Chapter 43 #3
“Frances,” I said and cleared my throat.
“Remember when you were saying how … when a boy grows up to be a man, he starts to have these … urges—” Now Flossy was trolling past. I tried to ignore her.
“Urges to have … intercourse—except I don’t mean like Rory’s urges, I mean like a man and a woman have urges in marriage—but regular marriages, not like what you and Rory had, or didn’t have, in the bedroom.
” And, God knows why, I laughed. Nerves.
Frances set down her glass of milk. “Why would you … say that?”
“What do you mean?”
“About the bedroom—are you … are you making fun of me?” Her neck was growing tall, dangerously tall.
“No, no—” I smiled. I couldn’t control my own face. “I wasn’t mocking you, Frances.”
“Yes you were, you just said it, ‘regular marriages, not like what you and Rory didn’t have in the bedroom.’ He’s sick, Birdie. So what is it, a joke to you that I never had intercourse with my husband?”
“I—” Never? With her own husband of a year? “I—I didn’t know that, Frances.”
We were at full goose-neck now.
“You are so selfish. First you bring these low-life, cheap-looking gypsies into my home and turn it into some embarrassing dance parlor with no concern how it would make me feel or make me look, and now you say this?” Her mouth was turned down like one of those frightening drama masks.
She looked disgusted by me. “Or maybe that’s why you did it, to humiliate me because you’re jealous!
You always have been. Because I can have children and poor, poor Birdie can’t, so now you’re making fun of me because of my sick husband.
My God, it’s no wonder that man ran back to Jackson like he did! ”
That. It hit me like a hard kick in the stomach.
So hard I blinked. Of course I was envious, but I’d never wanted bad things for Frances.
And she was calling me selfish? I’d lost my job in Footely to stay here and help her.
That was not a small thing in these times—and now I was working my tail off until two o’clock in the morning, risking my life as a free citizen to help her and her family—and yes, help my family, but that was her family too.
And what had she done for us? She’d had to ponder over loaning us two hundred fifty dollars.
On top of that, I’d been buttering her damn pound cake and telling her what she wanted to hear for years.
I was so blindsided, I didn’t realize Flossy’d come into the dining room. She set a hand on my shoulder. “Let me do this for you, Bird,” she said softly. “I know a thing or two about sisters.”
I nodded. I simply could not do this myself.
“Are you wearing my dress now?” Frances said, standing up. God, I’d missed that, but sure enough she had on Frances’s favorite green dress. There was no phony smile on Frances’s face now, just a long neck and an ugly frowning mouth.
Flossy had powdered her face and only wore simple red lipstick to meet Mrs. Tartt. No heavy rouge or kohl around her eyes. She looked nice.
“Ya don’t mind, do ya?” Flossy said, smiling wide, not embarrassed about her teeth as she was earlier.
In fact, she looked damn proud of them. “Please. Switch with me, Bird.” Numbly I moved over one and gave Flossy my chair.
What my sister had said to me years ago came to mind: Why try?
Why try to make my sister like me, when her heart was buried so deep?
“Sit down, Frances,” Flossy said to her.
Frances didn’t sit. She glared at Flossy. She looked to be sizzling mad.
“Siddown, Franny,” Ruby said, striding into the dining room.
Frances looked at her and something drew her back down into her chair, perhaps Ruby’s slitted green eyes, perhaps the knuckle sandwich she was polishing in the palm of her hand.
Ruby took the seat on the other side of Frances and moved her chair closer to her.
Flossy shook her head at Frances and tsked.
“Sistahs. You’re really something, ya know.
It’s funny, but my little sis always wanted me to take what she thought a me and turn it into what I thought a myself.
Ain’t that a gas? And you bet your last dollar, I use to think that too.
” Flossy nodded. “Those were some real dark times, they were. I could hear her voice like she was sitting in my ear. Till one day I realized that my sister only wanted me to hate myself on account a she hated her own self even more. And, I mean, who can blame her. She’s very hateable. You should think about that, Frances.”
Frances didn’t respond. She looked ready to spit.
“Anyhoo,” Flossy said, “we’re prostitutes. Dance club is just a front.”
Frances stared at Flossy. Then she looked at me. “What?”
“It’s a front, Franny,” Flossy said. She started wagging her hands back and forth with every phrase. “We do the one-dance minimum, look at the back a the old man’s head, five bucks later we take ’em upstairs and fadoodle the daylights out of ’em. Questions?”
