Chapter One Susie #2
My appointment with Mr. Silverman is at three-thirty.
I figure a thorough interview with typing and shorthand tests should last thirty minutes or so.
If I don’t get the job, I’ll catch the last bus at five, and tomorrow I can start looking for a job at Yonkers’ biggest employer—the Otis Elevator Company, or cave to Mother’s panicky demands and marry that chicken mash salesman and learn how to knit booties out of barbed wire.
Although with times being hard right now, I’ll probably get turned away from the elevator company—and I’ll run away from Bobby Hickman.
If I do get the job, I’ll still have to catch the five o’clock bus back to Yonkers, pack my suitcases, and unglue Mother from my shoulder as she bawls her eyes out about her baby girl leaving (even though my three little brothers will be there to drive her to distraction, and she won’t have much time to miss me).
“I’m going to get this job,” I whisper to myself, and march up the stairs over the bakery.
With a final tug on my skirt and a last poke to my short, bouncy brown curls and the hat that’s secured to them, I give a crisp rap on the door of Silverman Investigations.
And when the door opens... my lips open with it, forming an awestruck silent gasp.
Mr. Silverman is an absolute dreamboat.
“You must be Miss Spade. Won’t you come in?” Mr. Silverman asks with a wide, friendly smile.
“Yes, thank you. I would. I mean, I am. I am Miss Spade, and I’ll come right in. Thank you.”
I’m babbling.
They don’t make men like this around the feedstore!
Mr. Silverman has silvery-gray eyes, dark black hair that’s parted in a style that would make my mother turn me around and march me out of the room, and he looks like a perfect blend of every tall, dark, and handsome movie star I’ve ever seen on screen or in the movie papers.
Clean-shaven, deeply tanned, wide, toothy smile, and he smells...
I’ve never noticed the way men smell before, not in the good way that is.
Mr. Silverman smells like danger, cigarettes, coffee, and something expensive, topped off with Bay Rum.
“I’m so grateful you answered the ad, Miss Spade,” Mr. Silverman says, still with that huge smile, the genuine kind that spreads to his beautiful silvery eyes.
He’s gracious enough to ignore my initial tongue-tied entrance and shows me to a small but beautifully polished desk.
“This would be your desk. My office is through there.” He points to an adjoining door.
You see, I’ve been working in Washington for the past few years—something for the War Department, and well, everything’s been restructured, you see.
” He sits behind the desk, and I sit in the chair in front of it. “Coffee?”
“Yes, sir, I’ll make it however you’d like,” I blurt.
“Thank you, but I meant, would you like some?”
“Oh, no. No, thank you.” I am creating a horrible impression. I just know it.
“I had a great secretary in Washington. Hilda. Dear Hilda. She got married—to a Canadian, yet, and off she went to live in Ontario. So, you see, even if she’d been willing to leave a nice government job and stick out a shingle with me, I don’t outrank her husband.”
“Ha ha,” I laugh weakly.
“If I were married, I’d ask my wife to pitch in for a while, but I’m not, and I have a few things that are pressing. I can’t be in the city and here, answering the phone and answering letters from some old contracts at the same time.”
Things to note. He doesn’t have a wife. He’s investigating something in the city (thrilling!), and he really needs to hire someone quickly.
“I’ve been told I have an excellent phone manner, sir, and I’m very organized.
I can take messages and organize responses, run local errands, or even come with you into the city to take shorthand during your meetings. ”
“Well, Miss Spade. You’re just a gem. How soon can you start?”
How soon can I start? I’ve only been in the room for a minute! No typing test? He didn’t ask for my letters of reference, which are neatly folded in my handbag, burning a hole against my knee.
“If I were fortunate enough to get the position, I could start just as soon as I can find a room in a boarding house, Mr. Silverman, providing my wages are adequate.” I steel myself. Nice girls don’t talk about money. Nice girls let their husbands make the money.
“I’m afraid there isn’t a boarding house in town, but there are rooms for rent at the old Dullahan house on First Avenue. It’s a short walk or bicycle ride. There’s a taxicab at Manny’s Automotive if you’d prefer.”
“Oh, no, sir. I’m used to walking and hard work.” I almost launch into stories about my life on the farm, but if he knows I’m a farmer’s daughter, he might think I’m some country bumpkin.
“You sound like a grand fit, Miss Spade. I do hope I haven’t wasted your time.
I can only pay twelve dollars a week right now, and in the city you’d get anything from fifteen to twenty, easily.
I’m a small firm, and I know the town. Your expenses would be quite low.
I believe rooms at the old Dullahan place are three dollars per week, and you have the run of the kitchen.
Mr. and Mrs. Kincaid own it, but they don’t live there—they live at the Dullahan farm, the old homestead.
The Dullahans helped found this town, you see.
But,” Mr. Silverman smiles in a reassuring way, “even though they don’t live there, they take great care with who lets rooms. And of course, I live in town, too, so if you ever needed anything, I’d make sure you found it. ”
Well, dip me in butter and call me a biscuit, this man is more than a dreamboat. He’s... He’s everything. Chivalrous, courteous, informed, dashing, handsome, and he wants to hire me.