by Lyndsay Faye
“What did she answer?”
Blossom sets the ice down and regards me full in the face. “She said she already knew my late mother’s shoe size, my favorite color, which operas I detest, and that taking my arm made me happier than any small gesture ought to do. She was relieved there were more things to know about me.”
“I like your Evy,” I manage to say after this pronouncement. “She seems to actually deserve you.”
Evelina Starr never went back to college. She invented incapacitating but harmless illnesses, both her own and in the ever-widening Plank family. Her parents, who’d been mystified over this college notion in the first place, were as lax as they’d ever been. They sent her plentiful money and occasionally cured venison. Then Evy discovered that, despite all the couple’s precautions, accidents could happen.
“I was out of my mind when she told me,” Blossom groans. “Can you conceive a less suitable couple? But Evelina said she wanted to know whether it looked like me, and that was more important than anything.”
“He does a bit, but what was confounding after I worked out who his mother was is how much he looks like her.” When Blossom’s head droops, I swiftly continue, “So you whisked Evy off to Seattle and waited for your son and heir to be born—where, exactly?”
“Well, we knew what it would look like when it arrived, didn’t we, so we chose the route absolutely every pair fantasizes over when expecting their first child, and said she was raped.”
Blossom resided in their apartment as Evelina’s personal maid for most of her pregnancy. The latter was still baking cookies up till the day she packed her valise. During the final few weeks, Evy lived in a home for abused women. And when Davy arrived healthy and squirming like anything, the nuns tried to take him away.
“Evy was absolutely brilliant,” Blossom gushes, eyes alight again. “You could have put a live bear between her and Davy and she still wouldn’t have left that ghastly antiseptic-smelling hell without him. She staged a screaming fit, told them she had powerful parents, the entire circus. She’s phenomenal.”
Remembering a slight woman agreeing to walk toward a burning cross, I say, “She’s top-drawer on a very tall bureau.”
“Yes. The fact that she also happens to love me is . . . perennially astonishing. So to wrap up the saga of our exodus, we moved here within weeks of each other, as soon as Davy was old enough, and the first person Evelina looked up was Tom,” Blossom concludes without a trace of spite. “That was my notion. I needed to know she was loved even if it wasn’t by me, and he’s marvelous. We do . . . respect that commitment, by the way. It was enough for me to see her so often. Write to her again. Know she was safe, and be with my son.”
“And Jenny?”
“Oh, Lord. Jenny likes to kiss me when I’m drunk and try to convince me the world can be improved. She thinks I’m the height of the tragically unattainable. Little does she know, eh? I simply dote on the girl when she’s not driving me to distraction. And that’s all three acts, Alice.”
“But wait,” I protest. “What happened at the Elms?”
After reaching the Elms, Blossom and Davy were to run straight through the maze and thereby scare the newcomer and Miss Christina, which Davy found awfully droll. Upon emerging out the other side, Davy’s mother was waiting, ready to put his hiking boots to use. Evelina walked her son across the fairgrounds, got into her car, and drove them to Max’s cabin with the aid of a map drawn by Blossom. She parked on the barely cleared lumber road just as Max and I’d done, and they walked the five minutes’ distance up to the house. There the two played and ate and talked, pretending to have an altogether marvelous adventure, until the gentleman arrived in the dead of night to take him to Chicago.
Then Evelina ceased to be at peace with this stratagem. Her agitation grew and her memory lessened. She was supposed to leave Blossom a simple “all went as planned” symbol hidden in the vase, because they had decided it would be wise not to see each other in person for a few weeks. But she despaired when she couldn’t recall what it was meant to look like. The boarding school escort was forced to pen as cryptic a note as he could devise before he made farewells and apologies, gunned the engine, and whisked the now-bawling child off to make their train.
“Oh, I should never have put her in such a position; it was bound to light her fuse and boom,” Blossom says with ripe disgust. “I’m Portland’s prize idiot. She couldn’t find her own car, wandered in the woods for hours. She could have—I can’t even think about it without wanting to be sick.”
