The Downstairs Girl

by Stacey Lee

  I take my anger out on my tangled tresses, washing, rinsing, and detangling until the mass gleams like spilled ink over my shoulders. Then I station myself by Old Gin, watching every rise and fall of his bony chest. Mrs. Bell brings me a bowl of stew to eat while I watch him. It is good stew, with silky bits of potato and carrot, but I can only eat a few bites as my stomach knots with worry.

  Mrs. Bell pokes her head back in, and I carry my half-finished bowl out of the room to talk with her. “Thank you, ma’am. I will finish the rest later. You must let me take care of the dishes.”

  “I won’t hear of it. Would you like to borrow one of my Mother Hubbards?”

  “That is kind of you, but I need to return to the basement for a few things.”

  Nathan, carrying a stack of newspapers through the house, stops. “Will you let me accompany you?”

  The idea of letting him look into the private corners of my life makes my stomach as jumpy as a hundred dried beans being poured on a pie tin. But all my life, haven’t I been the one looking in on him? “I would like that.”

  After he takes the papers to the burn pile, he returns with a kerosene lamp. I shake my head. It’s one thing for the Bells to know about our home in their basement, but I wouldn’t like others to find out. “I will lead you.”

  The night is blacker than usual with no moon to light the way. I slip my hand into Nathan’s so as to lead him, grateful to the dark for hiding the wildfire blazing across my face. Together, we move quietly to the abandoned barn, which is easier to negotiate than the Virginia cedar. We climb down the rungs, engulfed by that familiar scent of earth and magnolia roots. When I light the kerosene lamp we keep in the western corridor, his breath shushes out of him. I carry the lamp down the corridor, seeing our quarters as if for the first time with him treading breathlessly beside me. When we reach our living area, my chest puffs with pride over the tidy little home Old Gin and I have built here.

  I collect my nightgown and underthings while he roams the room, taking in the stove, the spool table, even crouching to inspect the rug. He crosses to my corner. His incredulous eyes rove from my embroidered curtains, to my small bed, to my wooden-crate nightstand supporting a dictionary and a candle. Then to the G-words, growing both more complex and neater in penmanship the higher up the wall extends. Two words catch his eye. “Giddy goobers,” he reads.

  I pull the wool stopper from the listening tube. Moving slowly, he lowers himself onto my bed, then puts his ear to the hole. No words drop out. No one is in the print shop. “You must have heard quite a bit growing up.”

  “Well, yes.” I cough, struck with the sudden urge to pull the embroidered curtain around me.

  His gaze spreads over the room again, and he presses a fist to his chin. “This is your Avalon.”

  “Avalon?”

  “It’s what Bear and I call our secret hideaway, named after King Arthur’s magical island. There now, seems you didn’t know everything about me.” His eyes invite me to laugh.

  “Your family taught me so many words. If I had lived under, say, a goat herder, I might never have been Miss Sweetie.”

  “You do an injury to goats. I heard they recite Shakespeare when no one’s watching.” He puts a hand to his heart and says grandly, “‘To bleat or not to bleat, that is the question.’”

  I let out a tiny smile and squeeze my bundle of clothes. “Cud you . . . find it in your heart to forgive me?”

  He smiles. “Thanks to Miss Sweetie, my heart may never be the same.”

  It is hard to read him in the dim light. But of course, these are words of admiration, not love, or why else use Miss Sweetie’s name? The sentiment ripens like fruit, fruit from a tree I cannot touch. I ignore how the shadows conspire to pull me closer to him. He draws nearer as well, but cautiously, as if afraid to break anything.

  “I would like to get some fresh socks for Old Gin’s feet,” I announce.

  “Er, of course.”

  Nothing like the word feet to break a spell.

  He clears his throat. “Tomorrow, I would like to file a police report on Old Gin’s assault.”

  “I—I don’t think he would like that.”

  “Why not?” A frown mars his smooth cheeks.

  “Because we do not trust certain things.”

