There You Are

While waiting for Charlie to call me any day now to tell me I was the only woman he could ever love--I had no way of knowing he had actually met someone else and was planning a wedding--I took baby steps to move on with my life just in case he didn't come back. The first step was moving in with my new friend, Lisa; the second step was getting a job.

In high school I excelled in classes that gave me few options in the work field: clerk/typist, receptionist, secretary. I held all of those positions at Kunz & Kunz, Attorneys at Law, in downtown Indianapolis. The workload required overtime without pay; there was pressure to not make one typographical error (one original and three onion skin copies), and everything needed to be done yesterday.  The lawyers' expectations for the secretaries were many: We had to wear tailored suits or dresses, high heels and accessorize to compliment our outfits. Pretty wasn't a requirement but all of the men in our office preferred it. We had to be smart, lightening fast and calm under pressure; the last being the most challenging. (One of my co-workers had a nervous breakdown at her desk and had to be escorted to the door.)

I was the secretary for two attorneys:  Howey and Larry, but in each of their minds, I was their own personal slave. I could be typing a mistake-free, twenty-five page brief for Larry (or Howey)  when Howey (or Larry) would buzz me to come to his office.  With steno pad and pen in hand, I'd sit down in a chair across from Howey (or...you know) and take down in shorthand whatever was on their minds at the time. "Pursuant to our heretofore conversation, plaintiff in said deposition blah, blah, blah." Larry talked fast; 125 words a minute.  Howey's words came out to about 50 words every two minutes. That's because Howey was slow. Real slow. How slow was Howey? you ask. Good question. Thanks for asking. Howey was so slow I would sometimes fall asleep while taking dictation from him. He wasn't very smart either (not all attorney brains are created equal), and that was one of the reasons I left the law firm after two years. I was smarter than my boss, the man who was making ten times what I was making ($1.35/hour), the  man who treated me like chattel, the man who proved to me I could do better than sit at a desk and type.

The day I left  Kunz & Kunz, I drove straight to Weir Cook airport to interview with Lake Central Airlines. My friend, Becky Harper, was an airline stewardess, based in Chicago, with United Airlines and I envied her life; I wanted to be a server-of-beverages in the sky, too. The lady I spoke with said I would be considered for the job if (1) I could walk like a model, (2) act demur, (3) carry a tray with a drink without spilling it, (4) gain five pounds, and (5) get my hair back to it's natural color which was mousy brown, not platinum blonde. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. So I got the job. On my first trial run in the sky, I sat in the back seat during the entire flight with a barf bag stuck to my face. The second flight was better; I threw up only once. The third was even better. I didn't throw up once, but I was nauseated from the time the plane took off until it landed. "Great job, Carol Louse! You have stopped barfing on the job. You are now be a waitress in the sky."

A month later, somewhere between Pennsylvania and Indiana, I gave my notice.  As the DC3 shook, rattled and rolled from the turbulence, I staggered up the aisle with my hand covering my mouth. Stopping just before I reached the pilots, I threw up, luckily in the bag I had been holding on to since we left Philadelphia.  When I got to the cockpit, the captain turned around and burst out laughing. "You're green!," he laughed. "I quit," I said and then turned around, staggered back to the last seat, while passenger after passenger tried to stop me. "Oh, Miss, I need a drink." I ignored them; I was no longer a waitress-in-the-turbulent sky.

I was also no longer wearing a sign that read, "You can touch, grab, and harass me. I'm fair game." Well, it wasn't an actual sign that I wore. Let's call it "entitlements" that some of the passengers believed they had because of that "Good Ole Boys" club they belonged to. A week before I quit, I was the only stewardess on a DC3 that picked up ten executives from a resort in West Virginia. The agenda for the day was meetings, drinking, golfing, drinking, hot springs, drinking. As they boarded the plane, I knew I was in trouble. Most of the men were functioning drunks, some were staggering, about-to-pass-out drunks. As soon as the plane reached cruising altitude, I unbuckled my seat belt and started down the aisle to attend to the needs of my passengers. Luckily for me, about half of the men were asleep or passed out. That left five still awake drunks. Of those five, three were awake but in a stupor. Subtract three from five and that leaves two obnoxious drunks. Two fat, slobbering old men who think my boobs are perky and cute. Two disgusting, foul smelling men who want me to sit on their laps. "No! She's mine!" "No, she isn't; she's mine!" The two men argued over who's property I was. I was manhandled from one lap to the next and back again. As I struggled to break free and work my way through the drunken obstacle course, one of the less intoxicated men stood up, approached the men, and without saying a word took me by the hand and led me to the back of the plane. "Stay here," he said. "I'll handle these guys." So I stayed in the back of the plane while choruses of "Miss, oh, Miss. I need a drink" drifted back to me. Then silence. Everyone was asleep.

Next job: WIFE Radio Station, 1330 North Meridian Street. "Executive Secretary to the President" was my title. $1.50 an hour was my pay. I was the president's right arm. I was his right arm because apparently his didn't work; I got his coffee in the morning, sharpened his pencils,  and dialed the phone for him; he told me what he wanted to say, but because of that bum arm of his, I wrote or typed all of his correspondence. It's difficult to do everyday simple things when you're missing a limb, so I ran all of his errands: bank deposits, drop off and pick up dry cleaning, get his lunch, stand on the courthouse steps to bid on tax sale real estate, and pick up from the airport celebrities like Little Richard, Tiny Tim, and Bill Cosby.

It was about this time when I started taking college classes at night at Purdue University extension. My boyfriend had told me that college wasn't for everyone--I took that to mean it wasn't for me--but when he saw that I was getting A's in all of my classes, he encouraged me to continue taking classes.

In my twenty fourth year,  I didn't want to be a man's right arm anymore, so I quit my job and moved to California. Well, that was my plan anyway. I wasn't happy with how my life was going:  a longterm boyfriend who dangled a "pitter patter promise" in front of me, yet broke out in a sweat when the M word was mentioned,  and jobs that underutilized my potential.

The day I left WIFE, my boss gave me a card, but instructed me to not open it until I got to California.  I opened it as soon as I got to the parking lot because I was hoping for money to fund my move. Instead it was a piece of paper. It read, "No matter where you go, there you are." It made no sense to me...then.

Next job: Private Investigator for Pinkerton.