Remembering Evelina looking like Titania had just been mugged, I sympathize.
“So Davy left, and you went on as well as you could. Then last night, Overton caught up with you. Blossom . . .” Running a hand down her arm, I hesitate. “That story you yarned me about wrestling the six-shooter away from the bad sheriff . . . he still had his gun when he ripped your dress, didn’t he?”
Blossom’s lip quivers. “Yes.”
“Then he . . . found out, and then he beat you. Didn’t he?”
This time, she can only nod. I brush her cheek with my lips, and she presses into me.
“You’ll be better in the most lickety of splits, and back to simply raking in the ducats,” I vow. “But I still think it’s rotten for Dr. Pendleton to charge his own flesh and blood.”
“His own flesh and blood wears dresses and lip rouge.” She smooths moisture away from her lashes. “When I first turned up at his hotel like this, I think he’d have preferred a call from Kaiser Wilhelm.”
“Lucky that he’s able to treat you, though.”
“Honey, if this is lucky, Christ save me from further serendipity.”
I shouldn’t ask. But I do.
“When you said the treatment, for your sort of cancer, was—”
“Thrillingly modern and basically torture?”
I wince for her, since she refuses to. “Sorry, I don’t mean to pry. But—”
“I have prostate cancer. Simple enough, it involves appointments with my beloved uncle and a catheter full of radium.”
At my expression, Blossom smiles wryly. “Fussing doesn’t become you, Alice James. Anyway, I honestly think it hurts him more than it does me, which is stupendous. Hell, it might even work, who am I to doubt the machinations of the Almighty? Saving my life might give the old Coot a giggle.”
“Here’s to cosmic jokes, then.”
I clear away the remains of our rudimentary feast. The sun is high, a rare crystalline yellow, and by the time I’ve closed the curtains and given a trilling Medea some beef jerky Blossom keeps for emergency feline sustenance, I’m numb with exhaustion. Fetching the gun, I cozy up to Blossom with her head on my shoulder.
“Get forty winks, and I’ll watch the door.”
“Alice, honey, you look like you built a pyramid single-handed. I recognize the danger, but must you stand guard?”
“You don’t, actually.” I sigh. “That’s the fiddly bit.”
I tell her. About flaming crosses mainly, and Tom Vaughan’s decency, and that yes, Evelina may have fainted, but that it was more like a catnap. Blossom is frenzied at first. But after I revisit the flaming-cross business in vivider terms, she allows herself to be corralled on the condition that the instant Dr. Pendleton proclaims her hale, she will check in on her beloved with yours truly as escort.
Minutes later, she is sound asleep. And I left to ponder how much you would have to love someone to give them up entirely, and whether there will still be flaming crosses in the unknowable world fifteen years from now, when Davy Lee steps out to make it his own.
* * *
—
When I startle awake, the gun has slipped from my slack hand to the coverlet. Blossom shifted and now lies huddled in her kimono with her back to me.
The light is wrong.
I go to push the curtains open. Where before the warm wash of mornin
g flooded the globe, now the sole remaining luster is a military navy, marching toward full darkness. No one knocked all that while.
Something is rotten, and it isn’t Medea’s disposition.
Turning up a lamp, I confirm that we are deep in the proverbial manure—nine twenty-five p.m. Blossom opens her eyes, both of them this time.
“Was I dreaming, or have I been pummeled very thoroughly?” she croaks.
“You were tenderized, yes. And it seems, I regret to report, that it is nighttime.”
Blossom sits up, blinking in dismay. “No one came?”
“Not unless it was the Tooth Fairy, no. I’m going to consult with our man Rooster. You keep the gun. When I’ve—”
“Alice, going down there alone is a frightful notion.”
“I don’t see what other choice we—”
Rap, rap, rap.
I have the gun aimed at the door before the knock finishes, I feel that strongly on the subject.
“Who is it?” Blossom calls, sounding much stronger for the shut-eye.
“It’s Mavereen.”
“Oh, thank God.” I set the gun on Blossom’s vanity.
