[Section opener]
Birdie
Chapter 41
“You ever heard that saying, ‘sweating like a whore in church’?” Flossy asked.
“Yes, Flossy,” I said.
“I find that saying irritating,” she said. “Like it’s news to us types we’re going to hell?
Which don’t even make sense ’cause if we know we’re going to hell, why would we bother
going to church?”
“I ain’t going to hell and I ain’t going to church,” Ruby said.
“Can we enjoy this beautiful day, please?” I asked.
It was the fourth day of October and so gorgeous out that me, Ruby, and Flossy had
carried our coffee cups out to the backyard. Birds were singing and zipping around; sun dappled
the dance floor. It was cool enough that I draped a sweater around my shoulders. I’d milked the
cow at two o’clock this morning, and now it was past one in the afternoon. Picador and Polly had
already come and gone. With more one- and two-hour appointments, business was very good,
and there were fewer sheets to wash.
I picked up yesterday’s newspaper with the headline “Thousands Come to Town to Root
for the Red-and-Blue Football Team.”
Underneath a drawing of a football, I saw that Garnett Pittman had also made the front
page again, less than a week after Priscilla’s arrest. “Mrs. Welty Pittman Lunches at Gov.
Mansion and Issues Statement.” I dreaded reading anything that witch had to say. “As newly
elected president of the Anti-Vice League”—Lord, we know—“I feel it is my responsibility to
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warn the people of Mississippi that filth is living right under our noses, and I am sorry to say, it
is mostly in women. Sinfulness, disease, and promiscuity—”
What? Mostly in women? She was a traitor to her own kind.
“—leading to more illegitimate children with severe imbecility. We all remember when
so many of our brave soldiers overseas were lured in and denigrated by the diseased and dirty in
the Great War. I propose Mississippi reinforce a ‘stop-and-arrest’ policy of any woman who
behaves or speaks in a promiscuous manner. An act which, I remind you, is already legal under
the American Plan.”
Good Lord. No more trips to town for the girls. Today was Wednesday. We only had to
make it four more nights and then this business would disappear into thin air. And so would I. I
hadn’t heard from Jack after my damning letter, though to be fair he’d probably only received it
yesterday or the day before. My hopes were low, though, and I was trying to keep my mind off it
or I might not get out of bed.
A motorcar was churning up the road—prolly the ice delivery. I got up to see through the
arched opening in the hedge—was that Mr. Binny’s taxicab, easing around the curve? Huh. It
was still a ways off so I stayed put.
With Priscilla’s closed, we were now, as Charlie’d put it, the only game in town. The
girls had advertised so much on campus and in the surrounding towns that Esmeralda said her
tires were wearing thin. Virginia claimed that except for the seminary students, there might not
be a college boy left whose sweaty hand hadn’t had a card put in it. Every sheet in the house was
clean; there were hundreds of widows up under the kitchen sink. (Virginia had found a storage
closet full of them at the hospital. I wondered how many babies would be born in this county
because we’d taken all the rubbers.) Even after we’d raised our rates, and decided to start
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opening an hour earlier, we were almost fully booked for the next four days. This wasn’t only
because of Priscilla’s closing, no sir. Just down the road, the town of Oxford was practically tap-
dancing in anticipation. According to the newspaper, starting as early as tomorrow, decades upon
decades of Ole Miss graduates would descend on the town. Considering the university had been
open since 1848, that was a lot of alumni, men mostly, young and old, visiting their alma mater,
and fraternity brothers without their wives. Homecoming, they called it.
I watched Mr. Binny’s taxi ease to a stop in front of the house. He slowly climbed out of
the front and opened the back door and helped a woman out—wait now . . . wait just a minute.
“Flossy, Ruby—you go upstairs and tell the others to stay up there!”
I dashed up the porch steps and into the kitchen, where Charlie was at the sink. “They’re
home!”
Charlie stared at me, a rubber in her hand filled like a water balloon. She let it go and it
burbled into the sink.
