American Empire: Blood and Iron - By Harry Turtledove Page 0,130

could have done it.

May said, “He’s been sniffing around Lillian for a while. He’s probably been doing more than sniffing, too; she’s a little chippy if I ever saw one.” She sniffed herself, then went on, “But I haven’t seen Lillian for the past couple days, and—”

“She quit,” Sylvia said. “I heard one of the bookkeepers talking about it. She’s moving out to California. It’s good for your lungs out there.”

“Well, if she quit, then Frank is going to be on the prowl for somebody new,” May said. “We’ve watched it happen often enough now.”

“Often enough to be good and sick of it,” Sylvia said. “And I wish to heaven he wouldn’t come sniffing around me. If he doesn’t know by now that I don’t feel like playing games, he’s an even bigger fool than I think he is.”

“He couldn’t be a bigger fool than I think he is,” Sarah Wyckoff said.

Sylvia took a big bite of her egg-salad sandwich. She wished she were a gigantic carnival geek, biting the head off of Frank Best instead of a chicken. Then she shook her head in bemusement. He really had to be on her nerves, or she would never have come up with such a bizarre mental image.

She said, “I wish I could find another job. But how am I even supposed to look for one when I’m here five and a half days a week? And jobs aren’t easy to come by, not like they were during the war.”

“It’s a nasty bind to be in, dearie,” May said. “I hope it turns out all right for you.”

“The worst he can do is fire me,” Sylvia said. “Then I will have time to look for a new job. When he gets to be like this, I almost wish he would fire me. You girls are dears, but I wouldn’t mind getting out of this place.”

“What makes you think it would be different anywhere else?” May asked. “You’d still have a man for a boss, and you know what men are like.”

“Careful,” Sarah said in a low voice. Frank Best strolled past and waved to the women at their dinner break. He doubtless thought his smile was charming. As far as Sylvia was concerned, it was so greasy, it might have been carved from a block of lard.

She lit a new cigarette. The foreman favored her with another oleaginous smile when he returned from wherever he’d gone. “Almost time to get back to the line,” he said.

“Yes, Mr. Best.” Sylvia looked forward to returning to work about as much as she looked forward to going to the doctor to have a carbuncle lanced. Sometimes, though, she had to go to the doctor. And, when the whistle blew, she had to go back and paint red rings on galoshes.

Frank Best left her alone for twenty minutes after that, which was about fifteen minutes longer than she’d expected. Then he came back toward her with a pair of rubber overshoes in his hand. The rings on them were perfect. Sylvia had made a point of painting perfect rings since he’d started bothering her again, to give him as little excuse as she could.

But, being the foreman, he didn’t necessarily need an excuse. Sylvia dipped her brush in the can of red paint by the line and painted two more perfect rings on the galoshes in front of her.

“Tried to slip these by on me, did you, Sylvia?” Best asked. He thrust the overshoes in his hand at her.

“I don’t see anything wrong with them,” Sylvia said.

That turned out to be a mistake—not that she had any right course. “Here. Take a closer look,” Best said, and stepped up right alongside her. He brushed her breast with his arm as he brought the galoshes up and held them under her nose. That might have been an accident—had he not been bothering her all morning.

She took half a step back—and knocked over the can of red paint so that most of it spilled on his shoes. That might have been an accident—had he not been bothering her all morning.

“Oh, Mr. Best!” she exclaimed. “I’m so very sorry!” I’m so very sorry I didn’t think of that a long time ago.

He jumped and hopped and used language no gentleman would have employed in the presence of a lady. He’d already proved he was no gentleman by treating Sylvia as if she were no lady. “You’d better watch yourself!” he said when something vaguely resembling coherence returned to