by Megan Chance
But a week hadn't passed when Johnny called me into his office.
"I got a letter from that son of a bitch." He held the pages out to me, dangling them between his fingers as if they were noxious. Mockingly, he said, "He sends Miss Olson his most sincere regards."
"What else does he say?"
"That he's thinking about our offer. That he has to go to Chicago for a few months, but he hopes to come to a decision when he returns. That's what I get for dealing with Daddy's boys." Johnny threw the letter to his desk. "Dillydallying shit. Why the hell should we wait for him? What does it matter what the place looks like? If I had Adelina Patti here right now, you could be damn sure people wouldn't give a damn whether or not there's a drop curtain."
"But you wouldn't get Adelina Patti with a stage like this."
"How can you be so sure?" His eyes narrowed. "We offer enough money, who knows who we'd get? I say to hell with Davis. Let's get acts in here now. We can rebuild the place later."
I leaned forward, bracing my hands on his desk. "When does Davis leave? Can we meet with him again before?"
"I don't think it's me he wants to see."
I straightened. "Is that what you want? For me to see him alone?"
Johnny met my gaze. I saw the flash of something in his eyes, a little jealousy, perhaps; I wasn't certain. "No, I ain't saying that," he said irritably. "Let's try this my way, honey. Maybe we don't need Davis. I should get an answer from San Francisco any day."
I didn't like how quickly he was moving, or the way he'd wrested control. Desperately I tried to think of a way to wrest it back. "What if I convince Mr. Davis to invest now, before he goes?"
Johnny shrugged. "You do what you want. I'm tired of waiting."
I left Johnny's office frustrated and bad tempered. I'd had him well in hand, and now that idiot Davis had ruined everything with his hesitation. When Duncan looked up from the bar and said, "You all right, Marguerite?" I snapped, "I'm going out."
I nearly ran back to McGraw's. Once I was there, I dressed again in the widow's weeds, again without the hat and veil, and then I made my way to the Occidental Hotel. I didn't let myself think of what I was doing, or of my intentions. At the desk, I asked for Mr. Davis's room, and when the man there told me the number, I went up the stairs and knocked on the door.
The door opened. Mr. Davis was in his shirtsleeves. In surprise, he said, "Miss Olson?"
I gave him my best smile. "Do you think I might speak with you a moment?"
"Here? In my room?"
I licked my lips. "Why not?"
He looked startled and uncomfortable and then he said, "Let me fetch my coat, and we'll go downstairs," and I was momentarily disconcerted. This was not what I'd expected.
I stepped inside his room. When I went to close the door, he stopped it with his hand so that anyone in the hallway might see us. A little chivalry which I was impatient with. I was here; best to get this over with.
"Will you invest in the Palace, Mr. Davis, or must we find another partner?"
He stepped back. "How very ... straightforward you are, Miss Olson."
I nearly laughed at that. "Mr. Langford tells me you're going to Chicago."
"Yes. The day after tomorrow."
"And you might not be returning for some months."
"That's true as well."
"We can't wait forever, Mr. Davis. Surely you understand. I came here today in the hopes that you might make a decision before you leave."
He stroked his beard thoughtfully. "I ... see."
"And"--I took a deep breath--"and I wondered if there might be something you want from us. In return for your agreement."
Now he frowned. "Something I want from you and Langford?"
"Or from me. In particular." I met his gaze boldly.
And he did something no other man in my experience had ever done. He said, "I think you mistake me, Miss Olson."
The response was so unexpected I blinked at him. "I ... mistake you?"
"I have every intention of investing in your enterprise," he said. "And I require nothing in return but the percentages we've agreed upon."
I felt a twisting, sharp relief, and something else too, an almost paralyzing sickness that I had been so ready to do this again, that I had only thought of getting what I wanted; I had never considered that there might be another way.
"Miss Olson, are you quite all right?" Davis's voice came to me through a fog.
"Yes, of course."
"I mean no insult, of course--"
"None taken."
"You are a charming woman, and I would be honored--"
"Please, Mr. Davis, say nothing more."
"I imagine it was Langford who asked you to come here."
I peered up at him in confusion.
"He is ... determined, by all accounts. As a partner, I have no qualms about that. It seems to me Langford prospers when he chooses to. However, it troubles me to think that a fine woman such as you might find herself ... compelled."
I laughed. "Johnny has no idea I'm even here, Mr. Davis. I'm hardly compelled, as you say. He's an impatient man, but you'll find him fair, as long as you don't cross him."
"Have you ever crossed him, Miss Olson?"
I tried not to think of why I was here, or of the choir, or of the things I hadn't told Johnny. I tried not to think of what he might do if he discovered any of it. Uncomfortably, I said, "We have an understanding."
