1: Abysmal Monday

Hurrying to the subway entrance through the lightly falling snow, Evelyn paced beside Lily on the busy New York sidewalk. Listening as her friend hummed a song from the radio show they’d heard together during dinner the night before, she joined in with the bouncy countermelody at the song's chorus, smiling in amusement. “It’s catchy, that tune.”

Slipping ahead of Lily through a narrow space in the rushing crowd, they descended the hard cement stairs into the subway, single file. Fishing in her purse, an expensive black leather drawstring with round bracelet handles that her aunt had purchased as a gift for her upon her graduation from the Fifth Avenue Secretarial School, Evelyn quickly found a dime, and dropping it into the turnstile, moved with the shuffling masses onto the platform.

Along the tracks amid teeth clenching squeals, a cold rush of wintry air and the echoing thunder of the cars, the subway train drew alongside the platform. Stopping completely, with an almost hermetic hiss the doors on the opposite side whooshed open and departing passengers flooded out onto the platform across the tracks from Evelyn and Lily. A few seconds after, the boarding doors opened, allowing the train to fill again with new commuters. 

“What’s your day looking like?” Evelyn asked as the noise dropped and new passengers surged forward with them, crowding closely into the recently arrived train.

“Easy. Mr. Frederickson is in last minute finance negotiations with vendors from the World’s Fair all day.” Lily grabbed the opposite side of an overhead handloop, sharing it with Evelyn as the train lurched forward, jostling oblivious passengers against one another. “Tomorrow will likely be a nightmare catching up on all this correspondence. What about you?”

“Not so lucky, I’m afraid.” Evelyn braced her feet in a wider stance against the drawing motion of the train, apologizing quickly to the frowning man beside her. “Mr. James’ first meeting is at nine—with his brother— and he has several scheduled the rest of the day.”

Lily and she exchanged an astounded glance. Though both James brothers worked in the same building and for the same company, the younger Andrew’s workload as Vice President over accounts, with over forty financers besides his older brother Russell under him, seldom allowed him much time for anything but work. These scheduled visits, while most often about accounts, were tantamount to a social call from the ambitious workaholic.

Evelyn and Lily spied him occasionally when they took their lunch at the foyer fountain, rushing with long purposeful strides across the parquet floor of the Trust’s lobby to his awaiting car or obsessively counting along with the elevator as it rose or fell. Privately, Lily would tsk-tsk each time, saying working so hard was a terrible waste of such a beautiful man.

Evelyn hadn't decided whether she thought that was true.

More often than not, if they happened to glance up on their way home in the evening, the lights were visible through the high windows well after business hours where James the younger kept his office on the Trust’s thirty-eighth floor among the upper echelons of the corporate hierarchy. As far as she was concerned, Andrew James' 'beauty' was hardly of benefit if he never had time for someone to enjoy it.

What Evelyn appreciated tremendously was that as brothers, an inherent trust existed between Russell and Andrew that extended from their personal into their professional circumstances. It was something Andrew took advantage of, focusing more of his attention on other financers’ accounts and activities, presumably where it was needed, sparing her the uncomfortable responsibility of greeting the uptight and stoic younger Mr. James as frequently as other secretaries in the building, Lily included. As long as Russell’s balances were in the black during the monthly review she collated and delivered to the thirty-eighth floor, Andrew apparently took it on faith that everything was alright and seldom took time from his jammed schedule to arrange such meetings.

In fact, it had been several months since he’d met with Russell vis-à-vis at all. Strangely, the two hadn’t managed to connect even over the winter holidays, when Evelyn had been asked to deliver the younger James brother’s Christmas presents to his thirty-eighth floor office for her apparently reluctant to intrude employer.

By Evelyn’s best accounting, Andrew James was generally and simply neglectful, as both a brother and a boss. Which meant the most likely reason for this visit was his niece, Russell’s daughter, Sarah, would be turning ten soon and he needed gift ideas. She couldn't imagine the younger Mr. James wasting his time for any other reason.

