The Downstairs Girl Read online

  The water stills.

  I unsheathe the bottle in my pocket, which I’d filled with barley tea and sealed with wax. “Pendergrass’s Long-Life Elixir.”

  His lips peel open, exposing a small gap between his front teeth. “Where’d you get that?”

  “I bought it at Buxbaum’s before you showed up.”

  Billy snorts, and the suds shift alliances, though I try not to look. “That only costs fifty cents a bottle.”

  “One should never confuse cost with value,” I say, an echo of his own words from our last encounter. “As I recall, the next shipment isn’t due until Tuesday.”

  Some of the suds have scaled Billy’s face. He makes his finger into a razor and shaves them off. Fft! Fft! The moment feels slick and dangerous. Maybe I have miscalculated the Pendergrass’s value. Knucks’s steel eyes lock on to mine, and suddenly he does not appear quite so dead after all.

  Someone knocks. “Water.”

  Knucks unlatches the door, and in steps a maid with a steaming bucket. I consider fleeing while I have the chance. The maid quickly empties her vessel. I force myself to stay the course. I have come this far, and there are answers in this room, just as certain as there are questions.

  The maid leaves and Knucks resumes his guard.

  “Very well, I will answer your question,” Billy announces.

  I hand him the Pendergrass and quickly step back.

  He winks. “Bottoms up.” He works off the cork and swigs. After a thorough swish and swallow, he recorks the bottle and sets it on the side table. His attention lingers a moment on the Buddha vase. “Now, to answer your question, Old Gin needs to pay a debt.”

  “For what?”

  Water drips off his long eyelashes when he blinks. “Questions are five dollars each.”

  “That is hardly fair. You barely answered my question, and as I told you, I don’t have five dollars.”

  A cunning smile grips his face. “Fortunately for you, I offer several payment plans. If you would like the conversation to continue, you must answer a question for every answer you want from me. Easy, right?”

  Easy as a dime pitch, until you discover that dimes bounce. “I want no part of your blackmail scheme.”

  “Blackmail is such an unfortunate term. Personally, I don’t discriminate. Black, white, red, yellow, I serve all. If there is a question you don’t wish to answer, you can stop at any time, agreed?”

  “Fine,” I say primly. “What’s your question?”

  “Who is the most important person in the world to you?”

  Why would he want to know that? He must want to know my weaknesses, probably to tuck away for further blackmail.

  When I fail to answer, he adds, “Be careful. I will know if you are lying.”

  My molars grind. He already knows of my concern for Old Gin, so I would not be giving him anything new. “Old Gin. My turn. But I would like to revise my question.” I shall need to extract as much information as possible from each question. Old Gin already told me that Shang owes the debt, and Billy just confirmed that Old Gin is covering it for Shang. What I don’t know is why. I could ask straight out if Shang is my father. But I don’t yet want him to know that I don’t know. The information game is tricky as a two-headed snake. “Why did Shang come to your father?”

  His eyebrows rise, and he nods, as if approving of my new question. “A loan of twenty-five dollars, which together with interest over the years is now three hundred dollars.”

  A drop of condensation, or maybe perspiration, slithers down my back.

  “Now. You were recently fired from Mrs. English’s—”

  A shiver picks up the hairs on my arms. “How do you know that?”

  “If that’s a question, you must wait your turn.”

  “No, it’s not a question. Disregard it.” The Buddha appears to be laughing at me.

  “I won’t warn you again. If I had answered, you would owe me.”

  My indignation drains from my face, to my soles, and into the floor. I’m reminded of the dice on the front door, advertising Billy’s cunning.

  He peels back a tin smile. “What scares you the most?”

  “Being boxed in,” I answer truthfully. Two can play at this game. If he wants a better explanation, he will need to ask me, and that will cost him a question.

  His face turns strangely thoughtful, as if he understands what I mean. But what could a cretin like him understand about how it feels to be a pawn on the chessboard, only moving within tightly prescribed rules? Perhaps he has simply mastered the art of not taking the bait.

  His mocking grin returns. He shoots me with a finger pistol, crudely indicating my turn.

  “What did Shang need the money for?”

  “A woman, as I understand.”

