Chapter 7
After lunch, a buzzing passed through the typing pool. I looked around, assuming it was Miss Kelly.
I was right—she was walking with a man whom I hadn’t seen before, but who carried himself with the air of someone in charge.
Granted, that was most men in a roomful of women.
But both the cut of his suit and the way he seemed to be ordering Miss Kelly around spoke of a position of power.
Miss Kelly was far from cowed in her plaid dress, belted to show off a slim waistline, and sensible shoes.
But it was a good reminder that while Miss Kelly ruled the roost in the typing pool, she wasn’t the final word in who wrote for The Digest.
“Who is that?” I whispered to Carol, whose desk was closest to mine.
“John Worthington,” Carol whispered back. “The third.” She offered no other information.
“Is he an editor?”
Carol looked at me askew. “He’s the publisher,” she said quietly. “This whole organization is his.”
I smoothed my skirt, though I was still sitting, and did my best to look industrious, while also watching him from the corner of my eye, hoping to be noticed and plucked from obscurity.
Which didn’t happen, of course. The silver-haired man didn’t even look at anyone besides Miss Kelly that I could see. We were invisible. Worker bees, keeping the hive going, but otherwise insignificant.
He said something Miss Kelly didn’t like, and she fixed him with an absolutely withering stare.
For a moment, the two glowered at each other, then he bowed his head slightly and retreated to the elevator.
She scowled after him in annoyance—though I had yet to see her smile.
For all I knew, that was the only face she made.
Then she strode through the typing pool purposefully.
She walked past me and Carol, stopped, and from the clicking of her low heels, I could tell she was coming back.
“Miss Greenberg. My office. Now.”
My nerves jangled. What could I have possibly done wrong?
I had typed articles nonstop since my arrival except for two lunch breaks, neither of which I was late returning from.
I hadn’t even taken a smoke break because I was the rare modern woman who didn’t smoke.
Fields, I thought. She must have seen him at my desk again.
Patricia said she had eyes in the back of her head.
But I hadn’t encouraged him—quite the opposite.
And what was I supposed to do if he came to my desk? Ignore him?
The real answer was likely tell him to follow protocol. But that could backfire too because all it took was him complaining to someone above Miss Kelly that I had refused to type his article, and my journalism career would end before it began.
I suddenly understood why Patricia didn’t like him. I wasn’t such a fan myself as I trudged into Miss Kelly’s office, hoping this wasn’t my last time in there.
“Shut the door,” she instructed without looking up from her desk.
I did as she said and stood across from her desk. She hadn’t yet told me to sit, and I wasn’t sure I was supposed to.
She handed me three pages, paper clipped together. “Did you type these this morning?”
The byline read “Jack Fields,” and I recognized the lead immediately—which made sense. I had reworded the whole thing.
I nodded. She looked up, and I realized she hadn’t seen or heard my response. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Sit,” she said finally. I complied, crossing my legs demurely at the ankle and fighting desperately to avoid fidgeting.
“I’ve been reading Jack Fields’s work since he started here,” she said. “This wasn’t how he gave it to you.”
“No, ma’am.” My voice was so quiet that it was barely a whisper.
“You know we have an editorial staff for a reason?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Do you also know he’s taking credit for your work?”
I raised my eyes to meet hers. “Excuse me?”
“He walked into the newsroom today waving this around and challenging the copyeditors to find a correction.”
“Were there any?” I asked before I could help myself.
A ghost of a smile crossed Miss Kelly’s face, gone so quickly that I wasn’t sure I hadn’t imagined it.
“No,” she said. “Miss Greenberg, I appreciate that you want to write. Believe it or not, I was young once, and running a newspaper typing pool with an iron fist wasn’t my childhood dream.”
I tried to imagine what dreams this woman, whom I could see going up against Josef Stalin and coming away the victor, could have possibly had besides overseeing an empire. I could no more picture her wanting to do something else than I could picture her young.
“But,” she continued, “I did warn you that The Digest is not progressive enough to hire you. Nor to give you credit for your work on Fields’s articles.”
“What—” My voice came out too high pitched. It was squeaky on a good day, but this was a level only dogs could hear. I stopped and lowered it. “What am I supposed to do when he brings me articles, then?”
“Whatever you’d like,” she said, sitting back, and again I swore I saw a hint of amusement.
“If you tell him to put them on the board like everyone else does, I will support you. If you want to continue editing his work, that is your prerogative. But if you’re the girl I think you are, knowing he’s getting all the credit for your work won’t be appealing, will it? ”
“No, ma’am,” I agreed. Making Jack Fields look like a far better writer than he was while I rotted away in the typing pool until I was Miss Kelly’s age was the last thing I wanted to do.
What he deserved was a quick kick to the shin.
And while I had a sneaking suspicion Miss Kelly would secretly agree with that course of action, I doubted she would back me to the higher-ups if violence were involved.
She picked up another piece of paper and a pencil, crossing out a line. Then she looked up, surprised to see me still sitting there. “Back to work,” she said sternly. “We don’t dillydally in this office.”
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am.”
And my mother thought I had no manners. Granted, Jack Fields was about to feel the same way about me, but he didn’t deserve manners.
Miss Kelly nodded, and I left, shutting the door behind me.
Sixty eyes watched me exit her office, all typewriters silent.
I stopped short, unsure if I should address the room, finally settling for sitting back at my desk and resuming the article I had been working on, typing with an unrestrained fury until Patricia appeared at my desk, Gladys, Helen, and Maggie in tow. Everyone was still looking at me.
“What was that about?” Patricia asked quietly, sneaking a glance at Miss Kelly’s door to make sure it was still shut.
“Fields,” I said with a grimace.
“She didn’t—?” Helen asked.
I shook my head, understanding the implication. Then I offered a half smile. “I guess she figured two days wasn’t enough time for me to wind up in Louise’s shoes.”
Everyone close enough to hear me let out a laugh. The others leaned in, asking neighbors what I had said, and a wave of delayed chuckles followed.
“He was taking credit for my edits,” I said. “That’s all.”
Patricia’s face darkened. “I knew he was trouble. I told you that.”
“He’s a man,” I said, thinking of my uncle, who still blamed me for breaking up his marriage.
Another round of laughs.
“What are you going to do?” Gladys asked.
I didn’t know the answer to that yet. Did I want credit for my work? Yes. Of course. I was really good at this. I knew it. My professors knew it. Even the editors at The Diamondback, who were so threatened by my lack of male genitalia, knew it.
Jack Fields clearly knew it too.
Hell, even Miss Kelly knew it.
But it didn’t matter if the editors knew it. This wasn’t college, where I was grudgingly granted an equal education. It was the workforce. And if the bosses upstairs didn’t want me writing, I wouldn’t be.
And worse, if they knew I was editing, I was likely to be out of a job too. Miss Kelly may have recognized that I could edit as well as the men upstairs, but those men weren’t going to take that news in the same stride that she did. And while I was confident in my work, one mistake and I was done.
Which meant I either just typed articles exactly as they were delivered to me, or I continued to work with Fields and let him take credit for it all.
I didn’t like either option.
But I also likely wouldn’t have to decide until the following morning, when he brought me his next article.
“I don’t know yet,” I said. “Miss Kelly said she’ll support me whatever I choose.”
This turned heads that had started to lose interest. “She did?” Carol asked from the desk next to mine. “You’re not in trouble?”
I smiled wryly. “Not yet, at least. But give me until the end of the week.”
Miss Kelly stuck her head out of her office. “I don’t hear typing,” she said, and everyone scattered back to their desks.