Love Comes Calling (23 page)

W
hen I got home, the maid handed me a message as I walked in the door. “For you, miss. It was a telephone call from Miss Winslow.”

“Janie?” I unfolded the sheet of paper.
I cannot meet you
on Sunday. Will come by on Monday afternoon.

Well, that was a relief! It would give me more time to figure out what to do about her job. Only I still hadn't figured it out by the time my father tapped on my bedroom door later that afternoon. “I'm going to need your help tonight, Ellis.”

My
help? “With what?”

“Oh . . . there's a benefit tonight, postponed from early May, and I volunteered your mother to help because usually she would be here since we don't go to the shore until July. Only I forgot to tell her before she left this morning, and now it's too late. She did say to tell you she'll come for you sometime next week and to make sure your things are packed. In any case, the benefit's tonight, and she can't come back to the city and . . . well . . . she's not here.”

“How can I help?” I couldn't make as big a mess of things as I had down at Central . . . could I?

“You don't have to do everything. Hopefully you won't have to do anything. Edward Coffin's wife is the hostess. All you have to do is assist her.”

I would have assisted Mrs. Coffin if she'd been there, but she wasn't. Her dyspepsia was acting up again, so the responsibility for the evening had fallen to my mother, which in turn had fallen to me. And now the head waiter was standing in front of me, waiting for directions.

“I suppose . . . hadn't people ought to be seated?”

“Yes, miss. Only we don't have the seating chart.”

“Well, where is it?” My goodness, did they have to be told everything? If they didn't have it, then why didn't they go and get it?

“Mrs. Coffin was working on it.”

“But she had to have finished it, didn't she?”

“I couldn't say, miss. She never gave it to us.”

I felt my brows rise as I surveyed the gathering crowd. How many times had I seen my mother pore over her seating charts as if they were battle plans? It wasn't nearly as easy to seat a dinner party as it sounded. If I didn't know better, I would think Mrs. Lodge should be seated by Mr. Codman Jr.—who was eighty years old if he was a day—because she never stopped talking and he might as well be deaf. Only Lodges and Codmans never got on, so that could never do.

Oh dear.

I could work on a seating chart for days and never be able to get it right.

Maybe if I . . . no. That would never work. Or—! No, that wouldn't work either. What if I told everyone to sit at tables according to who their great-greats were? No. Mr. and Mrs. Lawson liked to pretend no one knew they were first cousins.

“What are you serving for dinner?” Maybe it would be canapés, which everyone could eat standing up. That way no one would have to sit down.

“Standing rib roast with jus and Yorkshire pudding. With peas.”

Oysters and clambakes! Why did everything always have to be served with peas? Now everyone would have to sit down. I'd just have to wade in and do what had to be done. Make no apologies. Broach no recriminations. As long as people thought there was some order to the thing, then maybe there would be. “Can you get me a piece of paper?”

While he was gone, I surveyed the crowd, trying to figure out who to seat together. A poorly executed arrangement would be a disaster that would be remembered for years. I could just imagine it.
“Do you remember that time when
old Ellis Eton . . . ?”
Thank goodness I was already planning to leave for Hollywood!

If this dinner was going to be the last one I enjoyed, then why shouldn't I eat it with people I liked? When the waiter returned, I wrote out my table first and filled it with our family friends, and then I distributed the rest of the guests around the remaining tables.

Walking out to the hall, I posted the seating chart, and then I borrowed my father's glass and tapped it with the handle
of a knife. The crowd quieted. All except for Mr. Codman Jr., who couldn't hear anything.

“I apologize for the delay in seating. Tonight, to go along with the theme of the dinner, you are being seated according to a criteria of which only I am aware. At the end of the evening, I hope you will be able to guess what you had in common with each of your tablemates. Thank you.”

There. That ought to give everyone something to talk about!

Father and I stayed until the very end of the evening, since I had acted as hostess. I tried not to look at my watch too often, but really, you'd think nobody had ever worked a day in their life, the way they were still carrying on well past eleven o'clock!

I tried to speed things along by thanking people for coming, but I got caught up in ever so many conversations. Each table seemed to want to tell me what they'd discovered they had in common. The first table had all attended the first Chautauqua Assembly back in the summer of 1874.

