All for a Story (17 page)

By eight forty-five, all the staff had arrived —with one notable exception —and the office was warmed not only by the heat coming from the radiators but also by the smell of fresh coffee, served in mismatched cups. Zelda’s doughnuts were well received, with Tony being the first to dive for the platter and devour half a pastry in a single bite.

It was a contented silence that fell onto the room, with just a few comments about the cold and baseball and Charlie Chaplin
as the next minutes ticked by. It wasn’t until she opened the door that Max realized he’d been waiting to see her. Not just this morning, for this meeting, but since that afternoon at the bank when they’d walked out the door and she’d gone to the right when he turned to the left. And not just waiting, but worrying that she might not come. That she wouldn’t want to see him after that clumsy, pathetic phone call.

The Enchanted April
. The book was in his satchel hanging on the hook behind his coat. Hidden, as if anybody could guess.

But here she was, piercing their presence with a loud complaint about falling out of bed at the crack of dawn, and if she wanted to keep bankers’ hours she would have been a banker, and there had better be some coffee left or she was turning right around and heading home. The entire diatribe came out in a single breath during the time it took for her to hang up her coat and throw herself into the chair directly next to him.

“You’re early.”

“You’re kidding.” She twisted her body to look at the clock behind her. “I must have been running to try to keep warm.”

Zelda made a maternal clucking noise as she set a cup of steaming coffee down in front of each of them.

“He takes cream and sugar,” Monica said.

“Does he now?”

Before he could stop her, Zelda had taken his cup away.

“Well,” Max said, trying to rally attention to himself. “Thank you all for being here so promptly this morning. And for making coffee.” This as she returned his drink, now two shades lighter. “If nobody objects, I’d like to open our meeting with a prayer.”

“And if we do?” Monica said, looking at him over the rim of her cup.

“Do you?”

“Not really.” She set the cup down.

Max took a deep breath, separating himself from their tug-of-war conversation. Praying out loud was not something he ever willingly embraced, but if he was to be in prayer for this endeavor, he wanted them all to know it. To hear it. He would not, however, command that everybody bow their heads and close their eyes, though he did as an example.

“Heavenly Father, we gather this morning grateful for the opportunity to do your will in our work. We seek direction and guidance, especially me. Help me to see, always, the answers you have for my questions. And . . .”

Words disappeared. Why it was that a man who had devoted so many hours to the study and perpetuation of eloquence was unable to string together more than three well-crafted sentences, he’d never understand. But there, his heart pounding in anticipation of pursuing some new, great thing, knowing full well he’d never accomplish it without some divine intervention, all he could manage was a stammer in the darkness.

“Tell us what to do, too.” It was Zelda’s voice, reaching out to him in a way that any touch to his hand never could.

“Amen.” That was Monica, always —as he’d noticed —eager to end a prayer.

He, too, said amen and waited for Tony and Zelda to finish making the sign of the cross before clearing his throat and opening his journal.

“I’d like to begin this meeting with a few verses of Scripture.”

Monica sighed, her eyes rolling so far to the backs of the sockets he feared they’d stick there. Tony, meanwhile, took out his pad, licked the tip of his pencil, and appeared poised to listen.

“It’s a passage from the book of Philippians, chapter 4, verse 8.” He opened his Bible to the place he’d marked with one
of the photographs taken from Uncle Edward’s safety-deposit box. It was, in fact, Edward, though only Monica would recognize him. Another secret shared.

That’s when he knew he couldn’t start with Scripture. Using his finger to mark his place, he closed the Bible and held up the photograph.

“This man, you should know, is Edward Moore. The date is 1885. Just after he finished college. Most of you can’t imagine him ever being that young. Neither can I. I always knew him as old, opinionated. But nobody’s born that way. I know Uncle Edward had joy —at this point in his life, anyway.” He held up the photograph, blocking his view of Zelda. “And I hope that joy continued into his later years, in secret pockets of his life.”

He went silent for a moment, struck with the thought that he was only just now giving the kind of speech he should have given at the funeral. But then, today marked a different death.

“Now, to the Scripture I mentioned.” He opened his Bible, adjusted his glasses, and read. “‘Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.’”

He looked around the table. “I want us to be a paper that thinks on these things, one that will make our readers think on these things. I want us to tell uplifting stories about honest people doing positive things in this world.”

No response.

“You can’t be all that surprised. I think I made it known early on that I wanted to take this direction, and then after our visit from Mr. King, well, I just don’t think I want our paper associated with that level of society.”

“I think this is good,” Zelda said, making Max wonder if she and Uncle Edward hadn’t had similar conversations.

“I’m glad you agree,” Max said. “Because I want you to be a contributor.”

Zelda’s face registered surprise; Monica’s voice burst forth in disbelief.

“What? She’s a cleaning lady!”

“With wonderful ideas,” Max said. “She could write about homemaking tips and things that might make the lives of our women readers a little easier. Recipes for cleaning products, or beauty.”

Monica scoffed. “Beauty?”

“Like what you told me the other day about the coffee grounds, Mrs. Ovenoff.” He addressed the table at large. “She makes some kind of paste, and then —”

“With eggs.” The newborn pride in Zelda’s voice gave him a brief jolt of victory. “It does wonders for the skin. You should try it, Miss Monica.”

“What in the world is wrong with my skin, I’d like to know?”

Max turned to her, and he would have to agree that her skin was something close to flawless, save for the blotch of red stretching from her neck to her collarbone, an unmistakable sign of fury or frustration. Whatever the source, like a flame it licked across the table and destroyed what little bit of confidence Zelda had mustered. Once again the older woman’s eyes were downcast, her hands engaged in invisible knitting.

