Great Circle: A Novel

by Maggie Shipstead

  Marian, for all her reading, had no idea what the girl meant, and so it was from a prostitute in a room pink as a block of rose quartz that she learned about the monthly curse, which sounded like a curse indeed, the way Cora told it, her explanation tinged with the horror of lost income. Garbed in a black slip of Desirée’s and an ivory peignoir, in stockings and garters and shoes with a strap and heel, Marian stared at herself in the vanity while the girls brilliantined her hair and powdered her face and kohled her eyes and rubbed in rouge with their thumbs.

  “Does it hurt?”

  “Not really,” said Belle. “Some girls get terrible bellyaches. And you have to watch out because once you get it, you can get knocked up. You know what that means, don’t you?” Marian knew. “But if it happens, you come see us, and Mrs. Wu will sort you out.”

  “Sort me out how?”

  “A little too much dragon smoke,” said Desirée, “and a bit of a scrape.” She perched on the vanity, grasped Marian’s chin. “Mrs. Wu used to be one of Miss Dolly’s girls. She started a sideline in keeping everyone out of trouble.”

  “But then she got married?” Marian asked, wondering about Mr. Wu. The girls laughed.

  Desirée said, “Open your mouth just a bit.” A red lipstick made the circuit of Marian’s lips. Desirée leaned back to inspect her. “Could be worse.”

  Marian’s reflection showed a vaguely familiar person. The whites of her eyes seemed unnaturally bright within their kohl moats. Her freckles were lost under paint and powder. Her face seemed both soft and hard, its planes sharp but not yet set all the way. “What do I do now?”

  “Now we sell you to the highest bidder,” said Cora, squeezing the bulb of a perfume bottle, sending a fragrant mist onto Marian’s sternum. “Lots of gents out there looking for someone just like you. How old are you anyway?”

  “Fourteen and a half.”

  “That’s older than I was when I started. You’re a virgin still?”

  “How much would I get?”

  “You oughtn’t,” Belle said. “Not you.”

  “There’s money in it,” said Cora.

  “You’re setting yourself as inspiration?” Desirée said.

  Cora looked peeved. “I’m not sharing a room with eight brothers and sisters anymore, am I? Not living next to a stockyard that smells of shit.”

  “Now,” Belle said to Marian, “put your hand on your hip like this and say, ‘Hiya, mister, need a date?’ ”

  “Hiya, mister,” Marian said solemnly. “Need a date?” The girls fell all over themselves laughing.

  “Date to a funeral, maybe, you ask like that,” said Desirée.

  “Sit like this,” Cora said, arching her back and looking over her shoulder, “and say, ‘No twat like this one.’ ” Marian obeyed, blushing, goaded by their laughter, the dirty word, the glimpses of herself in the mirror.

  The doorbell. Loud and resounding, startling them into silence.

  “Just when we’re having a laugh,” Cora said.

  Belle said, “No one had an appointment.”

  “They don’t need an appointment,” said Cora. They heard the muffled sounds of Mrs. Wu letting someone in.

  “Damn.” Desirée had sprung to her feet, begun to root through a drawer. “It’s for me. I forgot.”

  “Cora can go,” said Belle.

  “No, it’s Barclay Macqueen. He’s choosy.”

  “Why, thanks very much,” said Cora.

  “Not like that, just—he likes everything just so. Go down there, Belle, and stall for a minute. Cora, help me put my hair up.”

  “It’s Barclay Macqueen?” said Marian.

  Cora was already twisting Desirée’s hair back from her face. “Know him?”

  “I know who he is.”

  “Take the kid,” Desirée said to Belle, screwing a red bullet of lipstick up out of its tube.

  Marian grabbed her clothes off the floor. “Come on,” Belle said, trying to tug her along. “I have to get down there. Dolly will be furious if he leaves.”

  “I feel strange going down like this.”

  Belle eyed her. “Let’s see what he does when he sees you.”

  “I can’t,” Marian said, dragging backward.

  Belle pulled her by the arm. “Just as a lark. It’ll be funny—you’ll see. They can’t help themselves. Say the bit about your twat. I dare you. I’ll give you a whole cream puff.”

