The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett - 39

“ T wat Shop,” Ruby said into the telephone receiver.

“Ruby!” I marched into the hall.

She’d already hung it up. “They didn’t hear me, they were already yapping.”

I’d reminded the girls several times that we shared a party line with two other families and that one long riiing meant somebody was telephoning the Rices, a ring-riiing-ring meant somebody was telephoning the Wickers, and only a ring-ring-riiing meant somebody was telephoning us, which could be somebody telephoning to book a fornication but might also be somebody telephoning Frances or Mrs. Tartt or Mrs. Heidelberg finally returning my telephone call. No matter how many times I told the girls not to answer the telephone unless it was for us, they still answered the dang telephone. Life with prostitutes and a party line teemed with the unknown.

After such a terrific weekend, we now had money set aside for things like groceries, laundry soap, Virginia’s tests, more widows to replace the multitude they’d already gone through, and, hallelujah, a private telephone line.

“Thank God,” Esmeralda purred. “Grown men like to make appointments but not if the whole neighborhood’s listening.”

Charlie’d told them they could start soliciting men now, not just boys from the college, as long as they didn’t do it in Oxford. They were to drive out to places like Taylor and Abbeville and Water Valley and, while they were at it, buy every condom they could find. Virginia insisted we test them all first for leaks.

“One tiny hole turns into a bigger one and before you know it, you’ve got gonorrhea, syphilis, and you’re pregnant,” Virginia said. In a game of worst-case scenario, Virginia could beat my mother. “But you still have to be sure and check all of them, Flossy, even the freshmen.”

“For what, tooth decay?” Flossy said. “I bet 99 percent of those kids last night were Marys. Probably pubertied yesterday.”

At the kitchen sink, Flossy pried open a silver tin with 3 Merry Widows, Agnes-Mabel-Beckie embossed on the front, and attached one to the sink spout. She filled it with water like a balloon, and sure enough, every ten or so she’d sing, “Got another springer!” and Virginia would drop the leaky thing in the waste can.

Charlie came down the back stairs carrying a full basket of sheets. She was halfway to the washroom when Flossy said, “Bad news, Charles, I got the curse this morning. Count me out a few days.”

“But— no , we just got busy!” Charlie said.

“You knew one a us was gonna pop eventually,” Flossy said.

“TEA. You all need tea ,” Charlie said and set the basket down and went and flung open the cabinet. She pulled out the little brown bags of raspberry leaves and blue cohosh. Mashing herbs with the mortar and pestle, she whispered a prayer to Mother Mary—my God, the things she said to that poor saint.

“I’ll mark it on your menstruation log,” Virginia said. “You’re actually a little early.”

Flossy made a face. “Why you gotta use those doctor words? It’s called the curse, look it up. Even the Bible says so.” She scratched long red streaks down her neck.

“Couldn’t you still sell specialties?” Charlie asked. “You wouldn’t have to take time off—”

The streaks up Flossy’s neck flushed pinker. “ Hey. I am a proper prostitute, Charlie, not a hooker on the street, and I’d appreciate it if you treated me as such. It’s two days off, minimum, for the curse, once a month. Look it up in the handbook if you don’t believe me.”

“Fine. But we better not lose anybody else,” Charlie said.

That afternoon at the kitchen table, Virginia cut cotton bandages she’d swiped from the hospital into long strips. She rolled them up, wrapped them in mesh, then tied them tight with a cotton string—the string trick she’d learned from some of the nurses. “Thirty-five hundred days is how long the average woman bleeds in a lifetime. Women have been making these for thousands of years and yet some man owns the patent for them.”

Sunday was a much-needed day off and by Monday morning I felt almost rested. It was gorgeous out, seventy-two degrees with sun peeking through the clouds. When I asked if anybody needed anything in town, Esmeralda offered to drive me.

We went to Western Union first. “I’d like to wire this to the Port Gibson office, please,” I told the man and passed sixty dollars through the window, over half my earnings, still wrinkled and sweaty from damp fists. It was such a relief to finally be sending money home I couldn’t stop smiling. I sent a tenner that said they should send twenty to the tax office, that was bound to convince them we were good for the rest, give ten to the store, which should shut this Cousin Ida’s mouth up, and keep the rest to live on. While the clerk typed it up, a girl Meg’s age in a blue pinafore dress skipped past the store window, grabbing the hand of her mama. Reminders of why we were doing this sprang out of thin air. It brightened my vision.

Next, I sent Frances twenty dollars down in Gulfport. She’d sent me a telegram this morning saying: STAYING AT SANDPIPER BOARDINGHOUSE. SEND MORE MONEY . Three more dang words left and she couldn’t manage to put in a please ? I reminded myself to be grateful. As much as I wanted her to find that scoundrel Rory and try to get some of Mrs. Tartt’s things back, I didn’t want her to find him just yet .

After that, Esmeralda and I decided to go pick up hamburgers to bring home for everybody since I hadn’t cooked anything for lunch. Esmeralda said the best place she knew was over by the campus. She pulled up and I ran in and ordered eight hamburgers to “take away” and two Co-Colas to drink while we waited. I told the man I’d return the bottles in a little while.

“Here ya go,” I said to Esmeralda, sliding back into the car. As we took swigs from our bottles, a college boy walked by and nodded politely to me through my open window. But when he saw Esmeralda, he got so lost in her face, he tripped on the sidewalk. She was that beautiful.

“Can I ask you something, Es? If you don’t mind.” She nodded. “Why didn’t Priscilla hire you?”

Esmeralda thought this over. She had the longest, darkest eyelashes and she smiled, but it looked like she was tasting a bitter plum. “I guess she was looking for somebody younger.”

I didn’t want to ask how old Esmeralda was, I assumed she was in her mid-thirties, maybe approaching forty, but if she was, those extra years certainly didn’t hurt. I thought of the look she’d given Charlie on the front steps when she’d come to the house the second time. Go ahead, decide if I’m worth it. Maybe she’d meant her age. How I wished I hadn’t just stood there and watched that.

“What does it matter, I’m leaving for Paris anyway.” Quieter, she said, “My lover’s there now, waiting on me.” The way she’d said it, digging deep, it sounded mandatory she get to him.

“Does he know you’re in this business?” I asked. It seemed hard to believe.

“Yeah.” I heard the ache.

“And he really … doesn’t mind?”

“No. She does not.”

It took me a second to hear what she’d said. I was shocked—and then embarrassed that I was shocked.

“What about you?” she asked. “You got somebody waiting on you?” She tilted her head, concerned, not like she was teasing me but like she really wanted to make sure of it. “The one you went to church with?”

“Other way around. He asked me to wait on him while he gets a divorce.”

“Don’t you wait on him too long,” she said and her giant cat-eyes narrowed. “Don’t let him do you thataway. You tell him you’re worth more than that and if you won’t, there’s at least five of us at the house that’ll tell him for you.”

“Thanks, Es.” I smiled, embarrassed. I hadn’t expected that kind of defense.

“I know I haven’t known you long, but we all know what you’re doing for Charlie.” She leaned her head back. “There aren’t many people like you in this business, Birdie. We all say it, even Ruby. We’re damn lucky to have you.”

The good news was that, on Tuesday morning, a man climbed up our telephone pole and switched us from a party line to a private one. The bad news was that Bell wouldn’t take the Tartts’ name off the listing or change the number—43—unless there were new owners at the address, so I could still enjoy the anticipation of a call coming from Pripp or Mary Pepper and Ruby answering it, Speak it, fuck face. At least Mrs. Heidelberg would be able to reach us if she wanted to.

