“What now?” she snapped, blowing out the candle that she had used to heat a curling iron. “Let me guess. A few gents come early tonight? Tell ’em I’ll be right down.”
Ernest shook his head. “No one is here yet. It’s just me. I have a question…”
“Speak your mind, kid, but make it quick. You’re wasting time and I’m sure there are things you need to busy yourself with downstairs. Is the car gassed up and ready? I have a few gentlemen who might need a ride tonight.”
Ernest nodded. He cleared his throat as he searched for the right combination of words that could somehow change Miss Amber’s mind. Then he held out his money and the winning ticket. “I know you’re only doing what’s best for Madam Flora. And I understand how sick she is and all, and that if we don’t do something quick, she’ll only get worse, and no one wants that. But…”
“Ah, geez Louise…”
Ernest spoke faster. “There must be another answer. I don’t have much…” He handed her his money and the gold pin. Then he held up the ticket. “Maybe we could figure out an arrangement. I could work here for free, for as long as it takes to pay off the amount that the Tenderloin would be making for Maisie.”
“You want her?” Miss Amber stared at him, confused.
“Yes. I mean, no,” Ernest stammered. “It’s not that. I don’t want her to do this at all. You could even sell my services, maybe Mr. Turnbull needs a houseboy or a driver—I could ask him to loan you the money you need for Madam Flora’s treatment. Then I would work without pay, for as long as it takes…”
Miss Amber took a long final drag on her cigarette and then snuffed it out. “That’s a sweet idea, kid, and the sentiment isn’t lost on me. I think my heart skipped a beat. Wait…there it goes—it’s beating again. See, you almost killed me.”
Ernest stared back, frustrated, loathing her.
She shook her head. “Look, I live in the real world. Besides, Louis Turnbull could buy a hundred other girls and a hundred thousand servants like you. But that’s not what he’s after—he wants the Mayflower, so he gets the Mayflower. Understand? Trust me, we’re just lucky that we happen to have something he wants so badly. The way I see it, this is fate paying back a kindness to Flora for not giving up Maisie in the first place.”
She lit another cigarette and put on her wig. She spoke to Ernest, addressing his reflection in a three-way mirror. “I only needed one good reason to turn Maisie out, and that’s our Madam Flora’s well-being. But this man has given me five thousand reasons.”
“This”—she waved her hand at the ticket—“this doesn’t even come close.”
Ernest put the cash, the pin, the ticket, back into his pocket.
“You’re too late anyway. I already closed the deal.”
Ernest stared at her three reflections in the dressing mirrors as they moved in unison; he felt equally confused by each one.
“Kid, no one—and I mean no one on God’s green Earth—was going to outbid Louis Turnbull, so I called and we settled things on the telephone, quick and proper. He won’t grace us with his presence, but we’ll have a coming-out party for the Mayflower nonetheless—she’ll have her big, showy entrance, descend the staircase, and get her moment in society’s grand spotlight—then whoosh, out the door she goes. I’ll make sure that the upstairs girls treat the guests to something special for showing up, everyone will have a swell time in the style and fashion that the Tenderloin is known for, and Maisie gets to have her own party. All I need from you is to keep your wits about you and deliver her to his mansion in Windermere, with a bottle of our finest bubbly, of course.” Miss Amber winked and smiled through tobacco-stained teeth. “Compliments of Madam Flora.”
ALL I HAVE TO GIVE
(1910)
To Ernest, Maisie’s coming-out ceremony was a blur of silk, lost in a haze of cigar smoke, tainted with the smell of brandy and Canadian rye. She wasn’t wheeled in atop a silver cart like Jewel; instead she walked on her own two feet, gilded in her expertly tailored dress. Ernest was simultaneously awestruck and heartbroken as she slowly descended the grand staircase in shimmering high-heeled shoes that made her seem much older than her fifteen and a half years. As she made her entrance she was flanked and feted by every Gibson girl, who smiled as they fanned her with plumes of ostrich feathers, while Professor True played a waltz.
Compared to Maisie, Ernest thought, the others looked like last year’s models.
All of the wealthy men in attendance, with slick hair and waxed mustaches, who wore tuxedos with open collars and sparkling cuff links, cheered. A few of the younger gents dared to kiss the back of Maisie’s gloved hand, but none ventured further, not even for a peck on the cheek. Ernest wondered, wryly, if there was some unspoken etiquette regarding virgins on their nights of deflowering. Or perhaps the distance in Maisie’s smile was enough to keep the wolves at bay.
Like the sober banker who said, “I’ll pay you one hundred dollars for a kiss on the lips, dollface. How ’bout it, sweetheart?”
Or the sloppily drunk man who heckled, “How about five hundred for a bumpy ride in the back of my new car?”
Maisie deflected each offer with a piercing stare and a smile that might have killed had she not lowered its intensity.
Ernest waited along the far wall and listened to the music. The rest of the help were quick to fill an empty drink, replace a full ashtray, or fetch the humidor for a fresh cigarillo. Professor True broke into an original song he had composed for the occasion as Maisie made her way, turning her attention to one patron and then quickly to another, flitting like a hummingbird through the room. The working girls all swayed, mooning over the sweet, gentle music, but Ernest knew that when the song ended, Maisie would be leaving. To his weary heart it sounded like a funeral dirge.
As Maisie orbited the room once more, stoking the fires in the bellies of rich men for the other girls, Miss Amber snapped her fingers toward him. For Maisie, the party was ending. Ernest donned his driving gloves and worked his way to the foyer. Her very presence—her magnetic beauty coupled with her coy aloofness—teased the gentlemen who looked on. They knew they’d been outbid and who the lucky winner was. They raised their glasses and drained them as they toasted their misfortune and jokingly cursed Louis Turnbull.
“Here’s to Old Man Turnbull, the only fellow I know who succeeds at everything he sets his mind to…with the exception of dying!” one bearded fellow yelled above the crowd. “He knows how to pick ’em. Let’s just hope he remembers what to do with ’em!”
Ernest gritted his teeth and stared at his shoes, trying not to think about the age of the man awaiting Maisie in his mansion. In his mind’s eye all he saw was a gray-haired Methuselah in moth-eaten robes, with a face of wrinkles, a tongue darting to the corners of old, cracked lips.
Maybe he’ll have heart failure. Ernest smiled grimly as he regarded a few of the older gentlemen in the room. His eyes wandered back up the stairs.
Ernest had hoped Madam Flora might marshal some of her wits in reserve and find her way down to the party, where she’d perform a miracle by postponing Maisie’s fate the way Governor Hay might have offered a stay of execution.
But no last-minute rescue came.
Instead, Miss Amber held court as best she could. She wasn’t regal, or well spoken, like her flamboyant business partner, but the free-flowing Canadian whiskey and Kentucky bourbon worked well enough. The men laughed and raised their glasses to Madam Flora in absentia.
And then Miss Amber announced that it was time for the belle of the ball to take her leave. The men cheered once again.