The Impossible Girl

by Lydia Kang

  “That Duncan is an alley cat, but who’s this Flint fellow—eh! Where are you going with those flowers?” she asked.

  Cora opened the window and tossed them out, where they’d wilt under a wave of dirty dishwater.

  Leah raised her eyebrows. “Well, I shan’t be gettin’ you flowers for your birthday.”

  In the early afternoon, Cora readied herself as Jacob. She thumped downstairs and bolted a meal of bread and cheese. She noticed that Leah had retrieved a single bloom from the two bunches she’d thrown out. It sat drinking in water from a brown glass emptied of liniment.

  “Getting a little sentimental, are we?” Cora said.

  “I like blue flags,” Leah said defensively. “Hiram gave me flags once.” Hiram was the grocer who gave Leah an especially good price on flour. Cora found out two years ago that Leah spent an extra hour there every few days when pretending to run errands, making god-awful cat noises in the back bedroom with Hiram. Leah caught Cora staring at her. “So, tell me about this Flint. Is he a good working man?”

  “It’s for the job, Leah. Nothing more. No more talk of this marriage business.”

  “If we don’t bring in more money, perhaps we could ask—”

  “No. We’ll ask no one,” Cora snapped.

  Cora had never borrowed money, not once. She was too proud to write or call upon the Cutter family. Not that it mattered—when Charlotte had moved too close to the Cutters on the island of Manhattan, the family had cut off all funds. But it was a necessary separation: the time had come to raise Cora as a girl, and there’d be no good explanation for her sudden appearance in their household and Jacob’s disappearance. As a result, Cora had never felt much connection to the Cutters, and since Charlotte’s death, she felt even less.

  Alexander made a good income as a wax sculptor, but she would never ask him for money. He lived very simply, joining them for Sunday breakfast or on quiet evenings for a game of faro or reading after supper. Cora had discovered his secret vice almost by accident. On evenings when Jacob planned to frequent the oyster saloons and gamble, Alexander would press her for her whereabouts. Suspecting that he was spying on her for her safety, she’d searched for him amid the crowds. But she never saw him.

  “Oh, Cora,” Leah had said. “He doesn’t want to be seen by his niece gambling and visiting the bawdy houses. He’s a man, and he must have his enjoyments like any other man. It’s been a long while since he’s had a woman to warm his bed.”

  Oh. Well. After that, she told him where she would be, even days in advance.

  Leah had long since left the kitchen. Cora finished her meal. She squinted into the overcast afternoon and frowned at the light streaming inside. Like an opossum, Jacob was a less savory breed that preferred the cover of night. Today, Cora would keep her hat on for as long as possible.

  Eschewing the crowded omnibuses that lumbered behind their tired horses, Cora preferred to walk the length of Broadway below Union Square and its lovely oval green. Past the post office and the bustle of Astor Place, she arrived eventually at the Stuyvesant Institute.

  No one asked why she was here. One of the enjoyments of being male was freedom of movement: Jacob could go where Cora couldn’t, and only the cleanliness and class of Jacob’s clothing might stop her. Today she’d worn a slightly nicer vest of sober black satin, and her newest trousers. She was passable as a poor student, at least.

  Luckily, the interior wasn’t brightly lit, and it appeared as if the whole abode was in slight disarray—two workers were carrying worktables out through the front door.

  “Jacob Lee!”

  Cora turned and saw Flint descending the stairs in the small atrium. Two other students were behind him. She nodded briefly, relieved that the dim light obscured her face.

  “What’s this?” Cora asked, gesturing to the ebb of furniture out the door. One worker, carrying an entire articulated skeleton, gasped when the skull fell off and bounced down the exterior steps.

  “Ah. We’re moving. The medical school has a brand-new establishment on Fourteenth Street, near Third Avenue. Have you seen it? It has an excellent surgical theater. This one was far too small, and the viewing is poor. But it’s what we have. Come! I’ll show you. No tickets needed. I’ve already signed you in as a visiting student.”

  Visiting student. Cora liked the sound of that.

  She accompanied Flint back up the stairs, and his two friends followed like shadows.

