One of the men falls and, seeing me, crooks a dirty finger. “Look, Rufus, we drank our way clear to China.”
“Git!” Another push by the woman’s rolling-pin arms sends the two on their way. The woman adjusts her wig, which had begun to slide to one side, and cocks a bushy eyebrow at me. “Help you with something?”
The reek of sour mash wafts through the doorway. At the back of the room, a pair of ivory tusks hangs above a bar, where a half dozen men are seated. “Yes. I am told Billy Riggs can be found here?”
“Billy Riggs?” she screeches, quieting the chatter coming from the bar. “If that no-account comes here, I have an elephant gun whose double barrel would fit right up his filthy nostrils.” She fists her hands into her hips.
“You mean, he doesn’t conduct business here?”
“No, and if you’re the sort who conducts business with him, you ain’t welcome here neither. Good day.” She strides back into her bar and the door swings shut with a whomp!
I slouch after the drunks. Was it a mistake, or did Nathan deliberately mislead me?
The sucking sound of the door reopening heralds a loud clamor and a woof!
Before I am halfway to the street, something familiar and furry streaks past me, cutting off my path. I stumble, slipping onto the wet grass. A sheepdog pants right by my face, calling up G-words with every pound of her tail.
Gravity.
Grass.
Gullible.
He led me here to deceive me.
“Bear,” Nathan says sternly, slapping his thigh twice. Bear returns to his side, bouncing in four directions at once.
Our gaze connects. If looks were sounds, his startled expression would be the braking of a train for a troop of Fiji mermaids swinging through the trees. His gaze falls to my mouth, maybe measuring it against the last peek. A rosy indignation blooms around my neck.
He shakes himself loose of his stare and hands me his handkerchief. “I am terribly sorry.” He doesn’t sound very sorry at all. “Are you okay?”
Woof! The dog settles, now patient as a rook ready to be played.
I wipe dog drool off my face. “I am as well as someone who has been knocked upon grass soaked with the excrement of animals can be, thank you.” Even unmasked, Miss Sweetie hangs on.
The warmth of Nathan’s hands as he helps me up sends electric pulses through me. I’m astounded by how many thoughts can fit into the space of the second it takes for me to withdraw my hand.
“I apologize. I couldn’t send an unaccompanied lady to Billy Riggs.”
So he knew all along I had no chaperone. With my cheeks ablaze, I draw myself up as if there were a string attached to my crown pulling me to the sky—Hammer Foot’s power stance. “Now that you have seen that I am quite capable, will you not tell me where to find him?” Bear scoops up my hand with her head, asking me to pet her. Nathan combs his hand through her backside.
“On two conditions.”
A group of men saunter toward the Church, hats turning at the sight of us, but offering no comment.
“I will come, and you must tell me why.”
“Why what?”
“Why Miss Sweetie?”
Our petting—me on the engine, him at the caboose—becomes more vigorous. Bear will be bald soon at the rate we are pawing her. Now that I have been revealed, company would be nice. As for the why of things . . .
“Your family”—I begin to say, and then hastily tack on—“business has helped me, over the years, understand the world. I wanted to thank you in some way.”
He blinks. “How . . . remarkable.” The air between us thickens with unexpressed words.
Straightening, he brushes the wrinkles from his coat while I pick grass off my sleeves. “Well then, Miss Sweetie, to Collins Street.”
The bottom branch. That sounds more like it. He offers his arm. And though my own legs have done a fair job getting me down the pavement all these years, I take it.
Twenty-Four
Dear Miss Sweetie,
I recently purchased a straw hat off the shelf that is too small. How do I make it fit?
Hatless in Atlanta
Dear Hatless,
Fire up the teakettle. Aim the steam at the inner ribbon, rotating the hat so that the steam dampens the inside brim evenly. Watch your fingers! Once the hat has cooled enough, carefully fit it over your head. You will have to wear the hat for at least two hours so the hat can dry in its new shape.
Yours truly,
Miss Sweetie
* * *
—
“I confess, you are not who I expected,” says Nathan after a painful stretch of silence.
“I never am.”
Another silence follows, during which we try not to bump into each other. Bear pads on the other side of me with her tail high, the only one of us at ease.
“I’ve had so many questions, and now I cannot think of a single one of them.”
“Then silence is your best option.”
“Who are you?”
“If that is how you plan to snare the ladies, you should consider rewiring your trap.”
He snorts. “We are well past introductions, yet I still do not know your name.”
“Jo Kuan.”
We turn a corner, and a dirty carpet of an avenue unrolls before us. Nathan slows to avoid a collision with a drunkard. “Welcome to Collins Street, where you can get your boots dirty and your pockets clean at the same time.”
Vice dens huddle as if conspiring, the crooked teeth of an upper and lower jaw. At the end of the street, a church stands like the final molar, so you can swill and then rinse clean in two easy steps. We skirt around a group of men, black and white, throwing dice, and street sellers hawking enhancement oils and sticks of black opium.
“So, where did you grow up, Miss Kuan?”
“Just Jo is fine.”
When I don’t say more, Nathan’s eyebrows become question marks. “Who are your parents?” he tries again.
“Mr. Bell, I realize as a reporter it is in your nature to get to the bottom of things. But you will need to stick to questions of a more general nature.”
“Fair enough. Generally, who are your parents?”
I hide a smile and shake my head, trying not to breathe in the stench of stale tobacco, human sweat, and waste.
“What about questions of a highly specific nature. Like, what is your favorite word?”