“My name’s Rose.”
Poppy gestured for Rose to come in. She slammed the door and sat down on the lumpy double bed that seemed to be made of old oatmeal, in the center of the room. There were magazines lying all over the quilt.
“You’re named after a flower too.”
“It’s not my real name.”
“Jesus, I’m not really Poppy either. Everyone goes by the name of a flower here, in case they get arrested. I’ve changed my name about seven times, but everyone always calls me Poppy. I guess it suits me. My real name is Sarah. I’m Jewish, if you can believe that. I make less money than all the other girls, so when the madam gets a tip that there’s going to be a raid, she always hides the better-looking girls in the ceiling and lets me get arrested. I think that it has more to do with my personality than my appearance. I mean, I have naturally curly hair. Not that anybody knows that it’s naturally curly because you can fake it. Maybe people aren’t as impressed by curly hair as they should be.”
“I think you’re very pretty.”
“Not that I really think that much about it at all, in the end.”
“What are you reading?” Rose asked, pointing to the Better Homes and Gardens and The Chatelaine magazines on Poppy’s bed.
She looked at Rose with enormous eyes, which made her look like a little kid.
“Oh, I can’t read very well. I like them for the recipes. There’s one for jam that I’m interested to try. I make the city’s most amazing jam. Look at this.”
She knelt on the bed and leaned over to pull open the door of the armoire at the foot of it. Sure enough, there was a shelf with ten jars on it.
“My jam is so good, I’d be a millionaire if I were a man. You know, there are sometimes articles in the magazines about how it’s all right to be a woman. I don’t know if I believe it, though. My crotch is always itchy. I get sore every time I have sex.”
“What do you do for it?”
“Sit in a pot of water and pray to God.”
They laughed together. They heard the girl in the next room moaning wildly.
“Be careful, sweetie, don’t hurt me. I’m new to this. Ooooh, that feels so strange.”
“Listen to that!” Poppy said. “Isn’t she good? The men all love her. She’s so pretty. She’s done by four o’clock, then she goes to the penny arcade.”
“Oh daddy,” said the voice through the wall. “Teach me how to do it so I can show your friends when they come over.”
Poppy put her hands over her mouth and exclaimed, “How does she think of that?”
“Do you get along with the other girls?” Rose asked.
“Yes. I’m good to them. I go to prison for them, and I read all the girls’ fortunes. Give them advice and such. I can do yours!”
Poppy rolled across the bed as though she were rolling down a hill, fell off the other side, then jumped up and went to get the pack of cards on the bureau. Rose found Poppy so fascinating to look at, even if men didn’t find her attractive. She loved how openhearted Poppy was.
“Where did you learn how to read cards?” Rose asked.
“There was an old French-Canadian woman who lived upstairs and had no legs. She showed me. She also taught me how to make jam and maple butter, and also how to swear in French. Those are, like, the only things that I know how to do well.”
She shuffled the cards like a madwoman. Then she held out the deck for Rose to cut them. Rose took off the top half of the deck. Poppy flipped the card that was on top of the second half.
“The death card! You’re going to wreak havoc in this world, miss.”
“I didn’t need cards to tell me that.”
“What do you need to know?”
“Where to get condoms.”
“Ha-ha-ha! That’s hysterical. Let’s go to the pharmacist. I only have five left, and I need them for myself.”
Poppy threw on a light blue sweater and a red pleated skirt. There was a crashing sound from downstairs, undeniably the sound of a door being smashed in. Poppy looked out the window. Police officers were already hauling out two girls from the parlor downstairs.
“It’s the police again! I’m not going to jail. Forget about it! Let one of the pretty girls go. Come on.”
They ran out of the room and into the hallway. They ran into the bathroom. There were already two girls pulling up a ladder behind them into the crawl space.
“Come on! Let us up!”
“Cachez-vous ailleurs. There’s no more room up here,” one of the girls called down.
“Damn you.”