The two women rode the train in silence after that, staring blankly through the windows at the surrounding blackness of the tunnels, occasionally broken by the flash of an overhead light and the bright crowded platforms as they rushed by. Getting off together at the same stop, they bumped along up the stairs to street level with the mindless throng to make the remaining two blocks of their journey to work by foot along the congested New York sidewalks.

“Oh!” Evelyn’s disappointed whisper condensed in a white puff and she shivered despite her warm coat and the press of people around her. Tipping her head back, she let the bodies packed around her guide her steps and blinked against the tiny dry snowflakes drifting between the tall buildings against the narrow stretch of gloomy gray sky visible in between. From somewhere, she heard a car horn blare and the raucous shouts of annoyed cabbies, and the smell of fuel exhaust and poorly made coffee from the street vendors bombarded her. She was tired of winter weather, of cold and snow, and finding it snowing again put an unwelcome damper on her Monday morning spirits.

Something about it simply boded ill.

As if 1939 needed anything else to make it terrible.

With the US of A still suffering the effects of the Black Tuesday market crash of '29 in nearly every market sector— heavy industry, construction, farming, logging, fishing and mining in particular— and abroad, with political tensions high in Europe and Germany’s chancellor’s aggressive foreign policy and large scale rearmament, there were growing concerns of another war as European countries proclaimed their alliances and polarized against each other.

To Evelyn’s post-war generation, raised by parents alienated by the hopelessly narrow-minded, avaricious and passionless policies of its global leaders, suffering under growing income disparities only intensified her desires to curb the power of capital, end the poverty she saw all around her, and enable people to legitimately advance themselves, even as she struggled with her conscience and trudged to work at a global corporate financial powerhouse.

A girl's got to eat, she reminded herself, sighing dispiritedly and drifting, guided by Lily to the inside of the sidewalk. They flowed smoothly out of the sidewalk traffic through the silent revolving door at the Irving Bank and Trust, which everyone employed there referred to simply as 'the Trust', and where they both worked, Lily on the fourth floor and Evelyn on the ninth, then across the bustling Art Deco lobby’s elaborate parquet floors to the lifts.

As they waited, Lily elbowed Evelyn in the side.

“Ow! What was that for?”

“Look,” Lily hissed, rolling her summer sky blue eyes towards Evelyn’s right. “Speak of the devil.”

Among the gathered, Andrew James stood stiffly, his face fixed in a ferocious scowl and his eyes locked on the elevator’s dial, slowly falling to the lobby level. One foot tapped in time with the elevator’s sporadic progress downward, like a ticking clock of doom.

“Oh no,” Evelyn groaned softly, her face scrunching up. “What’s he doing here already?”

“Looks like you’ll be riding up with him,” Lily teased. “Charming, isn’t he? Such a shame.” She giggled, watching as Andrew unbuttoned his long coat, folding it carefully and draping it over one arm, then adjusted his gold cufflinks without looking and without acknowledging anyone around him.

To their left, the lift for the first five floors arrived. “I’ll meet you by the fountain at lunch,” Lily called, pouring into the emptying space with the others going to one of those floors. Her slender hand waving over the heads filling in around her in the elevator was all Evelyn could see.

In her periphery, Evelyn noted that as the lobby area before the lifts cleared, with departing individuals rushing on to other engagements and new lift passengers pressing in close so they didn’t have to wait for another elevator, Andrew James also moved, putting a wider space between himself and the others remaining, like her, but nodding politely to those few he recognized. Oh, the toils of the fortunate few living a life of meaningless decadence and inherited power, she sighed to herself. Even still, covertly, she studied him.

Andrew James was an ambitious man, rumored to be next in line as the Trust’s president—the youngest ever— if that old lecher Harold Melton ever retired. He was known as a cool-headed and shrewd businessman, prone to acerbic remarks and harsh negotiation tactics, and he managed his team with an iron fist entirely lacking any sort of velvet glove. In the three years since she and Lily had become employees with the Trust, he’d been through twice that many secretaries, opting finally to dispense with one entirely rather than patiently train to his exacting standards. 