“Make sure the girls do not come downstairs,” I said, “and call the Colonial Hotel and
book two rooms for this weekend and for God’s sake put the damn johnnies away!”
I dashed, almost stumbling, out the front door, slamming it behind me, and walked fast as
I could down the brick path, trying not to trip on my long white nightgown. What am I sposed to
say? Will they see it on my face? Mrs. Tartt and Frances were shuffling through the gate. They
looked like the biblically sore, the weary. Frances’s cream-colored dress was wrinkled to high
hell, and her hair lay flat against her left cheek like she’d slept on it. A few steps ahead of her,
Mrs. Tartt was so thin now her pale blue traveling suit hung sadly from her shoulders. Mr.
Binny, unloading the last suitcase and hatboxes, had his grumpy bottom lip out, as if to say he
understood this was not the plan and he sincerely regretted being any part of this whole calamity.
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“Welcome home,” I said. It sounded like a croak. “What a surprise. Lemme—lemme get
that for you.” I took the train case from Mrs. Tartt’s hand and positioned myself in front of her to
give Charlie time to clean up any evidence. “How was your trip?” I asked her.
“Awful. I can’t talk about it,” Frances said. “All the decent hotels in Biloxi were too
expensive, so I had to stay in some fleabag with a cold tap.”
“Why didn’t you call first or send me a telegram? Like we talked about?” I tried to sound
lighthearted, but it came out strained.
“I tried,” Frances said. “Last night and this morning, and nobody answered.” Exactly
when everybody was either sporting or sleeping.
“I’m just happy to be home at last,” Mrs. Tartt said. She walked a tired arc around me
and so did Frances, lugging her own heavy train case with both hands.
“Did I tell you I had to share a bathroom with a strange, hairy man?” Frances said. “And
do you know what he wore in the hallway?”
“No. Mrs. Tartt, you know, with the boarders here, I really think you’d be more
comfortable staying at a—”
“Nothing. He wore nothing,” Frances said.
Charlie came out of the house and hurried down the steps to meet us. “Oh, Charlie,” Mrs.
Tartt said, “what a long journey we’ve had.”
“Welcome home, Mrs. Tartt,” Charlie said warmly, adding, “Frances.” As I followed
behind them, my wrecked brain half expected the side door to open because she’d said the
password. Charlie sidled up to me and whispered, “Every room in town’s booked solid. Put them
in the attic and come meet me in the kitchen.” She took the hatboxes from Mr. Binny and went
ahead of us into the house, leaving the front door open for us.
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I’d swear I could feel my heart sweating as we went up the front steps. Pushing hard on
the rail, Mrs. Tartt coughed deeply when she reached the top. She seemed wilted all the way
down to her soul. Mr. Binny set the suitcases down inside, and he was gone like his pants were
on fire.
In the echoey hallway, Mrs. Tartt said, “Oh my heavens, I cannot wait to lie down in my
own bed.”
I felt so guilty, so terrified, that my head ached, and I realized I’d been clenching my jaw
hard as I could. “I need to tell you something. Mrs. Tartt.” I took a deep breath. “We took in a
few more boarders than we expected to, so . . . the good news is that means more money for
you—”
“Have you made enough to pay the mortgage?”
I couldn’t tell her how much she’d made yet, for fear it would lead to the question of
how. I had no blooming idea how we’d explain that she’d made six hundred sixty-seven dollars
selling dime dances and renting rooms to a few boarders, but I couldn’t worry about that now.
We also weren’t telling them or anyone outside the house that we’d be closing shop after
Saturday night. The logic was logical: If you didn’t know we were open, you shouldn’t know we
were closed.
“We’re not sure yet, exactly, but there’s some other news. I’m sorry, Mrs. Tartt, but we
rented out your bedrooms.”
“My room? Who said you could do that?” Frances whined.
“I did. Unfortunately, Mrs. Tartt, all the hotels are full for homecoming, so is there a
friend you’d like to stay with in town, or . . . or maybe you’d like to take a trip to Memphis?”
