He had no idea where the gymnasium was. When he had finished breakfast, he put on a plush robe, opened the heavy door to his room—both relieved and irritated that it did not open by itself—and looked down the corridor. A golden arc of warm sun clung to the base of each tall window. It was noon, Sunside time. She had given him plenty of time to rest.
A pair of new black jeans and a white silk shirt waited for him on the bed, which had been carefully made in the time it had taken him to glance down the hall. Cautiously, but less frightened now, he removed the robe, put on these clothes and the deerskin moccasins by the foot of the bed, and stood in the doorway, leaning as casually as he could manage against the frame.
A silk handkerchief hung in the air several yards away. It fluttered like a pigeon’s ghost to attract his attention, then drifted slowly along the hall. He followed.
The house seemed to go on forever, empty and magnificent. Each public room had its own decor, filled with antique furniture, potted palms, plush couches and chairs, and love seats. Several times he thought he saw wisps of dinner jackets, top hats—eager, strained faces in foyers, corridors, on staircases as he followed the handkerchief. The house smelled of perfume and dust, old cigars, spilled wine, and ancient sweat.
He climbed three flights of stairs to the tall, ivory-white double doors of the gymnasium. The handkerchief vanished with a flip. The doors opened. Miss Parkhurst stood at the opposite end of a wide black tile dance floor, before a band riser covered with music stands and instruments. Oliver inspected the low half-circle stage with narrowed eyes. Would she demand he dance with her, while all the instruments played themselves?
“Good morning,” she said. She wore a green dress the color of fresh wet grass, high at the neck and down to her calves. Beneath the dress she wore white boots and white gloves, and a white feather curled around her black hair.
“Good morning,” he replied softly, politely.
“Did you sleep well? Eat hearty?”
Oliver nodded, fear and shyness returning. What could she possibly want to give him? Herself? His face grew hot.
“It’s a shame this house is empty during the day,” she said. And at night? he thought. “I could fill this room with exercise equipment,” she continued. “Weight benches, even a track around the outside.” She smiled. The smile seemed less ferocious, even wistful; she seemed more at ease, and younger.
He rubbed a fold of his shirt between two fingers. “I like the food, and your house is fine, but I still want to go home,” he said.
She half turned and walked slowly from the riser. “You could have this house and all my wealth. I’d like you to have it.”
“Why? I haven’t done anything for you.”
“Or to me, either,” she said, facing him again. “You know how I made all this money?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said after a moment’s pause. “I’m not a fool.”
“You’ve heard about me. That I’m a whore.”
“Yes, ma’am. Mrs. Diamond Freeland says you are.”
“And what is a whore?”
“You let men do it to you for money,” Oliver said, feeling bolder, but with his face hot all the same.
Miss Parkhurst nodded. “I’ve got part of them here with me,” she said. “All of them. That’s my bookkeeping, my ledger. I know every name, every face. They keep me company now that business is slow.”
“All of them?” Oliver asked, incredulous. “Even the dead ones?”
Miss Parkhurst’s faint smile was part pride, part sadness, her eyes distant and moist. “And why not? They gave me all the things I have here.”
“I don’t think it would be worth it,” Oliver said.
“I’d be dead if I wasn’t a whore,” Miss Parkhurst said, eyes suddenly sharp, flashing anger. “I’d have starved to death.” She relaxed her clenched hands. “We got plenty of time to talk about my life, so let’s hold it here for a while. I got something you need, if you’re going to inherit this place.”
“I don’t want it, ma’am,” Oliver said.
“If you don’t take it, somebody who doesn’t need it and deserves it a lot less will. I want you to have it. Please, be kind to me this once.”
“Why me?” Oliver asked. He simply wanted out; this was completely off the planned track of his life. He was less afraid of Miss Parkhurst now, though her anger raised hairs on his neck; he felt he could be bolder and perhaps even demanding. There was a weakness in her: he was her weakness, and he wasn’t above taking some advantage of that, considering how desperate his situation might be.
