we keyed into the first of the eleven rooms that needed cleaning. “These are frightening times. So many people are hard on their luck. My eldest sister lives in Kansas. Her husband is out of work, and they have eight children. Eight mouths to feed. Imagine what she’d do to feed her family. I’m just grateful I only have my own piehole to look after.”
I thought of Daniel and the predicament I faced with the rent payment. I couldn’t string Mr. Garrison along very much longer. We’d be out on the streets in a few days, maybe a week if we were lucky.
“Gwen,” I muttered, “you don’t happen to have twenty dollars I can borrow, do you? It’s for my rent payment. I’m in a terrible bind.”
“I wish I did, honey,” she said, her kind eyes sparkling with compassion. I felt a pang of guilt. How can I expect her to bail me out when I know she’s in the same boat? “Here,” she said, handing me two crumpled bills. “My last two dollars.”
“I promise, I’ll pay you back,” I said.
“Don’t worry about it,” she replied, pointing to the bed. “Let’s get started on stripping down these sheets. I’ll even let you have all the tip money we find in the rooms. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
“Maybe,” I said.
By five a.m., we’d finished the floor, even the enormous penthouse suite, and I had raw, cracked hands to show for it. Gwen yawned, handing me a bottle of discarded face cream she’d pilfered from an empty room. “Put some of this on,” she said. “It’ll help.”
I smiled at the kind gesture.
“Want to stop at the diner before heading home?”
“I can’t,” I said. “I have to get back before Daniel wakes.”
Gwen put her hand on my arm. “It’s hard to leave him, isn’t it?”
I nodded, aware of every second wasted. Daniel was waiting. “It’s unbearable, actually.” My eyes stung a little and I looked away.
“This isn’t forever, you know,” she said. “You’ll find your way. You’ll meet someone. Someone wonderful.”
I wanted to say, But I already did, and look what happened, but instead I nodded. “Yes,” I said. “My ship has to come in one of these days, right? And yours, too.”
Gwen winked. “That’s right, honey,” she said, giving me a squeeze. “Now, how’d you make out with tips?”
I shrugged. “Four dollars.”
Gwen smiled. “Combine that with my two and Lon’s tip and you have—”
“Not enough to pay rent,” I said, defeated.
Gwen sighed. “Well, it’s a start. Give that handsome boy a kiss for me.”
“I will,” I said, opening the door to the street. A cold wind hit my cheeks, pushing its tendrils into the cracks of my sweater and sending chills through my tired body. As I stepped onto the sidewalk, I gasped when my feet sank into at least four inches of fresh, white snow. Good heavens, snow? In May? The weather matched the uncertainty, the cruelness of the world. I sighed. How will I get home now? The streetcar can’t be running—not in this weather.
I knew I’d have to walk, and fast. The apartment wasn’t far, but in snow, and with a hole in the sole of my right shoe, it might as well have been miles. But it didn’t matter; Daniel was my destination. I trudged along, steadfast, but a half hour later my feet ached, and I winced in pain at the stinging intensity of the exposed patch of flesh. I hobbled into an alley, tore the lining of my dress free from its seam, and wrapped it around my foot. A man with a sooty face hovered near a trash can. He tended a small fire under a makeshift shelter, poking the embers with a stick. My hands felt icy and I longed for warmth, but his unwelcome gaze told me to press on. Besides, there wasn’t time to stop; Daniel waited. I climbed one hill and then a second. The swath of linen only dulled my frost-kissed skin for a moment before the sting returned, throbbing with fierce pangs. Two more hills. Keep going. I could be home by sunrise, to greet him with a kiss the moment he opened his eyes. I owed him that.
By the time I reached the apartment building, I could no longer feel my feet. Even so, I hurried inside, dragging my numb limbs up the stairs. Though unheated, the stairwell’s ten-degree rise in temperature warmed me.
“Well, hello there, good-looking,” a man called to me from the hallway. I hated living above