EXCERPT
No one saw Darryl again in Clearwater, Florida, for several years. Rena never said a word when Sheela came back from the park with red eyes and torn clothes. She just stared at the girl and nodded.
Her sister’s elbow jabbed her in her ribs. “Oh, shit,” Sheela heard her whisper.
Their aunt picked up a hammer from the kitchen drawer and dashed up the stairs. They heard the yelling and took off toward the back, where they crouched behind a trellis and stared up at their aunt’s bedroom. They never saw Daryl again after that day. Although it was a relief not to have him lurking about, Sheela was constantly afraid he would show up again and kill her.
“Oh, don’t worry,” Leda said. “I’m sure Aunt Rena has hammered him to death by now and fed his body to the fish.”
Rena must have divorced Darryl at some point because she found a new husband within three months of his disappearance. Chester Moody was a beefy man who liked to sit on the front porch and take naps in the rocker. He brought the girls to fierce hysterics because he snored so loudly the guests raised their eyebrows and politely glanced in another direction. Rena talked to him constantly, even when he appeared to be asleep. She put him to work in the kitchen, along with Leda and Sheela, and hired a girl to clean the rooms. A much nicer arrangement for Sheela and Leda because even though they had to clean up after him, they got to lick up all the chocolate sauce from the pots.
Sheela had a boyfriend in her senior year named Calvin Woods. He was always holding her hand and carrying her books, and he would come by every evening to sit with her on the porch of her aunt’s motel.
“Come on, Sheela, let’s go down to the beach,” he’d say.
Sheela would check to see whether Aunt Rena was around and quickly jump the porch railing to run off with Calvin.
She thought he was the best-looking boy she’d ever seen. His hair was a fine soft brown that hugged his neck in wisps that fell onto his collar, and best of all, he had deep dimples that showed up in his cheeks every time he smiled.
Every boy in Clearwater thought Sheela was the prettiest girl they’d ever seen up close and envied Calvin the luck of winning her heart.
“What do you see in him, Sheela?” they’d shout. “He’s a weirdo, so shy he stutters.”
“That’s precisely what I like about him.” Sheela wasn’t so young she couldn’t tell the difference between a bunch of roughnecks and a true gentleman.
She found it endearing that Calvin blushed around her so much of the time. He was a bookworm, too. He liked to read her chapters from favorite novels, passages he would underline in red. Calvin Woods wrote her so many love letters, they filled her chest at the motel. Sheela loved that he was so tall and lanky he had to duck through doors, and his knees were so high when he sat that even the cats didn’t know where to find his lap.
“Marry me, Sheela,” he whispered in her ear, then fell to his knees on the sand, and searched her eyes. “Be mine forever.”
Sheela contemplated the ocean and a boat so far away it looked as if she could hold it in her hand.
“I can’t,” she whispered. “But I love you, Calvin. Don’t ever forget that.”
He looked at her sadly and rose to his feet. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll wait.”
Most everyone thought they would get married after graduation. So it came as quite a shock when Sheela disappeared. Pensive and despondent for a while, Calvin eventually wound up marrying a girl from Orlando whom he’d met on a trip. There was a rumor in Clearwater that Sheela wrote Calvin a letter right after leaving town, telling him that she’d never come back to marry him. There was another rumor going around as well. People said that Sheela went and met herself a millionaire in Miami and didn’t have the time of day anymore for a poor boy like Calvin.
Sheela had seventy-five dollars in her pocket the day she slammed the door of the Sea Spray Inn for the last time and hitched a ride to Miami. She’d been saving the money ever since that first time with Eugene Howe.
“I’ll have dinner in my room tonight.” Eugene smiled at Rena. “Do you think I can have some company? Perhaps your pretty niece, the tall one?”
Rena snapped her fingers, quickly turning her neck to find Sheela.
“Oui, my niece is quite beautiful, isn’t she?” And the unstated negotiations began as Eugene put one hand on his wallet, and the other quite close to his fly.
“I’ll see what I can do,” she told him.
