The Impossible Girl

by Lydia Kang

  “A male doctor approves of your career?” Suzette said. “That is impressive, indeed.”

  Dr. Blackwell smiled, and her pink cheeks were merry against her plainer, dark dress. “Yes, it is. And here I am, despite Mr. Duncan turning me away from his own establishment. There is a lesson there, somewhere, do you not think, Miss Lee?”

  Cora smiled only a little. “There are lessons everywhere, Dr. Blackwell. Whether we choose to listen to them depends on our own good sense.”

  “Is that Aristotle?”

  “No, it’s Cora Lee.” She smiled. “Thank you for the lecture, Dr. Blackwell.”

  Outside, Peter waited by the barouche. The ladies from the lecture exited the church, in their Quaker-style dark dresses. The fading twilight made the plain white fichus about their necks look like flying birds.

  “Oh, let’s walk back. I want the evening to last a little longer. That lecture went by too quickly,” Suzette said.

  “That sounds lovely,” Cora said. “But what about your driver?”

  “Peter, follow us from a distance,” she ordered. “That will satisfy Mother, I’m sure,” she said. Peter touched his cap and went up into the barouche to follow at a slow pace.

  Suzette hooked her arm into Cora’s, and they strolled along the sidewalk. It was an odd feeling, walking arm in arm with a lady, with family. Even with Charlotte alive, Cora never had the opportunity. She’d dressed as Jacob until her body began to change. On their few outings dressed as a young lady, Cora had stood in discomfort and awe of her beautiful aunt, who was busy scanning faces for untoward glances at her niece.

  What would Charlotte think, Cora wondered, if she knew I was walking with the very family that had cast her off? She wondered if Charlotte would think it was smart, or a betrayal, or just dangerous. Charlotte would say, Be on your guard, Cora. At all times.

  Always. Because they will come for you, when given the chance.

  “Oh! Look at that ribbon! I’ve wanted it for so long. The perfect grosgrain, in that shade of green. Look, Cora!”

  Cora looked in the window, and smiled, but ribbons were never anything she cared for. Leah fussed over how many tucks were in her dress, or whether the trimming was rich enough, but not too rich to gather too much attention. The store owner was locking the door, when he saw Suzette, and he offered to reopen if she wished to look. She turned around to make eye contact with Peter—goodness, she couldn’t even cough without a chaperone’s approval—and stepped inside the store.

  “Come, Cora! I’ll only be a moment. I’ve wanted to trim my hat with this color for ages.”

  “I’ll stay here,” Cora said, smiling. “I like the cool air.”

  “But look! They’re so beautiful! Just a minute!”

  Cora laughed and shook her head. “I’ll wait here for you. Take as much time as you wish.”

  She heard Suzette point out several different ribbons, and through the window, Cora could see her perusing the shades of emerald.

  She turned to watch the passersby while she waited, and saw a man across the street staring at her. He was medium height, with brown hair and brown clothes and a stovepipe hat. Unlike the others on the street, pausing by the shop fronts, he stared at her, only her. She quickly looked away, walked a few steps southward away from the store to the front of a glove shop, and looked again.

  He had matched her steps and walked a parallel ten steps just as she had.

  Surely, he couldn’t be following her. She looked up the street, and back. There were no other women walking alone, only Cora. A group of men, boisterously arguing over the Whigs’ most recent split at the Syracuse convention, strolled just ahead. Cora matched steps with them, hiding slightly behind their mass for another street, until they turned the corner and left her behind.

  And still, the stranger was across the street.

  Not again. She couldn’t endure another attack. Suzette was so close by, and Cora was unarmed. She would go back to the barouche and stay with Peter by the shop, and likely her pursuer would retreat. She turned and hurried back to the store, but found the owner closing it yet again.

  The barouche was gone, and so was Suzette.

  “Suzette!” Cora called out. “Suzette!” She looked uptown and saw from a distance that the barouche had left without her and was turning the corner at Twelfth Street. Suzette must have thought that she had grown weary of waiting, and knowing how close Cora’s home was, left on her own.