We’d been open for eleven days and while I doubted that first busy weekend could ever be topped, a fair number of grown men started to show up. While they were fewer in number, they tended to be bigger spenders than the college boys, often booking an hour or more instead of the regular thirty minutes. According to the girls, some men couldn’t afford not to stay a full hour (unlike the college boys, who had what the girls called “shortcomings”), and the grown men tipped the girls too. One traveling salesman booked a record three hours with Ruby for twenty-seven dollars , though part of that was spent with him trying to sell her an electric vacuum cleaner.

I couldn’t seem to get accustomed to the late nights. I was always tired and it got harder to get out of bed in the mornings. I started milking the cow after the club closed at one or two in the morning so I didn’t have to drag myself out of bed at dawn. She seemed to like the music and her milk dropped easily at night. She especially liked when Mr. Binny and His Band of Brothers played “The Saint Louis Blues,” and she would moo along with it making the customers chuckle.

Now that the fraternity bacchanal was over, some Last Resorts started showing up. Pimply-faced, in too-short pants and thick glasses, they were unmistakable as they solemnly passed me their dimes. The first night they arrived, I saw Virginia duck down in the kitchen window so they wouldn’t see her and think the worst. When a greasy, heavyset one with his shirttail hanging out spotted Esmeralda, his eyes nearly popped out of his head. As he and the other Last Resorts danced song after song, none brave enough to be the first to go inside, I smiled thinking of the elated letter I’d gotten from Mama this morning. Asking what felt like hundreds of questions—how did you get the money, did Frances’s husband give it to you? Nope , I thought. That scoundrel didn’t have a thing to do with it. Though I suppose he did, leaving his wife and mother in the lurch like that. And there will be more money coming, Mama, so maybe you won’t have to worry so much. As I thought this, I heard a noisy flock of geese overhead. A sign that summer would be over soon and in two and a half weeks the club would be too, less if it was up to me. Charlie and I were still “negotiating” that. As I watched the honking birds pass over the dance club, I remembered my father telling me once that geese flew in a V shape to reduce the drag of the wind and save themselves energy. He’d told me that the birds in the rear honked at the leader to give him confidence, Godspeed; the first bird flew silently, determined to lead. After almost ten dances, I watched Esmeralda finally tug the heavyset boy into the darkness, and the other three couples quickly trailed after them. Like those geese, our premiere girl had managed to lessen the drag and made it easier for the rest to follow.

An unusually short while later Esmeralda’s boy walked back out into the yard. He flicked his greasy hair off his face, looking smug. I checked my daddy’s pocket watch: eight minutes. I reckoned that was all it took to become a man.

With over a week’s worth of lucrative nights under our belt, and three hundred dollars and change in each partner’s envelope, I would not say Charlie looked exactly relaxed yet—I’d swear I could still hear a high-pitched scream sometimes when she entered a room—but at least she kept her head out of the oven. If half an hour went by without a customer showing up, she’d dig her fingers into the scars that wrapped around her wrists and stand by my table, staring out at the road. I knew she was counting every minute until she could get Meg back. As much as I’d grown to love Charlie, I was still in flux over what was the right thing for Meg. If it’s in any way up to me , I prayed, please, God, show me what’s best for them both. It’d surprised me to learn that helping run a morally corrupt, illegal brothel business didn’t exclude me from the rites of prayer. If anything, I prayed more. I understood why Charlie did it. Praying was more important than ever now.

In all this, I missed Jack so much that at times I fell into a febrile, silent panic. We wrote to each other almost every day, and my legs felt long and lean from walking to the post office and back so often. I had no intention of telling him we’d gotten the telephone hooked up, not with the way Ruby’s mouth worked.

I miss you terribly , he wrote.

He signed every letter All yours, J .

What was it about reading somebody’s handwriting that made you feel like you could hear his heart beat? Or his voice in the hard slant of his consonants and curves of his vowels. He had terrible handwriting. He told me that his ex-wife was being difficult, but he’d seen his son three times since he’d come back to Jackson. I hope you’ll get to meet him soon.

I hope I do too , I wrote back. Something I wouldn’t have admitted even a month ago. I used to believe high hopes would see your face in the dirt.

With Picador and Polly coming in now, the workload was more manageable. Polly’s way was to breeze right on past anything unsavory, like Flossy’s robe hanging open or Ruby showing off her merkin to the breakfast table. I did not slight Polly a bit for that.

Picador, though, was anything but oblivious, at least when it came to the wash, which seemed fair. With the kitchen being headquarters for both laundry and cooking, I heard everything.

“Nasty mens don’t even take they boots off in the bet-room?” Picador said, holding up another ruined sheet. “Miss Charlie, somebody need to make a rule .” Charlie, who had the never-ending task of mending rips in the sheets, nodded, and a rule was made.

“They’s another johnny stuck in the drainpipe,” Picador said when the washtub drain clogged up for the umpteenth time. “Miss Flossy, you put these here paper sacks in all you rooms for waste cans, or we gone ruin Miss Viktoria’s plumbing.” After that, no more johnnies stopped up the washtub.

I made sure the girls understood Picador and Polly’s legacy here. Flossy was good about tipping them after a busy night. Ruby was Ruby, tipping them each with “Don’t expect another cent from me.” And the next night tipping them and saying it again. Trixie and Dixie didn’t tip at all, but Esmeralda tipped more than enough to make up for the twins. For some reason Esmeralda never tipped them directly; she always gave the money to me to give them, even if they were in the next room. It made me wonder if maybe she wasn’t as freethinking, particularly around colored folks, as I’d thought she’d be.

Some afternoons, I’d see Charlie and Picador together out back, deep in conversation. They knew things about men, about children, about life that I didn’t. It was getting harder and harder to think about going back to Footely after this, especially without a job.

One of those afternoons, while I was stringing green beans on the back porch steps, they were smoking on the rail a few feet away. “That where them scars come from?” Picador asked Charlie, pointing at her wrists. I’d always wondered myself, but it’d never felt right to ask.

“State,” Charlie said, nodding.

“Law have mercy.”

As though it were an afterthought, Charlie said, “Ropes run cheaper than anesthesia, I guess.”

It took me a moment and then I shuddered all the way down to my bones. Mississippi’s new president of the Anti-Vice League, Garnett Pittman, had that done to Charlie. Imagine what she’d do to her now.

A few mornings later, Polly was outside running sheets through the mangle. I was waiting on the coffee to boil, thinking I might make another chicken potpie for supper, this time with, of all things, chicken.

“’Scuse me, Miss Birdie?” Picador said, coming over to the kitchen table.

“Morning, Picador, you need something?” It was still early and I was about half asleep.

“We was wondering, y’all got any news on Mr. Rory yet?”

“No, not that I’ve heard.” I’d told them about the mortgage and the bills, and that Frances had gone to Gulfport while Mrs. Tartt had stayed in Jackson.

Her forehead crinkled up. “We got a letter from Mr. Rory yesterday, with twenty-five dollars each for what he owe us. He say how awful sorry he was. I always knew he gone pay us,” Picador said. “I’s gone send it back to him since Miss Viktoria already pay us but he don’t give no return address.”

“Did he say where he is? Did you see the postmark?”

She nodded. “Yes ma’am. It’s marked Biloxi.” She sounded grave.

I covered my mouth with my hand, thinking it through. Biloxi was what—about twenty miles from Gulfport? Frances had almost been right.

“You reckon … you gone tell Miss Frances where he is?” She said it carefully.

“I—” It hadn’t occurred to me not to. “Guess so.”

She nodded. “You spec Miss Frances gone come straight home soon as she fine him? Toting Miss Viktoria home wif her?”

Picador’s wheels were turning faster than mine this morning. “That would … probably be the case, yes,” I said.

