Love and Other Consolation Prizes Read online

  “Where’s Madam?” Rose asked, walking in late as though she didn’t know.

  There was a suppressed groan from the rest of the staff.

  “What?” Rose asked, as she looked around, wide-eyed.

  “Quiet!” Miss Amber stepped in before the staff began to argue. “Well, I’ll get right to it. The big news is…”

  “I told you,” Rose exclaimed. “It’s the comet, isn’t it? I knew it…”

  Miss Amber stared at Rose until she fell silent.

  “No, dear.” Madam Flora appeared from atop the staircase, much to everyone’s surprise. From the look on her face, even Miss Amber was taken aback. Madam Flora descended slowly as she said, “I can assure you—it’s not the comet.”

  Ernest smiled. He noticed that her hair was less than perfect and her makeup nearly absent, but her poise and natural magnetism made up for it. She knew how to make an entrance, Ernest thought, even when sickly.

  After a brief, whispered exchange with Miss Amber, the grande dame smiled and then spoke as she gazed about the crowded parlor. “Thank you, my dears, for your patience these past few months, your loyalty as well as your discretion. As many of you have heard or read, the big news outside our doors is that Councilman Gill is the leading candidate for mayor, which means that we’ll soon have a friend and patron in a very high place. Our livelihoods are assured.”

  Ernest drew a deep breath, exhaled, and waited.

  “The bad news, though, is that…How shall we say this? I haven’t been myself for some time now—months in fact. Some of the older girls have recognized the change in my constitution for what it is, and you may as well know…” Her words trailed off, as her normally regal voice choked with emotion.

  Miss Amber chimed in, “What Madam Flora is saying is that she has a serious condition, which isn’t getting any better, no matter what we’ve tried. Her ailment is a frightful one, caused by this daft business, and only made worse by how hard she’s worked on behalf of all of us. And so now it’s our turn to do what we can, before this thing becomes permanent, left untreated…”

  Ernest felt Fahn take his hand as he listened. She was trying desperately not to look full of anticipation, a stark contrast to Maisie, who looked worried. Ernest held her hand too as they waited for Flora and Amber to get to the point. He couldn’t help hoping for good news—something unexpected and wonderful, though he couldn’t imagine what that would be. Certainly not what Fahn was hoping for.

  Ernest glanced about at all the faces—happy, sad, and in between—they’d become his family. He had come to love his new life. It wasn’t without ugliness, but it felt so much more true and honest, richer and more satisfying than life under Mrs. Irvine and the custodial care of the state.

  Madam Flora regained her composure and spoke, though her energy seemed to be waning. “The good news…is that there is a Prussian doctor…”

  Miss Amber spoke up. “His name is Dr. Erhlich, and he practices at the Royal Institute for Experimental Therapy. He specializes in a new serum cure. But his clinic is located in Germany, so we will need to travel there and live abroad until Madam Flora is treated.”

  Everyone looked stricken, especially since Germany had not been favored in the news as of late.

  Everyone except Maisie, who lit up. She leaned over to Ernest and whispered, teasing, “I’m going to miss you, Ernest. I’ll send you a picture postcard. And if we don’t come back soon, you better come join us, okay? I’m not leaving you to Fahn’s wicked imagination.”

  Ernest had barely begun to take in the thought of the Tenderloin without Maisie when Miss Amber cleared her throat to get his and Maisie’s attention.

  “No one knows the future,” Miss Amber said. “Not even Professor True.”

  Everyone laughed a little, and wore their bravery in their smiles.

  “But I am hopeful,” Miss Amber said, “that we’ll be back by summer’s end and that Madam Flora will be hitting on all sixes again.” She drew a deep breath and exhaled, as though she were shouldering a terrible burden. “That being said, the treatment is expensive. So to fund this little escapade we’ve decided to throw one more grand party.”

  Ernest felt Fahn squeeze his hand.

  Miss Amber continued, “It will be one more coming-out soirée. And with the money raised, we’ll be able to travel to the Royal Institute and live there until we sort this thing out. In the meantime, the Tenderloin will be open for business as usual. Mrs. Blackwell and Professor will be in charge until we return.”

