Chapter One Susie
“Good afternoon. Can you tell me where the Silverman Investigation Agency is, please?” I smile as prettily as possible at the gruff-looking soda jerk at Bond’s Pharmacy at the corner of First Avenue.
“Sam Silverman? That your fella?” The burly man glares at me like I’m a criminal.
Maybe he’s the type of old-fashioned fuddy-duddy who doesn’t like to see a working girl, or a woman out on her own.
Or it could be that I’m a stranger. I’m sure that in a little place like this, everyone knows everyone, and I’m a new face.
“No, he’s not my fella. He’s looking for a secretary, and that’s me. I answered his ad in the Yonkers Daily Telegraph, got his wire, caught the noon bus to Pine Ridge, and here I am.”
“Yonkers! And you looking like some real smart city girl,” the soda-jerk slid my phosphate to me with a sneer.
“I went to the Marvin Beezledorf Secretarial School in New York City,” I said, thrusting my chin out, staring him down.
Sure, maybe I grew up in Yonkers. Sure, maybe my grandparents own the feed store there, and my parents thought I ought to marry Bobby Hickman, who sells chicken mash and barbed wire.
That doesn’t matter after my three-week course at Beezledorf’s.
The girls at Beezledorf’s taught me how to type.
Taught me how to take dictation, answer a telephone, send a telegram, and even use a mimeograph machine!
They taught me how to get away from a boss who wanted to play patty-cake over the typewriter or chase me around the desk when I went to fetch his coffee and sandwiches.
Maybe most importantly, they taught me to act and look like an efficient city girl, a secretary who could support herself until Mr. Right strolled over and gave her that special smile on the way to the filing cabinet, and more importantly, the kind of secretary who was tough enough to slug Mr. Wrong if he got fresh.
The grizzled man behind the counter shrugs and takes my piece of coconut cream pie out of its covered glass cake stand and plops it on a chipped white plate in front of me.
“He’s above the bakery on Pinecrest Avenue.
But, lady, I’d be careful.” He leans down and fixes me in a glare, one eye squinted shut, and the other staring, blue and somewhat filmy.
“He’s a strange one. People say he came back from the war a little—whoo-hoo,” he let out a whistle and looped his finger around his ear.
“Cuckoo. Has an office that could easily be an apartment, too, but instead he lives out past the church. All on his own.”
“Back from the war! I thought he was a private eye. A gumshoe!” I admit I’m disappointed.
I had seen Private Detective 62 and Secrets of a Secretary, to say nothing about reading all of the Torchy Blane books up in the hayloft of the barn.
Private investigators were tall, dark, and handsome, and equally importantly, they were supposed to be young, handsome, and adventurous.
The sort of guy who would make you forget the wild, crazy life of Saturday nights in Yonkers, where the most exciting thing was looking at the new record player in the corner of Tillman’s Housewares.
“Well, maybe he is, lady, but he’s still nutsy.”
“Isn’t he old? My father was in the war!” I gasp, still clinging to visions of Cary Grant and William Powell.
The soda jerk shrugs. “He’s not that old. Thirties, maybe?”
Oh. Cary and William pop back into place.
Older. Worldly. Debonair. Well, that’s not bad, I suppose.
I guess a lot of young men went over towards the end of the war, and Daddy was almost thirty if Mother’s stories are right.
It hasn’t been that long, I suppose, since it ended, not in the grand scheme of things.
This November will be fifteen years since the Armistice, and Yonkers is planning a parade and a church service to commemorate it all.
Of course, my father says if we’re not careful, there’s going to be another war with Germany.
We licked the Kaiser, he says, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t someone else ready to take his place and stir up trouble.
Hopefully, it’ll never happen in our lifetime. At least, that’s what Mother says.
“Lady? Are you okay?”
I jump. A lady should not appear distracted or unfocused, not if she’s prime secretarial material.
The soda jerk certainly has unflattering things to say about Mr. Silverman.
I don’t want him going around calling me some ditzy dame.
“I’m fine, thank you. I was just trying to get my bearings,” I say, hoping I sound firm and just haughty enough. “Pinecrest? Where about is that?”
The soda jerk sighs and rolls his eyes heavenward. It’s plain as the nose on his face that he’s thinking, “Well, I tried to warn her.”
“I’ll draw ya a map,” he grunts, grabs the pencil from behind his ear, and tears off a piece of paper from the stained white pad that lives in the front pocket of his apron.
