“See you later,” Hunter said instead.
“Bye,” the three of them called out.
Chapter 18
“Have you been keeping up with the news?” Helen Porter’s voice drawled from Gumption’s phone speaker. Helen was the art curator for Griffith Gallery in Manhattan. She had exhibited Gumption’s work several times.
“Are you speaking of the girl suicides?” Gumption asked, slicing wedges of cantaloupe. It was a fragrant, juicy melon, and Gumption made a mental note to ask Candace to pick up another cantaloupe next time she did the shopping.
Candace was busy being high at the moment. She lay splayed on the faux pink tiger fur in the pink room, opening her arms and legs as though making angels in the snow. Every now and then, she moved her head from side to side and let out a low, sensuous moan. Gumption had left her to it, preparing her own coffee and breakfast that morning.
“Yes,” Helen said in answer to Gumption’s question. “I can’t stop thinking of those poor girls, so beautified for death with their painted nails. It’s grimly galvanizing.”
Gumption speared a chunk of melon with a fork and placed it in her mouth, thinking. The sweetness exploded on her tongue.
“What do you feel galvanized to do, Helen?” Gumption asked, her words muffled. There was never any pure emotion with Helen. Anything that Helen found profoundly moving, she saw with financially-incentivized glasses.
“I can’t imagine you haven’t begun to sketch something,” Helen said.
Gumption ate a second bite of cantaloupe, and another low, mournful moan came from Candace.
“What’s that?” Helen asked.
“Just my housekeeper,” Gumption said, her gaze straying to the window at the sound of faint laughter coming from across the street. The young man who had threatened Candace was sitting in a flashy red Porcha sports car, the engine idling, window rolled down. Cassandra’s sister leaned against the door panel. She was tall. Her long dark hair trailed the frame of the open window. Every few seconds, she tipped her head back, letting out a throaty laugh. The dark-haired man grinned as he spoke. Whatever it was he was telling her, it was eliciting a very flirty, playful response. She straightened up and gave a little wave before he gunned the car and took off. She stood watching long after the car disappeared, her silky tresses blowing in the breeze.
Helen was still talking and Gumption caught the words “morbid” and “inspiration”.
“I’m sure the exhibition will be a success,” Gumption said, cutting her off. “Goodbye, Helen.”
She didn’t wait for a response before hanging up.
With her index finger, Gumption swiped at the melon juice dribbling down her chin and licked it off, then got her phone book, opening it to the M section. Mr. Fix It. There he was. He kept a series of numbers to cheap cell phones, the kind that had no GPS tracking. Gumption let her finger scroll to the last number she had written in her book for him.
“It’s me,” she said when he picked up.
He cleared his throat.
“What do you think of those suicides with the girls and the nails?” She asked.
“The waterside suicides?”
“Yes. Those.”
“I don’t.”
“Don’t think they’re suicides?”
“No.”
“Can you look into it for me?”
“Sure. Is there a timeline?”
“No. Just curious.”
“Alright. I’ll see what I can find out.”
Chapter 19
One Month Later
Candace lit Gumption’s Virginia slim in the long, thin black cigarette holder. The two women stood in the sunroom, the bouncy, playful beat of Walter “Fats” Pichon’s “Wiggle Yo’ Toes” tickling the airwaves, the ancient jazz record emitting scratchy popping noises. When Gumption put on jazz, she was in good spirits. She’d applied a light foundation and a little rouge to her face, piled her long, thick grey hair up into an elegant chignon, and donned a light pink silk robe with low-heeled pink house slippers, the toes decorated with a cloud of fluff. She swayed now to the beat and took a long, appreciative drag from her cigarette, winking at Candace before setting her feet into quick, coordinated steps and swinging her arms from side to side.
“Dear,” Gumption called out to Candace. “Do you know how to do the Charleston?”
Candace shook her head, mesmerized by Gumption’s fancy footwork in the little high heels, the fluff on the toes swaying gaily as she moved.
“Come now, darling, have a go at it,” Gumption said.
Candace tried to follow her movements, but only managed to pull off a spastic, pitiful-looking twisting motion with her body.