“I know you want what’s best for your sister and Miss Viktoria … to help them fine Mr. Rory.” She spoke slowly, I assumed for my benefit. “But getting that note paid fo she come home. That seem like a real nice thing to do too.”

This was a real murky area we were wading into. Swampy water. But she was right. Our eyes locked. Picador nodded slightly, and I nodded back.

“I’ll probably … wait a bit, then, before I tell my sister,” I said. “Maybe I’ll send them some money, to make sure they’re comfortable.”

“That sound like a good thing to me. What you want me to do with the money what Mr. Rory send?”

“You and Polly keep that,” I said. “I’m sure that’s what Mrs. Tartt would want.”

Dear Birdie,

I wish you were here. There’s something I haven’t told you but I need to tell you now. For a while now, my wife has been trying to reconcile our marriage and this is why she’s been refusing to move forward with the divorce proceedings. I realize I should’ve told you this sooner. Last night, she joined my son and me for dinner and afterwards, she asked me to move back into the house.

“What’s that?” A car had stopped alongside me on North Lamar.

“Said do ya need a ride, ma’am? I’m headed thataway.”

“No … thank you,” I said. My heart was frozen in place. I went back to the letter.

She said that Sam needs a family. He’s sixteen and he’ll be going off to school next year and this is my last chance with him. What she said is true. Soon he’ll be living his own life, and I feel like my time with him is precious. I’ve been away so much for work the past five years. And Birdie, I don’t want to cause her pain, but I told her I did not want to reconcile. I told her that I’d fallen in love with someone else.

I took a deep breath.

I hate to think I’ll miss my last chance to live with Sam as a family. But I can only hope I might have that chance again. I want more children, Birdie, and I hope you want them too. Lately, I found myself thinking that you and me might have a family of our own one day.

Standing beside the road, I heard a rusty door creaking closed inside me. I can’t give you that, Jack.

Like he’d heard me, he wrote: P.S. I’ve scared you to death, haven’t I?

When I was sixteen and had the terrible fever, I’d shoot up in bed, drenched in sweat and fear. It felt like something very important had gone missing, a limb, a year—or was it a person? Before I could decide, I’d fall back down the dark well of sleep.

The night after I received Jack’s letter, I’d woken up gasping for breath, like it was my last. Why not just tell him? I kept asking myself. Tell him that you can’t have children. Tell him you had a fever when you were a girl. Let him decide for himself if he still wants you. But what if he didn’t? As hard as I tried, the words would not put themselves on paper.

Early Tuesday morning, after a bad night’s sleep, I came downstairs to find Virginia working at the kitchen table. She’d slept on the parlor sofa again after a late night.

“What are you doing up so early?” I asked. “And why do you look so rested?”

“I have to finish these school applications. They’re due in a week.”

I lit the stove and made coffee, and when I poured her a cup, she took a deep sip. “That is miles better than yesterday’s cold coffee.”

“Do I need to teach you how to boil coffee, Dr. Cunningham?”

“ No. Then the doctors will start asking me to make it for them. I’m useless in the kitchen to protect my education.”

When I got the biscuits in the oven, I started sifting flour for a cake while I listened to Virginia’s stories about the hospital.

“Last year, I was helping deliver this enormous baby at Oxford. He weighed thirteen pounds and six ounces and that idiot Dr. Cole let the ether tank run out. When the baby was crowning, and the poor mother was ripping apart, he had the nerve to tell her to hush , that all her screaming was disturbing his other patients in the hospital.” She moaned. “They just don’t care about women, Birdie. I swear, when I open my own practice, that is going to change .”

“Good, we need you,” I said, thinking about the cold doctor with the cold hands so casually deciding my fate. I mixed the cake batter and looked in the pantry for anything to make it pink . I settled on a beet. “What schools are you applying to?”

“Anywhere north of here where they believe healing’s based on science, not the Bible. It’s hard enough to find a school that’ll even accept a woman, much less one who graduated from an unaccredited university in Mississippi.” She leaned up and set her elbows on the table, looking excited about whatever she was about to tell me. This was Virginia. “Did you know the first woman doctor in the United States got into medical college as a practical joke?” she said. “Elizabeth Blackwell, 1847. The dean thought it’d be real funny to let the all-male student body vote on if he should let a female in. The boys voted a unanimous yes, thinking it was a joke, catcalling and whistling at the idea of having a girl around. They even sent her a letter saying she’d gotten in. And were those boys shocked when Elizabeth Blackwell actually showed up and outsmarted them all. Graduated in the top of her class and opened her own medical college for women only.”

When Virginia told you something she found compelling, she gestured with sprawled hands and that sharp chin, her pock-marked cheeks turning a hot red. Sometimes she’d follow you out talking if you left the room, but she didn’t come off as a blowhard or condescending (though it could feel like a lecture); she was simply that passionate about medicine.

Story over now, she clicked the pencil down, crossed her arms, and said, “Alright, Birdie. Sit down and tell me what it is.”

“What what is?” I asked.

“What’s wrong . I can tell it’s something, Birdie.”

I washed my hands, stalling. I didn’t really want to talk about it. “It’s nothing,” I said and forced myself to smile.

“You don’t have to tell me,” she said. “I mean, unless it’s gonorrhea and then you have to tell me because I’ve never seen an actual case. But it might help if you talked about it.”

I felt a lonesome ache in my throat. I’d never talked with anybody about this, but I dried my hands and sat down next to her. I gave her the simple version. That I’d had a bad case of mumps and encephalitis as a girl and I couldn’t have children. But that Jack wanted a family. I couldn’t say more than that. Nothing could change those two facts; they were miles apart from each other.

Virginia looked at me, thinking. She didn’t rush to respond with meaningless condolences. She asked a few questions: Did I still bleed every month? Yes. Any pain a few weeks before? No. She said that her schooling hadn’t taught her much about the female body, that most of what she’d learned was from working at the hospital.

I thought that’d be it but then she leaned back and said, “Let me guess. Everyone else has decided for you what you’re entitled to in life. Which isn’t much, because children are supposed to be the single most important purpose in a woman’s life. That about right?”

“That’s pretty close.”

“Well, let me tell you something—that’s a load of malarkey.” She crossed her arms. “They don’t get to decide what you’re entitled to. You should live the life you want to live—Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell didn’t give birth or get married. She adopted a girl later on, after she’d had a tremendous career. She chose for herself. You should have that choice and I should too. I want to study medicine, not be distracted by a bunch of screaming infants or a husband who thinks I ought to wash his clothes and make his stupid coffee every morning.”

I mulled over her words. Live the life you want. You should have that choice. It sounded a little sanctimonious, and the idea was so novel, it made me wonder if it was possible. It didn’t solve my problem with Jack.

“You still might want me to teach you how to make coffee. For later in life.”

“Fine, but don’t tell anybody.” On the back porch, I could hear Picador and Polly about to come in. Virginia leaned up to me, a clump of dark fuzzy hair falling forward.

“Do not wait around to see if this man will reject you for what you can’t give him. Please. You’re more than”—she motioned to my body—“that one aspect of your biology. You’re Birdie.”

“It’s time, Charlie!” I called and backed into the dining room carrying the cake. Pink, three layers, a single candle stuck in the center. Charlie followed me in where twelve elbows were planted on the card tables, their owners listening to Virginia’s story.

“I swear it’s true. It’s called vicarious menstruation,” Virginia said, dark eyes glowing.

“Horseshit,” Ruby said, but she looked enthralled. “You’re pulling my leg, Dr. Virginia.”

