Free The Other Typist by Suzanne Rindell

switch she could flick on and off at will, and the rumors did not appear to have any effect on its flow. But despite having an abundance of charisma constantly at the ready, the surprising truth about Odalie was that she was not an open book and purposely seemed to avoid intimacies. Or so I intuited in the study I’d made of her behavior to that point.
    When Marie deposited the week’s reports to be typed on Odalie’s desk, she always tried to strike up a conversation. Odalie was polite, but she rarely elaborated on her answers, and never asked Marie questions of her own—which kind of galled Marie, I think. I suppose on some level, being a bit reticent and choosy about company myself, I secretly approved of this. That is, I approved of it until she showed her utter lack of discretion and taste and invited Iris to be her very first lunch date. Perhaps it would’ve been more disappointing if it had been Marie, but oh—Iris! Harelipped, buttoned-up, flavorless Iris. I know I appear awfully plain on the outside, but Iris is one of those people who appears awfully plain on the
inside
. She said to me once,
Only children should have hobbies,
and she herself has none. No passions, not even any reading habits I know of—she reads only the newspaper, and she is even boring in her approach to this, for she reads it straight through from first page to last page, skipping nothing—not even the advertisements or obituaries or anything. And after she is done reading, she comments on one thing only: the weather. I might be the least authorized person to say so, but even
I
know Iris is a bit of a snore.
    I don’t go in for gossip much myself, and it’s not as if I approve of Marie’s nosy conduct and busybody chatter, but one thing I personally cannot tolerate is someone who makes you feel terrible for being interested in the business of others. After all, it is only human to be curious about others, and only a prude would deny it. But Iris is one such prude. Once, when I noted that the Sergeant had not brought in his lunch tin for more than a week and wondered aloud if there was trouble brewing between him and his wife, Iris was quick to quip,
Now, Rose, that
’
s not called for. Best to mind your own business, else people might get the wrong idea about you and the Sergeant. Don
’
t tell me they neglected to impart a proper sense of professionalism to you at the typing school
 . . . I dislike gossips, but one thing I hate more than gossips are people who masquerade as though they are somehow above it all and have earned the right to condescend to the rest of us.
    After Odalie and Iris came back from their lunch, I made some polite, perfunctory conversation and then returned my attention to the report I was typing. Of course I told myself my exclusion from their lunch didn’t bother me a bit, but something was nagging at me. I was agitated, irritable. Perhaps I had drunk too much coffee that day, for my fingers jittered over the typewriter keys in the worst way. I accidentally hit several of the wrong keys, ripped the report page from the rollers and threw it away, inserted a fresh sheet, and promptly made the same hurried mistake all over again. Seething with annoyance, I decided to give it up. I put on my gloves, took the cigarette from my desk drawer, and slipped the contraband down the wrist of my left glove. It turned out the gloves concealed the stolen cigarette quite neatly. No one so much as looked up when I excused myself and walked outside.
    I wandered several blocks to the alley I’d visited the first time I’d tried to smoke the blasted thing. This time I did not forget to bring along something to light it. The Lieutenant Detective had been chewing on the end of a wooden matchstick all morning (a habit he was prone to when he could not find a toothpick), and when he left it unattended on his desk I took the liberty of adding it to the small collection of bric-a-brac gathering in the back of my desk drawer.