Prima Donna: A Novel

by Megan Chance

  Duncan swept it away before I could grab it. "I'll go get Johnny," he said.

  "What for?"

  His deep brown eyes grew troubled, and even that annoyed me. I let myself sag against the bar. I felt as if the violence that lived in the Palace had somehow crawled beneath my skin--not an unfamiliar feeling of late, and one I hated, but I was beyond curing it now. The only thing that would appease it was a fight, and I was spoiling for one. I wished Jenny would come back so I could tell her what I really thought.

  "Margie, maybe you better go into my office for a bit."

  Johnny's voice came from behind me. I saw the relief break on Duncan's face. It only made me angrier. "I don't need to go into your office. I'm not a child."

  He glanced past me to Duncan, who obviously made some sign, because Johnny nodded slightly. He took my arm and said, "Maybe we should get you home then."

  His touch roused my desire. It was restless and painful; I knew already that it would not be easily assuaged. But it was better than the anger I hardly understood, and I knew too that Johnny could soothe it for a time. "Only if you come with me."

  He said to Duncan, "Can you watch the place for a bit?"

  "Nothing too hard to handle," Duncan said. "Marguerite already fixed Blotsky's table."

  "Did she now?" Johnny glanced down at me. "It's good to see you ain't completely useless tonight, honey."

  I leaned into him and whispered, "Why don't you let me show you how useful I can be?"

  He sighed and released my arm, and then he went to his office to fetch my cloak and his coat. He handed the cloak to me and tucked his gun into his coat pocket. "I won't be long," Johnny told Duncan, and I said, "Don't expect him for a while."

  Duncan rolled his eyes, but Johnny ignored me. He led the way to the back door, and then the two of us were outside, past the storage lean-to where Duncan slept, and down the slick steps off the narrow porch to the muddy street below.

  The rain was steady but light. It was late, but music spilled from the saloon next door, men yelled drunkenly in the streets, and a line snaked from the brothel on the corner to nearly around the block. I knew from experience those things wouldn't die until dawn.

  Johnny said nothing, only led me silently the few blocks to my boardinghouse. There was no welcoming light at all, the windows were dark and dead. I liked it better that way. In the dark it was impossible to see how rough it was, or the grotesque attempts Mrs. McGraw made at beautifying it: the twining sweetbriar near the door twisting from the bloodstained sawdust she got at the neighboring butcher's, the flowerpots at the corner of the ramp that held no flowers but only dead stumps of plants drowning in pools of stinking piss from dumped chamber pots.

  The front door was unlocked. Johnny opened it and waited for me to precede him. The first-floor entry and the sitting room just off it were wallpapered with roses, but the stairs were dark, and the upstairs walls were unfinished lumber that sometimes left splinters in my fingers as I felt my way up. I went inside, swaying a little, falling once against the wall, and he put his hand on my arm to steady me, following me up instead of telling me good night. He meant to oblige me after all. Thank God for that.

  My room was toward the end of the hall, near the toilet, which had to be on the second floor because when the tides came in, it pushed the crap right back up the pipes. I heard Tessa, who worked at the Bijou boxhouse, in the next room, heaving about and groaning. She was with someone again, a not uncommon occurrence.

  I unlocked the door and slipped inside, and when Johnny came in behind me, I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him. His mustache was soft and thick. I felt the wet of his tongue against my lips, and then with a sigh, he pulled away, saying, "We need to talk."

  I unbuttoned his coat. "We can talk later."

  Firmly he pushed me away. "Slow down, honey." He went to the candle on my bed table and picked up the box of matches, striking one to light the wick. The candle flame flickered and danced in the tides of our breath; our shadows were elongated and strange against the walls of my narrow room, seeming to intersect even when we weren't touching. From behind the wall on the other side, Tessa's moans began to increase in intensity and volume, and whoever she was with moaned in response. The sound only increased my own hunger, and my frustration.

  Johnny smiled thinly and gestured to the wall. "You get to listen to that every night?"

  "Some." I started toward him. "Turnabout's fair play, don't you think? Come and kiss me."

  He held up his hand to stop me. "You're having another of your bad nights."

  "You could make it better."

  He laughed a little. "Not for longer than the time it takes me to fuck you, Margie. You and I both know that. It's starting to affect things at the Palace. You're drunk half the time. The girls are starting to notice."

  From the next room Tessa's moans had turned high and staccato, bel canto-like embellishments to an unheard tune, imitations of a coy flute, ah ah ahahah, ohhhh! and my washbasin shook and tipped with the final thud thud thud against the wall.

  My skin was too sensitive. I wanted him to touch me. I wanted him to take the restless uneasiness away.

  "Which girls?"

  Johnny seemed impervious. "It don't matter which ones."

  My anger surged back, more prickly than before. I could not keep my voice from rising. "You mean Sally." I advanced on him. "Just because she's your latest whore--"

  Someone banged on the wall. From the other room, Tessa yelled, "Shut up in there! We're trying to get some sleep!"

