The Downstairs Girl

by Stacey Lee

  Before I carve a moat into our floor, I pull out the cigar box of silk-cord odds and ends I bought from Mrs. English for a penny and then seat myself upon my flowerpot chair. Maybe tying knots will soothe some of my anxiety.

  * * *

  —

  WITH THE WEATHER finally warming, Buxbaum’s buzzes with activity. It heartens me to see Robby at a counter, counting out a woman’s change. A line of folks, all of them colored, wait to be rung up.

  The woman puts her money in her change purse. “You tell me when they invent self-mopping mops, and I’ll be the first in line.”

  “They do have them, Mrs. Weaver. They’re called cats.” He notices me. “Good morning, Jo. Be right with you.”

  “Sure thing, Robby.” I collect the items I need—barley, crackers, a salve for my roughened hands, a bar of soap, black-eyed peas, and an ax to replace our rusted one. Plus, it won’t hurt to have a reliable weapon handy. Heaven forbid I should have to use it.

  Robby finishes with his customers, and I bring my items to him. He looks around us—no one is within earshot—and then quietly says, “Those Paynes are as shifty as sand. Would you believe, they asked Noemi back? Etta Rae called Pastor Harkness this morning, who passed us the message in front of the whole congregation.”

  “I’m glad they did the right thing. Will she return?”

  “Does August have thirty-one days? She’s still bent on buying that safety. She even took the dollar I was going to place on Sunday Surprise. Can’t a man have any fun?”

  “That safety’s pretty fun.”

  He throws me a look that could cut glass. “You’re in league with her. By the bye, you in the market for a mop? There’s a sale today on sweepers and scrubbers.”

  “Thanks, but no. You’re a natural at this.”

  “Turns out, I’m good for business. Just hope Mr. Buxbaum agrees. He’s weighing whether to hire me full-time.”

  “I am happy to hear that. Maybe I’ll get to buy you some teeth rinse soon.”

  He nods at a colored woman in a butter-yellow bonnet inspecting fabrics. “Nice to see you, Mrs. Thomson.” She nods back.

  He finishes packing up my items. “That all?”

  “Actually, no.” I remove from my pocket the knots I tied last night. “I was wondering if you could show these samples to Mr. Buxbaum. They’re not like the embellishments you carry, but I hoped—”

  “Jo, they’re good.” He holds one up. “This one looks like a butterfly.”

  “It’s a falcon, and that one is for Noemi. A falcon for farsightedness.”

  “She’s going to like that. How much you charge?”

  “Eight cents each, if Mr. Buxbaum doesn’t mind supplying the cord.”

  “Make it ten cents. These are worth it.”

  “Thanks, Robby.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  A stack of the Sunday Focus occupies a rocking chair near the exit. The sight of “The Custom-ary,” all dressed up in typeface, arouses a mother’s pride in me. Worry, too. If this one doesn’t go over well, people could turn on Miss Sweetie. The whole paper could come tumbling down. Then the part of me that could take a bite out of the world will lose its teeth. Gone like the frost when the spring dragon roars.

  Twenty-Seven

  Noemi doesn’t show up on Monday, and the substitute cook, a German woman, mans the kitchen with a three-beat efficiency—three pinches of salt, three taps of the egg, three bangs of the pot. I hope Noemi returns by tomorrow, before I begin to waltz. I could see her tonight at the suffrage meeting, though I haven’t yet decided if I will go. Certain things are simply not worth the humiliation.

  The day I turned thirteen and not long before Mrs. Payne dismissed me, I begged for a taste of the new Coca-Colas served at Jacob’s Pharmacy that everyone was so fizzed about. We’d seen colored people in the pharmacy before and figured we might have a chance as well. With two whole nickels from our money boot in his pocket, Old Gin held the bar stool steady for me, as I’d just begun wearing my skirts to the floor. But the soda jerk waved a rag in Old Gin’s face. “No colas for coolies.”

  A woman laughed, and then it seemed everyone was laughing at us. My face still burns thinking of that.

  While I dress Caroline for her afternoon ride, the first since the pepper incident, I can’t help asking, “Did you catch Miss Sweetie’s last column, miss?” I have heard no news over how well “The Custom-ary” has been received.