  “Are your friends missing their tongues, or are they just brought up poorly?” she asked.

  “Oh. My apologies.” Flint stopped halfway up the stairs. “This is Robert Cane, and this is Howard Franklin. They’ve already been rounding at Bellevue, but they are down here for the lecture today. Should be an excellent one. We just got it in last night.”

  Both men snickered at the sight of Cora. “What’s this rat doing here, Flint?” Robert said. He had yellow hair and a striped shirt, and he reminded Cora of a straw-tick mattress stuffed to the brim with hay. Howard had a snub nose that dominated his face.

  Cora snarled. “You tell Strawtick and Snout to stubble their red flags unless they have something useful to say.”

  “You’re here on Flint’s invitation, not ours,” Snout said. “We’ll say what we like.”

  “You see this?” She pointed to the bruise on Flint’s jaw. It was still purple and slightly swollen. “That’s my work. You gents want one to match?”

  They went quiet.

  “Better. Let’s see this mort. It had better be worth me losing my precious sleep.”

  “It will be,” Flint said. He thoughtfully rubbed the bruise on his face and stepped up his pace to the top of the stairs. Soon, they rounded a corridor to a small surgical theater originally created as a two-tiered chamber for meetings. Students had already filled most of the seats, and Cora was relieved that their seats were at the very top, in the poorest lighting.

  In the center of the small chamber, a long table held a very obvious corpse covered in a white cloth stained with yellow and pale brown. Feminine feet peeped out from beneath. Cora narrowed her eyes. The feet were well kept, with smooth skin and toenails used to regular baths and good shoes. They were the feet of a rich woman.

  A wizened professor garbed in white, his mostly bald head festooned with white hair, entered along with a nervous-looking assistant who rolled in a tray of surgical instruments. All the doors were shut, and a hush fell on the room. A few windows provided the only illumination. Flint leaned in close.

  “That’s Professor Granville Sharp Pattison. Trained in Glasgow, and he’s been at the university a good few years now. Famous.”

  Cora said nothing but leaned forward to listen as the professor began speaking in a gruff monotone.

  “Gentlemen. I welcome you to one of the last dissections of this quarter, before we move into the new building uptown. We have a classic case for you, an unusual case, and we shall begin with the gross findings. This young lady came to us after having suffered for some time with a malady that we do not often see, as it is hidden from society at all costs.”

  Cora’s spine stiffened. Why hadn’t it occurred to her before? Her thoughts now went immediately to Ruby: Had the missing girl turned up dead? With a grand sweep, the professor snatched away the shroud.

  A young woman lay bare on the stained wooden table, her hair cascading over the edge in ropy brown locks. She might have been pretty, but her face was darkened by a good deal of bruising—as if she’d died facedown and the blood had drained to her face in rigor mortis. Without turning her over, Cora wouldn’t know if she had a tail.

  “Do you see the abnormality, gentlemen? It’s right there. Keen eyes should see it in a moment.”

  There was a long silence before he pointed at a tiny dot on the deceased woman’s rib cage.

  “Plain as can be. She has a third nipple.”

  There were a few murmurs of interest and some pointing. A few put on their glasses to see the speck of darkness, no larger than a fly
.

  “Is that all?” Cora said, shoulders falling.

  Flint looked crestfallen at Jacob’s disappointment. “Were you expecting something else?”

  She went silent. Flint didn’t need to know that one of her specialty bodies was decidedly lost.

  The professor gave a sharp look up at the highest seats, and the entire lecture room hushed. The dissection ended up being a rather ordinary one. Despite her dainty feet, the woman wasn’t one of the uppertens. She had fallen down drunk a day ago, and landed face-first in a puddle behind a loud and boisterous beer garden in the Tenth Ward.

  Cora’s mind wandered as the woman’s torso was opened, rib bones sawed away to expose her heart and lungs. The stench wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been. She had not been dead long.

  “Does this not interest you?” Flint asked. “A great specimen.”

  Cora only yawned.

  “Ah, he’s not bored. He has no idea what he’s seeing, that’s what,” Strawtick said.

