Prima Donna: A Novel

by Megan Chance

  "What time is it?" I asked.

  "Nearly noon, I think."

  "This is later than I've slept in some time." I stretched and got out of bed, going to the window, easing the curtain back to look outside at another gray and misty day.

  "You were good to let me stay here," Charlotte said. "I'll be gone as soon as I get dressed."

  "To go where?"

  "I don't know. It don't matter. Someplace cheap."

  "Perhaps here," I heard myself say, letting the curtain drop back into place. "I'll ask Mrs. McGraw."

  "How much is it?"

  "Four dollars a week, extra for meals. But I wouldn't pay the extra. There's better food to be had at almost any other place in the Lava Beds."

  "D'you think I can make enough at the Palace to pay that?"

  "From what I saw last night, you should do so easily."

  She nodded. She undid her braid and brushed her hair with her fingers, and then twisted it up again with the pins she'd taken out last night.

  "Don't you have a brush?" I asked.

  "No," she said quietly. "I left Portland ... quickly."

  I had gone to the basin to wash, and now I paused at the words that were, like so many other things about her, too familiar. I told myself not to ask. It was none of my business; it was easier if I didn't know. But I heard myself saying, "Will trouble be following you up here?" Her expression hardened. "No."

  Suddenly the scar on her arm seemed very red and even more obvious than it had before. I wondered if it had anything to do with her leaving Portland. It looked to be old, older than mine, though how could I know that really?

  I turned to the basin, tamping down my curiosity, remembering how much I'd hated the questions, how much I still hated them. I washed and left her to dress in quiet, back in the Palace satin. I wondered what had happened to the dress she'd had on when she arrived.

  When I dried my face, she said, "Would you mind?" and turned so I could do up the final buttons, which I did quickly. Then she said, "Thanks again. I won't forget I owe you."

  "Why don't we see if Mrs. McGraw has an empty room?"

  She hesitated. "I don't want to be a burden."

  "It's no burden," I said. "Just let me get dressed."

  She waited, and I dressed quickly, and led her out of my room and downstairs. Mrs. McGraw was in the kitchen, peeling potatoes for what was certain to be a heavy and greasy supper. When we came through the door, she paused, setting aside the paring knife, wiping her hands on her already filthy apron.

  "Why, Miss Olson, good afternoon to you."

  "I was hoping you might have an empty room for a friend of mine. This is Charlotte Rainey, who's just started work at the Palace."

  She peered at Charlotte with sharp and rather beady eyes. "The Palace, eh?"

  "I hired her yesterday. She's new to Seattle."

  "Well, you know I'd always take someone you're vouching for, Miss Olson, because I don't take no one who don't got a personal recommendation, but there's no room just now. That nice Mr. Clemmons down the hall says he's going as soon as he sells his silks, but who knows when that'll be? Maybe a week, maybe more."

  Charlotte said, "Thanks just the same, Mrs. McGraw."

  Mrs. McGraw frowned. "I'd be happy to have you, Miss Rainey, if you can wait a bit. God knows I hate to lose a good renter."

  "But I need a place now. I can't be sleeping on the streets."

  "Maybe Miss Olson could put you up for a few days," Mrs. McGraw said, looking at me pointedly. "That way you'd be ready to move in just as soon as Mr. Clemmons moves out. Why, I'd even charge you only fifty cents more instead of my usual dollar for sharing."

  I had been surprised at my disappointment when there had been no room, and now I found myself surprised once more at Mrs. McGraw's suggestion. Not because she'd made it, but because I considered it. Usually I spent as little time in my room as possible, because I hated the quiet of being alone, the sound of my own breath, of my body moving about the space. To have Charlotte there, even for a short time ... Hadn't I slept last night? Had I felt even a single moment of that disquiet that had lately been my most constant companion?

  I said, "How generous of you, Mrs. McGraw," at the same moment Charlotte said "No."

  I turned to her. "Why not? It's only for a time. This place is better than most. At least Mrs. McGraw washes the sheets."

  "Of course I do!" Mrs. McGraw said in outrage.

  Charlotte shook her head. "You already done enough."

  "We'll accept your offer, Mrs. McGraw," I said quickly.

  Mrs. McGraw smiled. "Well then, that's just fine. I'll keep Mr. Clemmons's room for you, Miss Rainey. I'm sure you'll find it to your satisfaction."

  "Thank you," I said to my landlady, and then I went out, Charlotte following more slowly.

  It wasn't until we were back on the stairs that she said, "I don't understand."

  "What is there to understand? I've just managed to keep Mr. Clemmons's room for you and give you a place to stay in the meantime."

  "But that's what I mean. Why'd you do it?"

  I turned on the stair. "Because I wanted to."

  She met my gaze. "What d'you want?"

  "I don't know what you mean."

  "There ain't no such thing as kindness without purpose," she said. "And the other girls warned us about you. They said you never did anything without a reason. They said sometimes you could be cruel."

