LITMIR.BIZ

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couldn’t help herself, and she reached out to touch the gaudy dressing gown. “It’s beautiful,” she murmured with awe. “Some day I’d like to send my mum one just like it.”

      Madge eyed Callie suspiciously but found no hint of mockery in her face. Her youth and innocence almost brought tears to Madge’s eyes. Oh, no you don’t, Madge Collins, she scolded herself, there’s no such thing as a whore with a heart of gold and you know it! She looked down into Callie’s sweet face and saw the clear blue eyes fringed with thick black lashes. The kid’s gonna be a beauty, her experienced eye told her. “A gentleman friend brought me this from Paris. That’s Paris, France,” she clarified. “Once it had feathers up here, but they all molted like the bird they came from.”

      “Even without the feathers, it’s beautiful! My mum would look like a stage actress in that. I know it must have cost a fortune, and your gentleman friend must have thought very highly of you to bring it all the way from France. I know I’ll never see Paris, France.”

      “Don’t say never,” Madge said. “I used to say things like ‘never’ and ‘ever’ and ‘forever’ and look at me. I got me this dressing gown fit for a queen and who’d ’ve thought it? Not me, I’ll tell ya! Say, you look hungry and so’m I. When’s the last time you had something to eat?”

      “Yesterday. I didn’t even have time for tea this morning, thank you, Mrs. . . .”

      “Collins. But you call me Madge, you hear? A little thing like you needs to eat regular. Come with me.” Madge ushered Callie down the dark hallway to the kitchen. “Let’s have some bacon, potatoes, and eggs. How’s that sound? Do you like buttermilk? I think there’s some in the window box, and it should be nice and cold, considering the weather we’ve had recently. I’ve got some fresh bread, and we can have some of that wild strawberry jam I made last summer,” she said proudly. “Why’nt you get the buttermilk? It’s right outside that window.”

      Callie lifted the grimy window to fetch the milk out of the little window box. The aroma of frying bacon and potatoes was ambrosia to her senses, and the sizzle of the eggs frying in the fat was music to her ears. When Madge put her plate down in front of her, Callie felt light-headed just looking at it. “I’m almost afraid to eat it. It’s been so long I’m afraid I’ll get sick.”

      “Eat slow and chew it well and your stomach won’t object.” Jesus, now where had she heard that? Madge wondered with a start. She sounded like her own mother. The feeling was nice. “After we eat, you’re gonna have a bubble bath. Did you ever have a bubble bath?”

      “Ma’am, my mum kept us real clean. I got a bath once or twice a week, whenever we could afford the peat for the fire to heat water. Lately its been cold water for all of us. We were poor,” she said quietly.

      “Kid, I’ve been poor myself. I know what it’s all about. You sit there and eat while I heat some water. I’m gonna scrub you down myself and wash your hair. What happened to it, anyways?”

      “They cut it off because they said I had lice.”

      Madge held her fork poised in mid-air. “Do you?” She hated vermin of any kind.

      “No. They just said that so they could cut my hair and sell it to wigmakers. It was a. . .” She searched for the right word. “Scam.”

      “Now where would a kid like you hear a word like that?”

      “A kid like me had it done to her. I have eyes and ears, and that’s what I heard them say it was. But I don’t have lice and never did. You can look in my hair if you don’t believe me.”

      “I believe you, I believe you,” Madge declined the offer. “I hate cooties, hate ’em more than anything. Only thing to do for them is to wash your hair with kerosene and that burns like hell.” Madge studied her young guest and felt her heart swell as Callie popped a potato into her mouth. How young she was, and how alone, with no one but that pimp Owen to thank for her living. Madge sighed heavily.

      “Mrs. Collins . . . Madge. What will you do with me after the bath? What kind of work will I do here?”

      “I have to give it some thought. But you can believe one thing and it ain’t two. I’ll do what’s best for you. I promise you that. Here, have another slice of bread and more jam. Put some meat on those bones.” Madge herself reached for the jam jar and spread it thickly on the bread.

      “Do you work for my cousin Owen?”

      “In a manner of speaking. I think it’d be more truthful to say we’re sort of partners.”

      “What do you do?”

      “I guess you could say I deal in services. Yeah, I sell my services.”

      “Does that mean you’re a lady of the evening?” Callie asked quietly.

      Madge suppressed a chuckle. Owen was right. This kid was no dummy. “Of the evening and the morning and afternoon. Whatever, whenever.”

      “And my cousin thinks I’m going to learn the trade from you. Is that why he brought me here?”

      “No, kid, no. He brought you here because he had nowhere else to take you. You’re so young. The other girls . . . well, the other girls are older. Twenty, and even as old as twenty-five. Good girls, all of them, they do what they’re told and don’t make trouble. That’s how we all make out.”

      Callie worked on her plate of eggs and drained her glass of buttermilk dry. “You just sit there, give your stomach a rest. The water isn’t hot enough yet for your bath. You’ll have to do some fancy soaking, and we’ve got to air out those clothes of yours. And wash your drawers and things. Maybe we’ve got some things around here that’ll fit you.”

      “What will you do with me?”

      “The Lord only knows. Just trust me, kid. Can you do that?”

      “How many girls work here?”

      “You’re the nosey one, ain’t you. There’s nine girls, including me and a woman who works in the kitchen. None of us are much at cooking and cleaning.”

      “You are, Madge. That was the best plate of eggs I ever ate!”

      The compliment endeared Callie to Madge forever. “Come along now,” she instructed, “you can help me carry the tub in here, and we’ll put it in front of the stove where it’s warm. You fill it, and I’ll get some towels and clean clothes for you. Where’s your baggage?”

      “In the parlor. I don’t have anything much, and everything smells just the same as I do.” Callie’s back stiffened against the shame of it. She knew she sounded defensive, but she couldn’t help it. “I am what I am,” she told Madge. “Take me or leave me, it’s your choice.”

      “Couldn’t have said it better myself. We’ll get along just fine. You do what I say and we won’t have any problems.”

      “Is that the same thing as saying, ‘If I want your opinion, I’ll tell you what it is’?”

      Madge roared with laughter. Callie noticed she didn’t answer, though.

      By the time the final rinse water was carted off and Callie was wrapped in a large towel, the house began to take on life. The cook arrived and was busy getting dinner ready for “her girls.” The gentlemen would start arriving when darkness fell. Madge wrapped a smaller towel around Callie’s head and headed her in the direction of the stairs, but first she stopped in the front parlor to introduce Callie to what she called her constituents. It was hard to guess their ages with all the makeup the women had on their faces. None of them seemed as old as Madge, but neither were any of them as young as Callie. Seasoned was what Madge called them. Callie made a note to figure all of that out later.

      “Listen, ladies, I have an announcement to make. I won’t be working this evening.” If Madge had dropped a bomb, she couldn’t have gotten a better reaction. It was obvious that Madge never took time off. The second bomb dropped when she announced

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