Madam (37 page)

Mary grew frustrated as she tried to practice Paulina’s techniques in front of her own little mirror at home. She sneezed away much of the powder, then blinked out burnt cork from her eye, then blotted up what looked like a bloody lip.

“Oh, Lottie, help,” Mary cried. “Mistah Anderson wants to see me, and, after all that, I should show him the new me.”

Together, they started over from the beginning as Charlotte squeezed half a lemon into the washbasin, where Mary rinsed with Pears soap. Charlotte blew on the powder puff to rid of the excess before applying while Mary pinched her nose closed. She slicked Vaseline on Mary’s lids, then struggled to apply the cork without creating raccoon eyes, but eventually noticed some effects.

“How elegant you are,” Charlotte sighed. “Just pinch your cheeks before seeing him.”

Mary didn’t possess any of the fancy clothes yet, so she had no choice but to put on the same dress she’d worn last time. Still, she felt sweet-smelling and sophisticated as she walked to Anderson’s saloon.

Tom Anderson was waiting for Mary at a back table, and when he looked up to see her framed in the sunlight of the doorway, he knew his instincts had been on the money.

Even Sheep-Eye, who usually didn’t notice anything unless it smacked him in the face, remarked as she passed him, “You sure clean up nice.”

She walked toward the back of the saloon, where Anderson stood to greet her, kissing her hand. “You look fetching, Miss Arlington.”

She reddened. “Thank you,” she said, bashfully casting her eyes down.

“Come along now, I must introduce you to your new home.”

Together, they walked toward the back o’ town, with Mary careful to keep a respectable distance between them so their bodies didn’t accidentally brush up against each other. She didn’t want to worry him that she thought this arrangement was anything other than two people doing business—Josie was a professional sort, just like him. And yet Mary secretly reveled in each step she took with him at her side. She watched for the reactions of those they passed. Surely they must be wondering, Just who was this woman accompanying Tom Anderson?

“I took the liberty of outfitting your new home,” Anderson explained. “I’ve been told I have decent enough taste, so I hope it will be to your liking. It’s still in progress, though, so don’t let all the construction throw you. It will be a sight when it’s all done, I promise.”

She could hardly have cared about such things as furnishings; just having walls and doors and more than one room was enough to make her swoon. She did have one suggestion, though, and mustered up the courage to broach it.

“The johns who come to my crib, they like that there’s a little bedside table where they can put their billfold and jewelry and keep it in sight. Do you think we could have a bedside table?”

“That’s a great idea,” Anderson replied. “Wish I’d thought of it myself. Of course, I’ll see to it that there are bedside tables.”

“And one more thing, if it’s not too much trouble. . . . I hung a little mirror near the bed so I could peek at my face before . . . well, sometimes a girl just wants to make sure she looks her best.”

Anderson nodded. “I don’t believe wall mirrors will be too much trouble at all.”

Mary smiled contentedly to herself, wondering if Anderson thought her suggestions made her savvy. But as they turned onto Basin Street, she couldn’t help but look questioningly to him.

He didn’t return her look, just continued walking straight ahead, an amused smile threatening the corners of his mouth. They passed the Countess’s bordello, and both Mary and Anderson quickened their gait, neither aware the other was doing so on purpose.

Mary kept expecting they’d turn onto a side street to find a little cottage she could call her own. Instead, Anderson stopped in front of the Victorian.

He held out his arms. “Welcome home.”

Mary looked searchingly.
This
house? There had to be some mistake. How in the world, of all the houses within the blocks of the District, could it be
this
house?

“I thought we could call it The Arlington,” Anderson said.

Mary’s eyes grew wide as she looked from the cupola to the veranda to the beautiful woman guarding the door. “Yes,” she breathed. “It is The Arlington.”

Everything was a blur as Anderson led her inside, walking her through one room after another as they stepped around ladders and over paint cans and drop cloths and buckets and brushes. “I thought we’d have some fun, create a little House of Nations,” he said. “Here we’ll have the Russian parlor. And over here is the Japanese parlor. And then there’s the Turkish parlor. And this will be a stunning mirror lounge.” Each room ran together in Mary’s mind. She was speechless.

They ascended the regal staircase and walked from room to room on the second level, then the third, and good Lord, there were indoor bathrooms—many of them!

“Oh my,” she at last exclaimed. “It’s so much to keep up!” She immediately regretted opening her mouth. Here he was giving her all this, and these were the words that spilled out?

But Anderson smiled kindly. “Don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of help.”

Mary felt light-headed, but she squeezed her hands into fists. She was
not
going to faint on Anderson again.

“I’ve been meaning to tell you,” he began, “that you remind me of someone, and I hope it’s a big compliment. Some years ago, I was fortunate enough to see the famous actress Sarah Bernhardt when she did her American tour. She performed a play here, at the French Opera House. A comedy called
Frou-Frou
, and there was something about Miss Bernhardt . . . the way she was womanly yet strong. Sympathetic yet intense. Her character could’ve come off as pathetic, but she didn’t let her.” Anderson rested himself down onto the arm of a chair so that he was suddenly looking up into Mary’s face. “This is your play, Josie. You’re the famous actress now.”

