I shook my head and made another swipe at my nose with the handkerchief she had provided. “No, I’m not suicidal anymore, although I think there’s merit in the idea of a near-death experience to bring my mind back. Because, you know, either I’ve gone insane, or the world has, and somehow I just think I could handle the insanity better if I knew it was something that psychotherapy and a really big dose of Prozac could fix. Finding myself a prisoner in something that doesn’t exist is—”
“There she goes again,” said the dark-haired Suky, hoisting the baby she had been nursing a bit higher on her hip. “Ye’ve set her off again, Reggie. Now we’ll have her waterin‘ the rug afore all our Jacks.”
“She’s a blight, she is,” Mags, another of Renata’s women, complained as she primped before a tarnished bit of mirror set on the sideboard. “Can’t ye do somethin‘ with her, then? Sittin’ there blubberin‘ like a scalded cat like that, she’ll run off all our business.”
“Hush, ye heartless tart. Can’t ye see the poor thing is upset?” Sly Jez patted my shoulder sympathetically. I sniffled appreciatively at her. “She’s had a bad bit of news, she has. What is it, Amy—is yer trouble that yer man’s run off with another lass?”
“No, it’s not that,” I said, giving in to the few more tears of self-pity that welled up.
“Maybe she’s lost her mum, like Suky did last week?” Red Beth suggested. The ladies were all lounging around the main room in the house in various states of undress, waiting, so Renata had told me after I had regained consciousness and she had helped me back to the house, for the brisk evening trade.
Suky tossed her head. “ ‘Twas a blessing, that was. Sour old cow.”
“No, it’s not my mother,” I answered, still trying to come to grips with the horrible twist my life had suddenly taken.
“I know!” Mags piped up, doing a little twirl that spun her sheer petticoat out.
“The stiffenin’s gone out of her man’s mizzenmast. That’d make anyone bawl their eyes out.”
“That’s not what’s troubling me. I don’t have a man—”
The ladies, as a group, gasped in horror.
“Ye don’t have a man?” Mags asked, one hand surreptitiously making the sign of the cross.
“No. I’m entanglement-free at the moment.”
“None?” Sly Jez prodded. “Not even a Jack Tar what comes to shore every six months?”
“No, no men, Jacks or otherwise. I had a husband…”
“Ah,” the ladies sighed, relieved.
“Died, did he?” Red Beth asked.
“No, actually, I divorced him several years ago. He was not at all husband material, but I was young and didn’t see that at first.”
“Divorce?” Sly Jez looked to Renata, who was squinting into a rum barrel and muttering to herself.
“It be somethin‘ out of yer ken, lass,” Renata answered.
“So you be havin‘ no man now,” Sly Jez said slowly, her brow furrowed as she puzzled out the sad tangle of my life.
“That’ll be hard, what with men in short supply. What the emerald mine don’t take, the sea does,” Suky said. The ladies nodded.
“But what happened to the man ye had?” Jez asked.
“Amicable divorce. Mostly amicable.” I gave one last sniff and told myself to get a grip. Self-pity was like tears— simply not productive.
“Sounds painful,” Jez said. “Are ye lookin‘ for a man, then?”
“Well, not really looking…”
“Of course she is,” Mags said, rolling her eyes. “But she’ll not be findin‘ one here.”
“Actually, I did meet a man here earlier.”
“Oooooh,” said the chorus of women.
