Desperation. Tommy had gotten so used to feeling it over the years that when it descended on him, it actually brought a stench with it, stinking up the air he breathed. The desolation like a trip and fall, something he couldn’t control if he didn’t catch it soon enough.
But things had started to shift for him, for the Arthurs. The shift had brought them to Miss Violet M. Pendergrass. Moments before luck took them to her, the bitter taste of a lost inheritance, the hope it had promised, and the shame at being turned away from landlady after landlady choked Tommy.
But then, out of nowhere, Miss Violet happened. A tiny advertisement on the last page of offerings, an ad they’d missed until they tried every last one ahead of it drew them right to her. A miracle. At first Tommy thought the enormous pink-and-green home that called through the rainy fog was a mirage.
The family, holding every belonging they owned trudged toward it.
Impossible.
The last overlooked advertisement for boarders couldn’t be pointing toward the stunning home. They approached, one bumbling into the next, just as Miss Violet breezed onto the porch, pristine, purple dress, sweeping across the planks as she moved, a beacon in the darkness. They inched closer, looking at the newspaper and back at her.
Her shiny, styled hair, sultry voice, and title as Des Moines’s fabulous female financier made it unlikely she’d invite them to board at the former servant quarters to her house, the one next door.
But there she was, Miss Violet, their miracle. She was forthright. To board there, the Arthurs had to make the old servants’ house livable and keep away from Miss Violet’s clients. Tommy did chores for her when she beckoned and she allowed him to set his tent back near the old shed where none of her clients would see it.
He didn’t explain the panic that swept him in small places without enough air circulation. Her eyes narrowed and Tommy read the question in her mind, her gaze burrowing into him, and he’d seen the moment she realized whatever led to his need to sleep in a tent rather than inside with his family was better left alone. He appreciated that, especially in a woman.
Sleeping in a tent allowed Tommy to keep his fear of walls falling in on him at bay. He hated that panic ruled him when he felt cornered, that he couldn’t keep his lungs working when fear gripped him, forcing his mind back to when he’d been relegated to a cellar, caged at the Hendersons’ house.
He had tried to stay in the servants’ house with his family, but in addition to him liking outdoor ventilation, the upstairs bed space was cramped. He needed privacy, a place to feel the fear if it visited, a place to expand his independence.
Happy as he was in the tent, close to his family but in the path of fresh air, Tommy had begun to think the shoddy shed at the back of the property might do well for him when winter came. Barely hinged together with rusty nails and crumbling plaster, he wouldn’t feel hemmed in by the structure or by the company, which would be just him. It had a fireplace and just needed a good cleaning and some patchwork.
It was all working well, boarding at Miss Violet’s property. Katherine had become the kitchen mistress in the big, fancy pink-and-green house. Mama had been charged with bringing the gardens for both houses back to life. Tommy lit the morning fires and did all manner of errands and odd jobs for Miss Violet when he wasn’t working at the Savery or selling prayers.
Tommy convinced Mr. McHenry to pay him an extra few pennies a week if he gave up his room at the Savery. He still ate there before his shift and sometimes after, but being closer to Mama and the girls was important after so much time apart.
And proximity would make it easier for him to soften Mama’s heart toward his father’s impending return, easier for Tommy to be the bridge between them.
Tommy cut through the hole in the hedge that separated the yard on the Arthurs’ side and Miss Violet’s side. He wanted to get Katherine’s cure for constipation for Mrs. Simmons before he forgot.
He knocked at Miss Violet’s kitchen door, expecting Katherine to have returned from her errands, but instead Miss Violet answered. She was pressed into a blueberry-colored gown, buttons dotting the shape of her bust and down her belly, where the fabric pulled in drapes against a backside bustle, accentuating every curve. Her face was creamy, her lips a warm red, and though she wasn’t a classical beauty, her confidence and poise drew Tommy’s gaze every time she was near.
She swung open the door and allowed him to enter. “I was just thinking of you, Mr. Arthur.”
Tommy straightened, knowing she’d issue a list of chores.
“Take rainwater from the catch up to the bath.”
Rainwater. Again?
“Don’t frown, Thomas. We’ve been over this. We have indoor plumbing, yes, but the ladies who work and study long and hard require fresh water dumped right from the sky from time to time. That water is better. The stove for the bathroom we’ll use to heat the rainwater even arrived the other day.”
He shook his head. Had his mother been like this, requesting daytime baths with water hauled from the garden back before they lost everything? He’d been so young that he could not remember what Mama had done all day. He certainly wasn’t privy to her toilet habits.
Tommy shrugged. “Next thing I know, Katherine’ll be daytime bathing too. Maybe you can pencil me into the schedule?”
Miss Violet clenched her jaw and brushed his sleeve, holding his gaze. “That’s cute, Thomas. I like a sense of humor. But your sister’s duties are confined to the kitchen. Or serving food to guests. She’s not the same level as the other girls.”
Tommy bristled at Miss Violet saying his twin sister was less than anyone. But he sealed his lips, wanting to keep his job. “Where is Katherine?” Tommy asked. “I’ve a question about a cure for one of the hotel guests.”
