Michelle Hoover - Bottomland

“Phsst,” I said.

The baker gave me a wink. “That’s right. I can’t tell you how many of the boys felt the same. A bunch of them companies went to New York. In this neighborhood you’ll find textiles more like, garments. What’s that you’re looking for?”

But I didn’t want to give an answer, not for them. Myrle had taken the magazine and rolled it as fine as she could. Bowing her head, she tucked the magazine into her bag.

“Aren’t you girls a little young to be wandering?” John asked. “This side of town specially.”

“Maybe not,” I said.

“This one?” He pointed at my sister with his chin. “She can’t be more than what, thirteen?”

“She’s none of your business.”

“Listen,” the baker started. “You two don’t want to be around here in an hour. Those whistles go and it’s another place altogether. Some of those factory men, they don’t care how young you are.”

Myrle sat up, her eyes filling.

“You don’t got a place, do you?” John asked. I shrugged. He turned to the baker. “Who’s your aunt that runs the boardinghouse?”

The baker wiped his hands. “This time a year, I’m sure she’s full up.”

“Is she?”

“You can try her. Place is on Wells, the North Side. You have to cross the river again. The door is in the alley. You know the North Side?”

“They don’t know nothing,” John said.

“Geez. What can I do about that?” The baker went behind his counter again and came back with a stack of cards smeared with butter and flour. He looked through them, spitting on his finger when they stuck. “Listen, the North Side is thataway.” He pointed out the window. “And Wells is almost straight up. But you got to take the alley behind Huron to find the door. The number’s on the card. And it’s Mrs. Keyes you want. She’s my aunt.”

“Is that Mary Keyes, Ed?” John asked.

The baker waved a hand at him. “They don’t need to know. Just Keyes. She’s got the boardinghouse. But I’d head there fast. She closes her door soon after those whistles go, sometimes even earlier if the girls are all in, and then you’ll never get her.”

John reached into his pocket, took his wallet out. “Here now, I’ll pay for those cups you’ve got.”

I left a quarter on the table instead.

The alley was full of stink and weeds, dark with shadows. At last, a door as clean as a whitewashed fence showed against the brick. At our knock, a woman opened the door an inch. She was wide and pasty-faced, dressed for bed. “Yes?”

“We’re here for a room.”

“It’s awfully late.” She yawned. “What are you two doing out this time of night?”

I pointed at her sign. rooms for let by the month. “We can pay.” I handed her the baker’s card.

She wrinkled her nose as she dusted it off. “Ed, that old dog. Well, hurry yourselves in. Either that or I’ll catch my death.” She opened the door. A set of chairs crowded the hall, a rack with a dozen coats or more, bundled with scarves, and a line of shoes, all of them small and worn. Still, the socks in most had lace tops. Girls, I thought.

The woman lit the lamp in the front room and sat with a sigh, her hips tight between the arms of the chair and her thighs fat as muttons. We sat on the sofa across from her, hands in our laps. The room had a mother in it, every inch. Plain and scrubbed. A needlepoint over the fire grate in blue and white stitching. Code of the Boardinghouse Keeper . In the corner, a stand of pipes banged for dear life. Myrle gripped my hand.

“You must be farm girls,” the woman said. “Those pipes always scare them. But they’re just for heat. What good they do. The name’s Keyes. Keyes with an extra e —no jokes about it. The board is twenty a month, includes breakfast, dinner, and laundry every other week. More and you pay fifty cents a wash, but no proper girl I know needs more than that. We keep on time here for meals, no running in last minute. No leftovers either. We’re a proper board, rules and all. You’ll have to share a room of course, and the lavatory’s down the hall. Bathing is on Sundays, behind the kitchen. I’ll need your papers for starters.”

“Papers?”

“I assume you have work in one of the factories.”

A girl came running down the stairs. She wore her hair combed short above her ears, a blue dress that showed her calves, and shoes like slippers. “Isabelle,” Mrs. Keyes snapped. “It’s almost curfew.” Isabelle let out a huff and was out the door. Keyes stretched her neck, looking after her. With a quick turn of her head, she remembered us.

“Work?” she asked.

Myrle opened her mouth. “We just started,” I hurried in.

“Because I only let rooms for the workers. This isn’t a flophouse. It doesn’t do for just a night, not even a week. We expect long-term. There aren’t so many of us boarding houses left. ” Something caught in her throat. Her eyes teared and she slapped her chest. “Your papers?” she coughed.

I opened my bag, rustled through the blouses and skirts.

“What’s wrong with this one?” Mrs. Keyes asked. “Doesn’t she talk?”

I elbowed Myrle, but she was near to a fit. “Just shy.”

“And exhausted by the look of it, pale too. That girl needs iron if I ever saw one.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I went back to my ruffling.

Mrs. Keyes yawned again. “If it’s so much fuss. ” Her eyes were closing. She blinked and opened them. “I suppose since it was Ed who sent you, you can show me your papers in the morning. It’s much too late as it is. You’re lucky. A girl left this morning. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have opened the door. In bed with my tea, I would’ve been. And that would’ve been a lesson to you, wouldn’t it?”

Mrs. Keyes put a finger to her lips, and we climbed the stairs, her bottom so wide I couldn’t see a thing. On the second floor she stopped at a door like all the others and held out her hand. I counted a night’s worth of rent, then a week’s when she clicked her tongue. “Wake up is five a.m.,” she whispered. “You’ll hear a knock. If you need more than that, you’ve got bigger problems than you think.”

When she left, I opened the door. Even in the dark, the room looked no bigger than a stall. A single bed and a desk, a sink in the corner, and a closet large enough for five hangers and a pair of shoes, but just. The pipes banged out little heat, the floor like stones. Myrle lit the lamp and threw herself still dressed under the sheets. I counted it out: Ten nights we could afford. Never thought that pile of fives and tens could go so quick. But we wouldn’t tell Keyes we couldn’t pay the month. Across the room, a mirror showed me in my boots and coat. They were slick with dust, as if Keyes couldn’t guess what we did and didn’t have. I stripped to the skin. In that mirror, I had never seen so much of myself. The pipes kicked up a storm. Myrle quiet under the sheets. But I was naked as I wanted to be and open in the open air, spinning one way and the next to feel that air on my skin. The mirror had me straight as a board, nothing in front to fill out those dresses in magazines. I pinched my chest. Still every day could be different. Even mirrors knew that.

“Esther. ”

I spun around, my arms to my chest. Myrle sat with her hands over her ears.

“It’s only the pipes,” I said.

“Sounds like someone’s under the floor trying to get in.”

“It’s nothing.”

She sank against her pillow, scratching at her hand again. “We could send a letter home, tell them about Mrs. Keyes.”

“We can’t write letters.”

“But won’t they worry?”

“You want them to come get us? And Tom Elliot too, after his money.”