She did have to give it to Lily--

he was most certainly a beautiful man. Meticulous to a fault with his appearance, his clothes were always perfectly tailored, the knot of his tie always straight, his shoes always polished and his coat brushed and lint-free. Draped over his lean athletic frame, his attire added to the stony impression of unforgiving perfection created by his deep-set and striking sometimes blue-sometimes green eyes, dark brown tousled hair that defied being slicked back with pomade and fine full mouth the envy of Errol Flynn, even if it was perpetually set in a brooding scowl.

As if detecting her subtle scrutiny, his head swiveled, his mutable eyes boring into hers and she flushed finding herself suddenly the attention of such a man. Flashing an embarrassed smile, Evelyn nodded politely, glancing away, but wasn’t so fortunate as to be freed quite yet. At exactly that moment, the lift for the sixth to tenth floors arrived.

“After you,” Andrew James urged from slightly behind her as space inside the elevator cleared, with the purring arrogance of his exceptionally wealthy upbringing and the seductive warmth of an elitist Ivy League education, the audio version of a lingering kiss that made Evelyn flush again with embarrassment that her legs felt trembly.

Inside the elevator, the younger Mr. James counted obsessively, tapping one foot as restlessly as a caged jungle cat as the lift rose from floor to floor, pausing to let some passengers exit and a few new ones board. With a sly glance, Evelyn noted he paid no more attention to anyone around him than he appeared to in the lobby.

To distract herself from his uncomfortable presence, Evelyn looked about at the other passengers. “Those are lovely,” she commented to a skinny delivery boy in an ill-fitting building uniform beside her, both arms full of cheery yellow and fragrant daffodils.

“Aye. I suppose,” he replied, glancing at her, then did a double take. For several long seconds, he stared deeply into her eyes, pale silvery blue irises that darkened at the edges to a smoky indigo.

Knowing this was frequently the effect her unusual eyes had on others, Evelyn waited, watching as the delivery boy’s gaze widened and he saw the rest of her. As a slow smile spread over his face, she reacted with her own.

“Nuisance though,” he continued, recovering quickly. “I have to deliver one to every suit in the building by the end of the day.”

Casting a brief glance at Andrew James, she turned slightly to direct her voice and asked softly, “By chance, would one of those be for Mr. Russell James on the ninth floor?”

The delivery boy flashed her a wide grin of slightly crooked teeth. “You can choose your favorite if you’ll take it off my hands.”

As passengers shuffled positions and exited the elevator, Evelyn shifted around the uniformed delivery boy in a tight dance, sorting through the collection of wrapped pots he held and quickly selecting the plant she thought was nicest.

“Wonderful! Thank you!” She waved, ducking out on the ninth floor at the last second and catching the burning stare of Andrew James in the instant before the doors closed. At least she didn’t have to wait with him, she thought gratefully, deliberately dismissing him from her mind and making her way towards her desk.

“You’re so cheerful,” she said to the silent plant. “Just what I needed today.”

Setting the brightly colored daffodils on her desk near Mr. James’ office door, Evelyn unbuttoned her wool coat, tucking it with her hat, scarf, purse and lunch box into the lower desk drawer, the largest and only personal space she was allowed. Checking her wristwatch, she rushed to the tiny staff breakroom around the corner from the elevators. Poking her head in, she sighed. Since she was the first to arrive as usual, she would wind up making coffee for the four office suites. Heaving a deep sigh, Evelyn set to work.

She hummed the tune from the radio again as she started coffee percolating on the single hot plate, then rewashed Mr. James’s coffee cup. Drying it with a towel, she filled it when the coffee was done and balancing the cup carefully so not to spill, glided smoothly across the office and efficiently swiped the potted daffodils off her desk.

The coffee’s rich aroma was swept away in an icy blast of air and snow that gusted by her as she opened Mr. James’ office door. Evelyn caught her breath, shivering violently at the unexpected chill. “What on earth?” Pushing the door wider, she gasped, finding her answer.

One of the office’s large windows was thrown wide open, the cold draft of air drawn through it by the now opened door rustling stacked papers on Mr. James’ desk and sending them fluttering to the floor like loose feathers. Seated on the sill, his legs dangling outside, was Mr. James. Hearing her gasp, he glanced over his shoulder as the air swept past him, and seeing her, shuffled himself forward to jump.