  “We won’t let you down, ma’am,” Mrs. Blackwell said.

  “But who’s coming out?” Rose interrupted as she looked around the parlor. “We haven’t had a new girl since Jewel.”

  “Don’t look at me,” Jewel said, wagging her finger and tossing her skirts and petticoats. “That ship sailed, sister. Bon voyage, boys.”

  Ernest felt Fahn squeeze his hand again and sit up proudly, brushing the hair from her eyes. She licked her lips, which had been freshly reddened with carmine dye.

  “When it comes to parties, we have thrown some humdingers,” Miss Amber said. Then she added a layer of drama to her voice, doing her best to re-create the circus atmosphere Madam Flora was always known for. “But this next party, this grand gala, will be a masterpiece for our jammiest bit of jam. This will be the greatest celebration for a special, one-of-a-kind coming out,” Miss Amber trumpeted. “And I can assure you, Madam Flora and I did not come to this decision lightly.”

  Fahn smiled, beaming as Madam Flora nodded along.

  Miss Amber adjusted her wig as she spoke. “And so, I’m happy—no, I’m more than happy, I’m downright proud to announce…”

  Everyone else held a collective breath in anticipation.

  “That our own Mayflower will sail her maiden voyage in three weeks!”

  Ernest felt Maisie’s hand go limp. Fahn let go of Ernest’s other hand as well, slumping back into her seat, her face a mask of stunned bewilderment. Then she stood up and stormed out of the room, past a startled Mrs. Blackwell. The slamming door punctuated the silence.

  All eyes immediately returned to Maisie as Miss Amber took her arm and helped her to her feet. Ernest stared helplessly into her wide pools of blue, as she blinked and looked away for a moment, attempting to hide her own shock. Then she recovered and smiled timidly, politely, as the room clapped and then cheered and congratulated her on such a gallant contribution. Jewel clapped the loudest. Ernest gaped at Madam Flora, who had stood like a statue through the announcement and now wiped a tear from her eye and clapped along, her hands in tea-length gloves.

  Ernest looked at the empty spot where Fahn had been and back at Maisie. He was so relieved on behalf of one girl and furious on behalf of the other. He was also stunned by Maisie’s tacit acceptance of this news. He wanted to rescue her, to stand up and argue with Miss Amber and what was left of Madam Flora. He wanted to shake everyone in the room until they came to their senses. He wanted to condemn every man who walked through the front door. He’d seen Jewel and the others reluctantly surrender, but the Mayflower—his Maisie, this was unthinkable.

  He rose to his feet, and Maisie nodded back at him. Her sad eyes seemed to be saying, It’s okay. I’m okay. She gamely went along with the charade, gently thanking the upstairs girls for their good wishes, bravely playing her part.

  ANGER IS YOUR CURRENCY

  (1910)

  After the announcement, everyone at the Tenderloin went to neutral corners. The servants gathered in their dining room to gossip, the Gibson girls all went outside to smoke, while Professor True retired to his piano and began singing “Heaven Will Protect the Working Girl.”

  Ernest listened to the Professor sing his own rendition: “A village maid was leaving home; with tears her eyes were wet. Her mother dear was standing near the spot. She says to Maisie dear, I hope you won’t forget, that I’m the only mother you’ve got…”

  Ernest was worried about Maisie, who had gone upstairs with Amber and Mada
m Flora. He went looking for them, but heard more doors slamming, and reluctantly followed the noise. He found Fahn in her room, packing her clothing and personal belongings into a bamboo picnic basket that she must have taken from the basement pantry. She stuffed in everything but her dark domestic’s dress, her white collars, and her aprons, pausing occasionally to wipe her eyes.

  “Don’t trouble yourself, Ernest,” Fahn said when she saw him standing in her doorway. “I’m done, I tell you. I QUIT!” She yelled the word as though that single syllable were a rush of air from a bellows onto hot coals, bursting everything combustible into white-hot flame. “I’m moving someplace where I’ll be properly appreciated. In fact, why don’t you come with me?”