Miss Violet gestured. “Look it up in that old book of hers. There’s something in there, I’m sure, but . . . Well, just get the water, and Katherine’ll be back by the time you’re finished to find you the cure.”
Tommy traipsed back outside and poured water from one catch into an empty tub. He bumped slowly up the stairs, barely breathing as the water sloshed up against the edge with every step. “Move along, Tommy,” Miss Olivia said from the other room, her voice unfurling down the hall like a pretty ivy vine. The sound of piano music told him she’d sat down to practice.
“Moving along,” he said through clenched teeth. He wondered if they were learning as much about finance as grooming since a good portion of their time was spent preening and floating around smelling as if lilacs and vanilla grew out of their ears.
He kept that thought tucked away as well. The Arthurs were fortunate to have found this chance to make a home next to a prominent, unusual businesswoman—something divorced mothers with children rarely found for themselves.
He reached the third-floor landing and set the tub down to catch his breath. Two ladies, not much older than he, dressed in silken robes, stood before him, teasing smiles on their lips. Miss Helen and Miss Bernice. His gaze flicked from one to the other with a nod, then Miss Bernice lifted her skirt and bent over to scratch her ankle, luring his gaze. Miss Helen stretched her arms up, and her movement allowed her robe to fall open, exposing a creamy-white thigh. “Oh,” she said and lowered her arms, the robe closing again.
Oh was right. His breath stopped. His skin tingled with the thrill of what he saw. Every day since he’d started working for Miss Violet, he’d noticed the ladies’ smooth, rolled hair that spiraled down their backs as they bent over their books, figured their numbers, and studied equations. And now, here in their private quarters, undressed for bathing . . . Tommy burst into a sweat.
Miss Violet leaned out of the bathroom and shook an empty vial with a stopper. “Helen. Finish your figures and hurry back. Tommy, I’d like you to mix Bernice’s medicine. She’ll watch this time because she said it didn’t sit right with her last time.”
Miss Violet went downstairs with Helen. “Be back in a blink,” she said.
Tommy hauled the tubful of water from the landing to the bathroom and poured it into the massive porcelain tub. Miss Bernice gestured at the table where all the ingredients for medicine sat. “Miss Violet wants you to be able to do this without supervision, but for now . . .” She shrugged. “There’s the recipe.”
He added the liquids to the herbs and powders. He put his finger over the opening and shook the vial the exact number of times prescribed. Miss Bernice oversaw his work. She studied him and brushed lint from his shoulder. She stretched across him, her floral perfume dizzying. “Add that one,” she said and ran her finger over the lid of the final ingredient.
Her robe gaped open, exposing her creamy collarbone. The sound of Miss Olivia playing piano carried up three flights, making Bernice sway and hum along, her low voice sending vibrations over Tommy’s skin, compounding his dazed state.
He corked the vial and shook it again. He handed the mixture to Bernice as the wind kicked up, rushing through the open window. Her silky robe curled away from her legs a little at a time, her hands moving to stop the fabric from revealing her pink thighs above her stockings and garters. But he saw it all. She closed her robe, and the wind whipped her hair across her face, then peeled material away from her collarbone. A flash of dark pink in the center of a creamy breast riveted him. When she finally brushed her hair out of her eyes and their gazes met again, he’d been struck dumb.
A break in Olivia’s piano music jarred him, and he ducked out of the bathroom. “I’m so sorry, Miss Bernice. The wind, well, you know.” He was halfway to the staircase before he stopped apologizing.
His feet spun down the stairs to the second floor, then to the first, and he folded the sight of Bernice away like a tiny letter. He tucked it into his mind where it might not distract him or cause any trouble. Worried that Bernice might report what he’d seen to Miss Violet and she might throw the Arthurs out of the house next door, he vowed to deliver the water and mix anything that needed to be mixed well before the bather-in-waiting was anywhere near a state of undress.
Still, he knew what would happen with what he’d seen. When he was alone or even in a crowd, when he least expected it, thoughts of the women next door, Bernice’s breast, her knee, her thigh would leap to mind. He would try to ignore them, but then he would come to the rationalization that he could at least enjoy thoughts of Olivia’s ankles. But giving himself that, would bring the rest of what he’d witnessed with it. The memory of Bernice, the one cocooned away, would unfurl with butterfly wings and waft around, causing him to imagine his fingers spreading her robe open, his hand cupping a breast—now with precise detail, his fingertips brushing past what he imagined were hardened nipples. Even Miss Violet’s rose perfume set his skin on fire at times.
That longing, the mix of pain and unrelenting pleasure, perplexed and enthralled him. The women didn’t seem to suffer carnal desire set against pressing sexual unfulfillment like he did. At night, he freed his hidden thoughts, the momentary pleasure that came with escalating breath.
Every now and then his mind went to Pearl instead of Bernice, Helen, or Olivia. And when he thought of Pearl that way, it was cloaked in a sadness that lay like a shadow over his heart. As he attempted to imagine what lay beneath her tattered dress, he found he couldn’t make his mind, let alone his hands, go there even if he wanted them to. This melancholy told him Pearl was not for thinking about that way.