We Five (13 page)

“Surely there's some logical explanation, though I must say that this just isn't like them—and all three at the same time!”

Jane glanced at the counter directly behind her. There was a customer standing there looking around for someone to wait on her. Her hat was so ridiculously aigretted that Jane could not stop herself from saying, “Let me help this woman with the private aviary, and then I'll tell you what I think is going on.”

Miss Colthurst shook her head. “You needn't bother. Miss Thrasher has given me
her
theory, which will probably be the same as yours. See to the customer. Miss Thrasher! Miss Thrasher, come over here! I'd like a private word, my dear.”

Ruth, who was working behind the Gloves counter nearby, pushed open the little gate next to her and was at her supervisor's side in that next instant. Vivian Colthurst was standing in the middle of the Ladies' Apparel showroom. Cash girls were flying by on their roller skates and giving the room the feeling of a festive roller rink. “Yes, Miss Colthurst?”

“I was going to—why, that's a lovely lavender tie. Did you get it here?”

Ruth smiled. “I did. Thank you for noticing, Miss C.”

Miss Colthurst winked. “When it's only the two of us, Ruth, you may call me by my Christian name.”

“Yes, of course,
Vivian
,” said Ruth, as Miss Colthurst straightened her favorite shop girl's necktie with solicitous hands. “Carrie—Miss
Hale
—saw it on the bargain table and thought it would go very nicely with this shirtwaist.”

“It does indeed. Our Miss Hale has impeccable taste. With the lavender and the pink, Ruth, you are looking quite hydrangeaish today.”

Ruth blushed. “I never know exactly
how
I look unless somebody tells me. I don't have that feminine knack for the harmonizing of apparel that most of my female co-workers have.”

“Which is why I keep you in Gloves where you can do the least harm!” teased the floor-walker, winking again, this time more playfully.

“You wished to see me about something?”

“Oh yes.” Miss Colthurst patted her slightly unraveling pompadour into submission. “Ruth, oh my good Lord, this is absolutely the worst possible day for any act of truancy on the part of your three friends. You see, I hadn't wished to spread it about because it was only a select number of you girls whom I intended to recommend, but circumstances now require me to make a clean breast of it.”

“A clean breast of what?”

“Oh bother, you have a customer.”

“Oh, it's only Mrs. Withers.
I'll be with you in a moment, Mrs. Withers.
”

“Hum. Mrs. Withers.” Miss Colthurst nodded pregnantly while pursing her lips.

Ruth drew closer for the purpose of conveying a confidence: “Nearly every other morning I have to contend with that fool woman for longer than I can stand it. She tries on the black lisles and then she tries on the imitation suedes and then she tries on the dogskins, and then just as I'm ready to scream, she ambles off without buying a single pair. I think shopping without buying is her favorite pastime.”

Miss Colthurst shook her head. “It isn't her pastime, Ruth. It's her job. She's a private shopper for I. Magnin's.”

“A pri—?”

“A
spy
! She thinks she's clever and has been able to hide this fact from us. But everybody knows. Everybody except, apparently,
you
, Ruth. And so now so do
you
. So let's just make her wait until Satan puts on woolens, shall we?” Ruth noted a mischievous twinkle in her supervisor's eye; she smiled and nodded conspiratorially.

Now Miss Colthurst sighed…rather noisily.

“I have had much better mornings. My toothache has returned, which always puts me in a dreadful mood.” Miss Colthurst took a deep breath. “Here's the situation: there are five men due here early this afternoon from the Katz Advertising Agency. Mr. Pemberton has fired the somnolent Mr. Leeds, our advertising manager, and given the wide-awake Katz agency our account. That's the way things are being done with the big stores these days—even stores
without
advertising managers who've been known to fall asleep while standing fully erect. There is to be no more internal advertising, but there
will
be advertising, and a great deal of it, thanks to the vigorous efforts of the smart young men who run that enterprising concern. Well, the agency wants to start things off with a big bang. It wants to place photo advertisements in the
Chronicle
and the
Call
and the
Examiner
, and in several magazines that have a large readership throughout northern California. It's quite an outlay of money for the store, but Mr. Pemberton is convinced it will be worth it, since sales have been in such a terrible slump lately.
You there! Mrs. Withers!
You cannot be putting your hands behind the counter like that.
The absolute nerve of that woman.
Miss Guinter, would you please wait on Miss Withers…
before I lose the last ounce of my sanity right here in the middle of—what was I saying?”

