Chapter 20 Bottoms Up
Bottoms Up
Cora digs her head into her pillow, past the point of letting the coarse feathers muffle her sobs that came in the first flush
of her outrage last night. She hadn’t let herself go like that since Da’s funeral, eyes aching, nose wet, a dull headache
that consumes her whole face.
She’s stayed like this all day, since returning from the ball. As the sun rose soon after, she took to her room. At the soft
rap on her door, Béatrice offering lunch, then tea, all ignored. As a pair of pigeons decided to have a noisy squabble just
outside her window, Cora remained buried under her blanket and slept.
Now, as she finally digs herself out from her stupor, her stomach rumbling in irate protest, she finds Dagmar standing in
her doorway, the cook’s bulk filling the entire space.
“I’m fine.” Cora sits up, wiping her eyes. “Just tired.”
Dagmar grunts, skeptical. For some reason, the German woman’s disgusted expression is even more insulting than Alice’s cold
castoff.
“Trust me,” Cora mutters. “I’ve been through worse.”
“Then you know nuttink goot iz going to come lying dere crying your eyes out,” Dagmar huffs.
Cora looks up. This is the longest sentence she’s ever heard the cook put together. In English, anyway.
“Get dressed,” Dagmar adds gruffly, “and nothing too fancy.” Her red nose wrinkles on the word. “You are not going to be recogneezed
where we are going, but I will take no chances.”
Cora jumps up to sift through her wardrobe, just like a good soldier. Highly skilled now in doing as she’s told. How on earth
did she ever convince herself she was an accomplice, an equal?
In minutes, she has changed into a plain shirtwaist, modest hat, and patterned skirt, with a sensibly sturdy but decidedly
unstylish jacket to complete the understated look. Reemerging in the hall, Cora finds no signs of Alice or Béatrice. Dagmar,
meanwhile, stands waiting at the door, her hair neatly combed, the lines of her reddened face softened with powder. She takes
one of the two parasols she’s holding and hands it to Cora, then pulls a thick-knit toque onto her head.
“Come on then,” she grunts. “Ale will not drink itself.”
They move briskly together down the stairwell, outside into the early evening, and onto the avenue, where Dagmar hails a hansom
cab. Cora has no idea where they’re going and doesn’t ask.
Dagmar is a woman of very few words, which usually is off-putting to Cora, but today there’s an odd comfort, allegiance even,
in her silence.
It’s almost like they’re in mourning together.
When the carriage turns off Fifth Avenue and into the mess of the Bowery, though, curiosity finally gets the better of her.
“Where are we going?” Cora asks.
Dagmar lifts a lazy finger to the window, though offers nothing more.
“And why, pray tell, are we here?”
“If you cannot get rid of sorrows for goot?” Dagmar shrugs. “Drown zem for a while.”
Cora considers this, hardly game to argue with that airtight logic.
They pull onto a narrow road, past tanneries, shoddy storefronts, tenements with windows scrubbed opaque with dirt. The streets
are crowded down here, businessmen heading home after a long day, horses and carriages hitched on both sides, little urchins
peddling papers on the corners, wild hogs scampering across the roads. The carriage groans to a halt in front of a nondescript
saloon, a flapping wooden sign that simply reads Beer.
“We will have to go in zee back,” Dagmar explains.
Cora swallows, reconsidering the sign. “We’re going in here?”
“In zee back,” Dagmar says again, impatiently. “Women’s entrance.”
Cora’s suddenly feeling . . . nervous? Unprepared? The most she’s ever had by way of spirits is the odd glass of wine or champagne
here and there, and always in moderation (as per Alice’s instructions). Brandy too, once, that Maeve slipped her while they
were on the road.
“I’ve never had beer,” she admits.
Dagmar’s already halfway out of the carriage, her hat pulled low, parasol extended. “First time for everyzing. Now, come on.
Beers are only a cent ?til six.”
Cora follows the cook into a dingy alley, around to a door marked Ladies Entrance.
The tight, dusty corridor eventually gives way to a cramped saloon, dimly lit, well kept, and packed, with a long oak bar along the opposite wall.
Most of the nearby tables are filled with female patrons clustered together chatting or huddled around a card game, half-drunk pints of golden liquid by their sides.
The front of the saloon is all men. Workmen in uniforms, soot-stained hands clutching their glasses alongside businessmen in suits and loosened neckties.
Cora feels a wave of shame. An imposter, that’s what she is, among all these honest folks putting in their time to eke out
a weekly paycheck. People like her old cast members, Dinah and Maeve. Her father too. Meanwhile, here she is, crying about
getting married to a millionaire?
Dagmar claims two seats at a table and plunks Cora down into one of the empty chairs.