  I tried not to feel pain at her words. "Yes. That's true."

  "Then what's your reason now?"

  I was disconcerted, confused, a little angry. I told myself to take it all back, to send her on her way. I'd changed my mind; I didn't like her at all. But I heard myself meeting her honesty with my own. "I sleep better when someone's there."

  She stared at me for a moment, and then nodded as if my answer satisfied her. "Well, all right then. But just so we're clear ... you can do what you want with me at the Palace, but here ... I won't play your games. I ain't afraid of you."

  I grabbed hold of the railing to steady myself. "Good. I don't want you to be."

  CHAPTER 6

  T he other girls were waiting at the Palace when we arrived, holding their music tight in their grimy hands as I led them upstairs into the orchestra loge.

  It was crowded with all of us. Usually there were only three in our "orchestra," and with the piano, there wasn't much room for more. Billy had left it a mess, as always, the lid over the keys up, the ivories sticky with spilled whiskey or beer, one key stuck fast until I hammered it loose. The girls hovered close around me, and one by one I took them through their songs.

  I was no kind of accompanist, but all I needed to play was the melody line, one single note after another, and that was easy enough. I'd been doing it regularly for two years now, as I could count on one hand the girls who'd come in already able to read music, girls who'd played instruments as children. Most were like the five huddled around me just now, and I'd got quicker at matching up the notes with the right keys, though I still paused and fumbled.

  They didn't need to know the songs well; that would come with time. All they needed was to be able to follow a melody plausibly enough. I was done with the first four within an hour and a half, and one by one they'd left the loge until now I was alone with Charlotte. I'd left her for last. I would have said I'd done so unthinkingly, but when she seated herself on the piano bench beside me, I realized I'd done it purposefully, that I liked her, and that troubled me and made me short, so I banged out the melody of her song with impatient little strokes.

  She either didn't notice or didn't care. She frowned intensely at the music as if she could read it, and I had the impression she was trying somehow to hook the notes with the sounds of the keys, unlike the others, who had wanted nothing more than to learn the melodies and the words and leave. Charlotte was slow and thoughtful, but she knew the song before we'd gone through it twice.

  I said, "Very good. You've sung to music before?"

 
"No. Not ever."

  "Well, you've learned it better than the others in half the time." I laid the sheets upon the folio of music on the piano's top and rose. Charlotte stayed seated.

  "Is there something else?" I asked.

  She looked up at me. "Those things you say: that legato and pianissi--whatever it was--"

  "Pianissimo."

  "What do they mean?"

  I was uncomfortable. Had I really used those words? When had they sneaked back into my mouth? How had I not noticed? "Smoothly. Softly."

  "You a music teacher before you came here?"

  In the two years I'd been teaching girls the songs, not a one of them had ever asked me a question like that. Their uninterest had made me too comfortable, I realized suddenly. And now I found myself nonplussed and uneasy.

  "I'm a music teacher now, of a sort," I said roughly. "You aren't the only one who needs help, you know. None of the girls here read music but Annie." I hurried to the stairs. "I've got things to do. You'd best get ready to work."

  I WATCHED HER at the Palace that night, the way she dipped and smiled, the equanimity with which she took the men to the curtained boxes, her implacability when she returned, unmoved, unblemished, seemingly untouched. It was clear she was going to be a favorite. When she went onstage that night, she sang the song I'd chosen for her easily, forgetting only some of the lyrics, which was not at all unusual for a first time, and at the end of it the applause was almost as great as it was for Annie and Lil. My uneasiness with her questions had faded; I could no longer remember why they'd disturbed me. They were harmless enough--in fact, it seemed odder that no one had asked them before now.

  "Duncan says she stayed with you last night," Johnny said as Charlotte came down from the stage. "Getting a little softhearted in your old age?"

  "She was trying to sleep on the back stoop," I told him. "What else was I to do? Send her up to your room?"

  "How about sending her on her way?"

  "She's the best of the five you hired. I didn't want to lose her."

  I felt Johnny scrutinizing me, though I didn't look at him. He said, "Well, it seems being a Good Samaritan suits you, honey. You ain't so riled up today."

  "Not yet," I told him. "You keep it up and you might force me to it."

  He laughed, and then he poured himself a whiskey and went back into his office, and I wondered why I hadn't told him that Charlotte would be staying with me for a while. I hadn't told anyone. When Duncan asked if she'd found someplace, I'd told him yes and nothing more. I didn't want to explain myself. The truth was that I wasn't certain I could.

  I went about the Palace that night soothing aggravated poker players and moving from table to table, and tonight it was easier than it had been for months; tonight I had no trouble laughing and smiling and flirting. The work I'd done to control Jenny had been effective. She had seemingly lost as much interest in her favorite customer as he had gained in me. It was second nature to keep him in the line that formed forever in my wake. After a month or two, he'd grow weary of it and disappear, and I would not think of him again, just as I'd forgotten so many others.

