Looking around again at the fancy hats and lacquered nails, breathing in the heady scent of Chanel mixed with the earthy smell of steak, hearing the tinkling of glasses and silverware that sounded more like a party than a lunch out, I wondered, could I become accustomed to a place like this? Or would I always feel like a visitor?
When I looked back at Willie, he was smiling with amusement. Hurriedly, I reached for my drink, raising it. “A toast. To your new job.”
“A toast,” he said, “to the lovely lady who finally agreed to lunch with me.”
Blushing, I clinked my glass to his and took a sip. The drink was surprisingly strong but quite delicious, with sweet undertones. Much better than the hooch I was used to drinking. “Mmmm,” I said. “Like Dorothy Parker.” Trying to appear cosmopolitan, I asked, “So, what is the New Yorker office like?”
Willie launched into a monologue about the bedraggled crew who came in and out; how an article he wrote for The Atlantic had gotten him noticed; how the boss, Harold Ross, was buffoonish, but had an excellent eye for prose; how the magazine was surviving the Depression. I tried to follow along, but I kept sipping my drink, which really was quite delightful, and taking in Willie’s handsomeness and the hubbub of the room, and I felt light-headed and lovely, as if I were in the middle of a Cole Porter song. I could be very happy here, I thought. I knew I must tell him, but this was all so heavenly, this little oasis from the problems of my world, that I didn’t want to spoil the ethereal mood with the gross realities of my life.
By the time the waiter returned with our meals, my drink was nearly empty, and before I could stop him—I needed to return to the office, after all—Willie ordered me a second. With my plate in front of me, I was relieved to learn sole was simply fish, albeit fish swimming in butter, but quite tasty, I discovered.
“How is your meal?” Willie asked.
“Delectable,” I said.
“You must try mine,” Willie said. “They make the most superb crab salad.”
I looked up with a start and saw that Willie’s hand was outstretched. Surely Willie knew me better than that. But of course he did. This was a test.
“I shouldn’t,” I said, trying to smile demurely. “A girl must watch what she eats.”
“Truly, Dottie,” Willie said, “it is simply wonderful.” Seeing the distaste in my face, he narrowed his eyes slightly. “You don’t keep kosher. Do you?” His voice took on the vague tones of censure. If he were Abe, I would have slapped him. Of course I kept kosher. Of course he knew I kept kosher. But I needed Willie, so I tamped down the rush of fury. I gave a smile, hoping that would be response enough. It was not.
For all my talk of modern and progressive, I had not yet tasted treif, unkosher food. This was not so much a conscious decision as a way of life. Ma bought from the kosher butcher, never served milk with meat. I didn’t eat with goyim, brought all those lunches from home. So no one had ever offered me treif. And I never wanted anyone to. Just as I would never walk out of the house in only my undergarments, I would never think of eating a pushcart sausage. And yet here was Willie, seeing how inflexible I would be. Ma would be mortified if she saw me sitting here with Willie, a pile of shellfish waving beneath my nose. My situation, the treif—I suspected the sins were equal in Ma’s mind.
“Try it. It’s wonderful.”
Willie and his family belonged to the big shul uptown, the German one. The Reform one. Their rules were flexible, and treif didn’t exist for them.
It wasn’t right. But right was not important here. What was important was making myself attractive to Willie. What was important was making myself marriage-worthy. So I offered him a wan smile and said, “Why not? Life is about new experiences, nu?”
Oy! I thought, mortified by the nu that had snuck out. I covered it by trying to delicately open my mouth, allowing Willie to feed me. The act was intimate, one lover feeding another, and Willie lingered as my lips closed around the fork. He stared at me with such intensity that I was embarrassed to chew, but I forced myself to make tiny nibbles. A nausea rose, which I tried to gain control of; I liked Willie’s gaze, didn’t want to put him off by becoming sick. The crab was rubbery and rather bland, coated as it was with mayonnaise, which I didn’t like even on the best of days. Placing my napkin over my mouth, I forced myself to chew and swallow. Lightning did not strike me.