“Oh! Except for me. I couldn't because that was the summer I came down with scarlet fever. But I'm sure you couldn't be expected to know that.”

How could I have? I'd been born thirty years too late to remember.

Mrs. Rice was beaming as I approached her table. When she crooked her finger, I bent close. “Clever girl! How our conversation has taken us back. How did you ever know?”

I simply smiled.

Another woman at the table beside theirs tapped me on the arm with a slender, beringed finger. “I had no idea you were so well-versed in our family's history.”

Neither had I.

“It's encouraging to find a young person taking such an interest in these things.”

“Well, it's . . . interesting.”

“It is. Thinking that but for a suitor's change of heart we might all have been each other's aunts and uncles, instead of just cousins. Very well done.”

Each other's aunts? And uncles? I looked over that group, trying to figure out how that could possibly ever happen, but time was too short and the hour too late and I had never bothered much to listen when everyone went on and on about their family tree.

As I left that table, Mrs. George Emerson reached out from the one behind it. “Do you know what he did?” Her crooked, trembling finger was pointing at Mr. John Perkins, who happened to be my great-uncle.

“I can't say that—”

“Of course, she must.” Mrs. Andrew Peabody had pinned me with a piercing gaze. “Why else would she have put us all together at the same table?”

Whatever he'd done, Uncle John didn't look nearly as upset about it as the women did.

“And
that man
!” She turned her finger on the other gentleman at the table, who seemed to be pretending not to hear.

Now Mrs. Emerson's entire body was trembling. “Let's just say it's high time they were found out for it. And we have you to thank!”

Oh dear. I'd always liked my Uncle John, and now it looked like I'd gotten him into trouble. “I would say . . . maybe bygones ought to be bygones . . . ?”

Mrs. Peabody sniffed.

Or maybe not.

We got back around midnight, but even so, the telephone's shrill bell rang out as we set foot inside the house.

Father strode toward his office. I followed him down the hall and stood in front of the desk as he took up the telephone. He listened for a moment. “Elizabeth?”

It must be my mother.

“You're—” He paused, and I heard the squawk of Mother's voice coming over the line. “But why are you at the Winthrops'?” Another pause. “But do you know how much it costs?” He grimaced as he held the phone away from his ear. “Yes, of course. For emergencies. I'll ask to have a telephone put in tomorrow.”

He sat in his chair.

I reached over and plucked the hat from his head, setting it down on the desk in front of him.

“The dinner benefit? Is that why you're calling?” He picked up a pen and tapped it against his blotter. “No. I had no expectation you would stay for it. I simply forgot to tell you—”

He put the pen down and began setting the papers on his desk straight, at right angles to the edges. “No. Her dyspepsia was acting up again.” He frowned. “Her
dyspepsia
. So I asked Ellis to take over the duties.”

“What!”

Even I had no problem hearing her voice.

“It turned out just fine. She did everything wonderfully. You would have been very proud of her.” He paused again while Mother spoke and then glanced up at me and offered me the telephone.

I shook my head.

He offered it once more.

Though I took it from him, I had a bad feeling about it.

“Ellis? Are you there?”

“I'm here.”

“I'm sorry you were left in charge. I've told your father not to volunteer me for these things!”

“It went well.”

“I'm sure it couldn't have been too bad or I would have heard about it by now. Just so long as it wasn't a disaster.”

“It wasn't. It was a resounding success. Everyone enjoyed it.” Well . . . most people had enjoyed it.

“I'll come back next week and make sure everyone understands you were just filling in on an emergency basis. I can try to correct all the mistakes you made.”

“But I didn't—”

“Don't worry. It will all be fine.”

I gave the telephone back to Father and went upstairs to get ready for bed.

I'd pulled it off. I'd done something right for once! It was something Mother really could have been proud of. But she wouldn't believe it. It was as if she couldn't even comprehend the possibility. She'd been prouder when she'd thought I was working at the orphan asylum than she was when I actually
did
do something right.

Every day, in every way, I
'm getting better and better.

I thought about that as I lay in bed and I decided I wasn't. I wasn't getting any better, and I might not ever get any better. But maybe that was all right. I'd done something well tonight, and I didn't do it the way other people might have—but if other people had done it the way it was supposed to have been done at the last minute like that, then it mightn't have worked out at all.