  “Why should I waste my time? Miss Sweetie is a know-it-all. The sort I cannot brook.”

  I must wait and see, even visit Nathan tonight if I have to. I vowed to stop eavesdropping, but a visit by Miss Sweetie—well, Jo Kuan, now that I have been unmasked—would be okay. This is business, after all.

  Outside, Old Gin shuffles up between Sweet Potato and Frederick. The horses’ necks turn adoringly toward him. My own heart is a sparrow’s nest of emotions for the old man: love, annoyance, gratitude, and injury, threaded with worry. He could look in every nook and cranny Atlanta has to offer, but it would take him years to find three hundred dollars’ worth of change. His gaze meets mine, his eyes dark like printer’s ink, with smudges under the eyes. He needs a rest.

  Caroline scratches at a dry patch on her forehead. The red puffiness on her face has mellowed into a flaky pink. “Oh, bother.”

  “Miss, is everything all right?”

  “Obviously not. Wait here.” She stomps back into the house, probably to rub more lard into her forehead.

  Old Gin holds Sweet Potato steady for me. “Thank you for minding the burrows, daughter. How are you?”

  I bite my tongue, which longs to wag about the three-hundred-dollar debt. But it would upset him greatly to know that I went to see Billy Riggs, and in the company of Nathan Bell, too. Once trust is lost, it is a mountain of gravel to reclimb. On the other hand, what is a mountain of gravel compared to the never-ending hole of debt? What we need is a solution, one that cannot be found right now, with Caroline’s footsteps punching the hallway. “I am well. And you?”

  “Pretty good.” Old Gin tilts his chin toward me, the way he does when he’s listening for the unspoken words. I have trouble meeting his gaze, as if doing so might crack the egg of my resolve and all my messy secrets will come spilling out.

  Caroline emerges through the front door looking no different from when she entered. Her black hat, maybe to match her mood, comes to a point in the front. Taken with her gunmetalgray riding habit, her figure puts me in mind of a crow, those most cunning birds known for bullying others twice their size. “Let us be off. I have an appointment to keep,” she snipes, as if she wasn’t the reason for her own delay.

  We have hardly made it off the property when a rider on a black stallion appears.

  Caroline pulls up on her rein. “Merritt!”

  Ameer chugs merrily toward us, his mane rising like black smoke off a locomotive with every sure step. Unlike the horse, the Payne heir is not in good form. His normally erect shoulders stoop as if trying to touch, and his head crooks to one side. “Good afternoon, ladies. Fine day for a ride, isn’t it?” He attempts a devilish smile, but it comes out as strained as the whey through a cheesecloth.

  “Why do you look so down in the mouth?” Caroline demands.

  “I think I just had my heart flambéed.”

  Sweet Potato fidgets under me, eager to fly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Doused in alcohol and set on fire.”

  Caroline tosses her eyes to the canopy of the magnolia we’re standing under. “By whom?”

  “The blue-blooded Jane Bentley of Boston. She broke off our engagement. Apparently she’s an admirer of that Miss Sweetie. She told me she’d rather be single than chained to a bore for a lifetime.”

  I choke on my own saliva and begin to cough. With an impatient huff, Caroline moves Frederick away f
rom me, as if choking were infectious. “Good riddance. She had an apple-juice smell about her and not in a good way. And why is everyone so stuck on this Miss Sweetie?”

  Merritt picks up his smile. “Why, sister, are you jealous?”

  “You are insufferable.” Caroline kicks off.

  “I am sorry, sir,” I tell him.

  “Father will probably disown me.”

  “He would not want you in an unhappy marriage.”

  He swats at a cloud of gnats. “My father owns a paper mill. Jane’s owns a lumber mill. That is two broken engagements. Miss Sweetie’s opinion might work in theory, but it is hardly realistic for people like us. Marriages need not be happy as long as they are mutually advantageous.” That’s his father speaking. “Plus, she wasn’t that bad.”

  Apparently, the same could not be said of Merritt Payne.

  He rolls his wrist and bows.