“You’re kind,” she said. “You care. And you’ve never had a woman, not all the way.”
Oliver’s face warmed again. “Please let me go,” he said quietly, hoping it didn’t sound as if he was pleading.
Miss Parkhurst folded her arms. “I can’t,” she said.
While Oliver spent his first day in Miss Parkhurst’s mansion, across the city, beyond the borders of Sunside, Denver and Reggie Jones had returned home to find the apartment blanketed in gloom. Reggie, tall and gangly, long of neck and short of head, with a prominent nose, stood with back slumped in the front hall, mouth open in surprise. “He just took off and left you all here?” Reggie asked. Denver returned from the kitchen, shorter and stockier than his brother, dressed in black vinyl jacket and pants. He passed Reggie a catsup and mayo sandwich.
Yolanda’s face was puffy from constant crying. She now enjoyed the tears she spilled, and scheduled them at two-hour intervals, to her momma’s sorrowful irritation. She herded the two babies into their momma’s bedroom and closed a rickety gate behind them, then brushed her hands on the breast of her ragged blouse.
“You don’t get it,” she said, facing them and dropping her arms dramatically. “That whore took Momma, and Oliver traded himself for her.”
“That whore,” said Reggie, “is a rich old witch.”
“Rich old bitch witch,” Denver said, pleased with himself.
“That whore is opportunity knocking,” Reggie continued, chewing reflectively. “I hear she lives alone.”
“That’s why she took Oliver,” Yolanda said. The babies cooed and chirped behind the gate.
“Why him and not one of us?” Reggie asked.
Momma gently pushed the babies aside, swung open the gate, and marched down the hall, dressed in her best wool skirt and print blouse, wrapped in her overcoat against the gathering dark and cold outside. “Where you going?” Yolanda asked her as she brushed past.
“Time to talk to the police,” she said, glowering at Reggie. Denver backed into the bedroom he shared with his brother, out of her way. He shook his head condescendingly, grinning: Momma at it again.
“Them dogheads?” Reggie said. “They got no say in Sunside.”
Momma turned at the front door and glared at them. “How are you going to help your brother? He’s the best of you all, you know, and you just stand here, jawboning yourselves.”
“Momma’s upset,” Denver informed his brother solemnly.
“She should be,” Reggie said. “She was held prisoner by that witch bitch whore. We should go get Oliver ourselves and bring him home. We could pretend we was customers.”
“She don’t have customers anymore,” Denver said. “She’s too old. She’s worn out.” He glanced at his crotch and leaned his head to one side, glaring for emphasis.
“How do you know?” Reggie asked.
“That’s what I hear.”
Momma snorted and pulled back the bars and bolts on the front door. Reggie calmly walked up behind her and stopped her. “Police don’t do anybody any good, Momma,” he said. “We’ll go. We’ll bring Oliver back.”
Denver’s face slowly fell at the thought. “We got to plan it out,” he said. “We got to be careful.”
“We’ll be careful,” Reggie said. “For Momma
’s sake.”
With his hand blocking her exit, Momma snorted again, then let her shoulders droop and her face sag. She looked more and more like an old woman now, though she was only in her late thirties.
Yolanda stood aside to let her pass into the living room. “Poor Momma,” she said, eyes welling up.
“What you going to do for your brother?” Reggie asked his sister pointedly as he in turn walked by her. She craned her neck and stuck out her chin. “Go trade places with him, work in her house?” he taunted.
“She’s rich,” Denver said to himself, cupping his chin in his hand. “We could make a whole lot of money, saving our brother.”
“We start thinking about it now,” Reggie mandated, falling into the chair that used to be their father’s, leaning his head back against the lace covers Momma had made.
Momma, face ashen, stood by the couch staring at a family portrait hung on the wall in a cheap wooden frame. “He did it for me. I was so stupid, getting off there, letting her help me. Should of known,” she murmured, clutching her wrist. Her face ashen, her ankle wobbled under her and she pirouetted, hands spread like a dancer—and collapsed face down on the couch.
