Through the Deep Waters

by Kim Vogel Sawyer

  He snorted. “You won’t be sixteen forever. An’ with hotels an’ restaurants poppin’ up along the railroad line all the way to California, he’ll be needing waitresses for a good long while.” He folded the advertisement and pressed it into Dinah’s palm. “Keep that. Write to him when your eighteenth birthday’s past. Because, girlie, sure as my pudding’ll come out of that oven browned just right and tastin’ like heaven, if you stay here, you’re gonna end up bein’ one of Flo’s girls.” He curled his hand around hers, his big fingers strong yet tender. “Wouldn’t you rather be one of Harvey’s girls?”

  Dinah

  “Wouldn’t you rather be one of Harvey’s girls?” Over the next weeks as Dinah browsed the markets and filled shopping lists for Rueben, she thought about becoming one of Harvey’s girls. When she washed the soiled linens and ironed the working girls’ fancy robes and underthings, she imagined being one of Harvey’s girls. As she sat at the desk in the back corner of the schoolroom completing lessons, she daydreamed about becoming one of Harvey’s girls. Late at night in her attic bedroom, listening to the noises coming from the rooms below, she longed to become one of Harvey’s girls.

  Toward the end of May, school ended for the season. Although she’d passed the exams, she didn’t attend the graduation ceremony to receive her eighth-grade certificate. If only she could be like the other students who walked across the teacher’s platform and received the rolled document tied with a crisp black ribbon! But she’d look the fool, being so much older than the others who were privileged to attend daily rather than hit or miss. And she had no one who would attend, smile with pride from the audience, and offer congratulations afterward. Thus, participating in the ceremony for which she’d worked so long and hard held little joy.

  Her seventeenth birthday arrived the first day of June. Rueben prepared her favorites for lunch—glazed ham with scalloped potatoes and steamed green beans seasoned well with bacon and onion—and baked her a spice cake with a half inch of fluffy vanilla cream between each of the three moist layers. All of Flo’s girls trooped downstairs and partook of her birthday treat, but they fussed about eating such a heavy midday meal in place of their customary noon breakfast. They didn’t sing to her, and no one gave her a present. Everyone else’s lack of attention made Dinah appreciate Rueben’s gesture all the more. She thanked him over and over for his kindness until he told her, “Hush now. You’re embarrassing me.”

  When the girls shuffled back upstairs for a few hours of rest and quiet before the men began storming the doors, she offered to help clean up the mess. But Miss Flo looped elbows with her and tugged her away from the table.

  “No dish washin’ on your birthday. Come into the parlor with me instead.”

  Dinah caught a glimpse of Rueben’s brows descending in a scowl, but Miss Flo ushered her out of the dining room so quickly she didn’t have a chance to explore the reason for it. Miss Flo aimed Dinah for the bay window where two brocade chairs were crunched close together beneath heavy draperies. It would be a cheerful spot if the curtains were ever separated to let the sun pour in.

  Miss Flo pointed to one chair, and Dinah sat while the proprietress flopped into the other with a loud whish from her silk skirts. Miss Flo folded her hands in her lap, crossed her legs with another wild rustling of skirts, and smiled—the warmest smile she’d ever aimed at Dinah. “Well now, seventeen, are you?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And as unsullied as new-fallen snow …”

  An uneasy feeling wriggled through Dinah’s belly. “Ma’am?”

  Miss Flo barked a short laugh. “Oh, I was just thinkin’ how different you are from the girls upstairs. Them all bein’ so … experienced. You’re something of an oddity in a place like this, Dinah.” Her well-rouged cheeks and kohl-darkened eyes gave her a hard appearance, yet Dinah believed she caught a hint of envy in the woman’s expression. “By the time I was your age, I’d been workin’ for over two years. Young but old already. This work will make you old fast. All you gotta do is look at your ma to see how this work ages a person.”

  Yes, Tori appeared much older than her thirty-nine years. She applied kohl to her eyes and bold rouge to her lips and cheeks, powdered her pale face, and dyed her hair with India ink—all attempts to look youthful. But nothing hid the truth. The woman who’d been known as Untamable Tori to the men of Chicago for the past twenty years was worn out.

  Dinah’s chest constricted. “I know.”

