Chapter 24 #3
Charlie finally let the churning stick go—that butter was bound to be thick as bricks by now.
She swallowed. She seemed awfully nervous.
“I know there’re plenty of places to dance in town, but the problem is there aren’t enough girls to dance with.
Which is an opportunity for us. If you look in those places, you’ll see all sorts of boys waiting for their turn or trying to cut in on another couple.
It’s always been like that, but this year it’s going to get worse. ”
“On account of Governor Bilbo fired all the teachers three years ago?” Mrs. Tartt said. “The school lost its certification, but this year they’re getting it back. Tell them what it said in the newspaper, Charlie.” It was starting to feel choreographed between them.
“The paper said nine hundred and fifty boys will be showing up at the college in two weeks,” Charlie said.
“That’s three hundred more than last year and four hundred more than the year before, but only a hundred and three girls are enrolled, so that’s ten boys to every girl.
I’m saying, what if we had a place where the boys could go dance with a woman—a young lady, or as many as they could pay a dime for. Not to mention—”
“Oh my God!” Frances said. “What is she even talking about?”
Charlie ignored her; she was looking at me now. “Not to mention, the girls have a very strict curfew at the college and the boys don’t, so what are the boys supposed to do after ten o’clock at night?”
Mrs. Tartt smiled. “Ten’s a little late. Could we say nine thirty?”
Charlie shrugged. “The point is the boys are going to go somewhere, especially on Friday and Saturday nights, so I figure they might as well come here and spend their daddies’ money.”
“Charlie,” I said, “I still—I don’t see how this could make nearly enough money in time.”
“Along with dances we’d also charge for dance lessons. Somebody’s got to teach the boys all the new dances so they can impress the college girls.”
Frances had started tilting a cheap glass saltshaker back and forth on the table, click, clack, click. “And what do you get for those, two dimes?”
“There’d also be the rent money every week. You’ve got two guest rooms upstairs, and there’s the pair of converted nursery rooms in the attic, and then there’s Rory’s room—”
“We are not renting out Rory’s room.” Frances practically spat this. “What if he comes home?”
Charlie gave Frances a cool, even look.
“Alright, alright.” I put a hand up. Frances was gripping the saltshaker now like she might pummel Charlie with it. “Charlie, again, this is all very … good of you to try and help, but the whole thing sounds a little … questionable to me.”
“Questionable?” Frances laughed. “Cheap is what it sounds like. Boys paying girls to dance with them in our backyard? Turning your family home into a floozy boardinghouse? Viktoria, why would you want to embarrass yourself like this?” Frances hardly ever used Mrs. Tartt’s first name.
“Believe me, I don’t want to sell the house either, but have you thought about what people would say about us? ”
Mrs. Tartt looked from Charlie to Frances and started to speak but grimaced instead.
“The whole town would be gossiping about this,” Frances said.
“Did you hear what happened to the Tartts? They started a low-class dance club because they lost everything! We haven’t even tried to look for Rory yet!
What if we found him in a week? Or even two?
” Frances folded her hands in prayer. “We could clear this whole mess up without anybody but the bank knowing about it.”
Mrs. Tartt sighed, looking at her handkerchief curled in her fist. “Maybe I did get a little too excited. Charlie, this is—it’s not the kind of thing the Tartts do.”
“You’re right, it’s not.” Charlie laughed bitterly, and tears pooled in her eyes.
“Because you don’t know what it feels like to be desperate yet, but I do.
” She leaned closer to Mrs. Tartt. “Remember when you told me there are only a few things in life worth taking a chance on? And if you miss your chance, it is gone.” This conversation felt very private between them, but I had to speak up.
“Charlie, this isn’t Memphis, or Jackson, it’s Oxford,” I said. “It just seems … I don’t know … unlikely to work, in all sorts of ways. How much money could something like this possibly make?”
Charlie sat up straight and took a deep breath. “On a very good night, maybe fifty dollars. In a good week, close to two hundred.”
The hinge of my mouth creaked open. She had to be kidding. Or drunk. Or both.
“I know it’s hard to believe, and all that wouldn’t be yours.
” She spoke in a deeper, more serious tone now.
