by Tom Murphy
Interspersed among the help-wanted ads were notices proclaiming the arrival of clipper ships and their luxurious cargoes, which apparently were as newsworthy as any political development or natural disaster. The Maison de Ville, which Sophie had told her was the town’s fanciest ladies’ store, was offering High Quality Kidskin Gloves à la mode, six dollars the pair, lately arrived on the clipper Eclipse, not to mention Farina Colognes in raffia baskets, candied violets, Godey’s Ladies’ Book, and yard goods from Siam. Just reading the exotic list made Lily realize what a fairyland this town could be, for them as didn’t have to worry where their next cabbage was coming from. She sat on the edge of her bed, with Kate in her lap gurgling happily, and slowly reread every page of the Alta California just in case there was some advertisement, some clue, that she’d missed. Several of the town’s fashionable gambling parlors proclaimed that they featured “PRETTY WAITER GIRLS,” and that made Lily wonder exactly what the duties were of a pretty waiter girl, and what she might earn. One such place, the Golconda, announced with a typically Californian lack of modesty that it served San Francisco’s finest cuisine, had pretty waiter girls, gaming, and entertainment. And it was right on Broadway, down by the docks! Lily left Kate with the ever-unsmiling Louisa Moss and set out on foot.
I’m not pretty enough, and I’ve never been a waiter. They’ll hate me because I am Irish. They won’t want a girl with a baby.
It was late afternoon by the time Lily reached the Golconda. The gaming house filled the bottom floor of a big building just one block from the Broadway wharf, and its main entrance was at the corner of Front Street. Convenient, Lily thought, passing by her former refuge, to Sophie’s place. Indeed, they were only a block apart.
The bar of the Golconda was crowded even in the afternoon. Inside, the fading light outside was totally obscured and gas lights sparkled from huge gilt mirrors, glasses, bottles, brass, and silver. A piano was being flogged with more persistence than grace, somewhere in a room Lily could not see. The air was filled with cigar smoke and exclamations. There were “pretty waiter girls,” all wearing sleazy low-cut gowns, too much face paint, and expressions of sullen boredom. Whores. Lily thought, the pretty waiter girls are whores, and nothing more! She stood near the door wondering what to do next, when one of the waiter girls approached her.
“Sorry, lady, but unescorted women aren’t allowed here. Better you take your wares down the street, honey.”
Lily gathered up all the courage that was left in her and spoke. “I’m looking for a job.”
The girl’s laugh was quick and cruel. “As what?”
“As…a waitress.”
Lily looked at the girl. She’s no older than I am, but tough as nails already. God spare me from ever getting like that.
“Well…maybe.” The girl looked Lily up and down with exactly the same expression of doubt that Lily herself had used on the two-dollar cabbage not long ago. At last the girl made a little shrugging gesture and spoke again. “Follow me.”
Lily followed her into the back room, and then into still another room to the left of that. The back room was filled with green-topped gaming tables and noisy men at play. The waiter girls lounged about, sometimes actually bringing a drink or a sandwich, but for the most part teasing the gamblers, egging them on, receiving their roving hands and drunken propositions with the bland acceptance of long practice.
The girl led Lily to the door of an office. “The kid wants a job, Lucy,” she said quickly, and left.
Lily squinted a bit, for the office was big and dimly lit. At the far end of the room was a huge oaken desk, a desk that might have served for all the business of a large bank, a desk of almost monstrous proportions, fitted with dozens of pigeonholes and tiny drawers and compartments. At the big desk sat a woman. Lily had never seen such a figure. She was tall, very tall, one foot taller than Lily at the least, and slender as a stalk of wheat. And as sallow. She seemed to be all of one color, this Lucy, pale ivory, no makeup, and pale ivory hair that might have been blond or white with age. Her face had a masklike quality, expressionless, with half-mast eyelids that looked as though they had seen everything and paid only the most minimal attention.
“Come here, girl.” Her voice was smooth and as expressionless as her face, and like her face, it hinted of hidden dangers in some subtle way Lily could not quite define. “You’re looking for a job.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Your name?”
