Hattie Ever After (5 page)

Our first stop was the Fairmont Hotel, where Miss Clare and Mr. Lancaster would be residing for the run of the show. Perched atop Nob Hill, the Fairmont appeared to cover more ground than the entire town of Vida! This time I told
myself
to close my mouth, lest I look like a true hayseed. But it was hard not to gape a little at the sight of the formal garden and terrace at the rear. For a moment, I imagined myself at a palace in France or Italy. Then Miss Clare’s decidedly American voice began to chatter in my ear.

“Are you listening, Hattie? I’m sending that trunk with you. It’s got the costumes in need of repair.”

I nodded attentively. Since our conversation in Mrs. Brown’s kitchen, Miss Clare had not said another word about finding my replacement upon arrival in San Francisco. Not that I had found my calling, but I did not relish looking for another job right away. She rattled off a tediously long list of instructions—this gown needed the lace trim refreshed, that cape had a tear in the satin lining, Mr. Lancaster’s tuxedo trousers were losing their hem.

“And my cranberry silk needs taking in again. Can you manage?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am.” The troupe had the night off, so I was confident I could get everything patched up and still find time to venture out to explore my new home.

After the stop at the Fairmont, our jitney rumbled along back to Stockton, heading toward the Hotel Cortez, where the rest of us were staying. Mrs. Brown would have been astonished to learn that one room cost the magnificent sum of $2.50 a week. Maude handed me my key and we stepped into the elevator. I couldn’t help but smile at the memory of my first elevator ride, back at that hotel in Spokane. It had seemed impossible that a metal cage could travel up and down the way it did in the innards of a building. I was used to them by now, though my heart still skipped a bit every time an elevator began its upward lurch.

“I’m just one floor below you,” Maude said, giving me her room number. “Knock if you need anything!”

When she stepped out at her floor, I felt a bit like a child who’d lost sight of her mother on a crowded street. Inhaling shakily, I called out “See you later” in the jauntiest manner I could muster.

After a short ride up, I was unlocking the door to my own room. It was as if I were unlocking a new life. I paused, savoring key in hand, before stepping through. My new lodgings were full of light and exotically decorated along a Spanish theme, and more than twice the size of my quarters at Mrs. Brown’s. A gilt-framed print of none other than Cortez himself, rather than an assortment of Mrs. Brown’s dour relatives, hung on the opposite wall. There were two chairs: a
straight wooden one at the desk and a chubby upholstered one by the window, which would be the perfect reading spot. A twin bed and an armoire rounded out the furnishings. To think that the Fairmont would be even more luxurious than this! It was hard to feature.

I located the bathroom down the hall and freshened up. Since my possessions were few, I quickly had things stowed away and my room as homey as it could be. Uncle Chester’s trunk, heavy with books, was to be delivered later from the station. I could already envision how I would arrange a row of select titles on the desk. For inspiration. And comfort. The gull feather I’d found outside the Ferry Building looked festive and hopeful in the desk’s old inkwell; the letter from Ruby Danvers was propped up against it. I emptied my carry bag of tablets and pens with every intention of committing first impressions to paper but made the mistake of trying out the bed.

A knock roused me from my nap with a start. “Who’s there?” I called, trying to shake the sleep from my voice. What time was it?

“It’s Maude. Several of us are going for supper. Would you like to come along?”

I ran to the door and flung it open. “Can you give me a few minutes?”

“We’ll wait for you in the lobby.”

The evening’s adventure with Maude emboldened me to explore my new home the next morning. It was part exploration and part reconnaissance. With the city guide I’d purchased at Owl Drug in hand, I started off after breakfast. The Orpheum Theater was on O’Farrell, between Stockton and Powell. I made my way there first to be certain I could find it. The theater was dark, of course; as I’d learned over the past weeks, the thespian world did not conceive of life before noon.

I’d determined a secondary target some four blocks past the theater. My personal Mecca was at the corner of Market
and Kearny: a spot that was home to the three biggest newspapers in town. Half afraid I’d lose my nerve, I marched down the street as if I carried front-page news in my pocket. In no time, I passed the famous Lotta’s Fountain and was rewarded with my first glimpse of Newspaper Row—the
Call
, the
Examiner
, and, right in front of me, loomed the Chronicle Building, a ten-story-high skyscraper. Its famous clock tower had been destroyed in the 1906 earthquake, but even without that dramatic finial, it was an impressive structure. I stood there a moment, taking it all in, allowing myself to fancify that someday I might walk into one of these buildings because I belonged there, that I’d have a desk and a typewriter and a pencil behind one ear, that I would hear the newsies touting my stories from the street corners. Read all about it!

One person after another stepped through the
Chronicle
’s great stone archway, topped with the newspaper’s name spelled out in glass tubes that lit up at night. I played at guessing the occupation of each entrant pushing open the immense plate-glass doors. The skinny lad with the tweed cap might be an errand boy. The bareheaded man would be a reporter, in a rush to type up his scoop. And that portly fellow had to be an editor. You could just tell by the way he carried himself.

“After you, miss.” A bow-tied gentleman was holding the door for me.

“Oh, I—” Why not go in? I’d come this far! “Thank you,” I said. “Thank you very much.”

