Bowery Girl (19 page)

“When did you find her?”

“Around four thirty. She fell on the stairs. She was carrying two pails, there's no railing.”

“What time is it now?”

Mollie grabbed the watch at her chest. “Five o'clock. Five oh-one.”

And then Emmeline DuPre lifted her skirts, too, and didn't apologize to anyone as she shoved her way past.

 

 

People in the hallway, watching. Water boiling on the stove, white steam. A lump on the mattress, between Annabelle's feet, black and still, rolled in fabric and quickly moved to the floor. Annabelle's shoes darker red. Skin like ash mixed with snow.

Her breath was hard and rough. One, two, three. Nothing. Palms clenching. Legs splayed. A clutch of breath then.

The Italian woman's forearms were stained; there was a swipe of red on her cheek. She looked up at Emmeline.
“Medico?”

“No.” Emmeline touched Mollie's shoulder. “Hold her hand. There's nothing else to do.”

“No! Give me more rags. Look, she's still bleeding. Please, Annabelle, ya gotta stop, now, this ain't funny.” Mollie scratched at the newspaper on the walls. She ripped at the pieces, and then crushed them together. She crouched on the bed, holding the papers to Annabelle with her knee, leaning over her and pushing at her shoulders. “It's gonna be all right. Annabelle, listen, it's gonna be all right. Don't I always look out for ya? Don't I always?”

“I'm scared, Mollie.”

Mollie rubbed Annabelle's cheeks, but they did not pinken. “Oh, Annabelle, it's all right, see? Just breathe right. Take another breath.” She squeezed her hands. So limp. Mollie entwined their fingers. “I got tickets to see the bridge, Annabelle. And soon, we'll have a real room, with a window. You can sit and look at the sky and dream of who ya want to marry. I got it all planned.” She leaned forward, her cheek against Annabelle's; she felt the bones through her skin. “God, she's not breathing. Please . . .”

Annabelle pressed against her, and took a gulp of air. “One oh-six Monroe Street. Tell Elizabeth Brooks her daughter Sarah has died.”

“You ain't dying.”

“Hold my hand, Mollie.”

“I'm holding your hands, can't you feel?”

“I was bad. She always said I was bad. You'll be good, won't you, Mollie?”

Annabelle's fingers gripped Mollie's. Her limbs went rigid, then her body convulsed. It was terrible how she stared, her eyes so black. “The baby?”

Black lump now on the floor. “She's all right, Annabelle. She needs ya.”

Annabelle's mouth opened wide, then clamped down. She moaned, then shuddered once, then let go of Mollie's hands.

“Annabelle, oh, please, wake up.” Mollie slapped her cheek; she pulled and pushed at her shoulders.

The only sound was the rolling boil of the water on the stove.

 

 

Mollie lay down, her head in the crook of Annabelle's arm, her palm holding the little watch against Annabelle's chest. She listened to the tick, steady as a heartbeat.

5:09 P.M.

She placed her fingers on the soft, cold skin of Annabelle's lids and drew them shut.

 

 

The boys who hauled the mattress to the yard and now scrubbed the floor with stiff brushes were named Giuseppe and Paolo.

The woman was Sofia, and the red stain on her cheek was permanent, a birthmark. She showed Mollie how to loop the stitch in the muslin, then held the fabric closed as Mollie turned the thread. Before completing the seam, Mollie laid the needle on the table. She placed a penny on each of Annabelle's eyes, to ward off evil spirits and bring her good luck and fortune.

She slept behind the stove in Sofia's front room and shivered all night. There was an old woman on a cot, the grandmother, who either snored or watched her.

 

 

In the morning, the men came. Heavy feet on the stairs. A whistled tune that reminded Mollie vaguely of one of the dancehall songs.

Emmeline DuPre kept an arm around Mollie's waist.

“Step back,” the one with the black whiskers said. “Give us some room, the stairs is tricky. Don't want to end up in Potter's Field yourself.” His laugh cut Mollie in two.

THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE

MORNING. A BARE WIRE bed frame, a worn blonde wig hanging from a post, empty walls. A chair moved aside to let the cheap coffin pass. On the hook behind the door, a long black coat with a breast pocket full of coins.