“Lily. Lillian Malone. Mrs. Lillian Malone.” Lily was very close to the desk now. She saw the woman’s hand come floating out toward her, supple and threatening as some pale snake. The hand just barely touched Lily, but it touched nearly all of her, passing down her breast, down the curve of her hip, down the top of her thighs with no more force than a breeze. Lily shuddered at the touch, and froze with fear. She prepared herself to run, to fight, to scream. And who would hear?
“Yes. Possibly, just possibly you might do.”
“What would…”
“Be a waiter girl. Be kind to our respected customers. Indulge them in their little whims. Be nice to me.”
Again, uncontrollably, Lily shuddered.
“Do I frighten you, dearie? You’d rather have one of our fine brave hombres working you over, hasn’t had a bath in six months, pockets filled with gold dust, up there in the hills fucking the goats and the little Mexican boys too? Is that what you want, little Lily?”
Lily blinked in disbelief. I am going to be sick right here and now! “I didn’t understand…”
“No, of course not, they never do. You’re an attractive little creature, do you know that? Probably not. Don’t know very much, do you, girl? But there is a certain…freshness.”
Again the pale hand came floating in her direction. Lily turned then and ran from the dark office. A pale echo of laughter followed her departure.
Lily stumbled through the crowded gaming room, and paused, looking this way and that, desperate for the quickest route out of this terrible place. She felt a hand on her shoulder, and turned, ready to scream. It was the waiter girl who had shown her in, and underneath the paint, and the habitual sneer, the girl’s face had softened.
“Look, honey,” she said in a hoarse tone, “you don’t want to work here, this here’s a rough place. Go up the street and try Sophie’s. They treat a girl right at Sophie’s. If I could get in there, you can bet that’s where I’d be, comprende?”’
Lily was so thoroughly frightened that she could only nod her thanks and run. And run she did, no matter who might be looking.
It was dark in the street now. Lily came hurtling out of the Golconda and turned right, up Broadway toward home.
The street was filled with men, as usual. She walked a block, and then passed Sophie Delage’s El Dorado Hotel.
The El Dorado glowed in the darkness.
Lily looked up at Sophie’s house as she passed, and quickly looked away. There was all the temptation of a thousand devils, bright and beckoning. She thought of the strange woman, of Lucy, and her flesh crawled. And for the first time Lily felt pity for the poor waiter girls of the Golconda, and what they must put up with.
Kate was crying when Lily got back to the Moss house. She could hear the child’s lusty wailing half a block away. Lily let herself in and went to the gloomy front parlor. Mrs. Moss stood up at once, plucked Kate from where she lay wet and wriggling on a torn sheet on the floor, and handed the infant to her mother.
“Thank you,” said Lily. “I hope the child was not a bother for you.”
“Everything is a bother to me, Mrs. Malone, and one more or less hardly matters.”
“Yes. Well, good evening, then.”
Sophie, Lily thought as she climbed the narrow stairs, was right: Louisa Moss was about as far from cheerful as a body could get, this side of the grave.
“But we don’t mind, do we, Kate, Katharine, Katie? We won’t let that old wet blanket bother the likes of us, Kate, not us, for the sun is going to shine on us
, Kate, and all the angels will be singing for us, and you’ll grow up fine and strong and smarter than your old lady, yes, that’s what’s going to happen, little Kate, and you can bet your bottom dollar on it.”
Only when the words “bottom dollar” slipped out did Lily realize that the damp on her cheek came not from kissing Kate’s anger away, but from her own tears of weariness and frustration. She flung open the apartment door and changed Kate’s diaper, washed the child, and put her to bed. Lily’s supper that night was a little cheese, a slice of hard roll (the remainder being saved for breakfast), and one glass of Kate’s milk.
The manager of the Maison de Ville was charming. He thinks I’m a customer, Lily thought. Little does he know! But even when she told him she was looking for work, that she could sew a fine hem, and even do embroidery, his good manners remained undiminished.
