Chapter 42 #3
“You think they’re going to believe that, when customer after customer shows up here flashing money Mrs. Tartt could be making?
Mrs. Tartt doesn’t think she’s made enough to pay off her mortgage, not to mention, what is she supposed to live on after that?
We stand to practically double her money in the next four nights. ”
I stood up. “You mean you, you could double your money, Charlie—”
“You’re damn straight, me!” Charlie still wore that high-eyebrow look of surprise.
“And so could all the girls upstairs who need it, and so could you. Instead of six hundred fifty dollars, you could go home with a thousand! Imagine how far that could go in some backwater nothing of a town like Footely. And while you’re at it, imagine where somebody like you is ever going to earn that kind of cash again! ”
Her vitriol stung. Somebody like me? Did she think so little of me? I’d do well not to forget Charlie was no saint. She was a convict who’d shown up at the Orphan ready for a bullfight.
“Birdie, what chance do any of us have to earn a living after this? A bunch of women, in Mississippi, when most people don’t have a dime?
Most people don’t even think a woman deserves a job right now—only men get the jobs.
Well, I have a child, and it’s going to take me months to find straight work after this.
I’ll be lucky if I find a job before Christmas. And when I get Meg back—”
“We don’t know if that’s even possible, Charlie,” I snapped. “You can’t just kidnap her!”
Charlie’s eyes went wider. The small checkmark of a scar between her eyebrows reddened. “When I do get Meg back, and I will, I will have enough money to support us, so I won’t ever have to do this again.”
I looked away. My head hurt; I hadn’t eaten all day. Flossy came into the kitchen with Ruby behind her, an unlit cigarette in her mouth. She struck a long kitchen match and lit it, puffing it like a cigar.
“What’s the discussion?” Flossy asked. She had on Frances’s pink silky robe.
“We’re closed, as of right now,” I said. “We don’t have a choice.”
Flossy looked from me to Charlie, her blue eyes bulging. “But … we can’t close. I ain’t made enough money yet. I ain’t—I got nowhere to go after this.” Flossy looked old and thin in the robe. I thought about her alone on some street corner, begging like Old Miss Rondo.
“This is horseshit,” Ruby said.
Charlie came closer to me and she spoke carefully.
“Listen to what I’m trying to tell you, Birdie.
This town is going to be like damn Mardi Gras for the next four days, and when customers start showing up here and we tell them we’re closed, those drunk boys are gonna raise high hell—some of the men too.
And your sister is going to march her pain in the ass downstairs and hear it all and put it together like that. ” She snapped her fingers.
All right. She was right about that. But that didn’t mean I wanted to open and guarantee my own place in hell.
“What’s she gonna do if she does find out?” Ruby said. “She ain’t the damn sheriff.”
“She’s worse,” I said.
“She gone call the law on her own sister?” Ruby asked.
“Clearly, you ain’t got a sister,” Flossy said.
“Frances won’t call the sheriff,” Charlie said. “She’d be too terrified the whole town would find out. And Mrs. Tartt, she’s old-fashioned but I doubt she’d turn us in either.”
“You don’t know that,” I said.
Ruby shrugged her freckled shoulders. “If your sister ain’t gone rat us out, then put her to work. Tell her what kinda business we’re running and make it her job to keep the old bag in the dark.”
“Until it’s your sister, stay out of this, Ruby,” I snapped. Ruby blinked and drew back like I’d hurt her feelings.
“She’s got a point, Bird,” Flossy said. “If you tell your sis before she figures it out, least then you can tell her you ain’t selling tail, just tiddlywinks.”
“She won’t think I’m doing that, Flossy.
” But—would she? Now that this thought was in my head, it scared me.
Surely these weren’t my only two options—to tell Frances outright or let her most definitely find out?
Both were so bad—wasn’t there a third? “Isn’t there also the chance that she never puts it together?
If we put a sign up that says Closed, like any other business would do?
” But even I didn’t buy this. I’d be a fool to think carloads of drunk boys would see a sign on a tree and turn right on around.
All it would take was one of them hollering things and banging on the back door—but if that happened, what would Frances think?
Would she really draw the absurd conclusion?
Yup. Looks like my sister’s turned us into a whorehouse.
Would I put that together if I was still me?
I closed my eyes and said the insane, as sanely as I could: “If I tell Frances, and I’m not saying I will, how do we know she wouldn’t turn right around and tell Mrs. Tartt?”
