The Chili Queen: A Novel

by Dallas, Sandra

  “You can take Miss Frankie’s room if you’ll help out. You know what I mean. There’s more than one man that’s asked about you. Most places don’t charge the same for dark meat as white, but that doesn’t go with me. I always did like a Negro man as much as a white one. I guess that goes for a woman, too. You can keep half, just like the other girls.” Addie didn’t know if the men who’d inquired about Welcome wanted her because she was a Negro or because she was a big, bold woman. They might not even know Welcome was a Negro, because her skin was the pale brown of dried prairie grass.

  “I’m not much more Negro than you are,” Welcome said. “But no matter. This old flesh and bones is a Christian woman, and I won’t share my tender parts for pieces of silver.”

  Addie wondered why her employees always talked back to her. The servants were brash, the girls uppity. She sighed. “Well, fix my supper then and heat up water for a bath. I expect you could smell me coming from the station.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I could.”

  Welcome built up the fire in the cookstove, then she pumped water and poured it into a kettle. She set a place for Addie at the kitchen table, and went to the icebox, peering inside. “We had purty plenty to eat two days ago when you was supposed to be here. Now we got just leavings,” she said. “I guess you’ll be wanting your bath first.” Welcome went outside and fetched the little tin tub from the back porch, and by the time she hauled it into Addie’s bedroom, Addie had taken off the silk dress and thrown it onto the bedroom floor. She was wearing only a wrapper.

  Welcome picked up the pile of yellow satin and held it out at arm’s length, wrinkling her nose. “It looks ruint, but I’ll see if it’ll clean up.” She tucked the dress under her arm. “The money from the customers is in your bottom drawer. I was going to hide it away in your Bible because them girls weren’t likely to look there to steal it, but I could not find your Bible.”

  “Most likely I took it with me.”

  “Most likely.” Welcome snorted. “You got more than one hundred dollars. That’s after I took out for going to market. And I paid myself ten dollars extra for running things while you was away. Those whores wore me out good.” She left the room, calling over her shoulder, “I’ll fetch you a glass of whiskey before I heat up the hot water.”

  Addie sighed and rubbed her face. Then she examined her fingers. The nails were broken and the cuticles raw. But that didn’t bother her as much as the backs of her hands. There were half a dozen brown spots on each one, and the veins stuck out like meandering streambeds. She was fortunate customers didn’t pay much attention to hands.

  Welcome returned with the liquor, and Addie took a long sip. It was the first good thing that had happened to her since Kansas City. With a bath and supper, she might make it through the evening. As she set down the glass, she heard a sharp ring of the front doorbell and sighed. It looked as if the fooling around would commence early that night. “You get it,” she told Welcome. “Tell him we don’t open till nine. If he’s here at nine sharp, he can have his pick of the girls. Don’t tell him we got only two.” She glanced at the clock on her bureau and was surprised to discover it was nearly eight. “And get those girls up and bring me my bathwater.”

  “You want me to black the stove and fix a turkey dinner while I’m at it?” Welcome asked, as she shut Addie’s door and went to the front of the house.

  Addie finished the whiskey and was about to get the hot water herself when Welcome banged the door open.

  “Is he coming back?” Addie asked.

  “He’s a she. Somebody asking for you.”

  Addie brightened. Perhaps life was looking up. “A girl? She could start tonight, and then I wouldn’t have to help out. Is she a looker?”

  “She’s no likely-looking girl for you. If you ask my opinion, this one’s hustling for the mite society.”

  Something pricked at the back of Addie’s mind, and she rubbed her hands over her face. “What’s she look like?”

  “I said it once, and I say it again: Not like no whore.”

  “Does she have on black?” Addie paused. “And a pink hat the color of my backside?”

  “Only smaller,” Welcome replied.

  “Katy, bar the door!” Addie shook her head back and forth. “I don’t guess you sent her away.”

  Welcome shrugged. “You said you was looking for a girl. You didn’t say you wanted a comely one. She’s setting in the parlor, just like a biddy hen.”

