Ellie's Advice (sweet romance)

by Roelke, Alice M.

  Ellie's Advice © 2013 by Alice M. Roelke - All rights reserved. All characters and events are fictitious. This story is not to be reproduced without permission from the author in writing. - Cover design by Humblenations.com - First ebook edition: August 2013

  Ellie's Advice

  by Alice M. Roelke

  All her life, Ellie's poor health has held her back. But not anymore. She's going for the job she longs to have, as an advice columnist for a local paper.

  Shel Silverberg is a widower who's promised himself he'll never marry again. His arranged marriage was a kind of torture, and he'll never sign up for another. Then he meets the beautiful and sweet-natured Ellie. As her editor, he has to remain professional—but he can't stop thinking about the gorgeous redhead.

  She can't stop thinking about him, either. When they accidentally meet in the park and end up rescuing some puppies together, their lives will never be the same.

  A sweet, gentle, retro romance set in the 1950s.

  Ellie's Advice

  by Alice M. Roelke

  Chapter one

  Shel Silverberg picked up the last letter. He shifted uncomfortably on his hard wooden chair and glancing longingly toward the window. On the street below, a paperboy shouted the headlines and cars rumbled past. How he longed to stretch his legs, even if it had meant pounding the pavement again.

  Instead, he slit the heavy envelope open and teased out the correspondence. It was on a thick, embossed stationary. Miss Eleanor Goldman, it read.

  Perhaps an advertiser? he wondered. I should be so lucky!

  Dear Mr. Silverberg,

  I would like to apply for the position advertised, the job of writing an advice column for your newspaper. I would be willing to waive pay for the first two months to give you a chance to determine if I can write columns well enough over the long haul. I realized that is an unorthodox proposal, but I am an unorthodox lady — and most of all, I must admit to you, I have no real qualifications! I am unmarried; I was sickly as a child and sheltered from the world.

  Despite these facts, I believe I have a great deal to offer. I've had ample opportunities to observe among my family, social circle, friends, and acquaintances. From the outside, Miss Jane Austen must have seemed unequipped to write about humanity, but I think it's often the details of human behavior seen in everyday life that can give the greatest insights, and a woman is singularly suited to notice the small details of life.

  My goodness, but this letter must sound vain! I had better take pains to assure you I'm under no illusions that I'm Jane Austen! But I would very much appreciate the chance to try my hand at this pursuit, and I believe it would be good value for the newspaper to give me a try.

  As for my employment record, I can only tell you that I have none. I've been fortunate enough to have a family with the money to shelter me: working would have not been dreamed of for me, and neither was I considered good marriage material because of my health, which was fragile for many years. So while I have had a great deal of time to study people, I've never worked for a newspaper before, or any held any other employment of note, unless one counts a brief stint as a typist for my uncle's memoirs (and they have never been published).

  So you see, while I do believe I can do the job, I also consider two months free trial eminently fair, if your paper will give me the chance to prove myself. You can, of course, dismiss me at any time if the columns don't deserve to see print. I really don't think I'm Jane Austen, simply another applicant for a job, and I very much hope you will consider hiring me on a trial basis.

  I quite understand if you'd rather pick someone else. Still, as the oldest advice in the world goes, it's better to try and fail than not to try at all. So here is my try, and I will eagerly await your reply.

  Sincerely,

  Miss E. Goldman

  He sat back and thought, taking off his glasses again. He worried his lip between his teeth. Of the other applicants, none had draw him so deeply into their letters, or sounded so personable. Miss Goldman had seemed to be addressing him and him alone.

  He chewed his lip and thought for a moment.

  Unfortunately, he had already given the position to another person, one Leo Hastings writing under the name of Mrs. Lawrence. He couldn't exactly fire Hastings — but at the same time, there was nothing to say he couldn't hire a second columnist, especially if she worked the first two months for free. It was a generous offer. He could give whoever did the better job the final column, or make permanent room for two if they were both a draw for readers.

  He grinned. If nothing else, it would be worth hearing what sort of advice this Miss Goldman gave — and perhaps good for the paper, too. While he didn't mind paying for the position, he appreciated the chance for a risk-free trial. And he would likely know by the end of two months from sales and letters received whether her column garnered any extra readership or was simply more bird cage liner.

  Shifting again to get more comfortable, he grabbed a piece of paper and began to type his reply.

  *

  When Ellie saw the envelope with the editor's name on it, her hands trembled almost too much to slit it open with the silver letter opener her aunt had given her.

  The letter opener had an eagle design on it, and her grandparents had been so proud of it, many years ago when they bought it as first-generation immigrants made good. But her aunt had wanted to forget anyone in the family had ever been less than completely American. She'd given the heirloom to Ellie carelessly, with a batch of old letters — correspondence between Ellie's grandparents. They'd written to one another while Grandfather looked for work in America and Grandmother waited to come over on the boat and join him, bringing their son along.