Frances was frowning like she’d tasted something rotten and was very confused how it’d even gotten in her mouth. “What are you—Birdie, what on earth is she talking about?”
“It’s a brothel. We’re running a brothel,” I said quietly, kindly, actually. Now that it was out, a strange calm crept over me. The sun moved out from behind clouds and streamed into the dining room.
“Aim it back here, I ain’t done yet, doll.” Flossy pointed two fingers at Frances’s eyes, then her own. “To continue. We prostitutes get 50 percent, be it for the straight lay, the hand job, the snickety snack.” She chomped her teeth together. “The two-on-one in those little beds a your hubby’s—”
“Is this one of your stupid jokes? Have you lost your mind?” Frances spat at me.
“Flossy, please just get to the point,” I said.
Flossy nodded. “And the other half, as I understand it, gets divided three ways, a slice for Charlie, a slice for Birdie, and a slice for …” Flossy snapped her fingers twice.
“Mrs. Tartt,” I said.
“To save this house that you also live in, which, hereforto, we feel, benefits you.” Flossy smiled. “So. We decided you need to do your part. From now until we close in the wee hours of Sunday morning, your job is to keep Mrs. Tartt upstairs so she don’t find out.”
No one spoke. Frances’s mouth was open. It was strange how tranquil I felt, like I’d reached a far-off destination. The light was so bright here, past the point of no return.
“Is that understood or you need further explanation?” Flossy asked her.
Frances, blank-faced with shock, started to get up.
“Siddown,” Ruby said again. Frances smacked her rear back on the seat.
“Franny, just listen to me, please,” I said.
“We will pay you to help us. Think about it: This house, the valuables, even what we’ve earned, it’s all Mrs. Tartt’s.
You have nothing. It’s only three more nights.
We’ll pay you … fifty dollars.” In Frances speak that was seven dresses from the Neilson’s, or twenty-five new pairs of rayons, or twenty visits to the Unique.
It would come from the too-generous house fund I’d set aside and off the top of our last three nights.
At that figure, I thought I saw Frances’s eyes focus the tiniest bit sharper on me. Though it might’ve just been hate.
Behind Frances, in the distant sitting room windows, I saw Mr. Binny’s taxi pull up. I nudged Flossy and she saw it too.
“A few more particulars and we’re done here, doll,” Flossy said.
“So’s you know, Birdie ain’t got nothing to do with the prostitute side a the business, so don’t blame her.
All she sells is cold drinks and tiddlywinks, but she works hard for us gals.
Which brings me to my next point.” Flossy leaned up at Frances.
“Sisters like Birdie don’t come a dime a dozen.
So from now on, until the day you die, I want you to treat her like nothing short of the queen of darn England. ”
“And if you don’t, you’re gone wake up balder’n Daddy Warbucks,” Ruby said softly in Frances’s ear.
Frances turned to Ruby with wide eyes.
“Also, if this place gets busted ’cause you didn’t do your job, we’ll tell the sheriff and the whole town that you’re a prostitute too.” Flossy smiled. “Just like us.”
“Hell, that might be worth getting arrested for,” Ruby said.
“Do I—have a choice in any of this?” Frances asked, looking from face to face.
“No,” Ruby said and stood up and she and Flossy went into the kitchen.
Out in the hall, we heard the front door open and a cheery, “I’m home!”
Frances gave me a long, cold stare. Funny how I hardly even felt it. “Come on, it’s time to get to work,” I said.
“I will be upstairs. In my room,” Frances hissed.
“You will be down here, Frances. Doing your job.”
She licked her lips, I reckoned considering her slim options. Realizing there were none, especially with the way Ruby’d whispered in her ear, she said through clenched teeth, “When this is over, I want you to promise me I will never, ever have to see you again.”
At this, I did feel something again. A deep blue heaviness that wasn’t sadness, it was more like homesickness or nostalgia for something that no longer could be.
Was this worth that? I didn’t know, and it didn’t really matter.
I’d done this for a lot more people than just Frances. So I told her I agreed to her terms.
“I tell you, it looks as pretty as it did in 1923,” Mrs. Tartt said out on the back porch. Still dressed in her blue suit, she was blond again, her hair styled in a stiff arc around her face. “Now about how many boys come out here for a dance lesson each night?”
