The Twelfth Child

by Bette Lee Crosby

She nodded, then shyly offered up her name.

  “I’m Tommy.” He said. “Tommy Anderson.”

  For the remainder of the evening Abigail sat alongside Tommy Anderson and listened as he told her of how he’d been smart enough to steer clear of the stock market and how he was now buying up real estate for a song. He told of how he’d hooked a big fish and then tumbled overboard into the lake. He laughed and Abigail laughed with him. He poured champagne and she sipped it, hesitating just long enough to allow the bubbles to tease the tip of her nose. As the evening wore on Abigail began to picture the years erasing themselves from Tommy’s face – first the deep forehead ridges, then the fleshy valleys that traveled down toward his jaw and finally the small crease that bridged the gap between his eyebrows. They danced to a mellow rendition of Who Stole My Heart Away and swaying to the sound of a muffled trumpet, Tommy Anderson eased her head down onto his shoulder. She didn’t pull away because it was, for the moment, a comforting feeling, something she could snuggle down into – a warm place, a safe harbor. When the song ended she noticed that the silver-haired man was wearing a much younger face.

  As the evening drew to a close, he leaned across the table and took hold of her hand. “Wanna make whoopee?” he whispered. “I got a hotel room.”

  Abigail yanked loose her hand. “What kind of a girl do you think I am!” she stammered indignantly.

  “You’re a hostess!” Tommy snapped back, then he stuffed a handful of bills back into his pocket and lumbered away.

  By the time Abigail pulled herself together and started back to the dressing room, the crowd had been reduced to a few lingering drunks. As she inched her way across the floor, Itchy grabbed hold of her arm. “How’d you do?” he asked as he stood there scratching his crotch.

  “Do? I did what any girl ought to do when a man tries to get fresh!” Abigail answered indignantly. “Being a hostess is not the same as being a trollop!” She was trying to hold back the tears and at the same time keep her eyes fixed on Itchy’s face.

  “Huh? Who said any such –” Itchy grimaced a bit and switched over to digging at his crotch with the other hand.

  “Mister Tommy Anderson, that’s who!”

  Itchy laughed. “Tommy? He’s harmless. A sweet old guy – but gets a load on and right away thinks he’s a jazzbo.”

  “He asked me –”

  “Guys do that. Just tell ‘em to go fly a kite!” Itchy shrugged and walked off, still scratching like he’d zeroed in on a nest of fleas.

  A half-hour later, he came back to the dressing room and dolled out the tips. Gloria got five dollar bills, Abigail got three. “See,” Itchy said, grinning as he handed her the money, “Old Tommy Anderson took good care of you!” He shuffled out the door, still digging at his crotch.

  Once he was well out of earshot, Abigail said, “You ever notice how Itchy keeps scratching his do-hickey?”

  “Notice?” Gloria laughed. “Everybody’s noticed! How do you think he got the name Itchy?”

  It was almost three o’clock in the morning, her head was throbbing and there was a stiff breeze nipping at her back, but none of these things bothered Abigail as she walked home that night; she was busy thinking about how she was going to spend the three dollars. At the top of her list was a stewing chicken. She’d buy it first thing in the morning, boil it for an hour and then eat the whole thing – every last bit. Maybe she’d get a bag of flour and make dumplings as well – not the light as a cloud dumplings, but big doughy ones, the kind that would settle into her stomach and fill up all the cracks and crevices that had been empty for so long. Yes, she decided, flour. Coffee and sugar too!

  Hostessing was never on the list of jobs she’d considered, but it was a lot better than going hungry. Somehow having three dollars in your pocket made things seem remarkably more respectable.

  As it turned out, Club Lucky, a place Abigail had never before heard of, was one of the hottest night spots in all Richmond. In addition to Tommy Anderson and several more of his ilk, she met up with a young man whom she had seen at the ballet, and two ladies who were at one time members of Miss Meredith’s Museum Restoration Committee. Every evening the room grew crowded with people – frivolous thrill seeking women, businessmen, jazzed up dancers, toughs looking for a brawl – people whose paths would usually never cross mingled at Club Lucky – at times they stood shoulder to shoulder, squashed together so that a person could barely make their way across the room. The music never stopped. Night after night Abigail would trudge back to the apartment with her feet aching and the strains of Show Me the Way to Go Home still pounding in her ears. Her sleep was restless and her dreams frenzied, full of faceless partygoers, blaring trumpets and swirling colors. She often woke in the morning with the smell of cigar smoke lingering in her nose and a purple bruise reminding her of some raucous reveler who’d given her a playful pinch.