  “Boredom ain’t stupidity,” Cora said, the hair rising on her neck.

  “Isn’t it, now? Tell me,” Snout whispered. “What is he pointing out? The name of that vein right there?”

  “I don’t have to tell you anything,” Cora said.

  Snout snickered. “Because he doesn’t know!”

  “Do you have something to share, Mr. Cane? Mr. Franklin?”

  “No sir. Just letting our guest here know that he needs to pay better attention to your fine lecture, Professor.”

  “Indeed. Well, if you can’t pay attention, then you ought to leave, Mr. . . . ?”

  “Lee,” Cora said. Her face flushed from forty faces all turning simultaneously to stare at her. The makeup on her face felt smothering.

  “And can you tell me, Mr. Lee, why the azygous vein here is missing the corresponding artery next to the inferior vena cava?”

  “The answer is obvious, ain’t it?” Cora said.

  “He doesn’t know, sir,” Snout said. “He’s not a student, just a visitor.”

  “And all visitors should pay attention,” the professor boomed.

  “Never mind,” Flint whispered, turning his shoulder away from the onlookers. “We can leave. It’s all right if you—”

  Cora stood up. “The azygous vein does not have a corresponding artery. Professor.”

  Snout and Strawtick shrank in their chairs.

  The professor cleared his throat. “Go on.”

  “The name is Greek for unpaired. It’s the only vein that’s got no matching artery in the body.”

  “And where does it join the vena cava?” the professor asked. All forty pairs of eyes were still on Cora.

  “That’s a trick. It depends. Sometimes it empties into the right ventricle. This lady is ordinary as bread. Ends right in the superior vena cava, below the right innominate. You can see it, plain as day.”

  The professor smiled. “Excellent. Well, perhaps you should join our incoming class, Mr. Lee.”

  “No, thanks. Save the schooling for these kinchin who need it.”

  Cora sat down, and Snout and Strawtick stayed blessedly quiet for the rest of the lecture. After about two more hours, they rose to leave for the afternoon. Cora didn’t mind when Flint’s friends quickly egressed the tiny theater and didn’t wait for them.

  “You know your anatomy well,” Flint said.

  “Aye. And I don’t need you to teach me. So that was a waste of a good three hours. Why did you bring me here?”

  “I thought you’d enjoy it. For education. I didn’t realize you’d already learned this.”

  Cora sped past Flint and trotted down the stairs, clamping her hat back on her head. The sun was low in the sky, casting long shadows in the entranceway. “I’ve been going to anatomic lectures for longer than you.”

  “Apparently. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  She shoved the door open into the late-afternoon light and nearly let it close on her pursuer. “Why should I?”

  “Excellent point. And one we can ignore while we have a plate of oysters.” Flint grabbed her elbow just before she was completely out of reach. “Come. I owe you a dinner for such an abominably boring time.”

  Cora paused, a pinch of her sleeve fabric caught in Flint’s outstretched hand. “Why don’t you go eat with your oafs?”

  Flint let go and scratched his neck. A sign of discomfort. Bodies often revealed more than words did. Flint was hiding something.

  “They’re all right. I suppose they are oafs, as you say, but they’re not friends. I don’t really have friends.”

  Cora thought, I don’t have friends either.

  “Truth is, they don’t have to do much to be here. They’ll get a position as long as they do the minimum schoolwork. Their families are paying their tuition, and they have connections. They won’t be working the dispensaries with the worst of the worst. I’m paying my own way. Which is why I’ve got the night work, you see.”

  It was explained rather simply, but she could see that there was something else. Flint was running. Running from what—a poor childhood, obscurity? Who knew. But she saw a similarity between being a Lee and being Flint. For the first time, she felt sorry for him.

  “Anyway, I like it,” he said. “Anatomy is the equalizer, isn’t it? Shows we’re all just clay and water, in the end, no matter if you’re highborn or not. I like that.”

  “I’d rather be alive, though.”

  Flint grinned at this, and Cora couldn’t help but grin too.

  “Very well,” she said. “Two plates of oysters, not one, and I choose my libation. On your bill. You tell me what my sister’s babbling about with you having some deal with that curator over at the Grand Anatomical Museum, or we never speak again—and if I see you in my graveyards, I’ll add another bruise to that very fine one on your face.”

