Five Brides (15 page)

Fifteen minutes before noon, Magda slipped into Mr. Cole’s empty office to powder the sheen from her nose and to freshen her lipstick. Ten minutes later, she’d rubbed her lips together so hard that she needed to apply the deep-red color again. When the office door opened, she looked up, all but gasping in anticipation, to see Harlan standing there in a heavy coat flaked with snow. He removed his hat and said, “Hello.”

When she said nothing in return, he shrugged out of his coat and hung it on the tree next to hers. The implied intimacy took her by surprise, and she exhaled loudly.

“Are you all right?” he asked her.

She blinked rapidly. “What? Oh, yes.”

Harlan Procter approached her desk, peering at her through his black horn-rimmed glasses, making her feel as if she were a specimen in a petri dish. “Do you have something in your eye?”

Magda brought her fingertips to her eyes. “Oh. No. Sorry.” She swallowed to gain composure. “I’m afraid I was so into my work you scared me.”

He looked at her desk, noting the stack of manila envelopes she’d already begun to read through. “Submissions?”

“Yes.” Then, jarred by her lack of professionalism, she stood. “Oh, please. Would you like to have a seat? Or a cup of coffee?”

His pale-green eyes narrowed. “No.” He looked around the room and pointed to one of the two armless chairs. “To the coffee. I’ll wait here, though.” He folded into the chair, and she surmised he had to be at least six feet tall. He crossed one leg over the other easily. Without looking up, he reached for a nearby magazine, opened it, closed it, and then brought his attention back to her. “I take it Barry is not in.”

Magda returned to her seat, tucking her skirt beneath her. “No, sir. He’ll be back soon, though.”

He exhaled as though he’d reached the end of exhaustion. “I see.” He clasped his hands together, lacing the fingers, which Magda saw were long. Slender. Better for typing, she mused. “I suppose I’ll have to wait then.”

“I’m happy to get you a cup of coffee. Or . . .” Her desk phone rang and she jumped, recovered quickly, and answered it. “Barry Cole’s office. Magda Christenson speaking. How may I help you?”

“Miss Christenson . . .”

“Yes, Mr. Cole.”

“Has Mr. Procter arrived?”

“Yes, sir. Only moments ago, sir.”

“I’m leaving to return now. Please make sure he’s comfortable.”

“Of course.”

“And offer my apologies.”

“Yes, sir.” She returned the handset to the phone. When she looked up, Harlan Procter stared back at her.

“I take it he’s going to be late.”

“Only by a few minutes.”

“Editors,” he mumbled, sending an unhappy wave of disappointment through her.

“I—”

He stood, walked toward her, perched one hip on the edge of her desk, and reached for one of the envelopes. “Anything any good?”

She grimaced. “Not so far, I’m afraid.”

“Good news for me, though, huh?” he added with a chuckle.

She smiled. “I suppose so.” Her heartbeat fluttered; were they having a conversation?

He crossed his arms and hunched his shoulders. “Tell me, Miss—” He reached for her nameplate. “Christenson.” He looked up, and for the briefest of moments, she found herself drowning in the cleft of his chin, which rested beneath full lips and a prominent nose. “Do you fancy yourself more a writer or an editor?”

Stunned by the question, she wished against all she knew that she were Betty. Or, at the very least, more like her. “I—I suppose I can only fancy myself a secretary, Mr. Procter.”

“Harlan,” he corrected her. “Mr. Procter is my father, and not a very good one.”

“I see.” She worried what Mr. Cole would think if he walked in and found one of their writers poised on her desk. “I’m not sure—”

“So which is it?” He straightened his shoulders. “Writer or editor?”

“What makes you think either one?”

He laughed so loudly she wondered if the secretary in the office next door might hear. “You have that hungry look about you.”

“Hungry?”

Barry Cole’s voice boomed from the hallway as he called out to someone.

“Mr. Procter,” Magda warned quickly.

Harlan spun off the desk and to his feet, facing the door when it opened. “Harlan,” Barry Cole said, extending his hand. “I’m so sorry to have kept you.”

“No problem. Shall we go then?” He motioned to the door.

“Yes, yes.”

Magda hurried into her boss’s office, grabbed his coat and hat, and returned to dutifully hand it to him. “Thank you, Miss Christenson.” He escorted Harlan Procter out of the office, closing the door behind him as she dropped into her chair, willing herself to breathe.

Seconds later, the door reopened and Harlan strolled back in. “Hold the elevator for me,” he said over his shoulder, then pointed to the coat tree where his forgotten coat and hat hung next to hers.

Magda smiled in understanding.

But instead of walking back out the door, he ambled to her desk, pulled a piece of paper from the notepaper tray, and said, “Your address, please.”

“What?”

“You’re having dinner with me tonight. I’d like to talk to you further.”

Were there rules about this? “But I’m not sure I—”

“Of course you’re sure.” He tapped on the paper with his middle finger. “Hurry now.”

She did as she was told, caught somewhere between concern over ethics and sheer joy.

“I’ll see you at six thirty,” he said, folding the paper and slipping it into his pants pocket.