  Ernest stared back in horror and disbelief. He couldn’t comprehend how Fahn could be so enraged, all because Maisie was being turned out instead of her. Her best friend was about to be auctioned off to the highest bidder—albeit as part of a glamorous party, surrounded by wealthy men—but that didn’t change the fact that she’d be becoming…an upstairs girl. Ernest couldn’t bring himself to use the word the boys in the alley had used. That term had always been reserved for the girls who worked at other places. But when you boiled it all down, wasn’t that what Maisie was becoming? How could Fahn so desperately want that life? How could she react as though she’d missed out on the promotion of a lifetime?

  “Don’t look at me that way,” Fahn snapped as though she could read his mind.

  Ernest imagined his aching heart ripped from his chest and wrung through a taffy puller. He was surprised by how deeply he cared—about both girls—his care made manifest by how hurt he felt. He was losing Maisie, about to watch her sacrifice herself. Consumed into the belly of this confounding business that was like all the people he ever knew, from his mother to Mrs. Irvine, from Madam Flora to Miss Amber—joyful and awful, so free at times and yet so broken. And now Fahn was abandoning ship—simply because she couldn’t have what Maisie didn’t want.

  “I can’t leave, not like this. And you shouldn’t either.” Ernest shook his head and struggled to remain calm. “Are you out of your mind? You’re only fifteen, and you actually want to sell yourself to the highest bidder? Just think about what you’re doing!”

  Ernest argued, bargained, and grappled with denial as he tried to talk some sense into her. He stopped short of shouting, You stole my first kiss! You can’t leave because I’ll miss you too much. I can’t lose you and Maisie too. But he hesitated, surprised as the words rose from the center of his chest but got stuck in his gullet. And then he remembered what Maisie had once said—true love is always wasted, distorted, lost in the funhouse mirrors of the red-light district.

  Ernest sat down. “Are you truly going to leave us because the upstairs girls get a few favorable nods? That’s how the world works—you’re a servant, for God’s sake, and well paid at that. I wouldn’t trade my job for all the expensive clothing and fancy dinners in the world! I’d rather be shoveling coal and peeling potatoes all day than counting ceiling tiles all night long, no matter how much they pay me.”

  Mrs. Blackwell appeared in the doorway. “He’s right, you know.”

  “I don’t want to be an old maid,” Fahn said, looking directly at Mrs. Blackwell. “In fact, I don’t want to be a cook or a maid at all. We live in steerage while they’re in first class. I want what they have—respect.”

  “But they don’t have real respect, dear. Can’t you umble-cum-stumble anything? What they have is an illusion, crafted by Madam Flora.” Mrs. Blackwell rolled her eyes and removed her cooking bonnet. “Oh, they have such beauty, don’t they? And charm to spare, and the well-polished veneer of high society. But as a form of currency, dear, that beauty fades. You have beauty too—so much it hurts, I know. But you’re also so self-absorbed, girl, you possess so much anger, which scares the dickens out of me. If anger is your currency, then you’re one rich bitch.”

  Ernest blinked.

  Fahn froze.

  For a moment he felt relief, thinking the words of the dowdy old cook had found purchase in the jagged reaches of Fahn’s imagination. Then she fastened the top of the basket and stared back at Mrs. Blackwell and nodded at Ernest.

  “You don’t need to worry about me. I’ll find my own way. The Tangerine will want me back now that I’m all grown up. Or the Aloha Club.”

  “But…those are just run-down cribs,” Ernest said.

  “We all have to start off somewhere,” she said as she stormed past him.

  He could smell perfume, something she must have stolen from upstairs.

  “If you leave us, child, you know there’s no coming through that door again,” Mrs. Blackwell said. “If Madam Flora hadn’t lost her wits, things might be different, but you know Miss Amber—she refuses to stand for this kind of nonsense, especially from the help, of all people. She won’t take you back and she won’t give you a recommend to your next employer when you come to your senses. Please, just calm down, girl—think about what you’re doing.”

  Fahn continued without looking back, down the hallway, across the foyer, past a startled Professor True, and toward the front door.

  Ernest sprinted upstairs to find Maisie. He hoped she could talk some sense into Fahn, but the Mayflower wasn’t in her room. He ran to his bedroom and threw open a window, from which he could see Fahn wending her way around drunks in the street.

