Mother cleared her throat. “Hurts to say it, Neddy, but you have to go. Between you and that one”—she nodded toward Curly—“there’s upset all over you, and I can’t have it here.”
I nodded. “I’ll get my things.”
I put my change of clothing, the pistol, my father’s watch, Avelina’s gold medal, and the photograph of Lill in my leather bag. I’d come with all those things, plus my notebook and hope. I’d acquired nothing but Curly, lost the notebook, and all hope had evaporated. Mother hugged me as I left and pressed a few dollars into my palm. “Of course you take it, Ned. I’d keep you if I could, but I got a past that won’t take trouble, and this looks like it all over again.”
I nodded. “Thanks.”
She whispered, “Keep in touch, if you can.”
Phaegin clapped her hat on her head. “I’m late. No good for me to lose my job. Hurry up, and I’ll drop you at Sean and Pete’s.”
“Your brothers’? I don’t think so.”
“I told you it was a misunderstanding. You’ve got nowhere to go, no money to speak of. They’ll let you stay until you’ve figured something out.” She looked grim. “I’ll make ’em.”
She led us to a basement room close to the saloon where we had first sung Christmas carols. She rapped on the door and opened it without waiting. “Get awake, will you? It’s two in the afternoon, for pity’s sake!”
Her brothers sat up groggily from a pile of filthy blankets on the floor. Phaegin motioned toward Curly and me. “They’re stayin’ for a time.” She pulled one red head toward her by the hair and whispered in his ear. He frowned and looked at us. She whispered again, jerking his head for punctuation, and he shouted, “All right, all right, will ya?”
Phaegin nodded. “See you later.”
I followed her toward the door. “Are you coming here after work?”
She shook her head. “I can’t. I have to work till late. I’ll be goin’ straight to bed after. But I’ll see you tomorrow. Don’t worry about them.” She inclined her head toward her glowering brothers. “I’ve taken care of it.”
I felt Phaegin had left us in a lion’s den, but Curly was perfectly happy. He patted his vest pocket and pulled out a deck of cards. “Three-hand draw?” Sean and Pete grinned and pulled some change from their pockets. Curly whispered, “See me a quarter?”
I shook my head. “We’re homeless and practically penniless. I’m not throwing money away on games.”
Curly glared at me and whispered again. “It’s not throwin’, it’s investin’. Come on, Ned. Trust me.”
I handed him a nickel. I had to have quiet to think. Curly looked at it and sighed. “Better’n nothin’, I guess.”
In three hours I’d come up with no plan at all. The more I thought about my situation, the more hopeless it seemed. Curly, however, had amassed the princely sum of two dollars. He piled the coins into towers on the table, swept them with a clatter into his palm, and poured them dramatically into his pocket. Pete and Sean looked to be on the edge of violence. Curly grinned, jumped up and down jangling his winnings to torture them, then addressed me. “Let’s cut outta here and let these fishes come to terms with their failures.” He giggled and gave me an aside. “Or we’re gonna have to defend ourselves.” I followed him to the door, regarded the brothers’ resentful demeanor, and grabbed my valise to take with me.
Curly whistled. Night was gathering and the chill deepened. “Warmer than Widowmaker, but still….” He shivered. “Where should we go?”
“I don’t know, Curly.”
He patted my back. “Cheer up, Ned. It’s gonna be all right. No matter what that Phaegin says, I’m lucky.”
I exploded. “How do you figure that? You’re covered with scars, stunted from lack of nutrition, stuck in an orphanage, and then indentured for seven years—”
He shook his orange head. “Most woulda been killed by what I took. Got lucky. Bein’ short lets you slip by unnoticed-like. No one ’spects nothin’ from you. That’s lucky. If I wasn’t in the orphanage, wouldna ate; not indentured, wouldna met you. Only had to work five of the seven I owed. Lucky, lucky.” He jingled again. “Luck is Curly’s middle name.”
I nodded. He rubbed his arms briskly. “Lucky but cold.” He pointed to the nickel dump down the street. “Warm and lively.” He sniffed. “I smell eats. Let’s go.”
“Costs to get in.”
“On me.”
