A/N: Guess who doesn't own the beautifully tragic souls? Joseph Moncure March and Michael John LaChiusa own all canon characters. Harper Greene-angel and the cameo landlord belong to me. The section in italics is in Nadine's POV.
Going hesitantly through the doors of the theater, Oscar saw the baby grand on the side of the stage, half-covered by the moth-eaten grand drape. Phil had put his money on the floor beside him. From the chest up he was immersed in the piano's inner workings, tuning here and fiddling there and adjusting this and that. He had a very distracted, scientific air about him, an attitude musicians adopted to govern their emotions and their awe.
Phil did not want to seem impressed with the piano. It was the best they could ever afford and more, but in truth, not the best they deserved. Phil was looking for flaws, reasons to complain, but when he began to play in earnest he would forgive every one of them. The money he put down was half the asking price.
"Won't go any lower." The landlord warned, but he turned away, ready to come back with a better offer. Phil slid out from under the piano.
"Hey there." Oscar bent down, nudged him.
"Hey." Phil said it softly. He put a hand behind Oscar's head and kissed him, rapidly, on the cheek. "Didn't expect to see you here."
"Likewise. You should sleep once in awhile." He put out a hand to pull him up. Phil pushed it aside. "Cold."
"Not here."
Oscar changed the subject. "She's nice."
"He's asking three hundred."
Oscar reached out a hand, stroked the surface. Phil gave him a hard, disapproving look. He was nervous. Tense. "Dusty." Oscar muttered, excusing himself. He looked down.
"Bad out of tune." Phil told him.
"Doesn't matter. We could do two."
"Don't let on." He warned. In actuality, they couldn't. Half of the money he had beside him on the woodwork he'd gotten from Jackie the night before. The other half he'd stolen.
Oscar shrugged. "What's your offer?"
"One-fifty." His lover made a noncommittal noise in his throat. "Listen, though, there's good news. We've got an offer for tomorrow night.
"Joe's?"
"Nah, somewhere new. Shiva put it a good word for us." He'd never seen Phil trying so hard not to look excited. There was a strangled light around him, in his eyes and in his hands as he worked to tune the piano, which was slow to yield. Each new instrument was a new love affair. The two of them understood this, accepted it.
"We're moving up."
"Yeah." He smiled down at the keys. "Yeah, baby, we're moving up." His hands trembled a little. He was going to see Jackie later that night. They didn't need charity. He'd see. They were headed for the lights.
The landlord came back, briskly, clapping his hands together, "You have to go. No sale today." Broken English, eyes down, imitating contempt.
"What changed your mind?" Oscar asked. Phil waved him aside. He wanted no questions asked. The man's eyes narrowed as they turned to go. Phil, though he could prove nothing, left the theater in high temper.
***
I'd held my breath that whole morning. Mae had Harper Greene-angel come over for coffee and they'd poured gin into the icebox, waited for it to chill, then put their heads under the surface of the melted ice, drenching their hair with it, their makeup running, the two women laughing in that grating, echoing way that reminded me of rocks dropped into a manhole or a dark cavern, hitting the ground with a sickening crash that lets you know just how far you stand to fall…Then all of a sudden Mae was standing, paper in hand, waving the stifling air onto her face, beckoning the man in the doorway.
"Boyfriend!" Mae called, "Tell me good news, babydoll?"
"4th and Broadway, girlfriend." He obliged.
"Tonight?"
"Sure. Eddie!"
"I'll tell him, honey." Mae took his arm and yanked him toward the icebox. Then, as Eddie came out, "Hey, Champ, care to do the honors?" They forced his head into the gin and sweating ice, all three of them together. Oscar came up spluttering it, in his eyes, in his throat, in his hair, Eddie's arm round his neck. Mae, soaked to the skin down to her shoulders, kissed him then, and laughed. He jerked away. "Aww, doll, I'm just playing with ya." She protested, "All in good fun, yeah?"
"Yeah." There was nothing he could do to get her back. If he'd knelt down and got her by the arms and shoved her back into the icebox she'd never get the irony of it all. She'd drown in the gin and never think twice. I squatted down next to the ice, the air was still and we'd been complaining about the heat all morning. But Harper was pointing at me now.
"Hey, kid." She said to me. It was cruel in its own right. She knew my name, and chose not to use it. "Had your first taste of victory yet?" I didn't answer.
"Cat got your tongue, sweetie?"
Harper turned back to Mae. "Her parents taught her 'little girls ought to be seen and not heard', didn't they, Na-di-a?" Clearly annunciating each syllable. She whispered in Mae's ear. Mae gave another hateful, appreciative laugh.
It had taken me the better part of eight months to realize I hated her. I'm sure it's wrong, somewhere in the law that's supposed to be engraved on the hearts of all good men and all good girls. That's how they talked to us in my school. To the nuns, we were and would always be girls. First and foremost. I didn't want to be a good girl anymore, I thought. I wanted to live.
"Get her head under." Harper was saying, black eyes on mine, laughing, and Mae was on me too, yanking my arm up my back, while Harper moved like lightning to get my hair. "I christen thee in the name of Dionysis the great and all-knowing. Drink, fuck, and be merry."
The gin was vaguely sweet, laced with the salt of sweat and soap. But it burned on the way down, that much I remember. It was only a few seconds before Oscar made them let me up.
"You bitch!" I gasped it out with a shallow breath, aiming it for Harper because it had been her idea, and because there would be no consequences from her. And the silence rang.
"Your sister's lacking manners, Mae."
"Now, Na-di-a," Mae said slowly, mimicking whatever insult Harper had given her for ammunition. "I know you didn't mean to insult my friend."
"I know you didn't mean to insult me." Mirrored Harper, "You want us to put you back in? Give us a slap when you want to take it back?"
