Astor Place Vintage: A Novel (5 page)

The little girl raged even louder. Luckily, when we reached the second floor, they stepped off and veered toward the shoe salon, and I could journey to the third floor in relative peace and quiet.

Father’s attitude was not unlike that of his employer, Frank Woolworth, who believed the proper place for women was in the home, despite the fact that he employed hundreds of countergirls. To carry out his philosophy, he never promoted his female workers, and he paid a low fixed wage. This was for their benefit, so to speak, so the job would be seen as a temporary condition before marriage. This stance certainly benefited Mr. Woolworth, seeing as lots of the countergirls stayed in their positions for years without a raise.

With no employment other than housework, I felt utterly useless by the time my birthday came around in August. The anniversary of my birth had always been a dubious event, since it was also the anniversary of my mother’s death. But I found that year particularly distressing. I turned
nineteen, and my mother died at nineteen. Nothing could point up more keenly how unfairly short her life had been: finished and done at the same age I now had the privilege of frittering away. She never should’ve given up her existence for mine. If only we could go back in time and trade places.

Arriving on the third floor, I joined a cluster of women stuck behind an elderly lady who stood before the next flight of rising stairs as if working up the courage to hop on an amusement park ride. I came up beside her and offered my arm. “Would you like to step on with me?”

She hooked a fragile hand in the crook of my elbow and gave me a most grateful look. “Thank you, dearie.”

We stepped forward together as if in a dance. Standing beside her, I couldn’t help but feel tenderly for my frail partner. “Everything moves faster nowadays, doesn’t it?”

“Dreadful how it’s changed since I was a girl.”

“I can imagine,” I said without bothering to champion the merits of progress. “I think it’s grand that you venture out despite the challenges.”

“What would you have me do instead?” she asked. “Sit in my room all day?”

By the end of that summer, all I wanted to do was stay in my room. Sometimes I didn’t want to get out of bed. Since I didn’t know what to do with myself, I couldn’t see the point in doing anything. Nothing seemed worth the effort. Everything was a waste of time. My appetite disappeared, and my naturally thin figure became gaunt. Out of nowhere, I’d tear up and cry.

Aunt Ida finally called in the family doctor. He prescribed bed rest, leeches, and when he noticed the stack of
Dry Goods Weekly
on my nightstand, the banishment of all reading materials.

“Here we are,” the old woman said as the moving staircase reached the fourth floor. We stepped off together, she let go of my arm, and we wished each other a good day. As she wandered off to the gourmet food section, I continued on to the fifth floor.

The memory of that doctor’s advice had the power to infuriate me still. In a sense, he did help restore me. My anger toward him fueled a healthy surge of energy that no amount of bed rest could have achieved. I refused his leeches, insisted the magazines stay where they were, and got myself out of bed. His ridiculous Victorian ideas reminded me that my sense of worthlessness was a reasonable response to a society bent on limiting the sphere of women.

That very day I presented Father with an ultimatum: Give me a regular job at the store, or I’d ask for employment in every shop on Main Street, and my first inquiry would be with his chief rival, Mr. Gottlieb, owner of the general store across the street.

Father compromised by giving me an official position behind the counter, but to ensure that my womanhood wasn’t tainted, he made it clear to my coworkers and our acquaintances that I was doing it simply to amuse myself. Despite the lack of pay, my mood improved. Yet I wondered if I was doomed to spend the rest of my life in Cold Spring.

At last, I’d reached the fifth floor. I stepped off the moving staircase with the triumph of a mountain climber reaching the summit. My heart raced as I found the green door to the employment office.

Turning the knob, I entered a hallway where a young woman instructed me to stand at the end of a line to receive an employment application from a receptionist, who then directed me to enter a room where I found about a dozen women filling out their cards. I noticed with dismay that I’d overdressed. Almost all my competitors wore simple skirts and waists.

After finishing my application, I was ushered to yet another room, where I was surprised to find rows of benches crowded with even more applicants. Others hovered in the back, wondering where to go. My heart sank. Were all these women here for my job?

An energetic woman with gray hair stood up front, telling the
girls to sit in the order of their application numbers. “Please pay attention! We need your cooperation. Who has number twenty-nine? Please sit here.”

I had number seventy-five.

I berated myself for failing to bring a magazine and fought off the urge to leave. My path to this moment had been too tortuous for me to give up now.

The financial panic swept the country after I’d been working at Father’s store for about six months, almost a year after I graduated from Miss Hall’s. Many fortunes were lost in the stock market, and businesses went under. But the Woolworth chain weathered the crisis without trouble, reporting in the June newsletter that eight more stores were slated to open in 1907. It was another announcement in the issue that had particular interest for me. A new manager was needed at the Thirty-fourth Street location in New York City, known as the “mother store,” the biggest one of all. Wasting no time, I encouraged Father to apply, reassuring him that I’d love to live in New York City. To bolster my case, I reminded him that moving to Manhattan would greatly improve my chances for marriage. I didn’t mention anything having to do with department store buyers or high salaries for women.

Father admitted that he’d already seen the listing and was tempted. The move would mean a substantial raise in salary, and since the corporation’s home offices were in Manhattan, it could very well give him entrée into Woolworth’s inner circle.

Despite his interest, a considerable obstacle remained. Aunt Ida considered Manhattan a den of vice to avoid at all costs; she wouldn’t take a day trip to the city, much less move there. The woman had uprooted her life to take care of us. How could we leave her alone in Cold Spring?

