by Pamela Morsi
"What do you mean you've been given a chance to start over?" she asked.
"I guess I just got tired of the road I've been seeing ahead of me, so I've decided to change my future."
"You make it sound like it's downright easy, Tool Dresser," she said.
He snorted and chuckled lightly. "Well, it helps a bit if you can just throw away your old past and start out with a brand-new one, cut exactly to fit."
Queenie looked at him a long moment and smiled.
"What's your name, Tool Dresser?" she asked.
"Tom, Tom Walker," he answered.
"I'm going to remember you, Tom Walker," she said. "You're going to make something of yourself in this world."
"I certainly hope so, ma'am," he replied.
"And you are a genuinely decent fellow. I like that in a man."
They had reached the back door. She handed his wet handkerchief back to him.
"Are you going to be all right? Do you want me to get someone for you?" he asked.
"No," she answered. "And Tool Dresser, keep what you saw to yourself. I don't want anybody worrying about me."
He raised his eyebrows. "What I saw? Why, I didn't see anything. I just came back here to settle up with you. I didn't take what Cedarleg set up for me, but I did waste some of the young lady's time."
"I'd say we're square, Tool Dresser.
He nodded to her and headed back into the barroom alone. There were more people than before. The music was louder, the dancers drunker.
Determinedly he began to work his way back across the room to where he'd left Cedarleg and Calhoun in deep discussion. He had missed sparking with Cessy tonight for a purpose. He was here to learn about Calhoun's business. Finally he could see the table where the two had been seated. Cedarleg sat there alone. Tom's heart sank and he sighed with momentary disappointment.
When he reached the table he dragged out a chair and sat down, offering a smile to his friend.
"That was damn quick, son," Cedarleg stated flatly. "As you get older, you might learn to make it last a while."
He chuckled at his little joke, and Tom laughed with him.
"I thank you for the offer, Cedarleg," he said. "But I just didn't feel right about it."
The old man nodded as if he understood. "You got lipstick on your mouth," he said.
Tom pulled out his damp handkerchief and wiped the evidence away.
It was Princess herself who hurried to the front door when the little boy pounded on the knocker. She was eagerly awaiting Gerald and disappointed that it wasn't him.
Her day had been busy. After her long, thought provoking visit with Ma, she'd had Howard drive her out to the school to check on the construction of the machine shop building. It was nearly completed and looking as fine and functional as any such building she had ever seen. It was exciting to see it go up. And would be even more so when the machinery and the boiler engine arrived. Princess could hardly wait.
Of course, despite her protests, the dear old schoolmaster had risen from his sickbed to greet her himself. He simply could not allow her to get away without a couple of bushels of fresh-picked sweet corn.
She and Howard had been helping the cook shuck sweet corn on the back step ever since they got home. Princess didn't have to help, but she always did. She loved the camaraderie of working on a task with other people and she didn't mind the work. But she hated picking up what would appear to be a perfect ear of corn and pulling down the outside husk to find one of those fat, awful, green corn worms hiding inside.
"Well, good evening, young man," she said to the child on her doorstep.
He held his grubby hand toward her, a piece of paper tucked securely in his fist.
"A fellah at the Palace in Topknot give me this."
Princess took the note from him, but looked disapproving.
"The Palace is not a nice part of Topknot for a little boy to see," she said sternly. "What would your mother think about you being in such a place?"
The little boy shrugged. "Mama does dime-a- dance at the Redhead Driller," he answered.
Princess didn't like the answer. She opened the door more widely. "Then you probably have not yet had supper," she said. Glancing up, she saw Howard hurrying in her direction.
"Take this young man back to the kitchen," she said. "And tell Mrs. Marin that he will have something to eat."
The boy's eyes were wide, but before he allowed himself to be led away he turned to her once more.
"That'll be a nickel for the delivery," he said, indicating the note.
Howard looked angry and ready to speak, but Princess forestalled him.
"The same price as Western Union?" she asked, tutting with disapproval. But she found a nickel in her pocketbook and gave it to him.
He bit down on it to insure himself that it was real and then willingly followed Howard back to the kitchen.
Princess looked down at the note in her hand. She opened it, assuming it was from her father. He wired her earlier that he intended to return on the evening train. He was undoubtedly down at the saloon in Topknot visiting his ... his female friend and was merely sending word that he would arrive home late.
When she saw Gerald's signature at the bottom, it set her heart to racing.
Deliberately she refolded it and clasped it against her chest.
Princess walked to the quiet solitude of the sun parlor. She seated herself in good light and then drew off her spectacles and methodically cleaned them of any film or dust. She had just, she decided, received her first love letter. It was the first written communication between herself and the man with whom she hoped to spend her life. At Miss Thorogate's she'd read some of the letters that John and Abigail Adams had exchanged. And the beautiful correspondence exchanged between Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Here in her hand were the words of her John Adams, her Robert Browning. And she was both elated and anxious that it would not live up to her expectations.
Finally she unfolded the note and held it open before her.