  I set off after Caroline, wondering if a bruised ego feels the same as a broken heart, and if so, does knowing the difference shorten the recovery time? Miss Sweetie doesn’t worry about Merritt. The roses of wealth and good looks tied with the bud of youth open many doors.

  Sweet Potato kicks up grass and scatters the crows, bringing us even with my lady in no time. Caroline seems to hardly notice us walking beside her. She keeps playing with her lace collar, folding it up in the demure style, and then flipping it down for a more casual look. Her hat moves from the mansions on our left to a field of long grass on our right, and then into the boughs of a pine. I sense she is looking for Mr. Q. Though, of course, why would he be hiding in a tree?

  “Has your Mr. Q inquired after you?”

  “Why would he?”

  “You missed your”—cough—“appointments with him Thursday and Friday. One would think he would be concerned.”

  “He is too discreet to call upon me.”

  “I didn’t say ‘call upon.’ But perhaps he sent you a note. Or climbed to your window.”

  I wasn’t serious with that last suggestion, but she seems to consider it for a fraction of a second. “No, he did not. And your frankness is not appropriate, or appreciated.”

  I listen to the horse hooves play a merry duet for at least five seconds. “Fine. Just seems to me that if one’s sham love—Miss Saltworth—pulled a prank on one’s true love—you—one would be concerned. Alarmed, even.” I am speaking recklessly, but something has loosened my stays. Maybe it is the knowledge that my term here is temporary, just until Old Gin finds me a husband. Or maybe it is Miss Sweetie talking. My voice seems more like hers every day.

  “Tie your tongue, or I will do it for you,” Caroline hisses.

  When we finally arrive at the water trough, while Frederick drinks, she uses the reflection to smooth wayward hairs and pinch her cheeks. And then she is off, treading the thorny path that so many hopeful lovers have tread before.

  * * *

  —

  INSTEAD OF SIX Paces Meadow, I let Sweet Potato hoof back toward Piedmont Park in North Atlanta. May at least one of us go where her heart leads her today. Perhaps we can sneak a look at the action on the track.

  The smell of cut grass and freshly turned soil digs up a sweet memory. Not long after the Paynes fired me, Old Gin decided we should try to attend the Piedmont Exposition of 1887, the biggest thing to happen in Atlanta since the war. Since the event was whites-only, except for workers, I put on my gray skirt and black jacket, and Old Gin wore his standard groom’s attire. We carried buckets of flowers, as if we actually had somewhere to deliver them. If you walk like you know where you’re going, you can fool a lot of people, especially in a place with so many distractions.

  Cannons fired, bands played, and exhibit halls showcased Atlanta’s best, from animals and farming equipment to motorized sewing machines and phonographs. I even saw President Cleveland’s wife, Frances Folsom, buy an eagle carved from local manganese marble. She caught me staring at her, and I plucked out one of my blooms. “May this chrysanthemum bring good luck to your home.”

  She took the flower. “A China girl who speaks like a Southerner? I guess Atlanta does have it all.”

  With its witch’s-hat shape, the two hundred acres of Piedmont Park, home of the Gentlemen’s Driving Club, features long swaths of green cut with pathways, and surprisingly few trees for a city so full of them.

  We approach from the west entrance, both because it is closer to the racetrack, and to avoid the buildings at the main entrance where we are likely to be chased away. A carriage approaches from behind, and I sit lower in the shadows of my hat.

  Several single-horse carriages sail by, headed toward the grandstand a thousand feet ahead. Beyond that stretches the mile-long track.

  Off the groomed path, a colored man in a white collared shirt and grass-stained trousers pushes a lawn mower in an impressively even line. A boy rakes clippings into piles nearby.

  The man finishes a line and stops to mop his face with a handkerchief. Seeing us, he tips the brim of his boater hat. “Looking finer every day.”

  I slow, caught off guard, until I realize he’s talking about Sweet Potato.

  She whinnies, and I bring her closer. “Good afternoon. Have we met?”

  “I’m Leo Porter, and that’s my son Joseph.”

  The boy, who must be ten or eleven, stands at attention, chest puffed out, rake held straight as a bayonet beside him. His cheeks are still full of baby fat, and his cap is straight enough to balance a bottle.

  “Always nice to meet another Jo, even if it’s a Joseph. I’m Jo Kuan.”