  His face asks more, but it is difficult to explain a lifetime of wariness. Justice and fairness are for other people, umbrellas that open only for certain heads. The Chinese just try to stay out of the rain, and if we are caught in a downpour, we make do, knowing that the rain will not last forever.

  “Do you . . . trust me?”

  “Yes.”

  Thirty-Seven

  Nathan offers his chambers, but just the thought brings a blush to my cheeks. Anyway, I would rather sleep in the room with Old Gin in case he needs something. Mrs. Bell lays a thick rug and several quilts on the floor, which coax me to sleep sooner than I expect.

  I wake with a start to the sound of Old Gin coughing.

  The sunlight seems too bright, even filtered through the cracks in the shutters. I rise and bring water to Old Gin’s lips. He’s wearing a flannel nightshirt I haven’t seen before. One of Nathan’s? I adjust the pillows around him, wondering if he needs to make water. But he slumps back, somehow managing to look smaller and more injured than yesterday. His wounded eye is now the size of a baby’s fist.

  Mrs. Bell pokes her head in and I follow her out of the room, closing the door behind me.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Bell. I’m sorry to oversleep. Has he had his medicine?”

  “Yes, this morning, and then Nathan helped him use the outhouse.” She wipes her hands on an apron embroidered with fruits, her premature white hair neatly whorled into a bun at her neck. “You were sleeping so soundly. We didn’t want to disturb you.”

  “Thank you. Is Nathan—”

  “He’s delivering one of our jobs.”

  My eyes fall to today’s copy of the Focus on the kitchen table. Nathan titled the Miss Sweetie column about the streetcars “I Know How to Sit.” He must have been up all night running the press.

  “I must go. The Paynes will be wondering where Old Gin is.” Troubles are like weeds, and the longer you avoid them, the bigger they grow. Might as well give this one a good yank now before it can do more damage.

  * * *

  —

  THE SPRING DRAGON roars, its breath reeking of cut grass and pollen. I trudge down the gilded corridor of Peachtree, wearing Old Gin’s cap and carrying my borrowed bonnet in a gunnysack. I never thought of Mrs. Payne’s hat as mine, and that makes it easier to surrender. Maybe that is how Mrs. Payne felt about me—only borrowed as needed. With rising costs, it is easy to give me back.

  My outrage at the woman has mellowed into something duller but somehow more painful, a gnaw versus a bite. Hammer Foot taught us that standing in another’s shoes is good for our own postures, but today, I can barely manage to stand in my own.

  Old Gin’s cap sags over my ears. They will have to bring in a replacement, though they will never get anyone as capable as Old Gin. A good groom is hard to find, too.

  The biscuit Mrs. Bell insisted I eat has cooled in my stomach by the time I turn into the Paynes’ driveway. There is a haunting stillness to the property, the same kind that creeps over an old battleground, never quite achieving peace. Since I am no longer employed here, I knock on the front door instead of rounding the courtyard to the kitchen.

  Etta Rae answers, her reedlike figure more stooped than yesterday. Her sigh seems to sink through to the floor. She knew, too. Has she pitied me all these years? What other burdens has she carried?

  “How long have you known?” I try to keep the bitterness from my voice.

  “I carried you to Old Gin’s shanty. You were just a peanut.”

  “You?” I croak. A younger version of the housekeeper moving wi
th purpose toward the row of ramshackle dwellings fills my mind. Was she trying to protect her mistress, or me? Or simply the fragile state of the house she kept tidy for so long?

  “It was for the best. Mr. Payne ordered your mama to send you to an orphanage.”

  “So he knew about”—the shameful words stick—“the affair.”

  “He knew about the dalliance in the cemetery.”

  “The cemetery?”

  “The papers got wind of it, but Mr. Payne made sure the story didn’t mention your mama.”

  All my blood seems to pool in my stomach. “My father was the Rabid-Eyes Rapist?”

  “That’s what they called him. But your father was not a rapist. They were foolish, but they were in love.”

  Poor Shang. He was never fingered for the supposed crime, but another man paid for it with his life. The injustice of it all makes me want to lay waste to the whole of Peachtree Street with one fiery breath. “Does Mr. Payne know I’m her daughter?”