“Well?” Willie asked.
“Delicious,” I said, extracting a smile from somewhere deep within.
Willie placed another large helping on his fork before shoveling it into his mouth. “Would you like some more?” I’d apparently sailed through the exam.
“Thank you, but my sole is excellent as well. Would you care to try some?”
He shook his head, and rested his chin on his hand as he gazed at me. “You know, Dottie,” he said, “you are really something else.”
With a blush, I said, “Thank you.” Hiding my nervousness, I took another sip of my drink. Maybe this was the moment to bring up the subject. But how?
With an overly deep sigh, Willie lifted his head and returned to his meal. “I’m going to miss you like crazy. Not that I ever had a chance with you. I know,” he said, raising his fork, with a sardonic chuckle. “You and Abe, besherts.”
The crabmeat careened in my stomach. Why had he brought up Abe? My mouth was suddenly Sinai dry, and I reached for my drink.
“Abe and I, well . . .” I let the thought dangle, hoping to imply that Abe and I weren’t exactly a done deal.
Willie looked at me more closely, rubbing his chin between his fingers, as if trying to evaluate me.
“And what do you mean,” I asked between bites of fish, trying to erase the lingering taste of crab, “that you’ll miss me? Are you going somewhere?”
He teased me. “I told you I wouldn’t be around to bother you for long.”
A fever passed through me, reaching my head, where the weight of the drink took hold, leaving the beginning of a headache in its wake. “Oh?”
“It’s the New Yorker job.” He sat straight in his chair, the picture of nonchalance, as he spooned a large helping of crab salad into his mouth.
Fingers of pain scratched at the corners of my eyes. “Yes?” The scent of perfumes mingling in the air, which only moments before had smelled so lovely, now cloyed, suffocating me.
He put down his fork. “The job is in Paris.” He watched my face closely, trying to assess the impact of his news.
“Paris?” I didn’t know what to do with my hands. I picked up another piece of fish, although my appetite had departed completely. “That’s—Paris.” I hoped to be giving off an air of detachment, as if this didn’t destroy my last shred of hope.
“Well, it starts in Paris. I’ll be all over the Continent. I leave on September twelfth, just over two weeks.” Waggling his eyebrows, he said, “You shouldn’t have waited so long to join me for lunch.”
“How fascinating.” I chewed my fish, no longer tasting it. Confusion overwhelmed me, a daze, as if I were just waking up, knowing I’d had a good dream, but unable to grasp it before it slipped away, replaced by the cold reality of morning. I knew there was music, laughter, drinks, and food, but I couldn’t piece it together, couldn’t see the picture anymore. I hadn’t known what to expect from the lunch, but this certainly wasn’t it.
“The opportunity is phenomenal. Ross thinks I’m going to cover the cultural scene, but this is my opportunity to expose the Nazi Party for the threat it is. Oh, I’ll do one or two fluff pieces for Ross to keep him happy, but my real work will be investigative. The American press has been an embarrassment in its coverage of what is happening in Europe.” He leaned toward me, and tickled the tops of my fingers with his own. “I’ll write exposés that will have New Yorker readers demanding American intervention.”
If I hadn’t been so shaken, I would have been impressed. “It sounds admirable. B
ut . . .” I struggled to find the words amid the flotsam clogging my mind. “. . . aren’t you concerned? This is a dangerous time to be a Jew in Europe.”
He chuckled. “I’m barely a Jew! Besides, I’m an American. I can take care of myself.”
I simply nodded.
Lowering his voice, his fingers sliding more deliberately across my hand, Willie asked, “May I see you before I leave? More . . . privately?”
Startled, I looked up at him. Willie’s gaze was matter-of-fact, as if he’d simply proposed a cup of coffee at the deli.
My eyes weren’t focusing properly. The million lights were blurring into a blinding headache. I feared passing out or retching or humiliating myself in some other fashion. My hand fluttered to my face. “Oh my. It’s getting so late. I must powder my nose and head back to the office.”