  Paul Martell seemed to be an exception. He was a Frenchman in his early thirties, not a regular at Club Lucky, but a man with fistfuls of money to spend, and a large diamond ring on his pinky. A person couldn’t help but notice Paul for he stood a head taller than most of the crowd and had a rakish crop of dark curls that tumbled down upon his forehead. His green eyes were flecked with gold, a look, it was said, that drove women wild. The first encounter Abigail had with him, left her with stars in her eyes. “He’s a dreamboat,” she whispered to Gloria, “the kind of man I’ve always imagined myself marrying.”

  “Paul?” Gloria replied. “I heard he’s trouble. Watch out.”

  “Trouble?” Abigail echoed doubtfully and then walked off.

  The next night Paul Martell danced with Abigail for most of the evening and flamboyantly ordered her a second bottle of champagne while the first bottle was still half-full. In-between dances they sat at a tiny table in the darkest corner of the room, chairs pushed so close together that a breeze couldn’t pass between them. He dazzled her with tales of France and she wound the image of herself through every word. When the band played Moonlight on the Ganges, they danced again and as Paul’s large hand pressed Abigail’s body to his, she snuggled into the crook of his neck. “I’m not really a hostess,” she whispered. “This is temporary – ‘till I can find a writing job.”

  He didn’t answer, just lowered his head and let his breath graze her hair as his right hand eased its way down the back of her spine.

  That night Paul left a ten dollar tip for Abigail, which according to Gloria was the largest any girl at Club Lucky had ever received.

  The following night Abigail took special care with her make-up; she used a pale pink lip color, less lash paint and cheek rouge that could have led a person to think it was her own natural glow. She left the dresses with fringe and sequins hanging on the rack and instead wore the ivory lace dress Miss Ida Jean Meredith had bought for her. She stepped out onto the floor looking more like one of the patrons than a hostess. All evening she kept one eye on the door as she circulated through the room, but Paul did not come. Nor did he come the following night, or the night after that.

  By the time he did show up, five nights later, Abigail had lost hope of ever seeing him again and gone back to wearing a fringed dress that wriggled even when she was standing perfectly still. Sitting with an elderly gentleman from Texas and facing away from the door, she did not see Paul come in.

  “Hello, love,” he whispered in her ear.

  “Paul,” Abigail sighed and swiveled to face him.

  “Miss me?” He chucked her playfully beneath the chin.

  She nodded. It was strictly against the rules for a hostess to walk off and leave a customer who’d sprung for a bottle of champagne, so Abigail smiled a thin smile and said, “I’m busy right now . . .” Her words trailed off as if there were something terribly important left unsaid.

  “I’ll be out back when the club closes.” He smiled, then turned and walked over to where Francine was standing, as if she had been the one he’d come to see.

  Abigail knew he hadn’t come ther
e intending to spend the evening with Francine – at least she thought he hadn’t. She’d felt something that first night and she was pretty certain he had too. Throughout the remainder of the evening, she watched Paul’s movements from the corner of her eye. “Oh, aren’t you the clever one,” she’d quip to her companion and laugh gaily but all the while she was thinking of how it would feel to have Paul kiss her.

  It was well after two o’clock when the music died and the band started to pack up. “Have Itchy hold my tip money ‘till tomorrow,” Abigail told Gloria and then hurried out the back door. Francine was leaning against the wall and smoking a cigarette. Paul was standing beside her; he’d already removed his tie and opened the collar of his shirt. “Hello again,” he said to Abigail, as though they’d somehow met up quite unexpectedly.

  For an uncomfortably long five minutes they stood there chatting about nothing – the music was good, the gin was watery, the weather was cool for the season – the kind of things people drag out as points of conversation when there is nothing else to be talked about. Finally Abigail said, “I have to be going,” and she turned to walk away.

