14
I set out among the subways, the red-and-white Coke machines and ads for Dr Scholl's foot powder to find another job. Night work ran in two categories: telephone operating or various forms of entertainment. Since Hal Prince did not rush out on the street to sign me up I found myself dancing nightly in a bar in the West Fifties. That lasted two weeks—until I provided a dentist with a patient needing a new set of uppers. There was nothing to do but change my schedule, cut down on classes, and work during the day.
I got a job as a secretary at Silver Publishing Company. Every morning at nine a.m. I roared into the office in complete female rig—skirt, stockings, slip. I couldn't cross my legs because some of the more obvious sperm producers would try to look up my leg, couldn't put my feet on the desk because that wasn't ladylike, and if I didn't wear makeup everyone, including the boss, would ask me if I was 'under the weather' that day.
My immediate superior was Stella by Starlight. Stella had married the president of the company, David Cohen, so she worked 'just for fun.' Stella looked exactly like Ruby Keeler and someone must have told her this back in 1933 because she had been trying ever since to be a carbon copy of the original. At the merest suggestion of Ruby she'd go into the routine from Footlight Parade. Then, her husband, aroused by the sound of tapping feet, would have to come out of his office to remind her there were galleys to be read and would she save the dance until after five.
We lowlies were herded into the bullpen where we cheerlessly typed up anything from a bill to the latest manuscript as well as churning out back-copy, front-copy, and captions for bent photographs. In a short time Stella managed to notice that I could both read and spell, two points in my favor, joined by a remarkable third: I could dash off copy on command. Stella rescued me from the bullpen and threw me in with one of the prized editors, James Adler.
Rhea Rhadin, another groundling who had fought her way up to being head receptionist, unfortunately had a full blown heterosexual crush on James. She'd practically slide into the office on her own lubrication and croon at him, 'James, may I fetch you some coffee—anything at all this morning?' James abhored her and gave her a curt 'no' on these persistent occasions. Rhea exhibited the peculiar twists so often found in the brains of straight women: she became convinced that James treated her brusquely because he and I were having a hot fling. She decided to make life miserable for me. Any work she got from my hands she deliberately botched and then blamed it on me. Once a week she would slip into Mr Cohen's office with another horrendous mistake she had saved the printer from committing because of my laxity and poor work habits. James in an heroic effort to save me reported his perceptions of the situation to Mr Cohen, who couldn't believe anyone, even Rhea, could be such an ass.
A bad case of the hots was only one of Rhea's faults. She was notoriously lazy and connived to get other luckless lowlies to do her job for her, thereby giving her time to file her fingernails and change the color of the polish daily. Mr Cohen turned a blind eye to her eternal manicure by saying we should be kind to her, after all her mother did kill herself when Rhea was eleven. The situation grew daily more intolerable, and so the mixture of loneliness since Holly left and the irritation at work gave birth to a scheme I was sure would do old Rhea Ratface in. Sunday night I went out with a plastic garbage bag and collected every agreeable specimen of dogshit I could find. I got half a bagful and I carefully twisted the candy-striped red wire and put it next to my briefcase for tomorrow's labor.
Seven in the morning I was dragging that damn bag through the subway station, up the stairs, and into the square office building streaked with grime, pigeon patties, and car exhaust. By eight I had feverishly crammed the presents into Rhea's desk drawers. Then I evacuated by the back stairway and didn't come back until 9:10.
