Unlike Others (4 page)

What can he give a girl that I can't? Babies, that's all. And judging from the number of illegal operations that get performed every day, that's not such a big attraction.

Oh, stop it.

She ran a lipstick over her mouth, chucked her purse into a corner and got to work, trying to ignore the hum of voices from Betsy's little office.

Getting out
Produx Topix
was easy enough, if you could keep from upchucking over the name. Because it was company-subsidized, they didn't worry about advertising. Now and then Stan got a few small ads from stores and taverns in the neighborhood of the factory. He got a commission on these. Jo was always relieved when this happened, because it built him up in his own mind and she didn't have to spend so much time and ingenuity reassuring him. She was also a little resentful because of the money, which she could have used.

Her job was simply to get out a new issue of
Topix
every month, getting in as many readers' names as possible and presenting everyone in a flattering light. All brides were beautiful, all old-timers were touched and happy to receive their forty-year pins, all vacations were loads of fun. A dozen or so representatives, one from each department, collected these little items and turned them over to Stan when he visited the plant. So far as they were concerned it was his magazine. It was Stan who assigned the linage for her departments, selected type faces and artwork, and made the final decision as to what should be included. If it was an exciting basketball season or the plant bowling teams were going strong in the semifinals, he might drop her lead article without even consulting her. The shop girls were right: he was the boss.

She opened the top drawer of the file, took out half a dozen manila folders and spread them out on her desk. They were labelled in red: Weddings, Engagements, Babies, Vacations, Deaths and Honors. Better start with weddings; September was a great month for them, almost
as
good as June. It was also good for Honors, which meant sons being inducted into the armed forces and children going away to college. I don't suppose there's another country in the world, Jo thought, where factory workers send their kids to college on their own money. It always made her feel good.

“What's on the agenda?"

"Miss Shirley Kowalski a beautiful autumn bride," Jo said, turning so that she could face Stan. This was going to be one of his restless days; and since she hated talking to people she couldn't see (a fact which accounted for the admirable brevity of her telephone conversations) she wasn't going to get much done. "Glamour girl of the toy finishing department will wear white panne satin with a court train and sweetheart neckline, the bodice strewn with seed pearls and miniature sequins. The bouffant skirt is softly gathered over the hips. Her veil will be of re-embroidered silk net and she will carry a white satin prayerbook, the gift of the groom, with her initials in rhinestones. Her going-away dress is fawn crepe with bronze accessories, and there are six bridesmaids, a flower girl and a matron of honor in pastel velveteen. The groom works in the shipping department, so we're related on both sides of the family."

"All with names in nine syllables, and God help you if you miss on the spelling."

Jo grinned. "That's why I save the little notes your girl friends over at the plant turn in, so I can prove it isn't our fault."

"It'll take the girls years to pay for all this jazz."

"It’ll take the girl's lifetime savings," Jo corrected him. "It was a great day for working-class parents when they invented the typewriter. These days, the kids provide their own white satin and sequins."

"What worries me, don't they ever think about anything but clothes? How about the groom, doesn't he rate a little attention?"

"Sure. She's got a white nylon nightgown and peignoir to match, with Chantilly lace. That's for his benefit."

"You're making that up."

"Wanna bet?"

Stan came around behind her and leaned over to look. "You're faking. It doesn't say a word about her nightgown."

"Certainly not. This is a family magazine. I read the ads," Jo said smugly. "The nightgown and peignoir sets cost from $24.95 to $49.95, depending on how much you want to spend. After the wedding night you put them away until you go to the hospital for the first baby."

"In about six and a half months," Stan said cynically. "Have you got a nylon nightgown and a whoozis to match?"

"No," Jo admitted, "but then I've never been on a honeymoon. It's illegal to wear them for anything but a honeymoon. After the baby's born you wear an old seersucker duster from the bargain basement.”

"You've never been married, have you?"

