“Them’s the prettiest flowers I ever been given,” Henrietta said. She paused and chuckled. “Well, truth be told, they’re the only flowers I ever been given. Still, though . . . the prettiest!”
Even though I knew life in the boardinghouse lacked true romance, I was nonetheless surprised to hear this. It made me gladder than ever that I had taken the trouble.
* * *
—
It wasn’t until I was out back, scrubbing the privy, that I heard the terrible commotion. First came the sound of smashing glass, then Tackett’s tobacco-hoarse voice shouting. I realized he was yelling my name. I threw down the wire brush and hurried back inside, alarmed.
“YOU!” Tackett bellowed. “I hired you to cook and clean—not to waste your time.”
The flowers. I was surprised he’d noticed them—and more surprised still that they had raised his ire. I recognized the once-magnificent iris among the broken bits of glass and flora in a wet heap on the wooden plank floor. The arrangement Tackett had confiscated and dashed to the ground had been Henrietta’s. My heart twisted indignantly in my chest, but I couldn’t find my tongue. He would happily beat me for anything I might say.
To my great surprise, Blanche stepped in.
“Horace,” she said soothingly, “I rather like the notion of flowers in all the rooms. You might say they give this place an elegant touch. Maybe with a few little improvements like this you could even charge the fellas more. Why, just down the street Madame Elodie put in electricity and velvet curtains and was able to raise her price by a whole dollar apiece.”
Ordinarily, talking business mollified Tackett, but I could see right away that Blanche had miscalculated. Tackett turned to glare at her, his face filling up with rage.
“Electricity and velvet curtains?” he spat at her. “You’re as big an idiot as the rest of these greedy cows!”
Blanche flinched as if slapped. She may have earnestly liked the flowers, but coming to my defense had just cost her dearly. Tackett would not soon forget—and neither would she.
Tackett followed her gaze back to me.
“Clean this up.” He pointed to the murky puddle. “And get rid of the rest of that nonsense. Don’t let me catch you squandering time on such foolishness again. This is my boardinghouse, and I ain’t runnin’ no highfalutin parlor! Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir.”
My voice was trembling—with fear, but with outrage, too. Yet I did as I was told. I cleaned up the shattered glass and rounded up the remaining arrangements still lingering in the girls’ rooms. I set about dismantling my gifts.
Flossie and Cora came to check on me as I toiled in the kitchen.
“I’m sorry, Violet,” Flossie lamented.
“Your arrangements were pretty—very stylish, in fact,” Cora said, perhaps hoping a compliment might make me feel better.
“I despise him,” was all I could manage, removing the flowers from the bottles and dumping them in a pile. My throat was thick with angry sobs. I refused to let them out, but Cora and Flossie knew me.
“You can always put ipecac in his food,” Cora joked, referring to the small bottle of expectorant we kept to remedy the girls’ coughs and colds. Too much made a person vomit. Her face brightened. She gave a wink and flounced upstairs.
“She’s never serious,” I said.
“I don’t know about that,” Flossie replied. “I believe Cora would like someone to slip ipecac into Tackett’s dinner.” She caught my surprised expression and quickly corrected herself. “Oh, but ignore her, of course!”
“Of course.”
Flossie patted my shoulder sympathetically and followed Cora upstairs. Alone, I resumed my work. When I had finished dismantling my modest arrangements, I threw the flowers into the alley to wilt.
I stood staring at them for a moment, watching their colorful, crisp petals as they grew limp and rubbery, abandoning their cheerfulness to the muck.
4
I wondered if I had not yet seen the worst of Tackett’s wrath, but the next day Blanche told us he was under the weather and laid up in bed.
“Is he suffering from a hangover?” I asked Flossie.
She shrugged.
“Perhaps. Blanche says he looks a little green around the gills. He’s not much for breakfast, so you needn’t bother.”
Tackett didn’t emerge from his room all day. His office remained dark and empty. Truth be told, all of us enjoyed a reprieve from his presence—even Blanche. The mood around the boardinghouse became lighter, contented, almost lackadaisical.
By the time evening rolled around, the storm clouds of yesterday’s emotions had lifted—mostly. Cora and Flossie were dressed and ready for the dancehall early and sat lounging around Cora’s bedroom, thumbing the well-worn pages of the ladies’ magazines that Cora collected.
I wandered in and lingered. Truth be told, I didn’t care much for society pages, but it was always mesmerizing to watch the expressions that flitted over Cora’s pretty face as she absorbed their contents, dazzled.
“Tackett still sick?” Cora asked when she noticed me hovering by the door.
“Reckon so.”
Cora chuckled. “You didn’t take my little suggestion to heart, did you, Violet?”
“Which suggestion?”
“About the ipecac.”
“No!” I said, shocked.
“Now, Cora,” Flossie chastised from her chair. “You know Violet would never.” Then she cocked her head at me. “Although you’re not still upset about what Tackett did to your flowers, are you?” She waved me in and patted the bed beside her.
I shrugged and came over to sit.
Flossie gave me a sad, solemn stare.
“Of course, you know why he did it, don’t you?”
I frowned. I hadn’t given it much thought; I’d been too angry.
“Tackett can’t have us putting on airs, thinking we’re worth more than the scraps he gives us,” Flossie explained.
“That’s awful lousy of him.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t. But that’s Tackett. It’s how he’s earned his fortune.”
Cora’s head snapped to attention at the word “fortune.”
“He’s an absolute miser. And I heard his safe is packed to the gills. He’s got more gold than Midas himself!”
“Maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t,” Flossie said. “But you know as well as I do it won’t change anything for us.”