Before he could even stand up, I pushed back my chair, and made a beeline for the back of the dining room, where I hoped I would find the ladies’ lounge, which, to my relief, was clearly marked.
In the bathroom, I hurried to a stall, and realized I was sick. Wafts of perfume floated in the air and my stomach turned in somersaults. In a most undignified manner, I crouched on the floor and emptied my stomach into the toilet. Thank goodness no one was in the room to hear, other than the attendant, who sat on a seat between the sinks. With one hand on the wall, I made certain every last bit of treif exited my body.
When I’d regained a shred of decorum, I stood up and used toilet paper to wipe my mouth. I exited the stall, and the attendant handed me a paper towel, which I gratefully took to clean myself further while inspecting myself in the mirror.
The attendant gave me a motherly smile. “How far along?” she asked.
My eyes quickly moved from my own reflection to the colored woman in the white apron. My first instinct was to deny it, to pretend I had no idea what she was talking about, but what was the point? Soon everyone would know. My shame would be worn like a scarlet letter upon my belly. How was it so clear to this stranger when it wasn’t obvious to the one who needed to know? “Three months, I think.”
The woman nodded, but her smile faltered when she noticed my hands. She was too polite to say anything, but I saw the change in her mien and knew what she was thinking.
All those months listening to Zelda moan gave me a quick response. With a false smile plastered on my face, I blatantly waved my left hand and said, “Wouldn’t you know? I’ve swelled up like a balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. My rings already don’t fit!”
I must have said the correct thing, as with a knowing nod the woman offered me a mint. I accepted it, left a nickel on the silver platter, and returned to the table.
Willie sat, looking morose. He stood as I approached the table.
“Listen—,” he started, but I wasn’t about to let him finish.
“I had no idea how long I’d been sitting here. I must get back to the office.”
“My driver—”
“Thank you so much for lunch.”
Turning and hurrying out, I pretended not to hear him calling, “But, Dottie, wait!”
• • •
MORE than twice the half hour designated for lunch had passed by the time I returned, but I refused to give Florence the satisfaction of pretending to care. I had more important worries at the moment. I slowed down before entering the room, taking a breath, pinching my cheeks, and calmly opened the door and sauntered in as if I hadn’t bolted down the street like Gallant Fox. I walked toward my desk, past the girls, who stared at me, surprised to have seen me leave the office. All lingering traces of light-headedness dissipated along with the hopes I’d nurtured.
At my desk, I tried to immerse myself in the numbers, my safe haven with their black-and-white answers to every problem. I let the click-clack of the tabulating machines wash over me.
But they did nothing.
The numbers didn’t quell the nausea. They didn’t erase my worries. They didn’t lure me into an analytical trance. All I could think was that Ma was right. I had no other choice. No option.
The girls eyed me suspiciously, sensing something. I tried to ignore them, but felt overwhelmed with the urge to snap at them and their sniveling ways. How was it that out of all the girls in the office, I was the one to find myself in a situation like this? This didn’t happen to nice Jewish girls.
For the first time, I found the work painful. I double-checked the numbers on a long sheet of tabulations, and frustrated to no end, I barked, “Florence!” My tone was harsher than it should have been. “You missed an entire column of numbers here. You’ll need to do it again.”
Florence walked to the front of the room with an exaggerated swivel to her waist. “Yes, boss,” she said, in a mock-obedient tone.
The rest of the room giggled and I glared at them. “Behave!”
“What’s the matter?” Florence asked. “Got your monthly?” Her eyes twinkled in a wicked way, and my hands twitched at my sides, clenching and unclenching.
“That is an improper way to speak to me. I am your supervisor.”
“It’s just you’ve been so moody lately. You must have your monthly. Although it’s odd.” She paused and dramatically brought her hand to her chin as if she were in deep thought. “For someone who is so careful about what she eats, you’re a little soft around the belly.”
Tittering spread throughout the room. My control rapidly slipped away. “That’s enough, Florence.”