The gift, the object that Oliver needed to inherit and control Miss Parkhurst’s mansion, was a small gold box with three buttons, like a garage door opener. She finally presented it to him in the dining room as they finished dinner.
Miss Parkhurst was nice to talk with, something Oliver had not expected, though he should have. Whores did more than lie with a man to keep him coming back and spending his money; that should have been obvious. The day had not been the agony he expected. He had even stopped asking her to let him go. Oliver thought it would be best to bide his time, and when something distracted her, make his escape. Until then, she was not treating him badly or expecting anything he could not freely give.
“It’ll be dark soon,” she said as the plates cleared themselves away. He was even getting used to the ghostly service. “I have to go soon, and you got to be in your room. Take this with you, and keep it there.” She lifted a tray cover to reveal a white silk bag. Unstringing the bag, she removed the golden opener and shyly presented it to him. “This was given to me a long time ago. I don’t need it now. But if you want to run this place, you got to have it. You can’t lose it, or let anyone take it from you.”
Oliver’s hands went to the opener involuntarily. It seemed very desirable, as if there was something of Miss Parkhurst in it: warm, powerful, a little frightening. It fit his hand perfectly, felt familiar to his skin; he might have owned it forever.
He tightened his lips and returned it to her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s not for me.”
“You remember what I told you,” she said. “If you don’t take it, somebody else will, and it won’t do anybody any good then. I want it to do some good now I’m done with it.”
“Who gave it to you?” Oliver asked.
“A pimp, a long time ago. When I was a girl.”
Oliver’s eyes betrayed no judgment. She took a deep breath.
“He made you do it … ?” Oliver asked.
“No. I was young, but already a whore. I had an old, kind pimp, at least he seemed old to me, I wasn’t much more than a baby. He died, he was killed, so this new pimp came, and he was powerful. He had the magic. But he couldn’t tame me. So he cuts me up …” Miss Parkhurst raised her hands to her face. “He cuts me up bad. He says, ‘You shame me, whore. You do this to me, make me lose control, you’re the only one ever did this to me. So I curse you. You’ll be the greatest whore ever was.’ He gave me the opener, then he put my face and body back together so I’d be pretty. Then he left town, and I was in charge. I’ve been here ever since, but all the girls have gone, it’s been so long, died or left or I told them to go. I wanted this place closed, but I couldn’t close it all at once.”
Oliver nodded slowly, eyes wide.
“He left me most of his magic, too. I didn’t have any choice. One thing he didn’t give me was a way out. Except …” This time, she was the one with the pleading expression.
Oliver raised an eyebrow.
“What I need has to be freely given. Now take this.” She stood and thrust the opener into his hands. “During the day, use it to find your way around the house. But don’t leave your room after dark.”
She swept out of the dining room, trailing musk and flowers and something bittersweet. Oliver put the opener in his pocket and walked back to his room, finding his way without hesitation, without thought. He shut the door and went to the bookcase, sad and troubled and exultant all at once.
She had told him her secret. He could leave now if he wanted. She had given him the power to leave.
Sipping from a glass of sherry on the nightstand beside the bed, reading from a book of composers’ lives, he decided to wait until morning.
Yet after a few hours, nothing could keep his mind away from Miss Parkhurst’s prohibition—not the piano, the books, or the snacks delivered almost before he thought about them, appearing on the tray when he wasn’t watching. Oliver sat with hands folded in the plush chair, blinking at the room’s dark corners. He thought he had Miss Parkhurst pegged. She was an old woman tired of her life, a beautifully preserved old woman to be sure, very strong … But she was sweet on him, keeping him like some reminder of her youth, a backup gigolo. Still, he couldn’t help but admire her—and he couldn’t help but want to be home, near Momma and even near Yolanda and the babies, keeping his brothers out of trouble, not that they appreciated his efforts.