“I —I don’t know, Mr. Moore,” Zelda said. “I don’t write in English so good as I speak it.”

“I’ll get you help. In fact, perhaps Miss Bisbaine could spend some time —”

“And also, you know, with so much that was ugly, I don’t know how many women even read this paper.”

“This is crazy.” Monica pushed herself away from the table and stood, planting her hands on its top. “We have plenty of women readers. And do you know why? Because of me. They want to know what I’m wearing and what I’m doing. Tell me, Maximilian Moore, what happens to Monkey Business?”

He’d anticipated this question. “It stays, but it changes.”

She folded her arms and glowered. “Into what?”

Instead of answering directly, he turned his attention to the table at large. “I want to talk to each one of you individually this morning in my office. That way I can discuss with you more specifically my expectations, and we can share ideas.” His words sounded weak, like his decision wasn’t final and firm, and he hoped to have more courage fighting one lion at a time.

“Whatever you say, boss.” Tony was closing his notepad and tapping it back into his jacket pocket. “But I have to tell you that all this happiness and sunshine might have worked with that magazine where you was at before, but here —this ain’t no town of roses.”

“We’re going to see about that.” He nodded to Harper, who stood, cleared his throat, and turned the piece of cardboard balanced on the easel.

“As you can see,” Harper said, as if he were wrapping up a lengthy lecture, “even if we see a dramatic drop in sales, our paid subscriptions and current cash balance will fund publication for the next six weeks.” At this point, his long, tapered finger came to rest on the point where the jagged black line turned blood red. “At which point we will need to reassess whether this direction is prudent.”

“’Cause we’ll be broke,” Monica said, arms still folded in defiance. “Tell me, do you have any salaries factored into that black line?”

“Of course we do,” Max said, overconfidently according to
the brief shake of Harper’s head. He took a deep breath and tried to summon that confident, warm, reassuring tone his father had whenever Max needed direction. “Look, this is going to be a new venture for all of us. It’s my first time to be in charge of —well, anything. And there’s a good chance that we’ll fail. But as a great, power-crazed, homicidal woman once said, ‘Screw your courage to the sticking-place, and we’ll not fail.’”

He ended his Shakespearean quote, fist raised in the air and all, and looked to Monica in triumph. She returned his gaze with one unconvinced raised eyebrow.

“You do realize,” she said, “that
Macbeth
ends with the guy’s head on a stake.”

“We’ll write that story when we come to it.”

The paper still smelled of the mimeograph ink. Monica drummed her fingers on the pale, purplish typing. Max’s instructions had been simple: take this sheet, read it, study it, and wait for a meeting in Mr. Moore’s old office. She’d done the first, letting her eyes scan the written passage of the Bible he’d read at the meeting.

Just. Pure. Lovely. Good report.

As far as studying, though —what good did it do to study someone else’s fantasy? She wasn’t exactly the pure and lovely type, at least not that anybody’d ever said. If these were the new requirements, she had nothing to offer.

So she waited. Tony Manarola had been behind the closed door for what seemed like ages. Or at least three cups of coffee. Zelda waited too, dutifully writing something on a pad of paper, getting up to go to the pencil sharpener every time Monica ventured to the coffeepot. The rest of the staff writers had been a little antsy, finally opting to step out for a smoke.

Monica studied her now, dying to snatch the pencil from the woman’s hand and ask her about her dalliances with Edward Moore. There was a story —the humble immigrant janitress and the lonely, irascible businessman. What secrets were locked inside that graying-blonde head of hers? Monica herself knew a little something about carrying on an illicit affair, but those two had no barriers to thwart their affection.

Zelda raised her eyes to the ceiling and tapped her lip thoughtfully with the pencil.

“I know about you and Edward Moore,” Monica said, without ever really planning to do so.

Zelda looked at her straight on. “What do you know?”

“That you loved each other.”

Zelda visibly gathered herself, sitting taller and drawing the pad of paper closer. “We did not.”

Monica got up and moved to the other side of the table, sidling right up to the woman, who flipped her notepad upside down as if protecting her very thoughts from attack.

“It’s all right,” Monica said, wanting to assure the woman about both the notes and the affair. “And I’m sorry about what I said earlier in the meeting, about you being just a cleaning woman. Obviously you were so much more —”

“Stop this!” Zelda’s accent worked to make the command sound like hissing steam. “There are things that are proper and things that are not, and I will not speak of it.”

“What’s improper? You’re a woman, he’s —was —a man. A bachelor, even, as far as I know. Unless you —” she cupped her hand over her mouth, catching the secret. “Oh, Zelda. Don’t tell me you have a husband stashed away somewhere. Talk about bringing the old country into the modern age. I never would’ve taken you for a —”

Before she could say another word, the left side of her face exploded in stinging pain as Zelda’s palm crashed against it.

“A lady does not speak of these things. I do not speak of these things. Not like you modern girls, flaunting yourselves with your smoking and your sex.”

“Hey,” Monica said, holding her cool hand to her burning cheek, “I don’t flaunt anything.”

Zelda made a noise that only a speaker of her native tongue could make. “Of course you do. All those nights drinking and dancing, and enticing other girls to follow. It is a shame.”

“Edward didn’t think so.”

Monica knew the comment would be more hurtful than any slap, and she waited for Zelda’s face to turn as red as her own. Instead of looking wounded, however, the older woman took on an expression of compassion —close to pity.

“Edward always worried about you. Going to those places.”