"No, I've been lucky." She looked down at her copy. How much had he guessed? Was he trying to find out? So far, her talks with Stan had always centered around his own problems and ideas. She existed as a listener and sympathizer. She waited, wary.

"Betsy has. We've been talking.”

"She's a nice-looking girl. Nice girl, too."

“She's feminine. She's capable too," he added hastily. “I think she's going to work out all right."

"Just so she can spell," Jo said. "The last one couldn't spell. Or the one before that. You're the champion speller around here."

He looked pleased. "Oh, I don't know. I'm literate, that's all. Why do you suppose a girl like that would bust up with her husband?"

"Maybe he was a drunk, or something. Maybe he chased blondes—no, it would have to be brunettes, wouldn't it? Maybe he spent the grocery money on slot machines. Happens all the time."

She could see him softening up at the thought of helpless little Betsy in the clutches of a drunken husband. He said casually, "Well, it's none of my business. Good luck with the Kowalski wedding. Mark the date on the calendar. I'll buy you a drink when Junior shows up, some time next March."

“More power to 'em," Jo said. She took a long breath as he ambled away. It must have been a shot in the dark, after all.

She wondered if he had ever realized that she had a personal life. She was the kind of girl who's naturally suspect: tailored, crisp and efficient, not to mention being unmarried at twenty-eight. It could add up, if you had that kind of mind. That was why she asked Richard to pick her up at the office every once in a while. He was so obviously virile (the boys he dated probably thought so, too) that even Gayle came out of her pre-nuptial fog to admire him. "Gee, he's cute," she said, looking at Jo with new respect and visibly wondering if they were having an affair. Which was exactly what Jo intended her to wonder.

It was dishonest. But an attractive man was a smokescreen between you and the evil-minded people, a form of social security in an age that placed too high a value on early marriage. If he also understood things the way Richard did, liked you and was always ready to listen to your troubles, you really had it made.

She had called him the night Karen walked out with a suitcase in her hand and tears running down her set face. She'd sat for a few minutes, numb, listening to the slamming of David's car door and the sound of his motor pulling away from the curb and the vacant silence that followed. She had come out of it to telephone Richard, without even remembering that it was Saturday night, and he might not be at home; or, if at home, he might be pleasurably occupied. And he had come at top speed, on the double; had listened to her sad story, let her cry on his chest, and finally tucked her into bed with a sleeping pill, to sit holding her hand in his big hairy paw. Falling asleep at last, she had thought for the umpteenth time, "I do love Richard. Not in love with, but love. That's better, not so many worries."

It was good as far as it went. The trouble was, it didn't go far enough. She had a public escort and private friend, but there were things that friendship didn't cover. She needed someone to dedicate herself to, someone to become involved with. She needed to be first with someone.

Beyond that, she needed someone with whom she could make happy, crazy and satisfying love. She stirred uneasily, feeling the pressure and tingle and the urgency of her need. Better get back to the Kowalski nuptials,
s
he thought, in a minute I’ll be going wacky from wanting someone. It's been a long dry spell. And no matter what you try to do for yourself, it's not the same.

She concentrated on a description of the dress worn by the bride's mother, the beige satin (size 44) of the groom's mother and the ruffled orchid organdy of the flower girl, little Donna Spinelli, cousin of the bride. How did a Spinelli get in there? she wondered.

It was tripe, but she liked writing it. It was noon by the time she got all the September weddings and engagements under control, regretting as she always did that the magazine was made up two months in advance so the glamour would wear off all those shiny new marriages before they appeared in print. The Westminster chimes of a downtown church broke into her last page of typed copy. And Stan was in the doorway, looking embarrassed, with Betsy clutching her purse and gloves behind him. "We're going to lunch. Want to come along?"

"Not today, thanks. I've got a date."

He looked relieved. "How are the Kowalskis?"

"On their honeymoon. You’ll have to give me an extra page for weddings this month, everybody's getting married."

"Sure. Well make it for lunch some other time," he said, taking Betsy's arm as they turned away. That'll be the day, Jo thought.