  “No. Your mama told him the baby was a boy.”

  She is clever, that much is undeniable. Something tells me he might have figured it out anyway. Yet, the man had always been decent to me. Maybe that was a chain he chose to wear.

  Noemi appears beside Etta Rae. A fresh sprig of bluebells adorns her apron, and she’s holding a jar of pickles. “Thought it was you.”

  It is hard to look into her concerned eyes and keep my composure. She drapes an arm around my shoulders and gives me a sideways squeeze. “Robby told me what happened, and Etta Rae filled in a few other details.” Her gaze floats to Old Gin’s cap. “Why are you here?”

  “I need to talk to her. Old Gin’s not well. He won’t be coming for a while.”

  Etta Rae clucks her tongue. “She’s in the stable.”

  Noemi pulls me inside. “I’ll walk you there.”

  The house feels cold and disapproving, each clap of my footfalls a rebuke. I glance up the staircase but see no movement.

  Noemi notices. “Caroline went with her father to the mill. How about that?”

  “And Merritt?”

  “He went, too.”

  At least I won’t have to face him. It is grievous that the thought of seeing one’s brother should make one so ill. The scent of vinegar in the kitchen almost comes as a relief. Jars line the window, filled with an assortment of vegetables.

  We set off toward the stables, Noemi’s arm looped through mine. Unlike the front of the estate, the back moves with activity, men lifting potted plants off a wagon in the courtyard, trimming trees, and painting fences. Merritt’s broken engagement will not stop the post-race merrymaking. Scandal loves a good distraction.

  Noemi cuts her gaze to me. “Now, what happened to Old Gin? He never misses work.”

  “Billy Riggs.”

  Her arm stiffens. “What about Billy Riggs?”

  I tell her, and when I am done, she issues a loud hmph.

  “This time, I’m really going to hit him with the Book.”

  “Who?”

  “My no-account brother.” A worker rolling a wheelbarrow of pinecones tips his hat toward us, but Noemi sees right through him.

  “You’re going to read him the Bible?”

  “No, I’m going to hit him with it. He might not get up for days. What was he thinking, sending that smelly corpse to beat up an old man? He’s out of control.”

  “I—I don’t understand. Your brother knows Billy?”

  She sighs. “My brother is Billy.”

  Thirty-Eight

  My shock falls out. “B-b-b-b—”

  “Billy’s father stuck Mama with a baby before I came along, but that’s a story for another day,” Noemi says, not breaking her pace. “When Billy came out fair as a lily, Billy’s father stole him from Mama to school in his vile family business. Billy only tolerates my preaching ’cause he knows I got something on him. If people thought he had a little color in him, he’d be rotting in jail right now, not clinking glasses with the mayor.” She casts a patch of dandelion a look so grim, I expect the blooms to whiten and blow away right in front of us.

  Noemi’s mother had been one-quarter colored, though many here considered a single drop of African blood enough to damn a lineage. It’s like how Mrs. English would never use an ostrich plume with a gray spot on one of her top-shelf hats, even though the feathers naturally came speckled. And with the push for new segregation laws, now is not a good time to have a gray spot, especially for one who has already made his share of enemies.

  The thought that I have something in common with Billy—both of us passing in our own way—makes my teeth ache. “I’m sorry, but even if he is your brother, I can’t forgive him. I spent last night plotting out ways to make him suffer.”

  She nods. “Tonight, we’re gonna pay him a visit. I’ll hold him down while you give him your best shot.”

  “Okay.”

  “As for Mrs. Payne, I own you deserve a lot better than her.” A crow lands on the ground in front of us, and Noemi lunges toward it, growling. The crow flaps away with a squawk, and she continues on her way. “But each of our personal roads got crows on them. With every crow we meet, we get better at shooing them away, the filthy flying rats. And guess what’s at the end of the road?”

  “Pearly gates?”

