Page 15 of A Mind of Her Own

In the four months after his Christmas visit, Oliver wrote to Alex more regularly, but he made no mention of coming to see her again, and she didn’t press him.

They were both busy, he was finishing his book, and she was buried in her final year of studies to earn her diploma.

And she had no idea when she would see Oliver again.

Alex had classes all day in Chicago on her birthday.

It was another holiday she chose to ignore now every year, since there was no one to celebrate it with her.

She didn’t tell her classmates what day it was.

She wasn’t close to them.

She studied too hard to have a social life.

She took two books out of the library for her literature class, and went back to her room at the dorm to study.

It was a blustery spring day, as it was every year, and sometimes it snowed in Chicago in April.

The dorm supervisor at the desk glanced at her when she walked in with her blond hair flying.

“You have a visitor,”

she said.

“He’s been waiting for two hours in the drawing room.”

Alex couldn’t imagine who it was, and walked in.

She thought it might be her grandfather’s attorney.

He had some papers she had to sign for the estate, for her inheritance.

It was her twenty-first birthday.

She walked in expecting to see him, and Oliver, a huge bouquet of roses on the chair next to him, uncurled his long legs and stood up, and Alex was stunned to see him.

“Oh my God! What are you doing here?”

“I know someone in Chicago having a birthday, so I came for the night.”

He glanced at the chair next to him.

“The roses are for her, but you can have them if you want,”

he said, putting the flowers in her arms and giving her a quick kiss, before anyone could see them.

Public displays of affection with male visitors were strictly forbidden.

“Can I interest you in dinner?”

“Yes!”

she said with delight, and snuck another kiss.

“Where are we going, what’ll I wear?”

She was thrilled that Oliver had remembered the date and come.

“Whatever you want.

Today is your day.”

“You came all the way from New York for my birthday?”

she said in disbelief, and he grinned, pleased with her response.

“I owe you a letter, and I’d rather come to see you than send you another postcard.

Besides, I missed you.”

He had written to her, but not frequently, and he had started a second book, another crime novel.

He had found his niche.

The first one hadn’t sold yet, but his agent felt sure it would soon, and Oliver was hopeful, and already engrossed in his new book.

Alex took the roses to her room with her, put them in a vase on her dresser, and was back twenty minutes later, dressed for dinner.

They had dinner at the restaurant of his hotel, and caught up on all the news since Christmas.

She told him she didn’t have a job yet for the fall, but she had written to the World, and they hadn’t responded yet.

She had asked if there was any department more mainstream and interesting than the society column at the paper.

But Oliver had told her that as a woman, they were unlikely to hire her for any other section, except for the general secretarial pool and she had better skills than that, after college.

She didn’t really care, as long as she found a job and could be near him.

It was hard being so far away from each other all the time, and it was wearing on both of them.

She had another four and a half months at the University of Chicago before she got her diploma.

They were in the home stretch, but it seemed long to her.

The evening rushed past them like an express train, but she was touched that he had made so much effort to be with her on her birthday.

He was always attentive and thoughtful and loving, except when he was deeply immersed in writing, or in one of his dark moods, which still happened from time to time.

She was getting used to it, and recognized the signs when he became unresponsive.

But he bounced back now faster than he used to, usually in a week or two.

He took a midnight train back to New York and wouldn’t let her come to the station with him.

He said it would be too dangerous at that hour for her to go back to the dorm alone.

She hadn’t seen him in four months and savored every moment with him.

They were becoming experts at enduring a long-distance relationship, despite his erratic communication skills, which were still spotty.

But he had won major points for the birthday visit, and he had given her a little silver charm bracelet with a silver heart on it, with the date, which was thoughtful.

He had given her a book of poetry too.

Oliver’s fellow reporters in the Crime pool were surprised that he and Alex were still hanging in after two years, and told him it was the price to pay for being in love with a schoolgirl, and not an adult, waiting for her to grow up, but Oliver seemed happy.

—

He came to Beardstown three months later for the Fourth of July, and it was just as festive and picturesque as Alex had promised.

He loved the area as much in the summer as he did in winter.

He and Josiah were happy to see each other and chatted at length about some new printing machines they had acquired that were twice as fast as the old ones, and the paper in New York didn’t have them yet.

Paul had never minded spending money on state-of-the-art equipment which increased efficiency, so Josiah was operating along the same lines.

Oliver was able to spend four days with her over the holiday, with some careful trading with his colleagues.

The paper had written to her four weeks earlier and offered her a job in Society.

In addition to her normal duties, she was going to write the copy for all three branches of the department.

Sylvia Bates was delighted that she was coming back, to stay this time.

She had written Alex a personal note and said that she hoped they’d be celebrating her twenty-fifth anniversary at the paper one day, like Sylvia.

None of them knew that she owned a newspaper in the Midwest.

Only Oliver knew, and he was discreet about it.

But it gave her options for the future that the others didn’t have.

They had offered her a very decent salary, for a woman.