Mollie put the coat on, buttoning it from knee to neck. She had not changed her dress; there was nothing to change into, anyway. She did not lock the door as she left.

She strode down New Bowery, looking neither left nor right. She did not apologize to those whose shoulders she bumped, and it made no difference to her if they cursed her or shook their fists.

Her hair, coming loose from its pins, was much like the blinders of a horse. She did not push it away from her face. She kept her hands shoved deep in the pockets of her black coat.

It was a fine day, not a day for coats at all. But she felt as if her skin was inside out, raw and vulnerable.

All she could do was keep walking, keep her mind blank, not remember that the room at Oak Street would be empty tonight or that she had two tickets to cross the bridge.

 

 

There were meaner streets in the Fourth Ward than Oak Street, with smaller rooms and darker stairs. There were rooms with fewer things in them than hers: wash basin, stove, a mattress of straw upon the floor. A rocking chair black with grease and age.

106 Monroe Street. Tight by Corlears Hook and the snaking bend of the Elevated.

Elizabeth Brooks sat in the chair, her body squeezing and spilling between the slats. Her hair was filthy, matted down, and tied with a piece of string. Mollie saw nothing of Annabelle in her. At first, she thought she'd found the wrong person. “Are you Elizabeth Brooks?”

“If you're looking to collect on a bill, I don't have anything for you.”

Mollie stood in the middle of the room. So this was the woman who had thrown her child to the streets. Who once called herself a mother. Who in all the years Mollie and Annabelle roamed and wandered, had hardly been mentioned.

“Your daughter Sarah is dead.”

The woman pushed her tongue against her lips, as if expelling something bitter and unexpected. “I don't have a daughter named Sarah.”

“There'll be a wake. At Lefty Malone's tonight. If you once cared for her—”

“I don't have a daughter.”

Mollie turned to leave. She had delivered the message.

 

 

She found Hermione Montreal dozing in her doorway, her cards closed between her hands. Mollie rolled the two dollars she'd made by pawning her shoes, replacing them with others that clicked and banged against the cobblestones. She placed the bills under the old lady's bent finger.

Hermione snorted, and glared at Mollie from her blind eye. Her fingers crushed the bills and shoved them between two buttons of her dress. Her lips stretched across her gums. “Indulge an old woman?” She spread the cards on a dirty blanket before her. “Three cards: past, present, and future.”

“Nah.” Mollie cleared her throat. “Not in the mood.”

“You used to come to me with a friend. I gave you whiskey and cookies. Good girls you were.” She scraped her nails through her white hair. “Now there's a bridge where my home was. Well, the Wheel of Fortune always turns . . . and the only thing to do is jump on. Crush you otherwise, it will. But you know that.” She coughed. “Have an extra penny for a pint?”

So the wheel turned, in the same circle that razed old women's homes, sent kids to sleep under rags, provided baskets at churches for women to leave their babies, gave wages that barely paid rent but provided enough for drink, built tenements without water in each hall or rails on the stairs or toilets in the yard. It was the wheel Mollie'd thought she'd been running from. It was the wheel she'd really been a passenger on.

 

 

The dusty curtain was drawn across the stage, and the tables and chairs were mostly empty. Nipsy snapped out dance tunes on the rackety piano, as if this were nothing more than an extension of the nightly show. The gaslights along the walls were set low, in some sort of respect. The boys sat at their normal table, right up near the now-hidden stage. Hugh ran his thumb over the top of a deck of cards. Mugs stared into space. Seamus drank: one beer after another, in huge angry gulps.

And Tommy sat with a leg crossed, in a black suit still showing creases from being taken from a box. He did not drink; he did not move. A stone statue, but for a tic at the corner of his left eye.

Mollie sat alone. She had ordered two stale beers. The only drink she could afford. Lefty had closed the dancehall, had a sign painted saying CLOSED FOR DEATH, but he still charged for drinks. She knew the drink was mixed with other things—camphor, benzene, and God knew what—and the first sip burned. She took another sip, looked around the tired room, with its smoke-black ceilings and tattered flags and dried vomit on the floor. The fuck-all life of the Fourth Ward. The dead horse rotting on the corner. The boys still at their table, waiting for this to be over. Not a sign of Miss Emmeline DuPre or Charlie White or any of the girls from the settlement house who knew Annabelle Lee when she was happy.

