She wore a plain black dress that she'd bought the year before at Carson Pirie Scott in Chicago, and a red coat she'd bought at Lord and Taylor that morning. And she looked terrific. She was interviewed by personnel, and then sent upstairs to see the office manager, and the senior secretary, and meet two of the junior partners. Her office skills had improved over the years, but she still didn't take proper dictation, but they seemed willing to accommodate her, as long as she was able to take fast notes and type. She liked everyone she met, including both of the junior partners she would work for, Tom Short and Bill Martin. They were both very serious and dry, one had gone to Princeton undergraduate and then Harvard Law, the other had gone all the way through Harvard. Everything looked predictable and respectable, and even their location suited her perfectly. They were at Fifty-sixth and Park, only eight blocks from her hotel, although now she knew she'd have to find an apartment.
The law firm took up ten floors, and there were over six hundred employees. All she wanted was to be a face in the crowd, and that's all she was. It was the most impersonal place she'd ever seen, and it suited her to perfection. She wore her hair tied back, very little makeup, and the same clothes she'd worn at Swanson's in Chicago. She had a little more style than necessary, but the office manager figured she'd tone it down. She was a bright girl, and he really liked her.
She had been hired as the assistant joint secretary for two of the junior partners. They shared two women, and Grace's counterpart was three times her age and twice her weight, and seemed relieved to have all the help she could get. She told Grace on her first day of work that Tom and Bill were nice guys and very reasonable to work for. Both were married, and had blond wives, one lived in Stamford, the other in Darien, and each had three children. In some ways, they seemed like twins to Grace, but so did most of the men there. There seemed to be a sea of young men working there who basically looked the same to her. And all they ever talked about was their cases. Everyone commuted to Connecticut or Long Island, most of them played squash, some belonged to clubs, and all of the secretaries seemed equally faceless. It was precisely the anonymous world that Grace had wanted. No one seemed to notice her at all as she started work. She fit in instantly, did her work, and no one asked her a single question about who she was, where she had worked, or where she'd come from. No one cared. This was New York. And she loved it.
And that weekend, she found an apartment. It was at Eighty-fourth and First. She could take the subway to work, or the bus, and she could afford the rent comfortably on her salary. She'd sold her bed and furniture to the girl who took her place in Chicago, and she went to Macy's and bought a few things, but was worried to find them so expensive. One of the girls at work told her about a discount furniture place in Brooklyn, and she went there one night on the subway after work, and smiled to herself as she rode alone. She had never felt so grown up and so free, so much the mistress of her own fate. For the first time in her life, no one was controlling her, or threatening her, or trying to hurt her. No one wanted anything from her at all. She could do anything she wanted.
She did a little shopping on Saturday afternoons, bought her groceries at the A&P nearby, and went to galleries on Madison Avenue and the West Side, and even made a few forays into SoHo. She loved New York, and everything about it. She ate dim sum on Mott Street, checked out the Italian neighborhood. And she was fascinated going to a couple of auctions. And a month after she'd arrived she had a job, a life, and an apartment. She'd bought most of her furniture by then, and it wasn't exciting or elegant, but it was comfortable. Her building was old, but it was clean. They had given her curtains and the place had beige wall-to-wall that went with everything she'd bought. The apartment had a living room, a tiny kitchen and dining nook, and a small bedroom and bath. It was everything she'd ever wanted, and it was her own. No one could take it away, or spoil it.
“How's New York treating you?” the personnel manager asked her when she saw him again one day at lunch in the firm's cafeteria. She only ate there in bad weather or when she was broke just before her next paycheck. Otherwise, she liked wandering around Mid-town at lunchtime.
“I love it” She smiled at him. He was little and old and bald, and he had told her he had five children.
“I'm glad.” He smiled. “I hear good reports about you, Grace.”
“Thank you.” The best thing about him, as far as she was concerned, was that he loved his wife, and had absolutely no interest in Grace. None of them did. She had never felt as comfortable in her life. People went about their business, and sex seemed to be the last thing on their minds. No one seemed to notice her at all, especially not Tom and Bill, the two young partners that she worked for. She could have been five times her age, and she suspected they would never have noticed. They were nice to her, but they were all work. They worked as late as eight and nine o'clock sometimes, and she wondered if they ever saw their children. They even came in on weekends when they had briefs to write for the senior partners.
“Do you have any plans for Thanksgiving?” the secretary who worked with her asked in mid-November. She was a nice older woman with a thick waist and heavy legs, but a kindly face framed by gray hair, and she had never been married. Her name was Winifred Apgard and everyone called her Winnie.
“No, but I'll be fine,” Grace said comfortably. Holidays had never been her forte.
“You're not going home?” Grace shook her head and didn't mention that she didn't have one. Her apartment was home, and she was very self-sufficient.
“I'm going to Philadelphia to see my mother, or I'd have you over,” Winnie said apologetically. She looked like someone's maiden aunt, and she seemed to love her work, and the men she worked for. She clucked over them like a mother hen, and they teased her all the time. She told them to wear their galoshes when it snowed, and warned them of impending storms if they were driving home late.
It was a very different relationship from the one Tom and Bill had with Grace. It was almost as though they pretended not to see her. She wondered sometimes if her youth was threatening to them, or if their wives would have been annoyed, or if Winnie was less of a threat to them, and more comfortable. But it didn't seem to matter. They never said anything of a personal nature to Grace, and while they made jokes with Winnie sometimes, they were always poker-faced with Grace, as though they were being particularly careful not to get to know her. It was a far cry from Bob Swanson, but she liked that a lot about her job.
The week before Thanksgiving, she spent some time on her lunch hour making a few personal phone calls. She had meant to do it for a while, but she'd been busy settling into her apartment. But now it was time to start giving back again. It was something she intended to do for the rest of her life, something she felt she owed the people who had helped her. It was a debt she would never stop paying back. And it was time to begin again now.
She finally found what she was looking for.
The place was called St. Andrew's Shelter, and it was on the Lower East Side, on Delancey. There was a young priest in charge, and he had invited her to come down and meet them the following Sunday morning.