and fabulous safety waited beyond the dangers of the ordinary world.
“Speak up, honey,” Cassandra said. His voice was hard and sure as rain in a gutter.
Zoe said, “She's started turning tricks.”
“Well, I'm sure that's very profitable.”
Miss Cinnamon put a huge hand on Zoe's arm. “Does she have herself a can of Mace, honey?”
“I'm worried about her,” Zoe said.
“She should carry Mace and a knife,” Miss Cinnamon said. “She can get herself a cute little knife, it doesn't have to be any big old thing. She can slip it right down inside her boot.”
“Why are you worried?” Cassandra asked.
“I'm afraid she'll get hurt.”
“That's why you need Mace and a knife, honey. Listen to what I'm telling you,”
“People do get hurt,” Cassandra said. “Terrible things happen.”
“I know,” Zoe said.
“You girls are so young. Don't you have parents, or something? Who takes care of you?”
“Trancas and her mother live here in the city. I come up on weekends, I live with my family out on Long Island.”
“Another planet,” Cassandra said.
“Terrible things happen there, too,” Zoe told her.
“Honey, I can imagine. Oh, look, here comes your friend.”
Trancas was back from the bathroom. She saw Zoe talking to Cassandra and came over, full of her own greedy happiness, her love of trials and ruin. Zoe thought of her folding money into her pocket before sucking off a man with teeth the size of dice.
“Hey, Cassandra,” Trancas said in her big-voiced, ranch-hand style. To Miss Cinnamon she added, “Great hat.”
“Thank you, baby,” Miss Cinnamon said demurely. Zoe saw that Miss Cinnamon had once been a little boy going to church with his mother. He had sat before an altar, under the suffering wooden eyes of Christ, as a chorus of velvets and brocades and crinolines sighed around him.
Cassandra said, “We were just discussing the ins and outs of the business.”
Trancas glanced at Zoe. Trancas's face was clouded with embarrassment and a defiant anger that resembled pride but was not pride.
“Right,” she said. “The business.”
“My only advice to you, dear,” Cassandra said, “is don't undersell. Not at your age. You could get twenty dollars for taking off your shirt, don't suck cock for less than fifty. If somebody tries to tell you he can get a blow job for half that much up the block, he's talking about getting it from some tired old thing who can barely walk unassisted and who needs her glasses to find a hard-on. Tell him to go right ahead and get himself a bargain, if that's what he's after. Now, if you're willing to fuck 'em, charge a hundred, at least. Don't flinch when you name your price. Don't bargain. And if you do fuck, make them all wear condoms. You don't know where some of those cocks have been.”
“Okay,” Trancas said.
“And, baby,” Miss Cinnamon said, “I was telling your friend here, carry protection. You get yourself some Mace, and a pretty little knife you can slip down in your boot.”
“Right,” Trancas said.
“We're the voices of experience, dear,” Cassandra said. “Listen to your aunts.”
“Okay,” Trancas said, and her face briefly shed its habitual expression of ardent mistrust.
They stood for a moment in silence, the four of them. Zoe was filled with a queasy mixture of love and fear unlike any emotion she could remember. She felt herself leaving her old life, the dinners and furniture, the calm green emptiness of the back yard. As a little girl she'd imagined living in the woods, but she knew she couldn't do that, not really. She couldn't build a nest in a tree, eat mushrooms and berries. Even if she'd had the courage to try it, someone would have come for her. She'd have been sent to one of the places that received girls who believed they could escape a life of rooms, and kept there until she'd renounced her wishes.
These were woods no one could stop her from living in. This was a destiny a girl was allowed to make for herself, this immense promiscuous city that harbored the strangest children.
She said to Cassandra, “Could I take you to tea sometime?”
Cassandra blinked, started to smile. “Excuse me? Tea?”
“Or, you know. A cup of coffee. I'd just like to talk to you. You're my aunt, right?”
Cassandra paused, considering. She smiled at Miss Cinnamon. Zoe felt as if she were talking to two wealthy, celebrated women. They had that private entitlement. They had that lofty, sneering grace.
“Tea,” he said to Miss Cinnamon, and he pronounced the word as if it was both funny and frightening.