“Him?” Violet’s eyes glittered with interest. “Who?”
“Young Mr. Gandy, that who.” While she continued her story, Ruby stitched steadily, her eyes on her work. “Took to gamblin’ on the riverboats, an’ he git wind Ivory an’ me workin’ the Delta Star outta Natchez. I was doin’ what I was doin’, and Ivory, he was a roustabout—roosters, they called ‘em. ‘Hey, rooster, we got to double trip this load,’ they’d call, and them poor deckhands has to unload a hunnerd tons o’ cargo to lighten the load when the river she’s low, then load it all again when the captain come back after leavin’ off the first half upstream. They got to cut firewood an’ dive under when we hit snags—don’t mattuh how many snakes in that watuh! Cap’n say dive, roosters they dive. Poor Ivory, he never been whupped before, not while he work for old mastuh Gandy. And me, I nevuh know how good Waverley is till I go ‘way on my own.
“So after the war is over, young boss he find Ivory workin’ deckhand, bein’ whupped by dat bastuhd mate, Gilroy, whenever he took a mind to whup ‘im. An’ me and the girls here, workin’ that floatin’ crib, hatin’ every minute of it. Hogg, too—Gandy’s bartender?—he a fireman, workin’ in that stinkin’ engine room, standin’ in river water to his knees. An’ Marcus, playin’ banjo but gittin’ laughed at ‘cause his tongue ain’t right an’ he can’t mutter nuthin’. We all on board one day when the cap’n send down the order t’ tie down the valve—ice jam ahead. Jack Hogg, he says, ‘Can’t do it, suh. She ready to blow now, suh.’ Cap’n holluh, ‘Tie de son-bitch down and stroke ‘er good, fireman. I got apples and lemons’ll be worth half as much, that suckuh Rasmussen beat me to Omaha!’
“So Jack Hogg, he ties ‘er down. Next thing you know, Jack Hogg an’ most the res’ o’ us flyin’ th’ough the air like we on our way to glory land. But we all live. Marcus, he up front plink-a-plinkin’ in the gamblin’ saloon, where Mistuh Gandy sit gamblin’ and jus’ win hisself a pot o’ money, so them two all right. Me an’ the girls, we strollin’ the decks, lookin’ for our nex’ lay, so we fly straight into the water. Ivory, he lucky, too. He up by d’ woodpile, gittin’ set to load some down. But Jack, he down by the boiler. He scarred bad.
“Young Mr. Gandy, he take care of us all, though. ‘Riverboat days endin’,’ he says. ‘Got to git out while there’s someplace else to git to.’ He say he got friends—us. ‘Nuff poke to start a saloon. Got Marcus to play the banjo. Ivory—shoot, Ivory ain’t cut out to be no rooster nohow. Ivory, he a piano man, an’ the boss know it. And Jack Hogg, he never want to be near no boiler again, but he tend bar, soon as he heal. An’ Pearl an’ Jube an’ me—no more entuhtainin’ the gennulmen, huh, girls? We young. We pretty. We gonna be dancin’ girls, the boss say. And what we think ‘bout that?
“We say, whatever you say, boss.
“He say only one place t’ make money quick. Head o’ the Chisholm Trail, where the railroads is. So we come, an’ the cowboys come. An’ things is better than they been since before the war. We ain’t fam’ly, but we ‘bout as close as can be without bein’ kin blood. That why when Mr. Gandy say sew, we sew, right, girls?”
The girls agreed.
Agatha sat through Ruby’s recital with growing surprise. Gandy was their benefactor? He had taken these three women away from a life of iniquity? “You mean, you don’t...” Her glance took in Ruby, Pearl, and Jubilee. “You’re not...”
Jubilee laughed. Unlike Ruby’s laugh, hers was light and lilting and seemed to match her wonderful uptilted eyes. “Prostitutes? Not anymore. Like Ruby said, just dancers now. And it’s a welcome change. No more whiskey tongues choking us. No more greasy hands pawing us. No more... oh!” Jubilee noted Agatha’s dropped gaze, her florid cheeks. “I’m sorry, Miss Downing. Never learned my manners proper.”
“Like Jube says,” added Pearl, “it’s a sight better, just dancin’. And we’re good dancers, too, aren’t we, girls? And pretty fair singers, though Jube outshines Ruby and me in that department. Wait’ll you hear her, Miss Downing, you won’t believe it. Scotty says she’s got a voice that’d shame a mockingbird.”