“The ladies working at the club would earn a share of the dance money, and there’d be costs involved, food and electricity and things to make the house comfortable again.
But we’d also make a pretty good amount selling whiskey drinks too—”
“Whiskey?” Frances shouted.
We looked at Mrs. Tartt. She shrugged. She knew about this?
“Well, we’d want it to be popular,” Mrs. Tartt said. “And we do have an awful lot of it down in the cellar. It’s not like we can sell it to Mr. Fauster.”
I was speechless. Charlie had convinced Mrs. Tartt to turn her house into a speakeasy? My head was spinning. All the doubts I’d had about Charlie woke up again. Was she some kind of a con artist? I mean, in addition to a convicted criminal? I pulled a chair out and lowered myself down in it.
“Couldn’t we get arrested for that?” I asked.
“Oh I doubt Sheriff Porter would do much,” Mrs. Tartt said. “They’re saying Prohibition could be over by Christmas. Not that Lafayette County’ll ever go wet, but folks’ opinions have changed about taking liquor.”
“We’d split the profits three ways,” Charlie added.
“Don’t include me in this, this criminal enterprise!” Frances said.
“Oh, I wasn’t,” Charlie said. She looked over my way.
“What—you want me to operate this business with you?”
Frances let out a harsh, mean laugh.
“You’re good at business,” Charlie said. “And we’d need a bookkeeper to keep everything organized. We’d only have to be open a few weeks … a month tops, and then we’d close shop. You could go back home with pretty good money in your pocket.”
Those words, go home and good money, hung in the air. But I rubbed the back of my neck. This all seemed too good to be true.
“Charlie, maybe this is too much to ask her,” Mrs. Tartt said. She looked a little embarrassed. “You’ve done so much for us already, Birdie. It’s just that I know your family’s having money problems too, is why I thought you might be interested.”
Had Frances told her that? No, Frances would never admit the Calhouns weren’t the comfortable plantation owners she’d made us out to be, so that left Charlie.
I’d mentioned our troubles to Charlie one of those nights on the back porch, smoking cigarettes.
So not only had she been working on Mrs. Tartt behind our backs, she’d used my family to convince Mrs. Tartt to do this.
That felt a little too conniving for my tastes, but I said nothing.
“If it worked, you would have the bank off your back,” Charlie said to Mrs. Tartt. “And then you can decide if or when you want to sell your house, instead of in a hurry and be forced to take pennies on the dollar from a cheat like Mr. Fauster.”
“How long have you been thinking about this, Charlie?” I asked.
Charlie looked at me square-on and said, “Two years.”
“Henry always said if you want to make money, you’ve got to take risks.” Mrs. Tartt glanced over at Charlie. “That and never let them know you’re desperate.”
For a while nobody spoke and then Charlie stood up from the stool and carried the churn over to the counter, the tall stick still stuck in it. “I’ll let the two of you sleep on it tonight, but we don’t have a lot of time. Let me know what you decide tomorrow.”
So this was my decision too? If I voted no, it wouldn’t happen?
“Why are you even doing this?” Frances asked Charlie. “Why do you care so much about what happens to this family?”
“Because I want to get my daughter back.” Charlie said it plain and simple. There it was.
“You have a child, Charlie?” Mrs. Tartt asked. She sounded genuinely surprised. “Well … where is she?”
“She’s living with a family a few hours north of here,” Charlie said.
“Why’s she not with you?” Mrs. Tartt asked.
“She was—I lost my job and couldn’t afford to take care of her, so she went to live with them.” Which wasn’t exactly true but it didn’t matter. Frances narrowed her eyes slightly on Charlie, but kept her mouth shut.
“I’m terrified I’ll never see her again.” I could hear Charlie sobbing under the words. “I’ll do anything to get my daughter back.”
Mrs. Tartt shivered and nodded, like she understood the feeling.
The cow is mooing. So get up and milk her. I opened my eyes to the first light slipping through the porch screens. That isn’t a cow, I realized, that’s a people. Why are they laughing and talking … at this painful hour?
Downstairs, I pulled on a pair of cracked rubber boots. When I opened the side door, the morning was pink, vaporous, the air cool. Mrs. Tartt and Charlie were over by the black barn talking. I walked toward them, through the wet grass.