had your hand in the honeypot I’d never have laid a finger on the child.”
Erin took Tricia by the elbow, steered her to an empty cot. “Don’t worry about Joyce. She’s all talk. She’s just glad she’s not the new girl anymore.”
“I heard that,” Joyce called after them.
“Good,” Erin called back. “Now, drop those bags and let’s take care of your hair. You’ve really never had a dye job, a bleach job, anything?” Tricia shook her head. “That’s okay, it’s easy. You’ll see. I’ve done it lots of times. I wasn’t born this way.” She primped her copper-colored hair, let it fall. “Hey, Rita, you still got that L’Oreal stuff your sister sent you?”
Rita dug through a footlocker next to her cot, found a little container and brought it over. Her own hair was so blond it was practically silver, which made a strange combination, Tricia thought, with her dark complexion.
Rita laid one hand on Tricia’s arm. “It’s good, trust me. Just keep your eyes closed, ’cause this stuff really burns if it gets in them.”
Erin snatched the jar from Rita’s hand and hustled Tricia off through a doorway to a white-tiled office bathroom. “Thanks, beautiful,” Erin called over her shoulder.
The bathroom was large, too, with three sinks and three toilet stalls and, in the center, where a space had been cleared and pipes rerouted to supply them, a pair of bathtubs standing side by side on claw feet. There were also two devices Tricia couldn’t fathom, tall ceramic troughs mounted vertically on the wall, with flush handles at the top like toilets. Erin saw her staring. “Never mind about those, they’re for boys. And maybe Joyce, if she wants to try peeing standing up. Come over here.”
One of the showers was in use—they could hear the water going and someone soaping up behind the curtain. The other was empty and off. Erin turned the two knobs and a spray of water began. “Here, let’s get you out of that dress, this stuff’ll ruin it.”
Tricia hesitated, then began unbuttoning. She’d come to New York because it wasn’t Aberdeen, South Dakota, because it was a place where you might find yourself working for a nightclub full of Broadway stars and bandleaders with slicked-back hair, where you might room with a dozen girls you’d never met before and dye your hair blonde and dance for a living. And if you were going to come to New York good and proper, you had to leave Aberdeen at the doorstep once and for all.
She was in her brassiere and panties in no time, head held under the water, Erin roughly rinsing it, then patting it dry with a towel. While it dried, Erin stripped her own dress off, swapped it for an old robe she found hanging behind the door, and started mixing the bleach. Then she had Tricia sit down on a hassock beside one of the sinks and tilt her head forward.
“Close your eyes, honey, and don’t open ’em till I say so.” Erin started applying the bleach from the back of her head forward, daubing it on in little smears. From time to time she’d tilt Tricia’s head to one side or the other. She kept up a running monologue as she went. “...he’ll dock you fifty cents a night for rooming here, but that’s fair enough. Can’t get a room for that price anywhere in this town. You’re on your own for food, but nights you should be able to cadge some at the club and for breakfast there’s always Lester’s, where the rolls are fresh and he’ll throw in coffee for free if he likes how you look.”
“You think he’ll like me?” Tricia said.
“Like you? When we’re done, he’ll leave his wife for you.”
The bleach stung in a few places, just felt wet in others. It was strangely relaxing, though, to have someone working her way through your hair like this, and Tricia felt herself drifting off. She came to with a start when she heard the bathroom door fly open and slam against the wall.
“Hey, Erin,” a voice said, “I’m not here. Understand?” A
Tricia gasped, sat up, groped for the towel around her neck and used it to pat her eyes. Behind her, she heard a shower curtain pull to one side and the girl inside squealed, “Hey! What’s the big idea?”
“Sh,” the man said. “I’m not here, you didn’t see me.” Tricia heard him climb into the tub and then the curtain closed again.
“Who was that?” Tricia said, looking around, her eyes finally open and only stinging a little. “What’s going on?”
Outside, they heard another door slam open and one of the girls screamed. “You can’t come in here!”
“Where is he?” A different male voice, this one angry.
“Just put your head back down,” Erin said, “and keep your mouth shut.”
But Tricia didn’t. She watched as a broad-shouldered fellow in shirtsleeves bulled his way into the bathroom, trailing two of the girls behind him. He had a big, rectangular head with a buzz cut on top and craggy features. Looked about forty years old, with muscled forearms and clenched fists. Tricia stood up, held the towel draped inadequately in front of her. “Mister,” she said, and she could feel her heart racing in her chest as he came toward her, “you shouldn’t be in here. There are ladies present.”
“Ladies?” the man said. “Where? I see some dames, a skirt or two, maybe a doll. I don’t see any ladies.”
“Then you’re not looking very closely,” Tricia said. “Now kindly leave.”
“I’ll leave,
“There’s no one in here,” Erin said. “Just us dolls.”
The man wasn’t paying attention. With the flat of his hand, he was slapping open the toilet stalls one by one, revealing no one inside. He peeked behind the bathroom door, where Erin’s dress was hanging. Then he went up to the shower and yanked the curtain open.
The girl inside was dripping and naked. Her mouth dropped open and she ripped the curtain out of his hand, pulled it around her chest. With her other hand she slapped him across the face. It sounded like a gunshot but didn’t seem to faze him in the slightest.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the man said, not sounding sorry so much as baffled. His prey seemed to have vanished and he didn’t know how. He turned back to Tricia. “You’re telling me you didn’t see a man, a little shrimp of a guy, brown hair, about so tall—” he held up his hand well over Tricia’s head—“come in here in the past five minutes?”
“I didn’t see
He hesitated for a moment, seemed to be weighing a snappy comeback, but finally he just said, quietly, “You’re absolutely right, ma’am. My beef’s not with you. But if you see him,” and here some of the fire returned to his voice, “I want you to let him know I’m not done with him. He can’t imitate me and expect to get away with it. I’ll find him, and when I do he’ll be sorry he ever took me on in a fight. You tell him that!”
“And who should I tell him said it?” Tricia said.
“Who...?” He seemed affronted. “Just America’s best-selling writer, doll. Tell him that. He’ll know who.”
And with that the man walked out, with one last glance at the bevy of young women around him in various stages of undress.
The woman in the shower let go of the curtain, turned off the water. She then drew back one foot and planted a kick in something soft lying in the bottom of the tub. They could all hear the dull thump as it landed. “Up,” she said.
“Jesus, Milly,” a voice said from inside the tub, “it’s not enough that I’m half drowned down here? You have to kick me, too?”
She kicked him again. “Up.”
Tricia watched as a man sat up inside the claw-foot bathtub, draped one waterlogged arm over each side. His suit and shirt were completely soaked, and his hair was plastered down over his forehead. The woman sharing the tub with him, a handsome blonde who looked like she’d been born that way, had her arms crossed and one hip cocked. She didn’t seem the least bit bashful. What she seemed, mostly, was annoyed at having her shower interrupted.
The man climbed out of the tub, slipping a little on the pool of water that had collected on the floor beside it. He pulled his hair out of his eyes, shook some more water onto the floor, peeled off his jacket and dropped it in a