  Flint nodded and smiled wide, like a child who’d just gotten his first peppermint candy.

  CHAPTER 7

  They walked down Broadway as the sun set behind the buildings in the west. It was a changeful hour, and not only due to the light. The dandies—sons of the wealthy, fancifully dressed—sought out supper and more entertainment. The ladies who had spent the afternoon promenading up and down Broadway to the millineries, silk shops, and glove shops were now crammed into omnibuses or their own private carriages, transported back uptown to dining rooms bedecked with Italian marble and crystal goblets.

  In their place came the Bowery b’hoys and g’hirls in their gaudy and colorful threaded clothing, the painted faces of the evening ladies, and the eating house owners enticing patrons into their dark recesses.

  “Roast goose shillin’, roast beef shillin’, clam soup sixpence, extra bread and butter three and sixpence, mutton and taters shillin’. Walk in, sir, walk in! Have a seat!”

  As the darkness descended, Broadway became a bright, jeweled marvel, from the colored lanterns hanging on the edges of the carriages, to the gaslights flickering to life. They passed Lafayette Hall and the Chinese Building with its long-ponytailed workers, who noticed Cora’s dark eyes and wondered why she seemed so vaguely familiar. Perhaps they knew her father, or grandfather, or aunt. Her ancestors, though unknown, were stitched into her very being. Cora reached to pull her hat lower on her forehead but couldn’t help stealing a furtive glance their way. One young man caught her eye—and she saw the tiniest widening of his mouth—a miniature sunrise of a smile. She passed him by, but she would hold that flickering warmth within her for a long time.

  Finally, Cora located one of her favorite oyster saloons, Bardy’s, and paused.

  “Here?” Flint asked. He actually looked a bit taken aback. Likely he frequented the nicer eating houses.

  “Here.”

  She led Flint down the stairs to the cellar, where the saloon was already crammed full of patrons. In the corner, they found two empty spots at a table. Two men stood behind a bar, shucking as quickly as they could, piling oyster shells onto a growing barrel next to them. When i
t was full, they would roll it into the back and dump it right into the alleyway at the rear of the saloon.

  A sign above the bar listed the menu: Oysters, oysters, and oysters. Raw, fried, baked, stewed. Oyster pie, oysters stuffed in fowl, duck in oyster sauce. Hunks of bread were served on platters to soak up the drippings, and fine Croton water was being poured almost as much as malt liquor, bad brandy, and the German lager brewed near the shipyards.

  A black fellow wearing a thick apron sidled up to their table. “Jacob Lee! Been a good week since you’ve come to my saloon.”

  “I’ve been busy, Bardy.” Cora shook hands with the owner. “Two plates of roast oysters, bread and butter, and one of your best butter cakes.”

  “Hob or nob?” he inquired.

  “Two brandies,” Cora said. “The good stuff, not your sixpence bathwater.”

  The owner turned and hollered the order, and soon plates with crusted loaves of bread, two generous lumps of butter, and drinks were on the table along with the steaming golden oysters.

  They didn’t talk for a while. Cora was too hungry. The bread and cheese from lunch seemed days ago. She shoveled in the oysters and washed them down with water until she burped luxuriously, and put her elbows up on the table with dual thumps. Flint had eaten half as much and was still chewing while watching with a wary eye the men at the next table, who were rowdily discussing a game of ten pins.

  “Okay. I’ve eaten. What do you have to tell me?” Cora said.

  Flint put his elbows on the table, too, tenting his fingers. Good God, Cora hated when men did that. It was so supercilious, it made her want to knock their teeth out and sell them each for a half penny. For a moment, Flint squinted at her, as if he saw something amiss. But then he fished an errant piece of oyster shell from the tip of his tongue, and the moment passed.

  “As Miss Lee told you, I’ve made a deal with the curator of the Grand Anatomical Museum. Duncan has a large collection of natural curiosities—animals and insects and such—but wants to supplement them with more displays on human anatomy. He has a wax sculptor—”