  Downstairs Belle grabbed Marian’s clothes out of her hands and tossed them into the dark front parlor before she passed briskly through a swinging door to the back parlor. Marian hung behind, leaning against the wainscoting in the hall. Through the door, she glimpsed the crossed legs of a seated man, a polished black shoe tipping at the end of an elegant ankle. A shoe, not a boot, despite the snow. The door closed. The hallway was dark except for one electric wall sconce. Belle said, rather grandly, “Terrrrrrribly sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr. Macqueen. Desirée will be just one more minute.”

  A low voice, a hint of an accent not unlike the Scottish miners’ but cleaner, softer: “I’m told patience is a virtue, and this is a house of virtue, isn’t it?”

  Marian had known Barclay Macqueen’s name since she’d started driving for Stanley. A rancher, in theory. From up north. His father, a Scotsman, had made himself one of the first cattle barons in the state, back before there was even need of fences. His mother was Flathead Salish. When misfortune put local moonshiners or bootleggers out of business, a raid or an explosion or an intercepted shipment, it was Barclay Macqueen’s name they whispered. The feds had busted Old Potshot not long before, destroyed his still and a dozen other rinky-dink stills around Missoula, and rumor was they’d been tipped off as part of their bargain with Barclay Macqueen. Mr. Stanley didn’t know how much longer he could hope to be spared. They said Barclay Macqueen knew every trick in the book. He brought booze over the line by automobile, rail, mule, horse, backpack, canoe; he had operations in every town in Montana and more in Washington and Idaho and the Dakotas; he owned more speakeasies and cordial shops and roadhouses than you could count; his payroll was crowded with cops, lawyers, feds, train crews, councilmen, congressmen, judges, all their bookkeepers; he had liquor warehoused everywhere from mine shafts to church cellars to actual warehouses. They said his thousands of cattle and his massive landholdings weren’t more than a hobby. They said most of the people who worked for Barclay Macqueen didn’t even know it.

  “If virtue’s what you’re after, we’ll find it,” Belle said, overly vivacious. “Anything for you, Mr. Macqueen.”

  “Maybe another day. Will Desirée be ready soon?”

  “I’ll just go check.” Belle burst out of the room and bustled past Marian, giving an exaggerated shrug.

  “Belle,” Marian whispered. “What am I supposed to do?”

  Belle stopped halfway up the stairs, leaned over the banister to whisper back, “Say hello. Tell him you’re thinking of going on the game.”

  Belle was only mocking, but Marian, nettled, thought, why not? Why shouldn’t she fund her flying off men’s lust? She thought again of Gilda, remembered the beast. A grandfather clock at the end of the hall marked the seconds with a sound like a tongue clicking in disapproval. Marian could have ducked into the front parlor, put her overalls back on, and left, but curiosity immobilized her. She heard an impatient rustle, shoes hitting the floor. A few footsteps, and the door was pulled open.

  What did Barclay see?

  A long thin creature caught in the spill of light. Pale blue eyes ringed black, a fragile neck, stockings bagging slightly where there wasn’t enough leg to fill them, black patent shoes like hooves below narrow ankles. A gleaming ivory cap of hair wrapped around a small head. Slender wrists, long fingers. He saw her startle. He saw fear and then a flare of something—something in her gaze like bared teeth. Defiance. He did
not recognize her as a child. Why should he have expected to see a child here? He had been thinking of Desirée, had knots and heat inside him.

  What did Marian see?

  An elegant man in a black suit, cuffs white and starched, gold watch chain across a black waistcoat, black hair barbered precisely and glossy with oil. He had a broad Salish nose, full lips, firmly rounded cheeks pinpricked with freckles. His complexion was olive, his eyes dark blue. He was not quite handsome. His eyes were too low in his face, his jaw heavy like a fighting dog’s. She saw him see her, sensed how the sight of her arrested him.

  “Who are you?” he said.

  Belle was coming back down the stairs with Desirée, who had on a modest cream-colored dress over whatever arrangement of straps and frills were underneath. Marian slid away, along the wall, and Barclay followed. She had been foolish to think she could ever do what Belle and the others did. A silly child, all dressed up.

  “Who are you?” he said again.

