The Fortune Teller's Daughter (16 page)

“No,” I
glanced at a girl in a pair of Aladdin style pants and almost nothing else
stalk by waving a chiffon turban in her fist and screaming about someone
stealing her glitter shit without asking. “I can’t say that’s ever come up
before.”

“Don’t
worry. The girls will walk you through it.”

“
These
girls?”

She shrugged
sympathetically. “You’ll only do it wrong once.”

“You’ve got
to be kidding me.” The room was the after effects of a tornado of beauty
products, the whole thing making me feel uncomfortable like I’d never imagined
before. I didn’t wear make-up, had never owned lingerie. Had never had anyone
to wear it for. I didn’t own stockings or spend more than two minutes on my
hair. But around me girls of all ages and types and skin colors hurried from
one station to the other, transforming themselves from nice and average to
exotic courtesans, wicked teases, Asian slaves, and pure, pretty spinsters ripe
for seductions. They embodied their acts and became someone brand new.

I envied
them. I would never have admitted it to a soul, but I envied their bodies,
their identities, their confidence.

My new boss
kept talking. I tore my attention away from the fascinating sirens around me.

She
straightened up and puffed out her clipboard proudly. “Princes, viceroys,
archdukes, even queens have traveled to book shows with Imagiare’s
Midnight
Temptations
. They can make men
and
women fall in love with them in a
single look.” She sighed and glanced around the horrible mess at our feet.
“Even if in here they enact Jonathan Swift’s
The Lady’s Dressing Room
to
the letter. Follow me.”

We left the
land of panties and pasties through a small fabric corridor to a dressing room
off the stage. It held a single green couch, many racks of costumes, and a wall
of vanity tables. Unlike the previous dressing room, this one was very neat and
clean and orderly.

“This is
where you’ll work with four other dressers. Don’t lose anything, don’t go slow,
and don’t screw up.”

“Tell me
you’ve found the damn gloves Isobel.” The heavy, burgundy velvet stage curtain
parted and framed the very beautiful Courtesan, who startled when she saw us.
“Ah, Elena, pardon my intrusion. I didn’t realize it was you.”

Elena smiled
and all the anxiety rushed out of her twitchy eyes. She curtsied a little, an
awkward but charming gesture. “No intrusion, Lily. I was just showing the new
girl what to do tonight.”

“The
new
girl.” She said it like it was a name rather than a temporary title. “You must
be girl Eli was telling me about. The Corazon’s girl. Serafine, I believe?”

In a ruffled
maroon dress, Lily looked like a Victorian lady, not a burlesque dancer,
despite the half-moons of cleavage that topped her brocade corset. Her arms
were bare, but upon each tiny wrist she wore bracelets of diamonds I doubted
were fake. She smiled lazily and I couldn’t tell if she was being charming or
wicked. She crossed her hands in front of her and waited for me to stop ogling
her long enough to answer.

“Cora was my
mother, yes, that’s me.”

“Was.” She
looked aside. Her eyes frowned. “I was sorry to hear of your loss. Cora was a
trusted friend, once, a long time ago.”

A trusted
friend she never, ever mentioned.
I didn’t answer, reminded again of how
uncomfortable this moment was every time someone brought it up.

Oh, I
loved your mother, we played rummy at night in her wagon after the shows when
we were too jazzed up to sleep.

Your
mother predicted my first born would be a girl.

The
Corazon was the most beautiful lady I’d ever seen.

How had she
managed to keep this place such a secret?

Lily might
have been small in size, but she commanded the room with a sharp intensity that
kept us all waiting for her next words. After her morose moment passed, she
returned her very blue eyes to us.

“Elena,
Serafine will dress me tonight. Send Isobel away.”

Elena
loosened her hold on her clipboard, looked between it and the Courtesan with
such unhappiness I thought she might cry. “Change the schedule?”

“Yes. That
won’t be a problem for you.”

“No,” she
admitted sulkily. “But she’s never dressed before. She doesn’t know how to lace
a corset.”