E
llis!”

I looked up from my dinner plate the next evening to find my father staring at me. “Pardon me?”

“I've been wanting to do something for Janie Winslow, since her mother died. I can't see that just handing her a check would do much good, but I'm told she's an excellent employee, so I've asked if she can be employee of the month. That way—”

I knew what he was going to say. He'd said it so often before.
“That way
, it would be a reward for hard work.”

“—it would be a reward for all of her dedication and hard work.”

“I'm sure she'll be thrilled to pieces.”

“I hope so. In any case, would you like to come?”

“Come? Where?”

“Down to the telephone company. When I give her the award.”

“When?”

“On Friday.”

Friday! “
This
coming
Friday?”

“Why wait when there's good to be done right now? And I wanted to do it before you went to the shore for the summer.”

“You
can'
t
!” Because Janie didn't have a job anymore.

“But . . . I thought you and Janie were friends.”

“We are. But . . . the telephone switchboard is an awfully busy place. At least, that's what I've heard. So I'm not so sure you ought to interrupt her job just to give her a check.”

“It's a very generous check. I hardly think anyone would begrudge her a short ceremony.”

“You know how shy she is. Why don't you just have them put it in her normal paycheck?”

“Because the rest of the telephone employees need to know hard work will be rewarded.”

“I really don't think she'd want to stand up in front of everybody.”

“Then she can sit. So . . . do you want to come?”

“I . . . guess. Yes?” What else could I say?

The whole thing had been a lark. At least for me. I had thought it would be easy, just another role to play. How hard, after all, could transferring a telephone call be?

Very!

Much harder than I had expected. I hadn't applied myself, I'd left my post, and now I'd lost Janie's job. She didn't deserve to be punished on account of me. And she was going to return in just two days.

But what could I do?

Maybe . . . maybe I could find her a job somewhere else.
I could interview employers for her and then, when she got back, she'd have a choice. She could decide what she wanted to do next. How could she not like that? Only . . . I had a feeling she wouldn't.

But, until I could think of something else, that's just what I'd have to do.

The next morning after church, I asked the maid for the newspaper and flipped through the pages until I came to the employment section. My, but there were an awful lot of jobs! I didn't know how I'd decide which ones to choose.

I read through the columns, circling the positions that were for women. Nurses, typists, secretaries. Telephone operators. Although . . . if I'd gotten her fired from one position at the telephone company, it wasn't very likely they'd let her take another.

I marked a big dark
X
over that one. And then I marked it over again just so I would remember.

I doodled a flower-covered vine in the column's margin, then turned the page. There were positions available for nursemaids, schoolteachers, housemaids, shop clerks. Even for librarians.

What would I like to do if I were Janie?

I drew a picture of a sailboat as I thought about it. Janie was rather quiet, wasn't she? So she probably wouldn't want to work in a place that was too noisy.

I circled the advertisement for a librarian.

Although . . . Central was very noisy, and she'd liked it well enough there.

I circled all of the advertisements for typists.

Did she like children?

I circled all of those for schoolteachers as well. If the position paid well enough, she probably wouldn't mind them.

That left the . . . secretaries, shop clerks . . . I turned the page back over. Nurses, nursemaids, and housemaids. I couldn't see her as a nurse. I wouldn't want her to have to take care of sick people every day. And I couldn't see anyone wanting to be a nursemaid, changing soggy diapers all the time.

Shop clerk?

That seemed too ordinary.

A secretary?

I thought about it for a while as I went through my desk drawer, lining up all my pencils and arranging my blotting papers in a neat stack. After everything was put away, I finally decided Janie probably wouldn't want to be a secretary, taking notes for somebody all day.

The next morning I got up early, skipped breakfast, grabbed my gloves, and folded the newspaper pages I'd marked up and put them into my pocketbook. Then I went to find the driver. There was no time to waste. I had to find Janie a job before I saw her later that evening.

“May I help you, miss?” The woman who greeted me sat behind a large desk, and she had to nearly shout her words to be heard above the clattery, clackety sound of typewriters, which came from somewhere down the long hall behind her.

“Yes. I'm here about the job.” I raised my voice as well.

“Which . . . ?”