“Thank you very much,” I say with due graciousness.
Another grunt, this one of simple acknowledgment, I think.
He sketches and scribbles, ignoring me, so I pull out a book from my handbag, one of the dime-store novels that fits perfectly in the sweet little patent leather clutch that also has a sturdy leather strap, perfect for keeping tucked over your elbow while shopping and running errands.
“Here’s a map. You can’t miss it. You can’t miss anything in this little berg. Something else?” The soda jerk is clearly wondering why I haven’t touched my phosphate and pie.
“I’m fine for now, thank you,” I say primly, tuck the map in my handbag, and hold in a sigh of relief when he heads off.
The phosphate and pie look divine, and frankly, they’re the kind of sweet treats I would have had to avoid at home with Mother fretting over my figure and wondering if I’ll ever catch a man because not being married (or even having a sweetheart) at twenty-one means I’m practically an old maid.
But I’m not lost in thought over whether or not one slice of pie will cause me to burst the buttons on my skirt—I’m wondering if I should take my crisp white gloves off to eat in this sort of place.
I can’t help but think I look much smarter with them on, but that could also be because this outfit represents almost all of my savings, and I’m banking on it to get me this job.
I steal a glance at myself in the polished front window.
Trim navy blue suit. White blouse. Skirt that goes right to the curve of my calves and pumps that my mother says have far too much heel and will give men ‘ideas.’ Perfect little hat in a cunning oval with a single slender feather flat against the rim. Elegant.
I open my book, Secret Adventures, Volume 57. It’s hidden inside a copy of Beezledorf’s Guide to Secretarial Excellence, so anyone snooping will think I’m a real serious sort of girl, excellent secretary material.
Inside, I’m at the juicy part of the book, the kind of passage that would make Mother scream for Daddy to get a switch, and the whole book would go into the woodstove.
Henry grabbed Mabel’s shoulders, pressing her heaving bosom to his manly chest.
“You shouldn’t have looked in that safe, Mabel.
Gosh knows, I wanted to make you my girl.
If you hadn’t found out that I was part of the Black Seven gang responsible for the jewel heist, we’d be in our own little bungalow this time next year.
I was gonna marry you. Honeymoon in Niagara Falls—the whole bit.
As it is, you’ll be seeing Niagara Falls from the bottom of a barrel. ”
He tossed the buxom blonde away from him, a tortured expression on his face.
They always have tortured expressions on their faces, these sinister, handsome devils. If Mabel had any sense, she’d play dumb, kiss him silly, and then hit him with the chair while he was good and moony-eyed. That’s what I’d do.
“No, Henry! I don’t care what you’ve done. I’m your girl, Henry, can’t you see that?” She clutched at him desperately, her big blue eyes pleading.
Oh, for Pete’s sake. They always clutch desperately and have big blue eyes, too, these pitiful, easily corruptible types.
I sigh and stab my fork into the pie hard enough that the soda jerk gives me an uncertain look.
I prefer Torchy Blane and Secret Detective Monthly. The girls are more like me. Leggy, dangerous brunettes.
Well. At least how I might be one day, once I’m Silverman’s secretary and prove to him that I can solve crimes with him, like Torchy does.
“Does Silverman know you’re coming? There’s a phone in the corner.”
“I’ll see him directly,” I say, voice cool, eyes still on my book. Mother would say that’s rude, but the girls in the class ahead of me (they graduated a week ago, so some of our classes overlapped) said that it shows men you aren’t helpless.
That’s probably important in New York City, but in Pine Ridge?
I don’t know. It’s pretty small. It looks a lot like my part of Yonkers in terms of the shops and little grid of streets on my hand-drawn map, but it feels like a whole new world to me.
This is my chance to get away and make my own future.
In Yonkers, I can stay put, be a good little housewife who quilts, worries about the egg yield, wears an apron from sun-up until sundown, and sets her hair in curlers every Saturday night (not that her husband will notice, since he’ll be out poking at the tractor, or arguing with the other men at the feed store).
Or, I can go somewhere new and be new. Read, take letters, answer the telephone, maybe, and spend my money on smart clothes, and let some executive or dashing detective spend his money on dinner and the pictures, maybe even perfume and chocolates.
And when I find the right one, it’s not going to be the apron life for me, no sir.
I’m going to insist on being the Nora to his Nick, and having a share in the excitement.
Just like in the books...