To Be a Virtuous Wife, According to the Manual novel · Chapter 22 of 24
Chapter 22: The Telephone Company
Marlene read the card aloud to me three times, and then she folded it very small and put it down the front of her dress.
"I'm going to say something to him tonight," she announced, "that has never been said in the state of Ohio."
"I'm not sure I'm allowed to hear it."
"Then put your fingers in your ears."
She was halfway over the fence when she turned around.
"Oh! And I forgot. I tore something out of the Courier for you."
She dug in her pocket and held out a column of newsprint, creased and smudged.
"Beginning the first of March," it said, "the telephone company will accept applications from married women for part-time clerical positions."
I read it standing at the kitchen window with a dish towel in my hand.
I read it twice.
My heart does not hurry for anything, but it stumbled against my ribs.
I went to the telephone company on Friday, the sixth of March.
I wore my navy suit and my good hat, and I carried my savings book in my pocketbook.
The supervisor of the bookkeeping office was a woman I had worked beside for nine years. She looked up from her desk and went pink.
"Mrs. Rausch."
"Good morning. I've come about the notice."
"You resigned."
"I did. The company didn't keep married women."
"It has changed its mind," she said, and looked at her blotter. "Several of us suggested it. Some of us in writing."
She slid a form across the desk. I read it all the way down and signed it in ink.
Twenty hours a week. Afternoons. A dollar-ten an hour, and my own pay envelope in my own name.
"You'll start Monday at one," said the supervisor.
Then she did something she had never done in nine years.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of To Be a Virtuous Wife, According to the Manual are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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