  If Shang is my father, could this woman be my mother? This is as tedious as picking up bread crumbs, one by one.

  Billy’s grinning face sinks into the horizon of his bath suds, only to emerge dripping but still gleeful. He rubs water from his cheeks. “Does Caroline Payne have a lover?” he casually drops.

  “How dare you!” He must be fishing. Undoubtedly, this is the pond in which Billy regularly drops a line. I could sell her out and not lose a moment’s sleep over it. But as much as I dislike her, I dislike Billy Riggs more.

  He hooks an arm over the tub, and water dribbles off his twitchy fingers onto the floor. “I dare whenever and wherever I like is how. And since I just answered another question for you, you owe me an answer. I warned you.”

  “But ‘how dare you’ is not a real question,” I sputter.

  Knucks stretches his fingers with loud popping sounds and Billy grins. “Knucks doesn’t like coolies. Thinks they’re bad luck. If you don’t know how to follow rules, he’ll show you how.”

  “Fine.” I shrink farther into the room away from Knucks. “But . . . I’d like a different question.”

  “The lady is bold. Well, there is something else you can offer.” Abruptly, Billy stands, spilling water onto the floor. There he poses as if he were John the Baptist, just come up from a dunk in the River Jordan. His muscled chest is a matted rug of auburn hair. “I’ve always wanted to feel a China girl’s hair.”

  I nearly swallow my tongue. My hair? Knucks crosses his arms, testing the seams of his jacket. Against the field of black, his lucky horseshoe tattoo and brass knuckles seem to crouch, ready to strike.

  Billy steps out of the bath and, God curse my eyes, there in a dripping tangle of auburn, a morel mushroom and two mossy acorns peek through. He takes his time wrapping himself right in front of me. “Just a touch.”

  I force myself to breathe. If I want to find out if Shang is my father, I must let this sewer rat violate my hair. I could be ruined if it were ever discovered that I allowed such a thing! But ruined for whom? Few in Atlanta would take a Chinese wife, and the chances that the bachelors in Augusta or in Yankee territory will get wind of this are remote. Anyway, hair is dead, a mere accessory. I can always cut it off if I regret my decision. I untie my bonnet. With businesslike efficiency, I unroll my braid and dangle it before Billy Riggs like a noose.

  He draws near. Despite the bath, a musky, feral scent clings to him. I force myself to breathe again, visualizing a cool river flowing smoothly down a grassy ravine, where there are no mushrooms.

  Someone knocks. “Water,” says a woman’s husky voice.

  “Go away,” Billy barks. He reaches out, and then his grubby fingers are dribbling across the bumpy contours of my braid. A moan slinks across his mouth. Curiously, the morel has not sprouted, and it occurs to me what he might be using the Pendergrass for.

  I pull away my braid. “That is sufficient!”

  But he doesn’t let go, and we engage in a close-range tug-of-war. Suddenly, he is too close, his head twisting to one side, his breath hot against my face,
his mouth wet and open. Without thinking, I apply the outside edge of my boot to his bare foot, using Hammer Foot’s signature move. He lets go with a curse.

  Knucks abandons his post, his brass knuckles flashing, the horseshoe tattoo a blur. I snatch the Buddha vase and toss it to him. Do not engage an adversary; feed it. The man catches the vase, but fumbles it. A loud and expensive-sounding crack tells me it’s not so easy to catch pottery while wearing brass knuckles. I shoulder past Knucks and throw open the door, running headlong into . . . Nathan?

  With a growl, Bear lunges at Billy. The man recoils, yielding Bear a mouthful of robe. Nathan pulls up on the leash, his face growing grimmer as he takes in the situation. “What’s going on here? I shall have you arrested!” Nathan demands in a voice full of thunder and wrath, a flash of fangs behind his curling lip.

  “How gallant, newspaper boy. But Miss Kuan sought me out,” Billy says, seething. A murderous look contorts his face. “Next time, perhaps I shall pay a visit to her charming hideaway.”

  I hardly hear Bear’s barking as the word hideaway echoes through me. Surely Billy couldn’t know where I live?

  Bear tries again and again to pounce, a blur of gray fur.

