Year 1944
On the weekends, Florence and her friends daringly volunteer at the local hospital during the day, and spend the nights performing impromptu jazz to the soldiers who return home on leave. But during the weeks, she is just another bored secretary who sits behind a desk in an overly excessive building in which her boss barely steps foot.
All in all, she is grateful for the job, even if it means spending hours reading whatever magazines the lobby had to offer instead of, say, treating the wounded. Nothing much would happen, though every day or so a sharply dressed business man would meander through the glass front doors and sit in the uncomfortably straight-backed chairs that took up one side of the room, accompanied by uselessly small briefcases. Sometimes these men would even be called up to the office, and she would earn a tight lipped smiled as she informed them of the room they were expected in, and hours later she would return the smile, sometimes receiving a glare in return as they slumped out the door.
Florence has just arrived Thursday morning, after a rather intense argument with her mother about the improprieties of women working in the new age. Ironically, the birds are chirping, the sun is shining, and the scent of chocolate wafts through the air from the bakery next door.
The bell signaling the opening of the front door jingles. Glancing up, Florence's gaze rests on yet another man wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase walk into the lobby. The tall man glances around, his dark eyes brimming with excitement and curiosity. Perhaps he, like his unusual hat collection, is foreign, she always thinks.
"Good morning, Mr. Bane."
"Ah, good morning, Francesca. I don't suppose your very fine Boss would be in today?" He removes his hat- sadly for Florence, for she quite likes it- and sits himself down amongst the chairs. He seems to have found the only bright red armchair in existence right in the middle of their very neutral lobby.
"I haven't seen him yet today, Sir." She lays her book down ("The Four Loves" first edition, by C.S. Lewis), and sighs. "I hope you can remember my name correctly today, Mr. Bane?"
"Yes, yes, of course, Francis." He waves his hand dismissively, cracking open a newspaper, with the headline "Circo Angelorium seized by government", to the second to last page, the ones with the comics, which he reads first, as always. "Call me Magnus."
"No thank you, Sir. I prefer to keep it strictly professional." She teases lightly. She could hardly call it professional by now; they were at least friends. Acquaintances. This is the second day in the third week he had showed up in her lobby, occasionally bringing Florence a cup of coffee, and, although she had been taught coffee a man's drink, she often joined him for a sip or seven. She imagines the man he waits for to be very important indeed if Mr. Bane insists on wasting day after day here instead of doing something really worthwhile. She had mentioned this once to him and he told her- in his own words- that "Sometimes the road to greatness takes us through unsanitary waiting lobbies."
She continues to read her manuscript, peeking over the edge of the tea stained pages at the man. He sits cross-legged in the cherry-red chair, wearing the same suit he had worn when she'd first seen him- and every day in between. He seems particularly engrossed in one section of the paper this morning, pulling out a pair of horned glasses to peer closer. Florence suspects the glasses to be false, for she can see through them as easily as a window.
Mr. Bane flips calmly to the front page, but his serenity quickly leaves him as he reads the headline and the print beneath it. Florence looks up only in time to catch the panic in his green eyes before the door slams behind him, the crisp morning breeze catching up the morning paper and rustling the pages fondly.
"Mr. Bane?" Florence quietly sets down her book. "Magnus? Magnus Bane, Sir-" But he is already gone, a hailed cab taking the strange yet familiar man far away from Florence, far enough away that she doesn't see him for a good long while. But when she does, he couldn't have recognized her even if he wanted to, for her features have wrinkled into worry lines about her old face; though he still looks young, far younger than she remembers.
Contrary to her own beliefs, he does see her again, or rather, witnesses her burial, and reads the gravestone of Florence Nightingale the Third, and he thinks nothing of it, for he is a forgetful man, and he has places to be.
Three days after Florence saw her dear Mr. Bane for the second to last time she quit her job for a nursing course in London, as was offered to her only a few days later through the local borough of crime fighting police men. She was replaced by the younger, shorter skirted Betty Cottswald.
Betty now sits behind the desk, day after day, reading beauty magazines and chewing bright pink bubble gum behind her shiny lips. She, like Florence, notices the considerable amount of men in suits who entered through the glass doors only to be dismissed at the end of the day. She hasn't caught a glimpse of her Boss yet, though she was told he was rich, handsome, and recently divorced which made all the more reason to go along with her Father's proposal of "working for your country".
The days have begun to get increasingly warmer in preparation for summer. Betty has already equipped herself with a new wardrobe for the season; including the pink dress she iss wearing the spring afternoon when she first sees Magnus Bane.
After an empty morning, void of any kind of attractive customers, Betty notices the young man standing outside her building through the glass pane of the door. From her elevated view (standing atop the desk chair), she determines him the second most handsome man she could have the fortune to meet, as she later tells her Mother. Handsome enough, she says, too pull out a pencil and draw a beauty mark above her heart shaped mouth.