“I’m telling you, there are documented cases. Instead of a woman having a period from her uterine lining, she has it from some other organ or membrane.” She peered down at the textbook in her lap and read, “These organs have included the lips, the eyes crying tears of blood, the breasts, and the rectum, but the most common is the nose.”

“So when you catch a cold, do you sneeze outta your twat?” Flossy asked.

“Alright, enough. Happy birthday, Flossy,” I said and set the cake in front of her. I wanted Flossy to enjoy this one with people who wouldn’t call her a whore and throw her off the porch like her sister. I lit the pink candle and said, “Make a wish.” She pushed her top denture up with her thumb and blew the candle out in one swift breath.

“Blown like a professional,” Ruby said. “Happy birthday, twat face.”

“Thanks, Rube. And thanks, Birdie. This really means a lot.”

I passed pieces around to the girls. The plates were weighty, probably because I’d used an entire pound of butter in the batter and then iced it with pink buttercream.

Dixie swiped the candle out of what was left of the cake and licked the pink icing off it. “How old are you today, Flossy?” she asked.

“ Old ,” Flossy said.

“How old were you when you started doing this?” Trixie asked.

“ Young ,” Flossy said.

“Well ya ain’t anymore,” Ruby said, lighting a cigarette.

For a Monday, last night had been surprisingly good, and so far each partner’d made four hundred and twenty-three dollars. Once we’d counted it and tucked it away in Rory’s study, Charlie’d said, “A week and a half and we shut down.”

I’d groaned. I knew Charlie wanted to make closer to seven hundred dollars, but every night we were open, I felt like we were pushing our luck. I’d been telling myself these past few days that I was doing Mrs. Tartt and Frances a favor by not telling them Rory was in Biloxi—the more money we made, the better for everybody. But I felt sick thinking about my poor sister wandering the streets of Gulfport, asking strangers if they’d seen her husband.

“What about y’all?” Trixie asked, twirling some blond hair around her finger. “When did y’all get in this business?” Her eyes landed on Esmeralda, across the table.

“Me? Oh I started doing this when I was about twenty-five. After my preacher father threw me out.”

There was a story there, but Dixie asked, “How old are you now?” and we all held our breath. Nobody’d had the gall to ask Esmeralda this before, though we were all wondering.

Esmeralda smiled and rubbed her neck. Her neck, with a few creases in front, was the only thing about her that did not look ageless. “Let’s just say my first job was in Storyville, ten years before they shut it down.” Storyville was the infamous brothel district in New Orleans but I didn’t know when it was closed. “Back then, folks used goat chitlins instead of johnnies. Anybody else old enough to remember those? Men used to keep them in a little silver box.”

“Golly I hated those,” Flossy said. “The stench .”

“Swell way to catch something,” Virginia said.

Ruby narrowed her little green eyes on Esmeralda. “Storyville shut down, what, fifteen, sixteen years ago … That makes you fifty ? Jesus, you’re near old as Granny Nan!”

“ Ruby! ” Charlie barked at her. Ruby shut up but made big eyes at Flossy.

Esmeralda just laughed though, and hard too, wiping her eyes. “What can I say? I’m old as hell. I’m the same age as my grandmother when she died.” Even her self-deprecation was charming. “How old were you two when you started?” she asked the twins. “Because you seem awfully young for something like this.”

“Fourteen,” Dixie said. She pushed a lock of hair behind her ear, showing her long, thin face.

“Where was your mom and pop at?” Flossy asked.

Trixie shrugged. “We lost ’em nine, ten years ago.” She didn’t look sad about it.

“How?” Virginia asked. She always wanted to know how people died.

“However it is mamas and daddies get lost, I reckon,” Trixie said. “One minute they was on the corner of Ricket and Fort P, next they was gone.”

There was a sad silence. They’d been left like, what, garbage? Next to me, I could practically feel Charlie thinking about Meg.

“How’d you get in the biz?” Flossy asked.

“Fella in the circus found us and he started working us on our backs. Few months ago, he caught us trying to leave him and he got real mad, so he went and collected him one a them fruit spoons? With the cutting edge to it? Held Dixie down and tried to pry her eyes out with it.”

I glanced at the faint curved scar around Dixie’s left eye. “He was rude,” was all Dixie said.

“How’d you get away?” Flossy asked.

“I slit his throat,” Trixie said. “But he kept twitching so Dixie hit him in the head with the fire poker till his brains come out. You gonna eat the rest a that cake?”

“You go ahead, doll,” Flossy said and pushed her half-eaten plate to her.

A week and a half left felt even longer now.

“What about you, Ruby?” Virginia asked. “When did you start doing this?” She had a pencil in her hand, looking like she might mark this on Ruby’s chart later.

Ruby blew out a long smoke trail. “Started Christmas before last. Right after my husband died.”

So Ruby had been doing this less time than anybody? Flossy, looking just as surprised, leaned up and asked, “Somebody mar-ried you?”

“Yeah, la-di-da. Why I moved in with Granny Nan.”

“You never told me that,” Flossy said. “What happened to him?”

“I told you, he died, you fish twat.”

“You kill him?” Flossy asked.

“ Dammit , why does everybody ask me that?”

As usual, Virginia asked, “How’d he die?”

“Flu or something,” Ruby said, sounding pretty blue about it. “So I dug a hole out back and put him in it and went to work for Granny Nan. She’d been running her crib since ’fore I was born. Where I met that one.” She chinned over to Flossy.

“I stepped out on Priscilla for a little while there, figured I’d try something new,” Flossy said. “I left some things at Granny’s ’cause a you, Rube.”

“Smile at my customer, gonna lose some teeth,” Ruby said.

“Ruby did that to you?” Trixie asked. Flossy nodded, wincing.

“I used to have sort of a bad temper,” Ruby said.

“Well … temper, habit,” Flossy said. “Six of one, half a dozen of the other. But we got you through it, didn’t we, Rube?” Flossy gazed at her friend, almost lovingly, and poked her in the arm.

“You did, Floss.” Ruby moved her right arm down to her lap like she didn’t want us to see the old dark needle scars there. I had never seen Ruby so … human before.

“What about you, Charlie?” Virginia asked, the pencil between her fingers. “You ever work that side of this business?”

“Shit, Charlie ain’t done this a day in her life,” Ruby said and crushed her cigarette out on the cake plate with the ashtray sitting right there. “She just makes rules up and takes half our money.”

Charlie considered the question. She folded a cloth napkin on the table in half, then quarters.

“I was about seventeen,” Charlie said. “I had a baby to take care of.”

Flossy sighed and said, “Didn’t we all.”

“You have children?” I asked Flossy. Have , had , I wasn’t sure how to put it.

Flossy nodded and smiled. “His name’s Daniel, he’s thirteen.” She looked at Esmeralda, across the table. “What’s your girl’s name again, Es?”

“Cassandra Joy,” she said.

“Such a pretty name,” Flossy said.

I looked between them. “Do you ever get to … see them?” I asked.

Flossy and Esmeralda swapped glances like maybe they didn’t want to have to explain this to an ordinary. Or maybe they were afraid that I would judge them.

“Danny lives up in Dakota with my sis. She don’t let me see him since he was small.” She propped her elbows on the table and covered her mouth with her fist.

“I’m so sorry, Flossy.” I wished I was sitting beside her.

She dropped her hands but pressed her lips together over her teeth. Finally she said, “I been learning a long time to let him go. Sometimes it’s best to do that.” She nodded but furrowed her forehead together like she was concentrating. “Accept he’ll be better off with someone else and let him live a regular life.”

The ache in her voice had muscle, sinew. The light in the room faded to a cloudy gray and Flossy swallowed hard. The lesson hung like lead in the air.

