A Cup of Tea - Amy Ephron [7]
There were confections of hats in the window. Hats with feathers, ribbons, and veils, everyday hats and hats for all occasions, celebratory hats and hats for mourning. It reminded Eleanor of when she was little and she used to stand outside the penny candy store on her corner, stare in the window, and wish she could go in and say, “I’ll have one of everything.” The man in the candy store used to give her sweets which was one of the first times she’d learned, when he’d coaxed her into the back of the store with the promise of a box of chocolates that he’d saved for her, that her mother didn’t lie when she’d told her, “Nothing is for free, Leni.” He’d laughed when she pushed him away, laughed at what a silly girl she was. And then looked at her coldly and said, “But it’s the only thing you have to barter with.” After that, she would still allow herself to stop on the way home from school and look at the candy displayed in the window and sometimes she would stare at him, knowing that he would never dare to come out on the street and taunt her.
She entered the hat shop—shyly would be the wrong word, for she had too much poise to do anything shyly—but with a certain reserve.
Dora, the proprietress of the hat shop that bore her name, snatched a dark blue hat off a hatstand and glided over. “Oh, this will do nicely,” she said as she set it expertly on Eleanor’s head. She gently propelled her towards a mirror. “Oh, you don’t like it?! Try this, then.” She pulled a black hat with feathers off another hatstand and put it on Eleanor’s head. “Daring? Bold!” She stepped back and surveyed her. “It certainly makes a statement. Don’t you think?”
Eleanor still didn’t answer her, just stared at herself in the mirror. “Not what you had in mind?” Dora snatched it off her head. “Try this.” She pulled a little pink piece of fluff, like a pillbox, with a veil off a display and placed it daintily but firmly on Eleanor’s head and fastened it with a hat pin.
Still no response. “You think it’s too young for you?!” She was trying very hard to get the girl to answer her. “Oh, well, you do have the face for it.” She saw that Eleanor’s eye was drawn to a very plain beige hat with a beautiful shape. “Oh, you like that one. Simple yet elegant.” She took it off the handstand and handed it to Eleanor. “You try it.”
Eleanor removed the pink hat from her head and gingerly placed it on a display case. She carefully set the beige one on her head and placed it at an angle. Her hair fell perfectly under it and her long pale neck and fine features were accentuated by its lines. She looked at herself in the mirror for a moment and turned to Dora meekly. “It’s lovely.” She was a little bit embarrassed at this next part, “Actually, I was looking for Dora,” she said.
“The one and only. I hope you were looking for a hat.”
Eleanor took the beige hat off her head and set it on top of a display case. She lowered her eyes. “No, I was looking for a job. I’m sorry.” She took a step backwards, certain there was no job here. She hesitated. “Jane…Jane Howard sent me.”
“And what did Miss Jane Howard think you could do?” asked Dora, studying the girl quite closely.
“She—she thought I might sell hats—I think.”
“Well,” said Dora, “you certainly can wear them. Do you have any experience? Of course, you don’t. You don’t look like you have any experience at anything. How old are you?”
Eleanor’s eyes got a little bit wider. “Twenty-four,” she said.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty,” she confessed.
“If you’re any younger, I don’t want to know. The hours are terrible. We open at eleven. You get here at nine. We close at six. Some nights from six to nine, we make hats, unless there’s a wedding, in which case we work all night. You start tomorrow. Do you have any questions?”
Did this mean she had a job? It had all gone so quickly, she hadn’t thought of anything to ask.
“You