“Oh, Pearl, you’re always saying that.” Jubilee turned bright eyes on the pair of milliners. “But wait till you see Pearl’s high kick. Why, when Pearl starts kicking, you’d better hang your lantern someplace else, or she’ll put it out! Isn’t that right, Ruby?”
Ruby laughed her throaty rumble. “Tha’s right. Pearl got a li’l specialty she perfec’ed. She can kick the hat off any man ‘thout rearrangin’ one hair on his head, can’t ya, honey?”
Now it was Pearl’s turn to laugh. “But it was Ruby’s idea. Ruby’s always the one with the best ideas. Tell ‘em about your disappearing trick, Ruby.”
“Aw, go on.” Ruby flapped a pink palm.
“Well, the men sure love it.”
“The men—humph!—what them men know anyhow?”
“Tell ‘em, Ruby,” they both cajoled.
“Tell us, tt-tt.”
“Tell ‘em yourself, if you think it’s anythin’ two ladies like them’d wanna hear.”
Pearl told it. “Scotty’s gone straight now, but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t palm a card if he wanted to. Well, back on the riverboat, he showed Ruby a little sleight of hand and Ruby put it to work in our act. She can get any man’s watch and chain without him knowin’ what she’s up to. And by the time he finds out it’s missing—where do you suppose it turns up?”
Against her will, Agatha was captivated. “Where?” she asked.
“Yes, where?” Violet repeated eagerly.
Pearl cupped a hand around her mouth and answered in a stage whisper, “Between her bosoms, that’s where!”
Violet covered her mouth. “Tt-tt.”
Agatha pinkened. “Oh... oh my!” Yet she was less horrified than she’d have been a week ago. There was something infectious about this trio. Perhaps it was their great camaraderie or their unselfish pride in one another. It seemed unusual that three women in their line of work could harbor so little jealousy among themselves.
“It’s surprising,” Pearl went on. “A man’ll do near anything when you’re alone with him behind a locked door, but put him in public and he’ll blush like a fool at the least teasing. Now, when Ruby lets a man’s watch chain dangle out of her bodice—and he has to pull it all the way out if he wants it back—why, you’ve never seen a funnier sight. Especially if the watch is made of gold. Gold warms up faster than silver, just bein’ against your skin. And when they feel that warm gold...”
“Now, Pearl,” interrupted Jubilee, “you’re forgetting these are ladies we’re visiting with. You can’t talk to them like we talk to one another.”
“Oh! Oh, you’re right.” Pearl colored becomingly. “Didn’t mean to make you uneasy, Miss Downing, or you either, Miss Parsons. Sometimes my tongue runs away with me.”
“It’s quite all right. You see, Violet and I had the mistaken impression that you were going to do much more than dance at the Gilded Cage. Since you aren’t, we’re quite relieved. Well!” Agatha snipped a thread and tended to business because she didn’t quite know how to respond to the subject under discussion. “All we have to do is string the cord through the top and we’re finished.”
“How’re we going to do that?” Jubilee asked, staring at the casing.
Agatha got up and limped toward the supply cabinet. “It’s quite simp—”
“Why, Miss Downing, you’re limping!” Jubilee exclaimed.
Agatha felt a rush of blood, a moment of awkwardness as she wondered how to respond to such a blatant observation. Thank heavens she was reaching into the honeycombed case for a hank of cord and a thick darning needle. By the time she faced the group again, she’d regained her poise. “It’s nothing.”
“Nothing? But—”
“I’ve had it for years. I’m used to it by now.” But Jubilee’s beautiful almond eyes were wide with concern.
“You mean you weren’t born that way?”
Oh, dear, how dre
adfully acute she is, thought Agatha. Isn’t she bright enough to know she’s being tactless? Rattled, Agatha nevertheless answered truthfully, “No.”
“Then how did it happen?”
“I fell down some stairs when I was a young girl.”
Agatha could tell Violet was curious, too. Oddly enough, in the years they’d known each other Violet had never ventured to ask these questions.
Jubilee looked smack down at Agatha’s skirts. “Oh, gosh, you poor girl. How awful!” Several thoughts struck Agatha at once: it had been years since anyone had called her a girl; Jubilee was not being nosy, but, in her naïve way, compassionate; because of this, Agatha could no longer be annoyed.