My own dear Cessy, it began. I can not visit you this evenun as an herjent matter of business has come up. As I am sirten you know, I wood be there if I could.
Her brow furrowed in curiosity.
"Yale?" she whispered aloud to herself.
I am hoping to see you on Sunday. Maybe we could go for a picknick on the river and spen the afternoon together.
The letter was poorly written and plagued with spelling errors. Surely, a graduate of Yale, even one whose main interest was athletics, would be capable of composing a grammatical note.
I herd that your father is back in town. I think that you should not say inny thing about me to him yet.
That suggestion momentarily took her aback. She had never tried to conceal anything from her father. And she was quite certain that Daddy was going to just love Gerald. How could he not?
As always you hold my heart with your own. Gerald
Princess continued to stare at the letter for a long time, her original thoughts about love letters completely forgotten. A strange, niggling feeling of discomfort remained unsettled inside her.
Someone wrote it for him, she suggested to herself. He was busy with some . . . some undisclosed business and had to dictate the note to a less educated man, some man in Topknot.
In truth, that was not an appealing thought either. That her beloved Gerald should have trusted words so personal to some other person was unthinkable.
But a graduate of Yale, a gentleman with apparent great interest in human nature and social concerns, who spoke as if he were widely read in those subjects as well as many others, would not, could not, be so uneducated as to create the note that she held in her hand.
Princess sat in silence in the sun parlor. Her mind trying to fly in a hundred different directions. Her heart pounding as if she had just run up a hill. She pulled her thoughts tightly together, resisting panic.
"I love him," she whispered.
She glanced down, puzzled, at the n
ote once more.
"That is all that matters."
Chapter Eight
Queenie was lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling, and thinking. She was wearing only the black washing silk chemise that King had brought her from St. Louis. Even without her corset, her body was still shapely and youthful. She ran her hands along her unbound bosom. Her breasts were somewhat swelled and slightly sore. She moved her hands downward, surveying her body. Her waist was still attractively narrow and her abdomen was firm and flat.
The door creaked as it opened and King Calhoun walked in as if he owned the place. He glanced down at her thoughtfully for a long moment.
"Darlin', is your man so distracted and worthless that you've got to touch yourself?"
Slowly, seductively, she grinned at him.
"If I remember correctly, mister," she said teasingly, "you used to like watching me touch myself."
"Queenie, darlin', I just like watching you," he said.
King dropped a knee beside her on the mussed sheeting and lay down full-length on top of her body. He was big and heavy and the weight of him pressed her deeply into the mattress.
So naturally her hands came up to caress his shoulders and then her arms wound around his neck.
"Ummm, darlin'," he said. "This is the most comfortable bed I ever owned."
She spread her legs slightly and wrapped her ankles around his shanks.
"The most comfortable part of it, you don't own," she told him. "I'm just lending it to you."
"I hope it's a long-term lease," he said. "A man could grow mighty fond of this."
She kissed him then. It was a long, lazy kiss. A sublimely satisfying meeting of mouths, oft practiced and mutually enjoyed.
When their lips parted, he looked down into her eyes warmly. Queenie knew that in his own way, he loved her.
"Am I smashing you?" he asked her.
She shook her head. "It feels good," she told him. "I missed my King."
"I missed you, too, darlin'," he admitted, and then grinned. "I suspect you figured that out from the five-minute, not-so-fun you got earlier."
She shrugged with unconcern. "It was all right," she told him quietly. "You don't have to make it a miracle for me every time, like I was some haughty empress."
"You're not an empress," he answered. "You're a queen, my queen, and I want to be good for you whenever we're together."
"It takes two for that, King and I'm . . ." Queenie hesitated. "I'm not quite myself."
"It's not you, darlin'," King insisted. "It's me. Times are getting tough, Queenie. Those bankers in Saint Louis wouldn't give me a thin dime."
"Oh, King, I'm so sorry."
"I talked to Cedarleg tonight," he continued. "We'll be pumping oil from those rigs in the next couple of weeks. Without a refinery it won't be worth nothing."
"Two weeks? Are you sure?"
King shook his head. "You know the damned oil deposits. There ain't never nothing sure. But that oil is down there. I know it. We could hit it tomorrow or we might have to go down another hundred feet. But without a refinery to pump it to, we might as well just stop the work right now this minute."
"My offer to lend you what I have is still open," she said. "It's not much, King, but I'd bet every cent of it on you."
He made a tutting sound of disapproval. "I've been pretty clear on how I feel about that, darlin'," he said. "You've already invested your heart on me, there ain't no reason to throw your bank account in along with it."
Queenie said nothing, but held him to her breast comfortingly.
"I know that oil is there." King's frustration made his tone a little desperate. "Cedarleg agrees with me. It's a big field, maybe a million barrels a year, and it's all mine. But I can't afford to get it out of there if I can't have a way to refine it."
He sighed heavily. "I've just got to get me an investment stake from one of those down-your-nose, shoe-shined, my-shit-don't-stink, city bankers!"
King rolled off of her and threw an arm over his face. "I hate having to suck up to them, Queenie," he said. "I absolutely hate it."
