“It’s quite all right. I sleep fine.”
If this bravado had any effect on Miss Turner, there was no sign of it. She nodded, and said: “I’m sure you sleep fine. Don’t we all? But I’m not running a house of call, and it just happens that at the moment receptionists are out. That was then. In those good old days. When even a hockshop had to have this receptionist thing out there in front to show it had class. But then they found out she wasn’t strictly necessary. They began sleeping with their wives, and I guess it worked out all right. Anyway, the birth rate went up. So I guess you’re out of luck.”
“Receptionist isn’t the only thing I can do.”
“Yes, it is.”
“You don’t give me much chance to tell you.”
“If there was something else you could do, you’d have put it down in great big letters, right on this card. When you say receptionist, that’s all I want to know. There’s no more after that, and no use your wasting my time, and me wasting yours. I’ll file your card, but I told you once and I’m telling you again, you haven’t got a chance.”
The interview, obviously, was ended, but Mildred forced herself to make a little speech, a sales talk. As she talked she warmed up to it, explaining that she was married before she was seventeen, and that while other women were learning professions, she had been making a home, raising two children, “not generally regarded as a disgraceful career.” Now that her marriage had broken up, she wanted to know if it was fair that she be penalized for what she had done, and denied the right to earn her living like anybody else. Furthermore, she said, she hadn’t been asleep all that time, even if she had been married. She taught herself to be a good housekeeper and a fine cook, was in fact earning such little income as she had by peddling her cookery around the neighborhood. If she could do that, she could do other things. She kept repeating: “What I do, I do well.”
Miss Turner pulled out a lot of drawers, set them in a row on her desk. They were filled with cards of different colors. Looking intently at Mildred, she said: “I told you you’re not qualified. O.K., you can take a look here and see what I mean. These three drawers are employers, people that call me when they want somebody. And they call me, too. They call me because I’m on the level with them and save them the trouble of talking to nitwits like you. You see those pink ones? That means ‘No Jews.’ See the blues? ‘No Gentiles’ — not many of them, but a few. That’s got nothing to do with you, but it gives you an idea. People are sold over this desk just like cattle in the Chicago yards, and for exactly the same reason: they’ve got the points the buyer wants. All right, now take a look at something that does concern you. See those greens? That means ‘No Married Women.’ ”
“Why, may I ask?”
“Because right in the middle of rush hour you wonderful little homemakers have a habit of getting a call that Willie’s got the croup, and out you run, and maybe you come back next day, and maybe you come back next week.”
“Somebody has to look after Willie.”
“These people, these employers on the greens, they’re not much interested in Willie. And another habit you wonderful homemakers have got is running up a lot of bills you thought friend husband would pay, and then when he wouldn’t you had to get a job. And then the first paycheck you draw, there’s eighteen attachments on it — and life’s too short.”
“Do you call that fair?”
“I call them green. I go by the cards.”
“I don’t owe a cent.”
“Not one?”
Mildred thought guiltily of the interest that would be due July 1, and Miss Turner, seeing the flicker in her eye, said: “I thought so... Now take a look at these other drawers. They’re all applicants. These are stenographers — a dime a dozen, but at least they can do something. These are qualified secretaries — a dime a dozen too, but they rate a different file. These are stenographers with scientific experience, nurses, laboratory assistants, chemists all able to take charge of a clinic, or run an office for three or four doctors, or do hospital work. Why would I recommend you ahead of any of them? Some of those girls are Ph.D.’s and Sc.D.’s from U.C.L.A. and other places. Here’s a whole file of stenographers that are expert bookkeepers. Any one of them could take charge of all the office work for a small firm, and still have time for a little sleeping. Here are sales people, men and women, every one of them with an A-1 reference — they can really move goods. They’re all laid off, there’s no goods moving, but I don’t see how I could put you ahead of them. And here’s the preferred list. Look at it, a whole drawerful, men and women, every one of them a real executive, or auditor, or manager of some business, and when I recommend one, I know somebody is getting something for his money. They’re all home, sitting by their phones, hoping I’ll call. I won’t call. I’ve got nothing to tell them. What I’m trying to get through your head is: You haven’t got a chance. Those people, it hurts me, it makes me lie awake nights, that I’ve got nothing for them. They deserve something, and there’s not a thing I can do. But there’s not a chance I’d slip you ahead of any one of them. You’re not qualified. There’s not a thing on earth you can do, and I hate people that can’t do anything.”
“How do I qualify?”
Mildred’s lips were fluttering again, the way they had in Miss Boole’s office. Miss Turner looked quickly away, then said: “Can I make a suggestion?”
“You certainly can.”
“I wouldn’t call you a raving beauty, but you’ve got an A-1 shape and you say you cook fine and sleep fine. Why don’t you forget about a job, hook yourself a man, and get married again?”
“I tried that.”
“Didn’t work?”
“I don’t seem to be able to kid you much. It was the first thing I thought of, and just for a little while I seemed to be doing all right. But then, I guess two little children disqualified me, even there. That wasn’t what he said, but—”
“Hey, hey, you’re breaking my heart.”
“I didn’t know you had a heart.”
“Neither did I.”
The cold logic of Miss Turner’s harangue reached Mildred’s bowels, where the tramping, waiting, and hoping of the last few weeks hadn’t. She went home, collapsed, and wept for an hour. But next day she doggedly registered at three more agencies. She took to doing desperate things, like turning suddenly into business places, as she was passing them on the street, and asking for an opening. One day she entered an office building and, beginning at the top floor, called on every firm, in only two places getting past the gate. All the time the thought of July 1 haunted her, and she got weaker, paler, and tackier-looking. The print dress was pressed so many times that she searched the seams anxiously every time she put the iron on it. She lived on oatmeal and bread, reserving for the children such eggs, chicken, and milk as she could buy.
One morning, to her surprise, there came a card from Miss Turner, asking her to call. She dressed in about four minutes, caught the nine o’clock bus, and was in the familiar little office by nine thirty. Miss Turner waved her to a seat. “Something’s come up, so I dropped you that card.”
“What is it?”
“Housekeeper.”
“... Oh.”
“It’s not what you think, so don’t employ that tone of voice. I mean, there’s no sleeping in it, so far as I know. And it means nothing to me. I don’t handle domestic help, so I won’t collect a dime. But I was over in Beverly the other night, and got talking with a lady that’s going to marry a director, and he doesn’t know it yet, but his house is due for a big shake-up. So she wants a housekeeper. So, on account of all that fine domestic efficiency you were telling me about, I told her about you, and I think it’s yours if you want it. Children O.K. You’ll have your own quarters and I think you can nick her for one fifty if you get tough, but you’d better ask for two hundred and come down. That’s over and above all your uniforms, food, laundry, heat, light, and quarters, and quite a lot more than most of my talented stable are making.”