“Good luck,” Mrs. McGruder called after me.
I turned, smiled, and waved.
Before I got into the truck, I glanced down the street. Something had made me turn to look, even though it was very quiet and there was no other traffic.
Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought I saw Thaddeus Bogosian, the elderly man on the plane, standing on the corner and looking my way.
I blinked, and he was gone.
But the image remained on my eyes like the blinding light of a flashbulb in the dark.
4
“Hello there,” Michael Thomas said when I got into the truck. “I’m Michael, Michael Thomas.”
“Lorelei Patio,” I said.
We didn’t shake hands as much as just graze palms. His were quite rough with calluses.
He looked out at Mrs. Winston and Mrs. McGruder, who were still watching us with hawk eyes. “Those two can be real pissers,” he said, nodding at them before he began to back out of the driveway.
They didn’t go back into the house until we pulled away. I glanced into the rearview mirror and saw that the street was still empty. My imagination was playing games with me, I guessed. Actually, I hoped.
“How long have you been in Quincy?” Michael asked. He appeared to be well into his fifties, the hair along his temples more white than gray, but he also looked hard and muscular, like someone who had worked with his hands most of his life. His face was narrow, the skin on his cheeks as tight as the skin on a drum. I thought his best feature was his eyes, the color of rich, healthy grass.
“Only a few hours,” I said.
He nearly lost control of the truck. “A few hours?”
“Yes.”
“Are you a friend of the family or something?”
“No. I just met Mrs. Winston. I found her rooming house listed in a travel publication, called, and just settled in.”
He shook his head. “And she recommended you to be her nephew’s private secretary? The quickest decision I understand that woman’s made was deciding to marry her husband after a five-year engagement. What’d ya do to win her over, recite the Articles of Confederation word for word?”
I laughed. “I didn’t even know it was for the position of Mr. Dolan’s private secretary. Besides, I’m just going in for an interview,” I said.
“Yeah, but you don’t know the influence that woman has with my boss. She had more to do with his bringing up than his own mother, her sister.”
“Well, despite that, I’m sure he’ll decide for himself about something as serious as his private secretary. I think she was just being kind.”
“Just being kind?” He laughed and looked at me. “What are you, all of eighteen?”
“Every day of it and some more,” I said.
He nodded and smiled. When he smiled, his tight face softened and brought out the bright green of his eyes even more. It helped him look younger. “Well, I’ll say this much. You hit town at the right time. Ken’s looking for a replacement for Michele. She’s like ten months pregnant. The joke is she’s in the right place to break her water, a plumbing supply company.”
“What exactly is a plumbing supply company?” I asked.
He laughed. “Sometimes I have to wonder myself. We sell mostly to builders and plumbers. There is a division for design, too, so we can contract to do the plumbing and plumbing fixtures in a newly built home, bathrooms, kitchens, and commercial buildings. Ordinary do-it-yourself guys come around for parts, tools, and supplies like filters. We’re the biggest plumbing supply outfit in Quincy, which brings in customers from Boston proper, too. It’s a multimillion-dollar enterprise with more than fifty employees.”
“Sounds like Mr. Dolan’s secretary has a lot to do.”
He nodded. “A lot, but there are five additional secretaries, bookkeepers, and receptionists. What’s your experience as a secretary? Not that someone as young as you would have much, I’m sure.”
His question brought home how utterly ridiculous it would look to anyone else for me to be rushing to an interview for such an important position. And yet, although it would be impossible to explain to anyone outside of our special family, I wasn’t inordinately nervous, nor did I feel foolish.