  “Well, get her out of there. Put her in the kitchen. Tell her I’ll see her as soon as I get some clothes on.” Addie stood up and stripped off the wrapper, amused that Welcome averted her eyes. “And watch your tongue. Don’t tell her what kind of a place this is. She’s a maiden lady that thinks The Chili Queen is a boardinghouse.” Addie chuckled.

  After Addie had wrapped her tired body in a house dress and brushed out her hair, pinning it sloppily on top of her head, she went into the kitchen, where she found Emma seated at the table, in the place Welcome had set for Addie. Emma had finished the piece of cold fried chicken and was wiping her mouth with a napkin. Addie wondered where the napkin had come from. Welcome never put out napkins for the residents of The Chili Queen.

  Emma turned to Addie. The dirt on the woman’s face was tear-streaked, and her hair was snarly. The pink hat sat on a chair, the bonnet strings wadded up. “I didn’t know where else to go,” she said, a catch in her voice. “I mean, I don’t know anybody else in Nalgitas, and you were so kind on the train. I hope you don’t mind. After all, you said I could come here.”

  Maybe so, but she hadn’t meant it. In fact, Addie minded considerably more than Emma could guess. The woman was just one more problem she’d have to deal with before she could open The Chili Queen. Still, Addie’s heart went out to Emma. Addie was nosey, too. She patted Emma’s black-gloved hand and said, “Well, dearie, let’s have it. Tell me your story.” She stopped when Welcome came to the table with a piece of pie and a glass of milk. Addie pulled her chair up to the table, but the servant ignored her and set the plate and glass in front of Emma, who picked up her fork. Heartbreak didn’t seem to affect the woman’s appetite.

  “You can bring me my dinner now, Welcome,” Addie said curtly.

  “I gave her the leavings from the girls, and that’s all there is. She got the last of the hereafter, too.” Hereafter was what Welcome called dessert.

  “What about me?” Addie almost wailed.

  Emma had started on the pie, but she put down her fork and shoved the plate toward Addie. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I thought since this was a boardinghouse, you had eaten, and I was having the leftovers. I wouldn’t want to rob you.”

  Addie sent Welcome a stern look that she hoped would tell the hired woman to keep her mouth shut. She only fluttered her hand at Emma. “Go on. You eat it. Welcome will fry me up some side meat and eggs.”

  Welcome seemed in no hurry and regarded Addie for a long time. “Yes, ma’am.” She didn’t move.

  “Now.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  When Welcome turned to the stove, Addie asked again, “What happened?” As she leaned forward, she brushed her sore breast against the edge of the table and sucked in her breath. When she’d undressed, she’d noticed the bruise, now an ugly purple, that the train conductor had inflicted. She thought about asking Welcome for ice, but she guessed Emma might go distracted if Addie bared her breast, right there at the kitchen table. Besides, it was too late to do any good. So she ignored the throbbing. “Did he turn you down?” Addie realized that was the wrong thing to say, and she added quickly, “Or maybe you didn’t like him. Is that it? Tell me everything.”

  Emma shook her head and began to sniff.

  Addie hated whimpering, unless she was the whimperer. “Well, what was it?”

  Welcome butted in. “You look like a plague of misery. You tell Miss Addie every and all the incidents.”

  “What’s this got to do with you?” Addie asked, angry that Welcome seemed to be taking ch
arge. “You work for me, remember?”

  “I quit. You want me to quit? Almost am I ready to leave.” Welcome reached behind her back to untie her apron strings.

  “Just fix me my supper.”

  Welcome patted Emma’s shoulder and turned to the stove.

  “Oh, dear, I’ve come between you and your hired girl,” Emma said.

  Addie waved away the apology. “Tell me what he said,” she ordered.

  Emma took a deep breath and let it out. She searched her bag, finding a handkerchief, which she held to her nose. To Addie’s relief, Emma didn’t cry. Instead she sneezed. She put away the handkerchief and sighed again. Then she said quickly, “He wasn’t there.” The admission wore her out, and she sank back into the chair as if done with the story.

  But for Addie, that was only the beginning. For all the inconvenience she’d gone through for Emma, Addie was owed a good story. She reached for Emma’s hand and held it between her own. “I told you he was having his supper, or he could have got drunk and passed out. Maybe his horse bucked him off, and he had to walk to town.” She was warming up. “He could have got washed away in a flood and killed.”