Even better. “Stay in a nice hotel up there, the fancy one with the ducks?”
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“Aren’t there any rooms for us to stay in here?” Mrs. Tartt asked. She looked around the
wide empty hall of her endless house.
“Only the nursery rooms up in the attic—and I know you don’t want to stay up there.” I
shook my head and frowned. Attic bad, very bad choice.
“Heavens.” Mrs. Tartt furrowed her brow. She had deep marionette lines coming down
from her mouth, an old stain of red lipstick approximately on her lips. “Nobody’s stayed up there
since Marthadelle waited on us and sat Rory. But”—she looked at Frances, who still sagged at
the news of her room given away—“I suppose we could try it. Frances?”
“I don’t care, I just want to sleep,” Frances said. “I’ve been traveling since yesterday
morning.”
“I see.”
“Poor Frances’s train didn’t arrive in Jackson until three o’clock this morning,” Mrs.
Tartt said. “She had to sleep in the station until our train to Oxford.”
Carrying both their train cases, I followed them up the stairs. When we reached the
second floor, all the bedroom doors were closed—thank you, God—and Mrs. Tartt gazed over at
hers. “Would it be very rude if we didn’t do introductions just yet?”
“Not rude at all, very understandable,” I said, then, “Rory’s not coming home, is he?” I’d
sort of forgotten about him.
“No.” That was all Frances said.
I opened a door that stood between Mrs. Tartt’s room and Rory’s room at the end of the
hall. The attic stairs were narrow and steep. The higher we climbed, the warmer and thicker the
air grew. Mrs. Tartt huffed, bearing down on the rail to support herself. She had to stop and rest
in the middle, and then we reached another door at the top. I opened it to a landing, where there
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was one door to the left and another to the right. I’d cleaned and rearranged both rooms back
when we’d first decided to bring in boarders, before I understood the bedrooms were the
business. Charlie’d moved their personal things up here too, so that helped. In the back, a little
bathroom connected the rooms.
“You’re sure you don’t want to stay at a friend’s?” I asked one last time. “It’s pretty
warm up here.”
“I want to stay in my home,” Mrs. Tartt said firmly. She went into the little white
bedroom on the left, the old iron bed Mr. Fauster hadn’t bought already made up. A small single
window faced the front yard but it had been painted shut.
That put Frances in the room on the right, which had been Rory’s nursery. It had a single
daybed in the corner and a ceiling fan. On the bare floor was a wooden box of old toys and a
built-in bookcase with some baby books. The room smelled musty, sort of like the orphanage.
“Maybe you wouldn’t mind bringing an electric fan up?” Mrs. Tartt asked from her room.
It felt definite now; they were staying. Even if we declared ourselves closed, cars full of
loudmouthed boys and men would still show up here tonight, demanding service—and tomorrow
night and the night after that and the next. “Yes,” I said. A fan would help drown out some of the
noise at least.
Mrs. Tartt climbed on top of the white coverlet and lay back with a groan. Frances just
stood in her room, staring at the daybed in the corner.
“You need to lie down now, Franny, get some sleep.” Please. I went in and hit the switch
for the ceiling fan, which made a nice whir.
“Birdie, it was so awful seeing Rory in jail,” Frances said. “And when he—” She shut her
eyes, and while I badly wanted to know when he what?, that had to wait.
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“I want to hear everything, I do, but Franny, you are so tired right now.” I said it like I
was her hypnotist. I had to talk to Charlie—we had to shut this place down. I moved Frances by
the shoulders to the bed. She was strangely pliable and even let me push her back so she was
lying down.
“But I don’t want to go to sleep yet,” she whined, trying to sit up. “I have so much to tell
you.”
“It’ll keep. Now, Franny, do as your big sister says, alright?”
She sighed and lay back down.
“Y’all stay up here now, you don’t need to come all the way down. I’ll be right back up
with your things and something to eat and drink, and I’ll keep checking for anything you need.”
