Mark Dunn - We Five

“Mags, you can be such a bitch. Yes, I’m serious. As it so happens, he’s already said he wants to see me again. Without his entourage. And I said yes.”

Maggie’s bead-eyed stare said she still didn’t believe her.

“You’ll just have to make do with Jerry or nobody at all,” said Jane, now in a full-fledged huff. “I’m sure he don’t act like that much of an asshole when his buddies aren’t around. He’s just a showoff, is all.”

“He makes my flesh crawl.”

“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, but that’s the breaks, Mags. You’re very pretty. You can have anybody you want — I mean, if you actually opened yourself up to possibilities. It ain’t my fault you haven’t put yourself out there.”

“I don’t like any of the boys in Bellevenue. They talk like hicks and have dirt under their fingernails.”

“Then, honey, you should go someplace else. Especially now that your mother and Molly’s father are gettin’ married and you don’t have to look after her no more.”

Maggie nodded. “I just might. Even though you’ll all miss me. At least I hope you’ll all miss me.”

Jane reached over and pulled Maggie to her so the two could hug. “Of course we’ll miss you. You know how much we love you.”

“If you really loved me, you’d let me have Tommy and you can take Jerry.”

“He won’t want me. I’m ugly, remember? Besides which, he makes my skin crawl too.” Jane pulled back so she could brush a strand of hair from her friend’s eyes. “Honey, just get yourself through tonight. It’ll all be over real quick.”

Maggie appreciated the thought, even though she didn’t say so. She forced herself to smile in a way that didn’t look forced. “I hope you and Carrie and Molly don’t schedule your three weddings too close together. The ‘always a bridesmaid’ thing — well, it’s gonna get very old for me very fast.”

“You funny lady,” said Jane, imitating the impatiently indulgent immigrant waitress at the Chinese restaurant We Five sometimes went to in Bellevenue. “ Now what you ordah ?”

No. Maggie couldn’t talk to her mother about any of this. She let her sleep. Maggie got ready for bed, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to turn off her brain. Was there a little something there — between Jerry and her? A little something about that gauche, foulmouthed, all-but-certainly racist and anti-Semitic and xenophobic Jerry Castle that redeemed him just the teensiest little bit? Maybe he had a secret life in which he nuzzled kittens and puppies, and took meals to shut-ins and taught Sunday school to five-year-olds when nobody was looking. Maybe he was a good lover, or at the very least a good kisser. Of course, Maggie lost her chance to find that out when she’d refused to let him even walk her to her front door.

She wished he’d acted just a little bit disappointed over the brush-off.

At around this time Ruth was also lying awake in bed and thinking. She was wondering if she wanted to see Cain again. Although she had said yes to his suggestion that the two of them get together the next week when they were both off work at the same time, still she wondered. He’d made it fairly clear it wouldn’t be a date. They would just go for coffee somewhere and talk without all the noise that made conversation so difficult in the blues club.

Still …

There was a new combination bookstore/coffeehouse on the square in Bellevenue she’d been wanting to visit. Bellevenue, with its antebellum courthouse, quaint post-bellum shops, Victorian-era frame houses and stately antiquarian oak trees, had a certain Southern charm to it that hadn’t been entirely erased by the arrival of all the new casinos and fancy destination-hotels down the road. Movie companies liked Bellevenue. Several films had recently been shot there. But also recently, the native Mississippi residents who called the town home had come to want some of the same things other American towns — not so “local-colorful,” and much more hip and progressive — were enjoying. Like combination bookstore/coffeehouses where you could sit and sip tea while flipping through the latest issue of your favorite magazine.

But if there was a chance this was a ploy by Cain to get his romantic foot in the door, it wasn’t going to work. Ruth didn’t want a serious relationship with Cain, or any man for that matter.

In spite of this, Ruth liked Cain. He was bright and aridly funny and nothing at all like his buddies. But she liked him as a potential friend. Eventually, she’d have to let him know this.

Ruth didn’t know that at that very moment, Cain Pardlow was lying awake thinking the very same thing, in spite of the bet. In spite of Will’s threat to expose him — to tell what he’d walked in on in the men’s room at the casino. Cain didn’t really care whether he lost the casino job or not, but he didn’t want it to get out there — to screw up his admission to law school, to find its way to his father’s ears, to the ears of all the people his father worked with as district attorney in Cottondale. Isaiah Pardlow didn’t need a scandal like this right after announcing his decision to run for another term.

Cain had been with girls before. He could be with Ruth in that way if he had to, but he’d certainly be leading her on, lying to her while compromising himself.

Cain, like Ruth, had had a nice time that evening. Unfortunately, he was now back to feeling like shit.

Tulleford, England, August 1859

Mrs. Colthurst sighed contentedly. “It is done. And I commend each of you for your care and diligence in completing the task. The gowns are quite beautiful and Mrs. Cuthwaite will be most pleased. I warrant the five charming Misses Cuthwaite, when transformed by our singular creations, will catch the appreciative eye of every eligible young man at the Starlight Ball.”

Mrs. Colthurst’s five seamstresses, situated behind their five identical worktables, looked equally proud and rather satisfied with themselves. However, none seemed more pleased with the accomplishment than Jane and Ruth, who had toiled at Mrs. Colthurst’s side long past the setting of the previous workday sun. It was not required that the gowns be delivered to Mrs. Cuthwaite until Saturday morning, but Mrs. Colthurst, sensing interest from her best customer in the work of a different seamstress — one who had recently opened her own shop in Warrington only five miles away — thought it would be to her advantage to complete the job one day early in an attempt to secure the wealthy woman’s continuing favour and patronage.

“Jane and Ruth were so very helpful to me, that I must charge you , Maggie, with the task of delivering the finished gowns to Mrs. Cuthwaite. I’ve arranged for Bob, the hostler at South Haven Inn, to come along at half past ten to take you in Mr. Lincoln’s fly. At the same time, Molly, I will ask you to take Mrs. Dowell the frock I’ve just mended for her. She isn’t far, as you know. I’m certain you’ll manage sufficiently by dint of your own two good legs.”

“Without doubt,” said Molly with a compliant nod.

“Carrie is the lucky one today, but in no time at all I’m sure I’ll have something for you to do, my dear, to even the ledger with your diligent circle-sisters.” Mrs. Colthurst looked about the room, nodding complacently. “Now this is how a business should be run — each contributing a part to make a success of the whole. It is as if each of us was a different leg of the hard-working dung beetle, who pushes his dung ball hither and thither in happy and productive industry.”