he didn’t leave Jewell’s bed for nearly a month. A raging fever brought nearly daily visits from a doctor, who more often than not took his fee from the woman in the next room. In the early days, when Kassandra was aware of little more than the occasional voice and an insatiable thirst, it was Jewell who sat by her side, her pudgy hand on Kassandra’s, her cigarette smoke wafting through some ever-present darkness.
Later, when she began to sit up and was able to talk, there was at least one girl from the house who came by and played a round of cards or brought in the latest fashion magazine. And even after she was feeling relatively fine, when she was able to walk across the room unassisted, when she could wake up in the morning and relieve herself without crying, she still crept back to the comfort of this bed, refusing to open the curtains, keeping the room dark and close.
“Get up outta there,” Jewell would say, throwing back the covers, yanking open the curtains, and shoving the window open as far as she could reach. “There ain’t nothin’ you can do for yourself lyin’ in here all day.”
“Tomorrow,” Kassandra would say, burrowing under the sheets, trying to lose herself in the thick feather ticking. “Tomorrow, I promise.”
Then somebody would come upstairs with tea and toast. Kassandra wouldn’t eat. Another would come with a small plate of sandwiches and milk. Kassandra refused it. Finally, in the evening, someone would bring up a tray with a cooled bowl of soup, which Kassandra would slurp hungrily—to the last drop—before curling down into the darkness to try to get through another night.
Jimmy came one more time. He stood outside Kassandra’s door, twirling a new summer boater hat in his hands, refusing to go away no matter how many times he was told that Kassandra just wasn’t fit to see him. Finally, after listening to hours of muffled conversations on the other side of the door, Kassandra sat herself upright, gathered her hair it into a loose knot at the nape of her neck, and beckoned the man to come inside.
He was smaller than she remembered, less grotesquely fat. He seemed sad, humble, and terrified of what he was facing.
“Miss Sadie,” he muttered, trying to find some comfortable place for his eyes to land. He glanced at the washstand, saw the chamber pot, zipped over to the bed, saw Kassandra, roved over to the wall, saw the nude painting, and finally stared at the ceiling. “Miss Sadie, I’m glad to see you looking so—”
She remained silent, feeling something between amusement at his ineptitude and annoyance at his intrusion.
“Well … fine. You’re looking just fine.”
“Thank you, Jimmy,” she said, surprised at the kindness in her voice. “I am feeling much better.”
He crumpled a little then, smiling shyly. The room remained cast in shadows, but knowing Jimmy, he was blushing clear across the top of his bald head. He dropped his eyes to look at her, and she motioned to the chair near the foot of the bed, inviting him to sit down.
“Jewell told me what you’ve been through,” he said. “Do you think … was it really my child?”
Now it was she who looked away.
“Because I would’ve married you, you know I would’ve been proud to have you as my wife.”
“That is very sweet of you. You are a good man.”
“I’d still take you, you know,” he said, fidgeting with the hat in his lap. “That is, I mean, if you’d let me.”
“No, Jimmy”
“I know I’m not the youngest one around, nor the most handsome—”
“Jimmy—”
“But I’d take good care of you, Sadie. Give you everything you ever wanted.”
“There is nothing that I want.”
There was nothing left to say. Jimmy stood, leaned over, and kissed Kassandra tenderly, fatherly, on the top of her head.
“We’re gettin’ outta here,” Jewell said.
“Tomorrow,” Kassandra said.
It had become their routine, but this day there was a new sense of urgency. Usually Jewell would simply rip the covers off, but today she took hold of the sheet beneath Kassandra and effectively rolled her onto the floor.
“Jewell!”
“Ah, would you smell ’em?” Jewell said, wadding up the fabric, sniffing, and turning away with an offended face. “How can you sour up good silk like that? Do you have any idea what that cost me?” She yanked the curtains open, threw open the window, and leaned out over the sill. “Hey! Pin-Pin! Me throw! You wash!”