  She tsks her tongue. “Not that road, that’s on a different map. Vic-to-ry.” She cuts the word into pieces and savors every syllable. “I wasn’t too keen to get on that slick-looking August at first. But now that I know how, I’m riding him to the finish line. Victory. Do you understand me?”

  “No. What is this victory?”

  “It’s knowing your worth no matter what the crows tell you. Victory is waiting for us. We have to be bold enough to snatch it.”

  Her words swirl around my head, white and fuzzy, like the pollen-filled air around me.

  The stable is more cluttered than normal, with piles of rope waiting to be wound and gear scattered about the floor. Mr. Crycks fits a headstall over one of the horses. The man knocks his hat back an inch and squints at me, flat mouth working at something. He’s not much for words.

  Sweet Potato whickers a hello from her stall, head bobbing up and down, telling me to come closer. She wants a taste of Old Gin’s hat, no doubt, and I give it to her to chew. She drops it onto the floor. Maybe things that come easy are not as good.

  Mrs. Payne emerges from a stall a few spaces down. “Jo?” Her thick shawl covers her poplin dress. No hint of yesterday’s emotions remains on her face. She is back to the well-bred lady of the manor I grew up knowing—or not knowing. Perfectly aligned spine, gaze soft but unreadable, hands loosely cupped like magnolia blossoms by her side. “What are you doing here? And where is Old Gin?”

  “He is in a bad way after being attacked yesterday on his way home. The doctor has recommended two months of rest.”

  Mrs. Payne works at her wedding band. “Oh my Lord. Who attacked him?”

  “Billy Riggs.”

  “The fixer?”

  “Yes.” I wonder if she has any idea of the trouble my father got himself into on her account.

  Jed Crycks crosses his arms and spits. “The swine. He should be tarred and feathered.”

  I make a noise of agreement, though that would be a waste of good chicken feathers.

  “I wanted to discuss the matter of Sweet Potato with you,” I tell Mrs. Payne.

  “Sweet Potato?” she asks distractedly.

  Jed leads his horse out of the barn with a click of his tongue.

  Mrs. Payne gestures at a nest of rope. “Noemi, wind that before someone trips.”

  Noemi looks relieved at having something to do. “Certainly, ma’am.” She hunkers down on a milking stool and sets to the task.

  I hand Mrs. Payne my gunnysack. “Your hat,” I inform her before she can wonder whether th
ere’s a dead animal inside. “We have paid up through the month of March for Sweet Potato’s stable and board. I will need access to your property so that I may take her for exercise. Do I have your permission?”

  She seems taken aback by my businesslike tone. “That sounds reasonable.” Wearily, she watches me through those watery eyes, which today are not lake blue or river gray or any of the colors I’ve seen before, but a murky bog of uneven depth. I no longer care to figure her out. I’ve spent my whole life trying to read those eyes, when all this time, they were a steel fortress intended to keep me out. Perhaps what I’ve been seeing all this time was my own stubborn reflection.

  “Was there anything else?”

  “Given Old Gin’s condition, he will be unable to race Sweet Potato this Saturday.”

  “Of course.” She frowns. “The suffragists will protest. I might need to bring another horse and rider. That, or hire a militia.”

  Noemi, who has managed to blend into the scenery, lets her rope go slack. I never told her about Old Gin racing, much less being paired with the suffragists. Her fidgety pupils snap to mine. She makes shoving motions with her hands.

  What?

  Now she’s pretending to ride a horse, lasso and all. She stops riding and stretches up her fists, and then points at me.

  Victory is waiting for us. We have to be bold enough to snatch it.

  Sweet Potato puts her nose into my hand. An image of Old Gin weaving her through a throng of moving horses sprints through my mind. Despite Billy’s savage attack on Old Gin, no doubt he will still press us for the three-hundred-dollar debt, and though the chances of me crossing the finish line first are slim to none, at least it is a chance. Plus, I could show those suffragists who’s an American woman. And Mrs. Payne could see for herself what I’m made of, something that goes beyond flesh and blood.

  But a nobody like me has no business on the track, let alone in the biggest horse race Atlanta has ever seen. It’s probably illegal.