Thanks to all of you who have subscribed to my writing ‘reveal.’ I have been inspired!
Because of your inspiration, I wrote for 3 hours today. I’ve been cleaning up chapters of redundant words (did I really write “He studied the angle studiously” ?) OMG! I’ve also been taking an online class about when to show and when to tell. “She looked sick” is telling… and “Her skin had the pallor of an avocado” is showing. I’m finding out that a combination gives rhythm to a piece, but too much telling is boring to a reader.
Today I am posting Chapter Three of Lies Between Floors. I’m not happy with chapter one. Margaret has come home to help out her mother who is dying from cancer. Michael is a Presbyterian minister who proposed to Margaret but retracted the proposal when he found out she had had a baby out of wedlock. In the following chapter, Margaret gets hired as an elevator operator at Graham’s Department Store in Liberty, Ohio. Comments are welcome..good and bad.
Chapter Three – Lies Between Floors by Patti R. Albaugh
I thought that coming home to Liberty, Ohio, to care for my ailing mother would give me good luck points with God. Evidently I didn’t have enough points.
“I have writing skills,” I told the managing editor. I held out the want ad for a reporting position, the ad that specified excellent writing skills. “I was an English major in college. I worked as an assistant for a magazine editor in Pittsburgh.”
“Heard you came back to take care of your mother. But I don’t hire girls as reporters, and I don’t have any secretary jobs now,” said the editor, with his cigar and bushy eyebrows popping up and down with the syllables of his words. “Why would you want to be a reporter anyway? There are plenty of sales clerk jobs. Try Grahams.”
Sales clerk. I did not want to be a sales clerk. I had bigger plans. I didn’t want to do anything, actually, except write my stories—maybe romance stories that no one would know about until I was famous. I had decided that wealth would make up for the lack of literary aplomb.
On the way out of the newspaper office, I noticed my reflection in the plate glass window. Beside me, in smoky imagination, was Michael, shaking his pastoral finger at me. I thought of him continuously. I pictured him begging me to forgive him because he couldn’t live without me—his eyes red-rimmed from crying and his minister’s collar loose on his starving neck. In reality I hadn’t heard a word from him since my sinful disclosure.
I found myself at Graham’s Department Store anyway—where I sat on Santa’s lap when I was six and at twelve where I tried on my first bra. Maybe I could buy my way out of frustration.
I pondered the display of embroidered cotton hankies in a glass and oak case on the first floor. I preferred Kleenex, the lazy person’s answer to wiping away nasal messes. Blow your nose, throw the mess away! I wished that some of my decisions could be like disposable hankies—thrown away and forgotten. But I’m stuck with carrying around my past like dirty handkerchiefs. A snow white handkerchief with the letter “A” embroidered in red caught my eye. Might as well carry that one and be just like Hester.
Maybe I should buy a handkerchief for my mother–she always kept a hankie in her purse or at her bedside. If I bought one for her, it would cheer her up and I would be the good daughter.
The elevator doors behind me opened and a tired but handsome man stood at the controls. It was John Graham—owner of Graham’s Department Store, a community leader, a sturdy Methodist, and a member of the Country Club where his father and my father played golf. Now both our fathers are gone. He had also been my classmate, always viewed at a distance, at Liberty High. Fortunately he only knew about the good me from high school—as far as I know I had kept my post high school disasters out from under the scrutiny of Liberty citizens.
He noticed me right away and made a couple of happy strides towards me.
“Hey, Margaret, good to see ya.”
His good looks softened my pensive mood. He still had dark hair, green eyes, and patrician nose.
“I was disappointed you weren’t at our 10th class reunion last year. Doesn’t it seem 1945 was like yesterday?”
“It seems a long time ago, actually,” I answered, suspicious as to where the conversation might go.
“ I heard you were coming back to Liberty.” He stopped and looked me over. “But wait…is that a cloud I see menacing your good looks?” He laughed with the self assurance of a guy who always got what he wanted.
“Perceptive as always, John. You caught me stewing over my inability to get a job. I need something to do besides watch my mother waste away.”
“Yeh, sorry about your mother. She’s pretty young to be so ill.” He paused, looking at me with concern. ”And how about you, Margaret? You gave up quite a bit to come home and help out.” He looked back at the elevator to make sure no one needed a ride then turned back to me. “I hear that she wasn’t too happy about you breaking up with that minister fellow.”
An image of my mother’s expectant, righteous face involuntarily crossed my mind, but I decided to ignore John’s uncomfortable question.
“Well… my mother’s glad I’m here, but I’m not sure I am. Any suggestions as to what kind of job I might find to fill some time?” His mouth started to open and I could see his lips start to form ‘sales…’
“No sales clerk jobs!”
He laughed. “I have something worse, but it would be temporary until the perfect opportunity for you opens.” He waited for my response.
“And?”
“You worked on the year book in high school and I hear you had a job with a magazine in Pittsburgh…so, how would you like do the advertising copy?”
