Cora looked at Flossie for a long moment, then sighed. Tackett was a skinflint; if he were as wealthy as the rumors insisted, we’d be the last to know. Cora turned back to her magazines. I watched her trail a wistful finger over a socialite dressed up for a masquerade ball.
“If I were rich,” Cora mused, “all my clothes would be tailor-made. I’d have more hats than Alva Vanderbilt and more dresses than Evelyn Nesbit!”
Flossie laughed and exchanged a look with me, raising one eyebrow.
“And you’d ‘let them all eat cake,’ I suppose.”
Cora snorted, little interested in history.
“I’d let them all eat their hearts out! That’s what I’d do,” Cora retorted. She paused, then looked up at Flossie. “Why? What would you do?”
“With money?” Flossie pondered this, chewing her bottom lip. Her face took on the angular birdlike expression she got when she was adding sums in her head.
“Enroll in typing school,” she finally answered. “That way, if I ever lost my fortune, I’d have a skill . . . something to help me live as a modern woman and avoid . . . well, this.” Flossie waved a hand about the room.
“Ugh! Practical, indeed—too practical!” Cora said, dissatisfied that Flossie wouldn’t play the game the way she preferred. Cora turned to me.
“What about you, Violet?”
I blushed.
“I don’t know . . .” I stammered. “I wouldn’t know what to do with a great fortune.”
Realizing I was even more hopeless than Flossie, Cora sighed and turned back to the society pages.
“I like what Flossie said, though,” I admitted. “It would be nice to have some independence. And there are girls managing it now. I’d work as a shop-girl, perhaps . . .”
Cora’s head snapped up again. She snorted loudly.
“Hah! You, Violet? There’s nothing ‘modern’ about you—not a stitch! You’ve always got your nose in a book. If you were a shop-girl, you’d moon about, always lonely, dreaming of the kind of gentleman suitor that you and Flossie are always reading about in your silly, boring books!”
“That’s not so!” I protested, annoyed. “Flossie?”
Flossie gave me an apologetic look but nodded in agreement.
“I can imagine you as an independent shop-girl, but I have to admit, you do seem the type to pine for a Rochester or Heathcliff of your own, Violet.”
I fell silent. Was this true? Did I secretly dream of love? In the orphanage, love had taken the form of yearning for parents who only existed in our fantasies. And in Tackett’s boardinghouse . . . well, love was a dangerous proposition, to say the least. But I realized they were partly right: I dreamed of love, but, more than that, I dreamed of having a family. My parents were but a faint specter in my memory; yet, I could still feel the warmth of their hands as they tucked me in at night, turning down the oil lamp and planting a cool kiss on my forehead. The knowing smile they exchanged when they believed I’d drifted off to sleep. I wanted to live in that memory and remake it for my own family someday . . . but I knew, of course, I was destined to do no such thing; I’d been forfeited to the orphanage for a reason.
The door suddenly flew open, and Blanche materialized. She was clearly in an irascible mood, and both Flossie and I snapped to attention.
But Cora refused to be ruffled. She continued to recline on her bed, as serene as ever. She flipped a magazine page as though bored. Blanche stared at her.
“Hello, Blanche,” Cora said in a pleasant tone.
“Tackett wants to see you,” Blanche responded. She paused, then added, “In his room.”
“Me?” Cora blinked, surprised. Then she covered the surprise with a lazy yawn.
“Yes. Lord knows why. Hurry up, now!”
Blanche’s whole body had stiffened as she delivered this summons. Flossie and I exchanged a quick, wary glance. Blanche had long since established herself as Tackett’s “favorite,” but Cora’s beauty was unparalleled, and Blanche knew it.
She clapped her hands as if to hurry Cora along, and after a belabored moment Cora rose and smoothed her skirts. Then she sighed and strode out of the room.
As the staccato of Cora’s heeled boots faded down the hall, I ventured, “I take it Tackett is feeling better?”
Blanche’s head swiveled until her gaze fell on me. She ignored my question.
“Shouldn’t you be busy?” she snapped. “If you’ve nothing to do, there’s a pile of stockings that need darning in my room. Don’t dawdle.”
With that, she stamped down the hall, leaving the door ajar so I might follow her. I rose reluctantly to my feet.
“And, Flossie,” Blanche called over her shoulder, “have the girls line up for inspection! Tackett and I will be along soon.”
* * *
—
Some minutes later I sat at the kitchen table darning stockings while Flossie corralled the girls at the bottom of the stairs. I peeped at them through a crack in the swinging door. Blanche came down and conducted a preliminary inspection as though she were in charge. Eventually, another door slammed upstairs and Cora and Tackett descended. Though she remained silent, I could see Blanche’s mouth twisting; it was plain she was fuming, wondering if she might soon be replaced.
But Cora hadn’t been in Tackett’s quarters for very long, I reasoned to myself. And besides, she detested Tackett more than anyone. I watched her take her place in the line.
Tackett moved along the row, looking each girl over as a merchant might evaluate his wares. I felt hot bile rise in the back of my throat. Tackett made small comments about Henrietta’s appearance, then Opal’s. He only grunted at Flossie and Mary. When he got to Cora, he smiled. Tackett never smiled unless he wanted something or was about to be handed some coin.
Watching this interaction, Blanche piped up.
“That’s a lovely brooch she’s wearing, isn’t it?” Blanche remarked.
All eyes moved to the brooch pinned near Cora’s décolletage. It was small but pretty—a rosette of opals and amethyst.
Blanche addressed Cora directly. “Tell him where you got it.”
“It was a gift,” Cora said in a dry voice, leery of Blanche’s intentions.
“Who from?” Blanche prodded.
“Young MacCready.”
“Young MacCready . . .” Blanche repeated, pretending to muse upon the name. She turned back to Tackett. “Isn’t that the same MacCready who owes you quite a gambling debt?”