The door swings open and Mrs. Mavereen Meader enters.
She holds herself stiffly, easy dignity replaced with girders and plaster. And though she doesn’t look different, she feels years older. Her ornate beehive hair is perfectly set, hands folded, and she is giving me positively terminal fidgets.
“Why, Mav, whatever’s the matter?” Blossom exclaims.
“They done arrested Officer Overton,” she announces in a dead tone.
Blossom barks a disbelieving laugh. “Arrested him? Who did the arresting who wasn’t scared shitless he’d get them back—the canine trackers? Please. Even dogs have more sense.”
“Rooster done told Max what happened to you, and Max headed straight to the Vaughan residence,” she continues. “Gave Tom Vaughan an earful, did our Maximilian. He said as Overton been worrying us something fearsome, and that pestering you was the last straw, and we wouldn’t stand for no more. The chief listened, and he listened good. Seems there was a nurse with Mrs. Vaughan by then, so he went with Max to scare up his star thug.”
“I don’t know that I’d call Overton a thug—it’s insulting to thugs across the continental United States.” Blossom studies her hands. “Is, is Evelina . . . Alice says she fainted. Is she all right?”
“She ain’t fixing to climb any mountains, but Mrs. Vaughan’ll keep.”
“Good.” Pure joy floods Blossom’s face, only to be ruthlessly tamped down. “You said that Overton is actually detained behind bars?”
“Max and the chief went out hunting.” Mavereen stares at a spot on the wall, and I don’t like that, not a particle. “Officer Taffy pointed them in the right direction. They done found Overton nursing rotgut at a speakeasy, busted up like he’d been in a fight. When they searched him, they scared up two guns—his, and that toy shooter you like so well. Max swore a blue streak that firearm was stolen when Overton attacked you. The chief believed him. He stuck Overton in the lockup till he gets the whole sorry mess figured.”
“You look less than thrilled,” I observe.
“Of course she does!” Blossom scoffs. “Even supposing they proved Overton roughed me up and swiped my gun, a court of law would never convict him. The second his shoes strike free soil, he’ll be back to plaguing us. I’m so sorry, Mavereen.”
“That’s as may be. But Officer Overton came up with a real interesting reason why he took your revolver.” Mavereen’s eyes are as warm as granite. “Says you attacked him first and he fought you off—and that we’d all best take care around you.”
“Whatever for?” Blossom whispers.
“On account of you being an abomination.”
The very walls around us breathe secrets and dread. Mavereen’s tone hasn’t shifted, remains both lilting and about as inarguable as tides.
By some miracle, Blossom conjures up a laugh. “Well, I do on occasion put syrup on my bacon, and once in nineteen seventeen I wore chartreuse, but surely abomination goes too far?”
“What on earth does that even mean?” I add. “Pathetic attempt to deflect attention, if you ask me.”
“Glad you bring it up, because I ain’t nohow asking you, Miss James,” Mavereen states. “Matter of fact, you been nothing but a thorn in my side, and I’ll thank you to hush now. I’m addressing the person in that bed, in my hotel, who been going by the name of Blossom Fontaine. Because Officer Overton claims that person’s a man, a man what assaulted him in a drunken state of undress. Ask, he said. Check, he said. He said he took your gun because you’re a mighty queer character, and we house good Christian souls here—men, women, and children, and I ain’t fixing to add no other sort apart from them three. So I’m asking. And if I don’t get me a straight answer, you better believe either I check or you walk straight on out of here. Are you a woman born?”
Once in Harlem, I found a baby bird on the pavement that had fallen from its nest but tragically survived the landing, blinking up at the blue sky with wondering, wounded eyes. Blossom looks similar.
At length, she shrugs, because that is what people like Blossom do when the walls are blazing.
“It took me some practice, I’ll admit,” she purrs. “But now I’ve got the knack, I’m ever so much better at it than most of you, don’t you agree?”
Mavereen’s nostrils flare. “You’ll pack your things, and you’ll be out by morning.”
“Mrs. Meader!” I cry. “She’s injured, she’s sick, you can’t possibly—she’s your friend!”