“Alas, the Chinese have ruined all that, I fear, at least from your point of view, Mrs. Malone. They work, you see, for practically nothing, and we simply can’t afford not to use them, since everyone else does.”
“I see.”
Lily saw the problem only vaguely. There were throngs of Chinese men in the street, odd-colored, quick-moving, jabbering people, always busy, always en route somewhere, always moving faster than the white men. And they did all of the most menial tasks, did the Chinese. Laundry was their specialty, for Lily had considered even that; she knew how to care for fine ladies’ clothing, but the Chinese, again, knew as much and did it for remarkably little. As they sewed, and cooked, and dug ditches, and did the donkey work in the mines. They had no babies to care for, these Chinese, they were single men who lived in hovels, six or more to a room.
By the end of the second week, with more than half of her money gone, Lily began to realize the full extent of what she was up against.
The normal jobs that might have been available to a young girl in any other big city simply did not exist here. The overwhelming predominance of men meant that men often took jobs traditionally worked by women. There were many—too many—male shop clerks, waiters, cooks. Even the Chinese men who sewed were usurping women’s work. In two weeks Lily had all but worn out her walking boots. Her feet were sore and blistered, for she would not spend what it cost for an omnibus. She knew all the byways of the raw new city now, and its main streets too, and all of them, to Lily, seemed to lead nowhere.
Lily saw her small reserve of cash melting away in the face of the astounding prices the merchants asked, and got, for even the simplest food. It seemed that every hour, every bite of bread or sip of milk, brought her closer to some terrible day of reckoning, a day on which she would have to beg, or steal, or do only God knows what, simply to survive.
All day, for as long as her strength and her will would carry her, Lily walked the streets in search of work. The rejection that she met at every turn had long ceased to surprise her. It seemed to be part of her life now, like a spell of the worst weather. It would have been easy to hate the Chinese, who took the menial jobs that might otherwise have saved her, but she could not, for didn’t they need to eat too, and didn’t they have problems of their own? Every afternoon Lily dragged herself back to Mrs. Moss’s house, wondering how long her everyday shoes would last, thin as they were getting. Only Kate could cheer her, but what a cheer this was! The baby seemed happy and looked well, and her smile could charm even the prune-faced Mrs. Moss. But even this joy was mixed with sadness, for Lily would look down at her daughter and think: One day soon, Kate, you are going to want new clothes, and where they’ll come from is a mystery. And Kate would smile and make small gurgling noises that drove Lily half-mad with doubt and fear for the child’s future.
She would not give up hope. Her luck had carried her this far. It must carry her farther still: It simply is not possible that there are no jobs at all for me in San Francisco. Lily knocked on so many doors that she began to feel like a beggar. And I would beg, and steal, too, for my Katie.
Mrs. Stanford Dickinson had a rich husband, an old name, and no chin. She had advertised for someone who could do fine mending. Now Lily stood nervously in the front hallway of the big Dickinson house in Spring Park, twisting her worn reticule in anticipation of the interview. The little Mexican maid came back and gestured for Lily to follow. The house was large and had a fine view. Even by the ostentatious standards Lily was used to from her days in the Wallingford mansion, this place was almost grotesquely overfurnished. Mrs. Dickinson sat on a heavily carved sofa, her back stiff as a board, holding an opulent red damask ball gown on her lap. Even from halfway across the room Lily could tell that the gown was all but ruined. A huge jagged tear extended nearly twelve inches across the front panel of the gown, from the hem almost to the knee.
Mrs. Dickinson nodded icily as Lily introduced herself. “Yes, yes young lady. Now. What might you be able to do with this?”
She held up the tattered gown. Lily wondered how in the world the rip had got there, for the silk damask was heavy, very strong, and new.
“Have you any more of the material, ma’am?”
“No, no, of course not! It’s from Paris.”
“Then I would disguise it with a fringe, here, and another, for the balance, here.”
“And how long might that take?”
