Chapter 21 #2
it’ll fix what ails you. Or a lye douche—gets them little buggers every time. Course there was that time with Claudia Rouse.
Served her right, she waited too late, when there was a perfectly good hack down the alley, but Claudia always knew best.
Ended up screaming and flailing something awful. You could hear her screams all the way downstairs. Finally had to call for
the doctor to take her away. It was scaring the customers.” She screwed up her face and looked off in the distance. “Don’t
know what happened to her.”
“Dead, I suppose,” said Hildy.
“All of those things can kill you, including anyone who performs abortions in alleys,” Celia countered.
“I’ll kill you,” cried Misery, coming suddenly to life and bounding off the bench. She lunged at Celia and only missed knocking her to the
filthy floor because the old woman stuck out her cane and tripped her.
Hildy grabbed her arms and held her. “Don’t be stupid, Misery. You dirty up little miss here, and they’ll do you more than a horny preacher can. Plus she’s right.”
“Bunch a crap,” said the old woman, hobbling back to the wall and propping herself against it. “You take your chances until
you get unlucky.”
“There are safe ways to protect yourself so you don’t have to go through that,” Celia said.
“Like you would know. I bet you ain’t never even been kissed. Proper like, from a real man. Or had his—”
“Vera,” Hildy warned.
“Aw, hell. I tell you what. When we get outta here, you can tag along, find out what life’s really like. We’re all living
on borrowed time. Even you.”
“But it doesn’t have to be that way,” Celia said, the memory of her mother’s cries drowning out her words.
That set off another round of raucous derision, but Celia was hardly aware of it. She’d tapped into an anger that she had
nursed for so long, almost unwittingly; now it burst from its tenuous bounds, not at these women but for them.
“My mother died—”
One of the prostitutes grabbed her filthy skirts, revealing filthier undergarments, and beat her chest with the skirts. “Oh
boo-hoo. Did you hear that, girls? Her mother died. Does anybody here even remember their mother? Useless creatures.”
Celia pushed on. “She didn’t have to. She died from being forced to have too many babies, she just got weaker and weaker, and he didn’t—” She gulped in air.
It wasn’t their fault. Or her mother’s. But it was wrong, so wrong.
“There are instructions on how to feed one’s self and one’s family in order to have a healthy life. ”
“Yeah, a bottle a gin and a man’s sausage be—”
“Vera, watch yer filthy mouth,” said Hildy. “Let miss sunshine here keep her pipe dreams.”
The second prostitute snarled at Celia. “For all the good it’ll do her.”
“They’re not dreams,” Celia returned. “At least they don’t have to be. There are places where you can go to get help.”
“Churches, bunch a hypocrites, who’ll take a little of you on the side when nobody’s looking and deny it all the way to hell.
To hell with them, to hell with you.”
“Leave her alone,” said Misery, hardly above a whisper, so quiet that it actually got everyone’s attention.
“I gotta take a piss,” announced the old lady. She walked over to the corner and lifted her skirts. For a few long horrifying
seconds the stream hitting the metal bucket was the only sound in the dank cell.
They lost interest after that. Went back to whatever they had been doing before Celia had trespassed upon them.
Still, Celia didn’t move, just stood where she’d stood since the guard had left her, her brief fire of belief in herself left
dead on the dirty stones. And she wondered how long she could stand there without falling over or having to relieve herself
in the bucket in the corner.
Daphne was the first to notice the group gathered around the entrance of the Arcadia.
“What’s happened?” she cried and ran ahead.
Mr. Teller stepped out from the group surrounding the Arcadia doorway. “Somebody tried to break into the bookshop. Fortunately, a couple of students coming home from a night out scared them off and chased them down the street.”
Olivia pushed past Daphne.
The small crowd parted to reveal the ragged breakage in the glass above the lock.
“This has got to stop.”
“Olivia,” Daphne warned and grabbed her arm. “Let’s just go inside. Wait for Celia to get back.” She spun around, her heart
threatening to burst from her chest. “Where is Mr. Krause? He’ll know how to fix the window.”
“The butcher?” asked Mr. Teller. “What does he know about windows? Yannis will get you a piece of wood to put over the break
until my friend Zavier can replace it. I will go see him first thing. He’s very good. He’ll do this for me.”
Daphne heard Olivia thank him, but she was looking at Yannis. Why had they telephoned him that Celia had been taken? Why not
Olivia or her? Who had telephoned him?