All she could do was nod.

He rose. “I bet you’d like a view of your audience.” With that, he led her into the cupola, hanging back while she alone climbed the iron spiral staircase, up and up to the top. She took a deep breath as she peered from the paned window to see the city laid out before her. She could see the railroad just across the street; and beyond that, St. Louis Cemetery Number One, the sunlight eerily glinting off the crumbling whitewashed stucco of the old tombs. She pivoted to look out over Venus Alley, which appeared quiet and peaceful from way up here. She could see farther, to the French Quarter and to church steeples and clock towers that rose above the row houses.

She pivoted again to survey her new street—when she jumped. She pushed herself flat against the wall, out of sight from the window. She pressed her palm against her chest as her rib cage heaved.

From a window in Mahogany Hall, separated from The Arlington by only a razed plot of land, Countess Lulu White stared at Mary.

Slowly, like a child peeking under the bed for monsters, Mary inched back to look out the window. The Countess stood squarely, and her face snapped back to attention as Mary reappeared. Through her glare, the Countess gave a stiff flutter of a wave.

Mary bit her lip. She stood a floor taller than Mahogany Hall. Slowly, she brought her hand to the window to wave down at her number one rival.

Lulu knew she had to take preventative action. She sent for her biggest gun: Miss Eulalie Echo.

Eulalie arrived after sundown, stealing in through the back door. When she entered Lulu’s chambers upstairs, the Countess was still staring out the window. “It’s that house,” Lulu said anxiously. “It’s haunting me.”

Eulalie looked for herself. She was surprised to see such a lovely Victorian, lit up with flickering gas lamps. She expected to see a dingy aura about it, or to feel a noxious charge, but instead, it just sat there peaceably, as if it were minding its own business.

“There’s a new madam,” Lulu said, spitting the words like barbs. “I need the sealing curse.”

Rarely did anything surprise Eulalie, but this request certainly did. Most of the time, when one woman wanted to outdo another, Eulalie painted red powder on one leg and green powder on the other and cast a spell to lure men. She’d also perform spells for keeping away pregnancy or warding off venereal disease (goat testicles for gonorrhea, wasp blood for syphilis). Occasionally, she’d cast a hex to bring on venereal disease to an enemy. But the worst spell, which wasn’t to be taken lightly, was the “sealing power,” for it could close up a whore forever. It was a curse reserved only for a woman who’d committed the most heinous of acts.

Eulalie spoke soothingly, “Countess, come, why don’t I give you a remedy to ease your worry.” She began to unwind a medicine bottle from her hair.

“I said I want the sealing curse,” Lulu demanded.

Eulalie had never seen the Countess as vengeful and desperate as this. It was an ugly side to Lulu, and Eulalie knew thoughts like that could harelip you. Besides, she wouldn’t perform the sealing curse without significant proof of cause. Otherwise, the whole of the Alley, and now the new district, would be sealing one another up.

It was decided that Eulalie needed to investigate the new house further. She wandered downstairs and across the street and walked the premises, trying to get a feel for the energy. She determined the house’s history was long and muddled. More recently, a sad decrepitude had settled in, and she had the urge to do a sage cleanse to rid the house of the cloud of disregard. She peeked in the window. Someone was taking care to make it look nice. But Eulalie couldn’t yet gauge a personality. She paused at the relief of the woman over the front door. “Bet ya never thought you’d be housemother of a whorehouse,” she said to it.

Back upstairs to Lulu’s she went.

“It feels neglected,” she reported.

Lulu scoffed. “Let’s hope it stays that way. Now, as for that proprietress. All I know is she goes by the name Josie Arlington.”

Something resonated with Eulalie. Although she’d never heard the name before, it felt familiar. She was certain she knew, in one way or another, this woman Josie Arlington.

“Ah, dear Countess, can’t curse a name, either. Especially not the sealing curse. It ain’t like a Voodoo doll that you can call for anybody. This is particular. And
never
do you want to get it wrong, for what unjustly comes to them can come back to you.”

“I think I saw her. She looked like a china doll, so young and pink-cheeked.” With a snarl, Lulu folded her arms tightly over her chest. “Fine, then, I will just wait until the madam appears for good. Then we’ll get to work.”

Eulalie shivered with a premonition—it wasn’t an image or a voice, rather a heavy feeling, weighted by years yet unlived of jealousy, feuding, fixation, hysteria. A new queen was coming to Basin Street.

C
HAPTER TWENTY-NINE

T
hat night, and miles away in the deep thick of the marsh, a cacophony of crickets, frogs, and other swamp creatures joined in the song of an old black man. Dissolving into his wrinkles, he sat on the front porch of a crooked shack balanced atop spindly stilts, itself seeming only inches away from dissolving into the bayou. In a deep, resonant voice he sang.