Only three months had passed since Joan had arrived in the States, but she felt she’d packed in a lifetime of experiences. Most of it at work. Monday through Friday, she put in her time at Hertz during the day, and every weekday evening, she left the office on Wabash and headed for David & DuRand on Michigan. On Saturdays, she led tours into the coal mine at the museum. And somewhere in between it all, she’d managed to accept a part-time job with Manpower.

“So,” Betty said, glancing at her watch as she and Joan walked across the lobby at the end of their workday, “what time do you think you’ll be done tonight?”

Joan shrugged. “Not sure, really. Mrs. King mentioned last night that a
big client
is coming in this evening and she’ll need all of us there and ready to go.”

Betty nudged Joan with her shoulder. “You’re getting along well there, aren’t you?”

“I enjoy it, Betts. I do. Besides, what other opportunities would a girl from Leigh, Lancashire, have to dress in some of the clothes I’ve modeled?” Joan cut her eyes toward Betty. “I only wish I could bring a dress home now and then.”

Joan laughed, and Betty laughed with her—even though Joan
knew that, with Betty’s father’s money and her mother’s social standing, Betty’d had plenty of opportunities to wear formal gowns and fashionable clothes.

“Maybe one day,” Betty said matter-of-factly, “when you are no longer sending money back home, you can afford a new dress.”

Joan could hardly imagine it. To be able to buy a dress
just because
. She had two pairs of shoes in her closet—three if one counted the galoshes she’d been forced to purchase to keep her feet high and dry during the winter months. Betty, on the other hand, had enough to start her own shoe store. To think Joan might one day have a pair for every outfit was almost too much to consider.

They arrived at the point where they’d separate. Joan turned to Betty, then glanced back at where they’d come from. “I’m sorry Evelyn has to work late tonight.”

Betty frowned. “Evelyn shouldn’t have taken such a long lunch, but I suspect George had something to do with that.” She placed her hand on Joan’s shoulder. “Never mind that now. Vegetable soup when you get home. And Evelyn has promised to make corn bread.”

Joan’s stomach rumbled. Unlike Evelyn, she’d used her lunch hour to work on a Manpower project, skipping the meal entirely. Breakfast had been nothing more than a cup of coffee and a Danish. The night before, she hadn’t had enough energy to complete the extra work she’d brought home
and
chew her food, so she chose the work over the meal.

“I’ll see you later then,” Joan said, and she turned and walked down the sidewalk, moving between the men and women either heading home at their workday’s end or slipping into the storefront doors of the shops and cafés along Michigan. In the midst of the crowd, she had a sudden thought of home. Of her parents, her brothers and sisters. She missed them. And sometimes, even in the
excitement of Chicago, she missed Leigh. She missed her people, the sounds of their voices. But she’d grown to love the States as well and to appreciate the part of her heritage that had begun here.

Mrs. King gathered the young women together after they clocked in. One of Chicago’s most prestigious businessmen, Mr. Guy Reeves, would arrive at precisely seven o’clock, she told them, intent on purchasing formal gowns for his wife, his three young-adult daughters, and his sister-in-law. “For a most important event,” Mrs. King said. “The social event of the season.”

“Black tie?” Helen, one of the other models, asked.

“And everything that implies,” Mrs. King answered, her voice collected. She looked directly at Joan. “Joan.”

“Yes?”

“You are the exact size of Mr. Reeves’s oldest daughter. When you go into the dressing room, you’ll find a black gown hanging on the door of your closet. But it needs a bridal petticoat.”

Joan nodded, waiting for the remainder of her instructions.

Mrs. King leaned in and said, “Go downstairs first to bridal and get one. Be quick now.”

“I won’t be five minutes.”

“And be sure to use the stairs,” she called after her.

Joan did as instructed, then took the stairwell back up to the fifth floor. Her descent had been much faster than her ascent, and her legs now shook; her mind felt fuzzy. She needed to eat. But when she returned to the dressing room and saw the dress intended for her, all thoughts of food fled.

The floor-length gown—an Adrian Original with cascading rows of sheer black nylon ruffles over a full aqua tulle skirt—boasted spaghetti straps and a scooped neckline. Beneath the skirt
lay an additional layer of aqua tulle and a pale dusty-rose taffeta lining that felt cold against her skin as she slipped the dress over her head and shoulders.

With the waist of the gown resting just above her hips, Joan turned her head to Helen, who had already dressed in an elegant black gown. The young beauty leaned over one of the dressing tables toward a lighted mirror and applied red lipstick to her full lips.

“Helen?”

Helen looked past her face in the reflection of the mirror to Joan’s. “Mmm?”

“Would you mind zipping me?”

Helen smiled, turned, and slipped the zipper up along her spine. Joan’s stomach growled as Helen slid the top hook into place. Joan splayed her hand over her stomach. “Sorry,” she said.

Helen chuckled. “Hungry?”

Joan only nodded.

The show did well; the distinguished Mr. Reeves purchased a formal gown from David & DuRand for every member of his female entourage. Mrs. King could not have been happier. She congratulated each of the models, reminding them of the bonus they had earned.

Joan said her good-byes and left the store, thinking only of hot vegetable soup and corn bread. She made her way toward the train station; all the while the sounds of the city at night seemed to come at her through a thin veil of gauze. The lights from the storefronts and the streetlamps formed halos. The remaining Chicagoans who, like her, headed for the train, looked like the figures in the Monet paintings on the fifth floor of David & DuRand.