A Witness to Life (Ashland, 2) by Terence M. Green Read Free Book Online Page B

fingers. I think it is more basic than that. Women and typewriters were made for each other."
    "I guess I haven't given it enough thought."
    "I learned quickly. I was their demonstrator. Did you know that there are probably over one hundred fifty thousand lady typewriters in America and Canada today?"
    "I had no idea."
    "And an office girl can make ten dollars a week. More than twice what she could earn in a laundry or kitchen."
    The salary shocks me. It is more than I make.
    "So you see, Mr. Radey—"
    "Martin."
    She stops, smiles. "So you see, Martin, I have a very good idea of whether my job is a good one or not."
    "I'm glad you have found a good job."
    "But it isn't that good." She sips.
    "I thought you said—"
    "That I could tell a good job from a bad one."
    "Ah."
    "My job is acceptable. That's a long way from good."
    What she says rings true for me. Much of my life has been acceptable. Yet it, too, has been a long way from good.
    Through the restaurant window, I watch a string of black birds—feathery, puffed pearls beaded along the roofline of a storetop across the street.
    Maggie Curtis follows my gaze. "They're European starlings," she says. "There were a hundred of them released in New York's Central Park back in the 1890s. Now they're everywhere." She looks at me. "Immigrants," she says. "Like us."
    I stare at her, into her assuredness, wanting, against hope, for this to be the crossroads we all await.
     
    "Do you like to read?"
    "Newspapers. I like to read the newspapers," I say.
    "Books. Do you read books?"
    "Not many." I think. "A biography of Napoleon, when I was in school. Mother had a Booth Tarkington novel at home that was given to her. I started it. It didn't interest me. I read some of House of the Seven Gables. It was around the house. Quite imaginative, but not quite my cup of tea." A pause. "I guess I'm not much of a reader."
    "I'm reading one now called Sister Carrie. It's about a girl who goes to Chicago and becomes a man's mistress. When it first came out it was deemed immoral." She smiles.
    "Where did you get it?"
    "Eaton's. I bought it."
    I have never bought a book, and have trouble digesting the idea.
    "It's like a breath of fresh air," she says.
     
    "Why did you want to meet with me, Martini Did you recognize me?"
    "Only when I heard your name." Why, indeed. I cannot articulate it. I am not sure myself. I am driven. "You're a lovely woman," I say. "Who wouldn't want to meet with you?"
    "Nonsense."
    "Pardon?"
    "I am not a lovely woman. In point of fact, I am somewhat unlovely. I have to watch my waist, especially since I refuse to wear a corset, and I am astute enough to be fully aware that I am unremarkable in most other ways as well. I have no money, I come from a common, workaday family as you well know, and I am far past my prime."
    "Maggie—"
    "It is true." A pause. "Do you know where I was born?" She does not wait for an answer, and I do not know the answer anyway. "Burnhamthorpe. A village of one hundred people, at Dixie Road. It has a blacksmith shop, wagon shops, a shoemaker shop, a general store, and a post office. Farmers from the north stay overnight at the Puggy Huddle Hotel at the Second Line east on their way to market in the city. I come," she says conclusively, "from nowhere."
    "I don't know what you're talking about." And for a moment, I do not. This strange self-assessment has derailed me.
    She waits a few seconds. "How old are you, Martin Radey?"
    "I'm twenty-seven." Close enough, I think.
    "I am twenty-nine. Most women my age have been married for a decade, and have a brood of children. Do you know that life expectancy for a woman is fifty-one? For a man, forty-eight?"
    I am stunned. She is moving too fast, cutting away layers of the game. "I did not."
    "I read it in the newspaper. But because you are a man, you can father children until you die, while I, on the other hand, have seen my prime years disappear. So don't tell me that I am lovely. Or that I am desirable. Or