Someone who knew he would need to know. Which meant it must be true about him and Celia, even though Celia had denied it.
And Daphne’s heart contracted, which was stupid, she reminded herself, because it was no business of hers. He and Celia could
be happy ever after together. Good for them. She didn’t care.
Then why did she have to bite her lip to keep her thoughts at bay?
She sneaked a look at him. He’d spent the evening helping her move furniture to her new reading niche and making suggestions .
. . and the idea about the cards . . . She hadn’t noticed then how black his hair was, or how it curled onto his forehead, softening his serious expression.
She hadn’t really noticed him much at all.
The next-door neighbor, nice, but going nowhere in the world except maybe to a bigger store.
Fourth Avenue would be his whole world. Was it going to be hers, too? She wanted more than this. More than living through
stories of other people who weren’t even real. She wanted her own story. Was that asking too much?
She took a breath. Why did everything have to be so complicated? And where was Mr. Starling during all this? He’d been at
the auction, and he hadn’t even said hello. Then he’d disappeared. That was even more depressing. And when was Celia coming
home?
Mr. Krause stepped forward in the momentary silence. “Thank you, Mr. Teller. An excellent idea. Now let’s get you ladies inside.
You go on upstairs and have some tea or something. We’ll clean this up and get the window secure.”
Suddenly, there was nowhere Daphne would rather be than upstairs in the apartment where she’d always lived and that she couldn’t
wait to get away from to have a place of her own. She tugged at Olivia’s sleeve. But Olivia didn’t budge.
“Come on, Celia will be hungry when she gets home.”
Olivia yanked her arm away. “When she gets home? How will they bring her home? We don’t even know where she is.”
“Mr. Kirsch and Mr. Henderson will find out. They’ll do what it takes to get her back. Come upstairs, Olivia, Mr. Krause is
right; we’ll just be in the way here.” Daphne didn’t take her arm, but she waited for Olivia to lead the way, something Daphne
realized Olivia had been doing all their lives.
It seemed like hours later when the metal door opened and they all looked at it; only Celia stepped to the side to make room
for the new prisoner.
A new guard stepped into the doorway. “Which one of you is Applebaum?”
Celia jumped as if she’d been shot. “I—I am.”
The guard jerked his head toward the door. “You’re sprung.” And ignoring the others, he motioned Celia out.
She hesitated; she wanted to go, but those women . . . She turned. “Thank you,” she said, and stepped into freedom. It was
a stupid thing to say. And they probably hated her for it. But they would hate her anyway. She felt it instinctively. And
it would always be the same. But she at least had learned something.
She followed the guard back the way she’d come. Once her feet started moving, they stepped faster and faster. She was beginning
to wonder if they would stop even after she was reunited with her sisters outside; or if they would carry her right to the
street and away from everything that had happened.
The last metal door between her and freedom barred the way. Then it, too, opened, and she rushed through it right into the
arms of . . . Joshua Starling.
She skidded to a stop. He stepped back.
“Where’s—?”
“Your sisters are at home with Yannis. Mr. Kirsch has retrieved your belongings and has gone to the cashier to pay your bail.
He’ll return to the Row to inform your sisters of your imminent release. I’ll escort you home.”
She hesitated. She didn’t quite trust him. Why was he the one who had come to “spring” her and “escort her home”? What was
his business here?
“I suggest we don’t spend another minute here.” He didn’t try to take her arm but gestured to the door. And she went.
Once on the street, she took a shuddering breath, felt tears spring to her eyes. Do not cry in front of him. Why that was so important, she didn’t know. But it was. She had been stupid. That was obvious to her and to everyone by now.
At first she’d thought it must have been her own carelessness, but she didn’t know how. Someone must have betrayed her. Except
that no one knew where she was, only the women at the settlement house, and she couldn’t believe that Camille or Selena would
do something so underhanded. Why would they? They were all on the same side. But someone had. Someone she’d trusted. Well,
after today, she wouldn’t be so free with her feelings or her trust ever again.
He started her down the sidewalk but not to the main street.
“I want to go home.”
“Soon.”
Fear, worse than any she’d felt in the actual cell, crawled up her spine. She backed away as the image of being dragged into
that black sedan rose in front of her, blocking out her surroundings.
“Trust me, you do not want to go home in the state you’re in. You need a powder room, a meal, and a good deal of hot coffee.
And . . . we need to talk.”