Eugene Howe had been vacationing at the Sea Spray Inn for years but started coming more often once he retired. He always took the best room and requested thick steaks and rich desserts. Rena always ordered a special case of whiskey when he came to town, and she spent many hours with him in the parlor, re-filling his glass and increasing his tab.
“Mr. Howe is one of the most prominent men in his home state of Alabama. Take special care of him, Sheela.” Rena leaned close and looked into her eyes. “He has a certain fondness for you. Why don’t you serve him in his room tonight? You remind him of his daughter.” She smiled with an absence of effort.
Sheela did not dislike Mr. Howe. In truth, he encouraged her to talk to him about school and what she liked to do with her time. Sometimes he brought out photographs of his wife and children. With a despondent sigh, he mentioned that his wife had died several years before, and he was very lonely.
“He has something special to show you tonight,” Rena said. “You be nice to him. These are hard times.”
Sheela looked at her aunt’s face. “And perhaps I have something special to show him, too?” she said with a sneer.
Sheela watched as Eugene uncovered a wine-colored folder that looked as if it were made of satin. He brought it to the edge of the bed and patted the space beside him. “Come sit by me,” he said as he carefully unwrapped it.
Sheela sat close to Mr. Howe in case he cried over more family photographs. The poor man’s hands were shaking, and he was breathing so heavily, the bed moved. But it wasn’t a picture of his wife that he showed her. Neither was it a picture of his daughter, Delia. He showed her, instead, photographs of naked people engaged in all sorts of odd behavior. She particularly wanted to laugh at the one with all the bare-assed ladies dancing with one another; but she intuited laughter would be inappropriate because Mr. Howe was so intensely serious. She felt him put his hand over hers, and she quickly stood up. He cocked his head at her for a moment, then he reached in his inside pocket and counted out bills. There must have been at least twenty bills that he counted and forced into her hand.
“Your aunt said you would be nice to me,” he said.
She stared at him. He was heavily bearded. She didn’t like that. His stomach rolled over so many times, he looked deformed. She didn’t like that, either. She noticed the jowls in his cheeks. He was running his tongue over his lips, looking up at her as if he would pounce like a hungry lion if she gave him the slightest provocation. She stared at the money. It made her think of what her aunt had said to her. You’d be surprised how good he’d be to you if you grant him a favor or two.
“Are you a virgin?” he asked her.
“That’s for me to know and for you to find out,” she said.
He laughed at that. “I know you have a boyfriend. This won’t interfere.”
Sheela pushed Calvin from her mind. Aunt Rena was always telling her that Calvin would never get out of the trailer park. She stared back at Eugene Howe. She wanted money. Her witch of an aunt didn’t give her a dime. She just needed a little money to get out of Clearwater forever, and away from all those damn dirty dishes and smelly toilets.
“If I turn out to be a virgin, it’s going to cost you more than this.” She stared into his eyes and put the money on the bed.
Eugene stopped licking his lips. He also stopped his deep breathing. His mouth drooped a little as he watched her.
“You’re made for this.” He grinned as Sheela’s fingers traced the buttons on her blouse.
Throughout Sheela’s final year in high school, Eugene sent her gifts: garters and lace brassieres that he told her to wear for him on his next trip down to the Sea Spray Inn. He visited Clearwater at least once a month to see her. One month he sent down a friend, Wes Monroe, a boisterous, handsome man at least six feet tall. With his striking mane of thick black hair and a dramatic mustache, her Aunt Rena said he was a dead ringer for Clark Gable. But though he gave Sheela even more money than Eugene, he never touched her. He only wanted her to watch him while he slowly disrobed, paraded himself in front of her, and pulled on himself until he ejaculated all over his hands and fell to his knees, groaning and sobbing.
Sheela was generous with her money. Her aunt took most of it, but she had enough to take her sister to the movie theater whenever they could sneak away from the motel. She sent money to both her brothers, and she promised Leda she would send her money from Miami.
