write articles until your hand falls off, but you’re still a nigger, you’re a red nigger, and there is nothing to stop the likes of Officer Overton from shooting you in the back and claiming your spine admired to do him mischief. So go on, if you like—try to change the world. I’ll be right here cheering for you, honey, trust that I will. I’d stand in front of a loaded rifle if it were pointed at you, but don’t ask me to stick my neck out over a cause when I’m terribly preoccupied with keeping us alive.”
Fat tears drop from Jenny’s thick lashes. “How can you sit there and say such horrid things?”
“Do you want me to sit here saying horrid things, or do you want horrid things to happen? Do you even know how many horrid things are already—”
“Blossom, shut your trap,” Dr. Pendleton growls.
I expect a tirade of Olympic proportions in response to this rebuke. But Blossom simply raises herself to her full height, nods formally to her uncle, and sweeps out of the room.
Cancer, I think helplessly. Cancer is happening, and none of us can change that.
Mavereen puts warm arms around a shaking Jenny. Dr. Pendleton tips the thermos fully back and shuffles out of the room. I need to know whether Blossom is all right, so I hurry after him into the lobby. A trio of traveling sales types sign paperwork for Rooster, and a family wearing feather-capped finery stand laughing with hands draped elegantly over their bellies. A silent maid floats past. Blossom is at the elevator summoning Wednesday Joe.
When I arrive at her side, I see that she’s already weeping silently and battle a frantic urge to take her hand.
“You needn’t bother,” she husks. “I’m a monster.”
“You’re not a monster.” My tongue aches with the weight of the word.
The elevator door slides open, and Wednesday Joe’s face screws into alarm.
“Jeez, Miss Fontaine, are you—”
“In a hurry,” she says as we enter. “Carry us to the fifth floor before one of my admirers catches me sniveling, it’s terribly poor policy for entertainers. Go on, honey, step on it. I’ll be right as Portland rain by tomorrow.”
We reach the top floor in record time. She exits, back as straight as one of the local pines, and I pursue. If she wants me, she can have me. If she doesn’t, I’ll learn about it in no uncertain terms.
She stops before my own door without turning around.
“Alice, if you don’t object, and please object if you like, I’m not fit company for a Tartar, but I can’t face Jenny either, and if she comes looking . . .”
“No, of course, it’s fine.”
Unlocking my door, I watch as she sits on the bed and unbuckles patent-leather shoes. I kick my flats off and join her. When she’s finished, to my short-lived amazement, she curls up like a cat with her head in my lap, breath coming in painful hitches. So I cover her long neck with my hand.
“Merely an experiment. Be not alarmed,” she whispers.
“What’s the verdict?”
“You’re a comfort.”
Not that I’d imagined she was pulling the sapphic stuff, but this is a relief, as I’ve no wish to navigate that particular river. “Quelque luck. I enjoy being of use ever so much.”
“I know you do, honey. It’s frightfully endearing.”
“Do you want to tell me what in Christ’s name that was all about?”
“Not in the slightest degree, but you’re the one stuck here with your lap occupied, so consider any other topic fair game.”
Pressing a thumb into her spine, I answer, “How was your friend Mrs. Vaughan?”
This brings a fresh gust of precipitation. “Not well. Tom has her confined to barracks, which is both . . . good and absolutely ghastly, depending on perspective. She doesn’t do well confined.”
“When did the two of you meet? I was wondering, when I was having tea with Muriel Snider. They’re acquainted.”
“When I first moved here, about six months before she became engaged to Tom. Davy was freshly ensconced, the precious boy, and she turned up at our doorstep to suggest the altogether lunatic notion of teaching self-improvement lessons to colored children, wanting to use the hotel, and I was strong for her from the start. She’s brilliant. And good, which I’ll never be.”
She doesn’t know that I’m aware of her proclivities. But I’m curious whether Blossom’s justifiable regard for Mrs. Vaughan has spilled from hail-fellow-well-met into doodling fanciful initials in locked diaries.
“You can be good, I have confidence,” I joke. “We’ll start