Gumption grimaced. “Have you never learned to dance, Candace?”
“I can dance,” Candace said. “Just kind of my own thing.”
“Alright then, do your own thing,” Gumption said, moving her feet even faster.
Candace did. She wound her skinny hips around and did a vibrating, shimmying motion with her upper body.
Gumption, her feet still going, surveyed Candace. She paused in her dancing to take another puff from her cigarette. “Interesting,” she said.
The doorbell rang.
“That’ll be the girls,” Gumption said. “Greet them, dear.”
Candace halted her rhythmic attempts and went to do Gumption’s bidding.
The other day, Gumption had invited the Baker girl and her friends over to learn how to make several Chinese dishes for their graduation party. She’d found the cook, a young Jewish man named Ezra, on YouTube.
The clattering sound of feet accompanied by girlish chatter preceded the little group led by Candace as they made their way back to the sunroom.
“Hello, my dears,” Gumption called out merrily.
“Hi, Ms. G. This is dope,” Nisha said, face cracked into a smile.
The other three girls mumbled hellos. A fifth child with an androgynous appearance, who Gumption had never met before, looked around with curiosity. Dressed in cropped pants with suspenders, a t-shirt, loafers, and a fedora, the new friend had no curves to their figure and a flat chest. Their face was dusted with bronzer, and purple lined their eyes. They wore clear-rimmed eyeglasses and long, sparkly earrings with blue and silver beads.
The shortest of the bunch, Emma, had grown yet again. In the span of a month, she’d gained another two inches and was now the same height as Nisha. The gain in height had leaned her out. Her face, once round with baby fat, now had definition, and Gumption thought she looked not unlike a green-eyed Brigitte Bardot, with Angelina Jolie’s full, sumptuous lips.
“Love the music,” Nisha said. Fresh braids hung down her back, and the top, not yet finished, was twisted into a small bun.
“It is fun, isn’t it?” Gumption said, pleased that Nisha was pleased.
Cassandra stood just behind Nisha, holding an acoustic guitar. She also wore a fedora.
“Do you play music?” Gumption asked her.
Cassandra nodded.
“She’s a dope singer,” Nisha said.
“Lovely.” Gumption took a draw from her cigarette holder. “And the fedoras are darling,” she added.
“It’s Cassandra’s birthday. I got her the hat as a present. I’m Hunter, by the way,” the androgynous friend said, stepping forward and holding out their hand to Gumption.
She took it briefly. “Nice to meet you, Hunter.” Her eyes skirted to Cassandra. “Happy birthday, dear. How old are we now?”
“Fourteen,” Cassandra said.
“Well, we shall have to have a cake. What sort of cake do you like?”
“Oh, that’s okay,” Cassandra replied shyly. “You don’t have to go out of your way.”
“Nonsense. You must have a cake. Now tell me what flavor, and I’ll have Candace place an order.”
“I don’t particularly have a favorite kind of cake,” Cassandra said.
“No?” Gumption frowned. “Candice, love, phone up Sweet Lad
y Jane and ask for the triple berry cake. And what shall we drink?”
“Champagne?” Candace suggested.
“Spectacular. The day calls for Veuve Clicquot.”
Candace dug out her phone from her back pocket to place the order. Gumption noticed that the girls’ eyes had lit up at the suggestion of champagne. Nisha moved her shoulders to the beat of the music. Gumption moved her shoulders, too, and then started up with the Charleston again. After watching for some seconds, Nisha matched her movements, incorporating a hip-hop style.
“It’s kinda like Toprock,” Nisha said.
Hunter pulled their hat low to one side and jumped in, doing body rolls before making a few attempts at the steps and catching on.
Gumption was thrilled.
The other three girls watched shyly, and Hunter approached them, motioning that they should follow their lead.
“Let’s do a side to side,” Hunter said. “So easy.”
Cassandra gripped her guitar and Hunter gently took it from her, leaning it against one of the white linen armchairs.
“Just do this,” they said, moving their feet from side to side and bobbing their head.
Emma, Cat, and Cassandra followed along.
“Cool, you’ve got it,” Hunter said with a grin.
