LU FRAZER went with me to look for a room. Lu was an Irish-Canadian girl with whom I had gone to school. She worked as a stenographer for an insurance firm, and was very popular with all the girls. There was something about her that made nearly all the girls go to her and consult her about this or that, and tell her all about their love affairs.
I think the attraction lay in Lu’s absolute interest in others. She never talked about her own feelings or affairs, but was always willing to listen to the outpourings of others. When you told her anything she was full of sympathetic murmurs, or screams of joy, or expressions of indignation if the story you told her called for that.
I had formed the habit of going to Lu about all my worries and anxieties over Reggie, and I always found a willing listener and staunch champion. The girls called her the Irish Jew, as she kept a bank account and whenever the girls were short of money they would borrow from Lu, who would charge them interest. Reggie heartily disliked her without any just reason. He said:
“She belongs to a class that should by right be scrubbing floors; only she got some schooling, so she is ticking the typewriter instead.”
Nevertheless, I liked Lu, and in spite of Reggie kept her as my friend, though she knew that he hated her. When I told her about Reggie’s offer to pay for the studio, she said:
“Um! Then take as fine a one as you can get, Marion. Soak him good and hard. I hear he pays a great big price for his own rooms at the Windsor.”
I explained to her that I only wanted as cheap a place as I could get, and that as soon as I made enough money, I intended to pay for it myself.
We looked through the advertisements in the papers, made a list and then went forth to look for that “studio.”
On Victoria Street, we found a nice big front parlor which seemed to be just what I wanted. The landlady offered it to me for ten dollars a month, and when I said that that would do nicely she asked if I were alone, and when I said I was, she said:
“I hope you work out all day.”