Dropping the mug of hot coffee and the flowering plant, Evelyn dashed forward around the desk, a scream caught and choking in the back of her throat. As if in slow motion, she watched his bottom slip over the sill edge, his arms rise over his head as he started his fall.

“No!” she managed to scream finally, crashing in a horrified panic against the jutting window sill and flailing into the air with her own for his hand. Sudden wrenching pain ripped through her shoulders as, below her, Mr. James’ fall was arrested.

By some small miracle she’d caught his hand.

Swinging wildly through the open air by one arm, he crashed into the brick siding of the building, sending new jolts of violent pain shooting through Evelyn’s body with every erratic impact. Each one tore a shrill, agonized cry from her throat that echoed into the open office and bounced back at her from the surrounding buildings, feeding her frenzied panic.

Though she clutched at the sill, Mr. James’ bulkier weight dangling below was pulling her out the window with him. “Help!” Evelyn screamed past a throat already going hoarse from her pained cries, into his office over her shoulder, praying someone was near enough to hear. “Help! Please!” Icy wind gusted, forcing the aimless snowflakes to fly parallel to each other and the ground vacillating nauseatingly below and blowing her walnut brown hair about her face and into her eyes wildly.

“Miss Moore.”

Her name was spoken softly. Politely. The cultured voice and his words penetrated her whirling consciousness like sound muffled by a pillow. Evelyn glanced down to see Russell James looking up at her.

In his gentle brown eyes a bottomless desolate misery swelled, reaching up like a monster to engulf them both. With sudden clarity, Evelyn realized Mr. James hadn't simply made an error of judgment in a moment of despair— he was resolved to die. With mounting terror, she shook her head vehemently, hot tears welling in her eyes.

“No. No. You have to hold on!” she pleaded. “Help is coming. Please, Mr. James. You have to hold on!”

He gave her a weak smile. “It’s not your fault, Miss Moore. It’s mine.”

Her falling tears spattered his neatly pressed suit jacket and shirtfront. When one landed on his face with a stinging plop, Mr. James flinched against it, then flexing his hand open, he released Evelyn’s arm. “Let me go.”

“No!” Her piercing scream echoed off the nearby buildings, and below them, people began to notice.

At street level, traffic abruptly stopped, with horns blaring and shouted complaints and threats rising faintly over the noise of the wind. Then an open space cleared beneath them, with foolish people grouping in small clusters amid the jammed traffic, pointing and watching Evelyn’s nightmare unfold. In other buildings around them, the blinds were opening, and a second set of gaping onlookers stared uselessly, drawing their coworkers to gawk with them across the miserable space as she clung desperately with one hand to Mr. James.

“Help!” she screamed over her shoulder again. Where were her own coworkers? Why was no one helping? How could no one hear her? With so many now watching below, how could no one inside know? “You have to hold on! You have to hold on to me!”

Inside the building, Evelyn felt the slick bottoms of her shoes slipping, then her feet rise from the floor as she tipped out the window after Mr. James. Panic lit up the nerves in her head like NYC seen from the observation deck of the Empire State building. Though she struggled to catch her feet against the window frame and bent her knees to press against the interior wall, the only thing holding them both now was the clawed grip she had on the windowsill and the negligible offset of her weight against his outside. And as if it wasn’t enough that she was already losing the counterweight battle, the inside of her palm was sweating despite the chill of the air at this height, and her grip on Mr. James was slipping.

Her own panicked voice inside her head was shouting, if you don’t let go, you’ll die! against the desperate pleas of her trembling voice to Mr. James dangling below her, “If you don’t hold on, you’ll die!”

As if hearing the sound underwater, behind her, Evelyn heard a masculine shout.

“Russell!”

“Please, Mr. James! They’re coming!” she assured the unmoved man hanging below her, her own shrill cry cutting like a blade through her head. “You can’t let go! Hold on to me!”

But the reassurance was a thinly veiled hope. Her single clawed hand hooked white-knuckled and cramping painfully in desperation on the windowsill was not enough to hold them both any longer. With a terrified shriek, she felt her body fold, pulled out into the frigid open air to plunge towards the ground.