"Ah." Mr. Davis looked thoughtful. Then he became very officious, and it was as if the rest of the conversation had never taken place. "Well then, Miss Olson, shall I write you a cheque?"
I PUT THE cheque in my pocket and felt a little thrill of victory as I did so. I didn't bother to go home and change but made my way back to the Palace. Duncan glanced at me in surprise when I came through the door. "You got another opera to go to?"
"Where's Johnny?"
He jerked his head toward the office door.
I wrenched at the knob and went in, surprising Johnny as he bent over the books, an unlit cigar clenched between his teeth.
"What is it?"
I reached into my pocket and took out the folded cheque, letting it fall to the desk before him. "Surprise."
He grabbed it before it landed, unfolding it, staring at it for a long moment.
"Where the hell'd you get this?"
"Where does it look like?"
He set the cheque onto the desk slowly--too slowly. There was something in his face I recognized, though it wasn't an expression that belonged to him, and the memory flashed back. A bathtub, a cheque sailing through the air, a bodice soaked through.
Angrily, I said, "Are you accusing me of something?"
Johnny said, "Whoa, honey--"
"I asked him for the money straight out and he gave it to me. He'd already decided to give it to us. I didn't have to do anything."
"Margie--"
"What do you think I am, a whore? How dare you--"
"Margie, shut the fuck up." Johnny stood, frowning. "Suppose we back up just a bit. Why don't you tell me what happened?"
"Not if you're going to assume I fucked him."
"Did I say that? I don't recall it."
"You were thinking it."
"So you a mind reader now?"
"If you're going to be jealous every time I have anything to do with another man--"
"Stop right there," he said, coming around the corner of the desk. "First off, I don't give a damn how you got the money. What you do is your own business. But I got to protect what's mine, honey, and I can't do that if you lie to me."
"I'm not lying."
"You sure about that? I would've said you went out of here this morning riled up and ready to fuck Davis if you needed to."
"It was what you wanted."
He laughed. "Damn if you ain't delusional, honey. You should know by now it'd be the last thing I want."
I frowned. "What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean." He stepped clos
er.
"Johnny--"
"I want a partnership."
"We're partners already. Nothing's changed."
"Something has changed," he said. "You have."
"I'm just the same."
He looked at me thoughtfully. "No, honey, you ain't. These last couple months ... something's different. I wish to hell I knew what it was, but you know, I'm willing to let it be. I've been waiting for you to settle. Seems to me as if maybe you finally have."
He leaned down to kiss me with a gentleness I'd never felt from him. Johnny had always been a skillful enough lover to know what I'd wanted: sex that was both an appeasement of loneliness and a punishment for past sins, and nothing more. But this ... this was not that. It was troubling, but not unpleasant.
I let him kiss me. When he drew away, he brushed his thumb over my cheek. "What d'you think, honey? You ready to try a partnership that ain't only business?"
"Maybe," I said, and was surprised to hear myself, to hear an answer that wasn't no, but something else, something truer, something unexpected. "I guess that depends."
"On what?"
"On whether you can take me as I am. No more questions. Leave the past alone."
His hand came behind my head, holding me in place as he spoke against my lips. "Agreed." He kissed me with a skill that had me clutching him even as I sensed there was something missing, something I could never have again, something I wanted quite desperately, though I could not bring myself to think of what it was.
That night, as I lay in his bed and listened to his soft snoring, I sang hymns in my head, practicing, longing, and all I could think about was the choir.
CHAPTER 16
O n Sunday, I went into the choir room with the others, pulling on the musty satin robes, clasping closed the braided trim at the front. Up close, they were more worn than I'd realized, frayed at the hem and cuffs and sour-smelling beneath the scent of the sachets Mrs. Anderson had hung on every hook.
"Miss Olson," Dr. Marsdon said when we bent to gather our choir books, "your friend, Miss Rainey--"
I looked up into his brown eyes, smiling when he faltered. "Miss Rainey?"
He cleared his throat. "You said she might be in the congregation...."
"Near the back, Dr. Marsdon," I said. "I should think you'd be able to find her quite easily."
He nodded, flushing beneath his pale skin as we went out with the others and took our places on the risers.
I had sung on stages in front of hundreds--even thousands--before. I knew audiences intimately; I knew the sound and the feel of them; I knew how to manipulate them with a bow or a smile or a note strung to the gallery gods in the topmost seats.
And yet here, where there could not have been two hundred faces, I was intimidated. I sat on the back riser beside Miss Lapp, and heard the congregation shuffle and cough. I saw their interest in the sermon wax and wane, their eyes shifting in search of distraction, their curiosity as they spotted me, more than one piercing look. I averted my eyes and--but for Charlotte's--tried not to meet anyone else's.