“She’ll
learn.” Without asking me for my opinion, which I somehow doubted would matter
anyway, she snapped her fingers for me to follow her. “Come, Serafine. Tonight,
you’re mine.”

*  *  *

The
Courtesan’s private dressing room felt like something from the boudoir of a
French mistress, pink and maroon brocade walls, fluffy pillows on a small bed I
had a feeling was not meant to be slept in. There were great big ornate mirrors
and a vanity bigger than my tent. Everywhere there were feathered hats and
jeweled headbands, garters hung by color, jewelry boxes open and displaying all
manner of decorations. I stood terrified by the door, counting the many ways
this was the worst idea in the world. I didn’t even know what half the items
hanging in her closet were.

Lily removed
the pins from her hair and set her hat upon the head of a hat stand on her
vanity. In the mirror she watched me while she took down her curls.

“Penny for
your thoughts.”

Her long
blond hair fell in shiny ringlets. It took all my strength not to tuck my stray
hair from my face and collected it so it wasn’t quite such a mess around my
shoulders.

“Honestly?
I’m wondering why you’d want my help when it is very clear I am out of my
league.”

“Well,” she
scoffed affectionately and stood. She waved me over and turned her narrow back
to me. “Nothing like drawing the line right from the beginning. Yes, clearly,
we do not play in the same league, but I doubt you’d want anything to do with
my game, right? Please, loosen me so I can change.”

Despite my
reluctance, I took her laces and loosened them so that she was able to part the
snaps in the front of her corset. I looked away when she handed the stiff
material to me.

“You mean,
because you’re a courtesan?”

She laughed,
a quiet sound. She shimmied out of the long satin skirt and hung it across the
back of a chair. I set her corset with it and tried to ignore the nearly naked
dancer while she paraded fearlessly around her dressing room. Lily was so thin,
curvy only at her hips but still, two of her could fit into one of me. I felt
like an ogre in a china shop and had visions of knocking priceless jewelry
cases over and stuffing feathers in my mouth. I was a gorilla in the paradise
of feminine charms.

“Eli said
you have a problem with tact.”

At his name,
I blushed and gave all my attention to a rack of hats from every decade, all
styles and colors, so she wouldn’t see. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you.
And he doesn’t count. He brings out the worst in me.”

Lily laughed
again and came to stand next to me. She smelled like gardenias and baby powder.
“That’s the opposite of what most women say.”

“What?” I
jerked my hand back from touching a pretty wool cloche. The whole stand rattled
as if it were annoyed with my burly handling of its delicates. “No, it’s not
like that. Not even a little bit like that.”

She shrugged
her tiny shoulders and chose a mini top hat bedecked with feathers and ribbons.
“I think I’d like to wear the purple ball gown tonight. Get it from the closet?”

I approached
the massive closet cautiously, as if it might pull me into another dimension of
petticoats and ruffles from which I might never escape. Fortunately all her
costumes were labeled. Elena’s doing, I guessed.

“He doesn’t
give most of his women names, let alone details about their personality. I only
assumed that if he bothered to remember you, you must be his new paramour.
Admittedly, you’re not what I pictured.”

I froze, my
hand on the garment bag of her purple ball gown, then whirled around to face
her.

“You mean,
because I don’t look like you.”

She
hesitated, held my gaze in the mirror, then set her lipstick down. “Well, yes,
but not like how you’re thinking. I didn’t mean to offend you. It was a
pleasant surprise. That’s a compliment.”

“Sorry.” I
carried the bag to her and between the two of us we got it open and unwrapped.
The costume was a smaller version of a heavily ruffled Victorian dress with
crisscross ribbons at the throat and short, puffy shoulders. The dress would
only cover half her thighs with corset-like boning in the bodice. “You’re
right, I have a problem with tact.”

“I find it
interesting that you were offended that I might not think you were good enough
for his tastes, but not offended that I compared you to a courtesan. I don’t
bother you?”

