I Went Down (NaNoWriMo Read-Along)

16 Cal

“It’ll be good for her,” Helen said. “She had a rough patch, and now she’s landed on her feet.”

“Yes,” Cal said. “I just wish—”

“What?” Helen said. “That our madam Contessa had entered the world as a fully-fledged adult? She’s come a long way since she walked in those doors as skinny little Maddie, and don’t you discount that.” She settled her well-floured hands on her hips and regarded him. “You get so sad whenever any of the girls leaves, but just remember this. Your girls always go up.”

Cal sighed. “I just know she came near enough to going down.” 

“But she didn’t, so be proud.”

Helen’s advice was nearly always the opposite of Minnie’s acidic rants. He should listen to her more—if only Reuben could add a dose of Helen to the liquid in the green bottle, then life would be more bearable. But was it so unbearable? For here he was, bearing it still, with all his guilts and uncertainties and responsibilities bending his shoulders and caving in his chest. He should be proud, perhaps, to have helped Maddie shape herself into Contessa Marietta.

The door to the kitchen swung open and Harper stuck his head inside. “There’s someone at the door, Mister Delanton,” the waiter said. “He wants to talk to you but Harlan doesn’t want him inside.”

Cal gave Helen a puzzled look. It was still early in the evening; though the show had not yet started, any early patrons could have been seated and brought drinks. He followed Harper down the hall.

On the doorstep was Maxward, cringing beneath Harlan’s gaze. When he saw Cal, he twisted his mouth into a smile that floated over his face like a layer of oil on a bowl of soup. “If Mister Primrose comes by,” he said, “tell him I got good news for him that’s bad news for Baccarat.”

“Everyone says he left Delta Mouth,” Cal said. “Why would he come by here?”

Maxward smile slipped a little. “I ain’t saying I know where he is, otherwise I wouldn’t come looking for him. I just got news, that’s all.”

“We haven’t seen him for a week,” Cal said. He turned back towards the hallway. Behind him, Maxward started to say something else, but Harlan shifted in a way that made him seem seven feet tall and as big as an ox. It wasn’t much a stretch, really, and there was a shuffling on the stairs as Maxward hurried away.

Near the end of the night’s show, someone came in with a copy of the early morning paper. It changed hands amongst the Angiers sitting together at the rearmost tables until their excited buzz caught the attention of one of the Pelagoans. He snatched the paper from the nearest Plainsman’s hand and began to shove it into the flame of the lamp on the table. Cal squeezed his eyes shut. “Saints preserve us,” he whispered, “and preserve Minnie’s from going up in smoke.”

But then there was a gleeful shout. Cal opened his eyes. The Pelagoan, a steady dockside man, was waving the paper excitedly in his companions’ faces. One of the waiters rushed up to Cal’s side and relayed the headline that had caught the Pelagoan’s attention: RR DESTROYED, MINE CUT OFF.  Maxward’s news was no secret now.

The show went on but the story continued to leak around the room, passing from the audience to the waitstaff and back again until it was no longer clear what had been written in the paper and what speculation had been added in the retelling. Some fifty miles of track had been destroyed. Three switchmen at the junction with the main line had been blown to pieces so small and so scattered that there was nothing left to send their families. The men working at the mine had fled into the hills, assuming that the mineshafts would be the next targets and fearing for their lives.

There was no official comment from Baccarat, but both the Plainsmen and the Pelagoans gleefully assumed that he was furious as they toasted to the unnamed men who had laid bombs along Baccarat’s railroad.

Cal took up a station behind the bar to help fill the drink orders, which came fast as the atmosphere became increasingly merry. On stage, the chorus girls still danced and sang behind their new leading lady, Emiliana Josephine. Someone must have slipped backstage and let them know what had happened, but the girl’s smile was mismatched with the confusion in her eyes. Of course, the Ibaians had as little use for a railroad as they had for the conflict between the Pelagoans and the Plainsmen, for the Pels had yet to turn their sights upon the Ibai homeland, far up the long and treacherous river.

The girls sang and danced. Cal and the other bartenders poured drinks. The men who worked the docks in Jimmy Primrose’s domain celebrated the best way they knew how. Everyone in the club, patrons and staff alike, lifted a glass to Baccarat’s misfortune. Eventually the sun came up and they all staggered away to their beds.

Minnie met Cal at his bedroom door. The early morning light gave a greenish tint to her translucent form. “I don’t understand why everyone hates the railroad so much,” she said. “The railroad is the future. It will change everything. Someday it will bring all the luxuries of Delta Mouth to us, but today it will take me to Delta Mouth.” She laughed, the short triumphant laugh that meant she had just thought of something that made her feel very clever. “Do you suppose I’ll be a luxury in the city?”

“No,” Cal said. He sat down wearily on the bed and tugged the cufflinks out of his shirt. “Angiers girls with big dreams and empty pockets are available on most any street corner of Delta Mouth.”

“If you come visit me,” Minnie said, “I’ll be so rich and fancy that you’ll have to buy a new suit of clothes just to walk down the street I live on.”

“Of course you thought I was the one who would be a streetwalker,” Cal said. He fumbled at his shoes, but he had been caught up in the festive drinking and his fingers failed to decipher the knotted laces. “But it would have been you, Minnie.” He lay down on his side where he could see her hovering near the washbasin. “You would have been a whore.”