“Thank you, Flossie,” I replied, reaching for her cool hand and giving it a squeeze. “Again. Truly.”
“Hurry!”
I obeyed and lifted the tray, carrying it upstairs until the hallway ended at a closed door. I reached up to knock and held my breath.
After a moment, the door flew open.
“Well?” Blanche snapped. “Bring it in.”
Her mouth pursed irritably. At twenty-nine, Blanche was one year younger than Henrietta, but since Tackett’s favor had fallen upon her, she had taken to acting as though she were a forty-year-old madam. In years past, Blanche must have had a sultry, pert-nosed, blonde appeal, but in the years since, her face had hardened around the mouth. Her eyes were sunken and her poorly dyed hair had taken on a brassy, canary-yellow hue.
“Hurry up.” She snapped her fingers.
I carried the tray into the dimly lit room, trying not to peer in the direction of the rumpled, unmade bed. I set the tray on a small table by the bay window, where Mr. Tackett sat expectantly. The curtains were drawn against the lingering day, but even under the yellow gaslight the black dye in his hair glowed blue.
They were a pair, Blanche and Tackett: two strange and unnatural pigments on a painter’s palette.
To my surprise, Tackett smiled at me as I approached.
“And what has our little chef prepared?” he inquired, his tone as dark and slick as his hair.
Blanche frowned at this, and I felt her watching me.
“A . . . it’s a rump roast, Mr. Tackett,” I replied.
“Indeed.”
Tackett almost never spoke to me. More often than not, if he did, it was in reproach. Suddenly I realized: I was still wearing the rouge Cora had so carefully painted on my face. I felt my stomach flutter. I hurried to deposit the tray, but as I leaned over, Mr. Tackett’s eyes roved over my shape until his gaze came to rest upon my posterior. He gave it a long, leering look.
Blanche’s scowl deepened.
I recoiled and managed to scurry out of the room, but I felt the telltale draft of someone just behind me, and in the next instant Blanche’s viselike grip landed on my shoulder. She whirled me about so that my back was up against the wall. A moment passed wherein neither of us spoke. Then, finally, she lifted a hand to my cheek and swiped at the rouge, inspecting her fingertips.
“You’d be wise to clean that off straightaway.”
It could have been a warning—or a threat. With Blanche, it was hard to tell.
“Ye—yes, ma’am.”
I held my breath as she squinted at me for a long moment. Finally, she released my shoulder and sighed with disgust. She turned on her heel and strode back into Tackett’s room.
I stood frozen, shivering in the warm, humid hall. The memory of her fingertips swiping my cheek chilled me.
3
Two days later, Henrietta came into the kitchen wrapped in her dressing gown. I caught sight of an eggplant-hued bruise blooming beneath one of her merry blue eyes.
“What happened?” I blurted, alarmed.
Henrietta waved a dismissive hand.
“Don’t worry yerself over me, dearie,” she said. “I had a li’l difference of opinion with one o’ my regular dancehall Romeos is all.”
“Here? Last night?”
Henrietta nodded.
“I didn’t hear. I must’ve slept right through it. Did Tackett put a stop to it?”
My blood curdled as Henrietta’s usually warm chuckle betrayed a bitter edge.
“Well, he got to the fella all right—eventually. Tackett demanded to be paid an extra two dollars for ‘damages done to his property.’” Henrietta paused and grunted. “Think if Tackett could find a way to collect that extra cash every night, he would, even if it meant we was all wearin’ shiners.”
I recoiled. I knew I ought to have been accustomed to such goings-on, but even after two years in the boardinghouse I still found myself shaken and outraged. Henrietta’s constant gaiety was part of her thick skin, but for once I could sense her working to keep herself from despair.
I made up a plate of breakfast for her in silence, putting an indulgent pat of extra butter on her grits.
She thanked me and left the kitchen, but I was still thinking of her a full hour later as I was gathering the dishes. My eyes fell upon a row of empty milk bottles.
I had an idea.
Once I’d finished putting the plates away, I paid a visit to the butcher. This much was routine. But I had already made up my mind that, on my way back, I would take a small detour. I hiked up to a pretty little park atop Russian Hill. As it was April in San Francisco, the flowers were already in full bloom. The hill was covered in a hardy smattering of different wildflowers, but there were also a few rosebushes and daffodils—all of it a bit haphazard and unkempt. It was still early, and for the most part I was alone. I took a tiny pair of sewing scissors from my pocket and snipped the stems of as many flowers as I could without attracting attention, carefully folding my curated bundle into my tattered cardigan.
Back at the boardinghouse, I rounded up every empty bottle I could find, cleaned them, tied hair ribbons around each, and filled them with several inches of water pumped from out back. Next, I turned to the flowers I’d pilfered from the park and set about lovingly bundling and rebundling them until I had crafted six individual arrangements. The bulk of my plunder was smaller stock: lavender and orange poppies, woolly blue curls and tidy tips. But I’d managed to collect a couple of irises and tea roses, too. The biggest and most colorful bunch was intended for Henrietta, but there was also one each for Flossie, Cora, Opal, and Mary. I even made one for Blanche.
When all six were ready, I crept stealthily about the boardinghouse to put an arrangement in each of the girls’ rooms. I hoped the flowers would serve as a small beacon of cheer. Everything in our lives was at pains to prove otherwise, but I wanted to remind the girls there was beauty, too, in our world.
With my mission completed, I resumed my regular duties: boiling the laundry, beating the feather beds, scrubbing the floors. Two hours into my chores I felt a shadow hovering over my shoulder. I looked up to see Opal smiling shyly at me.
“That was awfully nice of you,” she said.
I grinned but played along. “What was?”
Opal laughed. “I know you’re the one behind those flowers. They’re very pretty. Thank you, Violet.”
“It was nothing,” I insisted, but Opal just shook her head and smiled wider.
* * *
—
As late morning gave way to early afternoon, each of the girls sought me out in turn. I felt my heart swelling with satisfaction. I had put the prettiest arrangement in Henrietta’s room; it contained a particularly voluminous iris, its purple and white frilly petals bursting from the stem like a tiny but luxurious lavender waterfall.