  Aunt Leticia hadn't been born until years later, and she'd liked to forget she had immigrant parents. An expensive school had bought her the entrance into society she craved. Ellie remembered her aunt as someone who'd always looked down on immigrants who arrived not knowing English, or who struggled to adapt to American culture. Instead of having sympathy for fellow Jewish Americans, Leticia had never been hesitant to question the necessity of interacting with them at all. She occasionally gave to a local Jewish charity that helped support newcomers, but wanted nothing to do with them personally.

  Ellie thought perhaps her aunt gave her the letters and letter opener out of shame. But she hoped it was because her aunt knew she'd cherish them.

  She certainly did; the delicate papers, scrawled with foreign words, had been carefully translated by a man she hired for the task. These days she kept the letters and translations together carefully in a bound book, and opened it sometimes to read the words that brought her grandparents to life.

  They'd died before she was five, so she barely remembered the laughing, white-haired friendliness of the man who'd bounced her on his knee, or the soft lap of her grandmother, who always smelled of sugar and violets. Through the letters, they lived for her again, back when they were poor in money but wealthy in health, youth, hope for the future, and love for one another.

  The Goldmans had three children, Albert, their oldest, Leticia almost ten years later, and eventually Frederic, the baby. Frederic grew up and married, and he and his wife had two children: strong, red-haired Augustus and small, sickly Eleanor. When Frederic and his wife died shortly after the passing of Ellie's grandparents, Albert and his wife had seemed the obvious choice to care for the children.

  Albert's children were grown, and he and his wife doted on the siblings. But their health was not good either, and soon Augustus found himself going to a very expensive boarding school, and sickly Ellie was sent to the city to live with her aunt Leticia, to be nearer the doctors who constantly checked her healt
h, listened to her heart, and said "Hmmm" in a serious manner that frightened the little girl.

  She'd grown up timid and fearful under her auntie's guidelines and the doctors' worries for her health. Never had she attended an expensive school such as formed her aunt or her brother. But seeing the prejudices they'd returned with, she couldn't be sorry. She was tutored privately, had her friends picked out for her by her aunt and their set, and generally found life miserably restricted for many, many years. Ellie was allowed short walks, bundled up to keep warm, and warned not to overtax her poor heart.

  Her health strengthened when she was a teenager, enough for her to begin to enjoy life, to make her own friends, and to enroll in the local high school to finish her education.

  The timid girl was beginning to blossom when a severe bout of pneumonia sent her into the hospital. She was touch and go for a long time, and afterwards needed a great deal of bed rest. By the time her health strengthened, she'd missed out on a great many things, from graduating with her class to having boyfriends (or beaus, as her aunt called them).

  "You're not healthy enough to marry anyway," Leticia had often told her, almost with satisfaction. She kept her niece close and shepherded her carefully, anxious for her health, but, Ellie often thought, more anxious not to be left alone as she was growing older.

  When Ellie was well enough, they attended a staggering round of social events together. She was never the belle of any ball. Boys avoided her, either because of her gangly frame, her pale skin and red hair, or her Jewish heritage, or because she was known to be sickly and their mothers did not want them going out with a girl who was ill and might not be able to bear them heirs to carry on the family name.

  She often wished she'd been brave enough, during those years, to insist she at least try to attend college; but the truth was, as annoying as her aunt could be, her warnings, and the doctors' words held more truth than she liked to admit; Ellie was sickly. She fell prone to every cold and virus, and they laid her up in bed for far longer than even her least robust relative, the aging Uncle Albert.

  While Ellie often chafed, she understood the need for care, and so, regretfully, she watched her youth disappear, sighing and feeling as if she was old already. Watching people and paying attention to their choices and the consequences of those choices had given her pleasure, as had a reading habit of massive proportion. She'd taken college correspondence courses to increase her education, and received a great deal of enjoyment out of writing to pen pals from around the world.

  Now, here, today, she was facing the possibility of employment for the first time in her twenty-nine years. Was it any wonder her hands trembled?

  This was it. This was finally it. Writing that letter had taken every ounce of bravery and honesty she possessed. She'd opened herself to criticism, laid bare her flaws and lack of experience, and tried to sweeten the deal by offering to work for free.

  I do not need him to answer yes, she reminded herself. I am far more fortunate than many. I never actually need to work.

  Her parents and grandparents and auntie had left her well provided for. Each death had brought money as well as mourning, so that now, though she lived alone in a modest Brownstone apartment, Ellie was a very wealthy woman indeed.

  She tried to use that wealth appropriately, donating to worthy causes and being frugal and mindful of how hard her family had worked to amass the money that kept her in ease. But sometimes she didn't want to be at ease. She wished she could earn one dime, even one penny, of the money required to support herself. She wished instead of being an heiress, she could be a young working woman, pink-cheeked and cheerful, healthy and full of hope for the future and perhaps marriage.

  Heiress. Even the word made Ellie feel angry. Once her health had improved enough to attend school and participate in some of the balls her aunt had taken her to, she'd been swamped with male attention. The words 'heiress,' and 'sickly heiress' had apparently passed around enough to make her an appealing catch to boys who were less worried about having an heir and more intrigued by the idea of inheriting a fortune.

