Chapter 27 Emily
EMILY
“You got the burn, too?” Maria asked quietly, holding Emily’s eyes in the mirror. “No one seems able to sit down comfortably right now.”
After months of dealing with her perpetually greasy and tangled shoulder-length hair, Emily had finally been called to visit the hair salon for a cut.
The hairdresser, Maria, who months ago had doused every inmate’s hair in gasoline in an attempt to tame the lice, only worked in the salon twice a week—in lieu of factory duty—so inmates were granted a haircut on a rotation that moved slower than molasses in a snowstorm.
The prison salon consisted of one client chair that could be raised and lowered, a sink, a mirror, a comb and scissors, and a single bottle of setting spray.
Emily gnashed her teeth. The lineup outside Dr. Stone’s office was getting longer by the day, and more girls were complaining about an infection in lowered tones. “Yes,” she said. “I take it you don’t?”
Maria shook her head, turning her focus back to Emily’s cut, but she glanced at the open doorway.
“I’ve never seen anything like this. Even in, you know…my line of work. It doesn’t spread around the house. Mama makes sure her girls are clean. I don’t understand how it’s—”
“Wait,” Emily interrupted, eyes narrowing, “you’re one of June Jones’s girls?”
Maria nodded. “I am. That’s how I got this gig,” she said, snipping her scissors demonstratively. “Mama fixed it with the warden. They wouldn’t give these to just anybody, you know. And it keeps me out of the factory. I hate the factory.”
Emily knew Maria had been a high-end prostitute, a favourite of a few prominent politicians, but she hadn’t known she was connected to June.
She watched Maria bob and weave around her damp head as she snipped and clipped, considering the best way to prod her for more information. She decided to keep it light.
“I’ve heard she’s been in a few times,” Emily said. “June.”
Maria nodded. “Yeah. Every time the police need to up their quota, or show somebody in government that they’re cracking down on crime and prostitution.” She rolled her eyes. “Filthy hypocrites. June’s girls have probably bedded half the force over the years, and they always come back for more.
“Mama hates getting cycled back through here,” Maria went on, “and having to leave the house to her assistant to manage. But I don’t think she’d deny that getting sent here has its advantages. It’s a great recruiting ground.”
“Oh, wow,” Emily said, with an air of benign interest. “So some of the girls in here go to work for her after?”
“Mhm.” Maria nodded again, flipping her own dark hair back over her shoulder as she combed out Emily’s.
“One of the girls I’ve seen her with lately was in here before, for vagrancy, I think, but she’s got a sweet little face and a nice shape.
The other one’s new, I guess. But they both came in with June, I saw them from here.
” She waved vaguely at the front doors just outside the hair salon.
Emily knew which two girls Maria was talking about—she’d seen June with them almost exclusively at mealtimes.
They had their factory shift together, too.
“And it’s not a bad gig, you know,” Maria went on. “Working in June’s house.”
Emily met her eyes in the mirror again as Maria reached for the can of setting spray and began to shake it. She must have seen the flash of disbelief in Emily’s eyes, because she laughed, shook her head.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said, “but really…the way I figure it, no matter what work I’m doing, I’m selling my body, right?
Working with my hands and feet doing something like this, or other parts of me, doing…
other things.” She paused, and Emily thought back to her conversation with Doris about this, how they didn’t think any woman would ever choose prostitution.
But it sounded as though perhaps Maria had.
“Might as well work three hours a day and have Mama’s protection and a room of my own in a safe house than toil in some dark factory with no protection at all, twelve hours a day, and have some foreman take what he wants from me anyway in a storage closet without paying for it.”
The colour was high in her cheeks now, and Emily understood. A rush of pity hit her.
“Where did that happen to you?” she asked quietly.
“Leather factory over on Spadina. God, that place stank. I’ve hated the smell ever since. Can’t stand it.”
“I’m sorry,” Emily said. She was beginning to really like Maria.
“Anyway,” Maria said, taking a deep breath and gesturing that she was done with Emily’s cut. “You look fab. I like shorter hair on women. Maybe not as short as Bernie’s, though,” she said with a chuckle.
Emily patted her strands, experienced a rare moment of vain satisfaction in her new look.