  “And she’s sick, too.”

  Miss Flo spoke so flippantly Dinah wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly. She crunched her brow. “What?”

  “Sick. She’s sick.” Miss Flo examined her long fingernails, then picked at a loose cuticle. “It happens in this business if you ain’t careful.” She raised one brow and aimed a knowing look at Dinah. “An’ considerin’ that you came to be, we both know Tori ain’t careful.”

  She’d noticed Tori’s drop in weight and the dark circles under her eyes, but she’d just thought her ma was tired. “She’s with child?”

  Miss Flo rolled her eyes. “She’s sick, I said.”

  Then Dinah understood. Twice before she’d watched one of Flo’s girls succumb to a sickness that turned her skin yellow and made her waste away to nothing. And now the sickness had its hold on Tori. Dinah folded her arms across her ribs and held tight as fear and worry attacked.

  Miss Flo lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “She didn’t want me to tell you, but I figured you have a right to know. She is your ma, after all.”

  Dinah had never been allowed to call Tori by anything other than her name—she always claimed the men wouldn’t be interested in her anymore if they knew she had a child. The few times she’d slipped and said “Ma” or “Mama,” Tori had slapped her hard, so Dinah learned not to say the terms out loud. But inwardly she’d called her mother by the affectionate titles and longed for the day they’d leave this place and become a real mother and daughter. Another dream that would never come true.

  Tears stung. She forced her voice past her tight throat. “Is there anything you can do?”

  Miss Flo shook her head. The feathers she wore in her streaky black-and-gray hair gently waved, as if offering a sweet farewell. But there would be nothing sweet about Tori’s passing—not if she had the same sickness as those other girls. “Not a thing. In fact, I ought to make her leave. Another week or two and she won’t be able to work anymore. And you know everyone has to earn their keep around here.”

  In all of Dinah’s lifetime, Tori had never set foot outside the confines of the Yellow Parrot. She rarely even ventured into the yard. Tori would die of fright if told to leave. Dinah clutched the carved armrests to keep herself in the chair. “But you can’t send her away!”

  “Well, I can’t have her fillin’ a room meant for moneymakin’.” Miss Flo glared at Dinah. “This is a business, not a charity or a poor farm. If she can’t earn, she can’t stay.”

  No poor farm would take in a soiled dove. No charity house would extend a kind hand to someone who’d sold herself to men. Dinah’s heart beat fast and hard. Panic made her dizzy. The girls of the Yellow Parrot were trapped here like birds in a cage. She hung her head, helplessness sweeping over her with the force of floodwaters breaking through a dam.

  “But maybe …”

  Dinah jerked her gaze at Miss Flo. The woman was smiling again. Sweetly. Invitingly. Whatever idea she had to keep Tori from being tossed onto the street, Dinah would listen.

  “I could let your mama stay here through her last days. It would be hard on her, wouldn’t it, to be sent off somewhere to die all alone? So I could put a bed for her in the attic, let her live out her final days under the roof where she’s been sheltered an’ fed all these years.”

  Hope ignited in Dinah’s chest.

  “I could do that if you’ll give me, say, twenty-five dollars.”

  The hope fizzled and died.

  “See, I figure with her bein’ sick, she won’t eat much. Accordin’
to the doctor, she ain’t gonna last even another three months, so I figure twenty-five dollars’ll cover the rest of her life.”

  Dinah sagged in resignation. “I don’t have twenty-five dollars.”

  The woman’s gaze narrowed, her smile changing to a knowing smirk. “You could earn it.”

  Oh, no …

  Miss Flo leaned forward, bringing her rouge-brightened face close to Dinah’s. “I know a man—a rich businessman who doesn’t visit the brothels. He has very specific … wants. And he pays well.”

  No, no, no …

  “For settin’ it up with him an’ providing a room, I’d need to take my standard half. But your share would be fifty dollars, Dinah.” Miss Flo’s tone became wheedling. “Twenty-five to give for your ma’s keep, an’ twenty-five to use for yourself any way you please. A new dress—two or three, even. Some new shoes an’ stockings an’ hair ribbons. All kinds of things. Fifty dollars is more than most people earn in a whole month, an’ you could make it just like that.” She snapped her fingers and Dinah jumped. Miss Flo reached across the short distance between the chairs and took Dinah’s hand. Her cold fingers squeezed, squeezed, squeezed. “I’ll get it arranged. Yes?”