  Cora looked to the other side of the street. The man was now crossing toward her, dashing ahead of oncoming wagons and carriages. In seconds, he’d be across Broadway.

  He was coming for her.

  CHAPTER 23

  Doing the only thing that made sense, Cora began to walk as quickly as possible uptown. If she stayed amongst the men and women on the sidewalk, she would be safe. In only ten minutes, she could be home, behind a locked door.

  She saw no watchman nearby to call to for help. No policeman either. She turned to see whether the man was still following, but she saw only ordinary pedestrians chattering about supper or the upcoming evening’s festivities . . . There. A glimpse of a dirty brown shirt and—

  “Cora!”

  It was Suzette, her head poking out of the closed barouche, coming down the other side of Broadway. Peter yanked on the horses’ reins to bring them to a halt.

  Cora paused to scan the crowds again.

  The man was gone.

  “Suzette!” Cora smiled, but Suzette’s matching smile was quickly replaced by concern.

  “Are you all right? You look positively white. I thought you’d left and we circled the block looking for you and . . . Goodness, are you ill?”

  Cora waved her concern away, and several passersby made room for her to cross to the barouche.

  “A little indigestion,” Cora said simply. “But I’m fine now.”

  “Are you sure? Should we call for a doctor?” The words tumbled out so quickly that Suzette could hardly catch her breath. Oddly, she looked lit from within, as if this were the most exciting thing to happen to her in ages. “You look a fright. We’ll bring you home immediately. You mustn’t run off like that again!”

  No, thought Cora. I can’t run.

  She couldn’t run away. Because as long as she dared to live, she was either competition or she was a prize. Looking at Suzette, whose worries amounted to finding the right color of ribbon and trembling over the vicissitudes of normal life, Cora felt impossibly far away. All her life, she’d been at a distance to normalcy. She didn’t realize how exhausted she was.

  She had to put an end to this, to the running, to the distance that separated her from the living. Unfortunately, that meant speaking to Theo again.

  CHAPTER 24

  Leah was in a state when Cora came home, her complexion pale and her hands shaking.

  “I’m all right,” Cora said as Leah fussed, helping her remove her gown and wig.

  “You’re not all right. That was too close. From now on, you ought only to go out as Jacob. I can tell people that Cora is ill.”

  “That won’t work. People suspect that Jacob has been killing people for our business. He’s a target because that terrible list of Duncan’s has convinced every mug and looby in the Five Points he can make five hundred dollars digging up graves.”

  Leah stopped gathering up Cora’s petticoats and dress. Cora stood in her muslin underclothes, attending to her wig, which needed some grooming.

  “What?” Leah said. “They think you and Jacob are burking victims?”

  “Yes. Even Dr. Henrickson mentioned it in a letter. And that fellow who attacked me.” The idea still made Cora queasy. She was no murderess and never could be. She held her stomach, just thinking about it.

  “Are you well, Cora?” Leah watched her suspiciously.

  “I am.” She straightened up and made herself look well.

  “I’ll make your tea and draw you a bath.”

  “No. I don’t need a bath. I’m going out. As Jacob. I
need to find Theodore Flint.”

  “Flint! Why?”

  “Never mind why. I need to speak to him.”

  “But after what you said about Jacob? It’s not safe. You shouldn’t.”

  “I must. The center of all of this is the rumors about me. Dr. Grier may be gone, but as long as his diaries are out there, his voice is louder than mine, and I can’t speak. Theo will tell me if Duncan’s added any more details to the rumors.”

  “That old pickle Duncan won’t tell the truth,” Leah reasoned.

  “He may not tell Theo he stole the diaries, but he might reveal details—for example, if Dr. Grier wrote down Charlotte’s name, or my mother’s. Those details can be traced to me, and Jacob.”

  Leah stood by the door, as if waiting for Cora to change her mind. But seeing Cora pulling on a grubby pair of trousers and one of her stained shirts, Leah sighed and closed the door.

  Cora had heard that sigh so many times before. The sigh of knowing that Cora would do as Cora wanted. That this was not the life that Cora was meant to live, all these years after her infant voice protested the cruelty of winter’s cold, and she lustily breathed her first breaths in defiance of everyone who wished she didn’t exist.

