“I don’t have money for clothes.” I didn’t think Dixie was like Mexico, where you could buy used garments from street stalls for pennies.
“I want to hire you to help me. I just didn’t think I’d have to come here to do it. The clothing is part of the job.”
“I accept, as long as it doesn’t conflict with my original hire.”
“All right. First, we get you togged out. Then we start to work.”
Sally seemed like a pretty little town, lots of white houses and green lawns and so on. Paved streets. At the moment those streets were clogged with traffic, with wagons and cars all heading toward the hospital or out to see the wreck.
There was plenty of time to look from side to side.
“There!” said Eli. On a side street to the left there was a store labeled FANCY.
I had been thinking of a dry goods store. Eli thought higher than me, which didn’t surprise me.
“I don’t know if they’ll let me in,” I said, and I was being honest. Being healed hadn’t changed the dirt and blood and sweat.
Nothing was going to stop Eli now. His head was up and his stride was manly. I was going to get some damn clothes. I sighed and trailed after him, wishing I could go in armed. He’d asked me to leave my guns in the car.
Nothing more exciting had happened in that shop, ever. Eli commanded some respect, since he acted like he was used to having money; and he was, well, pretty good-looking in his own way—kind of gawky and exotic, with his cheekbones and his accent and his hair. The Fancy ladies fluttered when he came in the door.
Then they saw me. It was like they’d seen a rat running across the floor. And I didn’t really blame them.
The next forty minutes ranged from painfully embarrassing to just painful. I asked where their washroom was and cleaned up as best I could short of stripping and bathing in the sink. I didn’t want to get grime on these ladies’ dresses.
Lady One (stout, brown-haired, heels) looked relieved when I came out, so I’d done some good.
In the interest of getting me out of the store as soon as possible, Lady Two (blond, thin, red lipstick) had put several things in a dressing room already. I had never seen a dressing room, but it wasn’t hard to figure out. I’d heard Eli explaining I’d been in the wreck, trying to drum up some sympathy for me to make this easier. Hadn’t worked very well.
After ten minutes I was thinking, Fuck these women. I didn’t often even think that word, but it made me feel better while they yanked at me and turned me around. I tried to tell myself this was like picking out a new gun, but that didn’t work too well. I love guns.
I left Fancy with a dress, two blouses, two skirts, two pairs of shoes, underwear, and a nightgown. And a hat. And a purse. I had no idea what I was going to carry in the purse, unless it was extra bullets.
Eli had added the nightgown to the pile, which had made the ladies look at me out of the corners of their eyes.
“So, to the hotel,” Eli said as he was putting the bags in the back seat. I was silent, trying to get my sense of me back.
The bustle on the streets had not abated. A lot of the people were wearing uniforms of one kind or another: police, firefighters (who would be volunteers), railroad employees. I saw clusters of weeping women and stricken men. They’d come here to meet someone on the train, and now they were wondering if that someone had lived.
“They’ll never forget today, here in Sally,” I said. I never would either.
When we reached the Pleasant Stay Hotel, located right off the main street, I saw it was a pretty big place: white painted brick, with a screened-in front porch twice the width of a regular one, set with round tables and chairs arranged a decent distance apart.
There was a crowd sitting on the porch, a real subdued one. And a steady stream of people coming and going out the big front door. Eli found a place to park, which was kind of a miracle.
“Take me around back,” I said, just as Eli was about to turn in.
“What’s wrong?” Eli frowned at me.
“Your reservation might get lost when they see you have someone with you who’s not proper.” Now that I knew I looked like a dumb rough shooter, “unwomanly” according to Dixie standards, I felt like a sore thumb. I knew I was being stupid, but those women had done a job on me.
(Not that Eli himself was so proper, with his long pale-brown hair and his grigori vest with all its little pockets, and his tattoos. But still, since he was a man, and had money, he’d get the benefit of the doubt.)
“You heard ’em,” I said. “The ladies in the store.”
“Those women? What do you care what they say?”
A good question. “I didn’t understand it,” I said stiffly. “Why would they say, ‘raised by wolves’?”
Eli looked angry, impatient, embarrassed, and like he didn’t want to have this conversation.
Neither did I, but we were finishing it.
“If I promise to explain later, can we go inside?”
I nodded. “But you know what, Eli? I don’t think you need to explain.” They didn’t know my mother, how hard it had been for her to raise me on her own after my grandparents died. They didn’t know how smart and pretty she was. I had never felt like I did her no credit, though. Until now.
CHAPTER SIX
With his mouth set in a grim line, Eli drove around to the rear and parked. We had a lot to carry. Our real bags and the extra stuff. I locked my rifle in Eli’s trunk.
There was a door up a short set of steps, neatly labeled GUEST ENTRANCE. It led into the big hall that ran the south length of the building ending in the porch. Eli walked forward to the front desk, just inside the wide front door. I kind of lurked in the back of the hall with all our stuff.
I stood in the darkest corner I could, but still passersby gave me the narrow-eyed look that meant they thought I was real out of place. One of the black workers did too. She was wearing the uniform all the black people did at this hotel: a dark green dress with a white collar for the women, dark green pants and a lighter green shirt for the men. I sighed, and reminded myself that according to my mother, patience was a virtue.
Eli strode toward me, and he’d gone from frowning to scowling.
I figured the hotel proprietor had said something about me. Come to find out he had, but he’d also said something to Eli about Eli. “Told me to be sure and keep my magic to myself inside the walls of the hotel,” he muttered. “Told me people in the town of Sally didn’t tolerate godless magic spells and the people who cast them.”
“Did he tell you he didn’t suffer a witch to live?” I said.
“Yes, as a matter of fact. I’d like to see how he could stop me living before I stopped him.”
“I’d put my money on you.” For the first time in many hours, I smiled.
The black man carrying our bags up the stairs had been a perfect blank, but his mouth twitched too. I could swear he came close to smiling along with me. Eli tipped the man generously, and the man actually did smile as he said, “Thank you, sir.”
I looked around the room, which was plenty large, with the usual bed with night tables, and an easy chair with a little table beside it. I spotted another door and opened it with hope. Yes! The Pleasant Stay Hotel was fancy enough to have a bathroom attached to each room! I would put up with a few nasty remarks for the lovely convenience of having a bath whenever I wanted one, and not having to wait in line for a turn at a common bathroom in the hall.