“Find a place of your own, Leda,” she said, handing her a fistful of ten-dollar bills. “Leave that bitch in the dust.”
It was just one week after her high school graduation that Sheela took Leda by the arm and led her off toward Cleveland Street.
“I’ve got enough saved now,” she excitedly told Leda. “It’s time for me to get the hell out of here.”
“Out of here to where, sister?” Leda asked, looking at Sheela like she’d lost her mind.
“Miami.”
Sheela had no concrete plan. Miami was a random choice because it sounded like the most exciting place to be. She knew by now that she’d never starve: that there would always be a man around to fill her purse.
“What about Calvin?” Leda asked.
Sheela looked away. Calvin respected her. When he got carried away and tried to touch her in all her secret places, he would stop himself and apologize. He begged her forgiveness over and over until she finally told him he didn’t have to worry about his hands anymore. But being with Calvin was like leading two lives. After the time with Eugene Howe, it all changed. She couldn’t think of lying down with Calvin and accepting his tenderness, not after Eugene.
“I don’t know,” Sheela said, taking in her sister’s shock.
“I thought you loved him,” Leda said, her confusion apparent.
Sheela had become distant with Calvin after Eugene soiled things. She pretended to have stomachaches and leg cramps. Calvin would bring two aspirins out from his mother’s cupboard and hand them to Sheela with a cup of water.
“Feeling better now?” he’d ask while the crinkles over his nose deepened.
“Uh-huh,” Sheela would tell him and watch the way the sun played on his hair with a halo of streaks that turned the brown to gold.
Sheela took her sister’s hands and sat her down on a bench.
“Sometimes I dream that Calvin and I are married, and we’re so happy we never stop laughing. But then the dream changes and Calvin turns into Eugene Howe, and the walls in our house suddenly fill up with Mr. Howe’s dirty photographs. I try to escape, but then Papa shows up and puts wax in the keyholes so I can’t jimmy the lock. I scream and beg to be let out, but Papa ignores my cries. Then Aunt Rena appears with a salacious sneer on her face. She locks me in with Mr. Howe and throws the keys to all the rooms into the sea.”
Leda looked into her gaze. “I understand,” Leda said tearfully. “I’ll pray for you, Sheela, every day.”
Sheela didn’t say goodbye to Calvin the day she left Clearwater. She hitched a ride from Cleveland Street with a traveling salesman, feeling as free as a fish in water. It was an adventure for Sheela to ride out of town, knowing she was never coming back. It was like digging a hole in the sand and really discovering China.
The house had a silver dome and stood majestically on three quiet acres of land. The ceiling curved and gently rested on beveled columns with gilded posts. The marble floor was almost nude in color and captured footsteps in its shine. The deep rich mahogany staircase lifted with a grand sweep, like an arm in reach. The upstairs rooms were carpeted in muted tones and lit by Tiffany-shaded lamps. Chaise longues covered in satin nonchalantly stretched before drapes of silk and stared back at beds smothered in velvet.
Sheela had been greeted at the front door as if she were someone’s best friend or, at least, a relative not seen in years. The tour of the mansion lasted half an hour. Overwhelmed, Sheela breathed in the perfumed air and followed Kit Malone into the “afternoon parlor.”
“I call it my ‘afternoon parlor’ because of this wonderful light.”
Sheela looked past tall windows and onto trees that shaded rose bushes and tulips.
“Please be seated.” Kit pointed to a couch that looked as if it had been spun with gold.
Sheela sank into pillows that seemed to hug her body from all directions. Kit sat across from her in a chair with long, clawed arms and legs that stood on point like prima ballerinas frozen in motion.
Sheela guessed Kit was her Aunt Rena’s age, at least forty-five, though it was hard to tell. Kit was still beautiful. Her golden yellow hair wound around her head in a crown of waves; her hands and legs were long and slender, and her breasts round and curved up from her low-cut blouse, revealing skin that looked as soft as a baby’s cheek. She smiled at Sheela.
“We’re going to work on that accent. You’re a bit too Southern.”