As he opens the door, Betty leans back to allow a portion of her dress to slide upwards, placing her hand behind her head in what she knows is a "timelessly seductive pose", according to yesterday morning's Life Magazine.
He steps through the doorway and out of the rain, removing his dripping hat to reveal sunken eyes. Lightning rumbles and thunder flashes, illuminating the man's bright green eyes. Betty leans forward as much as possible while rising from her chair to assist the young gentleman, as warned excessively not to by the Marie Clare Magazine from last week.
"Good afternoon, sir. How may I help you?"
"I have an appointment."
"Your name, please?" Betty can't help but notice as she leans over to check her books that the man's eyes wander not to her openly showing bosom but to the weather outside. She's sure it had been sunny a moment ago, but perhaps she had been daydreaming again.
"Bane. Magnus Bane."
"I'm Betty, but you can call me anything you like." She flounces, or imitates what the Bazaar Magazine had said was flouncing, back to her seat behind the desk. She crosses her legs, then uncrosses and re-crosses them. "I'm afraid you'll have to-"
"Magnus Bane?"
Magnus Bane turns profile to Betty, facing the unfamiliar squat man entering the room from the Boss' office door.
"That would be me." Magnus Bane says curtly.
The short man gives Magnus Bane a look of disbelief and runs his hand over the top of his balding head.
"How old are you, boy?"
Betty notices from beneath the latest "Movie Stars "edition that Magnus Bane hesitates briefly before straightening his shoulder and replying "Nineteen, sir."
The short old man, whom Betty has now realized must be her boss, chuckles in the way only a long time smoker can. "I do believe you've sent your resume to the wrong office. It's not too late to enroll in the army. Here, lad, there's a station right down the street."
"They wouldn't take me. I've been asked to stay. Several times, I might add."
The Boss has turned towards the door, clutching his briefcase in one hand and staring pointedly at his watch on the other. "If you'll excuse me, son, I have a lunch in about three minutes. Here-" He shoves a sheath of paper at Magnus Bane. "-is your resume." Betty can hear plainly the intended quote marks over the word "resume".
"Is there a problem?" The awkwardness seems to have vanished from Magnus Bane, replaced by languid cheekiness and eyebrows.
"Problem?" The Boss looks as if the tables have turned- indeed they have, Betty thinks, because Magnus Bane simply grins. "Yes, there is a problem. Tell me, son, how is it possible for you to be this skilled in your line - various lines - of work?"
Magnus opens his mouth to speak, probably to unleash his newfound wittiness upon the old man.
"And furthermore," The Boss cuts in. "I have a problem believing you did all this," He waves his hand over the large folder. "In just a few years."
Magnus Bane's back is to Betty, but she can just see the sparkle in his eye. He is enjoying this, she realizes.
Unaware he's just been made fool of, the Boss continues to speak. "It really is too bad. Such a young man, too." He chuckles again. "The least you could have done is chosen a better name than Magnus Bane."
Betty gasps, and then quickly covers her mouth in incredulous shock. He really believes Magnus Bane is a criminal? Attempting to con him, perhaps? Though Betty herself doesn't know the real story, she prides herself on being less thick than the average old man. Surely Magnus Bane wouldn't blatantly waltz in here to do just that.
"Ah," Magnus Bane retorts. "But If I were you, I wouldn't have chosen the name "Robinson"-" He pauses dramatically. "-Chester. And it's a good thing, too."
The old man's face has gone purple and is now emitting wheezing noises. "What- what's a good thing?"
"That I'm not you." He smiles. "Because I've been to prison and the jumpsuits just don't bring out the natural flare in my eyes." At this the old man is pulled through the door by an extremely cute police officer and before Betty could say "Jiminy Cricket!" handcuffs are locked around his wrists and the old man, her old Boss, is being shoved into the back an automobile.
Magnus Bane goes with them, sauntering in a way only detectives in movies do, because she has decided that either he must be a detective, or part of the secret police who works for the Prime Minister himself.
After that one exciting day, Betty is left with a sort of cavity in her, yearning for something; for what, she isn't quite sure. This only lasts for about three days, as the police officer she clearly remembers handling the dangerous criminal Chester Hawking who has been in all the papers these days shows up in the lobby where she has been loitering ever since, undetermined on whether or not she still has a job.
It turns out she does, but not in the office building, Jim explains to her as they walk to the nearest available coffee shop. A very nice paying job where she would get to work every day with Jim himself, he further explains as they are served coffee.
Later that afternoon, when he thanks her yet again for her service to her country and tells her he expects her in at 7 sharp the next morning, she thanks god that her father taught her how to shoot a gun.
Though in this case her Father might not be too pleased with her decision on how to use that particular skill, she thinks. Mother will faint, she continues, and brother will be proud.
What a good thing I've always kept my hair short.