Page 29 of I Saw You First

Today, as every day, she’s glammed up with false eyelashes and rhinestone clips in her hair. She’s wearing a forest-green A-line dress with a black patent belt at her trim waist and giant black buttons on the bodice.

“I’m excited to read your articles,” Glamma says as she pours us both a glass of iced tea, “but first, how’s your new job?”

“It’s good.” I take a sip. Glamma loves a bargain, and she stocks up whenever the big canisters of Lipton are on sale. The sweet, lemon flavor is the comforting taste of all my summers growing up. If I’m lucky, the massive amount of sugar will somehow help alleviate the tension headache that’s lingered since… well, since I found out about Wil Wilshire being Wil Wilshire. “It’s so different from the newspaper, but oddly enough, I like it a lot.”

“Oh, I don’t know what’s so odd about it. That job seems right up your alley, and I’m sure you’ve met some very interesting people. You get your love of music from me, you know.” She winks. She’s loved me like a real granddaughter since the moment she met me.

Before Glamma married Ray, her first husband, she was a singer on a post-war radio show in Chicago—Oliver Fletcher & His Swingin’ Singers & Orchestra. Glamma sang Broadway tunes and Ollie Fletcher originals with five male singers, backed by a big band orchestra. In all the photos, she wears gorgeous dresses, sparkling jewelry, high heels, and her trademark flirty smile.

My new gig at Hometown is the opposite of her glamorous radio career. But I fill her in on the job and how my body is finally adjusting to my weird retail sleep schedule.

“So,” she says, “tell me what really happened at TC Weekly.”

I nearly choke on the fry I’m chewing. “What?”

Glamma raises her painted-on eyebrows. “Maybe my obtuse son and his slightly less obtuse wife—no offense to your mother, of course—can’t see there’s something fishy about you suddenly losing your job, but I’ve got a hunch.”

“Mmhmm,” I say around another mouthful. I chew and swallow. “Layoffs happen all the time, Glamma, in every industry.”

“Funny, then, how that very morning, your mother was over here bragging about how you were meeting with your new editor about a promotion, but the next day, she called to tell me your current position had been eliminated instead. Now, I know I’ve been out of the workforce for quite some time, but wouldn’t it make more sense to promote you and then simply not hire someone for your previous role?”

My mouth falls open a little and I blink a few times. “That would have made sense, yes.” I force an awkward half-laugh. “Not everything they do at TC Weekly makes sense.”

Glamma purses her lips. “Still, I suspect there’s something you’re not telling me.” She takes a sip of iced tea. “Either you were never up for that promotion, or something happened in that meeting. And I can’t imagine why you would fabricate the potential of a promotion.”

I shrug and look toward Papa’s console record player. The music has stopped, so I get up to flip the record, and Doris Day’s distinctive voice and the bossa nova rhythms of “Desafinado” fill the room.

When I return to the table, Glamma says, “Did I ever tell you why I left the Oliver Fletcher orchestra?”

“You met Ray, right, and moved to Minneapolis?”

She nods. “Well, I moved back, yes. I didn’t meet Ray until after that.”

This is a surprise. I always thought that she’d left her radio career for love. “Why did you leave?”

“I’m sure you’ve heard the term casting couch.” She dabs at the corners of her lips with a monogrammed linen napkin.

My hand flies up to cover my mouth. My senior capstone project was an investigation into sexism during the golden age of Hollywood and the mostly unknown women who fought against it. Unknown because their careers ended when they didn’t acquiesce to the manipulation and sexual harassment.

The beast in the pit of my stomach stirs, the monster who’s been mostly quiet since I tucked away the memory of that day in Ryan’s office, and a wave of nausea comes over me. Did Glamma experience sexual harassment—or worse?

She reaches across the table and grabs my hand. Her soft, papery skin is warm and comforting. “Now, now, don’t you fret.”

“What happened?” I ask, my eyes wide.

“Well, as I’m sure you can imagine, being the only woman in a chorus had its challenges, and there were only three or four women in the orchestra at the time as well. For the most part, the men were respectful and acted with the utmost decorum. Oliver Fletcher was a man of honor, you see, and high expectations. One of the musicians got arrested for public drunkenness, and after Ollie bailed him out, he fired him. There was no room for any sort of scandal or inappropriate behavior.”

She releases my hand and starts gathering up our dishes. Glamma has a hard time sitting still. “I’ll bring in dessert. This story calls for cake. Sit tight.”

She returns a few minutes later with a tray of coffee and homemade angel food cake with lemon curd drizzle, my favorite, although I’m not sure I can stomach it. I take a small sip of coffee.

“We rehearsed a couple of times a week,” she says, “and we had the radio show on Saturday nights. I shared an apartment with one of the gals from the orchestra, and we’d always travel to and from the studio together. She was a doll, that Peg Cavanaugh, such a talented musician.

“I’d been with the chorus about three years when Oliver Fletcher got sick,” she continues. “It came as quite a shock. The man didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, never had a cold. He simply collapsed one day at rehearsal, and the next we heard, he was scheduled for surgery and would miss six weeks.”

“What was wrong with him?” I ask.

“Well, I never found out, to be honest.”