  Dinah’s ears rang. One line from the advertisement she’d memorized screamed through her mind: “… of good moral character.” She’d given up on so many dreams—having a father, a mother, a home. Could she let her dream of becoming one of Harvey’s girls die, too?

  She yanked her hand from the woman’s grip and leaped to her feet. “I’ll find another way to take care of Tori!” She turned and raced for the stairs.

  Miss Flo’s mocking voice trailed after her. “No pay, no stay—for either of you. Remember that.”

  Every day during the month of June, Dinah set out in search of a job. She spoke to shop owners, café owners, clinic directors, and business office receptionists. She offered to mop floors, to scour pots, to wash linens or scrub aprons, to deliver messages—no job was too menial. And in every case when she answered the simple question, “Where do you live?” she was sent away with a firmly stated, “We don’t need your kind around here.”

  After weeks of fruitless searching, she came to a grim realization. Her eighth-grade certificate, so slowly and painfully won, didn’t matter. Her willingness to work hard at whatever task she was given didn’t matter. By association, Dinah was tainted—trapped in the same cage that held her mother captive. She’d never find a decent job. Not in this city. And to get out of the city would take money.

  With the summer sun waiting until late to creep over the horizon, the working hours at the Yellow Parrot moved forward. The customers preferred to visit under the cover of darkness. Dinah had always found it ironic that men who so eagerly and unashamedly forked over their dollars to Miss Flo didn’t want to be seen coming or going. As summer descended, the most booming business took place between ten and midnight, with a few stragglers sticking around until two or three in the morning until Miss Flo finally gave them the boot.

  On the last day of June, Dinah managed to stay awake until the very last man clomped off the porch, straddled his horse, and moseyed toward home. She waited until the girls had eaten their supper and returned to their rooms. She waited a little longer, until all murmuring and bedspring squeaking had hushed. Then she crept down the narrow enclosed stairway from the attic to the second floor and entered her mother’s room.

  Scant moonlight filtered through a slit in the heavy curtains and fell like a pale thread across Tori’s sleeping face. For a moment Dinah hesitated. Despite her illness, Tori had worked tonight. She had to or Miss Flo would send her away. Her sagging skin and slack mouth proved her exhaustion. Maybe Dinah shouldn’t disturb her. But by morning the others would be awake and would possibly overhear. And Dinah needed this conversation to remain private.

  Drawing in a breath of fortification, she leaned forward and shook Tori’s shoulder. “Tori? Tori, wake up.”

  Tori snuffled and slapped at Dinah’s hand.

  Dinah shook her again, more forcefully this time.

  Slowly Tori’s eyelids rose. Her bleary gaze settled on Dinah’s face, and she scowled. “What’re you doin’, pesterin’ me? Get outta here. Lemme sleep.” She started to roll over.

  Dinah caught her mother’s arm, holding her in place. “You can sleep in a minute. I need to talk to you. It’s important.”

  With a grunt, Tori wrenched her arm free. “What’s so blamed important it can’t wait until morning?”

  After easing onto the edge of the bed, Dinah clutched her hands together and whispered, “You.” She swallowed. “I know you’re sick, Ma.”

  Tori’s face pinched into a horrible grimace. “I told her not to say nothin’ to you. An’ don’t call me Ma.”

  “I can call you Ma now. Nobody’s around to hear. I needed to know about you being sick. You should’ve told me.” Even as she chided her mother, Dinah realized the pointlessness. She and Tori had never talked—not the way she imagined mothers and daughters were supposed to talk, sharing secrets and laughs and concerns. Mothers and daughters were supposed to look out for each other. They might have failed in every other sense, but maybe they could do at least one thing right. “Miss Flo says if you can’t work, you can’t stay here anymore.”

  “Stingy old biddy.” Bitterness tinged Tori’s weak voice. “All these years I stayed, lettin’ her get rich off me, an’ now she’s ready to put me out like some dried-up milk cow. She don’t know the meaning of loyalty.”

  “I want to help you.”