Esmeralda stood up quickly and said in a strained voice, “Looks like rain.” She left the room and Flossy followed her out. Charlie’s jaw was tight, obstinate. Charlie did not subscribe to Flossy’s outlook on children. It was why we were here. For her, the next week and a half was for Meg.

Sometime before dawn, I woke to the sound of a motor. I’d always been a heavy sleeper until I opened a brothel. Though the sleeping porch faced the backyard, at the right angle, it caught lights from the road. The headlamps slid across the screens and stopped a few feet from my bed, two pale yellow electric eyes staring back at me. It took about fifteen seconds before I was up and tiptoeing downstairs and into the library, feeling my way through the dense darkness. I peeked out a slit in the curtains. The car had swung around so it faced the house, lights shining on us for a moment before the driver snapped them off. It was almost pitch-black out, but when my eyes adjusted, I could just make out the silhouette of the person in the driver’s seat.

“Somebody in here?”

My heart leapt into my mouth. “Just me, Es. There’s a car out front. Probably a customer trying to see if we’re open.” Esmeralda came and stood behind me and peered through the drapes.

“Well I sure don’t want a customer at this hour,” she said.

That wasn’t a college kid out there. Virginia’d told us that students weren’t allowed to have automobiles on campus. The way the motor shifted up, then down, idling, it sounded like an older model. Would the sheriff’s car have an emblem of some kind on it? I wasn’t sure, not that we could see that in the dark. “Maybe I should just … let Charlie know.”

I’d hoped Esmeralda would disagree with me, but she was already padding toward the hall, her silky beige robe swishing around her.

The light was on in the washroom, so it was easy to see. I tapped on Charlie’s door, and after a few seconds, Esmeralda opened it and whispered, “Charlie.” Charlie shot up in bed, grabbing her neck like we’d come to kill her.

“It’s just us,” I whispered. “There’s a car outside—I think it’s the same one from the other night.” Charlie got out of bed wearing her long white nightgown.

“Did you ever make an arrangement with the sheriff?” Esmeralda said.

Charlie walked past us into the kitchen.

“Charlie. Did you make a deal or not?” Esmeralda followed her into the dining room and then the front sitting room.

Charlie shook her head.

“So … we’re just sitting ducks, waiting to get arrested?” Esmeralda whispered. “The madam makes a deal with the sheriff, that’s how it works , Charlie.” My heart started pounding, hearing Esmeralda’s panic. “You need to talk to him before we get busted, not after when it’s too late—”

“If that was the sheriff, he’d be knocking on the door right now,” Charlie snapped. She seemed much too calm, and I wondered if it was an act. How could she know who was out there?

“I’m not working here without some sort of arrangement,” Esmeralda said. She hugged herself in the pale robe, in the dim light. “I cannot go to jail, Charlie. I am this close to getting out of Mississippi for good. If you don’t do something, I’m walking. I will leave tonight.”

“I’ll deal with it,” I said. Somebody had to do this, and it couldn’t be Charlie. “ I’ll go to the sheriff’s office in the morning and see what I can find out—” Charlie tried to interrupt me, but I put my hand out to silence her. “And if he doesn’t know anything, I’ll just tell him we started a little dance business in the backyard. To make money for Mrs. Tartt. If he sees boys coming out this way at night, it’s for that.”

“And if he does suspect something?” Esmeralda asked.

A wash of disbelief, one I’d felt many times since we’d opened, slid across my scalp. How had these words become a part of my vocabulary? “Then I reckon I’ll be spending the night in the jailhouse.”

At eleven o’clock the next morning, Esmeralda drove me in the direction of the Lafayette County Jail. She’d covered her hair with a black scarf and didn’t speak much on the way. At Washington Avenue, she stopped, two blocks short of the jailhouse.

“You mind walking the rest of the way?” she asked. I saw dark stains blooming under the arms of her white silk blouse.

“Not at all. I can walk home after I talk to him, no need to wait.” I’d hardly shut the car door when she sped off, taking the first right. She didn’t even want to drive past the jailhouse.

This morning, I’d dressed like my old self, blue dress number two with my brown-and-white oxfords. I let my brown hair fall lank at my shoulders, one side pulled back with a simple cheap clip. No lipstick on this outing. Except for the thinner eyebrows, I felt like Frances’s spinster sister from the Delta again, plain and deflated.

I’d never been inside a jail before and prayed to Jesus I wouldn’t be staying long in this one. My heart beat at double speed as I approached the two-story brick building. The front porch was held up by thin posts, and on the second floor, a grid of heavy iron covered the center window. The other windows were bricked in. I took a deep breath and went up the steps. Don’t think about it, just go.

I pulled the door open and entered a dim vestibule. A single bulb printed my shadow on a closed staircase on the right. A sign pointed upward with the word Jail . I thought of Charlie spending those interminable nights here, absolutely worried sick about Meg. A dull-eyed fellow at a desk looked up, a reminder that there was not enough crime in Oxford to keep a clerk awake.

“Hello, I’m Birdie Calhoun, here to speak to the sheriff?” My voice shook and I cleared my throat. “I telephoned this morning.” Before the clerk could stand up, Sheriff Porter walked in.

He was a small man, shorter than me and wiry, around forty. I remembered his loud, nasally voice from that first lunch with Jack, and how Jack had said he’d enjoyed throwing people out of their homes “a little too much.” He was dressed in full khaki issue with sharp-toed boots, his hair neatly slicked back. He gave me the impression that he was still trying to make his mother proud.

“’Mon back, Miss Calhoun,” he said. Charlie had prepared me for this visit, but I was vibrating with nerves. He walked me briskly to a larger room. The walls were a yellowish body-fluid color that reminded me of parts of the Orphan and grew dirtier toward the floor. At his desk, he pulled his pants up higher and motioned me to sit across from him.

“Thank you so much for seeing me this morning,” I said. I was sitting on the edge of my chair, holding Frances’s wicker handbag in my lap with my white-gloved hands. “And please call me Birdie. Birdie Calhoun.”

“You’re not from around here, ’sat right?” he asked, leaning back in his squeaky chair.

“No, sir. I’m from the Delta, up here visiting my sister awhile.” I thought “visiting” sounded nice and temporary, like I’d be leaving soon.

He pointed two fingers at me. “But you been staying out at the Tartts’ while they’re outta town? At Idlewilde?”

He wanted me to know he knew that. “That’s right, sir.”

“I understand they’re having some trouble out there. Due, in part, to the son, Rory Tartt?” He was not smiling.

So he’d heard that —but “trouble” did not seem to mean what it could. Charlie had run me through a likely script, assuming he’d know this. I knew the sheriff attended foreclosure auctions and maybe even kept abreast of them from the banks. “They are having financial trouble, yes,” I said. “It’s been awful hard on Mrs. Tartt, and that’s why I’m here.”

We both waited. Either for me to tell him why I was here or, worse, for him to tell me why I was here.

I continued. “I came to let you know that we’ve opened up a little dance place out at the Tartts’ to earn some money for Mrs. Tartt. We took in some boarders too, who give the dance lessons. I thought it best you know that.”

He smiled, and it looked smug to me. “Oh, I know all about that place, Miss Calhoun.” My stomach muscles tightened. He opened his desk drawer and, with a sharp snap, set a card on the desk. I leaned up to look, dreading it, and indeed, it was one of my sister’s repurposed calling cards, information side up, with the hours and the words men only —why had someone put that on there? No address, for obvious reasons, and no telephone number, so he’d had it a while, since before we’d gotten the private telephone line. I thought about the suspicious car showing up as far back as the first big night—had he been watching us that long?