“Something about the new advertising agency doing photo—”

“Yes, thank you. Photo advertisements. So, these young men—and they're all quite new to the advertising firm—including Mr. Katz Junior, who is the son of the owner…”

“Who, I take it, is named Mr. Katz Senior.”

“Yes, of course. Now don't play on my last nerve, Ruth dear.”

“I won't. Go on.”

“All of them, hired on fresh out of Stanford only a few months ago to bring pep and youthful ideas to that firm—they'll choose five young women from among the ten female salesclerks whom I have chosen for their consideration, and the girls will be escorted to Golden Gate Park on Friday to have their plein-air photographs taken, as it were.”

“All five men are needed for the one photographic session?”

“Oh yes, oh yes. They are each of them responsible for a different aspect of the whole operation. One will work with Miss Dowell and me in selecting the clothes—obviously we'll want to promote our summer lines—another to photograph, another to write the copy as he is so inspired, and so forth. I've never seen anything like it. I understand this represents the future: these scrubbed-face advertising agents pulling out all the stops to make a ‘campaign,' as they call it—it's quite
like
a little military operation, isn't it?”

Ruth nodded. “So, Miss Colthurst, I take it from the look of disappointment on your face that you'd selected my friends Mag and Molly and Carrie as candidates.”

“Naturally. And you and Jane as well.”

“
Jane
?”

“My goodness, Ruth—how you say it! And Jane being one of your dearest friends.”

“No, no, no. It's not that I think Jane isn't—”

“Oh, it most certainly is.” Lowering her voice: “And why
shouldn't
a person think such a thing? Jane is a dear, and smart as a whip, and I know that someday she'll be one of the best buyers this store has ever had, but she is no Gibson girl, and we both know it. Even so, it was she who first spoke to young Mr. Katz when he came to the store last Thursday while I was at the doctor's having my knee looked at. And there was apparently something about her which the young man deemed ‘photogenic,' and so when the two of us had our meeting on Friday, he asked that Jane be included in the ten finalists he'll present to his fellow account men. And it wasn't my place to dispute the request. I asked Mr. Pemberton later that afternoon how he would feel if Miss Higgins happened to end up in photo ads for his store and he said he'd be perfectly fine with it. I was quite surprised at first, but then I came quickly to realize just
why
he should be fine with it. Our employer, as you probably know, is the father of a daughter with a harelip. I believe it's the reason our store mascot has been that damned little bunny rabbit for the last ten years. I think the bunny reminds him of her. Well, of course, that would make him inordinately accommodating when it comes to matters of outward
and
inward beauty. And he did tell me—to put a topper on things—that plain-looking women have just as much right to look at a Pemberton, Day & Company store advertisement and picture themselves wearing the garments we sell as women who are more prettily disposed.”

“Well, he does have a point, I guess.”

“So the gentlemen will be here at two o'clock and I will cross my fingers we'll have Maggie and Molly and Carrie with us at that time, because they are so very beautiful, each one of them, and it should be such a credit to the store to have them presenting its merchandise in artful photography.”

“Should I go look for them?”

“I had considered asking you. But I haven't another clerk to spare. Oh, fiddlesticks! I can take over Gloves for you if you aren't gone too terribly long.”

“Then I'll go.”

“Yes, yes. Go. Skiddoo.”

Ruth found her friends exactly where she thought they'd be: Maggie's uncle's drugstore on California Street. To be accurate, Maggie's “Uncle” Whit was
no longer
Maggie's uncle-in-actuality, since her aunt—Maggie's mother's older sister—had divorced him a couple of years earlier. But Maggie still claimed him as such, since he'd never lost his fondness for her, nor had he ever suspended his willingness to treat Maggie and her friends to free strawberry ice cream sodas or fruit-flavored phosphates or Coca-Colas at his fountain. Today it was lemon and orange phosphates Maggie and Molly and Carrie were drinking at one of the fountain's little café tables.