  A soft snort left Tori’s throat. “You got a cure up your sleeve?”

  Dinah hung her head. “I can’t make you well. But I … I want to take care of you. I can’t let Miss Flo send you away. Not when there’s a way to let you stay here.”

  A glimmer of hope appeared in Tori’s purple-smudged eyes. “How?”

  Why couldn’t life be like the stories in the fairy-tales book Rueben had given her one year for Christmas, where a knight rode to the castle and rescued the distressed maiden from the dungeon? No knight would help her or her ma. Dinah had to depend on herself. “If I give Miss Flo some money, she’ll let you stay. Until you …” She couldn’t make herself say the word die.

  “Where are you gettin’ money?”

  Dinah forced a glib shrug. “I found a way.”

  For long seconds, Tori stared at her through mere slits. “I wanted to get rid of you when I found out you were comin’. There’re ways, you know.”

  Chills rolled through Dinah, as if her blood had turned to ice water.

  “But I’d already done so much wrong, an’ doin’ away with you wouldn’t fix none of it. So I went ahead an’ brung you into the world. Brung you into this … this den of iniquity. An’ over an’ over I’ve wished I’d done different way back then. Wished I’d not brought you here at all.”

  Realization bloomed. Tori didn’t regret Dinah’s birth because she hated her, but because she hated the life into which she’d been born. Which meant her ma cared. Cared about her. The ice in her veins turned liquid and warm. Tears filled her eyes, and they pooled in Tori’s eyes as well.

  Tori continued brokenly. “Now here you are, a woman grown, offerin’ to take care of me when I never in all your life did nothin’ to take care of you.” One tear rolled down her sunken cheek. “I don’t deserve any kindness, Dinah. I don’t deserve bein’ cared for.”

  The rejections she’d faced over the past days, the past months, the past years swirled up like a giant whirlpool and threatened to topple Dinah from the edge of the bed. Even if she was just the illegitimate child of a prostitute, she’d deserved to be treated better. And even if Tori had sold her body to men to make a living, she didn’t deserve to die alone on the streets. Why couldn’t those high-and-mighty people in town turn up their noses at the men who paid the dollars instead of saving all their disgust for the women who pocketed the coins? Things sure were backward in the world.

  She smoothed the tousled,
dry strands of hair on her mother’s head. “You deserve to be cared for, Ma, an’ I’ll see to it you are. You’ll die warm in a bed instead of cold on a street.”

  Dinah returned to her room so her mother could sleep. She dropped into her tiny bed, resigned but also resolute. Tori would enjoy one small good in a whole host of bads. And Miss Flo said Dinah could use the money to buy anything she wanted. She’d use her twenty-five dollars to buy a train ticket and take herself to Mr. Harvey. So far away from Chicago nobody’d know where she’d been or what she’d done to earn her freedom. She’d be one of Harvey’s girls, and nobody would look down his or her nose at Dinah ever again.

  Dinah

  Dinah perched on the end of the hotel room bed, where Miss Flo had directed her to sit. The woman, her face crunched in concentration, arranged Dinah’s skirt just so and finger-combed her hair into a fluffy veil that tumbled across her shoulders. Then she stepped back, gave her a frowning examination, and finally nodded. “You’ll do.” She aimed her finger at Dinah’s nose. “Stay right there so he’ll see you when he comes in the door. He’ll be here soon.”

  Dinah licked her dry lips. “What should I say to him?”

  Miss Flo laughed. “He ain’t comin’ for conversation, Dinah.”

  Embarrassment heated her face. She hunkered low.

  Hard fingers gripped her chin and yanked her upright. “Don’t pull into a burrow like a scared rabbit.”

  Miss Flo’s makeup caked in the lines of her mouth and eyes, drawing attention to every wrinkle. Dinah was glad she hadn’t been told to paint her face. Up close, it looked terrible. The woman pinched Dinah’s chin hard, as if she’d read Dinah’s thoughts, before releasing her and moving toward the door to the adjoining room. “Just sit there, like I told you, and wait.” She glanced back, her face impassive. “There’s no reason to be scared. It’s nothing, really, for the female. He’ll do it all. You just do what he says, an’ everything’ll be fine.” She swept through the doorway and clicked the door closed behind her.