Seasons of Her Life Read online

  At the Annex, also known as Federal Office Building No. 2, the girls parted. Amber motioned Ruby ahead of her to an office marked Personnel. “They’re expecting you. You’ll have to find your own way back.”

  “How about good luck or I’ll see you later?” Ruby mumbled. Her sister looked so stylish in her seersucker summer suit and crisp white blouse. Her high heels were white and had open toes. Ruby wanted to snatch them right off her feet, that’s how badly she wanted an identical pair. The seams in her stockings were just right. She even had a watch now, and a pin on the lapel of her suit. Ruby’s heart thumped in her chest. Envy was a sin, her father said. She didn’t believe anything he said, but her grandmother had said the same thing, so she had to believe it. “You look pretty, Amber, like the actresses in the magazines. I saw the suit you’re wearing in Photoplay, only it was pink striped instead of blue.”

  Amber fixed her dark eyes on Ruby. “Get it through your head, Ruby, we are not going to be friends. You’re a noose around my neck, and all the compliments in China aren’t going to help either one of us. As for good luck, we each make our own. If you’re as smart as you said last night, then you shouldn’t have a problem.”

  Ruby’s throat closed tight. She struggled with her thick tongue. “Go to hell, Amber,” she said in a tight, squeaky voice, “and I hope you break your neck in those shoes!”

  “You wait till I write home, Miss Dirtymouth,” Amber spat out. Instantly her face changed as she smiled at a young man in a white sailor suit who nodded bashfully.

  For an hour Ruby was challenged. She breezed through each test at top speed, knowing she was scoring perfect grades. The man administering the tests raised his eyes several times to look at the director as though to say once in a while you get a smart one. The moment she finished, she was ushered into a small waiting room to await her evaluation.

  Ruby’s heart thumped and bumped in her chest. Would she get the job? If perfect scores were the only criterion, yes, she would get the job. If appearance and clothes counted, the answer was no. She waited and watched the busy hallway as young women and Navy personnel walked back and forth. The girls were all dressed plainly but stylishly. She itched to head for the nearest store to spend her thirty-six dollars.

  An hour later the personnel director, a middle-aged woman with graying hair, called her into her office. She had such a kind, gentle face, Ruby wanted to throw herself into her arms to be hugged. The woman smiled.

  “You have a perfect score, Miss Connors. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen anyone type so fast and so accurately. Your dictation is flawless, not one mistake. Everything was perfect. Are you available to start work this week?”

  “Oh, yes, ma’am,” Ruby said breathlessly.

  “I have just the position for you. Captain Dennison is in need of a secretary. You can start on Wednesday.”

  Mabel McIntyre did something then that she’d never done before but knew she would never regret: she lied. “We sometimes give new girls an advance on their pay to help ease the transition from ... from hometown to city life,” she said. “Fifty dollars in your case, Miss Connors. You will come in here each payday and give me five dollars. Is that satisfactory?”

  “Oh, yes, Miss McIntyre,” Ruby said, her eyes full of unshed tears.

  “Good, then it’s settled. If you’ll just wait here, I have to go to ... to petty cash and get the money.”

  Mabel McIntyre walked down the hall to where some of her friends were working, and Ruby overheard her asking for all the available cash they had. Including her own ten, she managed to collect sixty-three dollars.

  Back in her office she handed the money to Ruby. “It seems I’ve made a mistake. You’re entitled to sixty-three dollars. Ah, Miss Connors, please don’t ... it wouldn’t be wise—”

  “I won’t tell anyone,” Ruby blurted out, knowing full well where the money came from.

  “Then it’s all settled. I’ll look forward to seeing you on Wednesday. Eight sharp. I’ll take you around to Captain Dennison’s office and personally introduce you. You’ll like him, and I’m sure he’s going to like you.”

  Ruby leaned across the desk to reach for the director’s hand. Someday, perhaps, she could return the woman’s generosity. Until then, she would pay her back five dollars each payday until the debt was cleared.

  Ruby’s first stop after returning to the Y was at Lerner’s, where she carefully selected a partial wardrobe with the help of a young salesgirl. She explained her situation and the amount of money she had to spend.