  I hardly spoke to Charlotte at all; it was almost as if we didn't know each other, as if we moved in different orbits, and when the place died down and we went about closing up, it felt both strange and reassuring to know she would be coming back to the boardinghouse with me, that I wouldn't be alone.

  When I called her over as Duncan readied to walk me home, he gave me a questioning look. I said, "Charlotte's staying at Mrs. McGraw's now too."

  I waited for him to ask if she was still staying with me, but he didn't. Duncan had never been the curious type; he simply took everything in and accepted it. There had been times when I admired that, when I thought how nice it would be if nothing mattered. But I was not made the same way. The only numb thing about me was the scar on my face, and even that sometimes hurt, as if the memory of how it had been made had never quite left it.

  We went to the boardinghouse in silence. Duncan said good night at the door. Charlotte yawned as she went up the stairs and was still yawning when we entered my room. I went to light the candle, which sent our shadows flickering about the walls, making it somehow seem smaller and more intimate than even it was.

  "It was a long night," she confessed as she undressed. "I don't care for the singing."

  "It didn't show."

  She let me unbutton her and then shrugged out of the satin, leaving it crumpled on the floor. "I'd give my soul to bathe."

  "Saturdays only," I said. "And it'll cost you fifty cents."

  "Well, I'm saving so much on the room I guess I'll pay it." She laughed and plaited her hair, and then she went to the basin and washed with quick efficiency--her face and beneath her arms, raising her chemise to wash between her legs. Then she rinsed her mouth, spitting into the chamber pot she dragged from beneath the bed. "But this is a sight better than where I was living before, I can tell you that."

  "In Portland?"

  "Yeah."

  I waited for her to volunteer something more, but she didn't, and I slipped off my own dress and went to the bureau, where I'd put away the packages I'd bought at the druggist's yesterday. How intimate we were, washing in front of each other, undressing, and yet we were strangers, and I felt it in what she didn't say, in what I didn't volunteer.

  She asked, "You been in Seattle long?"

  "A few years," I said. I took out the henna and laid it on top of the dresser.

  "You been with Johnny all that time?"

  "Yes."

  She went to the bed and lifted the blankets, slipping between them. "The two of you are partners."

  I nodded. I unknotted the twine on the packages, pulling it loose, then unfolding the paper on the first one to reveal the green powder within.

  "I saw him with Sally," she said.

  "She's his new favorite."

  "But he watches you."

  "Johnny and I have a history," I said. "But that part of it's over. Mostly, anyway."

  "Annie says he's in love with you."

  "Annie says a lot of stupid things."

  Charlotte laughed sleepily. "Yeah, she does, but that seems true enough to me." She moved a little, the mattress creaked and shifted. "You coming to bed?"

  "In a while. There's something I need to do yet."

  "All right." She turned over, a shuffling of blankets, her soft sigh.

  I went to the window and lifted it just enough to pour out the water she'd washed with, hearing it splash into the mud below, and then I poured the henna powder into the basin and mixed it with water until it was a grassy, muddy paste. I glanced over my shoulder. Charlotte was quiet, her eyes closed. I took the basin over to the dresser so I would disturb her less, and then I began to scoop the paste into my hair. It was cold and unpleasant, but I worked diligently, massaging it into my scalp, along my temples, into the hair at my nape. I didn't need a mirror; I had done this the same way so many times I could do it by feel alone.

  "You look too young to have gray hair," Charlotte said.

  I started. I'd thought she was asleep. "It starts early in my family."

  She sat up, ghostly white in the near darkness, the candle flame playing over her skin, glinting in her hair. She was out of bed in a moment, coming over to me before I realized what she was about. "Let me help," she said, and then, before I could protest, she was dipping her fingers into the paste and her hands were in my hair.

  "Don't," I said. "Go back to sleep."

  Her voice was very soft. "Let me do this."

  And so I let her. Charlotte's fingers were strong and steady; they felt good against my scalp, working through my hair. I could not remember the last time someone had touched me this way, without meaning to have something in return.

  When she was finished, she asked, "How long does it stay on?"

  "Half an hour," I told her, and then, when I saw her yawn again, "Go on back to bed. I can finish it. There's no need for you to stay up." />
  She shook her head. "I don't need much sleep. A couple of hours." She sat on the bed. "Whoring'll train you to that."

  "How'd you come to it?"

  Bluntly, without preamble or hesitation, she said, "I ran away from my husband and trusted a man I shouldn't have. How'd you come to the Palace?"

  Her question was so direct it took me by surprise, and then I cursed myself for asking her anything, for the quid pro quo it accorded her. I shrugged, trying to make it seem casual, a simple answer to a simple question, when nothing was that simple at all. The memory surged back; with effort I pushed it away. "I was looking for a job. Johnny gave me one."