Don't Die Under the Apple Tree by Amy Patricia Meade Page A

job.”
    â€œA job?” Del Vecchio laughed dismissively. “You got one helluva nerve!”
    â€œFinch shouldn’t have fired me in the first place, Del Vecchio. You know that. I was on your gang. I kept up with both you and Delaney and never once complained. It was Hansen who started the trouble.”
    â€œHey, I’m not gonna argue with you. Should Hansen have done what he did? No. Were you a hard worker? Sure. But that don’t matter now. What does matter is that every guy out there thinks you murdered Finch.”
    â€œI sort of gathered that when I walked in.”
    â€œYeah. You wanna face that every day?”
    The prospect gave Rosie pause, but she knew she couldn’t waver. “It might be tough at first, but in time, they’ll get used to me being here. And by then, the police will have proven I didn’t do it.”
    â€œOh yeah? Well, why don’t you come back when they have? It’ll be easier on both of us.”
    â€œBecause I need the money now.”
    Del Vecchio ran a hand over his round, pockmarked face in exasperation. “Look, you’re just not gettin’ it. I can’t have some killer working here.”
    â€œBut I’m not a killer.”
    â€œI don’t know that for sure.” Del Vecchio pointed to the doors that led to the yard. “The fellas out there don’t know that.”
    â€œCall me crazy, but doesn’t this country believe that a man or, in this case, woman is ‘innocent until proven guilty’? Why are we even fighting this war if people like you are so quick to throw away those beliefs?” Rosie felt embarrassed to have used patriotism and propaganda to further her own cause, but she quickly recovered. She had her own war to fight.
    â€œOh no. Don’t you go pinnin’ that on me! Not after the trouble you caused me this morning.”
    â€œTrouble? What trouble are you in? If anything, it looks to me like you got a promotion. And probably a raise to go along with it.”
    â€œOh yeah, I got a promotion, all right. A promotion, a raise, and a lot of headaches. That thing you did to Hansen got the women all fired up. ‘New foreman, new rules,’ they said. I spent half the time before lunch trying to get them to work. And Jackson? She didn’t even show up today. No note. No phone call. No nothin’.”
    â€œReally?” Rosie grinned. “Well, it’s only going to get worse, you know. Once the girls around here learn that you wouldn’t hire me back—”
    â€œHow would they find out?”
    â€œWell, everyone saw me here today. It’s not too hard to guess what I wanted. Besides, some of the girls live in my neighborhood. I’m bound to run into one of them while on the train or at the market or ...”
    â€œAnd you’d tell them? You’d tell them that I wouldn’t give you your job back?”
    Rosie shrugged. “I have no reason to lie. If someone asks, I’m going to tell them the truth.”
    â€œGo ahead.” Del Vecchio folded his arms across his chest. “Go ahead and tell ’em. I’m not gonna let a few women scare me.”
    â€œA few?” Rosie laughed. “You read the news, don’t you? FDR expects to be drafting 200,000 men a month by summer. What are you going to do when the guys out there get called up? Who’s going to replace them? Unless the Pusheys try to revoke child labor laws, there’s going to be an awful lot of women in this shipyard.”
    â€œSo?”
    â€œSo pretty soon, you’re going to have to convince those women to rivet and weld and climb scaffolds and do a whole lot of things they’ve never done before. That won’t go smoothly if they think you’re a creep.”
    â€œAnd hirin’ you back will make ’em think otherwise?”
    â€œIt couldn’t hurt, could it? ‘New foreman, new rules.’ Now’s your chance to prove