  “And now for the grand total!” the salesgirl said as she tallied up the price tags.

  Ruby squeezed her eyes shut.

  “You’ll make it, kiddo. It’s $84.50. Two of the skirts were on sale.”

  Ruby heaved a sigh of relief. “I can’t thank you enough. Will you be here in October when I have to buy winter clothes?”

  “Sure will. Christmastime, too. You just ask for Nola Quantrell. That’s me. Good luck with the shoes. Try Henry’s right down the block. They’re reasonable.”

  Ruby walked on air all the way to Henry’s. She bought a pair of high-heeled pumps almost like her sister’s and a second pair in black.. At the last minute, she impulsively bought a pair of yellow sandals.

  Her last stop was the Super-X, where she spent the remainder of her money on a Toni home permanent, bobby pins, a wave set, two bars of soap, and a new tube of toothpaste. When she calculated the cost of her purchases, she went back to the cosmetics counter and bought a tube of Tangee lipstick and a can of Djerkist talcum powder.

  Ruby felt every inch a queen as she walked back to the Y. Her spirits were so high that even Amber couldn’t dampen them.

  Jealousy blazed from Amber’s eyes on Wednesday when Ruby fell into step in the flowered summer dress, complete with high-heeled shoes that she’d practiced walking in for hours, up and down the hall, and her new perm.

  Amber was already angry that Ruby had been hired as a GS-3, which meant that her salary was equal to her own. The new clothes made her even angrier.

  “You better not tell me you used your food money on fancy clothes, because if you do, you’ll starve before I give you another cent.” Ruby knew she meant every word she said.

  “Bubba gave me money for some new clothes before I left,” Ruby lied with a straight face.

  Amber snorted. “It figures.”

  So when they rode to the Annex in silence, Amber glowered, but Ruby smiled, and she was still smiling when she walked into Mabel McIntyre’s office. She held her breath, waiting for the personnel director’s reaction to her new look. Later she decided the director was too professional to allow more than a sparkle to show in her dark eyes.

  Ruby Connors was on her way.

  June crept to a close and July moved to the front with equally warm days and bright sunshine, enough to keep Ruby content in her new life. Her birthday passed uneventful with cards from her grandmother and Opal and a money order for one hundred dollars that she immediately turned over to Amber, canceling out her debt to her sister. When the unbearable dog days of August passed into oblivion, three things happened to Ruby Connors. She cemented her friendship with Nola Quantrell, the helpful young woman from Lerner’s; Captain Dennison said she was ready to move to the Pentagon and showed her a job description she should put in for with a personal recommendation from him; and her sister decided it was time for them to move into an apartment with four other girls, claiming it would be less expensive.

  “I don’t understand,” Nola Quantrell said over a cup of coffee. “How can your sister force you to move with her? and her friends? Don’t let her do this to you, Ruby. When you confided in me, I wanted to go over to the Y and smash her face in. How do you stay sane?”

  “Sometimes I wonder myself. Maybe it won’t be so bad. If I move over to the Pentagon, I’ll be working for an admiral and making a lot more money. I might even be able to save some money.”

  “But you’ll be paying out more in rent, and
she’ll make you send more home. It doesn’t make sense. This is your chance to save some money and take some night classes with me.”

  “I can still do that, take the classes, I mean. Do you think you could get me a job at Lerner’s on Saturday and maybe one night a week?”

  Nola shook her head glumly. “You’re dragging now, Ruby. How will you handle it all? You already put in too much overtime at the office. It’s like you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.”

  “It’s easier this time around.” Ruby grinned. “I have you to bounce things off. Here’s the list Amber stuck under my door this morning. I have to contribute to the food budget, the utilities, and the rent. I also have to do my share of the chores, and carfare is going to cost more. It comes to eighty dollars a month more, plus two hundred I’ll have to borrow from Amber just to , move. I called her office today and told her no. You know what she said? She’s calling home tonight at nine o’clock. That means my father will get on the phone and tell me I either move with Amber or I go back home. He’ll come and drag me home, Nola. He will!”

  Nola leaned back and lit a cigarette.