“The . . . um . . .” Which one was it? I'd decided to try for all the typists first and then all the schoolteachers. And after that, the librarian. But then, on the way down into the city, I'd realized it would be smarter to tackle the jobs by area instead. So that meant . . .

“Was it the secretarial position?” She asked the question with a smile.

“I don't believe so, no.” I'd decided Janie didn't want to be a secretary, hadn't I? “Maybe . . . could you tell me what positions you have available and then I could decide?”

The woman blinked as her smile disappeared. “I . . . suppose so. We have positions in the mailroom, and—”

“I'm quite sure it wasn't the mailroom.”

“ . . . and in the typing pool and—”

“Yes! That was the one.”

“ . . . and on a private telephone exchange as a switchboard operator.”

“Oh. Yes! That one too, only . . .” If this company asked the telephone company for a reference, they wouldn't be able to give a good one. “Maybe . . . no. No. Just the position as a typist.”

By this point she seemed to be regarding me with a suspicious tilt to her head. “Would you like to fill in an application?” She asked the question as if she were hoping I would say no.

“Yes, please.”

She handed me one with a frown.

I sat down on a rickety old chair in the corner to fill it out. As I was smoothing it out over my pocketbook, another girl
came in. She asked for an application for the typing position as well.

The woman who had frowned at me smiled at her and offered her an application.

I raised my pencil. “Excuse me. I was here first.”

The woman hardly deigned to look at me. “We're taking applications all week long.”

I smiled the smile my mother always used when she was determined to get her way. “I'm sure Janie's going to get it, though.” I looked at the girl who'd just come in. “So there's no need for you to apply.”

“Please.” The woman was waving the application toward the girl. “Take it.”

The girl snatched it out of her hand, took one last look at me, and left.

It wouldn't do for the position to be filled before Janie returned. Now then. I addressed myself to the application. Name.

Well, that was easy.

E-l-l-i-s-E-
t-o-n.

Oh dear. I ought to have put down Janie's name. I snuck a peek at the frowning woman. She'd gone back to whatever it was she'd been doing. I hated to have to ask her for an eraser, but I didn't have one on my pencil.

“Excuse me. Do you have an eraser I can borrow?”

Her frown appeared once more and then immediately deepened, but she placed one at the corner of her desk.

“I've put the wrong name down on this one.”

“The wrong
name
 . . . ?”

“Yes. You see, I'm filling it out for a friend.”

“I don't think that's allowed.”

“But Janie is completely different than I am. She's a very nice girl. And quiet. Very neat and tidy and she always says please and thank you.” That was the mark of a well-raised child in my mother's opinion. “She would be perfect for your job.”

“I suppose . . . if she's not you. Does she have experience as a typist?”

“Well . . . I don't know, really. I don't think she has. But she might. You'll have to ask her on the first day.”

“I'm afraid without the requisite experience, she won't have a first day. Didn't you read the advertisement?”

Yes, in fact, I had. But I'd decided experience didn't really matter. If they could just meet Janie, they'd like her. Everyone did. I took the eraser and made the correction.

This time, I filled it out properly . . . although I didn't know what address to give, so I put in my own. And I didn't know when Janie had been born and I had no idea what prior jobs she'd held—and I really didn't think I ought to put down the switchboard job—so I just left all of that blank. Then I put my gloves back on, slipped my pocketbook over my wrist, and turned in the application.

“But—” The woman turned the page over and then flipped it back. “It's not filled out!”

“Janie can fill in the rest once she returns.”

“But I don't know anything about her!”

I pointed to the application form. “Janie Winslow. That's her. Right there.”

I was secretly hoping it would turn out I'd done Janie a favor. Maybe she hadn't liked her job, and if she hadn't, now she'd have the time to look for a new one. So . . . maybe she wouldn't hate me after all. Maybe she'd end up thanking me. But filling out applications was much more difficult than I had imagined. The first woman seemed to be right; you weren't allowed to apply for a job on a friend's behalf. After that became apparent, I simply went round collecting applications for Janie to fill out herself later in the evening. Experience seemed quite important to everyone, and I didn't really know if Janie had any in very much of anything. At one of the schools that had advertised for teachers, I asked if it was absolutely necessary to have a teaching certificate.