Sheela nodded. She would do anything Kit told her to do. It hadn’t been an easy decision to enter the house, but now she was inside, she was sure she had made the right choice. She had almost turned back. She had circled the property three times before she decided to ring the bell. The man who had told her about the mansion said she’d be a fool not to hitch her horse to Kit’s wagon. He told her she’d make more money than she ever dreamed possible. Word had it that Kit Malone was good to her girls, and her clients weren’t street scum, either. Kit’s client list included some very well-known, wealthy men about town. The man had spoken to her like a school adviser suggesting a course of study. Then he had put his hand in hers, kissed her on the cheek and told her to get out of that two-bit bar they were in and cash in on her class.
“Though men do like a bit of a Southern drawl, you’ll find that my men like a refined, well-spoken woman.” Kit leaned forward and reached for her afternoon tea. She stared at Sheela and smiled again. “You will have men eating out of your hand.” She laughed, and the sound of her laughter was as lighthearted as morning birds.
Sheela tried to maintain focus on Kit’s eyes as she spoke and not to stare at the paintings that hung on the walls like rectangular paper coffins, revealing effigies of naked women, unnerving the beholder with their sad and seductive stares.
Kit sipped her tea and continued, “Pleasing men is an art that can be cultivated and learned. For God’s sake, listen to everything they say, or pretend to. Stroke their egos even more tenderly than their genitals.” She sat back in her chair. “And remember, beautiful women are feared as much as they are desired. Power is always with a woman if she knows how to use it. I tell you this so you can have everything you want in life. Most people don’t know how to get what they want. It’s so simple. First, you must be committed to it with all your heart, and then ask yourself how you’re going to attain it. Are your assets in place?” Kit leaned forward and placed her tea on the table. “Beauty and brains, my dear, those are the assets of choice for a woman. You must have both, and clearly, you do. You will use your assets wisely in this house. Exercise your sense of humor, listen with rapt attention, and never disagree with a man unless you do so as softly as melting butter. Always tell men what they want to hear. Build your fortress!”
Kit got up and went to the window.
“We do not work before 4 P.M or after 2 A.M.” She drew back the drapes and turned to Sheela. “I want you to meet someone.”
Kit’s tone changed as she called out toward the yard. It took on an uncharacteristic excitement. “Alice! Bring her inside!”
Alice entered with a confidence that made Sheela take notice. She was a serious young woman who appeared no older than seventeen. Her skin was a cocoa brown, and her loveliness was apparent even in her unflattering black uniform. In her arms, she carried a tan-and-white King Charles spaniel. Kit quickly fell to her knees and held out her arms.
“Sweetie Pie, come to Mama.”
The puppy ran around in splendid circles kissing and licking his mistress with the exuberance of a crazed lightning bug, her little tail ticking from side to side like an over-wound clock. Sheela let out the first laugh she had had since she left Clearwater.
“Come on, Sheela,” Kit called to her. “Come, say hello to Sweetie Pie.”
Sheela fell to her knees and let the puppy jump up and nip at her nose. Kit arched her back, squared her legs, and then chased the dog around on all fours, while Sheela followed. They scuffled around the “afternoon parlor” after Sweetie Pie, as the puppy leaped on and off chairs and flew over small tables. Alice looked on in quiet amusement and Sheela laughed so hard, her sides hurt.
“Miss Kit was a Ziegfield girl,” Alice told her while Sheela unpacked a small bag she had brought back from the rooming house over the bar. “She’s well over forty. Shouldn’t be crawling around the floor like that at her age.”
“Really?”
Sheela easily imagined Kit in a chorus line with her hair touching on her shoulders and her long shapely legs strutting across a stage as if she were Queen of the Nile.
“Where you from, girl?” Alice asked as she reclined in the chaise and stretched her legs out with a deep and tired breath.