***
When I got downstairs, Charlie was on the telephone, still trying to find an open room
somewhere. The White Hotel, Mrs. Lamar’s boardinghouse, the Guyton’s, they were all booked
up. Charlie said, “Silva said this homecoming’s drawing every alum in the state.”
“Keep trying, I’ll be back,” I said. I set yesterday’s vegetable soup on the stove and ran
their other suitcases upstairs and then a pitcher of iced tea with iced glasses, clean towels, soaps,
magazines from Flossy’s pile, two decks of Mrs. Tartt’s cards, and two electric fans, the more
noise the better. Customers were gonna start showing up here at five, just a few hours away. We
couldn’t call and tell them not to come—these men didn’t use their real names or give telephone
numbers. I wanted to swipe Ruby’s Little Fella radio, but it was in her room. I’d get it later, and
if Ruby murdered me, it would solve many of these problems. If she didn’t, I’d go to town and
buy one with my own money tomorrow.
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I took the brass bell off the cow and tied it to the door handle at the top of the landing. I
told Frances to ring it if she needed anything.
Mrs. Tartt was running a bath in the little water closet now. Better if she slept hard
tonight while I tried to explain to angry customers there’d be no Ruby Slipper specials or knee
jobs or tangos for sale ever again. Frances rolled over and looked like she might go to sleep.
My legs ached from climbing all those flights of stairs. I leaned on the rail down in the
grand hall and racked my brain for ways to keep customers from showing up. I had a few ideas,
not great ones. Most involved the electric prod pole or a lot of signs that said Closed.
Charlie walked into the hall just as the bell clanged upstairs. We both looked up.
“Birdie?”
Frances was calling my name from the second floor. Then her feet were padding down
the main stairs. Charlie gave the staircase a look so sharp it could’ve cut hair. “I’ll be in the
kitchen,” she said.
I met Frances at the bottom stair. She’d put on a pink nightgown and leaned her head on
my shoulder. “I’m so tired, but I can’t sleep.”
“I’m sorry, Franny.” For so many things. “If you’ll go back upstairs, I’ll come rub your
feet.” Behind me, the telephone rang. “Ignore that.”
“But it might be for me.” She slipped past me and snatched it up. “Hello?”
“Don’t, Frances, give me that—” I tried to grab it out of her hand, but she dodged me.
Her tired eyes blinked brighter. “I’m sorry?” she said, and scrunched up her forehead,
then whispered to me, “What’s a Ruby Slipper special? Is that for the club?”
I pried the receiver from her hand and said, “We’re not taking any more appointments,”
and hung up.
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“Why not?” Frances asked.
“Because we’re not opening tonight.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re home and you’re tired and it’ll be so noisy.” It hadn’t occurred to me yet
that if we didn’t open, I’d have to explain that too. Overhead the girls were probably going stir-
crazy in their rooms.
“Don’t turn down money on account of us,” Frances said. She seemed fully awake now
and suddenly interested in our business. “I mean, it’s still completely mortifying, but we’ve got
to get the mortgage paid. And where are these boarders anyway, asleep? It’s past two in the
afternoon.” She wrinkled her nose as if she never slept in.
I was shaking my head. “You don’t want to meet them right now, you look terrible.”
“I’d at least like to know who’s staying in my room.”
I needed her to go upstairs and stop asking questions, and there was only one way to do
that. I planted my hands on both her arms. “Right now, all we need to talk about is you, Franny.
Everything you’ve been through these past weeks.”
She went limp in the neck, her concern for something besides herself dried up again. “It
was so hard, Birdie,” she said, her face crumpling. Thank God Frances was still Frances.
“Let’s get you back upstairs to take a bath first. It’ll make you feel better. We’ll talk
after.”
I ran the tub for her, which was just a cold tap. I knew, mercifully, Frances didn’t want
me staying in there, so I shut the door behind her. Mrs. Tartt had eaten her soup and put on her
blue nightgown and was rummaging through her train case on the bed. She was so tired, she was
swaying.