“Twenty-five, sometimes as many as thirty-five on a busy night,” Charlie said. Behind me, I heard Frances chirp.
“I had no idea this would be so popular,” Mrs. Tartt said. “I do believe you have a knack for business, Charlie. I can’t wait to see it all lit up tonight.”
The screen door whined open and everybody on the wrong side of sin filed out on the back porch.
The air stilled as I watched Mrs. Tartt take them all in.
I’d been very clear about how they should look: “You know how mothers teach their boys to watch out for girls like you? Well, Mrs. Tartt is that mother.”
“Mrs. Tartt, this is Flossy.” My plan was to move quickly through the first four of them, but Mrs. Tartt paused solidly.
“It’s so nice to meet you, Flossy. And lookathere, doesn’t Frances’s dress suit you? Frances, that was so kind of you to loan her your dress.”
Flossy made a little curtsy. “Your house is real nice. You got some taste, Mrs. T.”
“Thank you,” Mrs. Tartt said. I was sure she had thoughts she wasn’t sharing, but she showed no judgment, a true lady. I snuck Frances a look.
“And this is Ruby, and these are the twins …”
Ruby nodded to her. Her bosoms were crammed down into her tight red dress. (“What am I s’posed to do, leave my tits upstairs?” she’d said. The best we could do was drape a black shawl over her chest.)
“Nice to meet you, Ruby.” And then Mrs. Tartt moved on to the twins. They looked like skinny orphans with long, sad faces, barefooted in blue drop-waist dresses. But at least they looked innocent.
“Just about identical, aren’t you two?” Mrs. Tartt said. “Tell me, what type dances do you specialize in?”
“Anything he wants,” Trixie said solemnly.
Dixie added, “’Cept we don’t—”
“And this is Virginia,” I said, stepping in. “Virginia’s going to medical school next year to be a doctor, isn’t that something?”
“Oh my, a lady doctor?” Mrs. Tartt said. I prayed she wouldn’t say anything that would start Virginia on one of her lectures, which so often cut a path to her favorite subjects, gonorrhea and pubic lice. Mrs. Tartt leaned in and said, “We could use more women in the field, couldn’t we, dear?”
Virginia’s eyes lit up. “Yes, we could.”
“And this is Esmeralda.” She was the only one I truly trusted to keep things straight. She wore the rose-colored dress that went so well with her olive skin, her long, tapered hands crossed primly in front of her.
“What a beautiful name.” Mrs. Tartt tilted her head like maybe she recognized her. “Whereabouts are you from, Esmeralda?”
“Here in Lafayette County.”
“What’s your family name, dear?”
“Lincoln. Esmeralda Lincoln.”
“Lincoln,” Mrs. Tartt said, tugging that around. “I thought I knew every family in Lafayette County, but I can’t seem to place your people.”
Mrs. Tartt stepped back and surveyed all the girls in a way that made me stop breathing. She did look a little confused by this unusual army of ladies living in her house, but one thing about Mrs. Tartt was she was never rude. At least not to a stranger.
“Well. I’m certainly happy to have y’all here,” she said. “And I can’t believe not one of you is married yet, so pretty and fit in the figyahs as you are.” She glanced down at Ruby’s fantastic dance legs. “I bet you’re mighty good at the foxtrot, aren’t you, young lady?”
Ruby grinned and smacked her gum. “Bet your red rosy ass I am.”
Mrs. Tartt blinked, but that was it. “Get some rest, girls, for tonight,” Charlie said.
After they’d filed back inside, Mrs. Tartt said, “Well. What time do we open tonight?”
“At five,” Charlie said. “Since it’ll probably get a little noisy, we thought you and Frances might like to go see a picture show in town.”
“But I’d really like to watch the dancing,” Mrs. Tartt said. I drilled my eyes on Frances.
“I want to see a picture show,” Frances blurted out. “I want to spend some time together.”
“We did just spend three weeks together, dear,” Mrs. Tartt said with a weak smile. “We even stayed in the same room.”
Miraculously, Charlie pulled a strip of red tickets out of her skirt pocket. “The girls chipped in and bought tickets to the double feature tonight, as a welcome home present.”
“Oh. Well … I’d hate to hurt their feelings,” Mrs. Tartt said. “I reckon we’ll go on to town then and we can watch the dancing when we get home.”