The longer Oliver sat, the angrier and more anxious he became. He felt sure something was wrong at home. Pacing around the room did nothing to calm him. He examined the golden-buttoned opener time and again in the firelight, brow wrinkled, wondering what powers it actually possessed. She had said that with it, he could go anywhere in the house and know his way, just as he had found his room without her help.
He moaned, shaking his fists at the air. “She can’t keep me here! She just can’t!”
At midnight, he couldn’t control himself any longer. He stood before the door. “Let me out, dammit!” he cried, and the door opened with a sad whisper. Tears shining on his cheeks, he ran down the corridor, scattering moonlight on the floor like dust.
Through the sitting rooms, the long halls of empty bedrooms—now with their doors closed, shades of sound sifting from behind—through the vast deserted kitchen, with its rows of polished copper kettles and huge black coal cookstoves, through a courtyard surrounded by five stories of the mansion on all sides and open to the golden-starred night sky, past a tiled fountain guarded by three huge white porcelain lions, ears and empty eyes following him as he ran, Oliver searched for Miss Parkhurst, to tell her he must leave.
For a moment, he slowed to catch his breath in an upstairs gallery. He saw faint lights under doors, heard more suggestive sounds. But this was no time to pause, even with his heart pounding and his lungs burning. If he waited in one place long enough, the ghosts might become real and force him join their revelry. This was Miss Parkhurst’s past, hoary and indecent, more than he could bear contemplating. How could anyone have lived this kind of life, even if they were cursed?
Yet the temptation to stop, to listen, to give in and join in was almost stronger than he could resist. He kept losing track of what he was doing, what his ultimate goal was.
“Where are you?” he shouted, throwing open double doors to a game room, empty but for startled ghosts, more of Miss Parkhurst’s eternity of bookkeeping. Pale forms rose from the billiard tables, translucent breasts shining with an inner light, their pale old lovers rolling slowly to one side, fat bellies prominent, ghost eyes black and startled.
“Miss Parkhurst!”
Oliver brushed through dozens of girls, no more substantial than curtains of raindrops. His new clothes became wet with their tears. She had presided over t
his eternity of sad lust. She had orchestrated the debaucheries, catered to what he felt inside him: the whims and deepest desires unspoken.
Thin antique laughter followed him.
He skidded on a spill of sour-smelling champagne and came up abruptly against a heavy wooden door, a room he did not know. The golden opener told him nothing about what waited beyond.
“Open!” he shouted, but was ignored. The door was not locked, but it resisted his push as if it weighed tons. He laid his shoulder on the paneling, bracing his sneakers against the thick wool pile of the champagne-soaked runner. The door finally swung inward with a deep iron and wood grumble, and Oliver stumbled past, saving himself at the last minute from falling on his face.
Legs sprawled, landing on both hands, he looked up from the wooden floor and saw where he was. The room was narrow, but stretched on for what might have been miles, lined on one side with an endless row of plain double beds and on the other with an endless row of freestanding cheval mirrors.
An old man, the oldest he had ever seen, naked and white as talcum, rose stiffly from the nearest bed, mumbling. Beneath him, red and warm as a pile of glowing coals, Miss Parkhurst lay with legs spread, incense of musk and sweat thick about her. She raised her head and shoulders, eyes fixed on Oliver’s, and pulled a black peignoir over her nakedness.
In the room’s receding gloom, other men, old and young, stood by their beds, smoking cigarettes or cigars or drinking champagne or whisky. All observing Oliver. Some grinned in speculation.
Suddenly, Miss Parkhurst’s face wrinkled like an old apple and she threw back her head to scream. The old man on the bed grabbed clumsily for a robe and his clothes. Her shriek echoed from the ceiling and the walls, driving Oliver back through the door, back down the halls and stairways. The wind of his flight chilled him to the bone in his tear-soaked clothing. Somehow he made his way through the abrupt darkness and emptiness, and shut himself in his room, where the fire still burned warm and cheery yellow.
Shivering uncontrollably, Oliver removed his tear-soaked clothes and in a high-pitched, frantic voice called for his old shirt and pants. But the invisible servants did not deliver what he requested.