“Three days, perhaps, maybe four. After finding the fringe, that is. There is much fine work to be done on it.”
“And what might you charge?”
“Perhaps…fifteen dollars.”
“Outrage! Do you think money grows on trees, girl? Why, I can get any chink to do it for five. And in a day. And beautifully, too.”
Lily looked at the woman and ceased to see her clearly. Lily saw, instead, Kate’s little face. She saw Kate’s face smiling, happy, not wondering where her next meal would come from, for sure and she had a good mother to get it. Sure. Lily sighed.
“Five dollars, then. And carfare.”
The curl of triumph on Mamie Dickinson’s lips was not a pretty thing to see. “I am willing to try you, girl, out of charity.”
Lily’s heart shrank at the word “charity.” It wasn’t charity at all. It was damnable thievery, and well Mrs. Dickinson knew it.
But it was also her only chance to earn a few days’ grace to buy a bit of food for herself and the baby. Maybe, if she did the work very well, and quickly, maybe then Mrs. Dickinson would give her more to do, and at more reasonable prices.
Lily spoke softly when she replied. “Where,” she asked in measured tones, burying her anger deep, “would I find the fringe, ma’am?”
“At the City of Paris, of course, they have the best: I’ll give them a note, and you can have them bill it to my account. And I shall expect a detailed receipt, not an inch more than you need, don’t try any sly tricks on me, girl!”
“I shall need thread, too, Mrs. Dickinson.”
“Well, if you insist.”
Mrs. Dickinson rose and walked stiffly to a little desk that gleamed with gilt-bronze hardware. She opened a drawer and pulled out some creamy notepaper and quickly scrawled a message.
“There,” she said, handing the note to Lily. “Take this to the manager at the City of Paris. And I’ll expect the dress back tomorrow, and not a moment after five.”
Lily’s mind raced. It was easily two days’ work. Mrs. Dickinson reached into a little beaded reticule with fingers that seemed like claws, so bony they were, and so grasping. She fetched out a fifty-cent piece and gave it to Lily.
“Carfare,” she said. “I don’t want my Paris silks trailing in the mud of San Francisco.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Lily, thinking murder.
“Tomorrow before five, then?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Lily folded the ball gown carefully, slipped the note into her worn purse, and left. The rage in her heart had subsided into sorrow. Mrs. Dickinson’s attitude went beyond unfairness. It went all the way to cruelty. Lily wondered what life had done to the woman, that made her enjoy taking such brutal advant
age of a stranger. Still, it was a chance. The fifty cents glowed in Lily’s mind as though it were some treasure out of a fairy story. Mrs. Dickinson’s gown would not trail in the mud, but only because Lily would take great care of it. The carfare would buy milk for Katie, and a few loaves of bread, stale of course, but that didn’t matter much if you soaked it in milk.
Lily hurried down the hill and across the bustling streets to the heart of town. Before long she was smiling again. That mean old woman was going to get a surprise! She’d have her gown back before she expected, and so perfectly sewn that she’d melt, and give Lily more work, and tell all her friends, too. If a woman that mean had any friends to tell.
All the City of Paris had to hear was the name Dickinson. Clerks were sent running, eight kinds of fringe were produced, and Lily found exactly the right one—a perfect color match—in minutes. Luck was with her, and not a moment too soon!
All that night, she sewed.
It was incredibly difficult. The tear was more than a tear. It looked as though some ravening lion had slashed the heavy satin with his claw—jagged, frayed, with parts of the skirt hanging almost in ribbons.
First Lily sewed the ragged tear back into a semblance of what it had been, using the finest French stitching. And wouldn’t Sister Mary Agnes be proud of her pupil! Lily sewed in the last of the daylight, then lit the kerosene lamp and drew it close to her hard straight-backed chair. The baby played and gurgled happily. Lily sewed until her fingers ached. The only relief from it was rising from time to time to pick up Kate, crooning and talking to the infant, murmuring words of hope. Kate smiled, and seemed to understand.