  "Perhaps you should do your fucking earlier then," I yelled back. I turned to Johnny. "I don't like her. I want her gone. If you don't do it, I will."

  "Sally ain't the problem."

  "The hell she isn't." I raised my hands, meaning to strike him.

  He grabbed my wrists tightly. "You been looking for a fight all night. Don't tempt me to take you on."

  But taking me on was exactly what I wanted. I wanted to hit him and hurt him, and then I wanted him to take me to bed and make my restlessness go away. And though there was a part of me that told me to back away, to relax, I could not listen to it. I heard myself shouting, "You and Duncan let those girls do whatever they like as long as they're on their knees whenever you call--"

  His fingers tightened warningly on my wrists. "Take care, Margie."

  "What's wrong?" I taunted. "Don't you like hearing the truth? Poor little Johnny doesn't like to admit a girl can twist him around her finger--"

  "It's got to stop, Margie." His voice was so quiet it seemed to strip all sound from the room. He let go of my wrists and stepped back. "Once in a while ain't a problem; hell, everyone has a bad day. But lately all your days are bad ones. It's affecting business. You ain't any use to me like this, and I don't suffer anyone who's no use. Even you."

  They were the first words he'd said that made their way through my anger. My agitation faded; instead what I felt was fear. Instinctively I stepped closer to him. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pressed my hips into his. "Don't say that," I whispered. "Don't say I'm no use. You know what I can do. I know you've got a use for that."

  He pried my arms from his neck. "I don't got a taste for your temper tonight."

  "Then I'll be good." I lifted my skirts, grabbing his hand, pushing his fingers against me. "Come on, Johnny. You know you still want this."

  For a moment I thought I had him. His fingers gripped, pulling just a little at the curls there so it stung, a punishment he knew I wanted. I pressed into him.

  He leaned very close until I felt his mustache against my lips. Then he whispered, "What a fool you must think me, honey."

  He pulled away. I was startled when he crossed the room to the door. I stood there, still holding up my skirts, my legs parted for him.

  He stopped, his hand on the knob, and turned back to look at me. "You're good at that, honey. Better than most women ever get to be. But I'm tired of playing the whore for you."

  My voice was
only a breath when I said, "What do you mean?"

  "You find someone else to fuck you through your tempers."

  I let my skirts fall. "Johnny. No. Please. I don't want anyone else."

  His smile was cold. "Sure you do, Margie. There's always been someone else in your head."

  "That's not true," I said, but even I heard the lie in my voice.

  "You think things through tonight. If you can't find some control, don't bother coming back in. You understand me?"

  I took a deep breath. "Yes."

  "No more drinking yourself stupid."

  "I understand."

  "Good," he said, and then, again, "Good. I'm auditioning girls in the morning. If you ain't there, I'll take it to mean you ain't coming back." He turned the knob.

  "Johnny, please don't go," I begged. "Stay with me."

  He only gave me a look that shamed me. "This is your first warning, Margie. Don't let it get to a second one."

  Then he opened the door, and was gone.

  CHAPTER 4

  T hat night, I was plagued with nightmares, flashes of images that never stayed for more than a few moments, even when I wanted them to: a beautiful face hovering close and when I raised myself for a kiss it smiled and disappeared, turning instead into Johnny's face, into his brown eyes shifting cold and dark, and then that twisted too, becoming leering and distorted before everything went red, dripping blood into my eyes and onto my hands, which would never come clean, no matter how I scrubbed....

  I woke sweating, with my matted hair plastered to my face and neck and my skin crawling and pricking as if every little snag in the coarse sheets had hooked into it. These nightmares had been coming more and more often lately, and I didn't know why. Nor did I know why I could no longer completely shut them out, or why they lingered as if they meant no longer to be evaded or locked away. It had been three years. Surely that was enough time to forget?

  I rose, shuddering as my bare feet hit the cold floor, and then I went to the furnace vent in the wall and put my hands to it to see if the heat was on. It was, but as usual, it had no more strength than a breath. I heard the metallic clang clang clang from the blacksmith's shop, and pulled aside the threadbare brown calico curtains with the absurd ragged grosgrain ties to peer into the damp cold of late morning. Beyond the privy with its seeping pool of sewage in the yard, the gray-black smoke of the forge rose through the rain into the low-flung clouds.

  I let the curtain drop into place and went to the washbasin. The water was cold, raising gooseflesh. As I reached for the towel, I was caught by the movement in the tiny square mirror nailed to the wall. What looked back at me was wavery as a spirit, a pale face surrounded by tangled and frizzing black hair, blue eyes that seemed too bright a color against the starkness of the rest. Because of the way the mirror was worn, the only thing that looked solid and real was the jagged pink scar striking its way from my temple along my hairline, in front of my ear to my jaw. Still bright, still raised, hardly faded or smoothed by the years. The doctor had done the best he could when he'd sewn me up, but it had been more than a day by then, and he'd told me sourly that there were worse things than no longer being beautiful; I was lucky it hadn't become infected.

