I Went Down (NaNoWriMo Read-Along)

10 Cal

Cal leaned into the kitchen to breath in the smell of Helen’s baking. She caught sight of his tousled hair in the doorway and motioned for him to come in. As usal, she was handing him a slice of hot bread even before he sat down.

“If only we could use your bread to cure all the ills of the world,” he said.

“I spend enough time in the kitchen as it is,” Helen said. “I’m hardly going to cook for all of Delta Mouth, let alone the whole world.”

“Well, I’m grateful you’re here to cook for me and for the girls.”

“As if my bread could fix all their hurts and wants,” Helen said. “What’s this I’ve been hearing about Jimmy Primrose taking a liking to Emmy Jane?”

“Aye, he called her over between songs last night. He gave her some perfume, poor thing.”

“I’m sure she’s happy enough with it.” She began to scrape dough out of a bowl as part of the daily ritual that led to fresh bread on the tables in Minnie’s. “And if Jimmy noticed her, then other men will take a second look to see what he was interested in.”

“I should send her back to Ibai before something happens to her.”

“You should send them all back to their homes, but you never do, and you never will.” She punctuated her words with smooth, powerful movements of her arms, twisting and kneading the soft dough. “Because they’d be back in a week, and if not at Minnie’s then at somewhere further down where the manager wouldn’t think twice about selling them to the brothels.”

Cal twisted up his face. “I can save a few of them from that, but I can’t save them from themselves. And if anything turns his mood, I can hardly save one of them from Jimmy Primrose without sacrificing all of us on the altar of Dapper Jack.”

“I’ll talk to her,” Helen said. “If I can.”

“If you can,” Cal said. He brushed the crumbs from the plate into his hand and licked them up. “I’m going to see how things are going at the Hotel di Ferello.”

“Watch yourself,” Helen said. “There’s still unsettled business there between Baccarat and Jimmy. Who knows what they’re planning to destroy next?”

“Not Minnie’s, may the saints be merciful,” Cal said.

“May the saints be merciful,” Helen echoed as he walked out into the hall.

On the street he didn’t head directly toward the Lew. Helen wouldn’t judge him too harshly if he had said where he was going first, but he still kept it too himself. Even Vincent, who had sat on one side next to Cal while Minnie sat on the other, both of them explaining their dreams for the future, didn’t quite understand. Cal had never been able to fully explain the influence that Minnie held over him, and it was easier to let others think it was only nightmares in his own mind that kept him awake.

He walked along the Torgove to the place where it split from the Ornette. This was oldest section of the city, a place where small close houses had been built of stones dredged from the river even before the Pelagoans had decided to set up a permanent trading post at Delta Mouth. It had been a far flung settlement of the Ibai, and they had kept it as an enclave within the city for many years. Only recently had the area been overrun by the workers from the Plainsmen who had found an easy route to the city on the railroad. It was how Minnie had planned to travel to Delta Mouth; it was how Cal had come.

He turned into a narrow street that had no name on the Pelagoan maps. The Ibai had called it after the river, but even Tarn Alley was too much recognition for the Pels to admit to on an official document, and so there was no sign to point the way. Since Cal had been this way many times before, it hardly mattered to him. He passed among the smooth faced buildings which the Ibai had painted in varying shades of green and blue until he found one that was a particularly vibrant shade of turquoise. He had asked about the colors once and been told that the Ibai liked to be reminded of the river even when they could not see it. A small fish was painted above the door in dark blue paint.

Cal open the door and stepped inside. In contrast to the watery tones of the street, the walls and ceilings inside were painted white, as were the many tall cabinets that were placed around the edges of the room and made a large island in the middle as well. There were smudgy gray fingerprints on the many small drawers and doors of the cabinets, but overall the bright paint helped to distribute the light around the room, which had only two small windows. An old man stood at a small table next to one of the cabinets. The tabletop had once been as white as the rest of the furnishings, but most of the paint had flaked away to show the amber wood underneath. A collection of glass jars was arrayed in a neat semicircle on the table around a bottle which seemed to be holding court among its fellow. The old man set the jar he was holding back into sequence with the others before he looked up at Cal. His hair was cropped short, but the tight curls still made a soft halo of white around his head.

“Good morning, Reuben,” Cal said.

“Mister Delanton,” Reuben said. “The usual?”

Cal drew the empty green glass bottle from his jacket and set it on the battered table. “Yes.”

Reuben set the green bottle at the back of the table and returned to the bottles he had been working with to insert an eyedropper into one of them. As he transferred several drops of liquid into the central jar its contents fizzed a little and he nodded as if it had answered some unasked question correctly. Cal glanced around the room again but there was nowhere to sit down while Reuben worked.

Reuben took no notice of his discomfort as he continued to measure out different ingredients. Finally the apothecary put a stopper into the jar he had been filling and began to put the attendant jars and bottles back into various drawers and compartments in the cabinets around the room. “One of your girls came to see me.”

That was not unusual. “For a skin-clearing creme?”

“For an abortifacient.”

“Oh.” Cal looked around but there was still no chair.

“She should have come to me earlier,” Reuben said. “I have many preventative pills that would have spared her the grief, but I think she was reluctant to approach a man she did not know about her problems.”

Emmy Jane was too new in Delta Mouth; she would not have known to come here. Or would she have already made the connection to the other Ibai who lived in the old town on Ornette? A girl might have multiple reasons to run away from home. Luessa was too savvy and cautious to have needed pills for after; she would have made sure she was well prepared for before. Pearline, he suspected, was too proud to let any man touch her until a marriage had been promised, arranged, and documented in the city’s record books. He considered the other girls briefly until he remembered Marietta’s downcast behavior in recent weeks.

“She had very long black hair?” Cal asked. “Marietta?”

“She had a broken heart, and the one who dropped it didn’t stick around to pick up the pieces.”

Cal sighed. “I should buy the preventative pills from you myself and just hand them out.”

Reuben shook his head. “It’s better if I see the girl and know what dose she needs.” He had collected a new set of ingredients onto the table now and he poured a clear but viscous liquid into the green bottle. “For instance, you tell me only that you have trouble sleeping. But I see you and I see some of what troubles you and I adjust what I give you accordingly.”

Though he knew that Minnie’s presence was confined to his bedroom, Cal couldn’t help but glance over his shoulder to see if her ghostly form was there. “Is there a cure for me?” he asked Reuben.

The old man shook his head. “Only oblivion. Do you want that?”

“No,” Cal said. “I suppose not.”

When Reuben had refilled the bottle, Cal tucked it back into the his jacket pocket. The weight of it was comforting against his breast as he went back to the street and walked toward the Lew.