  Nola Quantrell was the fifth youngest in a family of eleven children, not counting the eight orphans her parents looked after. She had learned the meaning of standing up for herself by the age of six.

  “Why don’t you tell your father you can send more money home if you continue to live at the Y?” she suggested. “If he’s so gung ho on your sending money, he might go for it. In my opinion, what he’s doing is outright extortion.”

  Ruby snorted. “This is Amber’s show; I’m just one of the bit players. I’ll give it a try, but don’t be surprised if I’m not around next week. God, I wish I were twenty-one.”

  Amber Connors’ eyes spewed venom when Ruby walked through the lobby doors of the Y at five minutes past nine. Amber was dressed in a yellow playsuit with a wide green belt and matching sandals. An ornate green comb with a ticklish-looking feather was stuck in her hair at a crazy angle. Ruby almost laughed, but she didn’t when she saw the hostility in her sister’s eyes.

  “I’m not moving,” Ruby shot over her shoulder as she headed for the elevator.

  “Don’t tell me, tell Pop. If you aren’t going, you better start to pack, because he’ll be here on Sunday to pick you up.”

  Ruby jabbed the button on the elevator. “Stuff it, Amber, I’m not moving. You tell Pop.” She entered the elevator, Amber on her heels. Ruby stared straight ahead, refusing to acknowledge her sister.

  “You’re really stupid, Ruby. You act as though this place is Shangri-la. It’s the damn YWCA. An apartment will give us room to walk around; we can do our own cooking, have a refrigerator. There’s even a garden. You’ll have your own room. What more do you want?”

  “I want exactly what I have. I’m happy here. I can afford this. I don’t need anything else, not right now. Find someone else.”

  “I can’t find someone else. Pop said you were my responsibility, and while I don’t like it, there isn’t much I can do about it. I don’t want to go back to Barstow, and Pop will drag me back with you, so you might as well agree here and now.”

  “The way I see it, Amber, you’re the only one who gains from this move. What’s in it for me? Tell me one thing!”

  “You little snot, you always spoil everything. I hated you the day you were born and I still hate you,” Amber shouted. “I wish to God you were never born!”

  Ruby’s throat closed tight. From somewhere deep inside her she summoned her last bit of courage. “Ask me, Amber. Ask me to move, don’t tell me. Don’t threaten me. Tell me you can’t swing it without me. Don’t tell me any lies about what’s best for me; it’s what’s best for you. Say it, Amber, say you need me and I’ll give you my answer.”

  Amber’s lips thinned out in anger, and her eyes narrowed. The words came out slowly. “Okay, I need you to make the move.”

  “Why?” Ruby demanded.

  “I told you why.”

  “No, there’s something else. I can see right through you, Amber.”

  “Everyone has a boyfriend. We can’t bring men here, but there we’ll have a parlor.”

  Ruby felt drunk with her advantage. Get it all now, everything you want from her, because you won’t get another chance. “Well, aren’t you the sneaky one. I guess that means you already have a boyfriend. He must be deaf, dumb, and blind to like you.”

  “Well? Will you make the move with me?” Amber said as if she hadn’t heard Ruby’s insults.

  Ruby pulled her suitcase from the top shelf of her closet. “I can be bought, Amber. If the price is too high, find yourself another sucker. What’s his name?”

  Amber responded automatically to the iron command in Ruby’s voice, so like her father’s. “Nangi Duenas . . .” The stricken look on her face delighted Ruby. She replaced the suitcase on the top shelf.

  “That Filipino guy who has been hanging around the lobby?” Ruby whooped her victory. “A Filipino! That’s a good one! That’s the same as going with a colored fella. Oh, boy, Pop is going to yank you home for sure when he finds that out!”

  Amber was on her then, pulling her hair, pinching and gouging wherever she could. Ruby pulled the green comb from Amber’s hair, ripping it down her bare arm at the same time she brought up one long leg, locking Amber in a viselike hold. Her clenched fist shot upward, catching her sister full on the chin. Amber toppled to the floor, Ruby towering over her. She was pleased to see blood trickling down Amber’s arm onto the wrinkled playsuit.