"Lay off." Oscar told Mae, quietly. It was remarkable how her stare burned. How she looked for fuel for a deep-curled lip and that martyred look in her eyes. I would never pity her, no matter what she said about our mother and father.
Mae seemed to decide I wasn't worth it. She got up from her knees, a few unapologetic, deeply shameful tears in her stockings. "Coming to Queenie's tonight?" She asked her friend.
"Can't." said Harper, clean and cold once more. "Suzanne's got a show. Isaac's laid up."
"What with?"
"He's a man. Who knows."
Oscar pushed my hair off my face.
"Y'okay?"
"I wish she would go drown herself." I whispered to him. He nodded.
"We're playing tonight, doll." He told me, "Think you'll really like it. Maybe if you come a little early you can help us practice." He was joking, of course. What was strange is no one ever expected that I wouldn't go. It was taken as a matter of course that I was coming with them, that I would be thrilled. And God save me, I was.
***
"You gotta wait on Madeleine, Dine." Eddie told her, cuffing her cheek. "I don't know jack about this sorta thing." Legs crossed, still in her black day dress, she lay back on the bed. Madeleine was coming over. They'd made up, so to speak, and like most men, quickly forgot it had ever been otherwise.
"Get in, ya sad excuse for livin'. Jesus, Champ, you'd drink me under the table. Swear, you put me to shame." Madeleine had seized him by the collar, pulled him inside. He hadn't been terribly drunk. Just enough to be introspective, and sorry.
"I ain't really gonna shoot ya, Mad." He'd caught her face in his hands and given her a kiss.
"And I ain't really gonna shoot your wife." She'd ducked away from him. "Take it easy, jackass. I know."
"I wanna help you, Mad."
"I know, honey."
"Swear it two times?"
"Swear it two times."
He'd offered to fuck her, if she really wanted what she said she wanted. She'd given him a strange, sad laugh. "Sally wouldn't like it."
"She back?"
"Yessir. Found her in the dressing room."
"When?"
"Two nights ago." He'd told her about Queenie's party. She was coming. She hesitated a minute, then said. "I'm taking her with me, what you think?"
Now her voice rang through the doorway. Mae was already outside, yelling that she'd leave without them. Madeleine clapped Eddie on the shoulder. "Hey, angel." Madeleine slid down behind her. She twirled her finger for Eddie to turn his back, lifted the girl out of the black dress, took a corset out of her own. It was, likewise, jet-black. Not structured, fitted like the iron maidens of decades past, but soft, like lingerie.
Nadine sat up, prim and stock still, like a mannequin, while Madeleine laced her up. Nadine barely felt it. "I've gone numb." She whispered.
"Just breathe." She put her hands over the girl's eyes, started to croon softly in her ear. "There's nothin' wrong with wherever you came from, that one night in Manhattan wouldn't cure…"
"So give me just one more night in the city of lights, 'cause I've never felt half as glamorous…"
"Half as sure." Madeleine picked her up by the arms and tossed her to the floor. "The night is yours for the taking, my dear." She stole a dress from Mae's closet, a calico wrap from her thinner years, black flowers sealing the middle, circling the waist like vines. Not particularly flattering, but the only thing that might fit her. Mae's lips went white at the sight of it, but there wasn't anything she could say.
"What will they want from me?" she mused, as they walked, down through the slums, watching the numbers lessen in refinement, grow in potency.
"Whatever you're willing to give." Madeleine was vaguely serious. "Remember what I told you, baby. Now go on, I'll meet you there. I'll talk you through the smooth-talking once we get there. 'Cause let me tell you, angel, there's a big difference between doing something and talking about it. If there's anyone there who really can make you a star, you'll hear about it from me."
"Really?"
"Trust me." She turned back to her apartment, with a slightly resigned look on her face. Sally would not have changed, would not have shot up, would not have known how. She might have reconsidered bringing her, but for the fear of what she might do without her, alone but for the nightmares.
Mae, who'd been ignoring the girl the rest of the day, turned now to watch Madeleine and Eddie hang by her apartment door. She turned to her sister, hard flint eyes and smile.
"You don't know what you're getting into. Never been fucked by a man, have you, little girl?" Nadine kept walking, turning into a right-hand circle as she waited for Eddie to return. "Never even been kissed, have you?"
"Have so." She held out her arms to balance on the curb.
It was almost true. The day she turned thirteen her father had held a piano recital for her, showing her off was his only way of showing pride. A group of boys from the city next door had come, and as they left, Ishmael, eighteen then, had taken her just behind their house, and gotten on one knee. 'Marry me?' he'd asked her, jokingly, and she'd jokingly told him, 'Of course.' He'd kissed her, gently, a peck on the lips only. 'Don't tell.' He'd laughed, and disappeared.
She didn't tell any of this to Mae, of course, for she knew what she'd meant. A rutting kiss, violent with passion, punctuation to the sex. Mae saw the vague, white lie. "Never been wanted like we have…" she began. There was a certain whiplash to her insults now. She began to wonder. But-
"Shut up." Her sister told her, clearly, calmly. Mae seized her arm as she kept walking.
"You'll get yourself run over."
"Like you care." Nadine murmured. Mae turned her loose.
"It'll happen." She whispered, softly, stung. "Soon. Short and bittersweet, it'll happen." Her words scared her, but then Eddie was back with them, hand at the back of Nadine's neck, leading her gently. She remembered Madeleine's words: The night is yours for the taking…
She was almost brave enough to step around Eddie and slap Mae across the face. Almost, but not quite.
Secondary A/N: This section gets us up to canon. The next (and last) chapter describes the aftermath of Queenie's party, at which Nadine is raped by one of the guests. (See After Midnight Dies for a more complete explanation).