Chapter Two: A Taste of Fame

The Emporium High School Fashion Board: Our leader, Karin Johnson in dark outfit, top row center. Me, second row, second from right wearing a pendant. Lee Meriwether pokes her head between Susan Evans and Jacquie Hughes in the third row from the bottom.*

My next job was handed to me. After working as a counter girl and shipping clerk during the summer with Ken Tilles at Ronson, I started my senior year at Mission High. One day, early into the term, Miss O'Neill, the Dean of Girls - - a tiny, pinch-faced woman who wore severe colorless suits - - stopped me on my way to class and led me into her office. I thought I was in trouble, but I couldn't think for what. She gestured to the hot seat in front of her desk, then stared at me through rimless glasses for a long time before she spoke. I tried not to fidget. Patting her brownish-gray perm, she said,

"I received a call the other day from a woman who heads the 'teen fashion board at The Emporium. She asked me to give her the name of a senior girl who had excellent academic records, was engaged in school activities, held a student-body office, and had been selected for some honor since her sophomore year. We, your teachers, myself, and others in administration, went through several names. Only a couple of you fit all categories." She looked down at a paper on her desk, adjusted her glasses and read out loud, "You are an A student, in school plays, were voted Girl of the Month as a sophomore, and this year you're a cheer leader and vice-president of the student body." She looked up, "A consensus was reached that you should be the school's representative."

I could't believe it. "Oh, thank you, Miss O'Neill - -"

" - - I'll be honest dear," she leaned forward, "I held out because - -" she hemmed and hawed - -"because I don't think your living situation - -"

" - -My what?"

"Let me finish, dear. I brought up the fact that you live alone with your father in a rather undesirable neighborhood and didn't think that is a healthy environment . . ."

She kept talking; I couldn't hear her; my ears were ringing. I felt nauseous. I got up to leave.

"Congratulations, dear," she said, "Someone from the board will call you with the particulars."

I mumbled "Thanks," and fled.

At home that afternoon, Karin Johnson, the head of the fashion board, called to welcome and congratulate me. "We meet this Saturday at 9AM in the conference room next to the Personnel department," she added. A few days later, Miss Marichini, my Spanish teacher, held me after class. "We all think it's wonderful what you've achieved . . ," she said, "We had no idea . . . most of us know that gifted students like yourself need not come from the stereotyped ideal American family . . ." She seemed as though she wanted to say more, but just touched my shoulder and said, "Congratulations. Good luck." Her words were like a balm to those of the Dean's. She confirmed what I knew: most faculty at Mission were open-minded. They had to be. Its students were Latino, African-American, Samoan, Caucasian (Italian, Irish, Greek, etc.), Asian, Indian, and others from the diverse Mission District of mainly working class families.

Nineteen of us "white" girls from Bay Area public and Catholic high schools (Looking back, I am positive none other than "white" girls were given a thought, regardless of their achievements) met every Saturday morning in a glorified dressing room. The head of the Board was Karin Johnson, a sweet, dark-haired, petite woman who treated us like sisters. Her side-kick was Sandy Rosenfeld, a tall, slender man with slightly crossed eyes, behind dark rimmed glasses. Besides being a buyer, Sandy ran our fashion shows, picked out the clothes we modeled, and threw hissy-fits when something was slightly “off,” like a belt not fastened right. I hung out mainly with a small blond, Jacquie Hughes, from Lowell, who had an English accent, and Lee Meriwether from Washington High, a very friendly, tall, willowy, brunette. We reported to Personnel for actual sales training which included an apptitude test: "What makes moth holes? Multiple choice: eggs, larvae, or moths?" Convincing someone to buy was "How to make a customer walk the plank." We passed and were awarded badges proclaiming us official Board members. Mostly, we were primped and pampered, and given free stuff; one day it was "Fire and Ice" lipsticks from the visiting "Revlon Lady." Another perk was a Christmas brunch at Karin's place on Telegraph Hill near Julius' Castle. We attended a lecture on "fads and fashions throughout the US" given by a rep from Seventeen Magazine and former Emporium employee. According to Karin, she was impressed by by our "charm and graciousness;" later, she sent us all silver charms.