But it still didn’t compare to what the male reporters were paid, although her work wouldn’t be as dangerous as Oliver’s, which made a difference. She wouldn’t be covering members of the mob, or reporting on crime scenes littered with bodies. She would be attending weddings and debutante balls, and social events that involved stage and screen stars and celebrities, and she needed the wardrobe to go with it.

Oliver was thrilled she was coming back, and he promised to help her find an apartment, hopefully close to his.

They were both excited about her return to New York City, after twelve long months apart by the time she got there.

He came out for her graduation in September, which was small, since the main ceremony was normally in May, but there was a small ceremony for the dedicated students in her program.

She was the only woman, and all of the others were married and some had children, which was their reason for wanting to get their diplomas sooner, to help them get better jobs to support their wives and children.

Alex wanted hers so she could join the workforce and get a real job in New York, and be near Oliver, and she was tired of school by then.

She arrived in New York a week after she got her diploma, and reported for work on the Monday following her arrival.

She had found an apartment that weekend.

It was a small studio, in a brownstone within walking distance of Oliver.

It was tiny compared to her room in the dorm, and smaller than her dressing room in her grandfather’s home, but it was her first apartment.

It was furnished, so all she had to do was unpack when she got there.

The furniture wasn’t beautiful, and it was old, but it was clean and the one room she had was sunny.

It came with linens and kitchen equipment, and she didn’t need anything more.

Alex wasn’t spoiled or extravagant, and adapted to whatever she had.

She didn’t want to spend a fortune on rent, and was trying to live on her salary, although she didn’t have to. And having seen her home, Oliver admired her for being so restrained. She wasn’t a frivolous person.

Some of the faces had changed at Society when she showed up for work.

Melanie was gone, but the three editors were still there.

There were some new girls who seemed nice.

All of them were older than Alex.

She was always the youngest person in the room, but didn’t mind it, and she got along with her coworkers.

Sylvia considered herself her mentor, and had recommended her for the job, for which Alex was grateful.

On the day she arrived, Alex and Oliver began their regular lunches again, and Sylvia kept asking her when she thought they’d get engaged.

“Maybe never,”

Alex said honestly.

It had been two years and there was no sign of it.

They were comfortable as they were.

“We both want careers, and marriage isn’t compatible with that, not for women anyway.”

“Maybe you should start dating other men,”

Sylvia said pensively, “to make him jealous.”

She’d never been married, since her long-term lover already was, and he was Catholic and would never leave his wife.

But she loved giving everyone advice.

Alex had no desire to meet or date other men—she liked the one she had.

She had read in the paper that Phillip Baxter had gotten engaged and was getting married in the fall.

His fiancée had come out at the New York deb ball two years before, and was a year younger than Alex.

Alex had liked him when they met, but their daily lives were just too far apart with him at Yale, and her in Chicago, and once she met Oliver, Phillip just seemed like a nice boy to her.

By normal standards, Alex should have been married by then, or at least engaged.

But she had no desire to give up her independence.

Sylvia told her to watch out for that, that it was dangerous and could become a habit, and make Alex unsuitable for any man. And at thirty-eight, Oliver was slipping into the category of confirmed bachelor.

They cooked a turkey together in his apartment for Thanksgiving and a week later, he was excited when he met her for lunch in the cafeteria.

He whispered the news to her, so no one would hear him.

“My agent has a publisher for my book.”

His eyes were alight with excitement and she was thrilled for him.

His dream was coming true.

“They’re offering me a three-book contract for the first one, the one I’m working on now, and the next one.”

He already had an outline for it.

He was on his way.

“That’s fantastic!”

she whispered back.

“I’m so proud of you!”

He was beaming.

“I think I’ll quit on the first of the year.

I can coast for quite a while now.”

They were paying him handsomely for the three-book contract, and she knew he had money saved.

He’d been hoping for something like that.

“And it’s a good publisher.”

He was ecstatic.

“Can’t you wait for a while to quit?”

she said in a whisper.

“I just got here.”

She’d only been there for two months in her new job.

“I’m dying to get out of here.

If I see one more crime scene, I think I may kill someone myself.

I’ve had enough.”

She knew it was true, although her job would be much less fun if he wasn’t there.

But she knew she didn’t have a right to impact his career just so she would have someone to have lunch with.

It wouldn’t be fair to him.

“Let’s celebrate this weekend,”

he said.

“I’m off.”

Every weekend he didn’t work felt like a vacation to them.

She patted his hand and smiled, profoundly happy for him.

And his books were great.

He deserved a lucky break.

She brought a bottle of champagne home for him that night, and he had made a reservation at Delmonico’s for Saturday night, his favorite fancy restaurant, and she was looking forward to it too.

They were in a very adult relationship for a girl her age, and it was getting harder and harder to keep it chaste, ever since she’d been back in New York and they saw each other every day.

It was particularly hard when he came to her apartment, since almost the entire apartment was taken up by the bed, and there was no couch, just two straight-backed chairs at a drop-leaf dining table, so if they wanted to sit anywhere more comfortable, they wound up on her bed and went further than they intended.

She didn’t know how much longer she could hold out.

They wanted each other so badly, but were still trying to resist. And given the risk, she didn’t want to cross that line yet. Neither of them wanted to get married just so they could have sex.

—