The Boston Girl(49)

It took me a minute to realize that the man was flirting with me. “You need thick skin to do this job, which is why the ladies don’t last long. Especially not young ladies with skin as lovely as yours.” And then he asked me out to dinner.

I said no, but he didn’t give up. He went on a flattery campaign. He liked how I had changed the part in my hair. He said my red scarf was “smart.” He complimented something I’d written. “Nice turn of phrase.”

I think I might have said yes to a cup of coffee except for his breath. Some men in the newsroom slurred and staggered in after drinking their way through lunch. Cornish held his liquor better than most, but I knew better than to go near a drunk, even for coffee.

He kept asking me out and I kept saying no until the day he showed me an invitation to the big opening-night party for the Metropolitan Theatre. It was going to be a dress ball, the most extravagant party ever seen in Boston. Serena would have been the natural choice to write it up, but she had disappeared and I knew why: Tessa Thorndike was expecting a baby.

Cornish said that he was thinking of turning the whole page over to a Seen and Heard report on the gala. “I could send you, but you’ve never done anything this big before. I’d be sticking my neck out.”

I thought he was telling me I was going to cover the party, so I started thanking him, promised I’d do a good job and wouldn’t let him down.

He stopped me. “Just a minute, kiddo.” I would have to get the story without tipping anyone off why I was there, so no taking notes. I would have to bone up on who’s who and what’s what. He said, “We can go over it at dinner.”

I didn’t have the assignment. Cornish had me over a barrel. “Don’t worry,” he said. “It’s just business. But since we have to eat, I know where to get the best steaks in town.”

That didn’t sound like business to me. Buying a girl a steak dinner was an expensive proposition and a lot of men expected something in return. But I really wanted to do that story and I wasn’t a gullible kid anymore. I knew to keep my guard up.

So I said I’d meet him.

The address he gave me turned out to be a Chinese laundry, which meant we were going to a speakeasy. If Cornish hadn’t already been waiting for me, I probably would have snuck off, but he grabbed my arm and walked me into my first saloon.

Glamorous, it was not. There was no music or dancing. The tables were bare and none of the cups matched. I’d never been anywhere so shabby, but even on a Thursday night it was packed to the rafters.

Cornish ordered us tea, which was whiskey and disgusting. “Maybe you’d prefer wine,” he said and told the waiter to bring me a glass of grape juice, which tasted pretty much the same as the tea. I didn’t drink that, either, but he didn’t let it go to waste and ordered two steak dinners, rare. “I want them bleeding” is how he put it. And another round of “tea.”

I tried to talk about the gala. I asked what time I should get there and what to do if I didn’t recognize someone. He only wanted to talk about himself and his career: his first big assignment covering the mayor’s race in Manchester, murder stories from the crime desk in Worcester, a juicy scandal in Providence. The Transcript was just another stop on his way to New York. “The big time.”

By the time they brought dinner, Cornish was too drunk to cut his meat, so I started to put my coat on.

“Don’t give me the fish-eye,” he said. “I only drink because I’m stuck in that damned hen coop. Once I’m out of there, I’ll be a goddamn choirboy.”

One of the waiters came over and told him to pipe down or he’d throw us out. Cornish pretended to lock his mouth with a little key.

I said I was leaving, but he said, “I thought you wanted to talk about how you’re going to make a big name for yourself at that swell party.” That set him off about how women didn’t belong in the newsroom. Old prunes like Flora and Katherine were okay. “But you’re too pretty,” he said, and if I wanted to write, I should go home and write sonnets about bluebirds or a romantic story for the Saturday Evening Post.

“But for God’s sake, don’t do any more ‘poor Negro’ stories. It makes you look dumb. Colored people don’t feel things the same as you and me. It’s a scientific fact they have smaller brains than us.

“Besides, all these ‘campaigns’ are run by the communists, and that means the goddamn Jews are behind it. Those people will destroy the country if we let them.”

I could hear my mother’s voice: “They smile in your face but if you scratch a little they’ll try to cut your throat.”

That was it. I started for the door. Cornish got himself out of his chair and stumbled after me but I had to help him through the door and then prop him up against a lamppost. He leaned over to kiss me, and if I hadn’t caught him, he would have fallen on his face. “If you get me a cup of coffee, I’ll make a real pass at you.”

I told him to go to hell.

A taxi pulled over and unloaded a bunch of college boys and I jumped in. It was my first taxi ride and I’m glad I did it, but oh my God, was it expensive. I didn’t eat lunch for a week.

The next morning, Cornish was back on the edge of my desk and said, “You’ll forgive me if I was a little fresh, won’t you, kiddo? I should never mix wine and whiskey.”