Some of us modeled at the Set the Stage, back to school show at the Emporium (now defunct) in Stonestown. Actors Roddy McDowell (a favorite) and Sally Forrest made an appearance, but left before we got a chance to meet them. When not sashaying down the runway under the Emporium's famous glass Dome (which was left intact when the building was remodeled in 2008 as a four-story shopping mecca with a Bloomingdale's and a multi-screen movie theatre), or in Stonestown, or going on field trips, we worked Saturdays as salesgirls in different departments, and, as my mother did at Mier and Frank's in Portland, we wrote up sales slips and brought them to a cashier, relieving me of the stress of dealing with a cash register and making change.

There was a Notions Department. They no longer exist. The so-called drugstore chains are now just monster Notions Departments. We all dreaded being sent to Notions. Notions were things that wouldn't fit anywhere else: sewing supplies, "sensitive" linens (meaning women's specialty underwear, known now as "incontinent briefs"); some braces and trusses not carried in stores specializing in medical corsets and other corrective, elastic undergarments, and prosthetic devices; femine hygiene products, etc. Today, an entire medical supply industry has sprung up adjunct to hospitals; retail stores carrying everything from crutches, canes, pressure socks to electric mobile scooters for our fast-growing older, infirm population, the war-wounded and disabled, and people suffering from obesity, diabetes, high-blood pressure and other ailments that can be diet controlled. I digress.

The Plus Size Department (now simply called “Women’s) was not one of my favorites, either. There, we had been instructed to tell customers how great they looked in the outfits they tried on, no matter what. In other words - - lie. Tell zoftig women how beautiful they were in tent-like print dresses or two-piece outfits that bulged here or sagged there. So I was relieved when my next assignment was in Haberdashery (from the word "haberdasher" meaning "a dealer in men's furnishings"). Who uses that word any more? Now it's the Men's Department. I was there for two consecutive Saturdays.

My first Saturday, a handsome, blond, Don Johnson-type (in his Miami Vice days) salesman (an equivalent, back then would've been Tab Hunter [whose name my dad said meant "inept typist"]when he co-starred with Natalie Wood in, "The Burning Hills"), whom I couldn't help but notice, left his station behind the counter at Dress Shirts and sauntered over to mine (wallets, belts, leather accessories). He smelled nice and was impeccably dressed, of course - - a job requirement (we girls had to wear white blouses, black skirts and black heels or flats. During Christmas we rebelled and wore RED. Karin was chastised soundly by Personnel). "How do you like working at the Big E?" blond man asked. We checked each other out the rest of that day. The second Saturday, he told me he lived up on Twin Peaks, had a fantastic view of the City, the Bay and the East Bay hills, "especially at night with all the lights and a moon . . . ." He slyly slipped me his address and phone number, written on a strip of register tape, and invited me up to his apartment after work. "Danger" signs flashed in my brain. I knew where this was headed. From then on, I went out of my way to avoid Haberdashery.

One of the girls on the board acted like a prima donna; she was a holdover from the previous year to assist Karin for a couple of weeks in transitioning us from mere schoolkids to models. She deigned to tolerate our presence. Granted she was beautiful, resembled Marilyn Monroe a bit. We were all a little envious when she landed a swimsuit modeling job for the women's sports outlet, Koret of California. Still, we congratulated her, but she barely acknowledged it. A month or so later, she stormed in, "I was sabotaged! Look what they did to me! They cut off my legs!" and practically shoved into Karin's face the Koret catalogue in which her swimsuit shot appeared. She stormed out leaving the catalogue on a chair. We grabbed it. The photo pictured her in a blue, one-piece suit, in profile, to mid-thigh. She was looking up into a blue sky, her arms raised, blond hair tousled casually. We couldn't understand why she was so angry. Karin wondered how she would have reacted if they'd cut off her head. She told us that next time she came in we should take a good look at her legs. She had no ankles. We felt better. But not much. Later in the year, we all got a chance to model Gantner bathing suits. My taste of fame came the day I bought a sweater (with an employee discount) at the Stonestown Emporium and the salesgirl gushed, "Oh, I know you! You're a model!"