  Cora, dressed as her brother, waited across the street from Flint’s boardinghouse and watched the yellow glow of his room window. There was a gauzy curtain drawn there, and she could see a single shadow pass back and forth. Not two, which gave some comfort.

  Not that she cared. Anything between the two of them had long since left. He hadn’t tried to contact her, nor had she sent him any messages. A match had been lit after their argument, and any gentle feeling left was now in cinders.

  The light in Flint’s room winked out, and Cora took a breath, receding into the shadow of the building’s corner. Flint exited his boardinghouse, looked up and down Broadway, and then began walking briskly downtown. The gaslights hissed at Cora as she passed by each iron light, following Flint from fifty paces behind him. The only women to be seen were enticing customers into the gambling houses and rum cellars.

  Flint paused at Grand Street, and entered Madame Mary Beck’s house, an establishment that Cora knew from her evenings dressed as Jacob. Cora tipped her hat forward a little to cover her eyes, and stepped into the doorway. Piano music played by a well-dressed black man filled the air, and luxe furniture filled the room. Drinks were served by the fine-looking ladies of the house, who swarmed over patrons and invited them to private rooms upstairs. Inside, Cora was offered a drink and accepted, waving away the few girls who approached Jacob, their scarlet stockings showing above brightly laced boots decorated with tassels and bells.

  Flint was not in the front room, so Cora carefully slid into the next room and pretended to be interested in a dice game by the back wall. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him. Flint was in a far corner, hardly noticing the mabs with their corsets tight on their ribs beneath their bare breasts. The women ran their fingers along his shoulders, tweaking his hat, and offering him more of the same if he’d only pay for an upstairs room for several dollars. But he wasn’t paying attention to any of them. He was talking heatedly with a man sitting on a chair, surrounded by women plying him with icing-covered cakes and liquor.

  It was Duncan.

  They talked quietly, so Cora couldn’t hear a word, but Flint seemed perturbed, and Duncan placid. A staircase curled around this scene, rising to a second story filled with room after room that issued the same odor—of stinking sweat, the sticky leftovers of couplings, opium smoke, spilled liquor, and cheap perfumes. Flint and Duncan simultaneously turned their heads to watch a woman descend the steps.

  The girl looked like Cora’s twin.

  She wasn’t, of course. But she had the same build, breadth, and height. Her eyes were carefully smudged with kohl to make them appear more narrow and drawn out, like Cora’s. She wore a very obvious wig that matched Cora’s color exactly, and some carefully applied makeup had darkened her eyebrows to match.

  Flint’s mouth dropped open a touch, and his mind suddenly seemed devoid of sense. Duncan, however, grinned.

  “There she is! Come here, come here. I’ve a lap for you, and more if you’d like.”

  The Cora look-alike shook her head. Duncan reached for her hand, and before she could escape, he captured it and drew her closer. She smiled—a terribly fake smile; her teeth were more crooked than Cora’s—and turned her head away, to avoid his hoary breath on her neck. After a few murmurings, she was released, and she walked to the bar near to where Cora stood watching the dice game. Flint was watching her too, and Cora had to turn her back so as not to be noticed.

  “Duncan wants more brandy,” the look-alike told the barmaid, who reached behind her to open a new bottle.

  “He’s paying well tonight. Keep it going,” the barmaid said, grimacing. “Swine. He’s keeping the ladies away from other paying customers.”

  “Can I speak to you? I’ll pay you for your time,” Cora said suddenly, moving to her side.

  The look-alike wouldn’t even meet her eye. She kept those brown irises on filling the brandy glass in front of her.

  “Talk? Well, well,” the barmaid said. “Audrey is occupied. Try another.”

  “I want her,” Cora said, keeping her voice low. “Audrey.” She kept her head down, afraid that her doppelgänger might recognize her disguise, though they’d never met. She dug into her pocket and let the coins click invitingly.

  “No,” the look-alike said without smiling. She eyeballed Cora head to toe. “I only have one patron, and he’s particular about what I do, and who I do it with.” She looked over her shoulder to where Duncan and Flint were still talking closely. “Only one.”