“Well I … guess you do, then,” was all I could manage to say, and I realized I was staring at the billy club on his desk, with its shiny black knob. A high note, ringing in my head, got higher.

He threw his feet up on the desk, so now I was looking at the dirty soles of his boots. Leaning back, he thatched his fingers behind his head. “Not but whites dancing out there now, m’I correct?” he asked.

“Yes—yes, sir. That is correct,” I said.

“No mixing, it’s a felony in this state.”

I nodded that I knew.

“No playing race records either, ’at’s where it starts.”

“No, sir,” I said, shaking my head. He’d now asked about mixing three different ways. “Only coloreds out there are the band players.”

Sweat dripped down my back while he fixed his eyes on me. Was he telling me these were the rules to run a brothel in his town or just a dance business? I didn’t know, so I started babbling everything Charlie and I had rehearsed.

“Just so you know, if anybody brings liquor in, we don’t allow it.” This was true, though Charlie hadn’t had the nerve to take it away from anybody yet.

He nodded.

“Also we don’t operate on Sundays, on account of blue laws.” I cleared my throat. “No business on the Lord’s day—” The telephone rang on his desk, and the clerk up front answered it. The sheriff tilted his head to hear.

“And like I said, we don’t play any race records.” Wait, he’d asked that one already.

“Sheriff,” the clerk said, appearing in the doorway, “it’s about the warrant.”

He smiled, lips only. “If that’ll be all, I got a important call, darlin’.”

I stared at him, my ears ringing—this wasn’t resolved, it wasn’t anywhere near resolved. He stood up and it took me a moment to make myself stand up too. As I reached to take the card from his desk, he snatched it up and looked me in the eyes, hard. Then he said, “I’ll be coming out for a visit soon. Hank, show her out.” And I followed the clerk to the front.

I took a taxi home, dazed and sweaty with failure.

Esmeralda met me in the front sitting room with Charlie on her heels. “What did he say? Did he know anything?”

“Not much.” I pulled my gloves off, finger by finger, and tried to smile. I wasn’t sure how to answer that, because—what had I even learned? Almost nothing, but something was off with that sheriff. Like Jack had said, he seemed to enjoy my discomfort a little too much.

Esmeralda came closer and said very carefully, “What did he say?”

“He had a card, an old one. But all he cared about was if coloreds and whites were mixing. He said he planned to come out here for a visit soon.”

Esmeralda looked up at the high ceiling. “We are shooting ourselves in the foot staying open another ten days, Charlie. Look, I understand you want to make more money, but it’s not worth the risk. If the sheriff shows up here, he will arrest us and take every cent we’ve made and Lord knows what else.”

I stayed quiet, but I knew she was right: We needed to close, much sooner than that.

Nostrils flared, Charlie looked Esmeralda directly in the eye and said, “I’m telling you, the sheriff does not know. If he did, he’d be here, right now, arresting all of us and enjoying every minute of it. And if he does come, we’ll be ready.”

There was a good long staring contest between the two of them. In the hall, the telephone rang. “Fine, one more week, but that’s it,” Esmeralda said.

I went and answered it before somebody else could.

“Long-distance call from Gulfport,” a woman said. “A Mrs. Frances Tartt asking to reverse the charges. Do you accept?”

“Yes—yes, I accept.”

“Birdie, oh Birdie …” She was weeping into the receiver.

“Franny, are you alright? Are you hurt?”

“I found Rory. He’s in Biloxi .” She sounded physically sick. “He’s gone off the deep end, Birdie, he’s in jail.”

“Jail for what? What else did he do?”

“It’s a whole bunch of charges they’ve got on him.” She sobbed again and then took a deep, trembling breath. “After I checked all the big hotels, I started calling around to hospitals. The one in Gulfport said to try Biloxi since it’s only fifteen miles away, and … I guess word got out that Rory Tartt’s wife was looking for him and the police telephoned me . He hit a policeman, Birdie, with the Studebaker.”

“Did he … kill him? Was it intentional?” I didn’t really care about Rory, I cared about my little sister, who sounded scared to death right now.

“No, no, the policeman will be fine, thank goodness, but Rory’s in serious trouble. He was drunk and trying to get away from some sort of party that the police broke up.” She took another breath and her voice steadied a little. “Some of the other men that were there got arrested too—I don’t even know how he met these people.”

“I’m so sorry, Franny. When did this happen?”

“Around three o’clock this morning. They’re charging him with assaulting an officer, resisting arrest, and some other charges I don’t really understand.”

“What kind of charges?”

“Lechery, drunkenness, disturbing the peace, and something called unnatural acts , or something like that.” I waited to hear if she’d learned about Rory and his inclinations, but she went on, “I haven’t had a chance to ask if those are serious charges or just things they added because they’re so livid Rory hit the officer with his car.”

“What can I do for you, Franny? Do you want me to call Mrs. Tartt and tell her?” That probably wasn’t a conversation Frances wanted to have.

“I spoke to her right before I called you, and honestly, she’s just relieved he’s not dead. She had her lawyer, Harry Holtzman, telephone me and he said there’s no point in Viktoria coming to Biloxi until the judge sets a bail hearing, so she’s staying in Jackson. I’ll tell you what, though, I don’t like how they’re treating him, Birdie.” Her voice rose. “They could at least let me bring him some fresh clothes. You know how Rory is about his clothes. Or bring him something decent to eat—he’s sitting in that filthy cell all alone, eating jail food.”

“So you saw him?” I didn’t know why that hadn’t occurred to me. “What … did he say?”

“He was humiliated. And still drunk. I got the feeling he, I don’t know, wanted to get caught? Like he wanted it to be over, this running and hiding?”

Do not feel sorry for that scoundrel, I wanted to tell her . But I knew Frances didn’t want to hear that. Gently as I could, I asked, “Does he have anything left, Franny? Did he have any money or the jewelry—did he sell anything?”

“He had about forty dollars on him, and the Studebaker’s been impounded, but I don’t know about the rest of our things. If he has more money than that, it’ll have to go towards a lawyer and making bail.”

I almost growled at the thought that Rory could cost them anything more than he already had, but I could hear how truly exhausted Frances was. I felt sick with guilt—if I had told her sooner that he was in Biloxi, could I have spared Frances from this? “Do you want me to come down there, Franny? I can come down. Charlie can run things without me, just say so.”

“No,” she said. “I need to handle this on my own. He’s my husband.” She surprised me with that. Maybe Frances had learned something in all this mess. “I don’t know when I’ll be home. Mr. Holtzman said it could be a week, maybe more before Rory’s released on bail. If we can even afford it.” A week, maybe more. Guiltily, I thought, Good.

“Let me know if you change your mind. I know this is hard but I’m proud of you, Franny.” This wasn’t over yet, though—she still had one more punch coming—but I meant it when I said, “Rory is very, very lucky to have you, Frances.”

“Thank you, Bird.” Her breath trembled again. “I know this call’s probably costing a fortune.”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ll wire some money to you in Biloxi tomorrow. And call me”—Ruby would just have to learn—“whenever you need to, reverse the charges.”

She was quiet. Then she whispered into the receiver, “They beat him, Birdie, the police, they called him a—awful names. They wrote it in the police report.”

I could hear a train horn blowing in the distance on her end. “I’m sorry. I’m here for whatever you need. I love you, Sister.”

“Love you too, Bird.”