“Oh,” I
hesitated as I held the dress up for her to slide her body into. “Not really.
Sex doesn’t freak me out, even if I’m not currently having any. You go on with
your bad self if that’s what you like. I have my own issues and there’s no room
for worrying about anyone else’s.”

She grinned
into the mirror as I laced up the back of her dress. “We could change that, you
know. You’d be surprised how many men are looking for your type. If you worked
on being a little more demure and submissive, you could be a top billed
performer.”

“Ah, no. No
thank you. There, how does that feel?”

Lily took a
step back and inspected herself in the mirror. “Not bad, considering it’s your
first time. I think we’ll get along well.”

I wasn’t
sure how to answer her so I busied myself putting the empty garment bag back on
its hanger. She watched me work and I tried not to be so aware of her
calculating blue eyes.

“I’m maybe
stepping over a line by saying this, but you should know something about the
Magician.” I turned on her, ready to make her stop talking, but she held up her
small, narrow hands to keep me from interrupting her. “He’s damaged, Sera.
Irreparably damaged. With him you’ll find physical pleasure you couldn’t
discover with anyone else in the world, but he’s got nothing else. He’s
incapable of it. Do you understand what I am saying? There are some moments in
a person’s life that destroys them and they can never come back from it. Eli
hit that line once and kept right on going over the edge. And I don’t think
we’ll ever see the real him ever again.”

__________________

Four performances with more costume changes than I
dared to count, more ribbons and zippers and breakaway buttons, silks and
velvet and corsets, and it was after one in the morning when I finally ran out
of the burlesque tent and into the crisp night air.

Lily’s warning frazzled me all night long. She spoke
as if I were headed right for his bed, a trajectory I couldn’t stop. She made
it sound so inevitable and for the first time I wondered just how many women he
took casually into his bed. I wondered what they found there and it made me
jealous, yes, but also protective. There was something about the way she spoke
that made me think his women were half monsters and he were in danger every
time he let one in.

I dared not run and catch anyone’s curious attention,
but it was hard not to sprint for the Magician’s tent. Many tents were dark
already, but I lucked out when I reached the final path on the edge of the
grove. The lanterns still lit the blue carpet leading up to his stage. Even as
I hurried up the path I could hear the audience gasp and sigh together, like
music.

The ticket taker nodded when I approached and pulled
the curtain back for me to duck beneath.

It was standing room only, the tent overwarm, most of
the women on the edge of their seats, clutching their hearts and their arm
rests. I smiled and slipped between shoulders to maneuver to the front of the
standing crowd made up mostly of men who did not complain when I snuck ahead of
them.

Eli stood center stage with Katya knelt beside him.
Her hands were bound by thick hemp that wound in tight coils up her arms from
half way to her elbows and knotted at her wrists, leaving her hands free. She
held them in front of her, cupped to turn three clear balls between her hands
with a fourth sitting on top of the three giving the appearance that the one on
top was static while the three on the bottom carouselled through her fingers.

He still wore his top hat and dress shirt, though he’d
lost his coat. His mask hid the dark circles beneath his eyes, but he seemed
stronger than he had earlier. He held his hands cupped in front of him as if he
were about to reveal something to his audience.

I felt him find me immediately.

“On second thought, I’d like to tell you a story.”

Katya held her dramatic gaze better this time, but her
eyes narrowed a little, enough to cause a fan of wrinkles to appear to give
away her annoyance that he’d gone off script again. The Magician clapped his
hands, making whatever he was about to reveal go away.

“Earlier today a lovely girl showed me a card trick
I’d never seen before. She’s no magician, so naturally I was a little
skeptical.” He paused dramatically and some people in the audience laughed,
particularly the men. I blushed. “I watched her hands. She moved the cards like
a magician, or a fortune teller, someone who has spent too many hours with a
deck. I didn’t notice the sleight of hand trick she used, though I was sure
she’d used one. When it came time to reveal my card, it was the club version
instead. When I told her this, she explained that it was my card’s lover, and
she revealed my five of hearts.”