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“What can I get you, Mrs. Tartt?” I asked.
“My heart pills. I have to take them at five, but I can’t seem to find . . .”
“I’ll look. You get in bed.” She climbed up and in, eyes drooping like a child, as I sifted
through her things and found the bottle.
“I believe I’ll take two this evening,” she said. Good. They made her sleep like the dead.
***
When I went in the kitchen, damp with sweat, my legs noodly from running up and down the
stairs, Charlie was leaning against the sink. She had her arms crossed. I hoped she was thinking
of a way to make tonight go better than it was going in my head. I pulled the stool over and sat
my rear on it.
“What do you think we ought to do?” she asked.
I took in a deep draft of air. “Post signs outside the house that say DANCE CLUB
CLOSED and pray they leave.”
“And if they won’t leave?” Charlie asked. “If they pound on the doors?”
“We’ll make ’em leave. Ruby will. The only other idea I have is to open as a legitimate
dance club, no upstairs business and try to explain to them.” Charlie was staring at me. It was
irritating. “Will you say something, please?”
“The way I see it,” she said, tapping her foot on the black-and-white-checked floor, “is at
least one of them is bound to figure it out, whether we open tonight or not, Birdie.”
I shook my head. “No, no, that’s not necessarily true. Frances is exhausted, and Mrs.
Tartt will take her medicine and sleep. How can they find out we didn’t open a brothel if they’re
dead asleep?”
“How would they find out we did open if they’re dead asleep?”
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“That’s not what I meant—”
“Birdie, the customers are going to show up here all weekend, regardless of a sign on the
door, and they’re going to be pretty noisy about it if they can’t go upstairs.”
Charlie, I realized, had already gotten dressed for work tonight. Under the apron, she’d
changed into a black cap-sleeved dress with stockings and heels. Her dark hair curled at her
jawline, and she wore crimson lipstick.
“What exactly are you proposing here, Charlie?”
She raised her eyebrows like she was surprised herself and said, “I think we should
open.”
No sound came out of me at first. Until it did. “While they’re upstairs? Oh hell no.”
“We’ve got over fifty appointments on the books, Birdie. If we close, what reason will
you give your sister and Mrs. Tartt that won’t make them suspicious?”
“That—that they’re tired and it’ll be noisy . . .” It sounded thin even to me.
“You think they’re going to believe that, when customer after customer shows up here
flashing money Mrs. Tartt could be making? Mrs. Tartt doesn’t think she’s made enough to pay
off her mortgage, not to mention, what is she supposed to live on after that? We stand to
practically double her money in the next four nights.”
I stood up. “You mean you, you could double your money, Charlie—”
“You’re damn straight, me!” Charlie still wore that high-eyebrow look of surprise. “And
so could all the girls upstairs who need it, and so could you. Instead of six hundred fifty dollars,
you could go home with a thousand! Imagine how far that could go in some backwater nothing
of a town like Footely. And while you’re at it, imagine where somebody like you is ever going to
earn that kind of cash again!”
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Her vitriol stung. Somebody like me? Did she think so little of me? I’d do well not to
forget Charlie was no saint. She was a convict who’d shown up at the Orphan ready for a
bullfight.
“Birdie, what chance do any of us have to earn a living after this? A bunch of women, in
Mississippi, when most people don’t have a dime? Most people don’t even think a woman
deserves a job right now—only men get the jobs. Well, I have a child, and it’s going to take me
months to find straight work after this. I’ll be lucky if I find a job before Christmas. And when I
get Meg back—”
“We don’t know if that’s even possible, Charlie,” I snapped. “You can’t just kidnap her!”
Charlie’s eyes went wider. The small checkmark of a scar between her eyebrows
reddened. “When I do get Meg back, and I will, I will have enough money to support us, so I
won’t ever have to do this again.”
