Chapter 6

 

October, 1978 – Miami, Florida

 

Juliette Mason gave her curly brown hair a shake and plumped the long spirals into place. Dark eye makeup, pale pink on the lips—getting this aspect of her appearance right was the easy part. She glanced toward her bed where she’d laid out several clothing choices. The short skirt with lime-green diagonal stripes was cute, her favorite outfit, but was it right for a job interview? This interview?

She’d received the inside tip from a neighbor whose brother’s son’s best friend worked for Pro-Builder Construction. The city’s largest contractor was looking for a secretary, and rumor had it the boss liked them young and pretty. Juliette knew that attitude was sexist—half her friends considered themselves feminists and were in on the bra-burning craze—but at this point she needed a job, one that paid better than the minimum wage position at the auto parts store. Hell, the guys at the store hit on her all the time, anyway. Why not let some old geezer flirt for a lot more pay?

The blue pantsuit was the most businesslike, the one her mother would have chosen if she were still alive. The belted jumpsuit was classy, a tangerine polyester that looked almost like silk, but it really was more appropriate for evening with a few gold chains added around her neck. She reached for the short skirt and matching pullover top.

Forty minutes later she stepped off the bus, hiked her faux-leather bag strap over her shoulder and walked the half block to the address she’d been given. The squatty concrete building didn’t say much about the success of the contractor, but the Pro-Builder sign was right there. She supposed a construction firm could build fabulous steel and glass high-rises for others even if they operated their own business out of a couple thousand square feet on a few acres of fenced dirt lot.

The concrete structure was free of ornamentation but there were wide windows on all sides and she saw desks inside. With luck, she might get one of those. Anything that showed blue sky and palm trees would be better than her current cubbyhole on the mezzanine above the auto parts store, where the nauseous reek of new tires never went away. She pulled the tinted glass door open and went inside.

She barely had time for a quick impression of the interior—nicer than she’d imagined, with some kind of stone flooring, earth-toned upholstery on the chairs, good quality wood furniture. A hallway led toward the back of the building and two closed doors concealed other rooms.

“Can I help you?” The husky voice came from a receptionist who was in her forties with blond hair in a classic upsweep from a decade ago. Her makeup was perfect, her clothes stylish and her nails painted to match her lips. While Juliette searched for the name of the man she was to see, the woman took a long draw on her cigarette.

“Um, yes. I’m here for an interview with Mr. Proletti.” Juliette prayed she was pronouncing his name correctly.

“Al’s out on a job. He told me to talk to you. Go ahead, have a seat.” Ash fell from the cigarette when the woman—whose nameplate said her name was Sheila Page—pointed to the chair in front of her desk.

Juliette sat, tucking the hem of her skirt under her legs and setting her purse on the floor.

“The job is basic secretarial,” said Sheila, “typing, filing, dictation. Sometimes the bookkeeper needs extra help with ledger entries. You ever done that before?”

Juliette cleared her throat quietly. “I had excellent grades in school in both typing and shorthand.” Well, fifty words a minute on the old manual typewriters in class. “I’ve never done ledger entries but I’m very good at filing. I’m sure I can learn whatever’s required of me.”

Sheila stubbed out the cigarette and let her eyes travel over Juliette’s chestnut curls, hazel eyes and the V of flesh at the top of the lime-green blouse. A flicker of something resembling acceptance crossed her face.

“You’ll start at a thousand a month,” she said. “If you want the job.”

A thousand dollars a month! It was double what she was making now and the office was so much nicer.

She opened her mouth. Don’t seem too eager. “Could I see where my desk would be?”

“Sure.” Sheila stood, towering over Juliette on five-inch heels. She led the way toward the hall Juliette had noticed earlier. “That office there is Al—uh, Mr. Proletti’s,” she said with a wave toward the closed door to the right of the hall. “The one on the left is his father’s, but the old man isn’t here all that much. He pretty much retired a few years back.”

Juliette followed Sheila down the hall. The first door on the right stood open, revealing a small office with one desk, a row of brown metal file cabinets and a closed door that must connect to Mr. Proletti’s office. But the big attraction was the window. It faced the edge of the property and, once you got past the driveway that ran beside the building and the chain link fence surrounding the whole place, the view showed a lush park filled with flowering oleander and tall trees.

