That was at least the tenth sneeze in the two hours since she’d arrived at the newspaper office. The worst possible time for a cold. She needed to make a good impression her first day on the job. Not an easy task when she seemed to be waving a blackened and wet handkerchief about. Stuffing the handkerchief back into her apron pocket, she sniffled and resisted the impulse to wipe her watery eyes with her hands.“Miss Sinclair, are you all right?” Mr. Gardner spoke above the clickety-click, swish-clunk of the monstrous press he wrestled. He was already more pleasant to work with than Mara Wilkening.Vivian nodded and held her breath in an attempt to stifle another sneeze. “Yes sir.” Except that her eyes felt like they’d been rubbed with salt and her nose was sure to be as red as a tomato.When her boss resumed feeding paper into the rotating mass, Vivian returned her attention to the work table. She pulled one letter at a time out of the pan of solvent, patted each creviced piece of metal with a cotton cloth, and then set each letter in a clean pan on the table.It wasn’t the work she’d expected to do here.
