The 9:02 a.m. ride to the 25th floor of the Penobscot Building in downtown Detroit goes slowly. I glance around and realize I’ve been spotted. The office bookkeeper nods a curt greeting while mentally noting my tardiness. Third time this week I’ve been late. I know she’ll make a note of it to add to all the other notes in my file. She keeps files on all the secretaries. The good ones as well as the foolish.
I could blame my late arrival on the SEMTA or my baby’s runny nose or my unemployed husband’s desperate chit-chat about how he’s sure he’ll get a job today if only there was a job to be had, but these would be lies. The reason I’m late is because I chose to be late because that’s the only choice I’m free to make this morning.
The elevator ride is unending. I can feel the bookkeeper’s icy stare on my back. I wish I had taken the local and left the express to those in a hurry. Our first stop is the 20th floor. A red-faced man squeezes his way off, apologizing for crushing designer toes and sweating on beige Mulqueen silks. We rearrange ourselves, shuffling in the space he vacated. I mop my forehead with an un-manicured hand, somehow osmosising his heat. Someone farts. We ignore the thick, putrid stench. I pray the elevator doesn’t jam between floors.
The legal secretary
I swallow a scream.
Surrounded by three-piece suits carrying leather attachés stuffed with legal briefs, I’m nauseated by waves of Chanel and Halston and splashes of Estee Lauder-colored faces. I know I do not belong here. I stuff my hands into the pockets of my outdated summer shift. My cheap plastic no-name brand handbag dangles at my side. I become lost in the bright mixture of designer labels around me.
We lose four pinstriped suits to the 21st floor. The bookkeeper decides to speak as I step backwards a pace, seeking a corner. “Lovely morning,” she says, fluffing the pink bow on her blouse. “Almost too nice to work.” Word around the office is she hasn’t missed a day in 40 years. Her eyes are hard as they roam my face. Hard and cold and unkind.
I remember my baby’s face as I kissed her goodbye. I remember the pain in my husband’s eyes. I swallow the anger threatening to erupt from my throat.
Three more pinstripes exit on the 22nd floor. I think of the day ahead. Of the piles of legal documents to be typed, of the Dictaphone tapes piled in a heap. I think of writs, garnishments, foreclosures, judgments. I think of clients quietly coming in, caps in worn hands, politely asking for Attorney Stockler as if he were a god instead of the biggest prick in town. I think of lunch when I’ll escape to the riverfront and eat my tuna fish sandwich as I watch freighters glide silently past the city. I think of the monotonous afternoon stretching before me as I type, type, type the warm hours of my life away and, again, I want to scream.
Two secretaries get off on the 23rd floor. Only the bookkeeper and I are left, each guarding a corner. For a moment the door hesitates, refuses to close, to cooperate, to obey, and I watch her fight panic as it rises to her chest. She twists the white gloves in her hands. I envision little sweat droplets emerging from her underarm deodorant. “One of these days…” she says and leaves the thought unfinished.
Yes, I think, one of these days. Then I will myself to exit on floor 25. Will myself to slap a smile on my face as I bid good morning to my boss, not Stockler but a junior partner, and ask if he would like a cup of coffee. Will myself to uncover the IBM Selectric that waits for me as a jailor waits for inmates. My fingers fly over the keys. After all, at 113 words a minute, I’m the fastest and most accurate secretary on our floor. Even faster and more efficient than the senior partners’ girls. Faster than the ones having affairs with the men who go home to their wives. The Dictaphone hums in my ears. The last thing I hear is Stockler screaming at a client who cannot afford to pay. I don’t care. I’m gone now. Only my body remains at my desk. My soul, my spirit, my ectoplasmic self are soaring beyond the keyboard, beyond the stifling office smelling of Xerox toner and cigarette smoke, beyond the highest point of the Penobscot. I’m oblivious to all that is except the desire to feel a fresh breeze on my face, to hear the laughter of my daughter, and envelop myself in the love of my husband.
I’ll stay this way until, once again, I rejoin the living at 5:02 p.m.
Wow, this is magnificent. Beautifully written and evoking all the senses. Such a difficult time in a young woman’s life. Heart breaking. BUT she does know her own worth. That comes through and for someone as old as I am, I know how difficult it was a woman of intelligence to feel worthwhile during those times. I heard the good old boys made fun of their secretaries, ignoring me because I wasn’t there, was I. Paid less, worth less, while all the time knowing more.
Thank you, Sue. We were invisible but the offices couldn’t run without us. I remember one woman in particular who clung to her boss, hoping, praying that he would leave his wife. The senior partners were the worst. Those were the 1970s.