Chapter Eleven
We collect ourselves. Pax has a light, spritzy rose water that smells like standing in the rain when the sun peeks through the clouds, and we refresh with it.
Nirav giggles silently when he’s misted, and Pax’s eyes sparkle at his joy.
Is there a better emotion than laughter through tears? It is a human rainbow.
Pax dresses and leads us across East Fifty-Seventh to a clean home with a shingle out front: “Miss Beverly’s Home for Girls.” He turns to Nirav. “Follow my lead, okay?”
Nirav works his jaw but nods.
The bell above the door jangles when we enter. A woman—Miss Beverly, I presume—lifts herself off her tufted chair and approaches us. Spirit whistles.
Wowee! Wouldya get a loada this joint!
Fancy place, no? Carpeted floors, electricity… and look! A radio!
The woman is a real peach pit, though, Stella.
“We’re seeking rooms, please.” Pax’s smile is like a photographer’s flash, and Miss Beverly is unimpressed. I remind myself not to get too used to that smile—it is the kind of smile that erodes barriers.
“Who they for?” she grumbles.
“Why, these two fine young… women, of course.”
Nirav shifts, lowers his head so his long hair falls over the peach fuzz on his upper lip.
Miss Beverly pushes her spectacles up her nose by shifting her puckered lips to and fro. “This here’s a fine home. We expect excellent behavior from our girls.”
“Oh, yes, ma’am,” he says. “These are my sisters, visiting from Ohio for a few weeks. My apartment is simply too small to contain us all.”
Sisters. I blink. Swallow. Right. The focus here is Daisy. Never lose that focus.
Aw, Stella. You’re allowed to live for yourself, ya know?
Miss Beverly crinkles and shifts her lips again, and her glasses inch up her nose. Silence. She’s not buying his yes, ma’am act. Pax senses her hesitation.
“Imagine if all our siblings were to come!” he says, whirling to face me. The cock of his grin is devilish and showcases a dimple in his right creek. “Jenny would have a fit if she had to share a room with me, her only brother. Spoiled princess, our Jenny.”
Nirav. Nirav really wants this room, Stella. I smile. Huh—that’s nice, smiling. “Caroline would go nuts over the horses having to walk over those cobblestones all day. That girl loves her horses.”
Miss Beverly’s eyes sink further into her wrinkled face. “How many sisters do you have?”
Say six.
Without pause, Pax says “seven” and I say “six.”
There is something about how Pax’s face tilts into that dimple that makes me look away. “I have seven. Rose here, of course, has six.”
I narrow my eyes at him. Do not call me Rose. Stage name only. He shoots back a quick look of apology.
Huh—that’s odd. I haven’t communicated like that with someone since Daisy.
Miss Beverly slides her gaze to Nirav. “Why does she wear pants?”
Nirav sighs but understands what he must do. He hikes one leg of his pants to show a horrible scar on his bony shin. My heart twists, wondering what could’ve caused him that kind of pain.
That poor kid got a bum rap of a family, he did.
Sweet baby.
It’s the kind of scar that would sometimes show in the swish of a skirt, so the pants are plausible. When he shrugs and lowers his pant leg, Miss Beverly grunts, “You got references?”
Pax flashes his sunbeam-laden smile. “You have me.”
Miss Beverly spits a wad of tobacco juice into a nearby spittoon. “I got the piles, is what I got.”
Oh my goodness. Did she actually SAY THAT OUT LOUD?
She did. My sister loves to discuss her hemorrhoids.
“You don’t truly need references, do you?” Pax looks into her eyes, deeply. Unflinchingly. It’s mesmerizing. And she returns the stare until her face softens. She reaches for her roster and starts rattling off a too-memorized list of her home’s features:
“Private bath. Hot and cold water. Telephone. Steam heat. Electric lights. Southern cooking daintily served at the diner around the corner. Laundry next door. Near the el, the subway and the trolley. Newly furnished rooms. Four dollars a week. You need two?”
“Yes,” Pax says.
Nirav kicks Pax in the shin, shakes his head. He slides his hand into mine and flinches. In my mind’s eye, Spirit gives him a hug, surrounding him with warmth and light. His shoulders relax.
