Page 62 of If Looks Could Kill
“I saw nightgowns in the armoire,” I told her.
I let myself out of the room.
Tabitha—Nellie Bly(Sunday, December 2, 1888)
At times like these—are there, in fact, times like these?—you take stock of your situation.
I could never go back to the Salvation Army. My roommate was a monster. We had a murderous Bowery madam and her armed pimps after us. I had no answers and no plan. We sat in the cobwebby room of a total stranger, herself another monster.
On the other hand, by a miracle, I had found Pearl and somehow gotten her out. If I hadn’t found her when I did, she’d be dead by now. Chopped in pieces, and worse. Her head, her Medusa head, would in all likelihood have ended up the star exhibit at a Bowery dime museum. Bought on the criminal market. Preserved in a jar. My little Salvation Army girl companion. Violated. Brutalized. Mutilated like those poor women in London.
I kept these thoughts to myself as I helped Cora and Freyda dust and air out their bedroom. I made sure to recover Mike’s coat and mine in the process. Now Cora was having a bath, and Freyda was shaking out a yellowed nightdress she’d found in a trunk.
I poked my nose back into the room Pearl occupied. She lay quietlyunder the covers, breathing steadily. Thank God. Sleep would do her good, especially after such a day as this.
I returned to the other bedroom and found Freyda clad in the ancient nightgown, seated on the edge of a bed, watching her toes trace lines in the Persian rug.
I sat down beside her and wrapped an arm around her.
“You look like you’re an actress in a historical tableau,” I told her. “A Revolutionary War ghost, perhaps.”
She plucked at the yellowed gown. “Make me something more interesting,” she said. “A banshee. No. A woman wailing for her demon lover.”
Demon lover! I would not tell a living soul how my thoughts flitted to Mike just then.
“Made you blush, didn’t I?” observed Freyda.
She nestled her head against my collarbone. Poor Mike was freezing outside, but after all Freyda had suffered, and for our rescue project, no less, I couldn’t leave her comfortless now.
“You know something?” she said. “The whole time I was there, I thought, ‘Now I’ve done it. There’s nobody who knows where I am. Nobody who’ll ever find me.’?”
Freyda’s fears had been more correct than I liked to admit. I’d only found her because I’d gone looking for Pearl, who’d gone looking for Cora.
“I would lie in bed and pray, ‘Please, God, send those Salvation Army girls to find me.’?” She choked out a bit of a laugh. “I haven’t prayed in years. Haven’t been much of a believer in anything.” She took a slow breath. “Funny how appealing belief becomes when you have nowhere else to turn.”
“Why pray for us to find you,” I asked her, “and not your family or close friends?”
She shrugged. “You were the only ones who could possibly guess where I was. But first, you’d have to notice me missing.” She wiped her eyes on her yellowed sleeve. “And that’s what’s so astonishing. You did.”
I pressed my eyes shut. “Not soon enough.”
Freyda had no words for a time.
“I’m so sorry that we ever involved you in this,” I told her. “I never meant for you to—”
She pulled back from me in some alarm.
“Don’t,” she said. “I made my own choice.”
“But you never would have thought of it if we hadn’t planted the idea,” I insisted. “You proved to be a much more faithful rescuer than either of us.”
Freyda seemed lost in thought for a spell.
“I was inspired by what you wanted to do,” she said at length. “I have to live with my choice,” she added, “but I made it. Nobody else but me.” She paused. “That’s hard enough without me having to comfort you in your own hand-wringing about it too.”
It wasn’t a slap. There was no anger in her words. But it felt like running into a brick wall. She was right. Once again, the very deeds I thought were nice or kind had more to do with me than another. Had I always lived in such a bubble of complacency and self-deceit?
I shook myself. Never mind me and my petty remorse. I had to think of Freyda.
