Golden Girl (13 page)

“Oh, very good,” Lorcan breathed. “Didn’t think you had it in …”

His eyes closed, and he was snoring, sound asleep in a place outside of time.

I turned toward the gate I’d opened from the human world. I moved through it, and back around the corner and stepped up, and I was inside the world again. I pulled the gate shut. The lock turned and I opened my eyes, which I hadn’t realized I’d closed. I was in my dingy boardinghouse room. I was also alone.

I’d done it. Just like the prophecy said I could. I’d opened a gate where none had been before, and I’d closed it again. But I hadn’t made it go away. I could feel its warmth and shape at my back. I’d feel it every time I walked into this room from now on. I could feel something else too. I could feel Shake, my uncle Lorcan. Awareness of him sat heavily in the back of my head. He was asleep, yes, but he was also waiting for me to return, and if I didn’t, he’d wait forever.

My stomach lurched. All at once I was shaking like a leaf. I was hot. I was cold. I was weak as water. I was too full of energy. One feeling was stuffed inside the other, and they were all stuffed inside me, like I’d carried back all the contradictions from betwixt and between and now they were fighting it out with my everyday self. I’d almost fallen deep
into a home that saw me as a danger. I’d opened and closed gates between worlds. I’d put my uncle to sleep without knowing whether I’d be able to wake him up again. And according to the clock on the dresser, I’d done it without even one full minute passing by in this room.

I bolted down the hall and made it to the bathroom just in time to be sick in the sink.

Somebody was banging on the door.

“Callie? Callie, is that you in there?” called Mrs. Constantine. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. I just … I just need a minute.” I grabbed the edges of the sink and tried to stop the shakes. I looked up at myself in the mirror, blinked, and looked again. Had something changed around my eyes? I leaned closer. They looked brighter, shinier, maybe. I tried to tell myself it was my imagination. It didn’t come close to working. I’d changed. I’d stood on the threshold to my fairy home, and I’d let something into me, or maybe out of me, and I was not going back to the way I used to be.

I turned away fast and fumbled with the knob. Mrs. Constantine filled the hallway.

“Fine, she says!” My landlady snorted. “When she’s whiter than a sheet. Have you had anything to eat today at all?” she asked abruptly.

That question caught me off guard. “I … um … not since breakfast.”

“I thought so. Where’s that uncle of yours?”

“He’s … he’s out calling on the trade.”

“Hmph.” She frowned down the hallway. “Well, then, you’d best come along with me, young lady!”

The next thing I knew, I was being marched into the kitchen and made to sit in a chair. Mrs. Constantine turned her back on me and began bustling about, pulling bread out of the larder and cold cuts out of the icebox, talking the whole time about how nobody could be expected to do any kind of job when they weren’t feeding themselves properly and how I ought to have more sense, a great grown girl like me. She muttered and banged around that kitchen like she was giving orders to her pots and pans. Considering that I’d just seen my uncle ordering a bunch of rocks around, I really didn’t want to think about that, because it made me dizzy.

Mrs. Constantine slid a bologna and cheese sandwich and a glass of milk in front of me. “Now you eat that. You’re not going to be doing anyone any good if you’re starved.”

I didn’t want to eat, and then all of a sudden I did. I really was starving, which probably wasn’t normal after a person had just been sick, but I couldn’t help it. I wolfed down two bites of sandwich before I felt Mrs. Constantine’s frown, and remembered to slow down, chew, and show some manners, even if this was the best-tasting sandwich I’d ever eaten.

I’d expected my landlady to be angry when I told her I was leaving before my week was through, but once I told her the reason, she puffed up so far, she nearly busted the seams on her work dress. She made me promise I’d come
back when I got a day off to tell her all about Ivy Bright and life at the studio. She already had Miss Patty for movie gossip, of course, but Miss Patty only worked for a new starlet, not a world-famous star the way I did now. But this was past wanting the studio gossip. This came from the same part of her that made sure I wrote my mama and kept to the rules of the house so I wouldn’t get hurt. Mrs. Constantine was still looking out for me, the way she’d done since I washed up on her doorstep.

“Mrs. Constantine?” Sumner knocked on the back door. “Miss Callie, we need to get going, or—”

“The girl’s not going anywhere until she’s finished her sandwich,” announced Mrs. Constantine. “So you may as well come in and have one too.”