Jubilee followed her first impulse. “Here, let me help you with that.” She approached Agatha, closed the door of the cabinet for her, and took the items from her hands. Chattering, she carried them back to their chairs. “And here we are talking about high kicks. We should have known better, but how could we? Still, it doesn’t seem fair, does it?”
Agatha found it disconcerting to have her recurring thoughts spoken by a woman who was supposed to be “wicked.” She couldn’t help warming to the impetuous Jubilee.
“I’m not an invalid, Miss Jubilee,” she advised her with a wry smile. “I can carry my own needle and cord.”
“Oh!” Jubilee glanced at the things in her hands and gave a fluttery laugh. “Oh, of course you’re not! What’s the matter with me?” She stuffed the cording back into Agatha’s hand and passed her the needle.
How could anyone help but be charmed by Jubilee Bright? Nobody ever confronted Agatha’s lameness head-on. Now that she’d adjusted to the direct questioning, it became a welcome change from the sidelong glances of curiosity she usually received. And Jubilee did it with such refreshing lack of embarrassment Agatha felt her own tongue loosening.
“I do quite well, actually. Stairs are the worst, and I live upstairs.” She pointed up.
“Upstairs? You mean above the store?” Jubilee peered at the stamped-tin ceiling.
“Yes.”
“Then we’re going to be neighbors!” When Jubilee smiled she was a breathtaking sight, all sparkle and animation. The tilt of her wide eyes matched that of her open lips, giving her a look of youthful eagerness. She must have been greedily sought after in her former profession, Agatha thought. “We’re going to be living upstairs, too, so listen, if there’s ever anything we can do to help you—haul things up and down, or run and fetch—you be sure to call on us.” Jubilee turned to her friends. “Isn’t that right, girls?”
“Sure thing,” Pearl agreed. “We sleep late in the mornings, but we always have afternoons free.”
“Me, I’m strong as a horse, and I was born takin’ orders,” claimed Ruby. “Any way I can he’p, just beller.”
How was Agatha supposed to dislike these three? Whatever their pasts, Ruby, Pearl, and Jubilee appeared to have intrinsic generosity that ran deeper than that in some of the Presbyterians she knew.
“Thank you all, but for now, just stretch the top of the curtain flat so I can get the cord through the casing.”
“How you going to do that?” Jubilee inquired.
“Easily. Tie the cord through the eye of the needle and run it through backward.” Jubilee’s eyes grew bigger and bigger as she held the edge of the red satin and watched Agatha work. “Balls o’ fire, would you look at that!”
A spurt of laughter escaped Agatha. “You girls certainly have colorful language.”
“Sorry, ma’am. It’s where we’ve worked. But that’s amazing.”
“What?” Agatha busied herself pursing the fabric on the cord.
“That! What you’re doing! How’d you learn such tricks?”
“My mother taught me.”
“Why, I never would’ve thought of a thing like that. I’m lucky I can tie my own boot strings.”
Agatha had known how to thread a casing for so long she took it for granted. She looked up at Jubilee’s entranced almond eyes and felt a flicker of pride in her work.
“I’ve been doing it so long it’s second nature to me.”
“You sure are lucky, knowing a trade like you do.”
“Lucky?” When was the last time Agatha had thought of herself as lucky?
“And having a mother to teach you. I didn’t have a mother. I mean, she died when I was born, they tell me. Lived in St. Luke’s Orphanage when I was little.” Suddenly she flashed a mischievous smile. “Wonder what those nuns would say if they could see me now?” There wasn’t the faintest note of self-pity in Jubilee’s revelation. With a quicksilver shift of expression, she became engrossed in Agatha’s occupation again. “Your mother, did she teach you lots of sewing tricks? I mean, like how to make dresses and petticoats and other things besides hats?”
“Well, actually, yes, I make all my own clothing.”
“All your own! You mean you made that?” She took Agatha by an elbow and inspected the intricate shaping of her bodice—welts, gussets, flutes, and tucks. She turned to her and exclaimed, “Would you look at this, girls!” The three of them examined the details of Agatha’s Austrian draped tie-back, and her even more elaborate cascading bustle. “That’s some fancy work!”
They oohed and ahhed, even Ruby, who was handy with a needle herself.
“Petticoats, too?” Before Agatha could object, they lifted her rear hem to inspect the cagelike bustle, which fell from waist to heels in a set of horizontal ribs securely set in white cotton. Agatha was so surprised, she forgot to object.
