Page 58 of The Scarlet Ball

“She called you very expensive when she introduced us.” I realized I was still holding her wrist, and let her go. “Were you sold?”

The United States was very proud of ridding itself of slavery a generation ago, but the Black people flooding New York from the South said otherwise. There are many ways to be sold and the world never lacks for buyers.

“Bound. When she called me expensive, she meant in cost to her, not a price that someone set on me. She lured me in, she laid her hand on me, she bound me to serve her name, and that is the end of it. If I am lucky, someday she will put me to some great task and then set me free.”

“I know her type,” I said balefully. “There’s no task so great that it will make up for the inconvenience of losing you.”

The look she gave me was as opaque as ever, but I could tell she agreed. “You’re coming with me when I leave this damned place,” I said impulsively. I realized I was curious about kissing her.

“Must I?” she asked.

“Yes. And after that, you may go where you wish. Though maybe you’ll come with me to Boston.”

“Boston?”

“Or Philadelphia. Whichever. I’ll have a house there, and perhaps I could use a cranky maid to keep track of my dresses.”

Suddenly she took hold of my hand, her eyes very bright. There was a tension in her that hadn’t been there before, desperation and something else. Then she let go, turning around and directing me to sit at the vanity so she could sew on my face.

I was halfway down the hall before I realized that it was hope I had seen in her eyes.

THE CARRIAGE DROPPED me off at an elegant little brownstone on Twenty-First Street, the discreet sort of place where a woman with a particularly exclusive clientele might keep three or four very expensive girls. There was a bronze plaque on the door, the moon overcoming the sun. I rang the bell, and to my surprise, it was answered by a Chinese woman. I saw her strict black dress and the keys hung from her waist first, but when I saw her face, I stopped and stared.

That’s my face, I thought with a sudden violent longing, though of course it wasn’t. Her face was paler than mine, oval-shaped with a wide perfect brow, and her mouth was smaller with a wonderfully full lower lip. Mine or hers, it didn’t matter; I was starved for that face, and it was all I could do not to take it lovingly in my hands, to kiss it.

“May I be of service?” she asked with an edge to her voice, and I burned with unaccustomed embarrassment that I had been caught staring. So far as she was concerned, I was one more young white woman who saw her as a novelty, and I looked like a fool standing there on the steps with ridiculous tears in my eyes. I blinked them back hurriedly.

“I am here at the invitation of Mrs. Henry Howard, my grandmother,” I said. “I’m. That is. I’m her granddaughter, Miss Iphigenia Marshall.”

“Ah, of course. You are expected. Please follow me.”

The brownstone was as luxurious inside as out, the maple floors gleaming under fresh wax, the frosted windows set with palm-sized panes of diamond-shaped ruby glass at the very center. It screamed old New York, the kind of place where no amount of money would ensure entry. It was blood that ruled here, I realized, and I followed the housekeeper up the stairs and down a narrow hall. She tapped discreetly on one of the doors.

“Mrs. Howard, your granddaughter, Miss Iphigenia Marshall, has arrived.”

“Send her in.”

The housekeeper made to slip by me, and there was a moment where I imagined myself stopping her. I wanted to tell her that I wasn’t Ginny Marshall at all. I was Judith Ban, I was that name my mother called me before she went back to Vietnam and which no one called me ever again, I was like her, I was her.

Then she was walking away, her keys jingling softly. I felt a mixture of relief and disappointment before I turned to open the door.

Mrs. Howard looked up from the pamphlet she had been reading when I entered and stubbed out her cigarette in the cut-glass ashtray. There was a stack of books beside her, some with pages still uncut, some with crumbling spines, and a pile of papers next to them; she placed the pamphlet neatly on top. She did not look as if only a handful of hours before, she had been standing on the wreck of a salt plain, watching an eldritch castle fall. If you looked, perhaps you might see something tired in her eyes, something tight around her lips, but you would have to look very closely indeed.

“Come, sit with me,” she said. “There’s a lunch menu in the pocket on the wall. You should order something if you have not eaten yet. The roast beef here is quite good, and this season is excellent for scallops.”

I picked up the menu because I realized I actually was hungry, and then I put it aside. I could stand to be a little hungry right now because I knew where my next meal was coming from. I was going to pay for it with the money Mrs. Howard had promised me.

“Thank you, but I would rather see to our business first.”

Mrs. Howard gave me a surprisingly tolerant look. There was perhaps even the hint of a smile lurking at the corner of her mouth as she picked up a leather folder and handed it to me. I opened it and inside was a ninety-nine-year lease for an address in Boston as well as a description of what sounded like a tidy cottage in a respectable neighborhood. There was also a check in the amount we had agreed upon. I frowned.

“I haven’t an account to put this in.”

Mrs. Howard stirred her tea with a cool look. I thought she would call me stupid, but she surprised me again.

“What does someone like you do when they’re given a check and refused anything else?”

“I find a white man who seems as if he might be halfway trustworthy, and I offer him a percentage to cash it for me. I hope he doesn’t rob me, and then I pay him off and put the money away in some secret place like a sensible person. If the amount is small enough, I might be able to sign it over to some store and use it to shop there for the next few weeks or months.”