Seeing Ruth first, Carrie proclaimed with welcoming silliness, “Behold! The search party has officially arrived!”

“It didn't take much searching,” admitted Ruth, while pulling a whitewashed wrought-iron chair over to the table. “What's the
opposite
of a wild goose chase?”

“I don't know,” said Molly, in a sullen tone. “Would you like something to drink, Ruth? Mr. Whitten has a new root beer on tap and wants opinions as to whether it's worth keeping.”

Ruth shook her head. “What I'd
like
is for the three of you to get yourselves out of these chairs and right down to the store before you lose your jobs. I cannot believe it! Sitting here like ladies of leisure and putting Miss Colthurst in such a terrible fix. She had to bring over Miss Grable from Misses' Ready-to-Wear—Jeanna Grable, who doesn't know the first thing about ribbons, and Miss Shields is making a terrible muddle out of measuring and packing in
your
absence, Molly.”

Molly frowned. “Is that my fault? Any other girl could learn the job in five minutes.”

“And just look at your faces,” Ruth grumbled on. “I've never seen such a study in glumitude. Honestly. You all look as if somebody just died owing each of you a very large sum of money.”

“Ha ha and hee hee,” returned Molly with a sneer and a flounce. “You may take your little vaudeville funny act elsewhere, Ruth.”

Ruth turned to Carrie, who was wearing a frothy lemon-phosphate mustache. “Carrie, can you not make them see reason? Nothing is going to get settled this morning and you're all needed at the store. And today most especially.”

“And what makes today more special than any other day?” queried Carrie.

“If you must know, the new advertising agency that has been given Pemberton, Day's account is going to photograph several lucky shop girls at Golden Gate Park on Friday, and each of you is in the running.”

“What do you mean, ‘photograph'?” asked Carrie.

Ruth sighed with exasperation. “
Photograph
. With a camera. A
professional
camera—not a Brownie. Five of Mr. Pemberton's salesclerks are going to become photography models for the entire day and they'll appear in Pemberton, Day advertisements all over town—you've heard of advertisements?”

Molly's face lighted up, while Carrie mumbled petulantly that of course, she'd heard of advertisements.

Ruth went on: “Miss Colthurst has picked ten of us who will be looked over by the agency men. And from those ten they'll select five for the job.”

“Will we be paid?” Maggie, having finally decided to join the conversation, did so without the slightest suspension of her dark mood.

“Of course you'll be paid,” replied Ruth. “If you're selected.” Ruth's expression suddenly changed; she grinned slyly. “My goodness, but aren't we being a wee bit presumptuous about our chances?”

Maggie sucked up the remaining puddle of phosphate at the bottom of her fountain glass. Unlike her friend Carrie, who liked to slurp from a spoon, Maggie used a straw. “Not at all. We four are the prettiest salesclerks in the store. Of course, I have no idea who will occupy that fifth spot.”

“
I
do,” said Ruth. “Jane.”

Maggie's look of surprise replicated that of her friend Carrie. Molly registered her own astonishment with nothing more telling than a slight clearing of the throat.

“
Jane
?” said Maggie. “And just how is this possible?”

“Oh do be kind!” ejaculated Molly in a burst of magnanimity for her absent friend. “We've had all we can take of your monstrous behavior, Mag. It is common knowledge that Miss Colthurst is very fond of Ruth, and it's probably a very simple thing for Ruth to ask her to exert her influence with these agency men to win Jane that fifth spot. And then it shouldn't be far-fetched at all for the five of us—including Jane—to model those clothes together as we do nearly everything else together—even though Jane probably
is
ill-suited for the modeling profession.”

Ruth groaned. Withholding the fact that she had nothing to do with Jane being seriously considered for the advertisements, Ruth glared at Molly as she acerbically observed, “As far as I can tell, Mag isn't the
only
one here today who has taken sudden leave of her generally kind and gentle nature.”