Israel (69 page)

The new campaign—Becky's series—was the talk of the business. The first one—the nylon stockings ad—had set the tone for the rest. The headline was a line from a popular song, “It decants on your pants.” The leg makeup of the day had a tendency to rub off on a man's trouser leg. The ad went on to praise women's patriotism and then tie in Pickman's patriotic history, according to plan.

At first Pickman doubted that Miss Herodetsky would
succeed. Her ideas were sound, but experience had taught him that turning ideas into reality was an arduous process. He expected sabotage by the advertising and merchandising departments, enough to stop her in her tracks as soon as she tried to change the comfortable status quo of the last twenty years.

Pickman, who hated disturbance, was prepared to let them sabotage her. However, that did not happen. It turned out that Miss Herodetsky possessed the rarest of all attributes, the ability to persuade others to work for her. Her style was to lead them to think she needed and was eternally grateful for their help. True enough, too.

The rapid sellout of the nylons came as no surprise, but damned if Millinery and Better Dresses hadn't also both reported an increase in sales. For the second time in Pickman's history there was a line of customers down the block, and that line reappeared after each of her ads.

Miss Herodetsky was still at Millie Kirby's beck and call, still doing the typing and filing in addition to running a major retail advertising campaign. She was still earning less than when she sold handbags.

It seemed she couldn't be happier, as if the work alone was enough reward. These days she was popping into his office half a dozen times a day with proposals for approval, and she was always smiling and cheerful and in all lovely to behold.

Smiling, Pickman leaned back in his chair, savoring Miss Herodetsky's enthusiasm. To her it was always “we” and “us,” as if she were a Pickman and had stock in the business. It seemed not to matter to her that only others were prospering by her efforts.

He suddenly remembered one other thing Bernard used to tell him. “Carl, wait until you discover how much fun it is to buy and sell.” Uncle Bernard meant it as consolation to a heartsick young man.

*     *     *

Carl Pickman's grandfather, Wilhelm Licht, came to America from Austria in 1854. He traveled rural New England, peddling from a pack on his back. Eventually he changed his name to William Packman so his customers would remember him; then he went off to serve the Union in the Civil War. Just when “Packman” evolved into “Pickman” is unknown, but when William opened his dry-goods store in Salem, Massachusetts, after the war, the sign above the store read
Pickman's
.

By this time William had a wife and two sons as well as a solid reputation. His sons Leonard and Bernard entered the business young. When their father died the Pickman brothers decided it was time to expand. Boston briefly beckoned, but they were young and unmarried; they had an adventurous streak. They'd lived in Massachusetts their entire lives. It was time to try something new.

Leonard, the older, went to New York City, intending to smarten up by working for an established merchant while Bernard held the fort back in Salem.

Leonard went to work at Rowe's Emporium on Sixth Avenue near Fourteenth Street, where he met and married a young German-Jewish girl, Clara Hirsch, the daughter of a nearby optician.

Leonard saw the potential of Rowe's Emporium, but the owner, Wentworth Rowe, had lost his wife and son to diphtheria and no longer had the will to succeed. He was quick to sell out to the Pickman brothers, who bought the property with the proceeds from the sale of their Salem store. Bernard joined Leonard in New York and they changed the name to Pickman's Shoppers' House. They were successful and gradually bought up adjoining property into which to expand.

Leonard and Clara had three children. The eldest, Carl, was born in 1887, followed by Deborah in 1891 and Amy in 1898. Bernard never married. He was a painfully shy, kindly man ten years younger than Leonard. He
lacked his older brother's cold pragmatism. As the Pickman brothers built up their reputation and wealth, Bernard devoted his free time to philanthropy. He also doted on his nephew Carl, who turned to his uncle for the love and attention he did not receive from his stern father.

The Pickman brothers had no trouble raising the capital to finance their Thirty-fourth Street store. By the time it was ready to open, Carl, just sixteen, was off to Amherst. He did exceedingly well in school and had hopes of going on to medical school; he had applied and been accepted to Harvard.