I looked at him.
John continued. “Mr. Beals is getting pretty ‘long in the tooth’ as they say. His wife tells me every time I see her that she’s going to make him retire…but, until then…”
“You can hire me, just like that?”
“Hey, I own the place, don’t I?”
“OK, but what’s the ‘something worse’? You might be offering me a rose, but I’ve learned that there’s usually a bee inside ready to sting me.”
“I don’t remember you as a cynic, Margaret,” John said with a wink. “But here’s the deal. If you worked here anyway, you would be available when Mr. Beals…you know….retires.”
“You’re still not telling me what the ‘something worse’ is.”
He gave me a crooked smile that contrasted with his straight, and perfect, teeth. “Careful, Margaret,” I told myself. “He’s married.”
“Well… we’ve had to take two hours from everyone’s schedule to man the elevator, and if I, the President of Graham’s, can run the elevator, so can you, Miss Left Town to Become Famous. What do you think?” He looked at me with that captain of the football team gaze that leads men and seduces women.
A moment later I was the new elevator operator, starting the next day, and dependent upon Mr. Beales’ retirement, or demise, for the job I wanted.
“One caution, though,” John said. “We may be friends but here at work you have to call me Mr. Graham. I can’t show any favoritism.” He glanced at the nearest clerk who was watching us. “Morale is good here, but the hawks hover, if you get my meaning,” he whispered.
I sighed and nodded, but John, er…Mr. Graham was right. He was also frank with me about Mr. Beales’ retirement. The old guy was healthy and not showing any signs of giving up his position, in spite of his wife’s intentions. In Liberty, nobody in retailing retired. People stopped breathing at their posts or died of natural causes in their beds with their work clothes set out for the next day.
“Welcome back to Liberty,” John said. He shook my hand. “It will be nice to have you as a Graham’s Associate. Come in tomorrow at eight, and I’ll give you a little training. It’s really simple.” He gave me a wink and that football captain grin.
The next morning I arrived at Graham’s back alley door just before eight. There was John, ever the gentleman, holding the door open for me.
We walked to a corner alcove where the time card machine served as an altar for worshiping productivity. There was a brand new card with my name typed on the top, and John showed me how to punch my time card each time I came or left. I put the card in the slot and clunk! I was officially an employee. The time read 8:07am in little purple letters. I replaced my new time monitor into the alphabetized card holder, which held the records of numerous people who had traded their daily freedom in exchange for minimal wages.
“Are you ready for intensive training on ‘The Creature?’” John asked as we walked towards the middle of the quiet, unoccupied first floor. He pointed to the subject of my instruction.
“If the elevator has been named ‘The Creature,’ I’m not sure this bodes well.”
I looked at the iron mesh doors, the wire stool in the corner of the steel elevator cage, and the brass control that dared me to take it on. I had ridden this elevator for years, and even laughed at the operators’ attempts to control it. I was then its new victim.
John waved me into the creature’s yawning mouth and closed the doors. “If you close the outer doors and not the mesh doors of the elevator car, the elevator won’t go…it’s a safety feature. No worry of crushed fingers here.” John grinned at me. “Of course, now that you aren’t the writer that our class book prophesied you to be, maybe you don’t need all your fingers.”
I glared at him. “That was cruel.”
John’s eyes took on a quizzical shape. “Oh Margaret, I’m sorry… I always thought that was all high school dream talk. We all did it.” He dropped his gaze. “That was pretty insensitive of me.” He looked up at me with a puppy’s shame at having wet the floor.
I’ve never met anyone as sincere as John Graham, and I found myself forgiving him on the spot. “Oh, forget it, John. I’m too sensitive…at least that’s what my mother tells me all the time. Now, about taming The Creature.”
“Oh, right. Now…” John pointed to a brass plate that had a black knobbed handle that followed a curved track. “…the position of the brass handle determines if you go up, down, or stop. Forward for up, middle for stop, backward for down,” John instructed. He pushed the handle forward, and I heard the motor come to life as the car moved upward. He gently pulled the handle back to the center position and the car stopped. “You try it. Continue to the second floor.”
I took the handle and moved it forward with confidence—too much confidence. The motor roared and we sped by the second floor opening. John yelled, “Stop! The middle…pull it back to the middle.” I jerked the handle back—past the middle—and the elevator gears screeched as the car changed direction. John’s hand grabbed the control and brought the handle to the center stop position. His carefully groomed hair had fallen over his forehead, his eyes were wild, and I think I smelled a little smoke. But the elevator was finally still.
“This is harder than it looks, I said.” I felt sheepish, not at all Napoleonic.
“Uh, you’ll get better, Margaret. Let’s try this again.”
Each attempt to control The Creature made for smoother takeoffs and landings, inch by inch, foot by foot. John’s eyes went from rounded terror to crinkled approval. I had tamed the Creature. I thought.