“Give us four pints, love,” she orders, once a waitress appears. “We need to catch up with zee others.”
The server returns shortly with four glasses overflowing with foam.
Dagmar slides two Cora’s way. “Bottoms up.”
Cora nearly chokes on the first sip—the foam isn’t sweet, as she assumed, but tart and bitter, the liquid underneath reminiscent
of the way the farm smelled in the morning—dewy wheat, sunshine, cut grass. It goes down easy, fills her belly with warmth.
When it’s all gone, Cora surprises herself by reaching for the second one.
“Thing is, there are far worse men than Harry,” she says, pausing to quietly burp. “He’s smart, in his own way. Observant.
And without a doubt one of a kind.”
“Doez not sound so bad,” Dagmar grunts.
Cora takes another long pull from the glass.
“Though, fine, if you insist on the full story, he is . . . also a fair sight peculiar. Truly obsessed . . . with science, particularly the human body. Also coddled, despite his father’s ruthless reputation.
Bit of a fool, really, when it comes to the way of the world. ”
“Ze kind of person one might like to dupe,” Dagmar amends with a shrug.
Cora sighs. “I’m beginning to worry we’re alike in that way.”
Dagmar finishes her glass.
“I simply don’t understand how Alice could do this to me.”
“Alice ez not your friend, m?dchen.” Dagmar holds her gaze steady. “Alice does not have any friends. Only . . . what iz the word in English? Associates.”
“That’s the thing.” Cora’s stomach twists. “She’d never pull a stunt like this on you or Béa.”
“Ja, freilich, she would. Besides, you are different. You are face of . . . operation. Her operation. One-way street. Ze sooner you get that through your head, ze better it will be.” Dagmar’s face changes as she
scans the room. “Speaking of, I need to conduct some buzness of my own.” She nods to Cora’s glass. “Put zem on my tab, zey
know I am gut here.”
The cook crosses the room, exchanging hellos with two young women who’ve just entered—housekeepers, maybe, or ladies’ maids.
In moments, Dagmar’s face positively ignites with pleasure at the sight of a round-faced, burly bartender newly back on break.
The barman throws a rag over his shoulder, ducking under the counter, before spying Dagmar. A bashful, boyish grin curls underneath
his thick mustache.
Cora’s confused. Could he be part of the Württemberg scheme, a player she doesn’t know about?
Dagmar coyly slides over to the bar, the beguiling smile she’s wearing so incongruent with her menacing features that Cora has to stifle a laugh.
Is Dagmar keeping a sweetheart in the Bowery?
Does Alice know?
A laugh bursts out of Cora. She is about to join them, or at least eavesdrop; she’s beyond curious . . . but then promptly
stops herself. Dagmar is here off the clock. She has her own circle, a real life, an existence outside of Alice’s machinations. Whereas Cora has become a puppet, Alice
pulling the strings behind her every move.
What has happened to the girl who longed for the spotlight, who had her sights set on besting the world?
Who is she now anyway, besides Phony Miss Cora Ritter from the Kingdom of Balderdash?
Cora chugs the remains of her glass, stands decidedly—if surprisingly unsteadily—and heads toward the bar. Alice would obviously
not condone a third pint of ale in the course of twenty minutes, especially not on an empty stomach, which makes securing
another glass a grand idea.
She edges beside a group of businessmen, thrilling in the impropriety of being a woman alone among men. “Pardon, excuse me,
on a very important mission. Barkeep! May I have another?”
Dagmar’s sweetheart, who is still busy exchanging sweet nothings with the cook, stands and grunts a reluctant acknowledgment.
He pours Cora another round and slides the foamy pint across the counter.
“Bottoms up, Alice,” Cora declares and downs half the ale.
“Who’s Alice?”
She turns. For a second, Cora worries she’s imagining things. Again.
But no. Cal Archer, newspaper man, dogged journalist for The Herald, is standing in front of her with a half-full glass and a very satisfied smirk.
“What a delightful surprise to find you here, Miss Ritter.”
Cora’s thoughts ricochet, a game of whiff-whaff. As she was carrying on with Dagmar, taunting her boss halfway across town,
was it in her Württembergian lilt? Did Cal spy her earlier and listen in? And how on earth is she going to explain why an
emerald heiress is drinking with their cook down in the Bowery?
“I . . .” Cora’s mind keeps free-falling. “Württemberg is a country very known for its ale!”
Goodness, is she slurring? A hot, sudden awareness overtakes her. She is not only slurring but swaying. When did that happen?
Cal’s blue eyes glimmer from under the bar’s lantern light. “Is that so?”
“Yes, er. Indeed, it is. I ask my servants to accompany me down to this area of the city when I’m feeling particularly lonely,”
she over-enunciates. “It helps with homesickness.”