  “Hello, miss.”

  “You must be Old Gin’s daughter,” says the father. There’s a slight drift to his right eye, so I focus on the left. “He said you were quite a horsewoman.”

  “I learned from the best.” But what was Old Gin doing here? Maybe he took the horses here for exercise through the extensive driving trails. He would’ve had to come with Jed Crycks or Mr. Payne, of course. No wonder Sweet Potato is familiar with this route.

  “Well, the track’s full of practice runs and horse trading today. There’s no sneaking in. You’ll have to wait till after everyone’s gone home this evening, like usual.”

  Like usual. Old Gin has been sneaking in here? The years might’ve emboldened him, but I suddenly wonder if his attic is getting dusty. Maybe he just came for the joy of the ride. At least the dirt track is smooth, unlike Six Paces, where one could easily lose one’s footing at night. He certainly couldn’t have come for horse trading, as there is no better horse than Sweet Potato with her good temperament and fast legs.

  Pretty legs like those would fetch a pretty sum, if Old Gin ever wants to sell, Merritt’s good-natured voice echoes in my mind.

  Suddenly, my limbs don’t work. Is Old Gin planning to sell Sweet Potato? The after-hours trips here and Old Gin’s optimism shuffle into place. Maybe he was meeting with potential buyers at the Driving Club, showing her off on the track. She’d certainly command a good sum, maybe even three hundred dollars. He knew I’d protest if he told me. She is part of the family.

  Sweet Potato skitters, feeling me gripping her flanks.

  The sound of an approaching horse pulls Mr. Porter’s gaze behind me. “‘He will come like a thief in the night.’”

  I gape as the rider tumbles by.

  Mr. Porter blows out a low whistle, probably meant for the piebald, but my eyes are drawn to the rider. The tail of Mr. Q’s shirt blows freely from the back of his slim-fitting jacket. His sleeves are pushed up, showing the bronzed skin of his arms, which move rhythmically as he trots.

  “Must be late for his practice run,” says Mr. Porter.

  Under Mr. Q’s calfskin swashbuckler, as Mrs. English called it, with its dented crown and folded-up sides, a scratch runs down the smooth slope of his cheek. I bet I know whose fingernail made that mark.

  “I’m sorry,
I have to go.”

  Twenty-Eight

  Caroline is not at the water trough, and so after letting Sweet Potato slake her thirst, we head for the cemetery.

  It’s not hard to find her. I simply follow the rotten odor of forbidden fruit. That, and the sobs echoing through the Innocenti vault. The angels keep a stiff upper lip, having gotten more than they bargained for when they took this job. Beneath the heavy boughs of a hemlock, Frederick stands as still as a chess piece, only moving when Sweet Potato whinnies. I tie Sweet Potato to the neighboring tree.

  Inside the vault, Caroline weeps over her lap on one of two stone benches. Her jacket, hat, and gloves appear hastily thrown on the bench behind her, watched over by her sleek violin boots. On the back wall, melted candles form shapeless blobs in an alcove. At the front, a marble tomb is big enough to house an entire family of skeletons, and could not have made a comfortable bed, at least not on the outside.

  Caroline looks up at me, her blotchy skin wet with tears and snot. “Go away.”

  The stone bench cools my backside along with my temper. I try to drum up my old dislike for her, but it is like sucking on a bone that has lost its flavor. Heaving and moaning, Caroline spends her grief by the dollar, until her purse empties and she’s down to nickel hiccups and penny whimpers.

  “You are too high a nut for a two-timer like Mr. Q.”

  She squeezes her arms over her wet blouse, her face tight. “Of course, I know that. The man has scant fortune, and his head is as empty as all his promises. I cannot abide a stupid man even more than a stupid woman.”

  “Then why spend tears on him?”

  “Because.” She swings her gaze back to the crypt, her head jutted forward like a vulture. Her bottom lip begins to tremble. “Edward heard a rumor that Mama had an affair.” Her voice tightens under the noose of hysteria. “That she had an illicit daughter.”

  “Who—you?”

  “No, Merritt. Of course, me! He said he could never betroth himself to me in light of such a scandal.”