By the time the wet, bedraggled Evie returned to the radio station, the Pears Soap Hour had ended. She hid behind the thick, fanned leaves of a potted plant, watching a group of men smoking in the lobby, and listened to Mr. Forman’s voice piped through the loudspeakers as he explained to the audience sitting by their radios that “Miss O’Neill has taken ill, overcome by the spirits from beyond.”
“Overcome by spirits, all right,” one of the smoking men quipped.
Mr. Forman reminded listeners that Sarah Snow’s Mission Hour was coming up next. The Wireless Wonders Orchestra played the Sweetheart Singers on, and they sang an inoffensive tune to make housewives happy.
Evie waited in the ladies’ lounge until her audience had cleared out and a new one came in. Sarah Snow’s soothing voice reverberated in the Art Deco fortress of WGI.
“Evie, there you are.” It was Helen, Mr. Phillips’s secretary. She looked a bit stricken, like someone delivering a bad telegram. “Honey, Mr. Phillips wants to see you.”
“Oh. Pos-i-tute-ly,” Evie said without fizz. “Let me just freshen up.”
Helen patted her arm. “I’ll let him know.”
In the mirror, Evie dabbed at her face and hair with a towel. She wiped away the spidery mascara beneath her eyes and put on a fresh coat of red lipstick. She trudged down the forever hallway, her heels clacking across the gleaming marble floors. She reached Mr. Phillips’s office and kept walking, all the way to the back door. Then she broke into a run.
ANNOUNCER
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen of our listening audience. This is Reginald Lockhart, coming to you from the WGI studios in New York City. Wherever you are, the Black Hills of South Dakota or the rugged plains of the Heartland, whether you are a weary worker building the great towering monoliths of our cities or a businessman who has built an empire… all can find comfort and salvation through Miss Sarah Snow, God’s messenger on the wireless.
(Organ music plays out. Smiling grandly, Sarah Snow, in a dress and cape, a spray of white orchids pinned to her left shoulder, steps to the microphone and opens her arms wide, as if to embrace her audience.)
SARAH SNOW
Thank you, Mr. Lockhart. Welcome, brothers and sisters! Now, I know that it has been a rather unsettling evening. But there is nothing that the power of prayer cannot soothe.
I know you will join me in praying for Miss O’Neill. Worry not—for the Lord is with thee. Brothers and sisters, as you know, there is no greater country than ours. “America, America, God shed his grace on thee / And crowned thy good with Brotherhood, from sea to shining sea.…”