On interview morning, Elaine woke with a start.
Tommy had remembered to sleep in the bed. She pulled her leg from beneath the covers, and he rolled over with a little moan.
The day before, he had been in a glorious mood. She’d distracted him from booze, cooking him three-course meals as he tinkered with his gadgets. They made love several times, read some French philosophy books, and lounged around in a warm mist of bodily satisfaction.
She had the power to draw his attentions where she intended, at times.
It had been a luxurious, heavy day. Tommy was still naked beneath the covers, and she watched his eyelids flutter slightly as his chest rose up and down in his sleep.
Elaine managed to get out of bed without waking him and scurried downstairs to the washroom. His musky scent still clung to her. She quietly cleaned herself with a washcloth, bleeding still, on her cycle.
Her head dropped with heaviness as she painted on her makeup. She made her lipstick lines more crisp than usual.
Professional.
Her eyeliner curved at demure angles. She used a gentle coating of mascara.
Next, the finishing notes: creams and powders. Tommy didn’t see any of it, dead to the world in wheezes of sleep.
Bang-bang-bang—she jolted.
Catherine was at the bathroom door.
In the few days since she quit her job, Catherine had been gone most of the time, staying at the Starlite long after Elaine left, going back to the brownstone only in the early morning for a few hours’ sleep in the parlor.
Catherine wanted to be a singer now, and at the Starlite she would wail into song, serenading the ladies with her clear, silvery tremolos. Conversation would hush as everyone stopped and stared at the source of this lovely voice; they showered Catherine with spare change and adoration. She always beamed at the whole bunch of them, glittering with self-possessed flair.
Elaine peered in the mirror to set her powder; it wouldn’t quite stick.
Catherine’s voice was husky and hoarse as she shouted behind the bathroom door. “Elaine, I need to use the loo!”
As Catherine banged on the door loudly, Elaine listened for Tommy’s footsteps.
She exhaled in a tight puff and opened the door in a rush of products. Her eyeshadow applicator was tight between her fingers; lipstick tubes tumbled from the vanity.
“You look like you’re off to court.” Catherine appraised her.
Elaine was suited up in her gray woolen dress, which she hadn’t worn in two years. It was made of brushed felt, and Madeline had once tailored it to fit her perfectly. When she worked at the radio station, it had cost her half a paycheck.
“I’m going to Midtown.”
“What’s in Midtown?”
“I’m going to walk around, take in the sights. You know I like to walk around Manhattan.”
“But it’s freezing outside.”
“Maybe if you got more sleep, you’d have more energy to withstand the cold. I thought you had to use the loo—go ahead already.” A sisterly snipe—weapon for distraction.
“I do have to use the loo,” Catherine retorted.
Elaine stepped out of her way and set her nose powder in a rush. She dashed to the kitchen and grabbed her résumé from the typewriter she stowed beneath the sink, behind the cleaning supplies.
She pulled out a piece of blank paper and scribbled a note for Tommy: Going for a walk in the city.
She arrived at the Chronicle building too early, with an hour’s time to do nothing but pace in her heels outside the double doors.
After a half hour of huddling beneath her coat, Elaine shook herself and strode into the building. Her heels clacked on the tile, precise and controlled, even as her teeth chattered together uncontrollably.
The lobby was warm and smelled of newsprint. A man at the front desk directed her up to the fifth floor.
Women clustered in the elevator, though women’s names didn’t usually appear in the credits of the paper.
Elaine attempted to smile at a woman she was squished against. But the woman avoided her eyes. Elaine’s cheeks colored pink; she drew her gaze downward.
As the buzzer sounded for the fifth floor, every woman in the elevator, including Elaine, exited.
The office was crammed with noise and clatter—phone conversations, the click-clack of typewriters, scurries of heels on the tiles. She tried to crane her neck to find where to go. Someone stood behind her; she stepped back on his foot, unaware.
“Oh!” she shrieked.
The man pardoned her with a wave of his hand. “Are you Miss Huxley? I’m Mr. Stephens. Frank Stephens. Pleased to meet your acquaintance.” He was of slighter stature than his voice on the phone had indicated. He had graying hair and a tic in his eye.
“I’m really early, I know. It’s fine if I have to wait.”
“Coming in before the deadline suits us just fine. The other girl is late, as it turns out. So, how’s about I bring you in and we can chat for a while.”
Elaine took a breath and followed him into the interview room. An unknown man and woman waited at a long table, with unreadable facial expressions and fancy fountain pens. Behind them, a large picture window provided a panorama of the busy street below.
“Pleased to meet you.”
They shook hands. The woman introduced herself as the head fact-checker; the man was a news editor.
“I brought my résumé.” Elaine’s hand trembled as she gave them her extra copy, but she raised her lips into a smile.
The head fact-checker kept a serious expression. She was one of the few women in a senior position at the Chronicle. She had little wisps of gray on her forehead. “So, it looks like you spent three years at the radio station. What made you leave?”
“A personal obligation.” Elaine paused. “I had to look after someone.”
The head fact-checker nodded and exchanged looks with the other staff members before continuing. “Tell us about your college and professional experiences.”
Elaine described the research and journalism classes she had taken at Briarcliff College along with her day-to-day duties at the news radio station a couple of years back. Her face shone bright and friendly in the sunny meeting room even as her shoulders shook beneath her woolen suit jacket.
“Describe a difficult scenario you had to overcome at your past job.”
She froze, staring out the wide picture window. Then she recalled for them an incident where she took a subway to the end of the line at Rockaway Parkway and was forced to walk a couple of miles to interview someone about a house fire. It had been her first time in that neighborhood, and she got lost a few times, but she kept on walking, even after the heel of her shoe had separated from its sole.
The news editor smiled. “Well, it sure sounds like you’re willing to do what needs to be done.”
Mr. Stephens cleared his throat. “But what about children?”
Elaine folded her lips as her mouth went dry. “What about them?”
“Do you have any?”
“No.”
“Do you want any?”
“I don’t believe that I do.”
“Oh, but every lady wants children, doesn’t she? I don’t think you could do this job with little ones to take care of.”
“I’m not going to be having children,” she repeated, as her cheeks flushed red.
“Well, I guess we’ll see what happens,” he chortled. “We have a blunt newsroom here, Ms. Huxley,” he explained.
Elaine made herself chortle, like she was one of them. “Well, I guess you have to be blunt—there’s no time to waste in the news!” Her chest filled with a rush of sudden boldness: she winked her eye at them and cocked them all a sideways smile.
Everyone chuckled.
The mood in the room relaxed, and the staff took sips from their coffee cups.
The news editor had another question. “So, tell us, dear, what would be your main professional aspiration?”
“To work my hardest.”
The lot of them nodded and scribbled things on their pads.
They soon gave her a parting handshake.
Mr. Stephens ushered her out with a quick pat on the back. An unreadable expression set his lips tight. “We’ll ring you by next Tuesday.”
Elaine boarded the elevator to the lobby, upright in a sea of fedora hats, as men discussed the latest pre-season move from the Yankees.
In the lobby, she took another whiff of newsprint to carry her home.
On the bus ride back to Brooklyn, she scribbled some lines—the beginning of a poem:
I’d make a confession for your perceptions
I’m sorry to report that I can’t.
She returned to the brownstone to find Tommy at their kitchen table, his mouth aflame with drink, mumbling that she had taken too long in the city.