The Paragon Hotel

by Lyndsay Faye

  “What on earth is this, the courthouse?”

  “Might as well be,” Max’s voice growls. “That there’s the Arlington Club. Anybody what thinks they’s anybody belongs to that place.”

  It escapes me for a moment. The association.

  But then it hits me square in the kisser.

  “I know what I can do!” I exclaim.

  “Come again?” Max questions. But for once, I’m paying him no mind.

  “I’m the wrong person, though.”

  “Alice, you better be joshing me, because I ain’t in no mood to piece your brains back together.”

  Mrs. Muriel Snider. From the train. My cabinmate.

  Mrs. Snider said that her husband was a member of the Arlington Club.

  I glance behind me. “We have to get back to the hotel so I can become who I was on the train. You recall Mrs. Muriel Snider?”

  He looks like he’s ignoring a pungent smell. “Can’t say as I cottoned to her.”

  “Neither did I, not the smallest thread did I cotton to her, but her husband belongs to the Arlington Club, and if I pump her, I could tell you what the aristocracy think of Davy’s disappearance. If they’re thinking of it at all, that is. Don’t you suppose some of the Arlington Club lot are Klannish, and don’t you suppose they chat with their wives?”

  I can finally accomplish something other than surviving a bullet wound and whistling “Dixie.”

  When we arrive back at the Paragon Hotel, we duck into the alley. I pull open the kitchen door, and I’m not halfway inside before I can’t help but overhear a conversation.

  “It’ll pass,” says Rooster’s rumbling bass.

  “But it’s so unfair,” answers Miss Christina in a voice I’ve never heard from her before. Plaintive, desperate even.

  I push backward and Max pauses, easing the door closed. This provides me with the dual advantage of eavesdropping and gripping Max by the shirtfront even though just now, I can’t enjoy it fully. Quelque waste.

  “Soon enough all this’ll pass us by,” Rooster intones. “We’re the bridge, remember? Just let the water slide on past.”

  Miss Christina, to my shock, sounds almost tearful. “I’m just considerable tired of waiting.”

  The inner door flip-flaps open. As Miss Christina and Rooster fall silent, Max coughs and kicks the door behind him so it appears we’re arriving at the same time. It’s inelegant, but I dearly hope the duo in the kitchen doesn’t notice that.

  “Hello, all,” I trill, entering the room. “Are we interrupting? I was just getting a bit of air.”

  Three Paragon residents view me with positively sprightly skepticism. Miss Christina, whose ropy forearms are tense with frustration—and who I could swear just shoved a letter in her apron. Rooster, whose impressive bulk is as still as a monument. And Mavereen, who just arrived, greying hair wound into a perfect corkscrew beehive despite her lack of sleep—which if I hadn’t heard about it from Max would be evidenced by the lines of grief bracketing her full mouth.

  “Miss James.” Mavereen sighs. “I hope you’ll forgive me for that sorry display. Can’t say as I approve of Blossom running her head into trouble like that, but it weren’t your doing. I’m real glad you’re safe.”

  Safe. If only.

  “Thank you.”

  Rooster checks his watch, turns, and leaves the kitchen. Miss Christina slits her eyes at us before going back to her bubbling pot.

  What on earth did we just witness?

  “Must’ve run into Max here when he was getting Wednesday Joe, I reckon,” Mavereen continues dryly.

  “She did, and I done already told her I’m tired of fetching that boy back where he belongs,” Max agrees in admirably irritable style. “Anyway. ’Scuse the change of subject, but Alice here has an idea she wants to try out, needs to gussy herself up. I’ll give you the goods while she changes. Over a drink, I hope to Christ.”

  “Language, young man,” Mavereen scolds, slapping his arm. “You best believe I won’t stand for it, you hear?”

  “Hey, hey, easy—I ain’t fixing to make you sore.”

  But I suspect he did, seeing as Mavereen in her fresh annoyance has forgotten all about me. I give Miss Christina a friendly smile before departing. Anything more would mean I want her story. Anything less would mean I’m pretending not to have heard it.

  Being Nobody, as ever, is the best tack.

  ◆ Seventeen ◆

  As for the mask, ’tis but a symbol, like in comparison to creeds in the different churches. We are ashamed of nothing, neither have we anything to hide for we are proud of the fact that we have nerve enough to express in word and action our true convictions.