No one questioned me as I stepped into the grand foyer.
In fact, there were such comings and goings, I doubt anyone even noticed me. Still, I felt somewhat like a child about to raid the cookie jar.

I found myself in front of the building directory. There it was:
NEWSROOM
. A little shiver went through me as I tried to imagine what such a place might be like. Would it be all clicking and clacking from busy typewriters? Reporters discussing the events of the world? Telephones ringing right and left? Whatever was up there, it was where I wanted to be. And all I had to do was get in that elevator, ride up a few floors and … and then what? Tell them about my pitiful little Honyocker’s Homilies? At best, they’d laugh in my face. More likely, they’d pelt me with full ink bottles. I turned to leave.

A gaggle of girls not much older than me bubbled past. A redhead with the latest bob and a lopsided smile waved my way. “Are you here to apply for a telephone operator job, too?” she asked with a warm Southern drawl.

I looked over my shoulder to find the object of her inquiry. Without waiting for an answer, she snagged my arm. “Come on. We’ll all head up together.”

There was nothing to do but tag along, my worn brown oxfords thudding on the regal floors as their fashionable pointed heels smartly click-click-clicked.

“Golden Gate?” The Southern belle asked me as we settled in the elevator car.

“I’m sorry?”

“We’re all grads of Miss Smith’s Secretarial. Since I hadn’t seen you around, I was guessing you’d gone to Golden Gate Business School.”

I shook my head. “I’m not from here.” My stomach sank, and it wasn’t because of the elevator ride. These girls had training. Diplomas. And snazzy summer dresses, not an outmoded wool skirt topped with a once-white shirtwaist.

The elevator doors slid open. “Here we are,” my new friend said. I let them all exit first, uncertain of what to do. I hadn’t the smallest clue about managing a telephone switchboard, and I could only type with two fingers! I eased into the back corner of the car.

“You’re not getting out, miss?” the operator asked.

Out of nervous habit, I touched Mother’s watch pinned on my bodice. She’d had backbone, and Uncle Chester had believed I possessed some of that family starch. Well, I’d faced down stampeding horses on the prairie; I could surely face down fears about applying for a job. The elevator doors began to close.

“Wait!” I stepped forward. “I do want out.”

The operator caught the doors before they shut and, luckily, before I lost my courage. “There you are, miss.”

I thanked him and approached the receptionist’s desk. The Miss Smith’s girls were being shown into a big room, where they were given headsets with trumpet-shaped mouthpieces. The equipment looked like something out of a Jules Verne novel. I hung back until they were settled and the door between us swung closed.

“I’m here to apply for a job,” I told the receptionist.

She looked at me over her glasses, eyebrows arched. With that look, my confidence nearly got on the train back to Great Falls. “You’re late for the telephone test.”

“Is there anything else?” I swallowed hard. “In the newsroom, perhaps …?” My voice trailed off.

“The newsroom!” The words were accompanied by a sharp bark of a laugh.

“I want to be a reporter.”

“And I want to marry John D. Rockefeller.” With a heavy exhale, she dismissed my aspirations. “Are you a high school graduate?”

I shook my head.

“Can you take shorthand? Type?” She clucked her tongue as I indicated no to both. “Well, what can you do?”

I can write
, I wanted to say. But I didn’t want to diminish my dream by speaking of it aloud to her. She might be all gussied up behind that desk, but I’d met her kind before—like the girls who’d mocked my hand-me-down dress at eighth-grade graduation or Traft Martin and his men, bullying the Germans back in Vida.

“I’m sorry.” I turned to go.

“Sorry?” The woman looked puzzled.

“Yes. Sorry that your corset is too tight.” It wasn’t very nice of me, but there was no call for her to be so spiteful.

She leaned over her desk and stared right at me. And then she began to laugh. “You’ve got spunk,” she said with a shake of her head. “I’ll give you that.” Chuckling, she rummaged around in one of the desk drawers. “Here.” She pushed a form across to me.

I took it. “Cleaning staff?” Was this another of the good Lord’s jokes? I thought I had left that behind.

“It’s all there is right now. At least, for someone with your
level of experience.” The telephone on her desk trilled and she snatched up the receiver. “Take it or leave it,” she mouthed to me before greeting the caller.

My hands shook as I filled out the form. She was still on the telephone when I handed it back to her, so she mouthed to me again. “We’ll call you.” I nodded and slunk away.

Outside, I claimed one of the benches by Lotta’s Fountain, breathing as hard as if I’d been plowing a field. My first day in the big city had already taken more out of me than my first week on the homestead! Too done in to move, I sat watching all the people roiling thick and dark as a summer grasshopper hatch.

So many people. Was there room for one more? Was there room for me? I huddled on the bench, feeling small and foolish. Nearly as foolish as the day I’d gotten myself stuck to a frozen pump handle. Why on earth had I thought coming here was a good idea? I hadn’t even liked that chop suey last night and it had set me back thirty-five cents. What if I never saw Perilee and Karl and the children again? Or Charlie? As I worked myself into a first-rate state of misery, a fluttering caught my attention. It was a snow-white feather, with soft frills of down rippling along the edges, spinning to a stop at the base of the fountain. Two feathers in two days. That verse from Matthew popped into my mind: “Are not two sparrows sold for one penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care.”