Someone has come for her -- someone is here! -- and gossip speeds so readily through Ladies'' Undergarments that Frieda, in a twinkling, is forewarned. (The elevator boy tells the stock girl, who tells her.) She grins, but as the newest- hired wrapper at Jordan Marsh she''s still minded awfully closely by Mr. Crowley, so she struggles against the glee and keeps to work. She snaps a box open and handily tucks its ends, crimps tissue around the latest stranger''s buys: a nainsook chemise, a crepe de Chine camisole. But her fingers, as she''s knotting up the package, snarl the string. She''s been waiting for him to come again, conjuring. Every day this week, she''s woken half an hour early to wash her hair and put herself together.
On the modest black shirtwaist required by Jordan''s dress code gleams her only brooch: Papa''s gold seashell. She''s nibbled at tablets of arsenic to pale her face, rubbed lemon zest on her wrists and her throat: the pinpoints where her flurried pulse beats. A girl who can''t afford to buy perfume finds other lures. Now, at last, Felix has come, as he promised. She fills her mouth with the hum of his name: Feel-ix. The feel of his thumbs on her hipbones, hooked hard. The taste of his taut, brazen lips. He''s come for her at work again, for where else could he search? Their first -- their only -- time, they didn''t use her room (the landlady would have kicked her out, and quick).
Instead they went where he wanted, and afterward, in her fluster (her brain swirly with passion, with a fib she''d caught him telling), she neglected to give him her address. Her rooming house has no telephone. Lou, who was with Frieda when Felix swept her off, predicted he would soon enough be back. Lou didn''t speak to him but says she didn''t have to; she knows from boys, knows all she needs. Frieda scans the department for her surefire companion, hoping to score a last bit of advice. But Lou is nowhere to be seen. She must be in the fitting room with a customer. It hits Frieda that Minnie, the stock girl, said someone.
Why not say a man? Or speak in code? The shopgirls have their secret tricks of talk. "Oh, Henrietta!" one will call, although no clerk goes by that name, meaning: That customer''s a hen, not worth the bother. And if a cash girl whispers, "Could you hand me some of that?" she means, Don''t look yet, but is he handsome! Minnie didn''t ask to be handed anything; all she said was "Someone''s here for you." For an instant Frieda fears that the visitor is Mama; Mama''s tracked her down and come to fume. Frieda is still six months shy of eighteen, so Mama retains parental rights. She could have Frieda booked on a charge of stubbornness. She could force her to go live with awful Hirsch. Silly, no, the explanation''s simpler: Minnie''s just too new to know the code.
She''s worked at Jordan''s less than two full weeks. Frieda had her own missed-signal mishap, her very first Friday at the store. She was struggling after lunch to keep pace at the wrapping counter when Lou, her new pal, hastened by, tapping her wrist twice for the time. Strange -- that very wrist was adorned with an Elgin watch -- but Frieda''s mind was cottony with fatigue; she said, "Ten past two," and went back to her bundles. Seconds later, she heard, "Excuse me," and looked up. The man was gray-templed, enticingly tall, a crisp-rimmed homburg in his hands. "Yes," he said. "Hello.
What I need are undergarments. Corsets, brassieres, camisoles." "I''m sorry, sir," said Frieda. "I''m just a bundle wrapper. You''d have to find a salesclerk for that. Try Miss Garneau" -- that was Lou -- "or Miss Fitzroy." "No, no," he said. His gaze skittered oddly across her features, as though following the flight of a bug he hoped to swat.
"You can help me, miss. I''m sure you can." "I''m sorry," she repeated, nervous not only that her incompetence would be spotted (what did she know of boning or figured broché?) but that the clerks would be mad at her for meddling. "But you see," said the man, leaning over the counter so that Frieda smelled his oversweet breath, "I''m aiming to surprise a lady friend. Naturally, I wasn''t able to ask her size. But you look just about her dimensions. The salesclerk, if I may say, is a bit too saggy in the bosom." He stretched saggy to sound exactly like its meaning, and Frieda couldn''t stifle a rising laugh.
"Would you mind terribly telling me your size?" he said. "I lack any experience in these matters." His voice was cultured, Frieda thought, the kind of voice that could get away with talking French -- words like amour and sonata (or was that Spanish?). He had a moth-eaten attractiveness, his features clearly hand-me- downs from a previous, more vital self. His eyees were the color of tarnished pennies. "Eaton," he said. "George Eaton. Would you help me?" The first and last rule in the Jordan Marsh manualllll: The customer must always be served.