Curly bought us battered cod and ale. Watching him quaff his drink was like seeing a puppy bring down an elephant. Then he scrabbled around on the floor until he had a fist full of cigarette butts.
“Don’t tell me you’re smoking those.”
“OK.” He lit one and offered another to me. When I refused, he sat back and puffed the stubs with great relish. “Hey, there’s that harridan of yourn.”
I looked across the dance floor. Phaegin was coming through the door alongside a fellow with a straw boater and shiny patent oxfords.
“She got a strike!”
“She’ll be looking for us.”
“She’s lookin’ for somewhat else, mate.” He glanced at me and shook his head. “She ain’t lookin’ for us.”
I put my hand up but Curly grabbed my arm. “Don’ go embarrassin’ yourself.”
It was quickly evident that Phaegin wasn’t looking for us at all. She had eyes for no one but the man she was leaning on. She laughed and smiled and preened at every single thing he said.
Curly grinned. “He must be a conversin’ hero over there, she’s so …” He drew his shoulders up and twinked his face into a girlish simulation of adoration.
“Shut up.”
He looked surprised. “I thought there wasn’t nothing between—”
“There’s not.”
He smoked another butt. Phaegin and the fellow sat down; she had her hand on his arm. She wore white kid gloves.
Curly stood up. “Another round.”
We drank two more ales. Now Phaegin was talking and the man laughed uproariously, his head back and his mouth open like a hippo’s.
Curly slurped. “Lotsa dames in the world. That one, she’s not so great.”
“Never said she was.”
“Not even very pretty. Got a lot of eyebrow, only get worse.”
Curly smoked another butt then threw it on the sanded floor. “This ain’t half the fun I thought it was going to be!”
I ignored him.
He sighed. “Those salt-and-pepper shakers are probably out for the night by now. Let’s go back and get some shuteye.”
The man stood and offered his arm to Phaegin. I didn’t want to see them dance. If I had thought I felt as emptied as I could get before, I’d been wrong. Further, the empty was filling quickly with something hard and sour.
I grabbed Tilfert’s hat, pulled it on, and kicked over my chair. “Yep. We’ve got a whole load of nothing to do tomorrow, Curly. We’d better rest up.”
As we rounded the corner outside, we almost ran into Phaegin’s brothers crouching by a window. They straightened. “What the hell do you want?”
Curly nodded. “This is a better crap hole than I thought if they won’t let you two in.”
Pete sneered, “We could get in all right if we wanted to.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You’re dogging Phaegin. Why?”
“She’s got a taste for posh types, and we don’t like it.”
Sean concurred. “She wants a fella, she can have one from her own people.”
Pete poked me in the chest. “Not one a you.”
I laughed. “I’m broke, no job, no family, I’m sleeping on your floor. How low do I have to fall to be good enough for your sister?”
Curly laughed like a coot. He pulled me along behind him. “Come on, Ned. You got better things ahead a you than this lot.”
CHAPTER 22
Dear Lill,
Hold on. Our lives have seasons we can’t predict. When it rains it feels forever, but we must believe that the sun will shine again.<
br />
“I look out for you, find you a place to stay, and this is the thanks I get?” Phaegin laughed in a way that showed she was not amused.
“You said you were working last night.”
“I was. Kind of.”
Now Curly guffawed and Phaegin grabbed a bottle from the table, walked over to where Curly lay with a blanket over him, and sloshed what was left of the beer on his orange curls.
Curly sat up and shouted “Hey!”
She pointed. “You’ll get more’n that if you don’t shut up.”
I glared at her. “Don’t take it out on Curly. You lied to me.”
“It wasn’t a lie, it was none of your business.”
“You said Yale boys bored you to tears.”
She crossed her arms. “If being bored is the only thing I cry about in my life, I am going to be a very happy woman indeed.”
“You said you wouldn’t marry. Obviously I wasn’t good enough for you.”
“You never asked.”
This stopped me for a moment with the sweet specter of connubial bliss. Then bitterness crept in. “So, you would have had me, maybe if I actually had gotten into Yale, maybe if my inheritance materialized?”
“No, Ned, that’s not it.”
I shook my head in disgust. “You’re going to marry some biscuit because he’s rich.”
