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YES, TLANK YOU
When we reached the end of the hall Judy Griffith said
to me, "This is the rest room kind of cozy with the wicker
furniture, isn't it? Pal and I are working the same trick
this week, 7-11, 12-4. It's not bad. Better than nights.
Though you get more working nights. We're having a fifteen
minute relief now; if that Isn't enough tine for you, you can
cone back this afternoon. There's a relief every four hours."
She thrust out a hand to wake the other operator who lay flat
on her back on the wicker lounge. I protested, and Judy.
smiled reassuringly. "It's O.K. Once Pal's eyes are open
she won't mind, I know her. Besides its worse sleeping for
only fifteen minutes, you wake up groggy and achy. Pal, wake
up. Here's someone wants to hear us say more than 'Number,
please' and 'Yes, thank you.'"
The girl Pal wa pretty. her oval face shone with a
healthy pallor accented by a long black bob and thick, sooty
lashes. She propped herself on an elbow and blinked at Judy.
"Well, Nuisance, what do you want?"
Obviously they were good friends, accustomed to chaffing,
unresentful. Judy guessed, "You must have had a date last
night." She turned to me. "This is Palmira Fernandez. When
you don't see her lapping up a chocolate milk at the drug
store 'cross the street on Ier relief, you know darn' well
she must have had a date last night."
"Date!" Pal's voice was ironic. Judy asked in quick
sympathy. "What's the matter, that farlily of yours stay up
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again to keep you company?"
Pal nodded. "Bill couldn't get the car last night, his
father was going to some meeting. We had to go to the movies
and then home. You can't just park in some booth half the
night without ordering anything. Bill gets paid on Saturday,"
she explained for my benefit. "We were both broke so we went
home. Johnny .4ny brother- had his gang on the porch; my mother
was holding down the living room until Dad got back; my sister
and Lucy Cano were trying out dance steps in the kitchen, I
went to bed as soon as I got home*
Bill's sick of supervision.
I don't blame him. It's different when he has the car. ,Even
if there's no gas we can sit and talk and listen to the radio.
Anyway it's privacy."
"You're better off than Evelyn Drandelli," Judy commented.
"I was coming downstreet last night 'round eight, I saw her
meet Joe on the corner. Has to every time. He's never been
to her houpe. They're sore 'cause he's not Italian*"
elmy folks like Bill well enough," Pal said. "It's just
that they believe in that eternal chaperoning. They wore
brought up that way in Spain. You'd think the two of us got
so much nature we couldn't be left alone a minute without
starting a family. When they don't care for someone they let
you know. Last year while I was going with Pete my father
swore the kitchen blue. Told me not to get serious over a
stonecutter, though he's one himself and always has been,
He meant well. I mean my father. He's had a brother and an
uncle died from doing that kind of work.
"There's a whole clan of us Fernandez in town. All from
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Santander, Spain. I've never been there. My folks came over
twenty-nine years ago. A baby brother of mine -their first
baby- crossed half way with them. Some epidemic broke out
on board. They never knew what it was except that it was a
fever. My brother died when they were five days out. My
mother was so sick that they told her a cousin in another
cabin was caring for the baby. She believed it. When they
reached New York she asked for the baby, ands of course she
had to be told. She nearly went crazy. She made my father go
to the kitchen and ask the cook for a bottle, and she made
him fill it with ocean water. It was all she could ever see
of the baby's grave, she said. It's still in her dresser
drawer at home, pushed back with medicine bottles and hair
nets. She takes it out on All Souls' day and Memorial Day,
and sets a bouquet in front of it.
"We've always lived on Berton Street. Not an ideal res-
idential section, but it's near the shed where my father works.
At first they rented it, now they own it. About a dozen sheds
are clustered there. When they're going full blast they make
an awful racket.
"Eosins was the nest baby. She's entered the convent
in Burlington. Next year she takes the black veil. My folks
carried on something terrible when she decided to enter. Now
they're as proud as peacocks. You'd think she was the only
one they'd given birth to. We see her one Sunday a month'.
A friend of Rosina's -a nun- was given an awfully funny name.
I can't even remember it. Mother hoped and prayed that Rosinaid
get one she could twist her tongue around. She's called
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Sister Mary Thaddeus* Mother's Already got in the habit of
calling her Sister Tadeo. That's the Spanish for Thaddeus*
"Sylvia and John are still in high school* Sylvia's
mind is set on being a nurse. John talks medicine all the
time. Well, I wanted to teach,- and look where T am. I
started to work right after graduation and planned to work
only for the summer. It seemed so good earning my own money
that I decided to stay the year. Then I stuck. It's not a
bad job. It was awfully complicated at first, hard to got
used to the switch board. You get darn' sick of saying
'Number, please,' and 'Yes, thank you' all the time. At
first it was just 'Thank you.' Now it's 'Yes, thank you.'
Next thing you know it'll be 'Yes, thank you. I'll try,' or
some such nonsense. You get so used to those words they're
apt to roll out of your mouth anytime. I was shopping in the
dime store the other day, and when the clerk handed me the
change I said, 'Yes, thank you.'
"Yeu'd like our chief operator. She doesn't play any
favorites., There's only about 18 in our office. Montpelier
has over twice that. We don't take long distance calls*
Those go through the Montpelier office*"
"We get some funny calls," Judy remarked* "Remember
last winter when a play was being broadcast, a play about
Mars attacking the earth? Well, a local man called and
wanted to know if it were really true. I told him I knew
nothing about it. I didn't. I hadn't heard the radio. I
didn't know whether to be scared or to set him down as a
lunatic. The man was frantic* Wanted me to call New York
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and get the truth. I told him I couldn't.
"Being on nights alone gets boring. Whoever's on usually
locks the door and has the office to herself. Sometimes that
Norwich crowd will call -if they haven't anything more excit-
ing to do- and try to date up the operator. Whether they
know you or not. They've got an awful bump on themselves,
think they only have to whistle and you'll come running.
Well, they've another guess coming as fir as we operators are
concerned. Most of the time we hang up on them, but if it's
a slow night we let them gab just to keep us awake.
"Sometimes we're asked to be alarm clocks to heavy sleepers.
Someone'll call the night operator and ask her to ring his
number at a certain time in the morning. We aren't supposed
to do that, but you hate to refuse a little favor
"Occasionally we get a person who thinks we're some
sort of information bureau. A couple of weeks ago a sales-
man called from the hotel. He wanted to know what movies
were showing, and which was the best. And just yesterday
a woman wanted to know the name of a cheap but good beauty
parlor in town."
Pal said, "My mother'll never get used to a phone.
There's only one number she'll call and that's my aunt's.
If she needs groceries she'll go downtown herself and get
them, or she'll wait until one of us is home to phone the
order. She has a dread of being misunderstood over the phone.
She isn't the only one. You'll find plenty of local foreign
speaking old people who hate to use a phone."
Judy glanced at her watch. "Olir relief's up," she said
to Pal. And to me, "We have to go now