do anything."
Padgett sucked in more smoke and tapped at the top sheet of paper with her pencil. "What kind of experience do you have?"
Francesca thought quickly. "I've done some acting. And I have lots of experience with-uh-fashion." She crossed her ankles and tried to tuck the toes of her scuffed Bottega Veneta sandals behind the leg of the chair.
"That doesn't exactly qualify you for a job at a radio station, now, does it? Not even a rat-shit operation like this." She tapped her pencil a little harder.
Francesca took a deep breath and prepared to jump into water much too deep for a nonswimmer. "Actually, Miss Padgett, I don't have any radio experience. But I'm a hard worker, and I'm willing to learn." Hard worker? She'd never worked hard in her life.
In any case, Clare was unimpressed. She lifted her eyes and regarded Francesca with open hostility. "I was kicked off the air at a television station in Chicago because of someone like you-a cute little cheerleader who didn't know the difference between hard news and her panty size." She leaned back in her chair, her eyes narrow with disenchantment. "We call women like you Twinkies-little fluff balls who don't know the first thing about broadcasting, but think it would be oh-so-exciting to have a career in radio."
Six months before, Francesca would have swept from the room in a huff, but now she clamped her hands together in her lap and lifted her chin a shade higher. "I'm willing to do anything, Miss Padgett-answer the telephones, run errands…" She couldn't explain to this woman that it wasn't a career in broadcasting that attracted her. If this building had held a fertilizer factory, she would still have wanted a job.
"The only work I have is for someone to do the cleaning and odd jobs."
"I'll take it!" Dear God, cleaning.
"I don't think you're right for it."
Francesca ignored the sarcasm in her voice. "Oh, but I am. I'm a wonderful cleaner."
She had Clare Padgett's attention again, and the woman seemed amused. "Actually, I'd wanted someone Mexican. Are you a citizen?" Francesca shook her head. "Do you have a green card?"
Again she shook her head. She had only the vaguest idea what a green card was, but she was absolutely certain she didn't have one and she refused to start her new life with a lie. Maybe frankness would impress this woman. "I don't even have a passport. It was stolen from me a few hours ago on the road."
"How unfortunate." Clare Padgett was no longer making the smallest effort to hide how much she was enjoying the situation. She reminded Francesca of a cat with a helpless bird clasped in its mouth. Obviously Francesca, despite her bedraggled state, was going to have to pay for all the slights the station manager had suffered over the years at the hands of beautiful women. "In that case, I'll put you on the payroll at sixty-five dollars a week. You'll have every other Saturday off. The rest of the time you'll be here from sunup to sundown, the same hours we're on the air. And you'll be paid in cash. We've got truckloads of Mexicans coming in every day, so the first time you screw up, you're out."
The woman was paying slave wages. This was the sort of job illegal aliens took because they didn't have a choice. "All right," Francesca said, because she didn't have a choice.
Clare Padgett smiled grimly and led Francesca out to the office manager. "Fresh meat, Katie. Give her a mop and show her the bathroom."
Clare disappeared and Katie looked at Francesca with pity. "We haven't had anyone clean for a few weeks. It's pretty bad."
Francesca swallowed hard. "That's all right."
It wasn't all right, of course. She stood in front of a pantry in the station's tiny kitchenette, looking over a shelf full of cleaning products, none of which she had the slightest idea how to use. She knew how to play baccarat, and she could name the maitre d's of the world's most famous restaurants, but she hadn't the faintest idea how to clean a bathroom. She read the labels as quickly as she could, and half an hour later Clare Padgett discovered her on her knees in front of a gruesomely stained toilet, pouring blue powdered cleanser on the seat.
"When you scrub the floor, make certain you get into the corners, Francesca. I hate sloppy work."
Francesca gritted her teeth and nodded. Her stomach did a small flip-flop as she prepared to attack the mess on the underside of the seat. Unbidden, she thought of Hedda, her old housekeeper. Hedda, with her rolled stockings and bad back, who'd spent her life on her knees cleaning up after Chloe and Francesca.
Clare sucked on her cigarette and then deliberately tossed it down next to Francesca's foot. "You'd better hustle, chicky. We're getting ready to close down for the day." Francesca heard a malevolent chuckle as the woman moved away.
A little later, the announcer who'd been on the air when Francesca arrived stuck his head in the bathroom and told her he had to lock up. Her heart lurched. She had no place to go, no bed to sleep in. "Has everybody left?"
He nodded and ran his eyes over her, obviously liking what he saw. "You need a lift into town?"
She stood and wiped her hair out of her eyes with her forearm, trying to seem casual. "No. Somebody's picking me up." She inclined her head toward the mess, her resolution not to begin her new life with lies already abandoned. "Miss Padgett told me I had to finish this tonight before I left. She said I could lock up." Did she sound too offhand? Not offhand enough? What would she do if he refused?
"Suit yourself." He gave her an appreciative smile. A few minutes later she let out a slow, relieved breath as she heard the front door close.
Francesca spent the night on the black and gold office sofa with Beast curled against her stomach, both of them poorly fed on sandwiches she had made from stale bread and a jar of peanut butter she found in the kitchenette. Exhaustion had seeped into the very marrow of her bones, but still she couldn't fail asleep. Instead, she lay with her eyes open, Beast's fur pushed into the V's between her fingers, thinking about how many more obstacles lay in her way.
The next morning she awakened before five and promptly threw up into the toilet she had so painstakingly cleaned the night before. For the rest of the day, she tried to tell herself it was only a reaction to the peanut butter.
"Francesca! Dammit, where is she?" Clare stormed from her office as Francesca flew out of the newsroom where she'd just finished delivering a batch of afternoon papers to the news director.
"I'm here, Clare," she said wearily. "What's the problem?"
It had been six weeks since she'd started work at KDSC, and her relationship with the station manager hadn't improved. According to the gossip she'd picked up from members of the small KDSC staff,
Clare's radio career had been launched at a time when few women could get jobs in broadcasting. Station managers hired her because she was intelligent and aggressive, and then fired her for the same reason. She finally made it to television, where she fought bitter battles for the right to report hard news instead
of the softer stories considered appropriate for women reporters.
Ironically, she was defeated by Equal Opportunity. In the early seventies when employers were forced
to hire women, they bypassed battle-scarred veterans like Clare, with their sharp tongues and cynical outlooks, for newer, fresher faces straight off college campuses-pretty, malleable sorority girls with degrees in communication arts. Women like Clare had to take what was left-jobs for which they were overqualified, like running backwater radio stations. As a result, they smoked too much, grew increasingly bitter, and made life miserable for any females they suspected of trying to get by on nothing more than a pretty face.
"I just got a call from that fool at the Sulphur City bank," Clare snapped at Francesca. "He wants the Christmas promotions today instead of tomorrow." She pointed toward a box of bell-shaped tree ornaments printed with the name of the radio station on one side and the name of the bank on the other. "Get over there right away with them, and don't take all day like you did last time."