Of course, it all happened regardless of whatever Rose did, but she wouldn’t be a part of it. There wasn’t anything she could do about the heroin either. People used heroin when reality was starkly different from their dreams. Thus there would always be heroin addicts, like the lovely girl on the nod at the end of the bench. And the drug connection between New York and Montreal was growing stronger and bigger every day. Rose paid the gangsters the tax they demanded of all the businesses in the red-light district, because she wanted to make herself psychologically free of them. Or pay some sort of penance. In any case, she had as little to do with that lot as she could.
Rose offered the girl eating french fries her business card and told her that if she needed help, she ought to come by the Valentine Hotel. Because although she couldn’t stop the economics of poverty, she did encourage women who were in predicaments or who were down on their luck to come by her office and ask for her advice or mentorship. She often got them jobs in her clubs or hotels, or spoke to other proprietors on their behalf. She paid their doctor bills without asking questions, and paid their tuition when they took courses. She thought all girls should be independent and should have money in their purses. She wasn’t afraid to speak up to an abusive husband or a pimp.
She was that rare person who gave without expecting anything in return. Many girls rented rooms in her Sweetheart Hotel, which was exclusively for single women. The laughter that came out of the windows during the summer was one of the most beautiful sounds in the world. It was like the percussion section of a children’s orchestra, in which a musician was hitting the triangle with a steel rod in the most charming way.
? ? ?
AFTER SPEAKING TO THE GIRLS, Rose walked into the lobby of the Valentine Hotel. Completely renovated and transformed, it was now a place where artistic and bohemian types converged. Poets sat at the tables, trying to put into words things that they themselves didn’t understand. The walls were covered from top to bottom with wonderful abstract paintings that artists brought in. Over the fireplace was a large oil painting composed of white and black chunky squares. It reminded Rose of the huge yard in front of the orphanage, and the ocean of snow that had separated it from the city.
Everyone knew to find her at the Valentine Hotel. She had a schedule that she kept to. She had her own office on the second floor. She had a desk. It was piled with account books and receipts. She was often booking out-of-town acts, as well as local ones. She was known to enjoy talking on the telephone.
? ? ?
BUT ALTHOUGH SHE INTERACTED with so many people during the day, no one could actually say that they were close to her. There is an aloofness to the permanently heartbroken, a secrecy. There was something impenetrable about her. There was a door that she had closed, which no one could get in.
There were rumors that Rose had been the one who had had McMahon killed. Instead of making her unlikable, it made her seem deeply romantic, wonderfully other and untouchable. It gave her an aura of respect. She was a woman who had done what she needed to get free. Men discovered that they had no trouble relating to her as an equal. The men who had ridiculed her when she was dating McMahon found that they had changed their minds about her.
People also talked about how she had been a performer herself once. The clowns from the Snowflake Icicle Extravaganza would talk about the fabulous show she had directed and starred in, which had won over the American crowds. But nobody in Montreal ever got to see a Rose production. Despite the success of her first, Rose never staged another of her own shows. And she never graced the stage again, in any capacity. In fact, she never even went out dancing. She never balanced an egg on the tip of her nose. She was too old and dignified to do a cartwheel. If there was a puppet lying on a chair, she never picked it up to bring it to life.
? ? ?
SHE WENT BACK TO HER OFFICE. It was the end of the business day. She spent a few moments completely lost in thought. That was her favorite time, right at the end of the day, when she would reflect on the control she now had over her time. Framed behind her was a creased and stained piece of paper that had the original blueprint of her whole life, drawn in the handwriting of a child. Her most prized possession. It was the beginning of her enterprise.
She lit up a cigarette and listened to the conversation between Fabio and Tiny outside her door. Tiny had never gone back to New York City. He had taken a fancy to the Valentine Hotel and the Montreal winters. She needed him for when sailors got out of hand, or a pimp showed up looking for a girl. He had become more and more bohemian. He had recently fallen in love with a chorus girl, who was giving him a hard time.
“Last Tuesday she told me that she had been waiting for a man just like me since she was five years old,” Tiny was saying. “She said that it would be a tragedy if we didn’t end up together. And then I went to see her Wednesday and she says, ‘Go away, even looking at your face suffocates me.’”
“Would you ever consider dating a girl who was less erratic?” Fabio asked.
“Never.”