“I’m not marrying anybody. And if I was, so what? At least I wasn’t falsifying anything or stealing.”
“Right. All of that cooing and giggling and lip pursing and nose crinkling came right from the heart.” I snorted. “Not falsifying anything.”
Curly laughed. Phaegin shouted at him, “Get out!”
Curly, still laughing, struggled up from the blanket. “I’m going, I’m going.” He paused when he walked by her, farted loudly, laughed uproariously, and went out.
Phaegin sat down. “Did you tell me he wasn’t bad?”
I shrugged.
Phaegin patted the table. “Sit with me, Ned.”
We sat in silence for quite a while. I refused to look at her. Finally Phaegin slapped her hand to her forehead. “You are such a mug. I wasn’t courting Chester, not like that.” She sighed. “He’s investing in my hat shop.”
I snorted. “What’s the interest on the loan that swine is offering?”
“Nothing I wouldn’t be happy to give, all right? I’m sorry if you’re hurt, but it’s silly. You’ve got Lill on your mind, I have old age on mine.” She took my hand. “Chester’s got a funny lip. Makes it so that no one else wants anything to do with him, but it makes him sweeter than most, too. He likes to laugh, he don’t mind who I am or where I came from. He thinks I’m smart.” She squeezed my hand. “Don’t you be a pig. You said we were friends. I told you that’s all we could be. After all you said, are you gonna tell me it isn’t enough? Are you just the kind of man you seem to think Chester is?”
I gritted my teeth. Her cajoling was way off the mark. I was supposed to feel better because we had a pure friendship while she sold herself for a boatload of feathers and ribbon?
I pulled my hand from hers. “Go ahead, ruin your life. Take money from that man and you might as well be married, all the joy that will provide. And you’re wrong if you think a borrowed milliner’s life is going to make you happy.”
She leaned across the table. “Who expects happiness, Ned?”
Who, indeed? I put my head on the table. At one time, I’d thought if I could just breathe, expand my chest fully in deep draws, I would be happy. Now, I hardly noticed the miracle of my clear lungs.
Phaegin recaptured my hands in hers. “Ned, please.”
I stared at her soft earnest face, good brown hair, good brown eyes, and sweet but sad mouth and felt my antagonism melting. Why shouldn’t she believe in better? Maybe that was happiness, just thinking it was coming.
I nodded. “Sure. Do what you want. We’ll be friends. Just … don’t lie to me. Friends don’t lie to each other.”
She spit on her palm and held it to her heart. “Honesty forever.”
Curly burst in the door. “Shit! I’m not here!” He dove under the blankets.
There was shouting from outside. “He went in there!”
Phaegin jumped into my lap, stuck my hand on her backside, pulled the pin from her hair, and planted her lips on mine.
The door banged open. Two policemen stood in the opening. Phaegin panted. “’Ere, now, can’t a woman have a private moment?” The policemen looked at her mussed hair, my hand, our flushed faces, and closed the door.
Phaegin whispered, her lips against mine, “Just until they’re truly gone. For safety.” The shouting faded outside, but I couldn’t tell if it was because the men had actually left or if it was merely masked by the wash of my heart, camouflaged by the softness on my palms.
I didn’t know how long the kiss lasted. It seemed both forever and hardly a moment before Curly broke the spell. “Enough already. Gone a mile down the road by now.”
I stepped back and Curly giggled.
“Ned’s got a handle, don’t he now!”
Phaegin walked over and grabbed Curly by the ear and stuck a hand down his shirt. She pulled out a cheese, half a salami, and seven sticks of horehound candy, put them on the table, and flung Curly back onto the blanket. Curly howled and clapped a hand to his ear.
Phaegin tsk-tsked. “You’ll have us ruined for this?”
We stared at the meager plunder.
Phaegin rubbed her hands together and announced, “Let’s get rid of the evidence.”
For a week I lectured Curly on ending his thievery. I told him morality tales, narrated what would happen if he was caught, threatened to turn him in, leave him, send him back to the mine. He always looked sorry, not really about the stealing itself but sorry at bothering me so much with it. He told me over and over that he’d try to stop; then he’d bring in a ham or show up in a new hat, or I’d find him examining a flowered vase he’d taken off a windowsill.