Mr. Sumner looked at me and my sandwich. I knew he wanted to protest, but there’s nothing stronger in this world than a woman in her kitchen when she’s got the need to feed.

I guess Mr. Sumner knew that too because he just took off his cap. “Well, I guess that’s how it’ll be, then.”

Mrs. Constantine made him a sandwich, then did up one for herself. We all sat at that table. I kept my mouth busy with chewing and let Mr. Sumner and Mrs. Constantine’s conversation wash over me. They talked about prices and work, and where each of them came from and how they’d gotten where they were. It was as steadying as the good bologna and bread, all normal and comfortable. Friendly. As simple as that word sounded, I felt it bone deep right then.

“Well, now, Mrs. Constantine, I thank you for that,” said Mr. Sumner when he pushed his plate away. “But I do have to get Miss Callie back.”

“I’ll go get my case.” I climbed to my feet. But halfway to the door, I stopped and turned. “Mrs. Constantine?” My landlady looked up at me, the remainder of her sandwich halfway to her mouth. “Mrs. Constantine, if you could wish for something, anything, what would it be?”

I thought she’d laugh. The question sounded ridiculous, but it didn’t feel ridiculous, and her face stayed serious. I don’t know whether it was magic or this little space of friendship we’d set up in her kitchen over sandwiches. She set the sandwich down and looked at her big rawboned hands. “I’d wish to hear from Sophie, I suppose,” she said. “Just to know she’s all right.”

I wasn’t surprised. I could have guessed it, but she had to say it. She had to wish. I opened my magic and saw her Sophie. She was in a cold-water flat in New York. She was working hard cleaning rooms, and wishing she hadn’t run away. She was wishing she could find the nerve to call home, and wondering if her mother would even talk to her, especially after she found out about the baby.

I nodded, muttered a good-bye, and hustled up the stairs to get my suitcase. I wanted to be out of the house before the phone rang.

When I got back downstairs, Mr. Sumner took my case. He had to shoo the latest group of kids off the running boards before he could open the car door for me. The Rolls pulled smoothly away. The boys chased after it, cheering and waving. I tried not to feel Shake’s extra weight in the back of my head. I told myself it wasn’t like I’d done anything permanent to him. I’d get him out as soon as I could figure out what to do about him. It was only fair anyhow. He meant to trick me; I’d just beaten him to it. But nothing eased that weight off my mind, and I was sure nothing would, not until I let Shake go.

I swallowed and tried to concentrate on what I needed to do next.

“Mr. Sumner?”

The chauffeur chuckled as he eased that big car around
the corner onto South Central. “Just Sumner, Miss Callie. What can I do for you?”

“Could you take me to the Dunbar Hotel?”

“Why would you want to go there?” Sumner shot me a glance in the rearview mirror.

“There’s somebody I’ve got to see. It’s important, and personal.” Mr. Robeson was a singer and they toured around a lot. I had no idea how long he’d be in town. If I was going to talk to him, I’d have to do it soon. But there was more to it than that. Given all that had happened just today, Jack and I might be in over our heads this time. We needed a friend. A real friend.

“Well … I guess it won’t do any harm. But make it quick, all right? If I’m not back on the lot to drive Mrs. Brownlow around, old Tully’ll have my hide.”

“Mine too.” I made myself smile the way Jack did, or the way Ivy did. “Miss Bright always dines at six.”

Sumner chuckled again. “We’d both better be quick, then.”

As he spoke, I felt Shake roll over in the back of my mind. I clenched my fists to try to keep from twitching. It sort of worked.

The Dunbar wasn’t the biggest hotel I’d ever seen, but it was done up fine, with plenty of marble, dark wood, and fresh flowers. To one side, doors opened on a restaurant with white cloths on the tables and a set of smells coming out of the kitchen that made me hungry all over again. On
the other side, matching doors led to the nightclub. They were closed, but you could hear the music clearly anyhow. Big, brassy horns slid into a river of jazz with a long piano line rolling underneath. After a couple of bars, it’d break off to the sound of laughter or cussing, then start up again. The folks crossing the lobby or standing at the desk were all turned out in their best. The men sported sharp hats and the ladies stylish dresses, and every last one of them had black skin.

