Chapter 4
“Come on, doll,” Patricia said. I glanced at the clock.
She was nearly a minute early, but it was fine.
The typewriter dinged to indicate I had reached the end of the page, but I had also finished the article.
Except for the lead, it hadn’t needed much work.
As a graduate of the same journalism program I went through, Fields wrote tightly.
And a good chunk of it was lifted directly from the speech that the president would have—I looked at the clock again—just finished delivering in New Haven.
I had particularly liked his line about myths being the enemy of truth rather than lies.
It was, after all, a myth that women wouldn’t be as strong journalists as men, as I hoped to soon prove.
“Let me just put this in the bin to go upstairs,” I said, pulling the page from the typewriter and adding it to the stack.
“No need,” Fields said, appearing out of nowhere. “I’ll bring it up myself.” He leaned down as Patricia pulled on her gloves. “Nine minutes and eighteen seconds,” he said quietly. “Assuming it’s not actually a recipe for brisket, I’m impressed.”
“Mr. Fields, I have a degree in journalism, not the culinary arts.”
“I suppose that answers the question of why you’re working here and not married.”
I stood up quickly—too quickly, as I banged my knees against the desk in the process—and opened my mouth to tell him what he could do with his opinions, but he was engrossed in the pages he had taken from my desk.
He let out a low whistle. “You are good,” he said. “I’ll give you that.”
“Judy,” Patricia said. “We’ll lose our table if you keep talking to Fields.”
I made sure to give Fields a disgruntled look, though I wasn’t entirely sure he meant the marriage comment as an insult, and, if we were being honest, I hadn’t actually been insulted, though I knew I should be.
Then I grabbed my handbag and pulled my own gloves—fine, Betty’s gloves—from it to put on as well, though I was hatless.
Betty had noticed the loss of her pink pillbox, and my mother was returning it today.
It was a shame her head didn’t swell when she was pregnant, but a hat was something I could buy myself once I was getting paychecks.
Which reminded me, money was going to be extremely tight until that first payday.
“Where are we going?” I asked Patricia, trying to keep the concern out of my voice.
Clothes were one thing, but if I nicked so much as a dime from my mother, she would notice.
In fact, I was surprised my mother hadn’t sent me off with an egg salad sandwich, like she did for my father.
“Duke’s,” Patricia said.
My family didn’t keep strictly kosher, but we also didn’t eat out all that often.
A big splurge tended to be a trip to Hofberg’s deli or maybe O’Donnell’s if it was a really special occasion.
Though I didn’t know whether that had more to do with money or the fact I wasn’t known for my mealtime etiquette as a child.
At twenty-two, I had just moved to the adult table for holidays, and even then only because my mother didn’t want my niece and nephew picking up bad habits.
Entirely uncalled for, I might add, as I hadn’t thrown food or stuck green beans on my teeth to make walrus tusks in at least ten years.
“Duke’s?” I repeated, not having any idea what that was.
She turned to face me. “You really are fresh off the farm, huh? Duke Zeibert’s.”
“Oh,” I said, surprised. I had certainly heard of the Jewish restaurateur whose clientele included DC’s elite as well as the commoners. Everyone who was anyone ate at Duke Zeibert’s. And apparently, I was now someone who would as well. “Duke Zeibert’s. Of course.”
Patricia looked me over, then elbowed me playfully. “We tend to splurge when there’s a new girl. Besides, lunch there is the best husband-hunting ground in the city.”
We walked the three blocks to the restaurant at the corner of L and Connecticut, where a group of six vaguely familiar-looking women in jewel-hued dresses gathered near the front of the line to get in.
“Just in the nick of time!” one called out merrily to Patricia. “You know they won’t seat us if we’re not all here.”
“Just have Gladys flirt with Duke again,” Patricia said. “He always comps her something.”
“Please,” a girl in a robin’s-egg blue shift dress said, shaking her head. “It was one time and I’d forgotten my wallet.”
“Mmhmm,” another girl said. “And the free order of onion rolls last time?”
Gladys wrinkled her nose. “There aren’t enough Lifesavers in the city to get that smell off your breath. Couldn’t he have sent over some dessert instead?”
“He was just marking his territory,” Patricia said. “As long as you smelled like onions, everyone else stayed away.”
“My mother would run me out of town if I married a—”
Patricia cleared her throat. “Ladies, I want you all to meet Judy Greenberg,” she said with emphasis on my last name. “Miss Kelly hired her to fill Louise’s spot.”
