It takes another few turns on the waxed hardwood, but then it comes to me.
Davy’s age. He’s six. That is, if he’s still alive, as I so fervently hope.
If Blossom left San Francisco, California, for Portland, Oregon, in nineteen fifteen, and it’s nineteen twenty-one, why was she in Seattle, Washington, discovering a baby in the lee of a trash bin?
The song ends. I brush a curl from my brow, laugh absently. There’s an obvious answer here—but the obvious answer doesn’t exactly send a knife through the mustard.
So Blossom Fontaine could have gotten storked by a white suitor, hoisted mainsail, and convalesced in a neutral city, bringing her child back to the Paragon as a foundling. Davy and Blossom don’t strongly resemble each other, but that’s no proof where mixed races are concerned, and other details even support the theory: Dr. Pendleton could know she’d had a mixed kid out of holy et cetera, and be sore over raising the sprout in his hotel. Then again, despite Davy’s harrowing absence, she’s been up there for half an hour, serenading for her supper. Not terribly motherly. And I’m not stupid enough to suppose that the obvious answer is always the right one, especially in light of he isn’t my type, honey. So much is certain: Blossom is clearly dragging her guts around behind her, hollowed out from wanting Davy back.
Because she’s his mum? Maybe. Because she found a stray in Seattle? Equally possible. Is she hiding something?
As sure as it’s fixing to rain this week.
“Hmm?” I say when I realize I’ve drifted. “Oh, I . . . came over a bit dizzy. I haven’t danced in simply ages.”
“You’re all right, though?” Gregory asks, frowning.
“Peachy. Didn’t mean to alarm.”
“Well then, may I buy you a drink? If you’re not feeling well, they have lemonade here, or if you’re really not feeling well, just add a splash of gin, am I right?”
Despite the offense visited on his face by his lack of chin, I like Gregory. But when my eyes follow his to the bar, I see that Mr. Lucius Grint stands before a seated Officer Overton. The policeman samples a rocks glass, staring at Blossom as if he’s about to check the teeth on the mare he’s buying. Mr. Grint’s hands are spreading as dramatically as his mustaches in supplication.
“Excuse me, but I—I have to congratulate Blossom, that last number was just dandy as anything, and I’ll find you when I feel a bit better?”
“Sure, kiddo. Tell her she’s the jewel of the West Coast.”
I’m at the edge of the stage in under ten seconds. When Blossom glances down to adjust her microphone, she spies me, because I mean her to, and I angle my head.
“Company,” I mouth.
Blossom’s inky eyes slit to the bar. If she were less self-possessed, she’d arch like a cat hissing.
“The set has been . . . oh, just wonderful, really wonderful,” I gush aloud. “Thank you for bringing me. I’m awfully glad you did.”
“I’m glad I did too, honey,” she answers smoothly, pulling loose fingertips along her forearm. “There’s seven songs to go in this set. You get the most fun you can out of them, you hear?”
Blossom turns her back, gesturing lazily to her band. A smile tugs at my lips.
Seven songs, eh? Marching orders.
Officer Overton and Mr. Grint are still locked in a conversation that’s beginning to look dreadfully taxing to the ringmaster of the Rose’s Thorn. But with Overton facing out from the bar that way, eavesdropping is too risky. Meanwhile, seven songs will take at least half an hour.
And there’s more than one way of having fun, as Blossom so aptly put it.
I travel the length of the entertainment hall pretending to scan for a particular friend. Silent as a moth’s wing, I enter the vestibule where the coats are hung and open my beaded bag, searching. Mr. Grint is occupied. So much the better—it’s easier to use this racket on coat-check girls. They’re dreadfully sweet. They should come with toothache warnings.
“Can I help you, miss?” says an affable female voice around thirty seconds later.
I’m rooting through my bag like a pig in a pen. “Oh, thank you. I don’t . . . I’m such a tiresome little fool. This is positively the worst day of my life.”
“Oh, no. What can I do?”
Sniffling audibly, I glance up. She’s young, with auburn curls and an open face, and no ring on her left hand. She’s perfection.