“She could do it, couldn’t she?” Jubilee asked Ruby.
“Do what?” Agatha demanded.
“Do what?” repeated Violet.
The girls ignored them. Jube was waiting for an answer. “Couldn’t she?”
Ruby closely studied the construction of Agatha’s clothing. “I b’lieve she could.”
“Do what?” Violet insisted.
“Make those new skirts we been wanting for that French dance.”
“New skirts?”
“French dance?”
“The cancan,” Pearl informed them. “No offense, Miss Agatha, but I’ve been practicing my high kick especially for it. But I can’t do the cancan without one of those ruffled skirts.”
“Ruffles run clear around in layers,” Ruby added, gesturing. “Like the old crinolines, only inside the skirt.”
“You could do it!” Jubilee said enthusiastically. “I know you could, and I’ll talk to Gandy about paying—”
“Please, ladies, please!” Agatha held up both palms. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”
They all talked at once.
“What you mean...”
“Oh, please say you will...”
“But where else are we going to...”
Agatha chuckled, beleaguered but flattered by their enthusiasm. “I can’t. How would it look if the president of the local W.C.T.U. sewed costumes for the saloon dancers? The cover of the cage was bad enough, but if I do any more somebody is sure to find out. And furthermore, I have no sewing machine.”
Three dejected dancers looked around to find it was true.
“Oh, damn,” Pearl said, plopping down on a chair, “that’s right.”
“Pearl, you mustn’t use such words,” Agatha reprimanded gently, touching her shoulder.
With her chin in her palm, Pearl sulked. “I suppose not. But I’m disappointed.”
“You know...” Agatha struggled a moment. Finally, she admitted, “So am I. I could have used the business, but I guess you can see it is neither possible nor advisable.”
Violet began, “But, Agatha, couldn’t we—”
“No, Violet, it’s out of the question. Girls, you saw how long it took five of us to hem this. Ruffles require yards and yards of hemming. And to do it by hand... well, I doubt Mr. Gandy would be willing to pay for my time.”
“You let us handle Mr. Gandy.”
“I’m sorry, Jubilee, really I must say no.”
The gir
ls continued looking glum. Finally Jubilee sighed. “I guess we might as well go, then. Should we take this with us now?” She lifted the red silk between two fingers.
“You may as well. It’ll save me taking it over, and Mr. Gandy’s already paid me for it.”
“Well, thanks for the rush job, Miss Downing. You, too, Miss Parsons. If you change your minds, let us know.”
As Pearl opened the back door, Agatha suggested, “Perhaps you can order the dresses from St. Louis or... or...” It suddenly struck Agatha how absurd her suggestion was. Cancan dresses weren’t exactly advertised in the ready-made catalogues.
“Sure,” Jubilee said. Then they filed out despondently.
When they were gone, Violet gazed at the door. “Well, my stars,” she said breathily, touching her temples.
“My sentiments exactly,” Agatha rejoined, dropping into her chair. “That’s the most zest this old shop has seen since it opened.”
“They’re wonderful!” Violet exclaimed.
Yes, thought Agatha sadly, they are. “But we cannot befriend them, Violet, you know that. Not when we’ve just been voted officers of the temperance union.”
“Oh, bosh! They don’t sell spirits. And they’re not ladies of the evening anymore. They just dance. Didn’t you hear them?”
“But their dancing promotes the sale of spirits. It’s all the same.”
Violet’s mouth pursed. For the second time in several hours she declared in a piqued voice, “Sometimes, Agatha, you’re no fun at all!” Then, leading with her chin, she left the shop for the day.
Alone, Agatha pondered the strange afternoon. She’d felt more alive than she had in years. She’d laughed and for a time completely forgotten that the young women were unsuitable clientele for her millinery shop. She had simply enjoyed them instead. But most amazing of all was that she’d actually told them about her accident. It had felt wonderful. And the girls had been amusing. But now that the hubbub had died down, she felt depressed. She wondered what it felt like to be part of a sorority such as that shared by Jubilee, Pearl, and Ruby, to be true friends as they were. Violet was her friend, but not in the sense that the three young dancers were friends. They radiated a real understanding and acceptance of one another, a pride in their limited accomplishments, and an amazing lack of competition. Also, they had the group they called their “family”—not a real family, but better, perhaps, because they were related by choice, not by blood. And that “family” was headed by a riverboat gambler they followed as if he were the Messiah. Curious. Enviable.