“Lots of things went belly-up when the city defaulted. Businesses shut down, nobody could find a job. Lucky for us, we have a lot of work to do.”

She gazed up at the coffered ceiling and its hundreds of tiny murals and gilded filigree. It was a shame. Whatever had gone wrong at the bank all those years ago had locked it away for nearly twenty years.

A warm breeze whistled through the bronze revolving doors. She could almost picture men in tweed suits and secretaries in high heels filing into the lobby one by one. Hundreds of people must have walked through each day. She wondered if any of them ever bothered to look up.

CHAPTER 2

Thursday, November 2, 1978

Beatrice Baker froze just inside the First Bank of Cleveland building and gaped at the enormous ceiling like it might fall down on her head. She’d never seen anything so grand and intimidating in her whole little life. The sight of it nearly sent her reeling back out onto the sidewalk. A man in a three-piece suit and heavy sideburns gave her a polite nod before heading out the revolving doors. He thought she belonged there, she realized, and she tried to smile back.

Up on the ninth floor, Mr. Thompson scanned her job application, then tossed it onto his desk. “So tell me a little about yourself, Miss Baker.” He leaned back in his leather chair and lifted his thick, graying eyebrows at her.

Beatrice was perched on the edge of her seat with her legs crossed at the ankles just as she’d been taught. “I graduated from Cleveland Heights High School last spring. Since then I’ve been working as a clerk at the Murray Hill Convenience Store.”

It was the script she and her Aunt Doris had been rehearsing for weeks. She spoke clearly, slowly enunciating each word. She tucked a lock of ironed blond hair behind her ear.

“What sort of work are you doing at a convenience store that qualifies you to be a secretary here at the First Bank of Cleveland exactly?”

“Well, let me see . . .” Beatrice paused to keep her voice from wavering or falling to a whisper. Her aunt had told her to speak up and be confident. “Answering phones, placing orders, and balancing the register each day.”

“Do you type?”

“Eighty-five words per minute!” This part of her résumé was actually true. She had practiced on Doris’s old Remington for months.

Mr. Thompson looked her sternly in the eyes. She tried not to fidget as he sized her up. “Don’t look uncomfortable or defiant,” Doris had warned her. “Just be an honest girl with nothing to hide.”

Beatrice was tiny, blond, blue-eyed, neat, pretty—everything Doris said she needed to be. Her tweed skirt and knit blouse were ill-fitting. Her shoes were cheap. Her accent was faint, but her aunt assured her the hint of Appalachia only added to her charm. At sixteen, she was far too young for the job, but she’d lied on the application about that and many other things.

His eyes paused on her blouse, which was unbuttoned just enough to flash a little cleavage. What Mr. Thompson didn’t know was that her aunt had stuffed tissues into her bra to make her look older.

She squirmed uncomfortably and tried to direct his gaze back to her face. “I appreciate your consideration. Working for the First Bank of Cleveland would be a real honor.”

“Really? Why is that?”

Doris had lectured her the night before. “These banker types don’t want to know your life story. They just want to know if you can type and look cute doing it.”

Beatrice had gaped at her aunt’s comment. “What are you saying? All that matters is if I’m pretty enough?”

“Pretty enough, young enough, fresh enough. Nobody wants to hire someone with a past.” Doris had slumped on the couch and taken another drink. “Poor girls like us without rich daddies, without fancy schooling, without a husband, we have so few cards to play. You got your good looks and your good name. That’s it. You can’t afford to squander ’em. If you play the hand wrong, little girl, you’ll end up slinging hash in some dive just like me.”

Beatrice had studied Doris’s ruddy cheeks and rough hands. “What happened, Aunt Doris? Why don’t you work at some bank?”

“Don’t you go worrying about that now. It’s in the past. So what are you gonna say when he asks why you’d be honored to work at the bank?” Doris had prompted her.

“The First Bank of Cleveland wrote the mortgage on my parents’ house twenty years ago, and we’ve been loyal customers ever since.” She smiled as she lied to Mr. Thompson, feeling like her face might just crack under the pressure.

He folded his arms across his chest skeptically. He could see right through her—she was sure of it. She struggled to hold his piercing gaze without flinching. His eyes wandered back to her chest.

“Well, we like to think of ourselves as a family business around here. Although I must say, hiring a young girl like you does concern me a bit. We lose so many, you know. All that time spent training the girls, and then they up and leave. They run off and get married.” He tapped his fountain pen on his desk blotter. “We may be a family business, but we have to keep our eye on the bottom line. How do I know you’ll be a good investment, Beatrice?”

“Um . . .” She cleared her throat. “I don’t have any plans to get married, Mr. Thompson. I . . . I want a career.”

“That’s what they all say.”

“But I mean it!” She took a breath to regain her demure composure. “I don’t want to cook and clean house all day.”

“What about children?”

The color drained from her face. “Children?”

“Yes, children. Do you plan to have any?”

Her eyes began to water, and she quickly dropped them to her lap. She dug her fingernails into her palm. She couldn’t believe he was asking her such a personal, awful question. “No.”

“Really? Pretty girl like you? I find that hard to believe.” He set his pen down onto the desk blotter.

She wasn’t going to get the job. After all those months of preparing and all of Doris’s advice, she wasn’t going to get it. She had to say something if she was going to have any chance in the world.

“I grew up taking care of five brothers and four sisters, sir, and I can say with absolute certainty that I have no interest in having a baby. I am not spending one more minute knee-deep in diapers! No, sir! I want something better, and you have no idea what I’ve gone through to get it. I want this job!” She nearly shouted the words, and then recoiled at the sound of her own voice.

He laughed out loud. “Well, well, Miss Baker. Aren’t you just full of surprises? That’s exactly the kind of dedication we’re looking for. You’re hired.”

She blinked the fire from her eyes. “Really?”

“Be here at 9:00 a.m. sharp Monday morning. Report to Linda in Human Resources on the third floor.”

She strained to hear the instructions through the adrenaline buzzing in her ears. Something about a Linda on Monday.

“Thank you, Mr. Thompson. You won’t regret it.”

The room spun with his impertinent questions and her own audacity as she followed him across the shiny floor of his corner office, past the mahogany bookshelves and crystal wall sconces. Five brothers and four sisters—where did she come up with that? So many preparations, and it all came down to whether or not she was going to get pregnant. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

At the door to his office, she stopped and waited for him to extend a hand to shake. Doris had taught her what to do if anyone made the gesture.

He patted her on the shoulder instead. “That’ll be all, Miss Baker.”