“How many people work here?”

“The whole crew? A lot. It varies by how many jobs we got going at the time. If you mean just the office staff, besides the owners there’s me, the bookkeeper, a couple guys who handle shipments of materials. And Mr. Proletti’s secretary—that’s you, if you want the job.”

Juliette couldn’t believe her luck. “Yes, absolutely.”

“Get yourself some decent clothes and plan to start Monday morning at eight o’clock.” Sheila turned back toward her desk.

The comment about her clothes stung a bit but Juliette wasn’t foolish enough to question. She studied her co-worker’s outfit, a tailored pantsuit of obviously good material and shoes that probably cost what Juliette currently earned in a week. She would have to work up to those, but she could come up with something to get started. She practically flew back to the bus stop.

She stayed with the bus, past her own neighborhood, until it stopped outside the Surfside Mall. Near the mall’s food court she found a pay phone and made two calls. Her boss wasn’t happy that she’d phoned in sick this morning and was now informing him that she quit. He let out a string of curses and she hung up, wondering belatedly if she’d just lost out on her final paycheck.

Her second call went to Carol Ann Dunbar, her best, and only, friend who’d moved to the big city with her after graduation from Dalhart High. Juliette posed her question. Thirty minutes later she spotted Carol Ann weaving through the crowd and waved her over.

“I told Bob I had a dental appointment during my lunch hour, so I can always tell him it ran late or the gas made me woozy or something. I doubt he’ll get too mad if I’m not gone more than an extra hour. What’s up?”

Juliette explained about the new job and the need for wardrobe changes.

“So, my silly little courses in fashion design are coming in handy now, huh?” Carol Ann teased.

“Hey, don’t knock secretarial work either.” Her friend’s eyes bulged when Juliette revealed her new salary. “But what I need now are the right clothes.”

“It’s a construction company?” Carol Ann seemed puzzled.

“But the boss is really successful and you should see the way the receptionist dresses. If I’m his personal secretary I have to look at least as good as she does.”

“True.” Carol Ann nibbled at her lower lip, studying the shop fronts nearby.

“But I can’t spend much, at least right now. How classy can you dress me on a budget?”

Carol Ann led the way to one of the department stores. “Once you start earning some money you can head for the fourth floor. For now, we’re over here.” She headed deeper into the store.

Ninety minutes later each of them carried two huge shopping bags. With two suits—a brown and a black—a variety of blouses and a couple of skirts she could switch out with the pants, plus two dynamic pairs of heels, Juliette knew she could handle the new workplace. She got out of Carol Ann’s car in front of her apartment and walked through the shabby courtyard to her place. Removing her new clothes from the bags, she got a dizzying bout of sticker shock. She’d run her new credit card up to the limit. What would she do if the job didn’t work out?

She decided to only take the tags off each item as she wore it. She smoothed the store receipt and stuck it under the lamp on her dresser. If the new boss took a dislike to her she could at least return the unused clothes and go beg for her old job back. The smell of the tires came back to her, unbidden. No. The new job had to be great—she wouldn’t let it be otherwise.

She ate a grilled cheese sandwich for dinner and tried to follow The Rockford Files on TV but her mind was on a hundred other details. Saturday morning, she scrounged ten dollars from various pants pockets and walked to the nearest low-price salon where she had three inches trimmed from her unruly hair. It would be an extra five bucks to have the beauty student style it in an up-do, which wouldn’t last a whole day, so she skipped that.

Sunday, she did her own manicure and practiced trying to get her hair into a sleek upswept style like Sheila’s, but it was impossible. She settled for pinning it up and letting the wavy tendrils go where they wanted. Maybe after a paycheck or two she could afford to have it straightened. For now she was counting bus fare and checking the peanut butter supply to get her through the first week. Sheila hadn’t mentioned whether the pay was weekly—what if she was only paid every two weeks? She should have foregone one pair of shoes and made a grocery trip instead. She couldn’t sleep that night.