While Kassandra was still on the floor, rubbing the sore rump she had landed on, Jewell took up the bundle of sheets and tossed them out the window.
“Have you gone mad?”
“I don’t like the Chinks roamin’ ’round my house.” Jewell yanked the cases off the feather pillows and tossed them out as well. “Now, take this off,” she said, grabbing at the sleeve of Kassandra’s gown.
“No!” Kassandra clutched the fabric to her.
“It stinks, girl. You’ve been wearin’ it a solid two weeks now. Take it off.”
Kassandra lifted the gown over her head, exposing her naked body—thin and soft. Jewell was right; the gown did smell awful, as Kassandra concluded she must, too.
“Maybe I will go and get a bath later,” she said, reaching for the silk dressing gown Jewell was holding out to her.
“Not maybe,” Jewell said. “Go. Get yourself cleaned up. Drop that.”
Kassandra walked over to the window and saw the little Chinese man below, dressed in brown pants and shirt, his long, thin pigtail falling down his back. Next to him was a large wicker basket overflowing with the bedding Jewell had tossed down. Seeing Kassandra, he lifted his hands high to catch whatever she might throw.
“Now, really, Jewell,” she said over her shoulder, “haven’t you ever heard of the dangers of airing your dirty laundry?”
“Since when have I had anythin’ to hide?” She shoved Kassandra aside, took the gown from her, and tossed it out the window. “You go washee now,” she yelled. “Me pay tomorrow.”
Jewell was short of breath after the exertion, and she settled herself heavily on the corner of the bed. “I meant it,” she said, wheezing a little. “‘Bout gettin’ out of here.”
“I know. And you are right. It’s time. I think maybe I will feel better if I get out a bit.”
“I don’t mean you,” Jewell said. “I meant us. We’ve got to get out of here.”
“Your house?”
“This town.” Jewell came back over to the window and stood beside Kassandra. “You see that over there?” She pointed to a wooden platform being built. “You know what that is?”
“No.”
“There’s gonna be a big meetin’ there on Saturday Lots of speeches.”
“Lookin’ for reform. Law and order. Close down the saloons and clean up the streets type of talk. Next thing that happens? All the men start shorin’ up wives. Wives don’t like women like us. So they tell their men to round us up. Put us in jail. Next thing you know, an honest workin’ woman is spendin’ half her life in the slammer, and half her money goes to payin’ off the people to keep her out of it the other half.”
“You are getting all of this from a platform?” Kassandra said.
“It ain’t just the platform. They’ve got pamphlets, too. And givin’ little talks to anyone who’ll gather to listen.”
Kassandra watched as Jewell made her way back to the bed, then went awkwardly to her knees to rummage for something underneath it. After much huffing and puffing, she finally produced a small leather-bound case, which she handed up to Kassandra.
“Set that on the table for me, would you? Now help me up.”
Kassandra reached down and gave her arm to Jewell and braced herself to help the woman back to her feet. Jewell reached down and dusted off the front of her skirt, then pulled the little stool out from underneath her dressing table and draped herself over it. After searching for a few minutes through a little dish of hairpins, she found a small key that she fit into the tiny lock on the case’s latch.
“You finally trust me enough to let me see where you keep the money?” Kassandra asked.
“Money, nothin’,” Jewell said, leafing through the papers in the case. “I keep my money stored up where it’s safe from the thievin’ mongrels around this place.”
“Then what is all this?” Kassandra moved closer to look over Jewell’s shoulder.
“It’s the deed to the house. Jimmy says he’s got a buyer.”
“A what?”
“I told you it was time to get outta here. What did you think I meant?”
“Well, not this. Where are we going to go?”
“We?” Jewell said, twisting her neck to look up at Kassandra. “You girls can fend for your own selves. Don’t know what the new owner wants to do with the place.”
“Who is the new owner?”
“Don’t know. Don’t care. It’s gettin’ me a fair price. What with the rest I’ve got, I’ll be able to start up fresh right away.”
