I knew that Helen, generously paid though she was, wanted to attain a male pay scale almost as much as I did. I also knew she’d never ask.
Olive, on the other hand, had never been one to understand that her own self-interest might be attached to the interests of others like her. She decided to offer her two cents, like an idiot pitching change into a well that nobody ever said was open for wishing.
“If you ask me,” Olive said, picking at the corner of her paper, “I think you and Helen should be grateful for what you already have. Chester has given you both so many opportunities. There are plenty of people in this very department who would give a whole limb to be like you two.”
“Olive,” said Chester, “thank you, but would you mind letting Lillian and me continue our conversation in private?”
With the posture of one who actually would very much mind, Olive fluttered herself out in a flurry of certainly-sirs, shutting the heavy door behind her with theatrical effort.
Chester’s transom remained open to catch the trace breeze. I was sure that Olive could keep eavesdropping even after she’d relieved us of her physical presence, but I really didn’t care.
“Lil, you know I think the world of you, and Helen, too,” said Chester. “But that’s just not the way things work around here.”
“It hasn’t been in the past, I know,” I said. “But perhaps the time has come for R.H. Macy’s to free itself from the yoke of historical precedent.”
“Have you been consorting with those communists down in Washington Square Park?”
“Chip, my request is as capitalist as they come.”
“Lillian, I’m sympathetic, but these fellows whose salaries you aim to match have families to support.”
“Nobody asked these fellows with salaries to reproduce themselves,” I said. “And were I ever to have a family, you wouldn’t let me keep working here. Ladies get the boot the instant they show signs of spawning. Not that that matters to me, since I’d sooner die than join the wife-and-mother brigade.”
Chester had a sign behind his desk—NEVER USE A SUPERLATIVE IN ANY AD HERE. IT MAY LEAD TO EXAGGERATION.—and he insisted that each of us copywriters have a facsimile hung behind ours. But he knew as well as I did that I was not exaggerating.
I was not on the hunt for my other half. Not only did I have no desire to find a husband, I had negative desire.
“Might I point out, Lil,” said Chester, “that in fairness everyone does at least get an identical bonus at Christmas time? Pure egalitarianism.”
“Chip,” I laughed, “the Christmas bonus is a turkey. And I haven’t got a wife to take mine home to so she can prepare it for me.” Fortunately this made Chester laugh, too, though our laughter differed in character: his nervous, mine not without bitterness.
R.H. Macy’s kept out labor unions. But among the female salesclerks in their dark blue or black dresses and the male ones in their stiff collars and dickey-bosom shirts, nuptial unions were common. Even in the upper offices like mine, institutional advertising, employees joked that the store’s real name ought to be Macy’s Matrimonial Bureau.
I made a point not to reveal too much of my personal life to Chester or anyone else from the office, excepting Helen, but I knew that he knew that while I liked to go out with men, they were never from Macy’s, and I was not on the prowl for a permanent connection. No taxidermy for me; strictly catch-and-release.
“Lillian,” he said, steepling his fingers in that pose that bosses seem trained to do. “Please believe me when I say: I am truly sorry. But right now, in this Year of Our Lord 1931, this is just how it is. Maybe someday things will change. For today, will you at least let me take you to lunch to celebrate? I’ll tell all the waitresses you’re the beautiful lady in the papers.”
Having already challenged him once on his grammatical evasion of responsibility, I let that one slide, but I was not a believer in things just changing. One had to try to change them.
“Sure thing, boss,” I said. “What are you thinking? Horn & Hardart?”
“Nah, let’s leave the automat to those overpaid guys who skimp on lunch to shore up Junior’s college fund. We’ll go to the Silver Room and have a real sit-down time.”
And though Chester was an unflappable man, gifted at never seeming to try excessively at anything, I could tell that he was trying hard then to make it up to me. So I agreed.
“Well, goodness,” I said. “Isn’t that fancy? If living well is the best revenge, I’ve got to start living better more conspicuously. The Silver Room’s a sterling place to begin.”
*
Back in my office, settling into the day’s work, I was trying to console myself with the thought that while I was usually good at getting what I wanted in life, I was not always so good at enjoying it, so maybe it was all right that Chester had denied me. Then Olive knocked her milquetoast knock.