When our membership ended in June, 1953, Karin and a small staff published an in-house journal of our year, calling it "Ship's Log: H. S. Board." It detailed holiday and scholastic events we were involved in, and a mother and daughter luncheon (I was glad that my mother happened to be visiting from Portland that week so I could take her). The log included field trips to clothing manufacturers, newspaper publishers, and a wire-photo service. The journal ended with a hypothetical look into our futures a year later: I was a private drama coach for Jacquie Hughes; Lee Meriwether ended up in Paris as a model for Schiaparelli. Both prophecies sort of worked out. Though not a drama coach, I am involved in theatre as an actor, movement theatre artist, and playwright; also, from 1995 to 2003, I had been a print-ad model and appeared in a film. Lee very well could have become a model, but rather followed her dream of becoming a successful, famous, actor. She went on to become Miss America and was the female lead in the TV series, “Barnaby Jones,” played Catwoman in the 1996 "Batman." She has been in several films and has returned and continues to return often, to her alma mater, City College of San Francisco, to perform and recently played the lead in the college's production of O’Neil’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.”

In up-coming Chapter Three, after graduation, I decide against college, want to make money to get my own place, but don't want to work at the Emporium. I end up in a wholesale/retail toy store on lower Market St. After being spoiled by Ken Tilles on Union Square and tasting the fame of modeling, the primping, pampering at the H. S. Board, I discover a seamier side of life.

*You can't help but notice that there are no mixed-race, blacks, or Asians among us. The board,if it existed today, would certainly look a lot different.

Chapter One: Spoiled (Continued) Final Installment.

I didn’t want to get fired. I was making money. And spending it. I shopped at ritzy stores on Union Square if only to buy a pair of nylons at I Magnin’s, rather than walk down to The Emporium on Market. I liked feeling rich, forget for a while that I lived in a third-floor walk-up, share-the-bath apartment on Grove off Divisadero with my Dad. One day, a big, raw-boned girl, with straight, light brown hair, wearing a flowery dress, flounced in sans lighter. She gave me a huge smile and asked for Mr. Tilles. She had an appointment. I sent her on back. The next day, Ken called me into his office. He was going to fire me for screwing up again. I'd had maybe one cash imbalance in over a week. I decided to come clean. I would let him do all the talking then I’d tell him. He motioned me to a chair.

“Look, sweetheart, I’m afraid . . .” was how he began. “ . . . I have to take you off the counter.” I tightened my lips and nodded. “You are not working out. I like you, you’re a cute kid, and I know you’re saving for college.” I cringed, inwardly.

“I understand, Mr. Tilles,” I heard myself stammer, “I haven’t been - -”

“Let me finish, please?” he said, sitting on the edge of his desk, “So I’m putting you in Shipping and Receiving. You’ll give Linda a hand,” he spoke fast, “I think you’ll work out well there. I’ve hired a new counter girl. She’s starting tomorrow. So when you come in, report to Linda.” He nodded, went behind his desk, “Oh,” he added as he sat down, “you’ll get the same pay.”

“Thank you, Mr. Tilles, thank you.” I’d just been demoted from counter-girl to shipping clerk. I held my arms tight to my sides, hoping to stop the sweat I felt streaming down my ribs from pooling on the floor when I stood up to leave. My skirt stuck to the back of my legs. I reached behind me and pulled it free. I knew he was watching. I didn’t care. I still had a job.

Beth, the new hire for counter-girl ended up being that tall, raw-boned girl, with a penchant for flowery dresses. She gave me her big sugary smile when I passed the counter the next day and pushed through the door in the partition. Shipping and Receiving was off to the side of Ken’s office and the repair area.

Linda turned out to be a gravelly-voiced, mannish-woman with straight brown hair down to her shoulders. She reminded me of my junior-high PE teacher. She gave me a limp, but clean, jacket. “Hey, I know they’re ugly, but it’ll keep your duds clean. On the plus side, hon, you can wear flats. We can smoke back here, too.”

(Rules forbade John and Pete from lighting up while they worked, but they could smoke in the back. On breaks they sat on the sills of huge windows of opaque, pebbled glass, which you opened by pulling on heavy chains, overlooking a narrow alley. Ironically, we all used book matches. Pete told me they didn’t own a Ronson. “Nah,” he explained, “we mess with ‘em all day, don’t want to see ‘em if we don’t have to.” Smoking was not allowed at the counter, except for customers who puffed on cigarettes and blew smoke in my face. I thought nothing of it. This was the ‘50s; everyone smoked. My crutch was Pall Mall; but “Winston Tastes Good Like a Cigarette Should,” and doctors all agreed that Camels were the best.)