Jewell set a few papers aside, then snapped the lid on the leather case, dropped it on the floor, and sent it skidding back under the bed with a perfect kick.
“Now I gotta find me somethin’ respectable to wear down to the bank. Maybe that black number with the fancy red jet beads on the sleeves.”
She was up again, flinging open the doors of the giant armoire and rummaging through the dresses.
Kassandra felt as though her head were flying downhill completely independent of her body, as images and ideas roared past in a barely acknowledged blur.
“So after—everything, you are just going to throw me out?”
“Girl, when did this get to be about you?” Jewell located the black beaded dress and tossed it on the stripped bed.
“But … it is just so sudden! I wake up and find out I am losing my home?”
“First off, it ain’t so sudden. If you hadn’t been so holed up in here feelin’ sorry for yourself, you woulda known what was comin’ round the bend.”
“Feeling sorry for myself? I lost a child, Jewell.”
“Yeah, that’s just what every workin’ whore needs, some brat to drag with her from place to place. Because second, this ain’t your home.”
“Where are you going to go?”
When Kassandra had walked on the beaches of the cape, she loved the feeling of sand being slowly washed away from underneath her feet. Now it felt like a massive wave surging up from behind, leaving her suspended above some cold, wet hole.
“Things are slowin’ down around here, anyway,” Jewell said. “Gold’s been taken over by all these big operations. Used to be we’d get these great kids comin’ in, spillin’ gold dust out of their pockets. Just ain’t fun.”
“So where are you going?”
“Someplace new.”
“Where?”
“Wyomin’.”
“What?”
“It’s what California was back in the beginnin’. Got silver and gold poppin’ out all over the place. And best of all, there’s nobody there.”
“Why is that a good thing, exactly?”
By now Jewell had peeled off the simple cotton day dress she’d been wearing and dropped an impressive whalebone corset around her waist.
“Help tuck me in, will you?” She turned her back to Kassandra, who took hold of the laces and pulled with all her might. “No civilization. No laws. Tug it again.”
Kassandra wrapped the ends of the laces around her hands and doubled her efforts.
“No civilization means no women,” Jewell said, her words sounding as strained as the laces of the corset. “Get it again.”
“Can you breathe?”
“Course I can breathe. No women clears the path for a good business-minded woman.”
Kassandra tied the corset off and watched for several seconds to be sure Jewell could breathe. Satisfied, she obeyed the woman’s silent request and picked the black dress off the bed and dropped it over her shoulders. Jewell turned around, and Kassandra began the task of fastening no fewer than twenty red bone buttons.
“Take me with you,” she said, glad to be able to ask the question without having to look Jewell in the eye. It was bad enough feeling her shoulders stiffen at the request.
“I’m not takin’ any of the girls with me, Sadie.”
“Why not?”
“Just let me get myself set up, and I’ll send word for you. If we all go out together, there’s no real knowin’ who’s headin’ the place up.”
“I have no desire to act as madam.”
“Besides, I like to set up a class operation. Build up some anticipation. Get me a nice place built up, then bring on the women.”
“But what am I going to do here? Who is buying the house?” She tugged the fabric across the widest point of Jewell’s back. “Where would I go?”
“Now stop that whinin’. You sound pathetic. You think you’d be able to just pack up everything and head out just like that?”
Kassandra chuckled. “That is all I have ever done.”
“So tell me. Does that make me Naomi? Or Ruth?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know, from the Bible? Whither thou goest.
“Of course I know it, but I did not expect you—”
“You don’t think I’ve ever been to a Sunday school?” Jewell asked, sounding genuinely annoyed.
She walked over to the full-length mirror next to her armoire and studied her reflection, running her hands down the bodice of the dress and turning to check herself at all angles.
“I’m a sinner, missy. Don’t mean I’m a heathen. You wanna go? Fine. Get yourself cleaned up. If all goes good at the bank, we’re leavin’ in three days.”