Go ahead, lass. Do it.
He’s a great kid.
“Oh, Pax,” I say. “You’re too generous. One room is fine.”
Pax looks from me to Nirav and back, as though gauging whether this will be appropriate or worse, run me off. He needs me now. Needs my gifts, actually. “You’re certain?”
I squeeze Nirav’s hand. “Absolutely.”
Miss Beverly sighs. “One room, then. The number to receive calls is Schuyler 8397, but no outgoing calls, you hear? Too costly. I’m supposing you want this room on credit?”
Pax playfully pshaws her. “No, ma’am! I don’t believe in credit.
” He reaches into the breast pocket of his jacket and pulls out the thickest wad of bills I’ve ever seen.
“Three months up front, please,” Pax continues.
He slides several bills across the marble counter.
Miss Beverly doesn’t blink; she scoops the money directly into her apron pocket.
Three months? I feel a sudden need to run. Three months is far too large of a commitment. It’s the longest I’ve stayed in one place since…
Since I had a family.
“Maybe we shouldn’t—” I begin.
Miss Beverly hands me a large brass key. “Room 202.”
Pax senses my fear. He dips his chin at me, lifts his hand in a small farewell. “I’ll see you soon? I still owe you that nickel, after all.”
I don’t reply.
“I always pay my debts, Stella Bohdan.”
Stella. There it is. I nod. “Yes. You still owe me that nickel.”
I’ll stay. For now. But I must keep my heart in one piece. No shattered-glass soul for me.
Room 202 holds a tiny stove, two small, battered bedsteads with thin mattresses, a single chair with a mended cushion, an evil-smelling lamp with a wick not quite long enough, a tremulous kitchen table, and a leaky skylight.
“I thought she said these rooms were—” I halt my statement—newly furnished—when I see Nirav. He spins slowly, looking at this place with shiny eyes.
“Come on, roommate,” I say, gently touching his elbow. He jerks away instinctively. “Let’s unpack.”
“Unpacking” consists of me hanging my one torn hat on a nail behind the bed and placing my one change of clothes to soak in the tiny sink in the corner.
There is a waved bit of looking glass over the counter.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen myself in a mirror.
I look older. I run my fingers through my tangle of hair, suddenly self-conscious that it looked like this all morning.
Not that that matters. I clear my throat.
Nirav unpacks, too. He dumps his canvases and paints on the single chair, and he turns his pockets inside out on the lopsided table. I glance at the contents: A spool of thread. A fishing hook. A sharpened pencil. A jagged shard of blue glass.
I kick off my shoes and sit on one of the beds. “How do you like our digs, roomie?”
I was trying to make a lighthearted remark, but Nirav still stands in the middle of the room, as if afraid to touch anything. It’s obvious he’s trying to piece together how exactly he wound up here, now. His hesitation emboldens me: “Do you think we can trust Pax?”
Nirav bites his bottom lip, but eventually, slowly, he nods.
He’s young, but somehow, knowing that Nirav is also choosing trust comforts me.
I shift into lying on the bed on my belly, my chin propped in my hands.
“When I’m getting to know people, Spirit…
well, I sometimes picture a flower in my mind’s eye.
It gives me a message about what I can expect from that person. And Pax, well, I see oleander.”
Nirav finally looks my way.
“Oleander has lots of varieties,” I explain, kicking my feet. “My favorite ones are pink with dozens of small, lacy blooms. It’s beautiful. It’s also very poisonous.”
Nirav considers this, then nods. He at last sits on the edge of the bed and begins to take off his shoes and socks. He points to himself. And what flower do you see with me?
I grin. “A dandelion.”
Nirav huffs and playfully tosses a sock at me.
“No, listen!” I laugh. “Society sees a scraggly weed when they see a dandelion. But it’s a scrappy plant. A survivor, growing in the toughest conditions. And dandelion is one of the most healing and useful plants in all the world.”
Nirav scrunches his face, then smiles: Okay, I’ll take it.
And even though it’s barely 8 a.m., Nirav curls over in bed and is snoring in mere moments.