Rules of Civility - Amor Towles [54]
In retrospect, my cup of coffee has been the works of Charles Dickens. Admittedly, there’s something a little annoying about all those plucky underprivileged kids and the aptly named agents of villainy. But I’ve come to realize that however blue my circumstances, if after finishing a chapter of a Dickens novel I feel a miss-my-stop-on-the-train sort of compulsion to read on, then everything is probably going to be just fine.
Well, maybe I had read this particular fable one too many times. Or maybe I was just annoyed by the fact that even Pip was on his way to London. Whatever the cause, after reading two pages I closed the book and climbed into bed.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
La Belle Époque
At 5:45 on Friday the twenty-fourth, all the desks in the secretarial pool were empty but for mine. I was just finishing a countersuit to be typed in triplicate, getting ready to mope my way home, when out of the corner of my eye I saw Charlotte Sykes approaching from the washrooms. She had changed into high heels and a tangerine-colored blouse that clashed with all her best intentions. She was gripping her purse in both hands. Here it comes, I thought.
—Hey Katherine. Are you working late?
Ever since I’d salvaged Charlotte’s merger agreement from the subway, she’d been inviting me out: lunch at a diner, Shabbos with the family, a cigarette in the stairwell. She had even invited me for a dip at one of the massive new public pools built by Robert Moses where denizens of the outer boroughs could clamber about like crabs in a pot. So far, I had fended her off with ready-made excuses, but I didn’t know how much longer I could hold out.
—Rosie and I were just about to head over to Brannigan’s for a drink.
Over Charlotte’s shoulder I could see Rosie studying her nails. Fully figured with a penchant for forgetting to button the top button of her blouse, you could just tell that if Rosie couldn’t romance her way to the top of the Empire State Building, she was prepared to climb it like King Kong. But given the circumstances, maybe her presence wasn’t all bad. She’d make it that much easier for me to extricate myself after a drink. And given my recent bout of self-pity, maybe a closer glimpse into the life of Charlotte Sykes was just what the doctor ordered.
—Sure, I said. Let me get my things.
I stood up and covered my typewriter. I picked up my purse. Then with a quiet but audible click, the red light over the Q came on.
Charlotte’s expression was more baleful than mine. Friday night at 5:45! she seemed to be thinking. What could she possibly want? But that’s not what I was thinking. I had been having a little trouble getting out of bed lately, and on two days in ten I had shuffled in at five past the hour.
—I’ll meet you there, I said.
I stood, straightened my skirt and picked up my steno. When Miss Markham gave you an instruction, she expected you to take it down word for word, even if it was a reprimand. When I entered her office, she was finishing a letter. Without looking up, she gestured toward a chair and scribed away. I sat, straightened my skirt for the second time in as many minutes and in a show of deference flipped open my pad.
Miss Markham was probably in her early fifties, but she was not unattractive. She didn’t wear reading glasses. Her chest was not without definition. And though she wore her hair in a bun, you could tell that it was surprisingly thick and long. At one point, she probably could have become the second wife of any senior partner at the firm.
She finished her letter with a professional flourish and returned the pen to its brass holder; it angled in the air like a spear that’s hit its mark. She crossed her hands on the desk and looked me in the eye.
—Katherine. You won’t be needing your steno.
I closed the pad and tucked it beside my right thigh as Miss Markham had taught us, thinking: It’s worse than I thought.
—How long have you been with us?
—Almost four years.
—September 1934, if I recall?
—Yes. Monday