Nothing but a Smile (8 page)

These days, though he was retired as president of the bank, Whitcomb Chesterton maintained office hours for half a day every week—Wednesday morning. It was more out of respect for the man than for any real purpose, as far as she could see. It gave him a routine and a place to open his business correspondence and read the various financial newspapers. She noticed, on the once-monthly Wednesdays she visited, the occasional
young bank employee might stick his head in and ask Mr. Chesterton's advice or opinion on this or that, though she suspected they did this either out of genuine kindness, to make him feel useful, or as part of some sort of sycophantic clambering up the corporate ladder, she wasn't sure—a waggling of their eager, bushy tails. She was pretty sure they didn't actually need his advice. She
knew she
didn't.

But she was polite, just like they were. She would show him the books and he would frown over them and make various small grunting noises and work his substantial eyebrows and ask her one or two questions about inventory and the like that she would try to answer as vaguely as possible, and then, usually, his wife, Sarah, would appear in the office and she and Mrs. Chesterton would go have tea over at the Drake, and she would share clippings of Chesty's latest contributions to
Yank
or
Stars and Stripes
with the elderly woman, and they would compare letters, assuring each other that he sounded just fine and perfectly far removed from the so-called action. For some reason, Sal was the only one who seemed to get original prints from him, and she'd show these to his aunt as well, always quietly irritated that the old lady never seemed to get the hang of holding them by the edges and not getting her fingerprints all over them, and then Sal would peck her on the cheek and tell her she had to catch her train and she would see them both next month.

Except, sometimes, something else happened first.

Of the two of these dear old relatives of her husband, Sal felt that, on the whole, the more interesting one was Chesty's aunt Sarah, mostly because Sal never knew exactly what to expect with her. She strongly suspected the old gal's faculties were prone to a wide fluctuation, because though half the visits went pretty much as she expected, nearly half the time, right near the end, Sarah Chesterton would announce that he'd sent her some
cash by mistake. Whenever she did this, she presented it with almost the exact same speech, like something she'd scripted and memorized:
Oh, by the way, I think young William made an error. He seems to have sent
me
some money he intended to send you, dear I could tell from the note he included it was for you, to deposit in your account, but I'm sad to say I must have misplaced the accompanying note. So sorry …
And then she'd slip Sal anywhere from twenty to fifty dollars in a banker's security envelope, never once dropping the charade, never winking or smiling.

And then, on other visits, there was just no envelope and no mention of money. The visit would be as pleasant as these more lucrative occasions, except there was no cash gift dressed up as a misaddressed letter from Chesty. Sal couldn't pick up on any pattern of disapproval. It was possible Mrs. Chesterton was slightly fuzzier on these days, and that was what made Sal think it had to do more with her failing faculties than with her frugality. When she was on the ball, she knew they needed some help. When she was having an off day, it was probably all she could do to keep it straight who “young William” was and where in the world he was.

Sal had tried, the first few times, to refuse the money, but on the days there was money, the old girl was so sharp, she played her part to the hilt, laying it on thick about this missing letter from her nephew in which he made it absolutely clear this was for his wife, to be deposited in their account. So when there was a security envelope, Sal played along.

Unfortunately, today, when she really needed it more than ever, there was no envelope.

Sal smiled and kissed her husband's guardian on the cheek and squeezed her birdlike hand and took her exit, knowing she would have to hurry now. She was going to have to make another stop. Because there was no envelope today, she was going to have
to go through with the contingency plan—the one involving another envelope she'd been carrying in her purse.

All in all, her morning up here had been a bust.

The bell captain who held the door open for her made no attempt to hide that he was staring her smack in the blouse.

Speaking of busts,
she thought.

And all the way back, as if she had actually been speaking out loud of busts, men passing in the street and fellow passengers on the El resumed their perusal of her physical attributes. Some smiled—affably enough, without cruelty, as if they were doing her a favor. She couldn't help think they were getting something for free.
All these men …
She wished, too late, that she'd taken a silent tally since starting out this morning: how many had grabbed a look? It got her to thinking.