I looked away. My head hurt; I hadn’t eaten all day. Flossy came into the kitchen with
Ruby behind her, an unlit cigarette in her mouth. She struck a long kitchen match and lit it,
puffing it like a cigar.
“What’s the discussion?” Flossy asked. She had on Frances’s pink cotton robe.
“We’re closed, as of right now,” I said. “We don’t have a choice.”
Flossy looked from me to Charlie, her blue eyes bulging. “But . . . we can’t close. I ain’t
made enough money yet. I ain’t—I got nowhere to go after this.” Flossy looked old and thin in
the robe. I thought about her alone on some street corner, begging like Old Miss Rondo.
“This is horseshit,” Ruby said.
Charlie came closer to me and she spoke carefully. “Listen to what I’m trying to tell you,
Birdie. This town is going to be like damn Mardi Gras for the next four days, and when
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customers start showing up here and we tell them we’re closed, those drunk boys are gonna raise
high hell—some of the men too. And your sister is going to march her pain in the ass downstairs
and hear it all and put it together like that.” She snapped her fingers.
All right. She was right about that. But that didn’t mean I wanted to open and guarantee
my own place in hell.
“What’s she gonna do if she does find out?” Ruby said. “She ain’t the damn sheriff.”
“She’s worse,” I said.
“She gone call the law on her own sister?” Ruby asked.
“Clearly, you ain’t got a sister,” Flossy said.
“Frances won’t call the sheriff,” Charlie said. “She’d be too terrified the whole town
would find out. And Mrs. Tartt, she’s old-fashioned but I doubt she’d turn us in either.”
“You don’t know that,” I said.
Ruby shrugged her freckled shoulders. “If your sister ain’t gone rat us out, then put her to
work. Tell her what kinda business we’re running and make it her job to keep the old bag in the
dark.”
“Until it’s your sister, stay out of this, Ruby,” I snapped. Ruby blinked and drew back
like I’d hurt her feelings.
“She’s got a point, Bird,” Flossy said. “If you tell your sis before she figures it out, least
then you can tell her you ain’t selling tail, just tiddlywinks.”
“She won’t think I’m doing that, Flossy.” But—would she? Now that this thought was in
my head, it scared me. Surely these weren’t my only two options—to tell Frances outright or let
her most definitely find out? Both were so bad—wasn’t there a third? “Isn’t there also the chance
that she never puts it together? If we put a sign up that says Closed, like any other business
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would do?” But even I didn’t buy this. I’d be a fool to think carloads of drunk boys would see a
sign on a tree and turn right on around. All it would take was one of them hollering things and
banging on the back door—but if that happened, what would Frances think? Would she really
draw the absurd conclusion? Yup. Looks like my sister’s turned us into a whorehouse.
Would I put that together if I was still me?
I closed my eyes and said the insane, as sanely as I could: “If I tell Frances, and I’m not
saying I will, how do we know she wouldn’t turn right around and tell Mrs. Tartt?”
No one had an answer to that. But then Charlie made a low, throaty sound. It took her a
second to say it. “Tell Frances if she’ll keep Mrs. Tartt upstairs”—she was speaking through her
teeth—“we’ll pay her.”
I looked at Charlie. Let Frances in on the game. “That’s . . . not a terrible idea.” Frances
had nothing. If Rory had anything left, money or valuables, it probably wouldn’t go to Frances.
Oh, but I cringed in my soul at the thought of telling her this . . .
I looked up at the ceiling, where all truths lived. “Oh dear Jesus,” I whispered.
“You can do this, Birdie. I got faith in you,” Flossy said.
Tonight’s appointments were nearly all grown men. The rowdy boys wouldn’t start
showing up until tomorrow night. Maybe . . . tonight, we could keep them from finding out. I
rubbed my temples and said, “Tomorrow. I’ll tell Frances tomorrow.”
Charlie nodded. “Thank you, Birdie.” Everyone in the room looked relieved but me. We
opened in two hours and all I could do was ask the girls to please fornicate very, very quietly
tonight.