No one had an answer to that. But then Charlie made a low, throaty sound. It took her a second to say it. “Tell Frances if she’ll keep Mrs. Tartt upstairs”—she was speaking through her teeth—“we’ll pay her.”
I looked at Charlie. Let Frances in on the game. “That’s … not a terrible idea.” Frances had nothing. If Rory had anything left, money or valuables, it probably wouldn’t go to Frances. Oh, but I cringed in my soul at the thought of telling her this …
I looked up at the ceiling, where all truths lived. “Oh dear Jesus,” I whispered.
“You can do this, Birdie. I got faith in you,” Flossy said.
Tonight’s appointments were nearly all grown men. The rowdy boys wouldn’t start showing up until tomorrow night. Maybe … tonight, we could keep them from finding out. I rubbed my temples and said, “Tomorrow. I’ll tell Frances tomorrow.”
Charlie nodded. “Thank you, Birdie.” Everyone in the room looked relieved but me. We opened in two hours and all I could do was ask the girls to please fornicate very, very quietly tonight.
Forty-five minutes before we opened, I crept up to the attic.
I had pimento cheese sandwiches and a fresh pitcher of ice water.
Balancing the tray, I eased the landing door open so as not to ring the cowbell.
Mrs. Tartt’s door was closed, and I could hear her snoring in there heartily.
Good. I set her plate and glass by her door.
On the right, Frances’s door was cracked open, and I could hear her rustling around in there.
It’s alright, I told myself, she’ll just sleep that much harder tonight.
“Room service,” I whispered, carrying in the tray. Frances, still in her pink nightgown, was unpacking her suitcase and making neat little stacks of clothes on the bookshelf. She’d moved Rory’s baby books to the side. Her hair was still wet, and her face pale.
I set the tray on the bed. “I thought you might want something to eat before you go to sleep.”
“Thanks,” she said and climbed up on the daybed, leaning her back against the wall. “Will you get in with me?”
“Alright, but … just for a few minutes. We’ve decided to open tonight after all.”
I climbed over her and sat catty-corner, so I could see the door in case Mrs. Tartt woke up.
The room was soothing, with faded blue wallpaper, the pattern a little boy carrying a musket and a sack of gunpowder.
Late afternoon sun was coming through the window and dust motes glistened in the air.
It was warm but very quiet up here. The ceiling fan whirred overhead.
Frances took a few bites of the sandwich, and I took a few bites too. I was starving. Only a few feet below us, the girls were getting dressed. Like prostitutes.
Frances narrowed her eyes on me. “You seem different.”
I looked away. “No, not different. Same old Birdie.”
“Your hair’s better, that’s a nice cut …” Esmeralda had trimmed it for me. Frances pulled a lock of it from behind my ear. “You plucked your eyebrows.”
“One of the boarders did it,” I said. “It’s nothing.” But she kept studying me. I didn’t like it. “Please tell me what happened with Rory?”
“Wait, first, what happened with that Jack fella?” she asked. “The one that was married?”
Not even able to appreciate the amazing fact that she’d asked this, I said, “We dated awhile. He says he’s getting a divorce, but he moved back to Jackson.
” I wrapped my arms around my stomach. I’d been hungry, but now I just felt sick.
The list of things I did not want to discuss with Frances was long.
“I’m sorry,” she said. And then she started to cry.
“Oh Franny.” I took her hand. I could feel that she’d lost weight too; her shoulders were thin, her long neck birdlike. “I’m sorry too.” Oh, how I meant that.
She took her hand back and held her fingers against her eyes. She looked like she was trying to push the hurt back inside.
“What happened, Franny?” My guess was we had about thirty-five minutes before opening. “Is Rory still in Biloxi? Is he still in jail?”
Frances nodded. “I don’t even know where to start, Birdie.”
“What’s gonna happen to him?”
“We won’t know until his hearing.” She wiped her eyes with the bedsheet.
“They’re charging him with attempted manslaughter for hitting that policeman with his car, even though the policeman’s going to be just fine.
I wanted to stay down there, but Mrs. Tartt was insisting on coming down too, and Holtzman, the lawyer, said it would be too much for her.
He told me to bring her home until we know more and have a court date set. ”
“Did Rory tell you anything? What did he do with everything he took—what does he have left? Was there any money—”