Candace stood with her phone in her hand, the call to Sweet Lady Jane forgotten. She came closer, then joined the dance lesson. Hunter smiled at her and she beamed back at them.
“Step, touch. Step, touch,” Hunter called out. The record ended and laughter rippled through the group, the ice broken.
“Oh, let’s put on another,” Gumption said and went to her record collection, flicking through the selection on a shelf.
“Do you only listen to LPs?” Hunter asked, wandering over toward Gumption.
“And cassettes. I have quite a large and varied library. I’ve been collecting albums for decades. What sort of music do you like?”
“What you had on was fun,” Hunter said. “Was that ragtime?”
“Close. Do you like ragtime?”
“It’s cheerful,” Hunter said.
“And this is a cheerful occasion.” Gumption pulled out an album. “This is one of the greats of ragtime, Manuel “Fess” Manetta. My daddy had a chance to play with him at a house party once. Fess could play six different instruments. In his youth, he provided music for the brothels in the New Orleans red-light district, what they used to call Storyville.”
“Whorehouse Piano,” Hunter read aloud from the cover as Gumption pulled the record from the sleeve. “Nice. Signed copy,” they said.
“Yes.” Gumption ran her index finger over the signature and then put the record on, placing the needle toward the middle of the record. “I adore ‘High Society’.”
Soon they were all dancing again, Hunter continuing with their lesson.
The doorbell rang and Candace went to answer it.
She returned with a young man in his twenties. He sported a goatee and thin, cropped hair combed forward. In his arms he carried a box of groceries, and on his face a wide grin.
“Are we having a party?” He called out. “Chinese food, ragtime... It feels like a Jewish Christmas in summer.”
“Yes, Ezra, come join us, dear,” Gumption said. She could not remember the last time she had so much fun, and thought, I should have young people over more often. They had a way of juicing up life, and—Gumption realized—her life was badly in need of juicing. She’d grown restless in her big house with every convenience at her fingertips. What was the purpose if there was no one to share the accumulation of her wealth with?
Ezra set his box on the floor and his feet did a funny scuffle, a goofy imitation of the moonwalk, his head jutting forward and back like a chicken. The others watched him, captivated, before exploding with laughter. Ezra wriggled his brows and shook his chest.
“I call that the white man boogie,” he exclaimed and then bowed. “And now, I must bring in all the goodies for the festivities.” The kids went to help him, and Gumption’s landline rang.
“Did you put in the order for the cake, Candace?” Gumption asked, reaching for the cradle of the analogue phone.
“No,” Candace said, pulling out her own phone.
Gumption put the receiver to her ear. “Hello,” she sang out.
“I thought we could take a little walk today or tomorrow,” said the gravelly voice of Mr. Fix It.
“You’ve found something,” Gumption said.
“Possibly.”
“Tomorrow’s better for me.”
“Fine. I’ll see you at one.” He did not have to name the location. It was their usual meeting place, and it was best if they didn’t mention locations on the phone anyway.
“Fabulous. See you then,” Gumption said.
He hung up without a goodbye, and Gumption stood a few moments longer, some of her ebullience having dissipated.
The pink, wrinkled face of her newborn son flashed through her thoughts. She’d been surprised at her feelings when she held him in her arms. Gumption had never loved anyone as much as she loved that squishy half-baked-looking thing that had come out of her. The primal feeling had taken her by surprise. All those months hating the life growing inside of her, feeding off her like a parasite, and then, there it was. The baby.
“I’ll take good care of him, dear,” Lady Catherine had said, lifting Gumption’s newborn son from her arms.
To see her son carried away—the billowy silk of Lady Catherine’s dressing gown flowing behind her as she left the room—was more painful than the rape. Silk floating on air. It would forever take precedence over the other memory. The smell of ammonia searing her nostrils. Her spine flattened hard against a cement floor and the weight of two hundred pounds ramming against her slight frame, something hot and unbearably large ripping through her flesh. She’d decided in that cramped bit of hell, not sure if her chest could sustain the pressure or her lungs the lack of oxygen, that it was absolution for the killings. An eye for an eye. The Park attendant was evening out the score, Gumption had reasoned to herself. She was paying her price now rather than later. She did not scream or cry during the ordeal as she lay crushed under too much weight, staring at the folds of the attendant’s meaty neck and the stiff, crisp collar of a starched uniform shirt. Finally, she’d focused on the water stains spreading across the ceiling.