***
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Forty-five minutes before we opened, I crept up to the attic. I had pimento cheese sandwiches
and a fresh pitcher of ice water. Balancing the tray, I eased the landing door open so as not to
ring the cowbell. Mrs. Tartt’s door was closed, and I could hear her snoring in there heartily.
Good. I set her plate and glass by her door. On the right, Frances’s door was cracked open, and I
could hear her rustling around in there. It’s alright, I told myself, she’ll just sleep that much
harder tonight.
“Room service,” I whispered, carrying in the tray. Frances, still in her pink nightgown,
was unpacking her suitcase and making neat little stacks of clothes on the bookshelf. She’d
moved Rory’s baby books to the side. Her hair was still wet, and her face pale.
I set the tray on the bed. “I thought you might want something to eat before you go to
sleep.”
“Thanks,” she said and climbed up on the daybed, leaning her back against the wall.
“Will you get in with me?”
“Alright, but . . . just for a few minutes. We’ve decided to open tonight after all.”
I climbed over her and sat catty-corner, so I could see the door in case Mrs. Tartt woke
up. The room was soothing, with faded blue wallpaper, the pattern a little boy carrying a musket
and a sack of gunpowder. Late afternoon sun was coming through the window and dust motes
glistened in the air. It was warm but very quiet up here. The ceiling fan whirred overhead.
Frances took a few bites of the sandwich, and I took a few bites too. I was starving. Only
a few feet below us, the girls were getting dressed. Like prostitutes.
Frances narrowed her eyes on me. “You seem different.”
I looked away. “No, not different. Same old Birdie.”
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“Your hair’s better, that’s a nice cut . . .” Esmeralda had trimmed it for me. Frances
pulled a lock of it from behind my ear. “You plucked your eyebrows.”
“One of the boarders did it,” I said. “It’s nothing.” But she kept studying me. I didn’t like
it. “Please tell me what happened with Rory?”
“Wait, first, what happened with that Jack fella?” she asked. “The one that was married?”
Not even able to appreciate the amazing fact that she’d asked this, I said, “We dated
awhile. He says he’s getting a divorce, but he moved back to Jackson.” I wrapped my arms
around my stomach. I’d been hungry, but now I just felt sick. The list of things I did not want to
discuss with Frances was long.
“I’m sorry,” she said. And then she started to cry.
“Oh Franny.” I took her hand. I could feel that she’d lost weight too; her shoulders were
thin, her long neck birdlike. “I’m sorry too.” Oh, how I meant that.
She took her hand back and held her fingers against her eyes. She looked like she was
trying to push the hurt back inside.
“What happened, Franny?” My guess was we had about thirty-five minutes before
opening. “Is Rory still in Biloxi? Is he still in jail?”
Frances nodded. “I don’t even know where to start, Birdie.”
“What’s gonna happen to him?”
“We won’t know until his hearing.” She wiped her eyes with the bedsheet. “They’re
charging him with attempted manslaughter for hitting that policeman with his car, even though
the policeman’s going to be just fine. I wanted to stay down there, but Mrs. Tartt was insisting on
coming down too, and Holtzman, the lawyer, said it would be too much for her. He told me to
bring her home until we know more and have a court date set.”
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“Did Rory tell you anything? What did he do with everything he took—what does he
have left? Was there any money—”
She put her hands up for me to stop asking so many questions. I felt like our mother. “We
still don’t know what he sold or what he spent, the car’s still impounded and it’s not like his
pockets were full of money when he got arrested. Anyway, the lawyer is doing everything he
possibly can, but he said we need to brace ourselves because the cost of the—” She shook her
head. “Arrangement they’re making is going to be sky-high, not to mention the—” She stopped
as if she didn’t want to tell me something.
“What? What’s that mean, arrangement?”