Bernard interceded with his brother on his nephew's behalf, but Leonard Pickman was adamant. Up until now he had humored his son. As a boy Carl spent his summers with his mother and sisters at Sea Bright, on the New Jersey shore. As a youth he was allowed his horseback riding, even if it was a waste of time; Leonard hated the idea that his son was caught up in that blue ribbon and trophy nonsense.

In any event, all that was over and the store was what mattered. The Pickman brothers, wisely concluding that the heyday of the carriage trade and the Ladies' Mile had come to an end, had chosen their Herald Square site to take advantage of the Sixth Avenue El and the crosstown trolley. Location told; the new store did an astounding amount of business. The loans would all be paid off in another couple of years.

Carl was the only male heir. He would go to work in the store. He began as general manager. He was twenty years old. That same year his mother died of cancer.

His father was a martinet in the office. He seemed to take grim satisfaction in belittling his son in front of outsiders. Bernard was the only bright spot in Carl's existence, and he spent as much time with his uncle as he could. Together they went to museums and the theater; they discussed literature, music and art; through Bernard
Carl savored all the finer things life had to offer a man of his station, which his father scornfully dismissed as womanly time-wasters.

Still, Leonard Pickman tolerated Carl's time with his uncle as long as he reported to the office bright and early every morning. Carl grew to believe his father was relieved not to have him around once the workday ended.

In 1917 Bernard Pickman drowned in a boating accident. “You see?” Leonard Pickman cautioned his son. “That's what comes of fun.”

Carl's sisters were long since married, Amy to a surgeon and Deborah to a drone whom Leonard Pickman made comptroller and banished to the recesses of the accounting department.

With Bernard gone and his sisters in homes of their own, Carl had no one left. He withdrew into himself. He spent his nights reading and listening to his father's tapping cane echoing off of the polished marble floors of Pickman House, on Fifth Avenue across from Central Park.

In 1930 Carl's father sent him to Atlanta to see one of their furniture manufacturers about a shipment and to see the manufacturer's daughter.

“Joe Hoffer's girl is the right age, and she's our kind,” Leonard declared. “You should have seen to this aspect of your life yourself, Carl. That's what a man would have done, but of course you haven't. You always have been more like Bernard. You've taken on all his charity work, haven't you? Well, that's all right; having the Pickman name prominent in philanthropy is good for the store. But you're forty-three years old. I won't have you ending up a bachelor. It's all been arranged between Joe Hoffer and me. All that remains is to inspect the goods for damage before you take delivery.” He leered.

“You'll stay with the Hoffers for three weeks. They have a farm of sorts, I'm told. You'll like it there.” Carl
still remembered his father's sneer. “I understand they have horses.”

Gertrude Hoffer was by no means a beauty, but at twenty she was certainly pretty, with reddish-blond hair, blue eyes and a scattering of freckles across her broad face. She had a southern belle's facility for putting a man at ease. She assured Carl that she found his shyness appealing, masculine. She filled the awkward silences in his halting conversation with her fetching drawl; she laughed at his feeble jokes; she introduced him to her friends.

The Hoffers did keep a stable. Riding was the one accomplishment Carl could claim. Trude squealed with delight and admiration when he took his mount over the hurdles. She understood when he confided to her that when he was riding, in control of a powerful steed, was the only time when he felt free and alive.

When the three weeks were up, Gertrude Hoffer sent him back with her touch stirring his memory and her lilting laughter still in his ears, back to his father's cool disdain and staid Pickman House. Carl's despair upon his return he took to be the pain that comes with departure from one's sweetheart.

He and his uncle had often discussed love over brandy after a night at the theater. Bernard knew romantic passion the way he knew poverty, through diligent study and profoundly developed empathy. Nevertheless, the naive nephew believed he could realize his celibate, spinsterish uncle's dreamy thoughts on love by marrying Gertrude Hoffer.

“I intend to propose marriage to Miss Hoffer, father.”