As fate would have it, the financial crisis provided a solution. Margaret, a neighbor and dear friend of Aunt Ida’s, had kept most of her savings in the stock market. The crash wiped her out, and
she had to sell her house for income. Since people were strapped and banks were nervous to lend, she didn’t get nearly what it was worth—or had been worth. Aunt Ida proposed that Margaret move into one of our extra bedrooms.

Father and I welcomed her into the household. She was a plump, sweet-natured woman who baked the best pies in the world. Of course, it didn’t escape me for a moment that her presence would enable our move to New York. It wasn’t until the end of summer that we officially knew Father had been appointed manager of the Thirty-fourth Street store.

“Number seventy-five? Seventy-five!”

I snapped to attention as my number was called. An assistant directed me to my interviewer’s office. A thickset woman who appeared to be about forty sat behind a large wood desk covered with neat piles of cards. Her nameplate said
MISS LILLIAN HAPGOOD
.

“Olive Westcott?”

“How do you do?”

Without bothering to introduce herself, she told me to sit on the chair across from her desk. I folded my hands together as she read my card; by the time she looked up, my grip was tight enough to strangle a cat.

“And your letter of reference?” she asked.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t bring one.”

Miss Hapgood raised her thick eyebrows. “Why not?”

“I practically grew up in a store. My father manages the Woolworth’s on Thirty-fourth Street, and before that, he managed the one up in Cold Spring. I’ve been working behind the counter since I can remember. You can be sure I know all about the dry goods business.”

“How much were you paid?”

“I wasn’t.”

“So you don’t have any actual work experience.”

“I’ve got lots of work experience; I just wasn’t paid for it.”

She smiled with tight lips. “We’re looking for girls with paid experience.”

I tried to keep the irritation from my voice. “Even though my father didn’t pay me, I had the same responsibilities as the other countergirls. We could telephone him,” I said, though he might tell her to send me straight home. “I’m sure my father would be happy to speak with you.”

“That’s not necessary. We need to see a written reference from a previous employer showing you’re an experienced salesgirl.”

“Oh, but I’m not here for a sales position. I’m here for the job as assistant buyer.”

“Even more to the point. If you want to become an assistant buyer, you’ll have to start as a countergirl. How could we put you in charge of our salesgirls if you’ve never even worked?”

I felt my cheeks get hot. “I’m sure I could learn anything I need to know in a flash.”

“Then learn it. And come back. With a letter of reference.” She put my card on a pile. “Thank you for coming in.”

I took my leave with all the dignity I could muster. This was the limit. To be dismissed so out of hand! Exiting past the other applicants, I strained to keep the tears from sneaking out until I’d made it through the green door. Tears! How mortifying. I refused to be so easily broken and wiped them off quickly. It wasn’t as though I needed the money. To think she didn’t see me as qualified for the lowly position of salesgirl!

I found my way to the ladies’ lounge, a lair of femininity decorated with pink-and-white-striped wallpaper, magenta drapes, and plush pink carpeting. Women clustered in front of a brightly lit mirror while freshening up and redoing their hair; puffs and curls lay scattered on the counter. At least the other ladies hadn’t a hint of the humiliation I’d just suffered. After splashing some water on my face, I eked out a place in front of the glass so I could fix my sagging Psyche knot.

The woman next to me powdered her face while telling her companion about an article in the morning paper. “They say Harry Thaw is getting his meals catered by the Astor House restaurant while he’s locked up in the Tombs! Can you believe it?”

“Next thing you know, they’ll hire an orchestra for him.”

People couldn’t get enough of the dreadful scandal surrounding Stanford White’s murder. I had no sympathy for the deranged Mr. Thaw, who’d shot the famous architect dead.

“If they let me sit on that jury,” the woman next to me replied, “I’d put him away for good.”

“It would be grand to see Evelyn Nesbit on the stand, if only to see what she’ll wear.”

I left the lounge and took the moving staircase down. On the fourth floor, a heavenly scent lured me to investigate the gourmet food section, where a small crowd watched a young woman sautéing mushrooms in a chafing dish. “Chafing dish cookery,” she proclaimed, “is the ideal way to solve the problem of small kitchens in New York apartments.”

Still smarting from rejection, I had no intention of buying a chafing dish, though it was a clever idea. The Mansfield apartments didn’t have kitchens—a detail my aunt found unbelievable. Father would be delighted if I made him dinner now and then.

When the mushrooms finished cooking in the buttery sauce, the young woman spread them on a tray, stuck a toothpick in each one, and invited us to try a sample. My fellow spectators descended on the mushrooms like soldiers starving on the front lines. I stepped in and took one before they disappeared. It tasted delicious. Still, I turned away without buying one. Even the prospect of pleasing Father with a home-cooked meal couldn’t compete with my wounded pride.

THE BUTTON CLICKED
as Dr. Markoff turned on a cassette recorder. Did they still manufacture those?

I want you to stare at the ceiling.

His ceiling was much higher than mine. I bet the walls were thicker, too.

Keep your eyes focused on the flat white surface and try not to blink.

This was exciting. I was good at not blinking. Maybe I was good at being hypnotized.

You very much want to blink, but I want you to resist that urge.

I blinked.

Your lids feel so heavy, the temptation to close them is too great. So now you can close your eyes if you like.

Relief.

Now I want you to focus on your body by relaxing each part. The soles of your feet
 . . .
your calves
 . . .
your thighs . . .

He went slowly, lingering on every part. I relaxed. This was
nice. I just wanted to lie there listening to his rhythmical, soothing, monotonous voice.

We’re going to let your unconscious hear what it needs to hear while you think about your relationships with other people.

Well, that wasn’t going to relax me. I didn’t want to think about Jeff or why I couldn’t give him up.