Love and Other Consolation Prizes(40)
As a ward of the state, Ernest had never had a girl as a friend, let alone an actual girlfriend. At Dow’s Landing the boys all pretended that they hated the girls, and relentlessly teased anyone who acted contrary. And at Holy Word, the second-class kids were rarely allowed at dances or ice cream socials. But as Fahn leaned into him he felt at peace, unjudged. He felt free. He wasn’t sure what their relationship was becoming, but whatever the strange connection was, he was caught up in the blatant, unrepentant honesty of the Tenderloin—as naked and bare as the girls upstairs. He let himself drift away on the riptide of new emotions that came with this place on a daily basis. He felt tangled to the point of casual surrender. That’s when he thought of Mrs. Irvine’s words and knew that it was already too late.
“Five hundred dollars!” one of the men shouted.
The women cheered. The men heckled one another, boasted.
“Councilman Gill, are you going to let that kind of offer go unchallenged?” Madam Flora dared as she took the cigar from his mouth and began smoking it, blowing smoke rings across the table. “You have a reputation to uphold. I don’t think you want people thinking you’ve become some kind of teetotaling Quaker, do you?”
The councilman smiled and yelled, “Here’s to an open city, with open minds, and open wallets. Seven hundred dollars.”
“Seven hundred and fifty,” another shouted as he finished his drink and set his glass down with a sharp retort. “And open breeches!”
The drunken men roared.
“Eight hundred for this lovely girl,” an older, clean-cut businessman said. “But for a night of my sterling companionship, she should be paying me!”
The men laughed, and more drinks were poured.
Ernest looked at Jewel, who seemed to be eating up the extravagant attention by so many rich and powerful patrons. Her cheeks, which earlier had been streaked with tears, now seemed to be positively glowing as she regarded the bidders. Some might have passed as handsome, ten or twenty years ago. Ernest thought about what Fahn had said about dogs admiring trees.
Ernest lost track of the sum after it passed one thousand dollars and the roaring and cheering all blended into a deafening hurricane of ribald commerce. The music, the bidding, the laughing, the shouting, the lavish fervor was intoxicating. But it was sickening, confounding as well. Being sold at a high price didn’t change the fact that a person was being sold like a head of cattle. His heart was numb when the auction finally died down and the last toast was offered. The ladies all sang “Good Evening, Caroline” as Jewel and the lucky winner ascended the stairs and waved goodbye, as though setting sail aboard the Mauretania.
Ernest chewed his lip and shifted uncomfortably at the thought of what they’d be doing hence. Jewel was the youngest of the Gibson girls, which left only him, an assortment of maids, and presumably Maisie, and Fahn, as the residents of the Tenderloin whose virtues remained somewhat intact. As he stared at the grand carpeted staircase and listened to the music, he might have daydreamed for hours if Miss Amber hadn’t poked him in the ribs. She handed him a heavy silver bucket with a bottle of wine, overflowing with chipped ice.
“What are you lollygagging about for? Follow them upstairs, and do it quick. And watch your step, that bottle of cuvée is a Ruinart ’82, the best in the house—probably worth more than you’ll make in two lifetimes.”
Ernest looked at the bottle and did what he was told. He trailed behind the couple, setting the bucket on a table just inside the door to their suite. The winning bidder thanked him happily and then shooed Ernest off with a ten-dollar bill as he unfastened his black suspenders and loosened his white tie.
Jewel stared back at Ernest with quiet eyes. She seemed neither happy nor sad, scared perhaps, just a little, but more resigned than anything else. She didn’t even blink as the cork popped and careened off the ceiling. Instead, she merely mouthed the words “Thank you” to Ernest as he closed the door behind him.
—
WHEN ERNEST LOOKED at the clock it read 2:37 A.M. He’d been busy all night, decanting wine, shining shoes, removing lint from the coats of guests, and fetching cabs as the party slowly wound down to the calm of intimate conversation and a gentle waltz rendered by Professor True. The piano man had loosened his tie and seemed to be playing in his sleep, eyes closed, bent over the ivory keys of his baby grand even as his fingers danced back and forth like puppets on strings.
The policemen had left hours earlier, but not before the girls showered them with wet, lipstick-stained goodbyes and Madam Flora slipped each officer a handful of folding money. She could afford it, as Jewel had brought in over a thousand dollars from a porcine businessman with a cleft in his double chin. If Jewel had objections to her suitor, she’d kept them masterfully hidden. Ernest thought of how she’d cooed and addressed him as though he were the man of her dreams—Prince Charming in a waistcoat one size too small.
“Thirteen hundred dollars was the winning bid. Not by a particularly handsome man, but at least it was a handsome sum,” Fahn had whispered as she collected empty wineglasses.
Ernest had never even seen a hundred-dollar bill, let alone held one. He felt the ten-dollar bill in his pocket, more money than he’d ever possessed at one time. At the Tenderloin, the cash and the stringent rules of polite society ebbed and flowed as freely as the whiskey and the bottles of Bordeaux.
“What’s the most anyone’s ever paid for one of these nights?” he asked.