  I paused, putting my fingers to it, tracing its faint rise, feeling the numb strangeness of my touch, as if it didn't quite belong to me. But it did. There were times when I thought it was the only real thing in my life.

  "There's always been someone else in your head." Johnny's words came to me like a song. "You ain't any use to me like this, and I don't suffer anyone who's no use. Even you."

  Tears pricked my eyes; I wiped them away almost viciously and forced myself to look more closely in the mirror, concentrating instead on the hair at my temple, studying it as if it held the key to stopping my nightmares, to controlling my tempers, to forgetting. The distraction worked the moment I spotted the faint gilding at the roots. At this point no one would think it anything but gray. Still, it was time to pay another visit to the druggist.

  Things to do. Ways not to be alone. It was only the being alone that gave my nightmares or my memories any power. If Johnny had stayed, I would have been fine.... I felt the stirring of a now familiar anger.

  "It's got to stop, Margie." "This is your first warning. Don't let it get to a second one."

  Not today. I couldn't let my anger get the best of me today. Johnny would never tolerate it, and I had nothing else but him, nowhere else but the Palace. I knew better than to disregard his warning--the very fact that he hadn't stayed with me when he always had before was enough to show me just how serious he was.

  What I needed were distractions. They were better than my own thoughts, and today there was plenty to distract me. The druggist for one. And the girls auditioning at the Palace this morning. It was enough to fill the next hours.

  Quickly I dressed and pinned up my hair. I grabbed my cloak and the few coins I kept here from the bag I hid in a knothole beneath the bureau--a place Mrs. McGraw, the landlady, had not yet found in her searchings--and then I slipped into my pocket the derringer Duncan had given me and warned me never to be without. When I made my way downstairs, Mrs. McGraw was there, dusting the few pictures in the hallways, but mostly nosing into the comings and goings of her boarders, and as I reached the bottom of the stairs, she looked up with a smile that showed her missing and browning teeth. "Why good morning to you, Miz Olson. On your way to the Palace so early?"

  "Auditioning girls today," I told her.

  "You ain't et with us the past few days."

  "I haven't been hungry."

  "Are you sick then?"

  "No, ma'am."

  "Well, that's good. You could use some fattening up. I'll make the sausage hash tomorrow for breakfast. I know you're partial to it."

  The thought made my stomach flip. I managed a weak smile and took the last step to the door. "Don't do anything special on my account. I can't say as I'll be here for breakfast tomorrow either."

  "You're lookin' a bit bony--"

  "Good day, Mrs. McGraw," I said firmly, stepping outside onto the narrow stoop and closing the door behind me.

  I could smell that the tide was out. The stink of the mudflats was heavy and pervasive. It was raining too, of course, the steady drizzle that was almost mistlike, hardly a rain at all, yet I knew from experience that it was almost the worst kind: it lulled one into thinking one wasn't getting wet, but seeped insidiously and with a damp chill that cut to the bone and never quite went away once it was there.

  There were no boardwalks here, so I had no choice but to go into the muddy, potholed streets and dodge the horses and carts and deliverymen about the Lava Beds at this time of day. The mud splashed up my boots to my bare legs, and by the time I reached the druggist, I was as wet and freezing as I could have predicted I would be.

  There was no one about but old Mr. Pollack, who took my coins for the packages of henna and black henna without comment, as he always did, though he winked at me as he said, "Good day to you, Miss Olson. Give my best to Mr. Langford--oh, and could you take this chloral to Duncan? You can sign for it."

  I nodded and took the bottle, shoving the packages beneath my arm. We kept chloral hydrate behind the bar; a few drops in a troublesome customer's drink, and there were no more problems. He would be unconscious until he woke, hours later, where he'd been deposited on the ramp outside the Palace or in the mud beneath the pilings. He could count himself lucky for that; it meant Johnny wasn't beating the hell out of him, for one thing, but that wasn't the least of it. There were places in the Lava Beds where he'd be robbed or even murdered before he was dumped through a trapdoor for the tide to take away like so much refuse. More than one prostitute had taken advantage of those trapdoors as well, to dump a newborn or drown herself. There were times, especially in midwinter, when it would rain and be gray for weeks at a time and there would be almost an epidemic of bodies caught among the trestles that crisscrossed the harbor to the colliers beyond.

&nb
sp; The melancholy was there again, and I shook my head free of my morbid thoughts and made my way to the Palace.

  Duncan was leaning on the bar and drinking coffee, and a group of young women huddled close together near the stage, five of them today.

  I went behind the bar and put my packages on the shelf beneath before I handed Duncan the bottle of chloral.

  "Thanks," he said, putting it away.

  I poured myself some coffee and took a sip. "Any of them look good?"

  "I like the blonde," he said with a smile.

  "Where's Johnny?"

  "Not down yet," he said. He glanced toward the stairs that led both to the boxes and to Johnny's room. "He's with Sally."