the Lost Friends pages and the pencil and say, “Reckon it don’t hurt to check. Ain’t like we know where we’re going, anyway. Somebody comes by—fine white folk, I mean—you try asking real nice, where can we find that Mr. Washburn?”
A thought comes into my head while she checks over her work. “How’re we gonna talk to this lawyer man about your papa’s papers if we do find him?” I look her over, then look down at myself. “Right now, I’m a colored boy, and you’re a ragged little rat off the river.” Been so caught up with the Lost Friends on the boat, I hadn’t thought past us getting onshore. “No lawyer man will talk to us.”
She hadn’t thought that far, either, I can tell.
She chews the pencil end, looks up at all them fancy brick buildings, double-deckers, most of them. Some even triple. A gunshot fires off, cracking through all the noise of the town and the river port. We both jump. Men stop and look around, then go back to work.
Juneau Jane tips up that pointy little chin of hers. “I will speak with him.” Her lips rise at the corners, her nose, which is her papa’s turned-up nose, crinkling. “Were I to inform him I am William Gossett’s daughter and heir, he would undoubtedly assume me to be Lavinia. I believe she was not truthful in saying they had made his acquaintance in New Orleans recently, given that the man resides here in Jefferson, and this is where Papa engaged his services not long ago.”
A laugh puffs out of me, but there’s fear in my belly. Back home, what she’s aiming to do can get you dead in a hurry. If you’re colored, you don’t go pretending to be white. “You’re a colored girl, case you hadn’t noticed.”
“Are we really so different?” She stretches one arm beside Missy’s. Their skin ain’t the same, but not too far off that you’d guess the truth, either.
“Well she’s older than you.” I wave a hand at Missy. “You’re a child in short skirts, still. You ain’t even got you no…well, you don’t look much as fourteen, yet. Even if Missy was lying when she told you she’d met the man before, you ain’t gonna pass for Missy.”
Her eyes hold at half-mast, like I am thickheaded. I want to swat that look from her face. That is the exact way Missy Lavinia used to do when she was a little child. These two girls are more sisters than they know. Some things run in the bloodline just as sure as that little turned-up nose. “They skin you alive, if you get caught at this. Skin me alive, too.”
“What choice have I otherwise? I must obtain word of Father or proof of his intentions for my provision. Lavinia would leave me penniless, with no choice but that my mother bargain me off to a man.” The frost that always covers her over cracks a little now. There’s pain underneath, and fear. “If Papa is gone, an inheritance becomes my only hope.”
She’s right, I know. Her papa is the only hope for all us. “Well, we have to get you a dress, then. Dress, and a corset, and some padding to stuff it, and a bonnet to cover that hair.” I hope this plan don’t get us killed or put in jail or worse. Then who’ll carry the Lost Friends around? “But you promise me, I do this thing with you, no matter what we find out, you won’t pull foot out of here and leave me stuck with her.” I nod over to Missy Lavinia. “She ain’t my burden to bear. And it’s you and her that got me into this whole mess. You owe me something. You and me, we stay together, till we figure out about your papa. And till we get Missy sent back home. If this lawyer man does have money waiting for you, you’ll pay Missy’s passage and find somebody to get her back to Goswood. We have us a bargain?”
Her bottom lip pokes out a little at the idea of having to do for Missy Lavinia, but she nods.