Read The Girl Is Murder for Free Online Page B

PRESS.
    “Hi,” I said to the room in general. Still nothing from the girl, though the boy removed his hat at the sound of my voice, as though he was embarrassed to be caught wearing it. I approached him and decided that he was my best bet. “Remember me?”
    If he did, his face didn’t show it.
    “I saw you taking pictures of Tom Barney the other day. When he was being arrested.” Still nothing. Was I really that unmemorable? “That’s a great camera you’ve got.” I held up the Brownie and wiggled it. “As you can see, I’m not so well outfitted.”
    “You new?”
    “I just moved here this summer.”
    He nodded, then focused on cleaning his lens with a handkerchief that had been burrowed in his pocket. Initials were embroidered in one corner: P. L. “The editor already left for class. You looking to shoot for us?”
    I couldn’t tell if he thought that would be a good thing or not, though I suspected, given the hint of desperation in his voice, that anyone being interested in what he and the girl with the thick glasses did would be welcome.
    “Oh, I’m not good enough for that.” What was the best way to get someone to do something for you? Mama believed false modesty and flattery were the keys that opened every door. Whenever someone acted like she was nothing more than a dumb immigrant, she played it up, batting her eyes and musing that if she were as smart as they were, she would be so much better off. “I want to learn,” I said. “I’ve read the paper and it’s … amazing. The photos are really good. Like Dorothea Lange good.” Okay, so I exaggerated.
    “Really?” He wasn’t unattractive, but there was a paleness to his skin and a scrawniness to his body that implied he either spent every hour of the day indoors or had been a sickly child who had never quite grown out of it.
    “Our paper was a joke at my old school. Nobody took it seriously. I’d love to be able to do what you do, but I can’t even develop film.”
    “I could teach you.”
    “Seriously?”
    “You got anything in the camera now?”
    I nodded and passed him the Brownie. “I’m Iris,” I said.
    “Paul,” he countered, and shook my hand. He tipped his head toward the girl in the Coke-bottle glasses. “That’s Pearl.”
    I said hi and got a nod in response. Paul led me to a small room connected to the one we were in. Inside sat several trays of chemicals that combined to make the air virtually unbreathable. He flipped a switch, turned on a fan, and warned me that the room would be completely black when he turned out the lights.
    He wasn’t kidding. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face.
    “I’m starting by taking the film out and putting it on a reel. Then I’m going to put it in the developing tank.”
    I made a noise that I hoped sounded like “That’s fascinating.”
    “What’s your last name?” asked Paul.
    “Anderson.”
    He moved something in the dark. “You Jewish?”
    “No,” I said before the question had left the air.
    “Oh. Sorry,” said Paul. “I thought you might be.”
    And what? I wanted to say. You were going to blame the war on me? Tell me that I wasn’t allowed in the newspaper office? Ask me if it was true our kind made love through a hole in a sheet?
    “There’s a club that meets after school for Jewish students. I belong and so does Pearl. She’s my sister.”
    “Oh.” I forgot that the Lower East Side wasn’t quite so homogeneous when it came to religious beliefs. At Chapin, I was one of the only Jews in my class. I quickly learned not to talk about my religion, an easy task since neither Pop nor Mama was particularly observant. But when I stayed with Adam and Miriam, that changed. I was expected to cover my head and attend synagogue, even if it meant drawing attention to myself.
    When Pop and I moved, I went back to my old ways. After all, I was the daughter of Arthur Anderson, not Arthur Ackerman. It was so much easier to pretend not to be Jewish. That way I could