Love and Other Consolation Prizes(73)

Ernest also took out the ticket from the fair—his prize-winning ticket—that humble piece of cardboard that had put his future in the generous, magnanimous, but now-quaking hands of Madam Flora. For a moment he wondered what his life would have been like had someone else claimed him. Where would he be? As torn as he was about Fahn’s and Maisie’s fates, he wouldn’t have wished to be anywhere else.

Last, and with much reluctance, he added the gold hairpin topped with jade that had once belonged to his mother. When he wasn’t wearing it on his lapel, he’d kept the piece of jewelry hidden in an old sock in the bottom of his dresser. That slender piece of soft, tarnished gold was his only earthly reminder of his time in China, those dark moments with his ah-ma.

Ernest gathered everything and walked down the hall to Miss Amber’s room, where the door stood partially open. He peered inside, where she stood in a casual evening dress, smoking a cigarette and tending to one of her many wigs, as though the nest of golden hair were a small terrier in need of grooming.

“What now?” she snapped, blowing out the candle that she had used to heat a curling iron. “Let me guess. A few gents come early tonight? Tell ’em I’ll be right down.”

Ernest shook his head. “No one is here yet. It’s just me. I have a question…”

“Speak your mind, kid, but make it quick. You’re wasting time and I’m sure there are things you need to busy yourself with downstairs. Is the car gassed up and ready? I have a few gentlemen who might need a ride tonight.”

Ernest nodded. He cleared his throat as he searched for the right combination of words that could somehow change Miss Amber’s mind. Then he held out his money and the winning ticket. “I know you’re only doing what’s best for Madam Flora. And I understand how sick she is and all, and that if we don’t do something quick, she’ll only get worse, and no one wants that. But…”

“Ah, geez Louise…”

Ernest spoke faster. “There must be another answer. I don’t have much…” He handed her his money and the gold pin. Then he held up the ticket. “Maybe we could figure out an arrangement. I could work here for free, for as long as it takes to pay off the amount that the Tenderloin would be making for Maisie.”

“You want her?” Miss Amber stared at him, confused.

“Yes. I mean, no,” Ernest stammered. “It’s not that. I don’t want her to do this at all. You could even sell my services, maybe Mr. Turnbull needs a houseboy or a driver—I could ask him to loan you the money you need for Madam Flora’s treatment. Then I would work without pay, for as long as it takes…”

Miss Amber took a long final drag on her cigarette and then snuffed it out. “That’s a sweet idea, kid, and the sentiment isn’t lost on me. I think my heart skipped a beat. Wait…there it goes—it’s beating again. See, you almost killed me.”

Ernest stared back, frustrated, loathing her.

She shook her head. “Look, I live in the real world. Besides, Louis Turnbull could buy a hundred other girls and a hundred thousand servants like you. But that’s not what he’s after—he wants the Mayflower, so he gets the Mayflower. Understand? Trust me, we’re just lucky that we happen to have something he wants so badly. The way I see it, this is fate paying back a kindness to Flora for not giving up Maisie in the first place.”

She lit another cigarette and put on her wig. She spoke to Ernest, addressing his reflection in a three-way mirror. “I only needed one good reason to turn Maisie out, and that’s our Madam Flora’s well-being. But this man has given me five thousand reasons.”

“This”—she waved her hand at the ticket—“this doesn’t even come close.”

Ernest put the cash, the pin, the ticket, back into his pocket.

“You’re too late anyway. I already closed the deal.”

Ernest stared at her three reflections in the dressing mirrors as they moved in unison; he felt equally confused by each one.

“Kid, no one—and I mean no one on God’s green Earth—was going to outbid Louis Turnbull, so I called and we settled things on the telephone, quick and proper. He won’t grace us with his presence, but we’ll have a coming-out party for the Mayflower nonetheless—she’ll have her big, showy entrance, descend the staircase, and get her moment in society’s grand spotlight—then whoosh, out the door she goes. I’ll make sure that the upstairs girls treat the guests to something special for showing up, everyone will have a swell time in the style and fashion that the Tenderloin is known for, and Maisie gets to have her own party. All I need from you is to keep your wits about you and deliver her to his mansion in Windermere, with a bottle of our finest bubbly, of course.” Miss Amber winked and smiled through tobacco-stained teeth. “Compliments of Madam Flora.”





ALL I HAVE TO GIVE


(1910)



To Ernest, Maisie’s coming-out ceremony was a blur of silk, lost in a haze of cigar smoke, tainted with the smell of brandy and Canadian rye. She wasn’t wheeled in atop a silver cart like Jewel; instead she walked on her own two feet, gilded in her expertly tailored dress. Ernest was simultaneously awestruck and heartbroken as she slowly descended the grand staircase in shimmering high-heeled shoes that made her seem much older than her fifteen and a half years. As she made her entrance she was flanked and feted by every Gibson girl, who smiled as they fanned her with plumes of ostrich feathers, while Professor True played a waltz.