  Paul whispered something to Francine, something Abigail wished she could hear but did not. Then he called out, “Wait for me,” and hurried along.

  After they had gone almost two blocks, Abigail asked, “Did I misunderstand?”

  “Misunderstand?” he replied teasingly.

  “Yes,” Abigail said somberly, “misunderstand that you were waiting for me.”

  He tugged her into the bend of his arm and slowed his step to match hers. “No,” he answered and affectionately nudged her cheek with his nose. “You didn’t misunderstand.” He stopped walking and looked into her eyes as a lover might.

  Suddenly she had no need for more of an explanation. Moving together like mated swans they walked the full mile and a half to her apartment building – a building that she felt ashamed for him to see and an apartment that she would never allow any suitor to see. “Goodnight,” she mooned dreamily as they stood facing each other in the dreary vestibule.

  “Goodnight?” he said, then without further words placed his lips upon hers. The first kiss was gentle, a tender touch of his lips to her mouth. Abigail felt a tinge of warmth slither down her spine. She tilted her face upward, like a baby bird wanting more. Paul kissed her again and again – on the mouth, then at the base of her throat. Abigail felt the warmth of his breath wrapping itself around her and she wished the moment would never end; then he pushed his body into hers with such force that it took her by surprise. He wedged her back against the wall and pressed himself against her until she could feel the hardness of him.

  “Please don’t,” Abigail whispered and made a feeble attempt to move away. Was this how love was supposed to begin? From the moment they met, she had felt a stirring inside of her, a desire to touch, to hold and be held. Now that he was holding her, the closeness made her want to pull back, it was so unfamiliar, frightening in a sense – the way new things always seem frightening. Paul was the kind of man any woman would want, and yet here he was, wanting her. She could drive him away with her Puritan way of thinking, she reasoned, when there was certainly no cause to be afraid. Sophisticated people were simply more open about showing their affection. It was life’s coming of age, and after all, Paul was French.

  He parted his lips, drew her tongue into his mouth, then slid his hands down, cupped his fingers around her behind and yanked her to his groin. Abigail’s feet were dangling inches above the tiled floor. Inexperienced as she might be, she knew love was not supposed to be rough and groping. “Stop,” she insisted, this time much more forcefully.

  “You want it as much as I do!” was his answer – the words mean and hard edged as the crack of her father’s hand. Instead of stopping, Paul lowered his head to her bosom and suckled his mouth to her breast.

  “How dare you!” she cried out. “Stop! Stop this instant!” She began beating her fists against the bulk of his shoulders. He slammed her head back against the wall, angrily ripped open the front of her dress and sunk his teeth into her tender breast. She screamed and tried to wrench herself free, but it was useless. He was bigger, stronger and driven by arousal. He jammed his right hand up beneath her skirt – to Abigail it felt more like a fist than a hand. For a brief moment the maneuver caused him to loosen his grip on her buttocks and she slid down far enough that her feet touched onto the floor. Quick as a lightning bolt she rammed her knee into his groin.

  “Son-of-a-bitch,” he screamed and doubled over.

  Abigail ran – she went flying up all three flights of stairs and didn’t slow for a breath until she’d slammed and bolted the apartment door.

  Still trembling, she huddled into a corner of the room and cried. Sometime before sunrise, she drifted off to sleep. When she woke in the morning she saw the large purple mass just above her right nipple and the mark of Paul’s teeth edging it.

  For six days Abigail did not go to work. She walked to the corner store, telephoned Itchy and told him she’d somehow gotten food poisoning. Believing the story to be true, Gloria came to call with a crock of homemade bread pudding, two bananas and a blueberry muffin. It was a full five minutes before Abigail summoned up enough courage to answer the knock.

  “Food Poisoning, my ass,” Gloria said when she saw the blackened eye.

  “I tripped and fell on the stairs.” To Abigail, a lie seemed far more honorable than the truth of what had happened.

  “Yeah, sure. Was it Paul?”

  Abigail shook her head side to side.

  “It was him,” Gloria grumbled, “I know the type.” She peeled the wax paper back from the muffin and smacked it down on a plate. “You gotta wise up,” she told Abigail, “lounge lizards like him ain’t got no scruples. They think girls like us is dime store trash. Good time weenie-wagglers, that’s what they think!”