Gladys’s eyes widened. “I didn’t mean anything by that—my mother just wants me to marry a good Protestant boy, that’s all.”
I fought the urge to press my lips together as I realized how she had intended to finish that sentence about her mother running her out of town. Being a woman wasn’t going to be my only hurdle at The Digest, apparently.
“It’s okay,” I said, though I wasn’t at all sure it was. Best to play it friendly. “My mother would run me out of town if I brought home a Protestant boy, good or not.”
Gladys smiled broadly and linked her arm through mine. “I like you already,” she said firmly. “I’m Gladys. This is Connie, Helen, Theresa, Maggie, and Carol.”
I blinked at the rapid-fire introductions, attempting to commit them to memory. “I’m going to do my very best to remember all that,” I said, prompting chuckles.
“Do you know Duke?” Gladys asked. “Since you’re both Jewish.”
It was better than being asked if I had horns, but the assumption that we all knew each other was tiring. I shook my head. “It’s a small community, but not that small.”
The door opened, and we were ushered into a large dining room outfitted with square tables, white linen tablecloths, and light-brown chairs all on a blue-and-brown carpet.
The host brought us to a pair of tables pushed together and set for eight toward the front center of the restaurant, where menus and water glasses appeared in front of us.
But I couldn’t have cared less about the menu because on the way to our table, we had passed Jack Kent Cooke, the businessman who had just recently purchased a huge stake in the Washington Redskins, House Majority Leader John McCormack, and heiress Anna Wainwright, the latter of whom set my heart rate racing.
Her husband owned and operated the largest and most respected newspaper in DC.
And I was about to eat lunch just ten feet from her.
I tried, rather unsuccessfully, not to stare as she and the impeccably dressed woman across from her chatted and laughed.
A balding man in his fifties came over to the table, carrying a plate of rolls. “Onion rolls on the house for my favorite ladies of The Washington Digest,” he said, pinching Gladys playfully on the cheek. The girls all exchanged knowing smirks.
“Thank you, Mr. Zeibert,” Gladys said, though she looked like she could have done without the pinch.
“I told you, it’s Duke,” he chided. Then he looked around the table and noticed me. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure,” he said in a New York accent.
“This is Judy Greenberg,” Patricia volunteered. “She just started work today.”
“Greenberg,” he repeated, closing one eye as he looked at me. “Your father Gil Greenberg?”
“My uncle, actually,” I said.
“Ah, you must be Leonard’s daughter, then.
” I nodded, and the girls around the table tittered.
So much for the Jewish community not being that small.
“I’d say a round of drinks on me, but I know Ann Kelly doesn’t want you drinking before going back to work, so let’s make it dessert, then.
You tell your father and uncle I say hello. ”
“I will, Mr. Zeib—Duke,” I said, marveling both that Miss Kelly had a first name and that he was on that sort of basis with her.
“That’s a good girl,” he said, putting a hand on my shoulder before moving on to another table where—yes, that was Helen Thomas. I didn’t even need to eat. I just wanted to sit there and eavesdrop on all the conversations happening around me.
“I think our table just moved a few feet closer to the front next time we come,” Connie said conspiratorially.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Seating isn’t exactly a meritocracy at Duke’s. You’re seated in order of importance. We were farther back, despite how cute we are, until Gladys flirted.”
We were currently at the back edge of the front third of the restaurant.
“For heaven’s sake! I didn’t flirt,” she said. “I honestly forgot my wallet and didn’t want to put any of you out.”
“Speaking of putting out,” Maggie said, “I assume Patricia warned you about Louise’s fate?”
“Patricia did, Miss Kelly did, that Jack Fields did—”
“Of course Fields came around already,” Carol said with an eye roll.
“He’s an odd one,” Helen said. “But I think he’s harmless.”
“Well, I heard it wasn’t William Herman’s baby, and that he got mad when he found out she was also messing around with—”
“Ladies,” Patricia said, clapping her hands together once. “The walls have ears here, as you well know. I suggest we order.”
I glanced around, and while no one seemed to be paying particular attention to us, there were a lot of prominent journalists nearby.
Everyone at our table picked up their menus, and I did the same, taking care not to order the matzo ball soup, though it was one of the more affordable items on the menu.
I wanted to blend in as much as my last name would allow because this was definitely the world I wanted to occupy.