“I'll take care of the details with Mr. Hoffer, Carl. There's no time to waste. I'm seventy-four and I intend to see my grandsons before I die.”

As it turned out, he didn't. He died in his sleep a month after the wedding. Carl and his bride were still in Europe on their honeymoon. The new groom briefly entertained
fantasies of causing a furor by not returning. He still mourned his uncle and his mother, but all he felt at his father's passing was relief. Nevertheless, he did return.

Carl Pickman put away his sales reports. He glanced at his desk clock. It was well after closing, but he knew Miss Herodetsky was still at her desk, and not only because staying late had become her habit.

Over the months he'd found himself preoccupied with her. He found himself encouraging her visits to his office and thinking up pretexts to see her.

You're lonely, just an old bachelor like Bernard
.

He was still married, on paper at least. Whatever made him propose to Gertrude Hoffer was not love, he'd soon found out. Their thirteen years together had produced two daughters, now eleven and ten. There would be no other children. He and his wife had long since established separate bedrooms on separate floors. Carl couldn't fathom how he had ever made love to the stranger who was his wife; he certainly couldn't imagine ever doing so again.

He got up from his desk, stretched and went to the closet for his hat and coat. He left his office quietly. The corridor was dark. Through the glass doors he could see Miss Herodetsky at her desk. He watched her for several moments, taking in the way her dark hair shimmered in the lamplight.

Suddenly longing welled up in him. He was full of shame and guilt, but his infatuation, so long repressed, now refused to be denied. She embodies everything I never had, he thought, that I never will have.

He pushed open the glass doors. Rebecca looked up at him, smiling radiantly. At least I can give her what she doesn't have but deserves, Pickman decided. It's in my power to help her, and I will.

“Miss Herodetsky,” he began, his tone quite business-like,
“tomorrow morning have Millie check my lunch calendar. Have her pencil you in.”

“Sir?”

Her dark eyes were so large and round, so astounded, that he had to smile. “Lunch, if you please. It's time we discussed a promotion and salary increase for you.”

“Why, thank you, Mr. Pickman.”

Listen to the child, he lectured himself. She calls you “sir” and “Mr. Pickman.” She's half your age and you're in rut for her.

He glanced at his watch. “Go home, Miss Herodetsky. Your family must be worried about you.”

She shook her head. “My brother has been working an extra shift at his defense job, and my father—” she paused. “There's no one worrying about me, Mr. Pickman.”

He nodded, thinking, there's no one worrying about me either. His daughters were away at school and his wife would be off to some dinner party or charity affair or else retired for the evening, as the servants put it. Last weekend was the last time he and Gertrude dined together, when they had people in for a musicale. Only the cook and maid waited tonight. He would be served in the dining room, alone at the massive table with nothing to break the silence but his knife and fork scraping against the plate and the dry rustle as he turned the pages of his newspaper.

He turned to go and caught his reflection in the glass doors. How exactly like his father he looked these days.

He asked her quickly, “Would you care to dine with me this evening?”

It took her a moment, but she smiled. “Yes, I would.” She stood, bringing herself startlingly close. “Just give me a moment to freshen up.”

He felt unsettled and suddenly miraculously young, enveloped in her perfume as she stepped around him. He made telephone reservations for dinner at a quiet restaurant he'd scouted long ago with this in mind.

*     *     *

They began to dine together once or twice a week. In the beginning it seemed to Becky to be strictly business. She'd been promoted to advertising manager. She had a staff of three—a copywriter, layout artist and a secretary—and a windowless cubbyhole of an office. Her salary had almost tripled to one hundred dollars a week. She did not mind the fact that her peers at the other stores around town were being paid salaries many times her own. Her loyalty was absolute.

The more she saw of Mr. Pickman, the less in awe she was. In many ways he reminded her of her own father; often he reminded her of herself. He always listened attentively when she answered his questions about herself and her family. He arranged for a real estate agent to talk to her about collecting rents and maintaining the Cherry Street building. Next he recommended an attorney and tax accountant.