Ho took the pad again, read what she’d written, and said, “Wonderful, good.” He hesitated. “Uh… perhaps we should move that chair around here,” he said, “don’t you think? So we won’t have to be passing this thing back and forth.”
He rose quickly and came to where she was sitting. Teddy got up, and he shoved the easy chair closer to the desk and to the side of it. She sat again, folding her raincoat over her lap.
“There, that’s better,” he said. “Now we can talk a bit more easily. Oh, excuse me, was my back to you? Did you get all of that?”
Toddy nodded, and smiled.
“This is all very new to me, you see,” he said. “So. Where shall we begin? You understand, don’t you, that the job calls for an expert typist… I see in your letter that you can do sixty words a minute…”
I may he a little rusty just now, Teddy wrote on the pad.
“Well, that all comes back to you, doesn’t it? It’s like roller skating, I would guess.”
Toddy nodded, although she did not think typing was at all like roller skating.
“And you do take steno…”
She nodded again.
“And, of course, the filing is a routine matter, so I’m sure you can handle that.”
She looked at him expectantly.
“We like attractive people in our offices, Miss Carella,” Logan said, and smiled. “You’re a very beautiful woman.”
She nodded her thanks — modestly, she hoped — and then wrote: It’s Mrs. Carella.
“Of course, forgive me,” he said. “Theodora, is it?”
She wrote: Most people call me Teddy.
“Teddy? That’s charming. Teddy. It suits you. You’re extraordinarily beautiful, Teddy. I suppose you’ve heard that a thousand times…”
She shook her head.
“… but I find that most compliments bear repeating, don’t you? extraordinarily beautiful,” he said, and his eyes met hers. He held contact for longer than was comfortable. She lowered her eyes to the pad. When she looked up again, he was still staring at her. She shifted her weight in the chair. He was still watching her.
“So,” he said. “Hours are nine to five, the job pays two and a quarter to start, can you begin Monday morning? Or will you need a little time to get your affairs in order?”
Her eyes opened wide. She had not for a moment believed it would be this simple. She was speechless, literally so, but speechless beyond that — as if her mind had suddenly gone blank, her ability to communicate frozen somewhere inside her head.
“You do want the job, don’t you?” he said, and smiled again.
Oh, yes, she thought, oh God, yes! She nodded, her eyes flashing happiness, her hands unconsciously starting to convey her appreciation, and then falling empty of words into her lap when she realized he could not possibly read them.
“Will Monday morning be all right?” he asked.
She nodded yes.
“Good, then,” he said, “I’ll look forward to seeing you then.”
He leaned toward her.
“I’m sure we’ll get along fine,” he said, and suddenly, without warning, he slid his hand under her skirt. She sat bolt upright, her eyes opening wide, too shocked to move for an instant. His fingers lightened on her thigh. “Don’t you think so, Miss Car…?”
She slapped him hard, as hard as she could, and then rose at once her chair, and moved toward him, her teeth bared, her hand drawn back to hit him again. He was nursing his jaw, his blue eyes looking hurt and a trifle bewildered. Words welled up inside her, words she could not speak. She stood there trembling with fury, her hand still poised to strike.
“That’s it, you know,” he said, and smiled.
She was turning away from him, tears welling into her eyes, when she saw more words forming on his lips.
“You just blew it, dummy.”
And the last word pained her more than he possibly could have known, the last word went through her like a knife.
She was still crying when she came out of the building into the falling rain.
Lightning, 1984
Claire Townsend
In Riverhead — and throughout the city for that matter — but especially in Riverhead, the cave dwellers have thrown up a myriad number of dwellings which they call middle-class apartment houses. These buildings are usually connected of yellow brick, and they are carefully set on the street so that no wash in seen hanging on the lines, except when an inconsiderate city transit authority constructs an elevated structure that cuts through backyards.
The fronts of the buildings are usually hung with a different kind of wash. Here is where the women gather. They sit on bridge chairs and stools and they knit and they sun themselves, and they talk, and their talk is the dirty wash of the apartment building. In three minutes flat, a reputation can be ruined by these Mesdames Defarges. The ax drops with remarkable abruptness, whetted by a friendly discussion of last night’s mah-jongg game. The head, with equally remarkable suddenness, rolls into the basket, and the discussion idles on to topics like “Should birth control be practiced in the Virgin Isles?”
Autumn was a bold seductress on that late Monday afternoon, September 18. The women lingered in front of the buildings, knowing their hungry men would soon be home for dinner, but lingering nonetheless, savoring the tantalizing bite of the air. When the tall blond man stopped in front of 728 Peterson, paused to check the address over the arched doorway, and then stepped into the foyer, speculation ran rife among the women knitters. After a brief period of consultation, one of the women — a girl named Birdie — was chosen to sidle unobtrusively into the foyer and, if the opportunity were ripe, perhaps casually follow the good-looking stranger upstairs.
Birdie, so carefully unobtrusive was she, missed her golden opportunity. By the time she had wormed her way into the inner foyer, Bert Kling was nowhere in sight.
He had checked the name “Townsend” in the long row of brass-plated mailboxes, pushed the bell button, and then leaned on the inner door until an answering buzz released its lock mechanism. He had then climbed to the fourth floor, found apartment 47, and pushed another button.
He was now waiting.
He pushed the button again.
The door opened suddenly. He had heard no approaching footsteps, and the sudden opening of the door surprised him. Unconsciously, he looked first to the girl’s feet. She was barefoot.
“I was raised in the Ozarks,” she said, following his glance. “We own a vacuum cleaner, a carpet sweeper, a broiler, a set of encyclopedias, and subscriptions to most of the magazines. Whatever you’re selling, we’ve probably got it, and we’re not interested in putting you through college.”
Kline smiled. “I’m selling an automatic apple corer,” he said.
“We don’t eat apples,” the girl replied.
“This one mulches the seeds, and converts them to fiber. The corer comes complete with an instruction booklet telling you how to weave fiber mats.”
The girl raised a speculative eyebrow.
“It comes in six colors,” Kling went on. “Toast Brown, Melba Peach, Tart Red—”
“Are you on the level?” the girl asked, puzzled now.
“Proofreader Blue,” Kling continued, “Bilious Green, and Midnight Dawn.” He paused. “Are you interested?”
“Hell, no,” she said, somewhat shocked.
“My name is Bert Kling,” he said seriously. “I’m a cop.”
“Now you sound like the opening to a television show.”
“May I come in?”