“It’s none of your business,” the first woman said.
“I speak four and can write three more,” Amanda said quite loudly, so that most of the people in the line could hear her. James, waiting in the car, smiled encouragement at her.
“What’s that?” said a young man with a notebook who was moving down the line. “Did someone here say she could speak four languages?” He looked at Amanda and the other three women.
“I do,” Amanda said.
The young man looked her up and down. “What are they?”
“French, Italian, Spanish and German. I can read and write Greek, Russian and Latin.”
He was writing as she spoke but he crossed the Latin out. “Any Oriental languages? Hindu?”
“I have only a rudimentary acquaintance with Chinese but I’m afraid I’m not fluent in it.”
The man gave her a quizzical look. “Any other ’rudimentary acquaintances’?”
“A bit of Japanese, a bit of Hungarian.”
People in the line were beginning to leave as they gave malevolent looks to Amanda.
“Come with me, honey,” the man said and grabbed Amanda’s arm and began pulling her into the hotel.
The lobby was a mess, with people running everywhere, people shouting, people sitting on every available surface. There were bundles and suitcases piled along the walls. Children were screaming; men were smoking and frowning; women w
ere looking exhausted and ignoring the demands of husbands and children. The air was blue with smoke; the noise was deafening and it must have been a hundred and twenty degrees in the airless room.
“Stand right there,” the young man said to Amanda. “And don’t leave. Whatever you do, don’t leave.”
Joe Testorio pushed his way past the people in the line and into the room that was supposed to be Dr. Montgomery’s bedroom. Hank, in shirt sleeves that he’d sweated through, was interviewing one applicant after another. Reva Eiler, his secretary, stood behind him—or maybe hovered was a better word.
“I found her,” Joe said, putting his head between Hank and the applicant. “She speaks four languages, can read and write three others and knows ‘a little’ of three more.”
“Yeah?” Hank said. “So where is she? You should have tied her to the door to keep her from getting away.”
Joe ran back into the lobby. Amanda had not only not walked away, it didn’t look as if she’d moved a muscle. Can follow orders, he thought.
“He’s waiting for you,” Joe said and took Amanda’s arm and began pushing people aside to get her into the hotel room.
Amanda’s breath caught as she saw Dr. Montgomery bent over some papers and asking questions of a nervous, dirty little man. It seemed like ages since she’d seen him.
“Here she is, Doc,” Joe said.
Hank looked up and saw Amanda, resembling a spring flower growing out of a dung heap. She looked cool and fresh and pretty and oh so wonderfully desirable. “No,” Hank said, then turned back to the man on the other side of the desk. “And what do you speak besides Italian and English?”
“My English not so good but my Italian is very good,” the man said with a heavy accent.
“But what other languages do you speak?” Hank asked angrily, knowing too well that his anger was for Amanda. Why couldn’t she just get out of his life altogether?
No, Amanda thought, he was not going to dismiss her just like that after all she’d gone through to get here. She couldn’t bear the idea of facing either of her parents if she failed to get the job.
“But, Doc,” Joe wailed.
Amanda stepped forward. “May I be of assistance?” she asked. She could feel Reva’s eyes boring into her but she wasn’t going to let herself be defeated. In perfect Italian she said to the little man, “Dr. Montgomery would like to know if you speak any languages other than Italian or English.”
Grateful to at last be able to understand someone, he poured out his problems to Amanda: that he had seven children to feed and he needed a job and five dollars a day was an enormous lot and he hoped he could get the job but he only spoke Italian and English only a little bit.
Amanda thanked him and wished both him and his family well. She turned to Hank. “English and Italian and that’s all. Shall I help with the Mexican family next in line?”