  Helplessly, she looked at Belle, who appeared to be trying to squelch the giggles. She could not say she was herself, Marian Graves, not when she was done up like this, not when he was looking at her that way. There was no answer.

  “She’s just a kid,” Desirée said, taking Barclay’s arm. “She’s not one of ours.”

  He didn’t shake her off, but he didn’t respond to her touch, either. He was still looking at Marian. Belle was looking at her, too, biting her lip, eyes teary with mirth. Desirée looked furious. Their faces cornered her like hounds around a fox.

  “Shall we?” Desirée said, her voice rising.

  He yielded, followed. Marian pressed back against the wall, turned her face away as he passed, caught the smell of his hair oil and some other fragrance, slightly bitter. She was not used to perfumed men. His step slowed. She knew he was willing her to look up into his face, but she would not. “She’s just a kid,” Desirée said again. “Marian, you go home.”

  “Marian,” he repeated.

  Still she did not look up, not until Barclay and Desirée had finally climbed the stairs and a door had closed. Belle was doubled over with laughter. “You’re in trouble,” she said, gasping. “Oh, lord.” Marian darted into the front parlor, feverishly shed the robe and slip, the stockings and shoes. What trouble? She pulled her shirt and overalls back on, stepped into her boots but didn’t bother tying them, bolted past Belle into the kitchen to retrieve her coat and muffler and the empty baskets.

  Mrs. Wu turned from the stove, took in Marian’s painted face first with surprise, then with dismay. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “No good.”

  * * *

  —

  Marian was home before the snow started in earnest. She went upstairs to wash her face. The soap stung her eyes, but no matter how she scrubbed, she couldn’t get rid of the last traces of kohl.

  Berit had made a chicken pie that Marian ate in silent agitation. For Jamie, there were boiled carrots and onions, as Berit was still trying to punish him into eating meat. Wallace was out somewhere. Jamie was telling her about going up Mount Jumbo that afternoon. “I didn’t see any elk. All I did was this.” He opened his sketchbook to a drawing of a squirrel scaling a tree trunk. The charcoal lines were spare but sure, and Marian felt the roughness of the bark, the splay of the tiny claws, the shimmy of the scrabbling body.

  Through a mouthful of pie, she said, “Do you know anything about Barclay Macqueen?”

  “You’d know more than I would,” he said. Marian knew he worried about her job, though he liked that they now had money to buy treats and movie tickets. For Christmas she had given him a pair of field glasses and a watercolor set. “Why?”

  “I met him. Sort of. I ran into him.” She wanted to explain how some disturbance had moved through the air between them, rolling off him, breaking against her, but she knew in describing it she would make the encounter seem like nothing, or like too much.

  “Where?”

  “Miss Dolly’s.”

  He flushed. “It doesn’t look right, you going into places like that.”

  “No one sees me. Not unless they’re already there, in which case, they shouldn’t be on any high horses.”

  “People talk.”

  She looked up. “What do they say?”

  “That you work for a moonshiner.”

  “That’s true, anyway.”

  “What is that around your eyes? You look like a raccoon.”

  Savagely, she scraped up the last of her chicken pie. He wouldn’t have understood even if she could have explained. She said, “I don’t care what they say.”

  Great white flakes big as moths were swooping and fluttering when she went out to the cottage. She tried to read, but she kept floating out of herself, back to Miss Dolly’s. Sitting in the armchair, she was perfectly still, but the memory of Barclay Macqueen wound through her like a serpent. She put on her coat and went out again into the night, the snow. As she made her way toward Caleb’s cabin, wading through the snow, her heart was beating so hard she could feel her pulse jumping in her neck. A blurred thrumming surrounded her, invisible hummingbird wings. But his window was dark, and when she tapped on the glass, he didn’t come.

  Missoula

  May–July 1929

  Two months after Marian met Barclay Macqueen

  One Sunday morning, Jamie was dozing in his cot, enjoying the cool early breeze in his hair and the sunshine slanting onto his blanketed legs when the dogs sprang up barking and pushed out through the screen door, bustling to greet Wallace, who was walking up the driveway. Jamie watched Wallace stagger through the swirl of animals without seeming to notice them, as a man intent on drowning himself might plow heedlessly through the waves. His collar was open; his hat was pushed back on his head. He’d gone out the night before in the car, so he must have run out of gas somewhere or driven into a ditch. On such mornings, he was unpredictable. He might wordlessly retreat to bed and not emerge until dinner, or he might regale Jamie with lengthy, jolly, disjointed tales, or he might complain bitterly about some small injustice at the card table, or he might beg forgiveness for some obscure offense, or some combination. There was no telling.

