A Face From The Past

Would the arrival of an old friend ruin everything?

- GILL PAUL

Manhattan, September 1932

EIlizabeth Arden swept into her Fifth Avenue salon, admiring the way the morning light warmed the marble floors and bounced off the silver mirrors. Her beauticians were pretty girls clad in paradise pink uniforms, a fitting advertisement for her products.

She stopped to greet Mrs Vanderbilt, who always had her nails done on Tuesdays at eleven. On the way to the office, she noticed with horror that a bottle of lotion had toppled to the floor and its contents were oozing out.

"Nadine?" she called.

Where was that girl?

Her assistant, Laney, hurried to her side. "You fired her yesterday," she murmured. "I'll fetch a mop."

Elizabeth remembered now: she had smelled smoke on Nadine's breath. If there was one thing she couldn't abide, it was women who smoked.

"Remind me to advertise for a cleaner," she instructed. Laney nodded.

It wouldn't be hard to find one. Unemployment was sky-high since the Wall Street Crash, as businesses had collapsed and jobs had been lost. The city was full of men sitting on sidewalks holding signs begging for work. Three hungry kids, will do anything, she had read on one that morning.

A shanty town had grown up in Central Park, where hundreds of destitute families lived in makeshift huts. Fortunately the weather was still hot, but she feared many wouldn't survive once winter took hold.

Laney mopped up the spilled lotion, and Elizabeth was heading for her office when she saw a woman hovering inside the salon doorway - an unkempt woman who clearly did not have the resources to be a paying client.

Elizabeth marched across to ask her to leave, but as she got closer she frowned. The face was familiar.