  The noise and the steam and the sight of Billy’s obscene figure churn my innards. I shall be sick if I stay in this room any longer. I stumble toward the hallway, nearly tripping on my hat. My fingers shake as I retrieve it.

  “If I learn you have mistreated Miss Kuan, you shall be hearing from me,” Nathan’s voice cuts across the din. “On the front page.”

  I edge past maids, the thick carpet grabbing my feet. A woman shoulders past me, her hooded figure reminding me of someone. The reek of hot lilacs fills my nose. I don’t catch her face, and I continue toward the exit as fast as my feet can carry me.

  Twenty-Six

  “I should’ve sicced Bear on that amphibious scoundrel. Taking a bath? My God, you’re as pale as the page.”

  “I’m quite all right.”

  I draw a breath of the Collins Street air, which, though putrid, is still fresher than the air inside Billy Riggs’s cathouse.

  “No, you’re not. Did he hurt you? I happen to be good at fisticuffs.” He stops and looks back at the Victorian for the fourth time.

  “No. I am fine.” I hold my stomach and barrel on, remembering the time Nathan broke someone’s nose over the spelling of the word potatoes.

  Nathan matches my brisk pace. “Are you in trouble? Can I do something? Is it money? We know some officials.”

  I shake my head. I cannot risk Nathan finding out about us living under his house, even if he could persuade an official to care about outsiders like Old Gin and me. Then again, if Billy knows where I live, the game may already be up.

  Nathan was right. To win the hand, I have lost the deck.

  I kick a cigar stump out of my path, and rein in my catastrophic thoughts. Old Gin always says if there are troubles on the ground, then look up. The changing sky reminds us that our troubles are not here to stay. Tonight’s contains a peach of a setting sun floating in a dark lake. I’m reminded of his story about the son who gave the water nymph the fruit meant for the bats of good fortune.

  Bear nudges me from the side, herding me away from a broken bottle I didn’t notice.

  Old Gin said the story hadn’t ended yet. I’d guessed the father’s crops die without the peach to bring the bats back, but what of the father and the son? Life keeps going, doesn’t it? The only real ending is a shovel of dirt in one’s face. Until then, you have to keep on planting and sowing, sowing and planting.

  I hardly feel Nathan tuck my hand into his arm. We clear Collins and reach Five Points, the center of the Atlanta pie since even before the war, where two Creek Indian trails converged. We merge into the traffic that draws a circle around a seventy-foot-high artesian well, then take the point that shoots us toward the print shop.

  “Goddamned fungus! No information can be worth that,” Nathan grouses. His voice becomes pleading. “I implore you, tell me how I can help you.” The pleading drops away and anger rushes in. “I’ve been itching to tie that worm into a knot.”

  Before we reach the print shop, I stop in front of a livery supply smelling of leather and hay. “Mr. Bell—”

  “Nathan.” His grimace unfolds, and the warm and steady grip of his eyes anchors me in place. “I know a place that makes good beef stew. Soothes the nerves.”

  “I want to apologize for making you perpetuate a falsehood.”

  “Actually, it’s truly good. Nice chunks of carrots, potatoes—”

  “I meant the Miss Sweetie column. I would understand if you no longer want them.”

  “No.” He straightens the notched collar of his loose-fitting sack coat, which I’ve pulled off kilter. “Of course we want them. As long as you want to keep writing them.”

  “Yes,” I say, a little too quickly. “I—”

  “Nathan? Jo?”

  My eyes pop out. From across the street, Lizzie Crump has emerged from a carriage painted cabbage green, with gold lettering that reads CRUMP’S PAINTS. The carriage driver offers his hand to another woman, who must be Lizzie’s mother, judging by her similar coloring and heavy-lidded eyes. Lizzie strides up to us, tailed by the older woman.

  On Lizzie’s head sits a cunning hat of magenta felt, with a streamlined saucer profile. Just like on my sensible hat, the one I left unfinished in the workroom, a rooster tail of feathers sprouts from the back, pinned by an eternity knot, though the knot is missing a loop. Mrs. English stole the design!

  “Hello, Lizzie,” I manage to get out.