  —MINUTES FROM THE MEETING OF THE LA GRANDE, OREGON, KU KLUX KLAN, December 12, 1922

  I simply can’t tell you how gratified I was to hear from you, dear! I knew that we would see each other again. Everyone says I have the most uncanny sixth sense about these things.”

  “Oh, I’m sure they do, Mrs. Snider.”

  Smiling timidly at Mrs. Muriel Snider, I cup my hands around my gold-rimmed teacup. While the Arlington Club jogged my memory, we can’t possibly meet there—it excludes blacks, Indians, Orientals, Jews, women, and probably other sorts of folk. Hottentots. The shabbier Norwegians. No, we’re at a simply decadent ladies’ tearoom across the street from a gorgeous six-story monstrosity called the Pioneer Building. Portlanders, I’m learning, don’t slouch when it comes to riding high on the proverbial hog. The linens on our table are pristine, the curtains sage damask, and I could don my rouge and kohl in the reflections from the silver. Not that I’m wearing any.

  Mrs. Muriel Snider seems awfully jazzed to see yours truly. Her boxlike, self-satisfied face sports a continuous smile, flushed with camaraderie and steaming Earl Grey.

  “It’s so good to see you entirely recovered from your riding mishap, Miss James. I quite feared leaving you in the hands of that George from the Pullman car. One really cannot be too careful where the virtue of young single women is concerned, can one?”

  I admire to be in Maximilian’s hands as thoroughly as humanly possible.

  It strikes me, in an uncomfortable wet-slap fashion, that Mrs. Snider is—in her own appalling way—a perfectly nice human being. She wanted to keep a stranger safe from wolves; she wants to outfit a lonesome young working girl with a sweetheart; and it isn’t her fault I’m a liquor smuggler.

  “Your color is so much better than it was on the train, but you’re still thinner than you’d prefer, aren’t you? A music teacher’s salary—heavens, I can only imagine what it is to live off a hot plate and a coffee pot. Shall I order some more substantial refreshment? You’re my guest today, dear, so please don’t mind the expense.”

  Staring into Mrs. Muriel Snider’s cubed spud of a face, I’m horrified to discover that I genuinely like her. It’s confusing.

  “I am a little peckish,” I own.

  “Wonderful! Waiter, over here, please!” Snapping her fingers, Mrs. Snider secures the immediate and complete attention of a young redhead with ill-conceived fuzz on his upper lip. “A tray of finger sandwiches, not soggy this time, and a crab Louis, and perhaps—yes, why not—the steamed razor clams with drawn butter. My dear, whatever is troubling you?” Mrs. Snider adjusts the cuffs of her rust-colored walking suit. “Now, if we are to be friends, we mustn’t keep secrets. Is it your poor dear parents being so far from the city?”

  Jackpot. A well-intentioned gossip, and one with a memory to boot.

  “Oh, my parents are well enough. I mean . . . struggling, but, as I said, I do what I can. It’s the living without a husband that truly is beginning to vex me. My roommate is kindness itself, but it would be so easy for some scoundrel to break in and overpower us.” I twist my teacup to and fro. “I see such awful things in the news.”

  “Lord knows it’s a sore trial
for a young lady to be without a helpmeet, but we’ll soon set that straight. As to the news, I never read the papers—Fred tells me current events in a way that won’t upset me, he’s so wonderfully protective. What do you mean, specifically?”

  I hesitate. “I’m just a dreadful muddle when it comes to politics, but there’s so much in the headlines regarding the Ku Klux Klan lately. And there’s such ugly violence in the South, and it just makes me want to hide under my pillow, truly.”

  Mrs. Snider clucks, reaching for my hand. “You poor dear. Now, I don’t pretend to know everything about politics either, but I do keep abreast through Fred, thinking it my civic duty now women have the vote, and you needn’t worry over the KKK in this city. America first, they say, and. Well, who can argue with that?”

  “Only . . . men in masks frighten me so.”

  “It’s merely ritual, Miss James. They want the very best for God-fearing Christians. What with all sorts of disreputable scoundrels flooding in willy-nilly through the railroads and the ports, why, we deserve to have someone stand up for us for a change, is what Fred says.”

  “But I heard that colored establishments had been attacked?”

