anymore. Something had to be done.
Several weeks passed before Odalie and I grew to be close enough friends for me to confide my complaints about Helen to her in full. But once I did, everything changed.
6
T his Helen girl sounds like an absolute ninny. I don’t see why you put up with it. You ought to just move into the hotel with me,” Odalie decreed in her cheerful, bright manner when I recounted the story to her some weeks later. She gave me a girlish smile that was at violent odds with the thin stream of smoke she immediately blew from her lips. It hung for a moment, seductively coiling and recoiling itself much like that infamous original serpent, and finally rose to the airy vaulted ceiling of the restaurant. She detached her cigarette from an elegant bone ivory holder and crushed out the smoldering butt in the crystal cut ashtray, all the while completely ignoring the
tsk-tsk
sounds emanating from a pair of silver-haired biddies glaring at her from across the room. I knew, as it was, the cigarette holder represented as much of a concession as Odalie would ever make to such ladies, preferring as she did to smoke her cigarettes with no holder at all. With the cigarette snuffed out now, she looked up at me, fresh-faced, her eyes shining with such a gleam, I thought perhaps she was feeling rather moved by the idea of the two of us living together. My heart leapt.
Oh! But I am getting it out of order; I should explain how Odalie and I got to be friends in the first place. How she won me over finally and all that. The doctor I am seeing now tells me I should concentrate on telling things in the proper order—chronologically, he means, of course. He says that telling things in their accurate sequence is good for healing the mind.
And now these events should be easy to tell, as I can see them so clearly from the vantage of hindsight. The door to our friendship was initially cracked open in a very simple manner. She allowed me the luxury of rhapsodizing at great length about one of my favorite subjects: the Sergeant. I wonder, now that I know more about Odalie’s character, whether she detected my weakness for the Sergeant and plotted to exploit it, or if she simply blundered onto the subject and was astute enough to see how much it pleased me.
I know I have already given a few of the Sergeant’s particulars—his handlebar mustache, his sturdy stature, his intolerance for tomfoolery, his polite deference to general gentility. But even the sum of these qualities nevertheless fails to describe the essence of what I believed truly defined the Sergeant.
Of course, the Sergeant and I had a special understanding from the very first. When the typing school sent me to the precinct, it was the Sergeant who interviewed me.
I can read over the contents of this file,
he said, flipping open a cardboard folder the typing school had delivered to the precinct earlier that day via a messenger boy,
and allow these pages to tell me all about who you are. That you were raised in a convent, that you made decent marks in school, that despite being an orphan you lack the usual record of stealing or cheating
. . .
or
—he flipped the folder shut and tossed it on his desk, then leaned back in his chair and twisted one side of his mustache between his left thumb and forefinger—
I can simply sit across from you now and see quite plainly you are a lady of good conscience and honest disposition.
That was it. Our special understanding was established, and I was hired. As though to illustrate how certain he was of my vocational value, the Sergeant did not even check with the Lieutenant Detective or the Chief Inspector before pumping my hand and welcoming me aboard.
Minutes later, when he walked me to the exit, he put one hand on my shoulder and gave it a small squeeze.
I can
’
t imagine it
’
s been easy for you,
he remarked. I didn’t know what to say, so I simply gave a slight nod. The Sergeant smiled, his paternal hand warming the
Several weeks passed before Odalie and I grew to be close enough friends for me to confide my complaints about Helen to her in full. But once I did, everything changed.
6
T his Helen girl sounds like an absolute ninny. I don’t see why you put up with it. You ought to just move into the hotel with me,” Odalie decreed in her cheerful, bright manner when I recounted the story to her some weeks later. She gave me a girlish smile that was at violent odds with the thin stream of smoke she immediately blew from her lips. It hung for a moment, seductively coiling and recoiling itself much like that infamous original serpent, and finally rose to the airy vaulted ceiling of the restaurant. She detached her cigarette from an elegant bone ivory holder and crushed out the smoldering butt in the crystal cut ashtray, all the while completely ignoring the
tsk-tsk
sounds emanating from a pair of silver-haired biddies glaring at her from across the room. I knew, as it was, the cigarette holder represented as much of a concession as Odalie would ever make to such ladies, preferring as she did to smoke her cigarettes with no holder at all. With the cigarette snuffed out now, she looked up at me, fresh-faced, her eyes shining with such a gleam, I thought perhaps she was feeling rather moved by the idea of the two of us living together. My heart leapt.
Oh! But I am getting it out of order; I should explain how Odalie and I got to be friends in the first place. How she won me over finally and all that. The doctor I am seeing now tells me I should concentrate on telling things in the proper order—chronologically, he means, of course. He says that telling things in their accurate sequence is good for healing the mind.
And now these events should be easy to tell, as I can see them so clearly from the vantage of hindsight. The door to our friendship was initially cracked open in a very simple manner. She allowed me the luxury of rhapsodizing at great length about one of my favorite subjects: the Sergeant. I wonder, now that I know more about Odalie’s character, whether she detected my weakness for the Sergeant and plotted to exploit it, or if she simply blundered onto the subject and was astute enough to see how much it pleased me.
I know I have already given a few of the Sergeant’s particulars—his handlebar mustache, his sturdy stature, his intolerance for tomfoolery, his polite deference to general gentility. But even the sum of these qualities nevertheless fails to describe the essence of what I believed truly defined the Sergeant.
Of course, the Sergeant and I had a special understanding from the very first. When the typing school sent me to the precinct, it was the Sergeant who interviewed me.
I can read over the contents of this file,
he said, flipping open a cardboard folder the typing school had delivered to the precinct earlier that day via a messenger boy,
and allow these pages to tell me all about who you are. That you were raised in a convent, that you made decent marks in school, that despite being an orphan you lack the usual record of stealing or cheating
. . .
or
—he flipped the folder shut and tossed it on his desk, then leaned back in his chair and twisted one side of his mustache between his left thumb and forefinger—
I can simply sit across from you now and see quite plainly you are a lady of good conscience and honest disposition.
That was it. Our special understanding was established, and I was hired. As though to illustrate how certain he was of my vocational value, the Sergeant did not even check with the Lieutenant Detective or the Chief Inspector before pumping my hand and welcoming me aboard.
Minutes later, when he walked me to the exit, he put one hand on my shoulder and gave it a small squeeze.
I can
’
t imagine it
’
s been easy for you,
he remarked. I didn’t know what to say, so I simply gave a slight nod. The Sergeant smiled, his paternal hand warming the
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