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3.

One or two evenings a week I ran instead to the Metropolitan Opera to join the standee line at the back door. Since I had influence I went to the head of the block-long line. A college friend, waiting for a boat to Europe, was one of the first to arrive each night, and as there was a great [[underlined]] rapport [[/underlined]] among the early arrivals (always the same people and with one thing in commmon -- they carried the scores of the operas in their minds) they permitted me to join my friend. In fact, they always applauded when they saw me panting into sight. 

But a week before Christmas my friend got a job as a deck hand on [[strikethrough]] the [[/strikethrough]] a Hamburg-American Lines boat. Then the next day my landlady told me she was going to Reno for a divorce and was closing her place. 

My co-worker, the model, suggested that I go and live in her rooming house in the Bronx, where the rent was $2.50 a week. On Christmas Eve, with my final pay from Brentano's in my pocket, I drove with my mass of luggage to the Bronx. I still remember with chagrin that I brought no Christmas present for my co-worker although she had one waiting for me -- a small leather address book she had stolen from Brentano's. 

Her kindnesses were endless. I could boil an egg and make coffee on her gas ring. And the day after Christmas she took me to Garment Center and found me a job with a dress designer, selling designs to manufacturers on commission. I was fascinated with garment center but never sold a single