“But I think—” Gertrude was interrupted by a hoot from the table next to them.
“Hey, Mama!”
Emily looked up.The two girls there had ceased their work and thrown their hands up in greeting at a woman who had just walked through the door with a matron at her side.
Emily took in the buxom silhouette and fiery orange hair of June Jones.
Her insides plummeted, and she watched as June nodded her recognition to the two girls, one heavily pencilled eyebrow raised haughtily.She was escorted to a table at the back as Emily, Gertrude, and the rest of the women looked on.The room had gone conspicuously silent as the sewing machines paused.
“Settle down, back to work,” the supervisory matron droned lazily from her desk at the front.The machines started up again, and eventually conversation swelled.
Emily’s mouth was dry as paper.She recalled now, with a sickening sense of ineptness, how Matron Grimes had jeered at June Jones that she didn’t want to see her again too soon; that Jones herself had cursed thefact that she was in and out of the Mercer so often it was impacting her “business.”June Jones knew Emily was a reporter.But the possibility of the madam being sent back while Emily was still there had never even occurred to her.Although, she thought, it hadn’t occurred to Doris either.And Doris usually thought of everything.
What would Doris tell her to do now?What would her own father advise?Surely, they were both used to managing professional curveballs.She might be able to find a way to ask him, coded, as her occasional letters home—and her parents’ letters back—always were.But what would happen if Jones blew her cover, and her identity and objective were discovered?Could sheactuallybe arrested then?
Jones was walking smoothly up the aisle now toward the supervisor’s desk.Emily had never seen anyone move like June did.Most women took small steps, impeded by skirts, inflexible fabrics, high heels, and persistent finishing school habits.But June Jones swaggered as a man would, moved slowly and deliberately with her large body as though trying to take up as much space as possible.It was so unfamiliar it was intimidating, but also somehow admirable.
The supervisor looked up at Jones and sighed.“Back so soon?”
Jones nodded as Emily watched her through her eyelashes, pretending to pick out a loose stitch.“You know me.Can’t get enough of this place.”
“Well, you seem to leave here every time with a few new girls under your wing.Can’t be all bad for business.”
Jones twisted her mouth and glared at the matron, shot half a glance over her shoulder at the assembled women.
“Tick off the wrong cop again?”the matron asked.
Jones shook her head.“Naw.Politician this time.Didn’t like that one of my girls wouldn’t agree to get beat as part of the date.She punched ’im in the cock and ran for it, and lo and behold, suddenly my liquor licence expired a month earlier than it should have.Now I’m back in on a six-month, the pricks.”
Beside Emily, Gert’s eyebrows had nearly disappeared into her hairline and her lips were pressed in an appreciative smile.
“Welcome home, then,” the matron muttered.“Here’s your materials.You know what to do.Get to work.”
Jones took her stack of white cotton and began walking back to her spot.As she passed in front of Emily’s workstation, she looked down.Emily cursed silently and tried to duck her head toward her machine before realizing the ludicrousness of the effort.She would run into June Jones elsewhere: the dining hall, the recreation room, the bathroom.Her best bet would be to look innocent and detached.Hopefully the months of confinement, her longer hair and the equalizing nature of the uniform might save her from recognition.
With a surge of apprehension, she met the madam’s eyes and gave a half-smile of greeting.Jones took her in, face impassive.
“You new?”she asked.
Emily tried to wet her lips, but couldn’t.“Yeah.”
Jones’s eyes lingered on her another moment, then she walked away back down the aisle with her fabric.Emily rolled her shoulders and reset her machine.She was behind on the day’s quota; she needed to focus and catch up.
“Sizing you up for a new job, I think,” Gert muttered beside her, shooting her a sly look.
Emily forced a chuckle as her insides clenched.“Yeah.Maybe.”
CHAPTER 25
EMILY
Mid-September, 1961
Day 85 (98 to go)
On a bright Wednesday morning in late summer, Emily scaled the steps to the second floor after breakfast for her weekly wart treatment in the infirmary.
There was always a queue in the corridor outside now.Emily overheard girls complain about various ailments, from menstrual cramps to migraines and constipation, which, given the fact that she hadn’t seen a piece of fruit on her plate since July, was unsurprising.She always loaded her plate as much as she was allowed with the revolting canned string beans offered three times a week, for the sole purpose of keeping things moving.She longed for her mother’s Sunday dinners, her warm roasts and casseroles, her fresh fruit pies.She would even take an aspic at this point if it freed her tastebuds from the bland, unbuttered potatoes and grey scraps of meat that constituted most of their meals at the Mercer.
