CHAPTER VI New York Interlude
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WHEN, SIX HOURS LATER IN NEW YORK, VICKI entered the large apartment she shared with five other Federal Airlines hostesses, she found the place a shambles. Furniture was piled up helter-skelter. Canvas covered parts of the floor, and paint buckets and stepladders were stacked in corners. A wave of turpentine-flavored air assailed her nose at the same time that a pounding rhythm of swing-and-sway music from the record player blasted in her ears.
“The lost is found!” Celia Trimble greeted her gaily. “The stranger has returned! Come in, stranger! We’re having a party!”
Vicki waved her hand around at the jumble of scaffolds, paint buckets, and stepladders. “What in the world ...?”
“We’re being painted, Vicki! At last, after two years of pestering the
