Radio Girls(6)

“I have energy,” Maisie assured her, wishing there were some way to prove it. Shame I can’t turn a cartwheel.

Miss Shields set down her cup and saucer, then looked at Maisie’s references again.

“What I cannot understand, Miss Musgrave, is why, if you’ve had such trouble securing regular employment, you haven’t returned once more to your people in Toronto or New York.”

Beneath the impertinence, Maisie sensed the woman was exhorting her to leave and save jobs for those who deserved them, especially as so many men were unemployed. It was a fair point, although no man would be hired as this sort of secretary. And in fact, despite the enticement of the office, Maisie planned to quit the moment she was sure her hoped-for husband was a certainty, bringing her closer to the loving family she had wanted since she knew such things existed.

She forced her shoulders back and her breath steady.

“Miss Shields, I may have been born and raised in what’s sometimes still called the New World, but my heart lies in the Old World. There’s nothing that makes me happier than walking around London. History’s lived here. So much began here, so many stories. This is still the center of the universe, and there are still . . . conventions here. I came here hoping to do my bit for Britain, and leaving was so stupid, so cowardly. I made it back and I’ve got to stay. I’ve just got to. This is home. I hope,” she tapered off—her blush was making her face hurt.

But it was true. She needed this job, needed this room with the desk, the swivel chair, the bird-festooned teacup and saucer. She even needed the terrifying Miss Shields. And the hidden Mr. Reith. If the BBC’s brazen raw newness chafed against her passion for the starch and certainty of tradition and opulence, it also enchanted her with its brightness and bustle. She couldn’t be turned away. She just couldn’t.

“Very nice, I’m sure, Miss Musgrave,” Miss Shields said dryly. “Thank you so much for coming in.” Miss Shields pressed a button by the door and held out her hand. “You will receive a letter in due course telling you of our decision. Rusty shall show you out.”

Rusty popped up like a groundhog and hovered as Maisie shook Miss Shields’s hand and thanked her with what she hoped wasn’t an excess of sincerity. She tagged after Rusty, feeling her heart oozing through the holes in her shoes. The most important thing was to get outside before the tears came.

“Hey, New York!”

Just as she reached reception, Maisie was stunned to be accosted by Mr. Underwood of the school tie and baggy trousers, pattering down the stairs after her. Still grinning. Still freckled. Eyes still blue—inviting enough that she wanted to learn to swim. Had she ever been smiled at by a man this handsome?

“Have you been to a speakeasy, then? What’s it like? Is Broadway really so bright at night it’s like day? Gosh, I’d rather like to spend just a week there. Must be jolly great fun—not that our London isn’t the best place on earth, of course, and we can get drinks legally, but maybe it’s more fun when you can’t? I’d give a lot to see the Cotton Club. Or do they let white people in?”

It was like being blown through with machine-gun artillery. The fellow’s interview skills were more daunting than Miss Shields’s, and the questions more impossible to answer. But he was looking at her with interest, which was more than Miss Shields had done and remarkable from a man. Grateful to him for distracting her from her misery, Maisie gave him the one answer she could manage.

“Well, ‘Broadway’ itself is a street, but you mean the theater district. It’s . . . rather . . . well, glorious, really. All those theaters, one after the other, marquees all lit up. I daresay you could read there, though I suppose you wouldn’t want to.”

To her dismay, he looked disappointed.

“You don’t talk like an American, not like some of the others who’ve been here, or in the stories.”

“Oh. Well, I . . .” She was eager to explain herself using as many choice bits of American slang as she could muster, but those eyes and freckles made syllables hard to come by.

“Oi, Underwood!” someone shouted from the top of the steps. “What the devil are you doing, having another tea break? Get yourself back here before the man takes your head off and uses it for a football.”

“Suppose I ought to dash, then,” her interrogator remarked, unruffled. “You’ll be back, will you? I do want to hear more!”

“Er . . . I—I don’t think so,” she mumbled, but he was scaling the stairs two at a time. “Thanks anyway,” she said to his back as it disappeared.

She glanced at the receptionist, wondering if she should be marked as leaving. The receptionist was simultaneously directing a man with a parcel, asking someone on the phone to please hold the line, and scribbling at a pad with a pencil.

Maisie closed the door on the painted trees and the gleam and the polish. She swiped impatiently at her eyes, rounded her shoulders against the chill, and trudged up the appropriately dark street.

“Miss! Miss!”

Rusty was sprinting toward her, a fiery little Olympic torch.

“Lucky you’re here, miss. Didn’t think I’d find you, but I took the chance. Miss Shields, miss, she asked if I did find you, would you return a moment, please?”

He ran back to the BBC, gone so fast Maisie was sure she was hallucinating.