  “Aye, he pays her well to be a lady bird.” The barmaid winked. “Very well. We could buy the building next door if we had as many situations like hers.”

  “Anyway, you could be my brother; you look enough like me,” Audrey said, somewhat coldly but kindly at the same time. “And I wouldn’t wish to speak to my brother about my work.”

  Cora looked over her shoulder. Flint stood up to shake Duncan’s hand, then leave. Cora ducked her head down, but this was normal behavior. Houses like this were full of dark culleys, as they were called, the ones with wives uptown who visited their mistresses in the evening and needed their business quiet and well kept.

  “Hello, Audrey,” Flint said from somewhere very close to the back of Cora’s head.

  “Hello, Teddy,” Audrey said, a little too sweetly. “Not staying?”

  “Not tonight. Be careful if you step out at night.”

  Cora heard her pat Theo’s cheek affectionately. “You’re sweet.”

  Now was the moment she should talk to him, ask him more about Duncan and the diaries. But his ease here in the bawdy house and with Duncan—it unsettled her. How many times had he spoken to Duncan and not told her? Perhaps he’d spent nights here in Madame Beck’s, or other bawdy houses. He seemed too comfortable here. Maybe he’d gone behind her back on other occasions.

  In a moment, Flint was gone. His familiar scent trailed behind him, and for a second, Cora was strangely homesick. She wished she could be back in his room, away from Leah, away from the cemeteries, Theo’s hand casually on her ribs and not caring at all what beat beneath them. But then Duncan’s voice called out loudly again for his brandy, and she shed all thoughts of Flint.

  The look-alike took two glasses of brandy back to Duncan, who sipped his and tried to paw the girl at the same time, but she whispered in his ear and soon went back upstairs. Duncan did not follow her, but then again, he still had a wealth of unfinished food before him. Cora drained the last drops of rum, ordered another, and steeled herself. Her internal argument told her she would not need Flint as a go-between. She walked over to Duncan’s table.

  “I’m Jacob Lee. Cora’s brother,” she said rather abruptly and rudely, but she was Jacob, after all.

  Duncan squinted at Cora-as-Jacob. “Ah, I’ve heard much of
you. What a sister! What figure! You look like twins, almost. I see you’re a man of good tastes. Madame Beck has the most beautiful girls, and certainly the most obliging.”

  “Anyone is obliging, for the right price,” Cora said evenly. A girl nearby approached, and began rubbing her breasts against Cora’s shoulder. Cora gently pushed her away. In the corner, two men were cozily sitting with their arms about each other, chatting over tumblers of whiskey. A twinge of jealousy plucked at Cora, seeing their warmth and closeness. She looked away, back at Duncan. “I’m to have a word with Mr. Duncan, if you please. Buy yourself a drink,” she said, and handed the girl a few coins. She kissed Cora on the cheek and turned away. Cora wiped her cheek discreetly.

  “Ah, so you’re not so hungered by the servings here, are you?” Duncan observed, sipping his brandy. His right hand was comfortably situated over the breast of a flame-haired mab on his right knee.

  “I’m more hungered by a penny earned, Duncan, as you are.” She sipped her drink. “What did Flint want?”

  “Nothing that concerns you,” he said. He smiled instead at someone past his head and waved. “Look at that beauty!”

  Cora ignored his attempt to distract her. “I read about the two-hearted girl in the paper. Is it true? You have a bead on this girl?”

  Duncan sat back a little and sighed. “Well, I’ve a bead, all right, but the target keeps moving.” He spoke to the redheaded girl. “A plate of oysters, fried. And be generous with the pepper.” She got up, and he smacked her bottom as she left. Duncan leaned in closer to Jacob. “If you know anything, I’ll pay for that information. And I’ll pay more if you bring her in.”

  Cora threaded her fingers together, knuckles appropriately stained. “As I’m sure Flint said he would.”

  Duncan shrugged. “Flint has a keen interest in that prize. He seemed even keener to find out who else is competing. This call for specimens was the best idea I’ve ever had. It’s not up to me how it happens, but it shall happen.”