“You said you’d stop!” I shouted.
“Nah, I said I’d try, and I really did.”
I was terribly afraid that Curly would be caught. Though he was rough, he was also childlike and seemed to adore me like no one ever had; I was good and softened by it. I would catch him studying me, practicing a small mannerism of mine. He liked to walk beside me, and I found his company sunny and droll. But then he would disappear and I dreaded the sound of the police whistle.
I was afraid Curly felt he had to steal to keep us, and though I tried to disavow him of that notion, I didn’t have much of a leg to stand on. We ate Sean and Pete’s leavings, we ate Curly’s pilfered goods, or we ate nothing. Phaegin stopped by every so often, leaving a basket of bread and a salami, but she was working overtime for her hat concern, both at the cigar shop and with Chester.
Pete and Sean were furious with her.
“What are you so mad about?” I asked. “Knowing her, she’ll make a go of it, and things might be easier for you.”
Sean snorted. “Easier, nuthin’. She’ll be too falutin’ for real people. She won’t have the time of day for her ol’ family, too damn good for us.”
Pete reddened with the thought. “Too damn good. She’s a piece o’ work, all right, with her business and rubbin’ elbows with ladies and their furs.”
“Won’t want us on the sidewalk, much less embarrassin’ her inside,” Sean shouted.
“Drivin’ away the business!” Pete roared.
Curly grinned. “That’s right. She tol’ me she was gonna have you arrested for loiterin’. Lost four lady customers las’ week on account of you dogs lollin’ in the hat window, tryin’ on the lids.”
“I knew it!” Sean knocked over the table in his fury.
I jumped back from the crash. “Call your brains back, Sean, are you running on cornmeal? She doesn’t even have the shop yet.”
Sean pulled himself together and kicked the giggling Curly in the pants. “Just thinkin’ the way things are gonna go.”
<
br /> I shook my head. “It could go well for you too. Put a good hat on your head, you might get a job.”
Curly sneered. “Dress a dog in pinstripes, you got a striped dog. Think of what it’d do to these two.”
Sean shook his head. “You laugh, but Ned should know, usta be a gennleman.”
There it was again, the past tense. At this rate I would have been more things before I was twenty than most people are in an entire lifetime. I protested, “I’m still a gentleman.”
Curly shook his head sadly. “Easier to fall down than get up.”
I tried to see Quillan again and again, at the lab and even at his house, but the housekeeper told me he had gone on vacation for an unlimited time.
My attempt to find work went no better. The city was filled with hordes of unemployed. All I could do was hang on until Quillan returned, calmer, I hoped, out of hot water himself and ready to listen to reason. I told myself he’d be fine. If I knew Quillan, he wouldn’t let anything stand between him and his fossils. He’d pick up and pick me up too.
* * *
Friday morning I woke up, headed out to use the water closet, and tripped on a bare leg. Comely, not the ape shank of a twin or one of Curly’s scarred bandy legs. A naked woman lay in the tangle of blanket. She opened one eye and slowly drew her leg out of the way. Curly snuggled in her arms, his orange head buttressed by large breasts.
The paint on her lips and cheeks if not her nudity told me what she was. And the sight of little Curly in her arms was more than shocking. I asked stupidly, “What are you doing here?”
The woman was haggard; her suety hair hadn’t seen a brush in a year. She put a finger to her lips and rasped, “Doll’s just gone to sleep.”
“Doll?” I reached over and shook Curly. “Get up!”
He sat up, naked as she was, rubbing his fists in his eyes. He leaned back on his arms and smiled. “You meet Sapphire?”
Sapphire put out her hand. “Charmed.”
I pulled the clothes from the back of the chair and threw them at her. “Out. Now.”
She stood up, not at all abashed at her nakedness, though I glowed like a lantern. Sapphire put her hands on her hips and waggled them and her head, flesh jiggling like aspic. “S’cuse me, Mr. Toity.” She threw a raggedy dance dress over her head, sat down, and began lacing her shoes. “I kin see what yer problem is.” She slid her legs open. “Come on, you’ll like it. Make the first time real special.”
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