Love and Other Consolation Prizes(41)

“Well—if you can believe it, they say there was a man named Louis J. Turnbull who once bid five thousand dollars.”

“For who?” Ernest asked, wide-eyed. His jaw hung open, slightly. That was a king’s ransom. Ernest couldn’t comprehend that much money. He was making twenty cents an hour, plus room and board.

“You don’t want to know.” Fahn rolled her eyes.

“I do, actually,” Ernest said.

“For the one person who isn’t up for sale anymore,” Fahn said. “I know you heard about how Madam Flora retired. Well, some men didn’t think that certain restrictions applied to them, especially Louis Turnbull. He used to spend entire weeks with Flora. I don’t know if he was heartbroken when she stopped working, or just upset that there was something in the world his money couldn’t buy. Over the years he tried charming her with lavish gifts from around the world, but Amber put a stop to that.”

Ernest tried to imagine that kind of money.

“It’s a story for another time—rather ugly. Hey, I’m done in a few minutes. Give me a half hour to freshen up and get out of my uniform, then come up to the empty guest room on the fourth floor. I’m ready to collect on what you owe me.”

Ernest’s palms began to sweat, and his heart and stomach seemed to change places. He remembered her long kiss in the street—which had sent lightning bolts from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. That moment had filled his daydreams and had kept him awake at night.

He’d been haunted by her words: now…you owe me.

But Ernest lingered downstairs and pretended to be busy. Sure, he liked her—he definitely cared for her and was infatuated in a way that he’d thoroughly enjoyed. Yet he wasn’t certain about paying back whatever debt she was intending to collect.

A man’s raspy voice said, “You can’t avoid her forever, you know.”

Ernest looked over and saw Professor True peeking at him with one eye open. Then the old man smiled, shook his head, and kept playing with his eyes closed as he said, “Might as well go on up. She’s not gonna bite you or nothing, not that one for sure.”

“It’s not the biting I’m worried about,” Ernest said. “It’s everything else.”

Professor True chuckled and shook his head. “Oh, what I wouldn’t give to be your age all over again. Then again, back in those days, I was playing on street corners in Kansas City for pennies.”

Ernest wondered, “How long have you been working here?”

“Longer than you’ve been alive, son,” the man said. “Let’s just say that I came with the building. And I’ll be here, writing, playing, singing, as long as my fingers will allow. But you’re just stalling now, aren’t you?”

Ernest sighed in agreement and untied his apron.

“There you go,” Professor True said. “As a wise man with a funny collar and pointy shoes said, Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close up that wall—something like that. You know what I mean…”

Ernest didn’t, but the quote sounded like a verse he’d read in school. Probably Shakespeare. And as he took the long walk up the stairs and along the carpet-lined hallway, he heard the now-familiar giggles and laughter from behind closed doors, and the odd rhythm and helpless moans of men and women in the throes of pleasure or anguish—sometimes it was hard to discern which. He passed some of the upstairs girls as they were freshening up with new, painted-on smiles, or winding down. Some even kissed him on the cheek and bid him good night.

He brushed the hair from his eyes, cleared his throat, and gently knocked on the guest room door. Words from another play the older kids had once put on at the children’s home came rushing back—Lord, what fools these mortals be!

Ernest knocked again, and the door pushed open, slightly. Cautiously, he peeked into the room. One small paraffin candle was burning on a corner table. The window was wide open, and a cool breeze blew the curtains back like the sails of a ship with a broken mast, lazily drifting to nowhere in particular.

He called out Fahn’s name. Then he heard whispers.

“Out here, young Ernest, on the fire escape.”

Ernest smelled tobacco on the cool draft and heard another, familiar voice in addition to Fahn’s. He closed the door behind him, crept across the room, and held the curtains aside as he climbed through the open window and out into the early-morning air, which felt unseasonably warm.

“Well, well, well,” the other girl’s voice called out.

Ernest flinched and then felt bad for recoiling when he saw Maisie—especially as she smiled up at him for the first time ever, and waved benignly.

“Geez, I’m not gonna hit you, Ernest,” she said. “Relax, willya.”

Both girls had removed their dresses and were sitting on the grating of the fire escape in their long slips, leaning on one of the crossbars, dangling their stocking-covered toes over the edge of the platform, which hovered fifty feet above the alley and the rooftops of the nearby buildings. The girls scooted over in opposite directions, inviting him to sit between them. He double-knotted the laces on his shoes, lest one come loose and tumble to the street below, then sat between them. The metal of the fire escape felt cold and hard, but he didn’t care because just to sit—to get off his weary feet—was a welcome relief.