“The lawyer’s trying to make a deal with the judge. He’s going to propose that Rory be
sent to a hospital for a ‘special treatment’ instead of serving serious jail time. It’s sensitive
and it’s . . .” She rubbed her fingers together to show a lot of money was involved. I felt my face
growing hot. “The hope is, this way, he can keep Rory and the Tartts’ name out of the papers,
and the whole thing’s looking like it’s going to be very expensive, but I mean, we really don’t
have a choice. We’re not letting Rory get thrown in prison!”
“I am—” I squeezed my eyes shut. “Trying my best to understand all this. First tell me—
who is we?”
“Me and his mother.”
“Have you lost your minds?” I said. I forced myself to lower my voice—I could not wake
up Mrs. Tartt. “Did you forget what he did to you? To his mother? Rory is the one who put the
two of you in this whole stinkin’ situation!” Heck, she didn’t even know the half of it! “And now
you’re prepared to bail him out with—what? With whatever money is left from what he stole
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from his mother?” There was more to say about this, but I wasn’t going to say it because it was
mean. “Did he guilt his mother and you into doing this? Did he—did he trick you somehow?”
“No. He—” Frances clammed up again and looked away. “Never mind. I knew you
wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me,” I said, too harsh again. I took a deep breath and softened my tone. “Please. Tell
me whatever you can, Franny.”
“You don’t know what it’s like to be married, Birdie, or what goes on in the marital
bedroom—”
“Please Frances, I know plenty.”
“From what, romance novels? Picture shows?” She rolled her eyes. “Birdie, you’ve never
even had a real boyfriend before.”
I almost laughed. Just wait till you hear what we’re running downstairs. “Tell me why
you feel he deserves this ‘special treatment,’ Frances. After all the lies and the . . .” Deception. I
couldn’t even finish that.
“Fine. But listen because it’s very complicated.” She looked down at her hands, I suppose
trying to find a way to explain it. “When a boy grows into a man, he has sexual urges that are
controlled by vitamins in his genitals—”
“Jesus Christ, Frances, I am a grown woman.”
“I know—but listen. Sometimes the genitals start to make these other . . . these wrong
sorts of vitamins that put out the wrong signals, so instead of having the urge to do it with a—a
woman, Rory has these urges to—” She stopped and waved her hand like she wanted to start
over. “It’s like when Silva gets the telephone wires crossed, Rory wants to connect with Frances
but by mistake he gets connected with, say, Bill, and it’s confusing to him and I kept telling him
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you’ve just got to concentrate, dear, you’ve got to try harder, but . . . I don’t know, he just
couldn’t . . .” Her voice started trembling again. “I didn’t know it was because he’d contracted
this terrible disease, which must’ve been sickening for him, so what I’m saying is—” She
squinted at the window like she was in pain and said it fast: “Rory wants to do sex with a man.”
“I know, Frances.”
She looked at me. “You did not.”
“Yes, I did. Me and Mrs. Tartt talked about it. That’s why he went to the hospital in New
Orleans years ago.”
“You knew my husband had homosexuality and you didn’t tell me?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know how or . . . if it’d make it harder on you or . . .” I pulled my legs
up and hugged my knees. I probably should’ve just told her.
“So you both knew, and neither one of you told me?”
“I mean, now that you know, isn’t it sort of a consolation? It’s not that Rory wasn’t
attracted to you, he’s not attracted to vaginas at all.”
Frances’s expression told me no, in fact, that was not consoling to her. “Why would you
use that disgusting word?”
“It’s not disgusting, it’s medical.” God knows, there were much, much worse words I
could’ve used instead. “I still don’t understand why you’d give Rory money. Mrs. Tartt needs
that money to live on.”
“We’re not just giving it to him.” She cringed. “Birdie, when I visited him in that cell . . .
he hugged me—he’s never hugged me like that before. I could feel his heart beating. He
wouldn’t let go. He sounded so ashamed. He was too ashamed to even talk to his mother on the
telephone.” She looked up at the ceiling with tears welled up in her eyes. But then, as if she was
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