“Besides,” Mrs. Ward went on, lightly, carelessly, “you don’t mean to make a career on the stage, do you? You know that my chorus girls must all be five feet and four inches. That makes them two inches shorter than me, but no more. You see, they’re chorus girls, and they must be?—”
“The same,” Freeman Bernstein put in. “It’s the very idea of a chorus.”
No one had ever said a thing like that to Fleurette. She didn’t dare to look over at Helen—perfect, five-foot four-inch Helen. Had May Ward really just informed her that, for want of four inches in height, she had no chance whatsoever with the Dresden Dolls?
If they wouldn’t have her, what was she to do?
She didn’t have time to wonder. May Ward was about to walk away. She might never again be in the company of her idol.
Even if she was propelled by humiliation and desperation, at least she was propelled.
“Of course, ma’am,” Fleurette called. Her voice was clear and strong, and she felt in command of herself again. She even stood a little taller. “But that dress of yours is about to fall apart. You’ve been cheated by your dress-maker, and I suspect the chorus girls’ costumes are in even worse condition. What you need is a seamstress, and from the looks of that collar, you need one tonight.”
18
WHEN CONSTANCE RETURNED to work the next day, she was still feeling quite unmoored by Fleurette’s performance. To see her step so easily away from her familiar familial self and into a bold new public persona that represented the woman she was to become—it was dizzying, and terrifying. Here was the girl who slept late and dipped her finger in the sugar bowl, and complained about sewing on buttons but insisted that no one else did it properly, and sang snatches of song over the wash-tub. How could she be so brash and worldly on the stage? How could she command the attention of every pair of eyes in that theater, this tiny creature?
She understood how a mother must feel when she sees her son in uniform for the first time, or in his office, or with his stethoscope, practicing medicine. Mothers go about constantly wondering: How did this child of mine become a man—or woman—of the world?
Perhaps Constance could even understand how Eugene and Edith Davis felt. We don’t know Minnie anymore, they seemed, in hindsight, to be saying. She couldn’t possibly be one of ours.
MINNIE HAD BEGGED Constance for a little company and was rewarded with a move to another cell block. Now she was next door to Lottie, the nurse who didn’t like to talk about why she’d been arrested, and Etta, the stenographer who was all too happy to tell about how easily cheques could be forged, money moved around, and secrets sold.
Both were eager for some new topic of conversation and listened to Minnie’s story with rapt attention.
“You didn’t really think he’d marry you,” Lottie said, with the grim sensibility that came with her medical training.
“You never want to marry a man who deals cards on a river-boat,” Etta said.
“Of course not,” Minnie said carelessly.
“The only question I have,” Lottie said, “is how are you going to get out of this?”
Lottie and Etta leaned forward, eager to hear what Minnie had in mind. When she said, “Why, I’ll just tell them the truth—I don’t see why I shouldn’t,” they both burst into laughter.
“The truth will get you locked up until you’re past childbearing age!” Etta said. “Ask Lottie here. She’s seen it.”
“Oh, I suppose you’ve seen everything, if you’re a nurse,” Minnie said. “But there’s no reason to keep me in jail.”
Lottie had thin lips and a beaky little nose. She pushed those features together in an expression of distaste and said, “A girl of low morals is thought to be a hazard to our fighting men. They don’t want to weaken America’s forces right before we’re called to war, if you know what I mean.”
Minnie didn’t know, but she wouldn’t have admitted it. “I’m not worried about it. When I get into a fix, I always find a way out.”
“You’re lucky we have a lady deputy,” Lottie said. “There was another factory girl in here before you. Brought in on some kind of waywardness charge. The judge let her go because Miss Kopp said so.”
“Then why hasn’t she set you two free?” Minnie asked.
They both laughed. “We’ve had our trials,” Etta said. “We’re guilty, darling.”
“I’m only guilty of an accidental overdose,” Lottie said by way of correction. “I didn’t mean to kill the old dear. I suppose I’d be off at the state prison if they thought me guilty of murder.”
“But you won’t be a nurse again,” Etta said.
“I might start over out West.”
“Oh, I’d like that, too,” Minnie said.
They passed the rest of the day with that kind of companionable talk. Minnie found that she quite liked the company of lady criminals. There was a fearlessness to them, as if the very fact of their arrest, and exposure of their secrets, liberated them of the need to cower and pretend. Etta and Lottie were resourceful women who had made their own way in the world quite successfully until they were caught, and Minnie admired them for it.
She went to bed with considerably lighter spirits after spending the day in their company. Around midnight the sound of footsteps along the cell block jolted her awake.
“Is everything all right, Miss Kopp?” Etta whispered. The deputy had been away all day on a case.
“Ladies, if you don’t mind, I’m going to take Minnie back to my cell for a little talk,” Constance said.
“Miss Kopp’s all right,” Etta said as Minnie was led away. “You can tell her.”
“Tell me what?” Constance asked, but Minnie was too sleepy to answer. She stumbled along the concrete floor and around the jail’s central rotunda to the cell block where Constance slept.
“How are you getting on?” the deputy asked once they were out of earshot of the others. In Constance’s cell was an oil lamp, but they didn’t light it. They sat together on her bunk, in the purple darkness, under only the faintest light from a half-moon that shone through the high-domed window above.
“Jail’s not too bad,” Minnie said, with what little swagger she could muster at that hour.
It really wasn’t so terrible. Apart from the boredom and the drab, shapeless uniform, it didn’t particularly bother Minnie to spend her days and nights in jail. She’d been wondering for some time how she might get out of the mess she’s made with Tony, and now she knew. The most pressing of her worries—eviction and penury—had been eliminated through the provision of a bunk and three tasteless meals a day. She wondered mildly what might become of her, but assumed she’d be given a chance to tell her version of events to a judge, upon which time she’d be released.