Fahn froze.
For a moment he felt relief, thinking the words of the dowdy old cook had found purchase in the jagged reaches of Fahn’s imagination. Then she fastened the top of the basket and stared back at Mrs. Blackwell and nodded at Ernest.
“You don’t need to worry about me. I’ll find my own way. The Tangerine will want me back now that I’m all grown up. Or the Aloha Club.”
“But…those are just run-down cribs,” Ernest said.
“We all have to start off somewhere,” she said as she stormed past him.
He could smell perfume, something she must have stolen from upstairs.
“If you leave us, child, you know there’s no coming through that door again,” Mrs. Blackwell said. “If Madam Flora hadn’t lost her wits, things might be different, but you know Miss Amber—she refuses to stand for this kind of nonsense, especially from the help, of all people. She won’t take you back and she won’t give you a recommend to your next employer when you come to your senses. Please, just calm down, girl—think about what you’re doing.”
Fahn continued without looking back, down the hallway, across the foyer, past a startled Professor True, and toward the front door.
Ernest sprinted upstairs to find Maisie. He hoped she could talk some sense into Fahn, but the Mayflower wasn’t in her room. He ran to his bedroom and threw open a window, from which he could see Fahn wending her way around drunks in the street.
“Fahn!” he called out past throngs of bewildered onlookers. He wanted to give chase, but he couldn’t. As upset as he was, he was also worried about Maisie.
“Fahn, please…come back!” Ernest drew a deep breath and was about to shout again when he noticed everyone on the street staring up at him, regarding the queer sight of a young man hollering from the third-story window of the most famous brothel in the Garment District.
And he fell silent.
Fahn turned and shifted the basket to her other arm. She looked as lovely as ever, but breathtakingly sad. Even from a distance he could see that her cheeks were wet from tears. She touched her heart and then blew him a kiss, staring back at the Tenderloin as though soaking it all in, as though proudly, stubbornly saying goodbye for good.
Ernest heard someone behind him. He turned and saw Jewel standing in the doorway. “At least you tried, Ernest.”
When he looked back out the window, Fahn was gone.
—
ERNEST HURRIED DOWN the hallway in search of Maisie. Her door was ajar, her room still empty, so he followed the sounds of shouting and crying, which led him to Madam Flora’s room. Maisie was in tears, arguing with Miss Amber, while Madam Flora sat at her rolltop desk, which was open and littered with documents, invitations, and bundles of cash. The grande dame appeared to have fallen into a stupor, a tangle of confusion and detachment. She looked neither happy nor sad, present nor particularly absent—she just stared at her desk, absently touching papers as though searching for something she’d lost.
Ernest felt relief wash over him that Maisie was at least fighting back now.
“You’re just going to scare her,” Miss Amber was arguing.
“Mama,” Maisie kept calling. “Mama, it’s me.” She was trying to push her way past Miss Amber, reaching for her mother, but Miss Amber held her back.
Madam Flora turned her head slowly and looked on in surprise.
Miss Amber pulled Maisie back. “Stop this ruckus and stop being so selfish. She doesn’t even know you anymore, girl—you’ll only set her off. She barely knows me in her present state. This is why we couldn’t ask you, we had to tell you. Her treatment will cost a bloody fortune, but it’s her only hope.”
Maisie kept struggling.
“You have to do this—for all of us—there’s no other way.” Miss Amber held Maisie by the shoulders and spun her around so she faced Madam Flora. “Look at her!”
“She’s my mother!” Maisie shouted. “She’d never do this to me! She’d never turn me out like one of the other girls—I’m her hummingbird…”
Maisie broke free and shook her mother, yelling, “MAMA!”
Madam Flora grimaced, put her hands up, and recoiled in fear—her wide, panicked eyes rolling away as she curled up into her chair.
Miss Amber grabbed Maisie by an arm and by the hair on the back of her head and wrestled her, kicking and screaming, until the girl stumbled and fell to her hands and knees.
“Don’t you do this to her,” Miss Amber hissed as she towered over the fallen girl and reached for a leather belt. “You’re only making it worse.”
Ernest jumped between them.
“Oh, get out of the way,” Miss Amber said, more annoyed than angry.
Ernest drew a deep breath and stared back, unmoving.
Miss Amber coiled the end of the belt around her fist and raised the dangling, buckled strap high in the air. “I’ll fire you.”
Ernest slowly shook his head.
Miss Amber hesitated, her arm trembling in anger before she realized her bluff had been called. She gritted her teeth in frustration and then dropped the belt. She walked away with her hands on her wide hips. “Glory, what a spectacle we’ve become. And look at you. The truth is, girl,” Miss Amber said, “Flora didn’t even want you—do you know that? But she had you and she kept you around, hoping to get more money later. When that fool went flat broke her plan got washed away. You should count your lucky stars that she kept you, somehow grew to love you, because you owe her everything, from the roof over your head to the custom-tailored clothes on your back, to your pretty little figure and your dimples and your button nose—everything.”
Ernest helped Maisie to her feet. From the look on her face, he could see Miss Amber’s words had wounded her more deeply than the belt ever could. She shook off his arm.
“What about the man who gave us the motorcar?” Ernest interrupted. “Fahn once said that he offered thousands of dollars—”
“For Maisie,” Miss Amber cut him off. “Louis J. Turnbull offered five thousand dollars for Madam Flora’s little sister. Five. Thousand. Dollars.”
Ernest watched the fight drain from Maisie’s face.
Miss Amber kept speaking. “For you, dear—he couldn’t have Flora, so he wanted the next best thing—he wanted you when you came of age. And Flora said no. She protected you. She always protected you, didn’t she? But these are desperate times. Just look at her—now she’s all but lost to us, and the bloody French disease has gone to her head. And you’re right—the great, elegant, magnanimous Madam Florence Nettleton would never do such an unthinkable thing on her own, would she? So I had to make the hard, thankless decision for all of us.”
Maisie stared back, her shoulders rising and falling with each weary breath.
“But you’re so stubborn, so mule-headed. We both know I can’t do this to you if you don’t agree to go along willingly.” Miss Amber rubbed her scalp beneath her wig, her voice trembling with emotion. “So there it is, I’ve said my piece. I said what I think should happen, and it’s the only way I know to make this better, the only way to save her. That’s why you must decide for yourself now. Whether she sees the proper doctors, goes to a decent hospital, whether she lives or dies—it’s all on you now.”
“Maisie, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” Ernest said quickly. “There’s got to be some other way—we’ll sell the car…”
Maisie approached her mother again, and this time Miss Amber didn’t stop her. Slowly, lovingly, Maisie reached out and placed her hands atop her mother’s hands.
Madam Flora smiled. She held her daughter and then ran her fingers through Maisie’s hair as though she were a porcelain doll, a child’s plaything to be dressed up and served finger sandwiches and petits fours at make-believe tea parties.
Ernest watched Maisie look into her mother’s eyes, seeking recognition in Madam Flora’s vacant expression.
“Mama, don’t you know who I am?”