Frieda told the man her measurements. Soon enough she found herself wrapping a large package of their priciest hand-embroidered undergarments: fine albatross, in slow-burn shades of rose. Grace Fitzroy, who''d booked the sale, took the finished bundle and gave it, Frieda saw, to Eaton. But instead of heading left, toward the bank of elevators, he turned right and sauntered straight to Frieda. Atop the package sat his careful note: "For you, with the hope that I might see how they become you. Meet me out front. Six o''clock." As soon as he was gone, Lou came rushing.
"You batty, Frieda? Why''d you talk to him?" "He''s a customer. He asked for my advice." "Not him, though. He''s notorious! Why didn''t you mind my signal?" When Frieda professed ignorance, Lou had to explain that two taps of the timepiece meant Watch out. The store teemed with disreputable men. "Next time," she admonished, "tell him off." Frieda couldn''t fathom why the gifts should be returned -- hadn''t Eaton paid for them in cash? -- but Lou and Grace said she had to do it. (Grace crossed herself: "There but for God.
") Obediently Frieda gave them up, but kept as her secret where she planned to go at closing time. She exited as usual by the employees'' alley door, then crept round, keeping in the shadows. George Eaton was waiting by the main glass-door entrance, whistling a nonchalant song. Whistling and waiting, just for her. Frieda stood trembling -- ten minutes, fifteen -- studying this man who wanted her. Eaton placidly tipped his hat to passersby, now and again checked his pocket watch. She couldn''t quite judge if he was dashing or disturbing -- or if maybe there wasn''t all that big a difference. How would it feel to ask so boldly for what you wanted? She took two jittery steps in his direction, then scuttled back to shadowed safety.
Her tongue turned edgy, sharp within her mouth. And her heart, by the time Eaton shrugged and loped away, thumped so hard she feared it might bruise. Which is how she feels now, minus the doubt: Felix is no lewd lurker preying on the guileless; he''s a mensch, a U.S. Army private, ready to brave the trenches Over There. (His uniform! Its manful, raspy feel.) Sure, maybe she''s loony -- they''ve kept company but the once, which ended with Frieda running off -- but something tells her he might be a keeper. She knows it by the fierce, delicious tension in her joints.
Her whole self is a knuckle that needs cracking. From the skein, she snips off a prickly length of twine. She''ll count to ten -- no, twenty -- then allow a quick peek up. By then, she thinks, he''ll be right here. Here. She''s at twelve -- doubting she can last eight further counts -- when a lady''s treacly voice says, "Frieda Mintz?" Instinct almost makes Frieda deny it. She hates to hear her name asked as a question. In a tiny, grudging tone she says, "I''m her.
" "Good, then. Wonderful. How easy." Get on with it, Frieda wants to say. Get on with it and get the heck away from my counter so I can be alone when Felix shows. The lady has a damsel''s braids the color of a dusty blackboard, as though her schoolgirl self was aged abruptly. Her smile shows a neat set of teeth. "I''m sorry to have come to your workplace," she says, "but it''s all the information we were given.
Is there somewhere we can speak more privately?" Only now does Frieda see that Felix isn''t coming, that her visitor is -- who? How does this stranger know her name? The pressure in her joints pinches tight. "No," she says. "I''ve got to stay. I''m working." "But I really must speak with you, Miss Mintz." "I had my break already," Frieda says. "Then I guess we''ll just have to talk here." The woman shivers slightly, hunch-shouldered and indignant, like someone caught suddenly in the rain.
"I''m Mrs. Sprague. I''m with the Committee on Prevention of Social Evils Surrounding Military Camps." The long, daunting name is a gale that buffets Frieda, dizzying, disorienting. Evils. "You''re familiar with our work?" Frieda manages to mumble no. "Well, we''re trying to do our bit to win the war. For those of us who can''t actually enlist ourselves and fight, that means supporting our boys in every way -- isn''t that right?" Mrs.
Sprague''s churchy tone reminds Frieda of the man who came into Jordan''s last Thursday to train a squad of four-minute speakers. (As if Boston needs another squad! At every movie hall and subway stop she''s heard them, preaching in the same zealous accent.) When Frieda walked past the employees'' room at lunch, she heard the speech coach''s red-blooded baritone ("Whenever possible, address crowds in the first-person plural. It makes them feel invested, don''t we think?") and the class''s steel- trap response ("We do!"). "I said, isn''t that right, Miss Mintz?" Frieda stares at her twine-roughened fingers. "Suppose so." "You ''suppose.'' But do you really understand?" The.