  “It ain’t rained since you left,” Welcome said from the stove. She cracked an egg on the side of the frying pan. It sounded like a shot.

  “Well then, he might have been run over by a freight wagon or killed by outlaws—” She stopped because Emma was shaking her head back and forth.

  “No. None of that,” Emma said. “He was there at the depot, all right. I didn’t see him, but he saw me. He left a letter. It wasn’t more than a few minutes ago that I thought to inquire for a message. And there was his dispatch, lying there.” Emma reached into her bag and took out a sheet of cheap paper that was folded in half, then folded again. Miss Roby was written on the outside. Emma straightened the paper, and set it on the table.

  Addie snatched it up and began to read the pencil script to herself, nodding her head at each word as she sounded it out. Then she glanced up at Welcome, who was paying no attention to the skillet. “All right, you can hear it,” Addie told Welcome, and as Emma cringed, Addie read the salutation: “Dear Emma Roby.”

  Addie smoothed the paper on the table and pointed to each word as she pronounced it.

  “You are older than your picture, and I believe you are not a suitable match for a man such as myself.” Addie read each word distinctly, and when she got to the end of the sentence, she looked up at Emma, but Emma was staring stoically at the stove. “I did not bargain for an old maid. I am not cruel but am a coward, so I will leave this with the station man. It is better if you go on back home and forget about

  “Your faithful servant,

  “W.W.”

  Welcome set down a plate of fried eggs and fatty meat in front of Addie, raising an eyebrow. “She’s a mail-order bride,” Addie explained.

  “No such a thing!” Emma said indignantly.

  Addie shrugged. “She’s not a mail-order bride. She just came out here looking for somebody she never met to pick her off the platform at the depot and marry her.”

  Welcome went to the cupboard and came back to the table with a fork, which she handed to Addie. The black woman had big hands. And her feet in their brass-toed brogans were big, too. Once, when a man had gotten rough at The Chili Queen, Addie had called Welcome, who came to the room, holding a frying pan in one hand, slapping it against the palm of the other. The man bolted before Welcome had a chance to use it. Addie wondered how many other men Welcome had taken on. Maybe she’d chunked around her husband when he went after her. The servant had told her she’d been married, but “we abided poorly, so I let him go. He whipped me for any misdemeanor dislikeable. I guess he’s in hell now, if the devil can stand him.” Addie had been a little afraid to ask Welcome if she had dispatched him there.

  “I was to meet a gentleman here to get married. We had corresponded,” Emma explained to Welcome.

  “For no reason you should be sorry you missed out on such a devil on earth,” Welcome said.

  Addie was surprised at the outburst and waved her away. “It’s not your business. Don’t you have chickens to kill?”

  “It’s too dark to kill chickens,” Welcome said. She withdrew into the shadows of the kitchen but didn’t leave. Well, Addie thought, if Emma didn’t mind Welcome listening in, why should she?

  “I didn’t have any place to go. I thought I could stay here. You said I could,” Emma repeated.

  “Ha!” said Welcome. Addie turned to her, but all she could see in the dark corner was Welcome’s white apron.

  “You do take women, don’t you? Your card says, ‘Men taken in,’ but I hoped…” She left the sentence hanging in the air as a question.

  “There isn’t room,” Addie said. “We’re full up.”

  “Let her taken Miss Frankie’s room, but she can’t call me ‘nigger.’ Miss Frankie did, and I told her ‘git.’”

  “That’s my business to put her out,” Addie protested.

  Welcome chuckled in the darkness. “You take Miss Frankie’s room, Miss Addie, and give up yourn to the lady. Since it’s off the kitchen, she won’t be bothered by any goings-on.”

  “Who are you working for?” Addie asked her.

  “Put her upstairs, then,” Welcome suggested.

  “It’s just for tonight. I’ll look for a housekeeping room in the morning,” Emma said. “But if you have a vacancy, I’d be pleased to be your roomer.”

  “You’re staying on?” Addie asked.