“Yes, whatever happened to ‘your Mavereen,’ not to mention the word family?” Blossom stands with an effort.
“You done lied to us,” the matriarch announces, and it would be like hearing Moses give one of the more rousing numbers except for the pain. “Every day. To our faces, behind our backs, laughing while we held you in our hearts and called you our own. You lied to children. Davy—”
“Leave Davy Lee out of this, or I’ll make you sorrier than you have ever been in your life,” Blossom snarls.
“That suits me just fine. I’ll not argue over that precious child of God with the likes of you. What’s your real name, anyhow?” Mavereen wants to know.
“Blossom Fontaine.”
“You know right well what I mean—the name your sainted mother gave you afore you made it no better than mud.”
“Blossom Fontaine.”
“I ain’t asking again.”
“Outstanding. I would prefer to take up residence in Officer Overton’s cell than to ever tell you the name on my birth certificate.” Blossom’s hands form skeletal weapons.
“Bless your heart. I don’t suppose we’ll be acquainted long enough for it to matter much, after all. Miss James, I figure it’s time you were on your way too. I know I can’t force a white woman to do nothing. But I can sure make you hanker after a change of address.”
“Gladly,” I cry, “if you’re the sort of household to learn something private from an utter bastard and then—”
“Save your breath, Alice,” Blossom dismisses. “I’m nothing but a freak to her now.”
“I won’t tolerate your perversion breeding iniquity under this roof!” Mavereen’s voice cracks, and there, there’s the loss of her friend, despite her fury. “You ain’t a freak—God loves the afflicted and the downtrodden. Freaks got no choice save to be what they are. You’re something considerable worse—you’re a deliberate, calculated sinner.”
She turns to go.
“And to me, you’re still just a nigger,” Blossom spits cordially at her back. “So we’re even.”
Mavereen pivots, teeth bared.
“Oh, I don’t want to argue anymore, honey, I’m simply expiring with fatigue. Would you tell my darling uncle I need to see him now, s
upposing he’s not already so lit he’s sleeping in his bathtub?”
“You can’t see Dr. Pendleton,” Mavereen reports, eyes misting glassy and blank.
“The fuck I can’t. I might be your tenant, but he’s my uncle, not to mention the owner of the Paragon, and he took a sacred oath, I’m not aware if he’s mentioned that to you, send him up before I rip your goddamn head off.”
“You ain’t never going to see him again.”
“You can’t exile me from my own uncle, you delusional tyrant!” Blossom cries. “Hand him over or—”
“The KKK done hanged him.”
Blossom descends straight to the edge of her bed, legs giving way. There’s a buzzing like a thousand hornets in my ears.
“Dr. Pendleton touched Mrs. Vaughan last night when she fell. Well, folks who burn crosses don’t care for that sort of mixing.” Mavereen’s delivery is hollow but matter-of-fact, and even as I watch the white sparks of fury dance in her eyes, I recognize a voice that knows the inevitability of atrocity. “Somebody done wrote a false note calling for help from a colored doctor—he went, and the neighbors told us three masked men packed him into a car. Nobody knows who. Ain’t nobody going to find out neither. Just hush it, and hush it, and bury it deep. They stripped him bare, and cut off his balls, and they hanged him from a tree by the river. And nobody is going to pay for it but us. ‘Keep me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked; preserve me from the violent man; who has purposed to overthrow my goings.’”
Mavereen resumes her path toward the door. When she reaches it, she turns back to say brokenly, “Don’t think I won’t miss my friend Blossom. I’ll always recollect her fondly, for all she weren’t never real. I got sad work to be about, Miss James. Mister.”
We sit there, motionless. Her footfalls fade away. Then Blossom snatches up the empty ice bucket just in time to be sick in it. I rush to her side.
“Are you all right? Here, let me—”
“Waste of time.” Blossom’s skin glows slick. “You’re nursing a dead woman. Man. It doesn’t matter any longer.”
“Of course it does, and you’re nothing of the kind. What—”