Usually she liked having the office to herself. Gayle went out to shop for her trousseau, and Jo kept an eye on the switchboard. It was quiet, the street sounds were muted, the hum of voices in the next suite of offices made a pleasant background for her thoughts. She leaned against the windowsill and looked at the tops of the cars and cabs lined up below, waiting for the light to change. Office girls scuttled across the street intersections; older women in from the suburbs for a day of shopping moved more slowly, laden with their packages.

She would go out after the others got back, have a good lunch and look at the fall clothes on display in the specialty shops. It was a long time since she'd bought anything, thanks to Karen, who was out of work when she moved in and didn't try very hard to find anything. She had gone back to work just two weeks before leaving. Jo thought about Karen fleetingly, wondered how her husband felt about paying an analyst and whether Karen was better in bed than she used to be.

Don't think about that. She tried, she did try, and it's not her fault she hardly ever made it.

She'd paid for Karen's nylons and other little incidentals; and then there was that damn bed, and the pale blue sheets to set off Karen's fair prettiness. All in cash. She was the only person she knew who didn't have a charge account. Her first layoff had taught her that.

The trouble with working through the noon hour was that she never got anything done. It was too good a time for thinking.

She was sitting with her folders spread out on the desk when Stan came in alone. "Betsy has some shopping to do."

"So have I."

She walked up and down the aisles of the biggest department store, looking at furs, suede shoes, woolen dresses. The thought of winter clothes made her feel itchy and scratchy. She walked briskly up-street to a small hotel dining room where the roast beef was good and the coffee strong.

There was only one thing wrong. The chair facing her was empty, and the back half of the double bed in her apartment was empty. She felt a little empty herself.

CHAPTER 5

An office, like a home, has a climate of its own. It's dominated by the emotional content of the people who spend their time there. So far as Jo was concerned, the office on the sixteenth floor of the Harrington Building had been a good place to work, busy yet relaxed, housing a small group of people who liked the work they were doing and the people with whom they were thrown into contact. She even felt herself the center of things there, thanks to her own secret, repressed yet honest recognition of Stan's weakness and his constant need of reassurance.

Within a week after Betsy joined the payroll, things were different. It was Stan who came down early now, and not the same Stan who had been bringing his layouts for her admiration and his problems for her sympathy. This one was more self-assured, and in some way she couldn't analyze, more consciously male. She recognized the quickening because she had felt it in her own body, the heightened perception, the sharpening of colors and outlines, the feeling of pleasurable suspense. But to find it in Stan disturbed her.

"All that little chick has to do is sit at her desk and look helpless," she told Richard, "and he stands around for hours, talking to her. About nothing. I'm getting the book out single-handed."

"So what's bothering you?" Richard handed her a menu. "I'm having the swiss steak, what are you having?”

"I don't care. Swiss steak, I guess." She considered, her head bowed. "It's raising hell with the magazine. I'm the only one that's doing any work. Little Miss Hot Pants at the desk is just waiting for the day when the priest says it's legal and she can climb into bed with her guy. I don't expect anything better from her, but Stan isn't getting anything done either."

Richard stirred his coffee. "All this indignation is for the magazine, Jo?"

"No."

He chuckled. "If I didn't know better I'd say you were jealous of Stan. It would be a triangle, two women both after the boss. Right? It's still a triangle, but who would believe it if you put it in a book?"

"Don't think I haven't thought of that! Only it can't be, Rich, she's straight."

"Darling, don't try so hard to be logical. There's nothing logical about love."

"Well, the job enters into it just the same. It may not pay a hell of a lot, but it beats typing invoices all day long. That's what I did in my last office. Only now I'm doing three people's work for one lousy paycheck."

"You still think this girl looks like Karen?"

"A little, yes."

"Because it makes a difference, Michael reminds me sometimes of the boy that brought me out. In military school. Somebody ought to tell these parents about military schools."