“Jacksonville,” Sheela said quickly. She would never tell anyone she was from Clearwater. That was just a place haunted by senescence and speckled with little hotels like her Aunt Rena’s. Home was the little two-story house on Cherry Street with the long yellow wall and the torn wallpaper that had followed her up the stairs with tiny, faded roses opening and closing. It was where she lived when her Mama was alive.
“Jacksonville? That’s my home. My daddy and brothers are still there. I send them money. Guess what? I make more money than my daddy.”
“No kidding?” Sheela looked at her and smiled politely. “I wonder if we ever passed each other on the street.”
“I doubt it,” Alice said with a tilt to her eyebrows.
Sheela felt the blush on her face appear. The only time she ever really saw any colored people was when her mama took her to see a Baptist choir at the old cathedral on Third Street once.
Alice smiled and lit herself one of Sheela’s cigarettes.
“You know, she brings that little dog out every time a new girl comes.”
“Why?” Sheela put the last of her belongings away and jumped onto the bed. It gently moved to the bounce and then settled back. “Oh, what a bed,” she said as she let out a sigh that might never have ended if Alice hadn’t interrupted her.
“You don’t have much, do you, girl?”
Sheela didn’t answer. Her hands back over her head, she settled against a large plum pillow.
“No matter. Miss Kit going to buy you some clothes.”
“Why does she bring the dog out?” Sheela asked as she stared up at the vaulted ceiling and smiled at the cherub mural.
“If a girl don’t take to the dog, she don’t get hired.”
Alice rested her hands back under her head, too, and kicked off her slippers.
“Why not?” Sheela crawled to the foot of the bed and stared at her new friend.
“Miss Kit says if a girl don’t like the dog, she’s too cold to be worth anything. She says men like to marry cold women, but they like their whores warm and friendly.”
Sheela rolled over in laughter. Alice was startled at first, but she welcomed the chance to share the humor and soon joined Sheela in her fit of hysterics. By the time their ten minutes of complete loss of control ended, they were both curled up on the Persian rug and holding their sides.
“Are you one of the girls?” Sheela finally asked her.
“Shoot, no.” Alice sat up and wiped the tears from her eyes. “Ain’t no colored girls working here. I take care of things for Miss Kit.”
“I bet she’d take you on. You’re real pretty.”
“She did once ask me if I was interested.” Alice produced a warm round smile, and the memory of the moment made her laugh again.
“What’s so funny about a proposition?” Sheela leaned back on her hands and rested her feet up against the bed.
“I said, ‘Miss Kit, with all due respect, I don’t want to work in your whorehouse. I’m saving myself for love.’”
Sheela sat straight up and giggled. “You said what?”
“Hell, girl, ain’t enough money in whoring to make me deliver used goods to my man. And besides, there’s more money in running a brothel than spreading yourself all over the place. That’s where there’s real money. You getting thirty percent, she’s getting seventy.”
“Where did she get this mansion?” Sheela asked. Her curiosity was piqued now, and she wanted to know everything there was to know about Kit Malone.
“This was a gangster’s house during prohibition. He got himself killed in 1928, and they tried to turn the place into a hospital, but it never happened. So it just sat around doing nothing till Miss Kit bought it in 1932.”
“Where does she come from?”
Sheela wondered how anyone could accumulate enough money to buy a place this big. But the door opened then, and Kit entered. She smiled at the girls on the rug. Sweetie Pie hung from her arms in a pant, her regal little face looking oddly childlike and affable. Alice stood up quickly and dusted off her uniform.
Miss Kit pointed her finger at Alice and slowly moved it from side to side.
“What’s the rule of the house, Alice Henry?”
“Colored help don’t mingle,” she answered with her head bowed.
Alice kept her eyes to the floor. Sheela noticed the deep glow to her cheeks.
Sheela stared at Kit, her own face turning color.
“What else, Miss Henry?” Kit asked her sweetly and softly.
“Colored girl here to serve,” Alice answered slowly.
Kit held out the dog and told Alice to take it to bed. Then she said goodnight to Sheela and nonchalantly added that she’d make friends with the other girls soon enough and not to distract the colored help.