Linda explained my duties as I slipped into my jacket: “People mail in lighters for repairs. The crew fixes ‘em and we ship ‘em out. And we get supplies and store ‘em up on those shelves. Piece a cake.” She snapped her fingers. During a break, I pulled Philip Wylie’s novel, The Disappearance, out of my bag; Linda told me she’d read it. I knew we’d get along fine. Later, she demonstrated how to package lighters so they wouldn’t get damaged in the mail, how to label stuff, and use the postage meter. Along the wall were rolls of heavy brown paper and on the shelves below, cardboard that folded into boxes, with stiff flaps that cut my fingers when I overlapped them. (Holding up her bandaged fingers, Linda showed me a cabinet stocked with first aid supplies.) Heavy metal containers that looked like giant scotch tape dispensers held big rolls of brown paper tape, with glue on one side. A brush, wet from a water well in the container that we had to keep filled, brushed the gluey side of the paper as we pulled it out to the desired length, ripped it off and slapped it onto a package. This took some skill. At first I got tangled up in the wet, sticky brown tape that smelled like stale urine. We weighed the packages then Linda showed me how to use the postage meter. She gave me the onerous job of hauling the heavy machine to the post office two blocks away to get reset. Still, I could relax, smoke, and sit on the wrapping counter and talk when work was slow. Linda blabbed about John one day, during a break.

“He looks at you like a wounded animal,” she said. “You like him, don’t you?”

“Well . . . . he just seems like he’s in pain all the time, weak, too. I feel sorry for him.”

“His wife just had a baby,” she said, “Huh! Where do you suppose his career as a Ronson lighter repairman will take him?”

“I didn’t think about that,” I said, thinking I wanted to do something for him, make him happy, but what? “He’s twice my age," I added, "I never imagined myself involved with a married man. Older men intimidate me, anyway. Like I said, I just feel sorry for him.”

“Watch it, hon. It’s easy to mistake feeling sorry for something else. Look at Pete and Louise,” she gestured to the work station, “They are perfectly happy. They pride themselves in their work, 'n' feel awful when a lighter's returned with the same problem. John’s are never returned. I’d hate to seem him when one is sent back.”

“He’ll probably break down and cry, get tears all over the work station, everything gets rusty.”

We started laughing and couldn’t stop. I glanced at Mr. Tilles’s office and saw him raise his black, bushy head and frown.

One Saturday, I had to work overtime with him to catch up on the billing. Patty, the billing clerk, was out sick. Ken gave me a bunch of bills to type invoices for. I struggled all morning to finish maybe three. Passing by, on the way out of his office, he laughed, looking at me over his half-glasses.

“You’re really burning up that typewriter, aren’t you?” I felt my face heat up.

“I didn’t apply for the job of typist in the billing department,” I said into the keys. I stopped short of telling him I had flunked typing last semester with a final score of minus six correct words a minute. The lowest score in the class. My friends couldn’t believe it. How was it possible to get a minus score? Ken gave up and handed me a stack of stuff to file, instead. That I could do. He sat down and typed invoices himself - - thick brown fingers, sprouting black hair, stabbing at the keys.

Beth didn't work out. Sales went down; repeat customers kept asking for the “cute little brunette.” Ken put me back behind the counter. He admonished me to count change carefully, pay more attention, and stop flirting with the customers. My liking for him grew, along with my guilt.

I told my fourth lie the last week of August. I gave notice, explaining to Ken I decided, after all, to go to City College when I was really only going into my senior year of high school. He and the others gave me this huge “Good Luck in College” card, which they all had signed. I felt like crying and almost ratted on myself, but got a grip, figuring they’d never find out. Now and then, throughout the school term, I would brazenly drop in on Ken and the rest of the crew after class, dragging out my sham, telling them all about my “college” courses. When Ken Tilles’s jazz quartet played at the Stonestown Mall, I’d be there. Years later, I read that he’d become a bail-bondsman; his name appeared often in Herb Caen’s column. Decades passed. I heard he had died and tons of people attended his funeral. He spoiled me. I thought all bosses would be like Ken Tilles. I was wrong.

Next: Chapter Two - - A Taste of Fame.

In my senior year, I am recruited by The Emporium as a “fashion representative” from Mission High, where I model clothes at in-house fashion shows and do part-time sales on Saturdays. Lee Meriwether, former Miss America and a well-known actress, is selected to represent Washington High.

Chapter One: Spoiled (continues).