She made sympathetic sounds and turned to her side to more easily caress his chest.
"It's like no matter how well I do, no matter how successful I am or how much money that I make, these men will always be treating me as if I'm something from the barnyard that got stuck on their boot."
"If they think that they're fools," Queenie told him.
"They may be fools, but they are rich ones," King said. "A lot of them come from inherited money.
Money that daddy or granddaddy got together and they've grown up with it all their lives, accepting it, believing it to be their birthright or some such."
He drew his arm away from his eyes and looked up at her. "I suppose I could stand it if I thought that all of them were that way. That all of them just have the misfortune not to understand that to have money some poor Joe somewhere has got to make it."
Queenie smiled at him.
"But the truth is that a lot of them know better. A lot of these bankers are smart and cagey and want to make a killing in the oil market. They don't see the future as clear as I do, but they do see the price of fuel oil going through the roof. And they see that the new internal combustion engines run on gasoline and that they can do lots of things that can't be done with steam boilers. They want to be a part of it all. They want a chance to get a piece of the newest pie. But it's me that they resist. It's me, Calhoun, that they are unsure about. A man whose name is King and calls his company Royal Oil. I thought it was a good idea, Queenie. I thought they'd respect something like that."
"It's a good name, King," she said. "It's a good name and it suits you and your company."
"But it doesn't suit the bankers. They'd rather loan money on a hardware store or a cotton crop, that's sure never going to make them only a tiny profit."
"They don't want to take the risk."
"But banking is meant to be risk," King said with certainty. "That's why it pays as well as it does. Essentially the banker is no different than the fellow that walks up to your wheel in the back room and puts ten dollars on twenty-three red."
Queenie nodded in agreement.
"It's something about me, something about the way I present myself to these money men that just doesn't work."
"Can you approach them differently?" she asked.
King sighed heavily.
"Lord knows, darlin', I've tried," he said. "Sometimes I go in like I think I'm the smartest, richest, most arrogant son-in-britches you ever met."
Queenie laughed.
"Then the next time, I'm all humble and bowing and treat them like they was the finest men I ever seen and I'm grateful for their attention. Either way, they just barely have time to see me and they never, never, have any money to throw my way."
"Why don't you try just being yourself?" she asked.
"Oh darlin', I do that, too," he admitted. "And that's what they like the very least."
He pulled her closer and laid his hand upon her breast, gently coaxing the nipple to harden.
"I just can't think about it anymore," King declared finally with a sigh. "I need to think about something else."
Queenie was silent for a long moment, then gave a long sigh.
"I've got something else for you to think about, King," she said. "Though I'm not sure that you'll enjoy pondering it anymore than the other."
She rolled away from him and sat up on the end of the bed. She'd thought and thought and thought about what she must do. She didn't have to tell him, of course. It was her and her life and he didn't even need to know. Their relationship was a good one, but any relationship between a man and his whore was by nature fragile. If things got too tough, Calhoun would simply cease stopping by. He already had more than enough on his mind, but somehow, Queenie had to share it with him. She had to tell him. Somehow he had to know.
"What is it, darlin'?" he asked, looking at her curiously.
"Well, King," she sa
id. "We seem to have gotten me pregnant."
The silence was a long one and almost deafening.
King rolled off the bed and onto his feet. Immediately he began to pace the floor, his expression worried.
"I guess I don't need to ask if you're sure," he said.
In its own way it was a question.
"I haven't seen a doctor," she admitted. "But I didn't get the curse this month, I've been throwing up for a week, and my breasts are pretty tender. That's just the way it was last time."
He stopped pacing and turned to look at her. "Last time?"
"I got pregnant when I was seventeen," she said. "That's why I left home. I thought ... I thought that the fellow loved me and wanted to marry me. I ran away from the farm with him. But at the very first big town he left me at the train station while he went to find a preacher, he said. I guess he's still looking for one. He never came back and I never saw him again."
King hesitated, staring at her. "I'm ... I'm sorry," he said finally.
Queenie looked at him curiously. "Sorry because you made me pregnant?"
"Well, yes, I . . ." He looked extremely uncomfortable. "What I meant was that I am sorry that the man that you loved deserted you when you needed him."
"Oh, that." Queenie waved away his apology. "Truthfully, I don't think I loved him much at all." She sighed, thinking about the young girl that she had been. "And it was bound to happen. He was a fast-talking fellah selling grain shares. He was different, dressed fancy, I thought he was maybe the richest man in the world. I was naive then, very silly and naive. I believed in getting married and living happily ever after. But I also wanted more than a lifetime of hard work in a cotton field. I wanted money and marriage."
She shook her head and then looked up at him. Her smile carried no humor.
"Like most women I learned that I had to choose one or the other."
"What happened to your child?" he asked. "You never mentioned a child."
"I don't have one," she answered. "The old gal that gave me my first job in a saloon used a hay hook on me. After all these years I'd figured that she'd fixed me so well, I'd never be able to get pregnant again."