  “Oh, I’m sure only the same pranks as might happen to any public business.”

  This nail appears to require striking square on the head.

  “My roommate subscribes to The Advocate—her sweet old nanny was black, you understand, so she likes to follow the Negro problem—and I read a little mulatto boy has disappeared.”

  “Do you mean young Mr. Davy Lee, from the Paragon Hotel?”

  If I weren’t a stone-cold bootlegger, I’d positively spray my tea in her placid mug.

  “I can’t recall exactly,” I reply instead. “Did you read about it too?”

  “Oh, heavens no, dear, I don’t take The Advocate.” She sniffs. “Though your roommate I’m sure has only the most charitable reasons for doing so. The very idea of Negroes writing and editing their own newspaper, why, it almost gives me hope they might one day rise to our level. I pray so, Miss James, I truly do, for nothing is sadder than languishing in ignorance. I give to every African mission I come across. No, I had cause to visit a friend yesterday. She’s acquainted with the boy and was very upset over the news.”

  My cheeks tingle. “Which friend might that be?”

  “Mrs. Evelina Vaughan. Lovely young bride of our very own Chief of Police, Tom Vaughan,” Mrs. Snider preens. “Tom and Fred hunt together with Mr. Jack Starr—that would be Evelina’s father, the lumber baron. Everyone was thrilled when Evelina and Tom married. It was the wedding of the year, without question. Oh look, here’s the food, Miss James. Now eat up! Men like a little shape. I can’t imagine what these modern girls are thinking, starving themselves half to death purposely. It’s indecent.”

  A bowl of clams descends, all sea brine and butterfat, followed by sandwiches and a modest mountain of crab Louis. So Evelina Vaughan and Mrs. Snider are acquainted. This isn’t much doing as coincidences go, not in a city with a shrunken upper crust. But by God I will sit with Muriel Snider until I drain it as dry as the Eighteenth Amendment.

  Because Mrs. Evelina Vaughan interests me. In, as they say, extremis. I wonder whether Blossom met Evelina Vaughan at one of her classier cabarets, or if conversely Mrs. Vaughan’s Weekly Betterment racket caused them to become acquainted. I remind myself to ask her.

  “I think I may have met Mrs. Vaughan once, at a sort of fair or fund-raiser or something where I played the piano. Is she very lively, with pale red hair?”

  “Why, yes, that’s her.” Mrs. Snider fussily plucks a clam from its shell with a tiny fork. “Here, take a sandwich, dear.”

  I dutifully nibble egg salad. “How would the wife of the Chief of Police know a little black boy?”

  “Goodness, that’s an excellent question. Mrs. Vaughan teaches Weekly Betterment to colored children at the Paragon Hotel. The missing foundling was one of her students.”

  “Oh! Her husband doesn’t mind?”

  “Oh no, dear. Tom Vaughan has adored Evelina Starr since they were children.” Mrs. Muriel Snider’s eyes glow with romance. “They were sweethearts when they were young. If you ask me, they ought to have quite the brood by this time. But little Evelina was always brilliant, and after she finished high school, she wanted to go away to a women’s college. Well, there her mother and father were, with plenty of money but scant book learning themselves, and they indulged her. Probably thought it would lend the family distinction, when really, it raised quite a few eyebrows. Now, I’m not against educating women, provided it’s done properly—only the sort of literature that edifies rather than corrupts, and with an emphasis on a mother’s duty to be a wholesome influence on her children. What was I saying? Oh yes, well, in Evelina’s case, the poor girl has always been the gentlest creature on the planet, and yet, what’s the word . . .”

  Incandescent, I think.

  “Touched.” Mrs. Snider taps her brow. “Her family came into money when she was . . . ten, I believe, which is when I made her acquaintance. Simply the dearest thing! She caught up so quickly with her studies after leaving the rural school that her Portland teachers were astonished. But intelligence comes with a price, you know. Before her teen years, she only seemed a bit fanciful, but so sweet natured we all wrote it off as harmless. Then when she turned—oh, of course, it was her sixteenth birthday, the poor creature! Her parents spared no expense, cakes and frills and a carousel and even a live band for all the young ladies to dance to, and you’ll never believe what she did.”

  “What?” I’d pretend to be riveted, but it’s unnecessary—I’m downright glued.

