Chapter 32
“Do you think Roberta would lend me a couple more dresses?” I asked Patricia at work on Monday.
“Actually, yes,” Patricia said. “She got engaged this weekend. Why don’t you come home with me after work today, and we’ll remind her that she said she’d give you a few of the dresses she won’t need anymore.”
As appealing as that sounded, where was I going to keep them? I could get away with Betty’s dresses because my mother knew I was “storing” them for her. But a slew of cocktail dresses was going to raise questions.
The elevator doors opened, and Fields walked toward us, smiling at me until he saw Miss Kelly.
He put two sheets of paper on my desk, his hand covering them as she passed by. “This one definitely needs edits.”
“Fields,” I whispered as Miss Kelly chided Gladys for some unseen infraction. “You have to help me with something.”
“Shh,” he said. “Put it in the article.”
“Huh?”
“How long will it take?” he asked loudly. “I’ll come back for it. This one probably needs a few drafts.”
I bristled. My work didn’t need multiple drafts, and he knew it. I opened my mouth to respond tartly, but he turned and walked away. He really was the most irritating man.
Thoroughly annoyed, I slid a fresh sheet of paper into my typewriter and looked down at his pages, then stopped myself. It wasn’t an article at all.
“VP is presiding over the Senate all week, so he’s in town. State dinner for a French diplomat tonight—try again tomorrow night?”
The rest of the document was nonsense.
That gave me time to get dresses this evening. But . . .
I started to type.
“Tomorrow should work. But I need you to take me to Patricia’s building after work. Or at least pick me up there. I need more dresses, and I can’t take them home.” I filled the rest with gibberish.
Fifteen minutes later, he came back into the typing pool. Miss Kelly was nowhere to be seen, and he crouched down by my desk. Patricia and Gladys were observing us with great interest as he read what I had written. “What am I supposed to do with dresses?” he asked quietly.
“Preferably hang them in a closet so they don’t get wrinkled—unless you live with your parents too?” He rolled his eyes but looked amused. “Good. Can you take me over there?”
He shrugged. “Meet me downstairs after work? We can make a plan then.”
Miss Kelly came out of the elevator, a pencil behind her ear and about a dozen newspapers in her arms. She frowned when she saw Fields, and I spoke loudly to make sure she heard. “I think those are all the changes you need.”
He looked confused, then turned around, saw Miss Kelly, and stood up. “Right. I’ll have another draft to you this afternoon.”
“We do have an editorial department for a reason, Mr. Fields,” Miss Kelly said icily. “Miss Greenberg isn’t being paid to work there.”
He smiled ingratiatingly, which changed nothing on her face. “You and I both know that’s only because the top brass upstairs is afraid women—like you—will take their jobs.” He nodded to me. “Miss Greenberg.”
Miss Kelly stood by my desk until he was safely in the elevator. “Say the word, and I’ll ban him from this floor.”
“I don’t mind,” I said, and she looked at me sharply. “Not like that. I just like getting to use my degree a little.”
“See that that’s all you’re using with him,” she said. She left a newspaper on my desk, and I started to call after her to tell her she had dropped one, but the picture caught my eye and stopped me.
It was the arts section of Sunday’s Evening Star, and Maricela was on the front page from her show Thursday night at the Bohemian Caverns.
In it, her arm was outstretched over the dance floor as she sang.
And just barely visible, at the bottom right of the photograph, was my face in profile, Fields in front of me.
I turned around quickly as Miss Kelly walked into her office without sparing me a second glance.
It was a coincidence, right? She hadn’t left that on my desk on purpose, had she?
And if she had, was it a warning about Fields, about Maricela, or about the lead we were chasing?
I looked at her closed office door for a long time, wondering what warning I should be taking from this. It could be nothing. I could be about to get fired for disobeying both her and Mr. Pullman. I was in it now though, come hell or high water.
But Fields and I were going to have to be more careful around Miss Kelly now. I doubted there was much she did that wasn’t intentional.