  “Do you remember the time I beat the shit out of you over that angel business?” Ruby gasped. “I can do it again, right here and now. Nothing would give me more pleasure, but you know what, Amber, you aren’t worth the effort. I’ll move with you, but I’m not going to owe you a cent. You can put up my rent increase, and we’ll go on from there. You are never saddling me with a debt again. Take it or leave it!”

  “Pop was right. You have the devil in you. You’ll pay for this, I swear you will,” Amber gasped as she lurched to the door Ruby was holding open.

  “So much for bravado,” Ruby whimpered, falling onto the bed.

  Ruby woke on Saturday morning believing it was going to be the best day of her life. She tingled, she glowed, and her summer-blue eyes sparkled. Today was not routine; today was different. She was going to buy a new dress just for this dance, and she was going to tell Amber flat-out she was going. Tell her, not ask her. Her first real show of independence. She had a bad moment when she realized she would have to dip into her food budget to buy the dress. So what if she ate crackers and tomato soup for a week? She wouldn’t starve. Nobody starved.

  Once again Nola’s practiced eye ran over the racks of dresses, searching for just the right one for her friend, a dress that was daring and different. “Wait a minute, Ruby, there’s a dress in the back on layaway. I know it’s your size, but the girl never came back to pick it up. We were supposed to put it back on the floor yesterday, guess they forgot. It’s ah ... it’s different. I’ll get it.”

  It was different all right, Ruby thought in dismay, and absolutely the most gorgeous dress she’d ever seen, all colors of the rainbow with three inches of fringe around the skirt bottom, She could hardly wait to try it on. “It’s . . . scandalous. My father would lay down and die if he saw me in this.” Ruby gurgled.

  “That would be one way of getting rid of him,” Nola muttered under her breath.

  “How much is it?” Ruby asked, pulling the dress over her head.

  Nola peeked into the dressing room. This was the sticky part. “It’s . . . it’s nineteen dollars. The person who had it on layaway paid nine already, but she hasn’t been back, so you can have it for ten dollars. That’s a bargain, Ruby, you can’t pass it up.”

  “Won’t she want her money back?” Ruby called out as she smoothed the perfectly sized dress over her hips.

  “No,” Nola lied. “If layaways aren’t picked up on schedule, the customer forfeits the mon
ey. It’s your lucky day, Ruby.”

  Ruby’s feet barely touched the ground as she walked back to the Y. Her hands were reverent when she hung the dress on its hanger. Where would she ever wear it again? It was unbelievably gorgeous, she thought, the color of a hundred Popsicles melting together.

  Five hours later, her narrow face full of hostility, Amber Connors watched her sister sashay out of the lobby. Her eyes glinted angrily when Ethel commented on how pretty Ruby looked.

  Ruby was a whirlwind as she made her way down the street. It was going to be a wonderful evening. She caught sight of the bus pulling to the curb. Nola would be getting off it. She raised her hand the minute she spotted her friend. Behind her was Nangi Duenas. A devil perched itself on Ruby’s shoulder.

  “Hello.” She smiled. “I’m Amber’s sister. She’s waiting for you.”

  She was rewarded with a dazzling smile showing perfectly aligned teeth, but it was the approving look in the man’s eyes that Ruby wanted to see.

  Satisfied, she stood back to admire Nola, resplendent in a skin-tight lime-green dress with a vivid purple sash. She had a pretty, heart-shaped face, a clear complexion, and soft, dark eyes that she enhanced with mascara and a deep charcoal line at the base of her eyelashes. Tonight she wore a deep burgundy lipstick that looked almost purple, a perfect match for the vivid sash and huge purple earrings. She’d never seen Nola’s hair curled and frizzed before. To Ruby’s eye she looked exotic.

  “Wait till all those marines from the Marine barracks get a load of us!” Nola laughed uproariously. “A friend of mine told me most of the girls wear these simple little dresses with Peter Pan collars, you know, all prim and proper. We, on the other hand, look ... experienced ... I mean, we look as if we’ve been to these dances before. Trust me when I tell you we are going to dance our feet off right up to our anklebones.”