I walked through that grand lobby feeling strange, like I’d put my shoes on the wrong feet. I’d never lived anywhere with lots of Negroes. I was used to thinking about all the places I couldn’t go if anybody found out my papa was a black man. I’d never thought about how black folks—how we—might make new places where we could be ourselves.

The clerk on the desk had light brown skin and his hair was arranged in gleaming curls. He looked me up and down carefully. My mission-store clothes didn’t seem to fit too well right then.

“Can I help you, miss?” he asked in the kind of voice that meant
This better be good
. I straightened up and met his eyes. No matter how fine, the Dunbar was a hotel, and if there was one thing I knew, it was how to behave in a hotel.

“You can call Mr. Robeson’s room and say Callie LeRoux would like to speak with him.”

“One moment, please.” The clerk picked up the house phone and dialed.

While I waited, I watched the lobby around me. I liked
being here. I liked the way the smell of good cooking and the music wrapped around me, bringing the feel of the people with them. The halting jazz was filled with the satisfaction and frustration of making something grow, bit by bit, note by note. I wondered what it’d be like to work in a place like this, where I wouldn’t have to worry about my coarse hair or my skin, which turned too brown in the sun. I didn’t think much about my own life. There’d never been time for it. I’d always had something or somebody else to look out for, even before the Unseelies and their magic had barreled over my world. But right then I wondered. I knew how a hotel ran. I was a good cook. What if one day I came back here and got a job? Or … what if I opened my own place?

It came over me like a burst of light. I could make a place too. We could even do it together: me, Mama, and Papa. It’d be a supper club, one of the fancy places where all the ladies wore their best gowns and the gentlemen dressed in black tie. We’d call it LeRoux’s, or better yet, the Midnight Club. Papa would play the piano and lead the band. Mama would run the kitchen, turning out the best food for miles around. I could help her, and hostess, and maybe sing with the band on Friday nights. Nobody would have to hide who they were or who they were with when they came to the Midnight Club. Everybody could eat and drink and enjoy the music right out in the open.

The force of that sudden dream rooted me to the spot. It was too strong. It was like starvation. Once it was inside, there wasn’t room for anything else.

“Miss? Miss LeRoux?”

I shook myself and turned back to the clerk. He didn’t frown, exactly, but he pretty much had me pegged for the hayseed I was. “I’m sorry, Mr. Robeson isn’t in. Would you care to leave a message?”

“Um … yes. Say Callie LeRoux is sorry she missed her appointment this morning but she would like to speak with him as soon as he’s available.” I told the clerk where I was staying. He didn’t even bat an eye at the studio address, just took it all down and tucked the note into one of the pigeonholes behind the desk.

I thanked him and walked out of there, still dazed from the dream of a future that had washed through me.

Dear Mama
, I thought, in the way that was fast becoming a habit.
Dear Mama …

But I couldn’t get any further. I didn’t know how to compress my dream into words. It was all too big and too new. I drifted back out to the waiting car, not seeing what was in front of me. I barely heard my own answer when Sumner asked where I wanted to go. It was like being betwixt and between all over again. Nothing was solid except this new idea of the Midnight Club.

Sumner drove me to the grocer’s, the baker’s, and the butcher’s to pick up what I needed to stock Ivy’s pantry. I’d hardly ever seen so much food in my life, at least not food I could afford to buy. A day before, I would have been paralyzed by my choices. Now, though, I walked between the bins and past the counters, and thought about whether
what I saw would fit on the menu for the Midnight Club. I even peeked in at the fishmonger’s. I’d only ever eaten catfish, and only knew one way to cook that. But Mama would know how to use all these other kinds they had laid out on beds of crushed ice. One of our games at the Imperial was to get down her cookbooks and make up menus for the day the dust storms eased and the guests came back. Memory of that game got tied up in the daydream, and I was able to start my new letter, writing in my imagination as though I really was setting up the club.

Mama, do you think we should have filet of sole or turbot? And what about oysters on the half shell? Do you think the china should be plain white with the club’s name on it, or should we use the white-on-black motif?
I wasn’t entirely sure what a motif was, but I liked the way it sounded.