  “Paul seemed different.”

  “Ain’t none of them different,” Gloria answered.

  That thought stuck in Abigail’s head but it wasn’t something she wanted to believe. When the bruise on her eye faded to yellow and she could cover it with face cream and a heavy dusting of powder, she returned to Club Lucky.

  For a long while she shied away from the good-looking men and migrated to mild-mannered fellows, the ones who were hiding behind themselves, sitting alone and nursing a glass of whisky. She’d sit down alongside them and right away start imagining things like white roses and baby carriages. Thing was, they really weren’t all that different than Paul – each of them wanted something and had nothing to give. Steven Miller ordered a bottle of champagne and then groped her bosom. Frank Something-or-another wanted to sleep at her apartment. Bobby Tollinger, who for three weeks had behaved like a perfect gentleman, eventually got so rough that Itchy had him thrown out of the club.

  If it had been other circumstances, Abigail would have walked off – found another job, become something more respectable, a secretary or a governess even – but times were hard and jobs were almost nonexistent, so she stayed at Club Lucky. After a time it got so that Abigail could circulate through the crowd like the sound of a song, she was there and then gone, no trace left behind, no promises, no expectations.

  She set aside thoughts of becoming a writer and rationalized that she at least had a job, was no longer hungry and was, in fact, adding money to the coffee can on the top shelf of her closet. But there were days when a sense of shabbiness worked its way into her heart and she’d wonder what her father would say of her now. Likely as not, she thought, he’d grimace. “Daughter?” he’d say, “I have no daughter!” Her mother would think more kindly. Livonia would understand; she’d hold Abigail close and say, “Child, these are hard times. People do what they have to do to survive.” When the emptiness of life took root in Abigail’s heart, she closed her mind to reality and dreamed of Chestnut Ridge back when she and Livonia walked together in the springtime and stopped to smell the wild roses blooming along the high road.
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br />   In time, Abigail came to accept that life was a road which traveled in only one direction – forward. There was never any going back. The following April she emptied out the coffee can and moved to the classier side of town. Abigail was making good money at Club Lucky and much as she hated being a hostess, the job did make it possible for her to live in a nicer place. She rented a spacious three room apartment in a brick building with azaleas lining the walkway and a uniformed porter standing at the door. The building was only six blocks from Miss Ida Jean Meredith’s house – which, to Abigail’s dismay, had now been transformed into a study center for aspiring poets. A crooked sign was taped to the inside of the living room window, a sign that cried out for someone to straighten it.

  Nothing that once was – was anymore.

  Middleboro, Virginia

  The year 2000

  Destiny Fairchild was the best thing that ever happened to me. I’m well aware of a tendency to repeat myself, but the truth about Destiny is a fact that bears repeating. She was the one who saw me through that last year, when things got bad. I’d mention something about my back hurting like the devil and without me even asking, she’d start rubbing those little hands of hers up and down my spine. Most folks would have chalked it up to old age and told me to take an aspirin, but Destiny was a person who believed aches and pains could come from loose worries floating around your head. “Now, close your eyes and relax,” she’d say; then she’d get to talking about how we’d go one place or another just as soon as I felt better. Before you could peel a banana I’d be ready to go shopping! How could you not appreciate a person like that?

  That was the year I rounded the corner on eighty-eight, and was feeling it. It got so that I’d turn on television and watch the Today Show just to see Willard Scott put on pictures of folks who were one hundred years old. He always told how spry they were and it was a real encouragement. Let me tell you, when a person gets to be one hundred, they deserve to be on television. Destiny used to say when I turned one hundred we were going to NorfolkBeach and swim naked. She claimed she was going to take a picture of me swimming naked and that’s the one she was sending to Willard Scott. “He wants spry?” she’d say, “We’ll give him spry!” That was her way; she’d start up about some little thing, maybe even something you didn’t think was all that funny, but once she got to laughing and carrying on, you jumped on the bandwagon. That day she said we’d go over to the Atlantic Ocean and swim naked, I laughed so hard I wet my bloomers.