Mr. Tilles introduced me to the repair crew when they came in a little before nine: John, the gaunt blond; Pete, an older man with half-glasses; and Louise, a grandmotherly woman with a short, gray-brown perm, who wore upswept, blue plastic-framed bi-focals. After welcoming me into the fold - - so to speak - - they filed through the partition door and I took my place behind the counter. Soon, men began walking in with pocket lighters for servicing or repair. When women came in, they lugged department store shopping bags, saying, "My husband (brother, uncle, boyfriend, etc.) wanted me to bring this in." Their bags were weighed down with heavy table model lighters: the Crown, Regal, or Queen Ann, the ship, animal, and naked lady - - like the Standing Nude pictured here - - or gold plated, sterling-silver plate, marble, crystal, or ceramic. (See them at: http://transporter.tripod.com or, Google "Ronson.") My main job was to sell the lighters in the display case or talk people into buying one from the dog-eared catalogue, resting on the counter. “Oh, you can order this model and it will be shipped to you in a week - - or two at the most!” I enthused. I loved feeling the heft and slippery metallic coolness of a chrome, silver, or gold-plated pocket lighter against my palm when I slid it out of its box to show a customer. But few bought new ones.

An aspect of my job that Mr. Tilles never mentioned at my interview was that he expected me to diagnose lighter malfunctions at the counter though I was not to attempt to fix them (I did learn to pull out wicks with tweezers). What did I know? No one in my immediate family owned a Ronson. My Aunt Dorothy, my father’s sister, had a Queen Ann model that never worked. But she refused to let me take it in to get fixed. She said it reminded her of her ex-husband, my Uncle Bill, who ran away with her best friend.

John and the others showed me how to detect problems: “This one needs a new flint, see?” “This - - a new flint wheel, feel how smooth it is?” “There’s a new flint in there, but it doesn’t spark - - the guy flooded it. Too much fluid.” When people brought in their lighters (some arrived in the mail), I made out a repair slip with my diagnosis and passed the lighter and the slip, in a heavy ochre-colored paper bag, to the crew through the doggie-door cut into the partition behind me (for a table model I would Scotch tape the repair slip and job bag to it and lug it through the people door myself). Wearing their limp, grimy, gray smocks, sitting at a long, wooden counter behind the partition, they tested and repaired lighters. All day. Little bins of Ronson parts sat in front of them: serrated wheels and flint holders, tiny plungers, screws, and springs; along with flints, wicks, and cotton to pack inside the case to absorb Ronsonol, Ronson's trade-mark lighter fluid. The crew's blackened, stained fingers smelled of it. The entire area reeked of the stuff, which after a while, I got used to. Piles of work envelopes threatened to avalanche from the counter to the floor. When John or one of the others repaired a lighter, they jingled a little bell and slid the lighter in its bag through the door, and I rang up the cost they jotted down on the slip, on the cash register.

Ken Tilles was waiting for me one morning, after I'd been there a week. “Uh, sweetheart,” he said, as I put my coat and purse away, “I see that your cash was off last night by twenty dollars - - in the customer’s favor.” I didn’t say anything. “Do you know what I mean? It means that we lost money, honey. Ronson is supposed to make money. The customer is not supposed to make money off us!” I said I was sorry. “You have to be more careful when you count your change back, understand?” I felt my face burn and just knew it was bright red, sure the repair crew heard every word. I made an effort. Still, I sometimes was confused when I didn’t get the exact change.

When no one came in I hung out behind the display case, leaned on the counter, leafed through the catalogue, and picked out gorgeous models for myself, sensing The Iron Monster’s presence over my shoulder. I wasn’t used to standing all day in high heels. By afternoon, my feet hurt. So I sat on a tall stool I found tucked out of sight next to the register. One day, Mr. Tilles saw me. His thick, black brows drew together above his nose. “Hey, doll, look, I don’t want customers seeing you loafing.” “Oh, okay,” I said, kicking off my heels and standing at the counter in my stocking feet. He shook his head and disappeared through the people door. On the days he was out, I sat on the stool. But this wasn’t the only thing that caused his brows to meet. It seemed no matter how hard I tried, I still had problems balancing the cash at the end of the day. I began to sense a cold blade on the back of my neck.

Chapter One: "Spoiled" continues: Smoking rules, I develop a crush. A woman comes in sans lighter to see Mr. Tilles; she has an appointment. I think nothing of it.