The park attendant had put everything right before releasing her from under his weight. She’d taken one long gulp of air, drinking in much-needed oxygen as he’d pulled her off the ground. Gumption had stared down at the deep creases in her dress while he pushed his sweat-damp hair back and said, “Don’t let me catch you around here again. The park is for whites only, not niggers and not half-breeds.”
“Yes, sir,” she’d mumbled.
Gumption had ached inside for days, wondering what had happened exactly between her and that man on the restroom floor.
Time had been kind, though, because now, Gumption only saw silk floating on air when her mind wandered to places it really shouldn’t go.
Chapter 20
Emma sliced the bell pepper into thick strips. Beside her, Ezra directed Hunter on onions.
Nisha made the filling for the pork dumplings and Cat made the marinade for the thin slices of beef, while Cassandra warmed oil in an enormous wok on Gumption’s massive gas range stove. Gumption sat at the kitchen table, grating carrots, and Candace had left for the store and the bakery.
Ezra floated from person to person, supervising and giving direction. He had the energy of ten men, and every now and then Hunter threw back their head and laughed at one of Ezra’s jokes or turn of phrase.
“I thought we’d make egg rolls to nosh on while we cook up this feast,” Ezra said, grabbing a bowl of shredded cabbage. “Anyone not eat pork?” He asked.
Everyone paused in their station to look around.
“I know alla us eat everything,” Nisha said of herself, Emma, Cassandra, and Cat, waving her hand around.
“I don’t have any dietary restrictions,” Hunter said.
Ezra’s eyes fell on Gumption.
“Dear,” she said. “In my day, you ate everything without complaint.”
Ezra raised a brow. “Noted,” he said. “So we’ll make the rolls with pork. This is the bestest, freshest, most spectacular, organic, apple-eating, free-roaming pig from my friend’s farm called Happy Beasts.”
“I thought you didn’t eat pork,” Emma said to him, feeling her face get hot as Ezra focused on her. “Because you’re Jewish,” she added in a lower voice.
“Oh, yes, not normally, but as my dad says every year when we go to Hong’s Szechuan restaurant, ‘if you can’t see the pork, it’s kosher.’” Ezra shrugged. “If they gave out degrees in rationalization, we’d all have PhDs in my family. Okay, is everyone ready to experience the awesomeness of crispy, golden, spicy pork rolls?”
Hunter laughed and shoved their shoulder up against Emma, leaning in to whisper in her ear, “He’s so hot.”
Emma glanced at Hunter, whose cheeks were rosy red, their eyes sparkling.
“He’s too old for you,” Emma whispered back, eyeing Ezra, who was squirting sauces and throwing generous pinches of spices into the scrambled stir fry of meat and veggies that would go into the egg rolls, explaining everything as he worked.
“One can dream, though,” Hunter said.
Emma picked up a head of broccoli to chop for the beef and broccoli dish.
Nisha had talked them into the Chinese cooking lessons, and into going to Blue’s birthday party that she and her sister, Mia, were throwing at Oliver’s house.
“Why tell your pops to cancel the party?” Nisha had demanded to know when Emma confided in her that Blue’s rager in Malibu was going to take place at Oliver’s and that Blue’s older sister, Mia, was her dad’s sugar baby.
“Girl, so the hell what,” was Nisha’s response. “Pops has been robbing cradles for years, capitalizing on the great American higher educational needs of the masses. Of course all those twenty-year-olds was sugar babies.” She’d given Emma a look. “No offense, but your old man’s ancient. They can’t be with him because they think he’s a snack. It’s their prerogative. They can either get screwed by bank loans or by your old man. Weren’t we wanting to do something fun for graduation? Your pops is gonna be having a banger at his crib. What, you think if you make him shut it down, he’s going to suddenly switch up his whole lifestyle and start dating sixty-year-olds or whatever? Girl, please. Party or no party, Mia’s still gonna be giving him some sugar.”
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