  “Fahn!” he called out past throngs of bewildered onlookers. He wanted to give chase, but he couldn’t. As upset as he was, he was also worried about Maisie.

  “Fahn, please…come back!” Ernest drew a deep breath and was about to shout again when he noticed everyone on the street staring up at him, regarding the queer sight of a young man hollering from the third-story window of the most famous brothel in the Garment District.

  And he fell silent.

  Fahn turned and shifted the basket to her other arm. She looked as lovely as ever, but breathtakingly sad. Even from a distance he could see that her cheeks were wet from tears. She touched her heart and then blew him a kiss, staring back at the Tenderloin as though soaking it all in, as though proudly, stubbornly saying goodbye for good.

  Ernest heard someone behind him. He turned and saw Jewel standing in the doorway. “At least you tried, Ernest.”

  When he looked back out the window, Fahn was gone.

  —

  ERNEST HURRIED DOWN the hallway in search of Maisie. Her door was ajar, her room still empty, so he followed the sounds of shouting and crying, which led him to Madam Flora’s room. Maisie was in tears, arguing with Miss Amber, while Madam Flora sat at her rolltop desk, which was open and littered with documents, invitations, and bundles of cash. The grande dame appeared to have fallen into a stupor, a tangle of confusion and detachment. She looked neither happy nor sad, present nor particularly absent—she just stared at her desk, absently touching papers as though searching for something she’d lost.

  Ernest felt relief wash over him that Maisie was at least fighting back now.

  “You’re just going to scare her,” Miss Amber was arguing.

  “Mama,” Maisie kept calling. “Mama, it’s me.” She was trying to push her way past Miss Amber, reaching for her mother, but Miss Amber held her back.

  Madam Flora turned her head slowly and looked on in surprise.

  Miss Amber pulled Maisie back. “Stop this ruckus and stop being so selfish. She doesn’t even know you anymore, girl—you’ll only set her off. She barely knows me in her present state. This is why we couldn’t ask you, we had to tell you. Her treatment will cost a bloody fortune, but it’s her only hope.”

  Maisie kept struggling.

  “You have to do this—for all of us—there’s no other way.” Miss Amber held Maisie by the shoulders and spun her around so she faced Madam Flora. “Look at her!”

  “She’s my mother!” Maisie shouted. “She’d never do this to me! She’d never turn me out like one of the other girls—I’m her hummingbird…”

  Mais
ie broke free and shook her mother, yelling, “MAMA!”

  Madam Flora grimaced, put her hands up, and recoiled in fear—her wide, panicked eyes rolling away as she curled up into her chair.

  Miss Amber grabbed Maisie by an arm and by the hair on the back of her head and wrestled her, kicking and screaming, until the girl stumbled and fell to her hands and knees.

  “Don’t you do this to her,” Miss Amber hissed as she towered over the fallen girl and reached for a leather belt. “You’re only making it worse.”

  Ernest jumped between them.

  “Oh, get out of the way,” Miss Amber said, more annoyed than angry.

  Ernest drew a deep breath and stared back, unmoving.

  Miss Amber coiled the end of the belt around her fist and raised the dangling, buckled strap high in the air. “I’ll fire you.”

  Ernest slowly shook his head.

  Miss Amber hesitated, her arm trembling in anger before she realized her bluff had been called. She gritted her teeth in frustration and then dropped the belt. She walked away with her hands on her wide hips. “Glory, what a spectacle we’ve become. And look at you. The truth is, girl,” Miss Amber said, “Flora didn’t even want you—do you know that? But she had you and she kept you around, hoping to get more money later. When that fool went flat broke her plan got washed away. You should count your lucky stars that she kept you, somehow grew to love you, because you owe her everything, from the roof over your head to the custom-tailored clothes on your back, to your pretty little figure and your dimples and your button nose—everything.”

  Ernest helped Maisie to her feet. From the look on her face, he could see Miss Amber’s words had wounded her more deeply than the belt ever could. She shook off his arm.

  “What about the man who gave us the motorcar?” Ernest interrupted. “Fahn once said that he offered thousands of dollars—”