  “What else can I do?” Emma shrugged. “You heard my brother. I can’t go back home. And I wouldn’t if I could. I thought…” She paused and looked down at her hands, embarrassed. “I thought maybe I could set up a hat shop. I think I have a talent for trimming hats.”

  Addie gave her an astonished look and was about to reply when the bell on the front door rang. Welcome came forward, and she and Addie exchanged glances. “You got you a caller,” Welcome said.

  “I can hear that.”

  “If you have company, I can go on upstairs.” Emma stood up and reached for her hat. “If you would just tell me which room.”

  “You want me to show her?” Welcome asked. She appeared to be enjoying herself.

  “I could go back to the depot. There’s a bench there that I could sleep on. I don’t want to intrude,” Emma added.

  “No,” Addie said quickly. “You let me get my things, and you can stay in my room. I’ll go upstairs.”

  Emma yawned. “I’m so grateful. I’m awful confused and so tired I could sleep until the roll’s called up yonder.”

  “You do that,” Addie said.

  “That’s a real nice thing you done,” Welcome told Addie, who was surprised at how she was warmed by the compliment.

  Welcome picked up Emma’s valise and took it into the bedroom, Addie following behind. “Get the door and show him into the parlor. I’ll take my clothes upstairs. And make sure those lazy girls are ready. You tell them I’m home, and I don’t tolerate slackers,” Addie told Welcome. She glanced at Emma to see if it had dawned on her what she was talking about, but the woman had sat down on the bed and leaned her head against the bedpost. She was almost asleep. Addie sighed, wondering why things never seemed to work out quite right for her. The Chili Queen was hers, paid for by her hard work. But she was headed upstairs to a hooker’s room while Emma was about to go to sleep in her bed. Addie’d always thought of herself as kindhearted. Now she wondered if she were just an easy mark.

  Business was good at The Chili Queen that night, so good, in fact, that Addie herself had taken care of three customers. When the last one left, she locked the front door and sent the girls upstairs to bed. In the kitchen, she found Welcome still awake, scrubbing out the little bathtub. “You was working, so I give her the bath,” Welcome said. “You want one?”

  But Addie was too tired to wait for Welcome to heat fresh water. She started toward her room.

  “Uh-uh. Where you going?” Welcome ask
ed. “’Member, you got a lady in there. You’re sleeping in Miss Frankie’s room.” She pointed to the ceiling and laughed out loud.

  Addie turned around and made her way to the stairs. Broken-Nose Frankie’s room was the smallest in the house, but it didn’t matter where she slept, Addie supposed, as she threw her clothes onto the floor. Like Emma, she could sleep until judgment day. Addie climbed into bed and sank down, nearly to the floor, it seemed. In the morning, she’d ask Welcome to help her tighten the bed cords. She shifted around on the cornshuck tick to get comfortable. The tick crackled and scratched, and Addie wished she had her own feather mattress under her. But she found a comfortable spot and closed her eyes. Then she sniffed. The odor from the sheets made her gag. It wasn’t just the smell from the night’s activity, either. Miss Frankie had been none too clean, and the sheets hadn’t been washed since she left. Maybe they hadn’t been washed in all the time Miss Frankie had worked there. And the room was close. Addie got up and opened the window as wide as it would go, which was only a few inches. Parlor house madams, even those whose establishments were as fine as The Chili Queen, nailed strips of wood to the window tracks in the boarders’ rooms to keep men from climbing in and the girls from sneaking out.

  Addie got back into bed, but something hard in the mattress poked her, and she moved around like a nesting bird to find a satisfactory place. She was nearly asleep when a horsefly buzzed about her head. Addie swatted the fly, and it flew off, but in a minute, it was back. In the moonlight that filled the room, Addie saw it land on the iron bedstead, and she smashed it. Then she picked it up by a wing, got out of bed, and flung it out the window, stopping to watch as Welcome walked from the back door of The Chili Queen to the shack where she slept. She was an odd one, but Addie was too tired to think about Welcome. She glanced at her hand and saw that the fly’s wing was stuck to the palm, so she went to the washstand and poured water into the bowl, rinsing off her hands. The towel was gone, and Addie dried her hands on the sheet.