empty street.

  ‘Anyone could be looking out of the windows,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll be in touch when I can,’ he said.

  ‘When your roommate is out of town,’ I answered.

  ‘Yes. I’d better get on to the market,’ he said.

  Our arms hung at our sides. I’d wanted desperately for him to move back to DC, but this was difficult. Almost worse than being apart.