When we rose to sing, it was a relief. And as I sang I forgot the audience's curiosity and my own nerves. To sing was what I'd been born to do, and even as I mixed my voice with the others, altering it, blending it, I felt that singular joy I'd always felt, that emptiness always within me easing, healing.
When the service was over, Mr. Anderson took me aside. "My wife and I are having a small luncheon for the choir this after noon. We'd be delighted if you and Miss Rainey could join us."
I smiled my declination, but before I could say anything, he said earnestly, "It's meant to welcome you to the choir, Miss Olson. You are a most hoped-for addition."
After that, I could not say no, and so I brought Charlotte with me, up the street to the foot of First Hill, where the Anderson house stood with three others on a block otherwise filled with brambles. The house was a standard whitewashed clapboard, with a front porch and a screened lean-to and a fence twined with sweetbriar and a huge rhododendron in the corner, its blossoms long since fallen away. A tethered cow stood in the side yard, grazing.
Charlotte and I had walked, and so were the last to arrive. Wagons and horses and one carriage--Mrs. Lapp's, I assumed--had parked on the street out front. There was a table set in the yard, and the other members of the choir were gathered around it, helping themselves to fried chicken and oyster stew and salmon and corn bread. They welcomed us warmly; Mrs. Anderson was quick to get us each a plate, and to pile it high with food, and then we went to sit with others on the blankets they'd spread.
I saw the way Mrs. Lapp marked us, leading her daughters to a blanket some distance from ours. I leaned close to Charlotte, pulling at my chicken with my fingers. "Mrs. Lapp does not like how curious her daughters are about me. I think she wishes Deborah didn't stand so close on the risers. She'd probably move her if she weren't a soprano too."
Charlotte raised her eyes to follow my gaze.
I said, "And the merchant's wife doesn't know quite what to make of me."
"She don't like your scar," Charlotte said, bringing a bit of chicken to her mouth. "It makes her nervous. She said so when we were sitting together at practice. She asked me what I thought happened that made it."
"What did you tell her?"
"That you'd probably murdered someone."
I felt myself pale.
Charlotte laughed. "It was a joke, but I think she believed me."
I bent to my plate and tried to smile. "No wonder she keeps her distance."
Just then, I saw a pair of boots appear before us. I glanced up to see Dr. Marsdon; just behind him was the butcher and his wife, all holding full plates. "Would you ladies mind if we joined you?" Dr. Marsdon asked, and I picked up my plate and scrambled back, making room for them. Charlotte was less nimble, but she eased to the edge of the blanket, and I did not miss the fact that Dr. Marsdon sat beside her.
The butcher and his wife sat down in a bloom of skirts. She leaned forward to say, "Miss Olson, I must tell you that the choir sounds so different with you in it! I'd not realized how much we missed our third soprano."
I smiled and thanked her. After that, I said little myself but listened and nodded as the conversation drifted to the conversion of Squire's Opera House to a hotel and all the other ways the city was changing, and I found myself laughing easily and well, as I hadn't done in years. I leaned back against the fence, and the day turned drowsy with the hot sun and a faint breeze. I felt included and innocently so--I was Marguerite Olson here, a member of the choir, and nothing else. I wanted nothing from them; they wished nothing of me but to sing with them, and there was relief in that, an easy kind of joy, a kind I had never known and had never thought to want before now.
AS SUMMER FADED, I lived my double life. For all except those few hours on Sunday morning, I was Marguerite Olson from the Palace. But those few hours colored the rest. Mr. Anderson was the only one who knew of my association with the Palace, and he was very discreet. I had no fear the others would stumble upon me there--they were not the kind to frequent the Lava Beds; I doubted they would ever set foot in the boxhouse. And so the choir became my solace; I did not worry about Johnny or anything else when I was there.
My time in the church made it easier too to endure the time I spent alone. When I wasn't with Johnny, I no longer felt the need to go to Charlotte's room in those few hours after dawn; instead I lay in bed and relived my time upon those risers, the sheer joy of singing again. I hummed or sang softly to myself and listened to my voice ease into the corners of my tiny room, filling those corners where before they had held only shadows.
Charlotte seemed to enjoy it too. Dr. Marsdon had continued his attentions to her, and though she claimed to want nothing to do with him, I saw the sparkle in her eyes when she came with me to church each Sunday; I knew she looked for him.
One Sunday, after practice, I said to her, "You and Dr. Marsdon were quite cozy just before he left."
Charlotte b
ecame pensive. "He asked me to go with him for ice cream."
"Then why aren't you walking with him?"
"You know why," she said.
"He admires you a great deal, Charlotte."
"Enough to excuse that I'll fuck any man with two dollars?"
"He wouldn't have to know."
"I don't like living in secrets. In fact"--she took a deep breath--"in fact, I think it best if I don't come with you anymore."