Story: The Ad Said (part one)

The Ad Said

(part three)

“Girls wanted. See? Good wages. Steady hours.”

“But look here. Must pass physical exam.”

“You’re crazy,” their mother said.

Hester smacked Hermina’s arm. “Come on! Let’s go down to the corner.”

The corner meant the drugstore, where they could take a bet on a baseball game, if the radio was going and the guys were at the counter. The sisters rarely cleaned up. But Hester, who was tall, could get in front of Hermina, block the view of her from the mirror next to the cash register. Hermie would lift them something small, but needed…a jar of Ponds, some falsies, a couple emery boards.

“Are we crazy, Hettie?”

Hettie blotted her lipstick—tomato red her shade when their mother was not there to comment—and snapped her compact. “I think it’s war work. That’s why they don’t say too much. Is a white slaver gonna advertise like that?”

“Well, I’ll go, if you can’t get off.” Hermie grinned. “Way over there, on the other side of town. If I got hired, I guess I’d have to get a room…”

“Too bad. You’d hardly ever make it home for a visit.”

Their laughter subsided at the door. They ducked in and grabbed stools.

“Nah, I’m chucking it,” Hettie said. She made thirty cents an hour, dipping chocolates. “We’ll room together.”

But the day they got there, no one was offering jobs. No chance even, to reach the head of the line. A woman walked it with a clipboard, asking names, addresses. Giving them hope, at least. She wore a suit-jacket and skirt, glasses, hair rolled tight. So much respectability made Hermie sure her sister was right. War work. Real money.

“You two. Are you over eighteen? I feel like you’ve got the same last name.”

After this lady’s long day, she could joke. That had to be a good sign.

“God, I’m twenty-three,” Hettie said.

And the woman said, looking at Hermie, “What’s your place of birth?”

“U.S.A.” Easy.

“Okay, everyone. That’s it. Come back tomorrow.”

“She didn’t write us down,” Hermie whispered.

“It’ll be fine.”

Hettie was busy crunching the hem of her skirt, where their mother would sew a surprise coin. Sometimes. The sisters had nothing left. Lunch, they’d had to spend what was going, stuck for choice with a workers’ canteen, in this neighborhood of mostly factories.

1

he Ad Said

The Ad Said (part two)

(2018, Stephanie Foster)