Free The Trespassers by Laura Z. Hobson Page A

talkative pattern.
    Since twelve, when she had got in, she had been shoving aside everything but the new problem Ann had handed her during the morning. She didn’t suppose there was this much rush about it, but she wanted to get it under way before she got snowed under by the daily routine.
    In a few moments now Larry Meany would be here, at her office. He was lunching uptown; he phoned to suggest coming there instead of asking her down to 120 Wall Street. He sounded very pleasant.
    She liked his face, when she saw him. He was young and blond, not yet thirty, and his topcoat was slightly shabby. She liked the sure way he shook hands, smiled. She liked the direct, frank look of surprised appraisal he gave the entire office, as though its size and obvious rank impressed him.
    “I’ve never done an affidavit,” Vee began after a moment. “Mrs. Willis said you’d ask me a lot of personal questions.”
    “Yes. They’re routine. Confidential too, except for the State Department. Nothing worse than your income-tax statement.”
    He started with the Vederles, the name, the age, the birthplace of each. Vera kept consulting Vederle’s letter to Ann. It was all there. Meany made rapid notes as she answered his questions, and she saw his pencil pause uncertainly for a moment when she told him that Christa Vederle was not born in Austria but in Budapest.
    “In 1903, Budapest was Austria-Hungary.”
    “Why, does that mean anything?” she asked.
    “No.” The slight hesitation of pencil and voice vanished. “Oh, no. She goes under the same quota as her husband. Now let’s get on to you.”
    He jotted down his rapid notes on the vital statistics she gave him.
    “That’s that,” he said. “Now—your income?”
    “The bigger it is, the better for the Vederles?”
    “Sure.”
    “Twenty thousand,” Vera said.
    “That ought to satisfy the Visa Department, all right,” he said to his notebook. “That’s salary and dividends and all income?”
    “No. Just my salary here.”
    His busy pencil stopped. He smiled.
    “Career women are wonderful,” he offered pleasantly. But it touched off an anger spot in her. “Career woman” was such a stupid, obvious badge, thrust upon any woman who worked for a living—and did well at it. Not the countless women and girls who slaved eight hours a day for twenty to thirty dollars a week—they were simply people who had to work. But let one of them do well in that same eight hours—
    “I don’t work because I’m mad about a Career,” she said quietly. “But since I don’t take alimony, I have to support myself.” The moment she said it, she was surprised that she had needed to refute him. He looked up quickly.
    “Rebuke,” he said, “if you think I need it. I didn’t mean to write an editorial about career women. I admire them—or people like you, anyway.”
    “Sure. Skip it. I’m sorry if I sounded—anything.”
    The unexpected small clash bothered him. He sat silent, thinking, then gave up his search for the right thing to say.
    “Well, anyway,” he said, “what with your salary and the Swiss francs, there won’t be any trouble on this case.”
    “Good. That’s what Mrs. Willis said.”
    “I’ll draw up the affidavits. You sign them before a notary. Then you send the original to Vienna. Dr. Vederle will take it to our Consul there.”
    “Is that all?” The simplicity of it again seemed incredible.
    “Not quite. Will you make some notes now?”
    Vera stretched out her hand to the side of the table. A concealed buzzer sounded softly, and instantly a lanky, leggy girl came in with a notebook opened and held by a rubber band.
    “You must have met by now. Miss Benson, Mr. Meany,” Vera introduced. They both nodded, with the overbriskness of embarrassment. “Benny, take down some instructions from Mr. Meany, will you?”
    Larry Meany dictated directly to the secretary.
    “Miss Marriner must get a letter from her bank, saying she’s had an account there for