Later that afternoon, while the girls took turns being tested in the cellar, I sat in the front sitting room, quiet, empty but for the smelly settee and a few of Frances’s Good Housekeeping s . One was open to a photo of a man gazing at a woman with the most perfect upturned nose I’d ever seen that wasn’t on a dog. Flossy liked to slip in here and read them, and if anybody walked in and saw her, she’d shut the magazine quick and start filing her fingernails. I understood. There was nothing more mortifying than somebody catching you hoping for something they thought you didn’t deserve. But I thought about how inappropriate it was that Rory’d given Frances these magazines with pictures of happy wives, when what Rory wanted, I mean truly wanted, Frances could never give him. Not that I could give Jack what he wanted either. And here I’d thought my sister and I were so different.

Don’t wait around to see if this man rejects you for what you can’t give him , Virginia’d said. Do what you want to do, Birdie.

I didn’t know what that was, but I sure did know I didn’t want to live like Frances, trying every day to make up for what I wasn’t. And I had some money of my own now, which meant I had some freedom. And though I knew keeping the club open was very risky, the more money we made, the more freedom I’d have. I might never have that chance again.

I’d known Jack one month and already I was tired of feeling like I wasn’t enough. I sat down and wrote him a letter and told him the truth, that I couldn’t have children. I told him that I didn’t think we were right for each other. With a heavy heart, I closed that door.

After this, I had no idea where I’d belong in the world.

“Jeez Louise, look at these roots,” Flossy said, peering into the bathroom mirror. “I gotta go to town and get some number eight.”

“I’ll go with you,” I said. I’d been holding on to the letter I’d written to Jack for two days now and I wanted to get it out of my hands.

And then everybody wanted to go to town, except Charlie, who lectured everybody to dress like the most ordinary ordinaries this town had ever seen. Flossy came downstairs dressed as everyone’s favorite volunteer in Frances’s industrious green dress with all the pockets—Jesus, Frances was gonna kill me. Actually Frances was gonna kill me when she realized I’d opened a brothel and then she’d spit on my grave for letting the prostitutes wear her clothes. And let’s not forget what happened to the little pillow either, the one Mama’d sewn for Frances and I’d brought on the train. I’d recently discovered that Flossy liked to use it under her knees while she performed her specialty. “I find the message cheery. ‘Home is where the heart is.’ Comforts the heart, pads the knees.”

“I want everybody back here in an hour,” Charlie said. “And be careful who you talk to.” Lord knows, I agreed.

As we filed out to the car, Trixie said, “Darn. I was hoping to go see a picture show.”

“If I’d a known they were gonna start doing talkies,” Dixie said, “I’d a never wasted all that time learning to read.”

As Esmeralda circled the square in a drizzle of rain, I watched the reflection of the black Pierce-Arrow ripple in the windows of the bank where Jack had worked. I shuddered, thinking about the letter in my pocketbook, but I felt like I didn’t have a choice. Flossy patted my hand, not asking, just sensing.

Only a smattering of folks were out on a wet Friday before lunch, though the rain was already starting to clear. As the six of us got out of the car and moved toward the square, I couldn’t help but think, Here we are, world . Just me and five prostitutes, strolling around. In front, Ruby led with her bosoms the way a man led with his cane. Except for a nod from Mr. Fudge in the door of City Grocery and Blind Jim who said, “Mawning, Birdie”—I didn’t know how he knew—nobody paid us much mind.

Flossy must’ve had her antennae up too. “I do believe we are incognito, ladies,” she said.

As we approached Old Miss Rondo begging with her peach can on the corner, Dixie asked, “What’s wrong with that woman up there? She crazy or something?” Miss Rondo had sat herself down right on the wet walkway, legs splaying out from her dingy pink chiffon dress, her hair its usual furious rat’s nest.

“Misinformed’s what she is,” said Ruby, who was in Mrs. Tartt’s navy-blue suit. “Somebody taught her it’s either too valuable to sell or it ain’t worth selling at all.” I thought about that. Ruby could be right profound when she wasn’t looking to stab you in the neck.

Flossy went into the drugstore with Ruby behind her, sending sleigh bells shrieking. The twins went into the dime store, and Esmeralda sort of evaporated into Ruth’s Dress Shop.

As I walked toward the post office, I saw half a dozen signs stuck in the courthouse grass that read: Mississippi don’t repeal! and Keep M’ssippi straight. Dry since 1908! In smaller print, the signs said Sponsored by the Anti-Vice League of Mississippi. Seconds later, I saw orphanage volunteers Patsy somebody and another one sticking the signs into the ground and Pripp standing up on the steps of the courthouse with Garnett Pittman beside her. My heart double thumped. I watched as the four ladies met up on the courthouse steps. The three peons were all nodding up at Garnett, probably saying, Please, Chairlady, tell us what to think. If Frances were here, she’d be chiming right in. I thought about how Meg had told me that Garnett had once belted her so hard in that hot little closet that the witch had lost her breath and vomited . Watching Garnett preaching her pious baloney, I felt a warm, criminal thrill. You have no idea what we’re doing right under your hypocrite nose. And if it’s up to me, you will never, ever get your hands on Meg again. I didn’t know if that was true, but right then, I felt like believing whatever I damn well pleased.

The sheriff came out of the courthouse and joined them. Dear Jesus . The whole group was now heading my way. Garnett was talking and he was nodding along, just like the women, as she sliced the air with her hands. Behind me, I heard the sleigh bells clang, and Ruby and Flossy walked out of the drugstore. I was standing directly in the path of Garnett and her people as Flossy and Ruby were coming toward me on my left. It was a convergence of almost everybody in the world I wanted to keep apart.

“Birdie,” Pripp said coolly. She hadn’t forgotten what I’d said to her at church.

“Pripp,” I said, trying to figure out how to stop this collision.

“I gotta get stockings, Bird,” Flossy called, a few feet away now. “Rayon crap they sell in there gives me the rash.”

Pripp looked at Flossy, giving her an up-and-down. “Who’s this you’re with?” Pripp asked and then, “Is that … Frances’s dress she’s wearing?”

“Nope,” I said. The sheriff and Garnett had stopped as well.

“Miss Calhoun.” The sheriff nodded, and I felt a groundswell of heat rising up around me. Had he told Garnett about the dance club?

“Well, I’m just as sure as can be that’s Frances’s dress,” Pripp said, eyebrows up, hardly able to contain her delight at the thought of tattling. “As I recall, Frances paid four dollars ninety-five cents for it over at Neilson’s.”

I shook my head. “It’s not—we gotta go,” I said and gave Flossy and Ruby a gentle shove in the opposite direction. When I looked back, Garnett and the sheriff were watching us. Garnett nodded in agreement about something he said.

“Keep going,” I said through my teeth and, when we were definitely out of earshot, “Get your stockings but be quick, and then let’s cut this short and meet at the car. Tell the others.”

Call it prostitute’s intuition, Flossy understood that those ladies were not friends. I let her and Ruby walk ahead of me while I kept an eye on Garnett’s group, which was now disbanding. Hypocrites adjourned. Sheriff Porter and Garnett stayed talking. She pointed, her finger sharp as a bird’s beak, at a copy of The Oxford Eagle in her hand.

I hoofed it to the post office. Thin late-September sun had broken through the clouds. A lady Mrs. Tartt’s age closed an umbrella and whispered something to her husband as I walked by. You’re being paranoid, Birdie , I told myself, then added, As you should be. When you opened a brothel in a town with thirteen churches, surely it was natural to find peril in every move.

I walked into city hall and headed to the PO in back, which was empty of customers. Mrs. Nutt, who usually wore a mischievous smile, looked flat and glum today.

“Mrs. Nutt, something wrong?” I asked.

“Guv’ment’s letting me go. On account a some new law, two something or other.”

“Section 213,” Mavis said in the next window.

“Says a husband and wife can’t both be working at the same time. So all the poor unemployed men out there can find jobs, while the wife stays home to clean and cook supper for him.”