  “Why, she wouldn’t let the party stop! Flat refused to allow anyone to leave, grew hysterical, and believe it or not, she was up for days. Afterward, she was apparently limp as a rag. Similar things would happen quite rarely, thank heaven, and we were all too fond of her to let it affect our opinion. But after she went away to school . . .” Mrs. Snider shakes her head. “She was much too delicate for an education. Stuff enough facts into a girl’s head and it’s a serious risk you’ll do more harm than good. Tom is a saint when she’s unbalanced, but I’ve seen how it hurts him, Miss James.”

  So have I. It just about smashes him to pieces.

  “Oh, please call me Alice.”

  “Why, with the greatest pleasure, and you must call me Muriel! Goodness, what on earth were we discussing?” Mrs. Snider brushes her napkin over her lips. “Oh! If the KKK had anything to do with that colored boy’s disappearance, I’d be shocked. Just shocked. They’re all churchgoers, and I cannot imagine a good Christian fellow harming a little boy of any color, it’s unthinkable.”

  Not so awfully unthinkable in Arkansas, I reflect sourly.

  “But I’ll ask Fred about it tonight, dear, to ease your mind, and you ring me up again tomorrow. Take some more crab Louis—you’re far too thin and I’m reducing.”

  I obey meekly, mainly because the crab is mouthwatering. If Muriel Snider is wrong, and the Klan snatched Davy up and did God knows what with him, matters seem awfully hopeless. But if she’s right, and the Klan are about as concerned over Davy as they’d be over an alley cat, then my suggestion to Wednesday Joe this morning takes on new significance.

  We must become better detectives.

  * * *

  —

  All right.” Mavereen sighs, folding her arms over her ample bosom. “If this Mrs. Snider can’t tell us nothing about Davy, well, we can at least be thankful to the Lord we ain’t hearing of harm coming to him. And if she can . . .”

  “If she can, we’ll simply raise a cavalry, arm ourselves against the Klan, and conquer the Rose City—won’t that be simply easy as winking,” Blossom mutters.

  We’re back in the cozy parlor the unofficial executives of the Paragon use as their boardroom. Mavereen, Blossom, Jenny, Dr. Pendleton, and me. Max
is out with the search party, Miss Christina helms her kitchen, and Rooster mans the front desk. Jenny, as ever, is scribbling in a notebook. Dr. Pendleton is the color of wheat flour under his freckles, and sips from a thermos filled with doubtless very fortifying contents. Blossom just returned from her visit to Mrs. Vaughan—which seems not to have produced much in the cheer department, for she sits huddled in a camel cloak, taking up about as much space inside it as your average coat rack.

  It’s getting to be all I can do not to stare at her with tragedy beaming from the old peepers. So instead I look to Mavereen.

  “I’ll come straight to you tomorrow with whatever Muriel says. And then I’d very much like to join the search at the Elms, with your permission.”

  “Honey, out at the Elms it’s all blackberry brambles and timber wolves and need I add colored men,” Blossom drawls. “I realize you’ve no strong objection to that last item, but you’re still stitched up like Raggedy Ann and shouldn’t be seen with us, not if we all desire to remain healthy.”

  I glare at Blossom with vim, fearing that Mavereen might read perfectly correct inferences into this allegation. In fact, one colored chappie in particular occupies my noggin and locked lips with me on this notable spring morn. I’m itching to tell Blossom, my tongue’s downright antsy over it. But she’s contemplating the intricacies of her manicure.

  “The whole sorry pack of you ought to be ashamed,” Dr. Pendleton growls. “Who’s to say there’s going to be a search party tomorrow? Our Davy might be back safe and sound at this hotel five minutes from now.”

  Blossom winces, tearing, and then rubs her stark brow bone.

  “Well, I might not be at the Elms, but I’ve not let the grass grow under my feet.” Jenny sets her pen down. “I’m convinced that this Klannish activity can be curtailed by exposing more whites to our true characters. To that end, I’m writing a series meant to humanize Davy, create sympathy among the greater Portland population. Some whites read The Advocate, of course, but most don’t, and today I convinced the editors of the Beaverton Valley Times and The Hillsboro Argus to run a series about Mrs. Vaughan’s Weekly Betterment classes. I’m in the perfect position to write it, and I proposed it by letter so they needn’t know what color I am. It’ll do wonders for our visibility.”