No one spoke of Annabelle. No one spoke to Mollie.

She drained the first glass, and the second did not sting. It turned her blood to molasses; her cheeks and arms warmed and went numb. She stared at the kerosene lamp on her table, sputtering as it reached its end. The smoke curled from the glass lamp. And she thought,
Annabelle
. Annabelle, with that goddamn wig she wouldn't step outside without. Annabelle, who fluttered her lashes at any man she thought might have the money to pay her. Annabelle, who she'd waited for, stolen and borrowed money for, counted the days for. Annabelle, who'd had a chance to be something better and had thrown it all away.

Why'd she have to carry two pails up those stairs that had no railing? Stupid it was. Stupid, stupid Annabelle. Stupid Mollie for not being there sooner to help her.

She hiccupped. She looked to the boys to see if they had noticed. No. She stood and the floor swished under her. Holding the back of her chair, she waited for her head to clear enough to find Nipsy. “Play ‘Annabel Lee,'” she said.

“Don't know it.”

“Ya know everything else.”

“How about ‘Danny Boy'?”

“Well, she weren't a boy and her name ain't Danny. And I want ya to play ‘Annabel Lee.'”

“I don't—”

“Then don't play nothing.”

The front doors ratcheted open, and the dust in the room hung in the light. The Growlers flicked their knives open, and squinted into the brightness. Two figures—could be the Rum Runners coming in.

But no. Mollie saw the soft outline of Emmeline DuPre's dress, and as the door shut and her eyes adjusted, found Charlie White's oft-mended hat, being worried in his hands.

“Ya missed the best part of the wake,” Mollie said.

Charlie stepped forward and kissed her cheek. “I'm sorry.” He glanced then at Seamus. “He's not going to hit me if I sit with you, is he?”

“No one's gonna hit anyone,” Seamus said. “You wanna sit with her, then sit with her. Being as you're all too good to sit with us.”

Charlie pulled out two chairs, and gestured to both Mollie and Emmeline DuPre.

Emmeline slid into her seat. She looked out of place, as much as she claimed to have once thieved on these streets. She glanced over her shoulder to the long bar, where Lefty Malone stood wiping a glass.

“I'm opening at six,” he said. “Gives you fifteen minutes more.” He shook his head and blew a breath from under his long mustache. “Not much of a wake.”

Emmeline rested a hand on Mollie's arm. “Sit.”

Mollie unbuttoned her coat, for the beer was making her sweat. And then she smelled it: the sweetness of the blood that stained her dress. Her beautiful Bowery Girl dress, ruined. She saw the reds of the soaked rags, the white of the muslin, the black of Annabelle's eyes, surprised and afraid.

“Damn airs you got now,” Seamus said.

“Why? 'Cause I ain't sitting with you?”

“'Cause you're sitting with
her
. Should've burned down that charity place the first time you girls walked in. Saved us all a bunch of grief. Right, Tommy? Right?”

“Get out of here.” Tommy tapped his index finger on the table and glared at Emmeline.

“They was invited same as you,” Mollie said.

“Get out.”

Emmeline DuPre merely sat and stared back.

“You have no right to be here,” Tommy said. “No right.”

“Don't talk to Miss DuPre like that.” Charlie stood; his hands shook near his sides.

“Fucking lily-ass.”

“Shut up, Tommy.”

“You're all what make this neighborhood so bad,” Charlie said.

“We are, are we?” Hugh pushed his chair back, then smacked the top of his bowler to set it tighter on his head. “What the hell you know about anything, you little lily-ass?”

“Oh, good, let's fight,” Mollie said. “What a surprise.” She pulled her hand from under Emmeline's and stepped over to the Growlers' table and tore a glass from Seamus's grasp. Holding it high, she said, “Goddamn the Fourth Ward. Goddamn you, Tommy. And you, Seamus. Goddamn Mugs and Hugh. Goddamn all of us for not caring there weren't no railings on the stairs. Goddamn Annabelle for dying. And goddamn me for not being able to stop her.”