  She hadn't dated a single boy of that set; they'd all looked at her with dollar signs in their eyes. She supposed she would have dated one of them eventually, loneliness being a big motivator, if she'd stayed healthy, but she hadn't, and that put a stop to the interest in her well enough.

  No one wanted to be saddled with an invalid, even if she did have a great deal of money. At least, that was what she had bitterly thought at the time. Later after her aunt died and she began noticing renewed male interest, she wondered if it was because Aunt Leticia had chased them away by methods subtle or strong-armed.

  There were still things Ellie was discovering about her aunt Leticia. The rich woman who had despised immigrants left a sizable donation to the immigration society. The carefree, vapid society maven, bedecked in jewels and careless of ever marrying, had kept correspondence between herself and a young soldier in WWI. He'd been a plain-faced, serious young man whose portrait had, all these years since, and unknown to anyone but Leticia, decorated the inside of her favorite broach. She had never spoken the dead man's name aloud to Ellie, but she must have read and re-read his letters constantly; the delicate papers had come close to falling apart. And yet she'd never revealed this secret wound, this once-in-her-lifetime love.

  Ellie looked back at what she now knew about Leticia, and her heart smote her when she thought of how sometimes she felt nothing but relief to be free of her gaily laughing, carefree, extremely bossy aunt.

  For her aunt's death had freed her. No longer must she live in a mansion of a size that made it difficult for her to even get from one side of the building to another; no longer did housekeeping require the help of a dozen servants simply to keep the place clean and to eat every day. Life was so much less overwhelming lived in a quiet, tasteful apartment with amenities provided and a single, part-time servant, Mrs. Fine, to help with the cooking and chores.

  Even this much would be an impossible luxury for so many people; Ellie knew she was fortunate indeed. But the cozy apartment seemed so wonderfully charming and simple after the social whirl she'd lived by her aunt's side. Leticia's grasping, confining love had suffocated Ellie as much as the big, cold mansion overwhelmed her. When feeling poorly, Ellie had been confined to only one or two rooms, the rest of the mansion as far beyond her reach as Everest. And during those times she had been even more helpless to gain any independence from her aunt.

  Slowly improving health and a firm restructuring of her independence to thought and correspondence instead of outward action had given her some freedom: but it was useless to deny that the rest of it came with Leticia's death.

  The relief she had felt made her heart ache sometimes with guilt. It had been impossible to leave while Leticia was alive. The tears, recriminations, shouts, and guilt attacks subtle or strong were always there, strong enough that the quiet, physically weak Ellie ended up backing down before her aunt, either in a short amount of time or a long one.

  I may always wonder what my life would have been like if I had been healthier and braver, she thought. But now I am about to find out what, if anything, I can do on my own.

  Even the lovely brownstone apartment was not her own, really: it was paid for by her inheritance, the money that would keep her in comfort for as long as she lived. But if she got this job, it would be one thing she had done completely on her own.

  And that was enough to make anyone's hands tremble.

  Dear Miss Goldman,

  I was delighted to read your letter. I'd certainly love to have a modern day Austen working for the paper, as I am sure such writing would increase circulation. (I must think of such mercenary matters, I'm sorry to say.)

  I found your letter to be just in the friendly, talkative style I believe would do well in the paper. I was left in no doubt to your enjoyment of words and correspondence, and I think you would be an excellent choice as a columnist for our paper.

  I must tell you tha
t the position has already been filled, but since you've so kindly offered to work for two months for free, I can gladly accept. I see no reason the paper can't run two such columns at present, and we'll see where it goes after that.

  Of course you can quit any time you wish. I can hardly fault a volunteer for leaving, if it doesn't prove to your taste.

  If this is all agreeable, please come to the newspaper office on the twelfth before noon and I'll give you some letters to answer.

  I look forward to reading what you have to say, and I promise not to hold you to the standard of Jane Austen. Although you have now made me wonder just how that authoress would have answered questions about marital problems and etiquette concerns! I can't help but think she'd be completely uninterested, simply laugh at our problems and go back to writing her novels.

  But perhaps I am too hard on her and she wouldn't think so little of us after all.

  Sincerely,

  Sheldon Silverberg, Editor

  Ellie dropped the letter to her desk. She brought her shaking hands up to her face. A strange little laugh escaped her, and she was trembling all over. She felt as though her smile had never stretched further. Normally she had a small, tidy smile; this one stretched her whole face. She kicked her heels lightly on the floor and laughed.

  I'm going to have a job. I'm going to write for the paper. I'm going to do something for myself!

  She jumped up, swirled around in a circle like a young girl who'd just tried on a new dress, and then hurried to her closet. What did one possibly wear to a newspaper office for her first assignment? And what sort of letters would she get? She couldn't wait to find out.

  Chapter two

  A passing taxi cab splashed water up on Ellie's dress, and she gasped at the cold that soaked her legs. She stood quite still for a moment, shivering, and then moved closer to the large, intimidating buildings that lined the street.