Mavis, looking over her silver glasses at me, said, “It don’t say that exact, but it’s a stupid law.”

“I’m awfully sorry to hear that, Mrs. Nutt,” I said.

I slid my letter to Jack across the counter, stalling to let it go. When she took it, I felt more than just paper slip from my fingers. It felt like the loss of joy. It was worse that there was no letter from him today and “nuttin for the Tartts either.” Then Mrs. Nutt leaned up and said, “Speaking of. How things going out at Idlewilde?”

“Quiet, real quiet.”

Mrs. Nutt smirked, despite her own bad news. “Look, we ain’t judging. Lord knows we’re poor as the dickens too. I heard you sent Mrs. Tartt outta town ’fore you opened so she wouldn’t get embarrassed by it.”

A prickle ran down my back— so they know too. Were there rumors going around? Had somebody overheard us on the party line?

Mavis leaned over and said, “Think one of them ladies could teach Walter a thing or two? He sure could use him a lesson.” She winked at me, and I told myself, Dancing. We are just talking about dancing. But I eased away from the counter.

“What’s it like out there?” Mavis asked. “Hear y’all got Mr. Binny playing.”

“It’s nothing special. Just dance lessons … for the college boys, you know, to get ready for the fall dances and the holidays. The holidays are coming, be here before you know it! But it’s only for college boys,” I said a second time. “Gotta run, sorry again, Mrs. Nutt.”

When I got out on the sidewalk, I told myself I needed to calm down . You knew this time would come. The sky was blue now and steam rose from the pavement. Any minute, people would start showing up for lunch on the square. It was time to go .

I walked in the direction of Neilson’s, down at the next corner. In front of the department store, Flossy, Ruby, and the twins stood clustered together. Flossy had a newspaper opened wide, and Ruby and the twins were peering over her arms to see it. I looked around. Just the sight of the girls all together looked suspicious to me, but Garnett and the sheriff were gone. As I got closer, Flossy looked up at me with the strangest expression, eyes unblinking, her top teeth slipped down. Ruby was peering close to the newspaper, running her finger along the page, sounding words out with silent lips.

“We need to go,” I said. “People are talking.”

“You see the news?” Flossy asked. Her face was moist; her front teeth looked too long for her head.

“No, what happened?” I asked. I moved closer, but all I could see was the bottom half of the front page: “Mississippi Sharecroppers Plead for Help.”

“Dixie, move, let her see,” Flossy said. Dixie stepped aside and I saw that The Oxford Eagle had printed an actual photograph, not just a drawing. They didn’t spend the money on photos very often. It was of a heavyset woman being dragged by her hands—handcuffs, I realized, but she’d stumbled to one knee. The man was still pulling her, though, and I could see a bald spot on the side of her head. Like her hair had been pulled out. Her left eye was swollen shut. The caption above it said “Citizens Against Filth Triumphant.”

“Who is that?” I asked.

“It’s the Sicko—it’s Priscilla ,” Flossy said.

The man dragging her was Sheriff Porter . He was smiling wide at the camera, showing sharklike teeth . The picture was grainy, but behind Priscilla three other women were being led by ropes tied around their waists, like animals, while men stood by, leering and pointing at them.

“There’s Rosie,” Flossy choked, “and Hildi and, God, look at poor Priscilla.”

“I thought you hated Priscilla,” Dixie said, leaning up against my back to see.

“Nobody likes the death of their own!” Flossy snapped.

I was reading the print under it: “Notable citizen and newly elected president of the Anti-Vice League of Mississippi Mrs. Welty Pittman pressed authorities to shut down what she called ‘a scourge’ in Sweetwater, Miss. On Thursday, Sheriff J. W. Porter and three deputized men crossed county lines with warrants and raided the home of Priscilla Stuggs.”

I’d gone to see the sheriff on Wednesday.

“Sheriff Porter told this reporter: ‘I have never seen a place like it in all my life. A snake pit of filthy, diseased women, coloreds and whites coupling together. The Christians of this fine state will not tolerate such filth or tainting of our good, clean population.’”

“I wanna go home,” Flossy said, her voice wavering.

“Es’s bringing the car around,” Ruby said. I kept reading.

“Miss Stuggs and her gang were charged with prostitution, sodomy, bootlegging, and a felony count of miscegenation. Mrs. Pittman went on to say of Miss Stuggs: ‘Our orphanages are already full of children that cost this state money, children who suffer from imbecility and even worse. I am not the law, I am just a Christian citizen, and as president of this fine state’s Anti-Vice League, I recommend Miss Stuggs and her scamps be sent to the criminal ward of the state hospital where we can stop their kind from propagating and see that they serve lengthy sentences in prison, where they belong.’”

When we drove toward home, Esmeralda took a hard left to avoid driving past the jailhouse. She gripped both sides of the wheel with her white-gloved hands.

“It’s the misceg charge that’s getting them the knife,” Flossy said, beside me in the back seat.

“What’s that word mean?” Trixie asked from the front.

“Means Priscilla let Negro customers in, which is horseshit because Priscilla hates Negroes,” Flossy said.

“Please, Negroes wouldn’t go there anyway,” Esmeralda said. “And the colored crib’s just down the road.” I hadn’t even known there was a colored brothel in town. “Sugar’s is ten times nicer and cheaper. Least that’s what I’ve heard.”

“Just like in Dakota,” Flossy said. “Same story, different color. You can run tail, booze, tar, cadillacs of cocaine, but they catch you laying with a redskin and you’re hanging from a tree.” Flossy let out a deep, throaty sob. “They’re gonna cut those poor girls to pieces.”

Lunch that afternoon was unusually somber. Esmeralda wasn’t eating; she was mostly staring out the window. Flossy looked thin and sick, barely touching her sweet potatoes or fried okra. When Charlie’d read Garnett’s statements, she’d cursed, “That bloodless witch.” Yet at the table she sat upright, almost offensively self-confident. She said it again to everybody, “I guarantee you, if the sheriff knew anything, he’d have come out already,” this time adding, “This makes us the only game for sixty miles now, so get ready to be busy.”

When they’d gone upstairs to get dressed for the night, I stayed at the table with Charlie. It had occurred to me that she might be acting reckless because the worst had already happened to her. But no, that wasn’t it. It always came down to one thing, and that was Meg.

“I know,” Charlie said. “I know what you’re thinking. We only have one more week to go.”

I spoke so Charlie would listen . “If you get arrested, like Priscilla in the paper, you’ll have lost any chance of getting her back. Same as if you go to Byhalia and do something stupid. The Heidelbergs have money. They will track you down and arrest you.” This wasn’t the first time I’d suggested what I was about to, but this time, with the newspaper, I seemed to have her full attention. “Maybe you don’t need as much money as you think you do, Charlie. Or maybe you don’t have to go as far as California. If we close now, you can still afford to hire a lawyer and try and get Meg back the legal way. There’s bound to be some kind of law—”

“Law?” Charlie’s eyes flew open. “Garnett Pittman is the law. The only way I’m going to get Meg out of her bony reach is to make every damn penny I can and take Meg until there is no train track left. If I wait for the courts, then I guarantee you, Garnett Pittman will find a way to take Meg for herself .”

I wanted to argue, but I was afraid she was right. Charlie set her hand on my shoulder, and I could feel her shaking. “If I get arrested and Garnett gets her hands on Meg, will you promise me something? Promise that you or”—she choked out the words—“your sister will try to adopt her before she gets sent off?”

Good God, that one took me by surprise. It was such a desperate thing to ask, I was out of words for a few seconds. She’d rather even Frances have Meg than Garnett. Even Frances. But I nodded and said, “Of course I will. I will try my damnedest.”