“Is it? Is it enough?” Her taunting cut me deeply. Her voice dropped to a near whisper. “Why, Miss Krasinsky, it looks to me like you’ve had enough.”
My hand shot out faster than Florence could have expected, and it made a cracking sound as it sliced across her face. Gasps came from around the room.
“Ow!” Florence said, genuine tears springing to her eyes.
And wasn’t it my luck that at that moment Mr. Dover chose to return to the office?
“Good grief,” the deep voice said from the door. “What on earth is going on?”
The flush consumed my body, but I stood firm. “Florence has been impertinent, disrespectful, and sloppy in her work. She should be fired.”
“Fired!” Florence was ruffled. “You can’t do that.” With more uncertainty, she turned to Mr. Dover. “Can she?”
He looked back and forth between the two of us. Silence stretched and I stood terrified. Finally he said, “Both of you. In my office.”
Meekly, we trailed behind him.
“Shut the door,” he said, and I obeyed.
He sat behind his desk, a large mahogany affair with leather accessories. He intertwined his fingers. He did not invite either of us to sit. “Dorothea, tell me why you think Florence should be fired.”
“Mr. Dov—”
“Silence.” He held up his hand. “I want to hear from Dorothea.”
“Florence’s tabulations are inaccurate almost more often than they are accurate. She is frequently late for work. She wastes an inordinate amount of time gossiping. And a few moments ago, I asked her to correct one of her mistakes and she became insubordinate. Plenty of qualified girls are hungry for work and willing to do the job properly.” I held my breath, waiting to see if Florence would bring up my long lunch. Luckily for me, she decided upon a different tactic.
“But, Mr. Dover,” Florence said as she pouted her lips and leaned toward our boss. My eyes widened when I realized that—somehow—the top two buttons on Florence’s blouse were undone. It was clear Mr. Dover noticed as well. “I try sooooo hard.” She was trying to sound seductive, but to my ears, it came out as a whine. Mr. Dover, though, apparently heard something else, as he templed his fingers, touching them to the tip of his nose. He nodded his head.
“Dorothea, let me have a word with Florence, please.”
Florence gave the slightest hint of a puckish grin as I look
ed from her to Mr. Dover. Straightening my back, I said, “Of course, Mr. Dover.”
I turned to leave when his voice came again. “Please close the door, Dorothea.”
I returned to my desk, humiliated. Florence was the one behaving shamelessly. Yet I was the one who felt hollow.
I went back to the numbers, but it was no use. I’d be getting nothing else done. All the girls in the office had their eyes on Mr. Dover’s door, and they glanced nervously at one another.
After twenty minutes, Florence emerged with a big grin on her face. Mr. Dover trailed behind her, his tie slightly askew.
“Dorothea, Florence and I have chatted. Florence, you have something to say to Miss Krasinsky?”
With her eyes cast toward the floor, Florence said, “I apologize for my insolence. It shan’t happen again.” Without lifting her head, she looked up at me, raised her eyebrows, and gave a catty smile.
“Dorothea, Florence will remain at Dover Insurance conditionally. Her work must be perfect.” Mr. Dover glanced at the clock. “It’s already four fifteen. Why don’t you girls go home? I told Florence I would personally go over the procedures again to make sure she understands exactly what needs to be done.”
“Leave? Now?” I asked uncertainly, as the other girls gathered their belongings. “But I can help Florence.”
Mr. Dover shifted uncomfortably. “I want to make sure she learns properly, so I’ll teach her myself.”
Looking around, I realized I was the last to comprehend. “Of course, Mr. Dover.” Taking my purse, I left my work where it was. How was it these double standards worked for other folks, but not for me?
As I walked out of the office, I heard Florence calling after me, her voice dripping with syrup. “Have a lovely evening, Miss Krasinsky.”
The door slammed loudly behind me. Damn her, I thought. Damn her. Damn Mr. Dover. Damn Willie and Abe, too.
I began the long walk home.
Modern Girls Page 18