Not only had she never been with another man, she'd never let another man see even a little of her body naked, except for maybe the women's doctor her pop had insisted she visit once, before she got married, and even he seemed to be looking away through most of it. Also, she was dressed in a hospital gown and he only opened the ties as necessary. It wasn't exactly the same.

But that had changed, she realized, since she'd sent in those first test shots. Some unknown, unseen strangers—strange
men,
no doubt—had now seen her. Maybe not in the flesh, but still.

It was strange to think that if she sold something—something maybe not as coy as the keyhole shots where she showed no nipples or even the full cheeks of her bottom, but something beyond, something more risqué, like the first batch, it would skyrocket her entire solar systems past any other gal she knew in terms of number-of-men-who've-seen-me-naked. Even more than her wilder friends like Reenie. Strange, she thought, how doing something simple like dropping a garment here or a towel there, mailing a letter, signing a simple release form, might so
suddenly and completely alter the category of woman into which she fell.

She stopped for a second, at the post office on the corner of Clark, removed the photo-mailer envelope she'd been lugging around all morning from her purse, and slipped it through the
OUT OF TOWN
slot. It was done.

Arriving home, she saw someone was standing at the locked front door, facing the other way, waiting for her. A few steps closer and she saw it wasn't a customer but an unexpected, friendly face.

Something was up.

It already felt strange strolling up Adams when all the shops were still open, heading back to the camera shop in the middle of the workday, but his was over—and how!—and he could see now there would be no point waiting around for a phone call from any of the other places where he'd interviewed. Without illustration in his quiver, without his trusty right hand, he was done here. Time for the farm.

The best thing, he'd decided, would be if Sal were in the darkroom. Or better yet, out running an errand. He had his key and he could sneak upstairs and get his things together—strip the bed, pack his grip—leave his uncle's address for Chesty, for Christmas cards or something, and then he'd find her and tell her once he was all set to go; on his way to Union Station to catch the train to Michigan. He was afraid, if he did it the other way around, if he saw her beaming face first and got to laughing with her, he'd cling to some hope of eventually finding proper
work, of things being rosy in the Windy City, and he'd linger till he was down to his last dime. He really might.

Before he reached the shop, though, he spotted wavy blonde hair on a gal seated by the window of the coffee shop—right across from a brunette with killer bedroom eyes and a pinup pout. He stopped and rapped on the glass, and as down as he felt on this awful afternoon, the sight of the wide smiles on those two gorgeous gals got him chuckling like a shell-shock case all the way in.

They had a chair pushed out for him by the time he reached their table. Flopping down in it, he set his portfolio beside him on the floor and checked his watch, frowning at Reenie. “Shouldn't you be at the office playing dodge ‘em and tag with Rollo Deininger?”

The arched eyebrows arched still farther. “Oh, he fired me as soon as you were out of the building.”

“What? Why?”

She shrugged. “He's the boss. He can fire anyone he wants.”

He wasn't fully aware he'd banged his good hand on the table till he saw the girls flinch and the old couple seated next to them turn and frown.

“Excuse me,” he said. “But that's ridiculous.
I'm
the one who shoved him.”

“Yes, but I'm the one who wouldn't sleep with him.”

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, watching the pedestrians going by out on Adams. It seemed there were a lot more people on foot these days—not just him and Joe and the other cop.

“Not true,” he said, placing his hand gently on her wrist. “I wouldn't sleep with him, either.”

Reenie laughed, short and fast, like a concession, a small acknowledgment that he at least was making an effort to cheer her
up. Sal laughed a little heartier, but then she hadn't been the one to lose her job.

He laid it on. “He never
tried
to sleep with me, mind you, but just so we're crystal clear on my position on that, if he
had
tried …”

Turning to Sal now, he decided to tell her straight out. His plan for the smooth getaway was a bust. “Listen, I'll be leaving in the morning. You're going to need to get a tenant soon, and I don't think I'm going to make it here.”

