Three-Martini Lunch by Suzanne Rindell Read Free Book Online Page B

shorthand?”
    â€œYes; my mother made me take a summer course.”
    â€œThat was very prudent of her,” Miss Everett said. She smiled that same thin-lipped stabbing smile and the word
implacable
sprang into my head and floated up invisibly between us. There was an oscillating fan sitting upon the bookshelf behind her. Every time the fan pivoted in Miss Everett’s direction, the papers on her desk fluttered under their paperweights but not a single curl of ash-blond hair wavered from the confines of her carefully pinned-up hairdo. I suspected a rather large quantity of Aqua Net had been involved in their arrangement. She discreetly exhaled a breath of smoke from her cigarette and, with a gesture that struck me as very familiar and well practiced, delicately fished a stray filament of tobacco from the tip of her tongue. Then she leaned back in her swiveling chair and regarded me with an air of cold calculation. Her silence seemed to carry on forever, but I’m sure in reality it was only seconds before a loud rap sounded at the door and a young girl rushed in with a slip of paper in her hand and a pencil tucked over her ear.
    â€œI’m sorry to interrupt, but Mr. Pierce said I was to deliver this phone message to you immediately.” The girl held out the slip of paper. Miss Everett rose from her chair and snatched the paper away from the girl with a frown.
    She eyed the message. “Of course he found a way out of that lunch.” She read from the note in a high, mimicking voice.
“‘Would you mind terribly going in his stead?’
Hmph. Little surprise. I should’ve planned for it from the start.” She touched a hand to her shellacked curls and then looked at me as though she had forgotten I was in the room. “Tell me, dear, have you gone to lunch with many writers?” she asked. There wasn’t much question in it; she already knew the answer.
    I shook my head.
    â€œWell, don’t if you can help it. Most of them are either fools or madmen.”
    I took this as an attempt at humor, and forced a little laugh. I watched as she pulled her gloves on and gathered up her purse. As Miss Everett neared the open door, she stopped. She turned and gave me one last icy evaluation.
    â€œMabel,” Miss Everett said, still staring at me, and I realized she was addressing the girl with a pencil tucked over her ear.
    â€œYes, Miss Everett,” the girl said.
    â€œShow Miss Katz to Personnel. We’ll have her start as Mr
.
Frederick’s new secretary.” Then a second idea appeared to occur to her and she snapped to attention. “No! Wait. Isn’t
Mr. Turner
also looking for a new girl right now?” Mabel nodded hesitantly. A curious expression appeared on Miss Everett’s face. Finally, she said, “Yes, that’ll be better for you, dear. Let’s have you start there.” She carefully fixed a hat over her hairdo and departed without another word.

6
    R ising in front of the entrance to the Torchon & Lyle building on Fifty-eighth Street was a large phoenix cast in copper. For being stationary, it nonetheless implied a great deal of motion; its wings stretched wide as if to take flight, its neck arched to strike downward at a serpent or some such creature with its beak, and one talon lifted free into the air while the other still touched the ash heap from which it perpetually rose. I’ve been told that since my time at Torchon & Lyle the company swallowed up many of its smaller competitors until the whole outfit was so big it was forced to relocate slightly uptown to a more modern and muted-looking glass skyscraper where there is no mythical phoenix poised to take flight out in front. This is one of the more tragic outcomes of progress. The old building was all limestone and brass with that giant terrifying phoenix you had to step around to enter the revolving door. Somehow I wouldn’t want it any other way.
    Most of the phoenix