roning: this tedious, humid, cramping drudgery has become the ideal cover for a double life. Richard’s never ironed a shirt in his life. He has no concept of the scale of the task, if it takes half an hour or half a day. Lainie wakes up before dawn, speeds through as many chores as possible, hustles the kids off to school, and then watches the morning news through steam, stretching out the ironing until Richard leaves. The hours she’d bargained for with Bernie Clay run ten to three, allowing her plenty of time to get to work, and also plenty enough to return home and mask the exotic scent of fresh office paper with the pedestrian odors of perfume.

Richard drives away, the old Thunderbird clanging, and Lainie folds the ironing board she’s been pretending to use for ten, or twenty, or thirty minutes. Lying to a husband is a virus in a marriage, she knows this, but she hasn’t found the right way to tell him. She hasn’t felt such thrill and promise since when? The days of being courted by Richard, maybe, that sharp-suited soldier fresh out of the Korean War? The early days of courting, anyhow; months into dating, at which point betrothal was inevitable, she’d already begun to feel loose gravel beneath her feet.

Lainie doesn’t let herself dwell on the past. So many parts of her current days excite, interest, and satisfy her, none more than the quick change into the work ensembles she keeps ready in the back of her closet. It’s a new kind of challenge, dressing for a job. She’s taken written notes of the secretaries’ wardrobes. She’s made three separate trips to Sears. Formal, not casual. Handsome, not pretty. Flattering, not frilly. Contradictory objectives, but that’s being a woman. She keeps skirts slim and flannel, collars petaled or bowed, bodices modest and belted.

The bus ride to work is just as gratifying. Mastering the bodily etiquette of public transport, claiming a seat all her own, snugging into her arms a handbag packed with paratrooper efficiency, and best of all, the cursory but fond eye contact between her and other employed women. They sat alone, but they were in this thing together.

The men at Klein & Saunders—well, they’re men. For the first week, her rear end was pinched exactly once per day, each time by a different man acting with the smug entitlement of someone choosing the plumpest shrimp from a buffet. The first time, she’d squealed. The second, she’d clammed up. By the fifth, she’d learned the working woman’s scowl enough to get the offender to offer a guilty shrug. She glared at this final pincher long enough to watch him join a group of chuckling backslappers. Her pinched butt burned. The whole week had been some sort of sophomoric contest.

So she’d set out to win it, to prove she was more than a grabbable ass. No doubt it was the same goal of the agency’s typists and secretaries. Or the ladies on the bus. Or the women who scrubbed floors at Richard’s lab. No matter her mood, Lainie held her head high. She drilled herself on the phone system over lunch. She projected her voice with a confidence that, day by day, she began to believe. The pinching dwindled. The men were kind to her. Then, even better, they quit being kind. They relied on her; they snapped at her when she messed up; they bought her cards and flowers when she saved their skins.

And at that, Lainie has become adept. It is both science and art, marshaling the parade of egos that crowded the lobby: tycoon execs, TV commercial playboys, yearling models. She learned to dial dead phone lines and improvise baloney to impress clients. “Hi, Larry. Pepsi-Cola had to reschedule to Thursday.” Lainie intuited when to do this. It was like monitoring Richard’s mood before asking for spending money. Of course, these days she didn’t ask; she had money of her own. She was proud of it and longed to share that pride with her husband. But he wouldn’t understand. He would take it as a personal affront.

Word reached Bernie that his impulse hire was paying off. Last week, he’d asked her to lunch. For the first half hour, he’d been like the rest of them. He’d pressured her to get an adult drink, and when she’d declined, ordered her a Gin Rickey anyway. She sipped at it once to appease him, and he’d taken that as a signal to reach across the table and place his hand atop hers. She could feel his wedding band. She slid her hand away, keeping her smile tight and cold.

It was like she’d passed a test neither had realized was being given. Bernie took a slug of his Manhattan, and the alcohol appeared to melt the salaciousness into an easy, uncomplicated affection. What must it feel like, Lainie wondered, to be a man and so blithely modify your intentions without fear of consequence?

“Look,” he said. “I invited you to lunch to offer you employment.”

“But I have a job.”

“Yes, a job—a part-time job. What I’m talking about is a career. A full-time position. Eight hours a day, forty hours a week. Benefits. Retirement package. The whole ball of wax.”

“Oh, Bernie. Thank you. But I told you—”

“I know what you’re going to say. Kids, school. But you know Melinda in accounting? You know Chuck’s girl, Barb? There’s probably six or seven ladies we’ve got on this deal right now. There’s a day care in the building. You bring them with you bright and early, and there’s a bus that comes around delivers them to their schools like packages. Klein & Saunders picks up the tab.”

“But why—” She held the Gin Rickey to settle her fidgeting fingers, even considered taking a gulp to settle her pulse. “Why would you do that for me?”

“Well, heck, Elaine. In this racket, you find someone good, you lock her down. Otherwise, she ends up at Arnold, Carson, and Adams spilling all our trade secrets.” Bernie shrugged. “This is the sixties. A few years from now, it’s going to be a woman’s world. You’ll have every single opportunity a man has. My advice is get ready, position yourself. Get in on the ground floor now. Receptionist today, but who knows? Office manager tomorrow? Down the road, future partner? You got the stuff, Elaine. You’re sharper than half the boneheads in the building.”

Had she drained the cocktail without realizing it? Her vision swam. To steady it, she looked past the bastion of ketchup, mustard, and steak sauce, and out the window, and saw a mother struggle with a grocery bag while pushing a wobbly baby carriage. Lainie looked in the opposite direction, into the restaurant’s murk, and saw sharp-suited sharks flashing teeth at heartsick mistresses, who prayed the men’s hungry looks meant something beyond their being devoured.

Lainie could guarantee them that the looks meant nothing. Just last night, Richard was saying that the asset he’d been hired to guard was nearing the end of its utility, and when it was gone, maybe the Stricklands would pull up stakes from Baltimore. He doesn’t like it here; she’s seen him with encyclopedia volumes on his lap, looking up Kansas City, Denver, Seattle. But Lainie does like it here. She thinks it’s the greatest city in the world. To be uprooted from the one place where she feels useful capsulizes the danger of attaching yourself to a man in the first place. You’re a parasite, and when your host begins to die—say, from an infection in his fingers—your bloodstream is poisoned, too. She wanted to say yes to Bernie. She thought about it every day, every minute.

But would that be saying no to Richard?

“Tell you what, you think about it,” Bernie said. “Offer’s good for, let’s say, a month. Then I guess I’ll hire a second girl. Hey, let’s eat. I could eat a horse. Two horses. And the chariot behind them.”