“Stay anyway,” she said. “Help out when you can part-time. Do some of the heavy lifting—that'll be your rent.”

He told her she couldn't afford to do that. “You say yourself there's hardly any business.”

“That doesn't make the boxes and equipment any lighter. And you want to learn photography. I'll teach you all about the camera and the darkroom, you teach me about composition and lighting and that sort of stuff. When business does pick up, we'll be quite a team.”

“Wink and Sal,” Reenie said, smirking and lighting up. “Sounds like a soft-shoe vaudeville team, more like.”

Sal started snickering and it was fun to see. “And another thing,” she said. “Any boardinghouse, most hotels you find, a lot of them are going to cramp your style more than I ever will. You'll never hear me squawk about visitors.”

The girls were shooting each other looks he couldn't quite follow and it made him uneasy.

He told her he'd stay until the end of the month or until Chesty responded to her letter proposing the scheme. And if he did other work, he'd start paying whatever she was going to charge whomever else she would have rented it to.

It didn't seem like all that much of a plan and it even felt a little wrong somehow, but he couldn't help feeling glad that he
wouldn't be packing his grip and taking the train back to Michigan. Not today, anyway.

Sal arrived at the
Trib
by nine that evening and reported to the editor who'd called her in. She'd had a long day, between the visit to the in-laws and meeting with her friend Reenie—and then Wink—and the two of them being fired, and frankly, she wished this wasn't an evening that the paper had work for her. Logically, she could use the money, but it had indeed been a long day.

The one who'd called her in wasn't the guy she normally dealt with, Bob, but a narrow-faced weaselly 4-F type who actually looked too young to draft, named Dickie Something. She'd never really trusted Dickie, the way he grinned at her.

Maybe it was just for this evening, but he'd commandeered Bob's office. She poked her head in just to give him a wave, to let him know she was there, she was heading for the darkroom, when he pushed up out of his desk chair with a
sproing
and said, “Oh, hey, doll. Sorry heaps, really, but as it turns out, we got no work for you tonight.”

“You called me in,” she pointed out.

“It was before I knew Burt was back. He needed some hours.”

She couldn't help it: her hands went automatically to her hips. “So you're admitting you called
me first.”

Dickie shrugged. “He's a veteran, Sal. I'm supposed to turn away a veteran?”

Sighing, she glanced at the clock. “My escort won't be returning for me till one a.m., Dickie. What about that?”

Despite the fact that he was grinning like an acne-covered jack-o'-lantern the whole time, Dickie claimed again that he was sorry. He said he would send her back home in a cab—on the paper this time. “Or,” he said, gesturing to Bob's office, Bob's couch, as if it were his own, “you can wait for your escort
here.
Sit! Read some magazines, help yourself to the bar … In fact, I'll have a drink with you, Sal. We can talk about you coming to work full-time on the day shift. Or maybe there's something better. Who knows?”

She didn't like the way he raised his eyebrow. It was a move much cuter on Reenie.

That night, he felt jumpy as an Army Air Corps Benzedrine fiend. Part of it was that he knew he couldn't fall asleep: around half past midnight, he would need to start out for the
Trib,
to fetch Sal and escort her back home. She'd gotten called in to pick up some darkroom tech work that wouldn't be over till one a.m. She'd insisted she was fine walking up there alone. There was still light in the sky when she set out. About twenty minutes after she'd left, the phone started ringing downstairs in the shop, but they hadn't yet worked out a policy on his answering it, so he let it ring. The jangling went on and on, making him even more rattled and restless.

But even if he were to try setting an alarm clock, just resting for forty winks, he knew he wouldn't be able to do it. He figured he had about five dollars left, plus a pocket watch his uncle had given him, and a few other things he might pawn. This was blockheaded, staying here—no job, no prospects—and just lying
down flat as if he didn't have a care in the world didn't seem like a sensible way to do it.