By six forty-five Monday morning she’d showered and wrestled the springy hair into a semblance of a French roll. Her lipstick from the dollar bin at Walgreen’s wasn’t a name brand but it was a good shade to go with the vivid turquoise blouse she’d chosen to wear with her black pantsuit today. Stepping into the high heels, she stole a glance in the mirror and felt more grownup and confident. She paced her tiny apartment for forty minutes, until her feet began to ache in the new shoes, and finally it was time to leave for the bus stop.

 

 

What is it about the first day at a new job, she wondered as she dragged herself to the bus that evening. The boss hadn’t showed up—some business had come up near Ft. Lauderdale, they said. She’d met the bookkeeper, Marion Flightly, a churchy lady in her forties whose eagle-eyed glare made Juliette think the woman didn’t believe such a young kid could handle the work. Sheila had greeted her with a stack of folders and said it was filing to be done. Juliette spent an hour poking through the drawers in her new office, figuring out how the filing system worked. Mainly, the folders seemed to contain bids for jobs, information on new clients and invoices for materials. When she asked if the invoices should go to Marion, the older woman dismissively said, “You’ll have to figure it out.” What a witch. Juliette blew off the insult and concentrated on straightforward filing. In total, it took less than an hour.

About the time she was looking for something to do the phone began to ring.

“I’m transferring all of Al’s calls to your desk. Just take messages. You won’t know any of the names but that’ll come with time,” Sheila said.

Three lines immediately lit up at once. Juliette put on her best voice and pressed the button for Line 1.

“Mr. Proletti’s office,” she said.

“Where is he?” The gruff voice had a strong New York accent and she almost had to ask the man to repeat.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Proletti is out of the office today. May I take a message?”

“Who’re you?”

“My name is Juliette. I’m Mr. Proletti’s new secretary. How may I help you?”

More gruff words. Finally a name and phone number. On to Line 2, then Line 3, then back to Line 1. By lunch time she felt as if her head would explode. She asked Sheila if lunch was a full hour, then took her sandwich and walked to the park. Tomorrow, put a pair of comfortable shoes in a bag and bring them along, she told herself. She could learn the job. Surely, she could.

Tuesday, the office was abuzz already when Juliette walked in at 7:49. The door to Albert Proletti’s office stood ajar and she caught a glimpse of a good-looking, dark-haired man, younger than she would have expected. For some reason when Sheila had referred to the boss’s father as ‘the old man’ Juliette assumed he must be in his eighties, putting the sons in their fifties or sixties. Mr. Proletti glanced up, spotted her, flashed a smile.

She greeted Sheila and headed toward her own office. This morning the connecting door to the boss’s office stood partway open. A cassette tape sat on her desk. She picked it up, leaned out into the hall and waved it toward Sheila, shrugging her shoulders. The receptionist came and showed Juliette the transcription machine, whipping the cover off an IBM Selectric. Juliette figured out the headphones and playback mechanism which operated with a foot pedal. By the time Mr. Proletti got off the phone she was halfway through the first letter he’d dictated on the tape.

“You’ll find that I often work at night,” he said, leaning on the door frame to his own office as he nodded toward the dictation machine. He wore a sleek-looking suit with wide lapels and a bold-printed tie that was surely real silk.

She gave a nervous smile, unsure if he meant what the inflection in his voice seemed to hint.

“So, Sheila tells me you have a lot of secretarial experience,” he said.

She did? Juliette merely smiled.

“I’m glad. The work here can get crazy at times. We have deadlines that cost tens of thousands a day if we miss them. Sometimes I yell. Sometimes I curse. I hope that won’t bother you.” He winked one of those brilliant blue eyes as he said it.

Juliette shook her head. She’d noticed that Marion Flightly kept her own office door closed. Was this part of the reason?

“You’ll do great, sweetie. Don’t worry about it.”

Carol Ann would have piped up and objected to a boss calling his secretary sweetie. Definitely a sexist remark. It absolutely would have been if her old boss had uttered it. But here Juliette didn’t mind. His tone was warm, yet professional. She had a feeling this was a boss who really cared about his employees.

“Mr. Proletti—”

“Al. We’re all on first names here.”

“Thank you. I, um, I hope all the messages I took yesterday were all right?”

“Perfect, Juliette. Just perfect.” He turned back toward his desk but that time she was fairly certain his tone was not quite appropriate.