It was still long enough to pin back, though, which was necessary for cleaning or meal prep.
Her eyes met Maria’s in the mirror as she thought back to the day Bernie had joined her and Annie at breakfast. “Do you know why Bernie keeps it so short?”
“Yes. She doesn’t shy away from telling people.
Anyway, if she likes her hair that short, that’s fine by me.
I give the girls what they want. It’s about the only thing they get to choose in this place, and I figure if a woman can’t even have a say over her own hair, then what’s she got left?
” She fluffed Emily’s hair a few times with her fingers.
“I wish we had a proper hair dryer, but you’ll get the general idea once it air-dries, and maybe when you’re out of here, you can get it properly styled. ”
Emily smiled politely. She wasn’t one to frequent the beauty parlour for “styling.” A wet comb, some pins, and a touch of her mother’s spray were more her speed. “Thanks,” she said, standing to leave.
“Hey.” Maria held her arm, not unkindly. “I’m not sure what exactly your story is, but you seem like a smart girl. A bit plain-looking”—she took in Emily’s features—“but you could be pretty enough with your makeup done right, and that new cut.”
Emily tried not to feel offended. “Erm, thank you.”
“My point is, if you wanted to, I think you could get in with Mama once you’re out of here. She’d probably be happy to have you.”
Emily suppressed a laugh. June Jones being “happy” about anything to do with her seemed about as likely as a landslide in the middle of downtown. “I don’t think I’m her type,” she said.
1 December
Dear Mom and Dad,
Things have been much the same here since my last letter. We had fresh apples in October, which had me looking forward to Mom’s apple tart at Christmastime. I cannot tell you how much I miss her home-cooked meals.
I am very happy to report that after several months of dedicated effort, I have made a few friends who are keen storytellers, and I believe I have learned the lessons we had all hoped this place would impart on me, and which might benefit my future prospects.
I look forward to seeing you all for Christmas in a few days’ time, and regaling you with tales of my reformation.
Your loving daughter,
Emily
EARLY DECEMBER, 1961
Emily was working alongside Gertrude in the factory, feeding the boring white fabric through the machine as the others around her whirred and thunked in a clamorous mechanical chorus.
Under Gert’s tutelage, she’d gotten much better, and could now work faster, with fewer finger pricks and muttered curses, producing straight seams. These sheets were all for government institutions, and thus made by prisoner labour with the cheapest material available.
Emily had read in the paper a couple of years before about a woman from Alberta who’d filed for a patent on an elasticized sheet that would cling right to the mattress.
She didn’t like to think how finicky it would be to sew those elastics into the corners, and was grateful for the government’s bargain-bin approach to bedding production.
She finished the set she’d been working on, then stood to fold it, embracing the stretch for her back and arms as she walked to the long table at the front of the room, folded the sheet, and set it on the stack.
As she hurried back to her seat, she met eyes with June, two rows behind her, flanked by her two ever-present friends.
June’s face was impassive. She hadn’t yet acted on her information about Emily’s identity, and Emily was grateful.
June had said she wouldn’t do anything unless it gave her an advantage, so evidently, one had not yet presented itself.
Emily could only hope that would hold out until her release on the nineteenth.
She was feeling an overwhelming sense of relief that the ordeal was shortly coming to a close, and also excitement.
She had plenty of information for the story now, and—she thought with a little shiver of pride—much of it was similar in significance to Nellie Bly’s exposition on the Blackwell’s Island asylum: reprehensible treatment of inmates, revolting living conditions.
The lice, vermin, and dreadful diet. Dr. Stone’s barbaric pelvic exams, and the infections.
The baking summer heat and lack of any actual “reform” activity.
The empty classrooms half-heartedly staged, like some long-forgotten and dusty dollhouse.
The one thing she still couldn’t figure out, though, was why exactly Stone had infected them to begin with, just to then have to provide treatment. It made no sense.
Like Bly’s exposé, this was a good story obtained in a bold way.
Emily was a proper “girl stunt reporter” now, and that thought filled her with satisfaction.
She smiled to herself. She could hardly wait to get back to normal life, return to the office, where she would make a name for herself and—almost certainly—receive a promotion, maybe even to a junior staff writer.