Page 23

Jo rolls her shoulders, wipes down her sweaty forehead, and smiles widely, not acknowledging the girl’s request. “I am . . .” She almost chokes on her words. The journey up the stairs depleted all her energy, robbed her of breath. The veins in her neck must be bulging like earthworms, blue and thick. “Give me a minute to catch my breath, and I’ll be out of your way. I’ll take her home. To her mother.”

Grace swivels her head toward Jo and looks up with eyes so blue and so much like Millie’s, Jo knows she’ll do anything for the girl. “Not home. Anywhere but there.”

Jo studies the girl’s pleading eyes and decides she must take Grace to her studio. She turns to the laundry girl. “Listen, I need you to deliver a message. Grace, where is Finn?”

“He’s at Ada’s. Ada’s Dollhouse.”

“Ada’s Dollhouse?” Jo repeats, uncomprehending.

“Madame Ada?” the girl behind the counter asks and whistles. “In the Levee? I know where it is.”

A brothel in the Levee district. Jo isn’t sure what she was expecting to hear, but definitely not this. Mentally, Jo kicks herself. Of course he’s the type. But why is Grace so nonchalant about it? Jo doesn’t waste a moment as she pulls a silver dollar out of her pocket and pushes it toward the laundry girl. “Take this. And go to Madame Ada and find Finn. He’s tall, usually wears a dark wool jacket, and he has a snake tattoo on his right wrist. Tell him Jo has Grace, and he needs to come immediately.”

The girl pushes the dollar back at Jo. “He’s a Snake.”

“So?” Jo squints at the laundry girl, confused.

Suddenly, Jo remembers reading about a court case—something about the brothel business. A murder trial. An old judge was shot dead in a brothel. So much time has passed, and the memories are vague and smoggy. But there is one thing Jo remembers clearly. The name of the brothel mentioned in the newspaper—Ada’s Dollhouse.

The laundry girl glides around the counter and stops in front of Grace. “Zhang won’t like this.” She touches Grace’s hair softly, smoothing it away from her face. Grace’s eyes are closed, her chest slowly rising and falling with each of her shallow breaths. “She needs to go back to the den. We don’t want no trouble with the Snakes.”

Jo’s breathing quickens, but she wills herself to stay calm. She needs to get Grace out of this place and get her to the studio. “Go to Ada’s and fetch Finn. Trust me, he’ll be happy to help.” Jo angles herself between Grace and the girl, just in case the laundry girl foolishly tries to drag Grace back to the basement. “Take the dollar.”

The laundry girl tilts her head, her eyebrows drawing together as she examines Jo. “I’ll do it with no dollar.” She’s out of the laundry before Jo makes a foolish promise there’ll be no trouble with the Snakes.

Jo shrugs her coat off and drapes it around the girl’s shoulders. “We need to go, Grace.”

No response.

“Grace.” Jo takes the girl by her shoulders and gives her a light shake. “Wake up.” The girl’s mouth is slightly open, jaw relaxed, eyes tightly closed. Jo doesn’t want to do it, but she needs the girl conscious, and so she slaps her across the face.

“Stop it. Please. No more. I’ll be good,” Grace whimpers, and her eyes—feverish and dark like a sea—fly open. “You’re a photographer. Why are you here?”

Jo imagines a thousand different answers to explain why she is here. None of them would make sense to the girl. “Yes, it’s me. My name’s Jo. Can you walk? We need to get outside, get a hansom.”

“Why did you wake me?” Grace grabs Jo’s hand, her fingers digging into Jo’s skin. “I was talking to my sister.”

The words burn through Jo like a forest fire. “Talking about what?”

“Why, her murder, of course.”

Grace is lying on the sofa in Jo’s studio, her bloodless skin stretched taut over her bones. Her arms are atop the coverlet Jo brought down from her bedroom when the two of them stumbled into her apartment. Lightly, Jo touches Grace’s hands. They’re still cold, and the girl is shivering in her sleep. Hopefully, the coverlet—worn out by use but still functional—will chase away the chill. She smooths it over the sleeping girl.

Jo is so weary she collapses with a loud thud into a chair by her camera. Grace doesn’t stir at the sound.

How many people have sat on this settee? How many women? How many photos has Jo taken of them? Photography makes them all look the same: wide eyed, tense, dressed in their best outfits. The people who sat on this sofa before Grace have one thing in common: the absence of personality. Jo never manages to capture that. She’s much better with the dead.

A memory of a woman devastated by the death of her mother, who had died of old age, bubbles up to the top of Jo’s mind. The subject was severely emaciated and dehydrated due to a slow but steady shutdown of her body. Jo had to apply three layers of a liquid pearl powder, mixed with water and glycerin, to the woman’s face to cover her sores. She bound the subject’s jaw and hands to control the effects of stiffness. Developing the prints was tricky. August once showed her how to use colored pigments over a platinum print to get a slightly toned yet luminous portrait, and, following her instincts, Jo did just that. The woman’s daughter loved her mother’s portrait so much, she hung it on the wall in her dining room.

Jo sighs and shuffles her feet. Perhaps she should stop asking her live customers to smile and, instead, ask them to be themselves.

Where’s Finn? He should’ve been here by now. Time is a slippery concept when you’re expecting someone. Maybe the laundry girl didn’t find him. Maybe he’s preoccupied with someone else. Jo’s stomach hardens.

She looks out the window briefly, over the city’s noise and traffic, and then she turns and studies Grace. Her long neck, the position she’s lying in—half turned, her pale skin in stark contrast against the brown of the coverlet, the angle of her chin, the soft frame of her hair—and wonders if it would be appropriate to ask the girl to sit for her. There is something so broken, so haunted in Grace’s features, it’s like looking at her own reflection in the mirror.

The realization comes like a punch. Grace would make a great catalog girl.

In the beginning of their married life, August asked her to greet customers in his studio, showcase his work, prepare sitters for the camera by explaining how to sit and smile most naturally. Jo proved herself to be very good at it. She was friendly, more personable than down-to-business August, and people listened and followed her instructions. Later, she began to help with the photographs—she learned how to handle the chemicals, how to use developing trays in the darkroom, and how to retouch the finished photos. Quickly, she realized she was better than August at certain things—the technique of photography itself as well as people. Definitely people. Later, years later, Jo got her mind set on expansion. “We can grow our business,” she said one day. “I’ve read about advertising illustrations. I think there’s great potential in advertising. We can use female models—and you know I’m good with people—and instead of the cabinet-format prints, we should try new gelatin silver prints. We should talk to big retail stores like Marshall Field’s and see if we can sell our work there. What do you think?”