  Wallace yanked open the screen door and collapsed on Marian’s cot, releasing a stale gust of sweat and booze. One dog slipped through with him, but the others were trapped outside and milled around whining until Jamie got up to let them in. “Where’s your sister?” Wallace asked.

  He didn’t sound as drunk as he looked. “Driving for Stanley,” Jamie said, getting back under his covers.

  “I know it’s for Stanley,” Wallace said morosely. “She couldn’t very well be driving my car.”

  “Did it break down somewhere?”

  Wallace waved the question away. “Do you know Lena? The trapper?”

  “Lena?”

  “She’s as burly as a man and wears men’s clothes. She smokes a cigar.”

  Jamie knew who he meant, although he had not known her name. “I’ve seen her.”

  “She’s ugly as sin.”

  Jamie remembered her face well enough: heavy and jowly, thickly browed, her nose mottled like pink granite. She was ugly, but saying so seemed cruel. Wallace went on: “There’s something so offensive about an ugly woman. An ugly man—that’s unfortunate, but there still could be aesthetic interest there. An ugly woman is disturbing.” One latecoming dog was still wagging outside the screen door. “Oh, for Christ’s sake.” Wallace flung himself to his feet and let it in. “There, happy?” He lay back down. “Last night Lena was saying she’s out with the rifle now, not traps. Spokane Fred was at the table—this was that boxcar place near Lolo. You know it?” Jamie nodded, understanding Wallace meant a certain roadhouse to the south, cobbled together from two boxcars. “You know Spokane Fred?” Jamie nodded again. He had a passing familiarity with most of the dissolute gamblers around Missoula.
They’d replaced Wallace’s old friends from the university, the ones who used to come over and argue when Jamie and Marian were little but had, at some unnoticed moment, stopped visiting.

  “Fred asked why, and Lena said because she doesn’t like to get nursing mothers by mistake in the spring. Then this stranger who was in the game said, ‘Must be expensive to have a heart.’ And Lena said if the babies die now she can’t trap them later.”

  Jamie was too puzzled by the line of conversation even to feel his usual burst of aversion to trapping. “Seems like more foresight than most people have. Is that where the car is? Lolo?”

  Wallace stared up at the porch’s ceiling, hands behind his head. “Do you think if Marian were to become a pilot she’d end up like Lena?”

  “You mean ugly?”

  “Yes, I suppose. Tough and alone, with a cigar stuck in her face. I imagine Lena’s raw material was rougher stuff than Marian’s, but Marian…I already have trouble picturing her in a dress. Can you imagine Marian as a bride?” His laugh stumbled over itself, became a cough.

  “We’re only fourteen,” Jamie pointed out.

  “I know,” Wallace said. “I know. It’s not too late.” He propped himself on his elbow, looked at Jamie. “Maybe you could have a word with her?”

  “She’d punch me.”

  “Mmm.” Wallace subsided onto his back. “You’re probably right. I wish Berit were still around.”

  He’d been late paying Berit so many times she’d finally taken a job for a professor’s wife in a big house south of the Clark Fork, though not without shedding a few rare Norwegian tears when she embraced the twins goodbye. Before she left, she’d taught Jamie to cook a few things. He refused to cook meat, of course, but he didn’t mind frying up fish if someone else did the catching and gutting. So Caleb brought trout sometimes, or Marian did. She got bread from Stanley’s, too, and when the housekeeping money Jamie extracted from Wallace wasn’t enough, she made up the rest. Jamie tended a vegetable garden modeled on the one Caleb kept. Sometimes a gift shop in a hotel downtown sold one of his drawings, though that money he put away for himself. He tried to keep the house clean, but because neither Marian nor Wallace seemed to notice or mind the creeping grime and disarray, he was gradually surrendering.