THE DEVILS DIME Read Online Free PDF Page B

In the two months she’d been here, she was certain everyone had figured out that she owned only two shirtwaists and three blouses—two ecru and one white.
    She hung the lightweight blouse over the wire she had strung from her bedpost to the top of the window casing. The light fabric would dry before morning. And it wouldn’t need pressing, so she wouldn’t have to warm up her little room by stoking the little coal stove to heat up the flatirons.
    Addie smoothed the wrinkles out of the sleeves and fingered the unique embroidery along the collar points. They were some of the last stitches her mother had sewn—another reason why it was the perfect thing to wear tomorrow.
    She’d wear it to work at the bank, and since the orchestra didn’t play on Thursdays, she’d have the evening free to attend to the one last errand she’d been putting off since moving back to New York City.
    She knew the shirtwaist showed off her long neck and slim waist and gave her the look of a modestly successful, independent woman. Exactly the way her mother had taught her. Exactly the way she wanted to appear when she met the father she hadn’t seen since she was four years old.

Chapter Three
     
    Addie swung around the last street corner before reaching the bank and grabbed her hat brim as a gust of wind caught it. Morning in New York City was a far cry from morning on the smelly outskirts of Chicago.
    Windy, yes. And colorful. Though here, the color was merely painted onto the side panels of horse-drawn trucks. In Chicago, the streets were made bright by actual mounds of tomatoes and squash and every conceivable vegetable jouncing along in the backs of open wagons.
    New York City, it seemed, was much too civil to parade its produce through Battery Park, much less the middle of Manhattan. Everything here was concealed.
    The breeze died down for a moment and allowed the city smell to creep up once again from alleyways and gutters. She wrinkled her nose. Maybe that’s why goods traveled in enclosed panel wagons — to secure them from taking on the odor as they passed through.
    But she did love mornings here, in this city so purposefully striding into its day. She joined a cluster of women crossing the boulevard and stepped up onto the wide walk that would take her directly to the bank. It had been a good walk. Her shoes had stayed fairly clean and wouldn’t need to be buffed before she stepped into her cage.
    Chase National Bank occupied most of the block at Cedar and Greenwich. It was the bastion of financial authority in the city. And, for that matter, many parts of the world. Aristocratic to the core and provincial in the most minute detail, it was a hallowed place. Its fortressed walls told the people of the sprawling city that their money was safe.
    As it had each day for the past two months, the click of her heels on the granite steps signaled that it was time for Addie to switch roles. Check the independent impresario attitude at the door, and don the pleasant smile of subordinate to the men who actually ran the institution.
    Here women, like children, were to be seen and not heard. As Addie had learned the hard way, deviating from the prescribed procedure was not an option. Whether slow or cumbersome, or downright antiquated, the bank’s way was the only way.
    Once she became accustomed to the idea, she found it had one very nice benefit for her. She wasn’t required to think overmuch. Just do the job and follow the rules, and save all that creative energy for the other job to which she could truly give her heart and soul at the end of the day.
    The tails of her hair ribbon tickled her neck as the heavy doors closed with a rush of air behind her. The rhythm of shuffling papers and thumping hand stamps had already begun, and Addie welcomed its calming effect as the grandness of the place descended upon her.
    And so did Hamilton Jensen.
    The moment she saw him approaching, Addie veered to the left to put an additional rank of desks