Page 94 of If Looks Could Kill
I stared at her. “Miss Stella did that?”
“Creepy,” observed Mike.
“Miss Stella is off her rocker,” Cora said. “It was terrifying. Her snakes hissing while she wailed for Pearl.” She shivered. “She heard something she thought might be Pearl, and hurried off to investigate it, or I don’t know how we would’ve dressed and gotten away. We had to get out of there before she… took it out on us.”
I glanced at Mike. He’d certainly heard the “snakes hissing” bit.
“Are you sure Pearl’s not still there?” I asked. “Could she have been in another room?”
Freyda glared at me. “I’m as sure Pearl’s not in there as I’m sureyouweren’t in there.”
“Tabitha was trying to help,” Cora said in a low voice.
“Trying, nothing,” Freyda snapped. “You saw her with…” She wagged a dismissive hand in Mike’s direction. “Withthat. That’s what this was about.”
“She’sonlytried to help.” Mike looked down. “I took a liberty. It was wrong of me.”
I looked away. Did he regret kissing me?
“Well,” said Freyda, heavy with sarcasm, “that’s a way to describe… I was going to say my week, but let’s just say forever,” she said. “Men taking liberties they do not deserve.”
The girls’ ill-shod feet shifted from side to side on the brittle, frozen mud of the street.
“What about you, Cora?” I asked her. “Would you like to come to my home? It’s a three- or four-hour train ride. Would you like to get away? Leave the city far behind?”
Cora shook her head. “I’ll stay with Freyda,” she said, “but thanks all the same.”
Just breathe, I told myself. They’re angry, they’re hurt, and they’re afraid.
“Where will you go tonight?” I asked Freyda. “Home to your family?”
Freyda folded her arms across her chest. “No,” she said. “I’ve got a friend who’ll let us in. The two of us. Me and Cora.” She swallowed. “My friend doesn’t have room for more.”
“Is it close by?” I asked her.
She shook her head.
“Mike,” I said, “is there any way to find a cab at this hour?”
He set down the suitcases. “There should be,” he said. “Let me try.”
Freyda groaned. “I can’t afford a cab, Tabitha.”
“Let us take you there,” I told her. “Make sure you get there safely.”
Mike found us a cab, then bundled all of us, plus suitcases, inside. Cora and Freyda leaned against each other on the leather seat. Mike sat beside me, keeping a cautious distance.
We reached the friend’s tenement shortly after a set of distant church bells chimed the hour of midnight. Freyda and Cora went inside. A moment later, Freyda stuck her head out and waved us away. She had found her friend. I saw extra lights come on in a second-story window and a stocky young male figure pulling curtains closed.
Mike spoke to the cabdriver, and we moved on.
“What happens now?” Mike asked me.
The utter impossibility of knowing anything made me want to cry.
“I need to find Pearl,” I told him.
The lonely whistle of an overnight train clanking atop the Third Avenue El keened above.