  “Good evening, Mrs. Crump, Lizzie.” Nathan turns his astonished eyes to me. “You know each other?”

  “Jo used to work at Mrs. English’s with me. She’s a first-rate milliner.” Lizzie stretches the toe of one of her pointed boots, a move that strikes me as feline.

  “Is that right?” Nathan’s eyes drift to my borrowed bonnet, into which I wish I could pull my limbs and disappear, like a turtle.

  “Yes,” I say weakly. “How about that?”

  “I was just coming to tell you my colors for the race, remember?”

  “Of course. Your colors. Ah, about that. I realized that I will not make a very good escort, as I will have my hands full reporting on the race. If you wanted to find another escort, I would gladly step aside.”

  “Oh.” Lizzie stops twisting about and bites a finger. I can almost see her thoughts wiggling into place. “Well, I don’t want another escort. And anyway, I would love to watch the newsman in action.”

  “Right.” Nathan’s gaze drifts toward me, pulling Mrs. Crump’s along with it. Her sharp nose sniffs, as if smelling something off, and her false smile withers like an old rind.

  “Oh yes, and Mrs. English has a new advertisement for you.” Lizzie pulls a slip of paper from her glove and hands it to Nathan. “Business has gone through the roof. She thinks it’s because of the popularity of your new agony aunt column, so she created this special number called the Miss Sweetie, for the ‘independent woman.’” Lizzie tilts her head, showing off her hat. “She’s selling it at the special rate of three dollars.”

  If there were more irony in this situation, we could build a railroad.

  “Do you like it, Jo? I made this one myself.”

  “You made it?”

  Her laughter floats on a breeze. “Don’t sound so shocked. I pinned it beforehand like you showed me, and that helped tremendously. Mrs. English said I might make a top-shelfer if I keep up the good work.”

  “That’s wonderful.” The words drop like lead casings. I should be happy for her success, but my insides feel as mealy and brown as a January apple.

  Mrs. Crump rakes her gaze down my fallen braid and then her spine straightens. “But how does this . . . creature . . . know you, Mr. Bell?”

  “She is a
colleague.” Nathan removes his Homburg hat, causing tufts of his hair to put his head in quotes, even after he runs a hand through it.

  “A colleague?”

  Lizzie playfully bats her mother’s stiff arm. “Oh, Mama, she does speak English.”

  “I’m afraid I must be on my way,” I say with Miss Sweetie’s briskness. Not engaging is a victory in itself.

  “But we haven’t yet finished our . . . meeting,” says Nathan. Mrs. Crump’s face draws into a point focused around the nose. Her daughter still wears a loose smile from my compliment of her hat. Unlike Caroline, Lizzie is cut from softer jade than her mama.

  I dip my head toward Nathan. “We are done, Mr. Bell.” I avoid his gaze, stooping to rub Bear’s sweet face between my hands. Into her silky ear, I whisper, “Thanks for coming to my rescue.” Up close, I finally see her eyes, which are warm as melted candle wax, just like her owner’s.

  Then I hurry away, smudging myself from Nathan’s life like a rubber cube over a pencil mark. I cannot go spoony over Nathan Bell. The line between us is too dark.

  Anyway, Lizzie has already laid her claim, and that is how it should be. Maybe my feelings for him are more brotherly than amorous anyway, just like when he was twelve and I ten, and he sang “Turkey in the Straw” so many times, I nearly yelled at him to shoot the hanged turkey already. I focus on those old feelings and not these new ones.

  * * *

  —

  MY FLANNEL GOWN whips around my legs as I wheel around the racetrack of our spool table, going nowhere fast. A twenty-five-dollar loan for a woman that he never paid back. Did this woman write the letter? Was she the reason Shang left? It occurs to me I still don’t know for certain that Shang is my father. For all my efforts, I seem to have gotten more questions than answers.

  The speaking tube, visible through the open curtain to my corner, taunts me to unplug it. I keep moving. Lately, I’ve been feeling more like an intruder anyway. When I was a child, the Bells filled in the spaces Old Gin could not, teaching me about the American way of life, making me feel less like an outsider in my own country. But like Old Gin, one day I’ll have to let them go, too. Especially Nathan.