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Josephine has had her old vanity for as long as she can remember, pinched from the dressing room of an old girlfriend before the theatre kicked her out. Jo has always known when to lift her hems and rush long before the boot begins to loom, and it's not just down to reading her cards right. The future's written large all around, if a girl just knows where to look. Jo always reads faces and newspapers first.
It's not that the cards aren't useful. Add a pattern on chaos and you have a story, and stories are where people's lives are lived out.
Take Blanche, for example.
Blanche has not stirred since she fell asleep seven hours ago, and a good thing too. That spindly body needs a great deal of healing, and much paperwork can be carried out and silence bought in the space of seven hours. It's better that the girl doesn't have to deal with it.
Madame can't keep her on now, not with the story she's just lived through. That leaves her without a story about how to go on. If this was a play, she would likely kill herself, the virtuous girl having completed her task and avenged her sister, as she has no more moral point to make.
Jo never could resist a blank canvas.
-
'Ow.'
'Shh.'
'Please, just leave it for now, Jo.' Blanche's head falls on her arms, folded in front of her on the bedding, her shoulders heaving in a deep sigh. 'It doesn't hurt that much. I just want to go back to sleep.'
'Two more dabs and we're all done.' Jo applies the sterilized white cotton along the line of the deepest of the cuts, then folds the bandage back. 'There. You'd thank me if you'd ever had a really bad infection.'
'Like you ever did.' Blanche sits up and pulls a fresh white shirt on. 'But... thank you.'
'Not at all,' says Jo, remembering just how infected she was, once upon a time. Not that it matters. Now her skin smells of soap and amber, and her mouth tastes like strawberry wine.
-
'Madame will give you the best kind of recommendation you could wish for.'
They're standing in the hallway before a painting of the dancing Graces. The lamps are all lit tonight for the hasty re-opening. Blanche is blinking in the brightness. Jo wonders how long it's been since she's been outside.
'Recommendations from a whore house?' Blanche's face twists in a ghastly imitation of a grin. She's very plain in some ways. 'I've had offers.' She looks down at her hands.
'You do get a choice, you know,' Jo says. 'Not a lot of people do.'
'I can become a mistress, you mean.'
'Or an actress, or take some other venue available for ruined and dangerous women. You could even move into another city and get what they call a respectable job. I'm going to New York myself next week on the invitation of Monsieur Villerond. But New York is a filthy place.'
'They wouldn't care about my past, though, would they?'
'The American bourgeoisie? They wouldn't care that you were a whore, no, but that's only because they have already dismissed you as such just for being French. It is the same in London.'
'I'm sorry.' Blanche's face looks like a slip of white bone between the harsh slashes of her black hair, her eyes huge and dark. 'You must have it so much worse...'
'Don't be silly,' Jo murmurs. 'Let me show you a few tricks.'
'Do they involve wigs?'
Jo smiles. 'Maybe.'
-
'I present to you Blanche, the international woman of mystery.'
Blanche stares at herself in the brightly lit mirror, rich red hair flouncing around her head in an outrageous cut while Jo holds a slip of black, shimmering fabric to her. She can't help smiling. 'Do you think they'll hire me for a maid with that look?'
'Hmm. Maybe not.' Jo plucks the wig off her head and replaces it with one with long straight black hair that pools in Blanche's lap, and arranges a bow on top. 'How about the fresh young miss straight out of the schoolroom?'
Blanche laughs out right. 'I look twelve years old.'
'Not necessarily a bad thing. All right then, how about the innocent angel?'
Golden tresses flow around Blanche's head. As soon as they settle and her image appears in the mirror, her features softened by the curls, they both know it was a mistake.
Jo's smile vanishes and she straightens up, turning away. Blanche closes her eyes tight and tugs the wig off.
'I will get you a drink.' Jo vanishes into the darkness at the back of the chamber in a flurry of silks.
'I liked her,' Blanche says quietly. 'I really did.'
'I know, sweetheart,' Jo says as she places the drink on the table and sits down on the bench beside it.
'What will they do to her?'
'You don't want to be thinking about that now, honey.'
'I suppose I don't.' Blanche reaches for the drink, and puts it down again. 'It wasn't her fault, was it?'
Jo's mouth tightens. 'Nothing was ever little Miss Annette's fault.'
Blanche whirls around. 'Don't say things like that!' she shouts. 'It wasn't her fault! They did it! It was all their doing!'
'Shh, darling.' Jo puts her hands on Blanche's arms, then pulls Blanche to her in a tight embrace. 'Shh.'
-
'He will flirt with you,' Jo explains, 'but he will not touch you. You are my maid, and thus off limits - and in any case you are not to his very specific tastes, dear. Normally he'd probably pinch you once or twice on principle, but I've told him some select parts of your history. He'll keep clear.'
They're standing at the docks. The clanking of metal and the noise of the pipes is almost drowned out by the shouts and chatter of the people boarding the ocean liner. Monsieur Villerond already boarded some time ago, in full sight of his associates and his sweet young wife. He now paces the deck nervously while Josephine's trunks are being carried on board. Blanche can see his imposing top hat popping along the railing above.
'Do you really like these men?' Blanche asks.
'They are not as bad as you might think,' Jo says with a smile. 'It's hard to stay angry at a man who worships you.'
'I never found it so,' says Blanche.
-
Jo makes her way to her own cabin sometime after 3 am and is surprised to find the light still on in Blanche's little nook of it. 'Why, hello,' she calls. 'Still studying?'
'/I want to learn English,/' Blanche's voice says, and she pokes her head out from the little alcove that houses her bed. '/I want job in America./'
'So eager to leave my service?'
'It's not that.' Blanche turns away, her head disappearing.
Jo walks over and kneels beside her bed. Blanche is hunched up in the tight corner of her bed, a pencil behind her ear, a notebook and an English text book before her. 'You'll see how you like New York when we get there.'
'I won't come back to Paris with you.'
'Then I'll have to stay in New York.'
'You're kind, Jo.' Blanche looks like she's about to cry again.
Jo puts her hand on Blanche's, takes it up, strokes it. There's something stirring here, she realizes. Something dangerous. She touches Blanche's face.
'Jo?'
'Shh.'
-
The knocking on the door is becoming more insistent. 'It's Monsieur Villerond,' Blanche gasps.
It's midday already, but the curtains are drawn over the small round cabin window, leaving the room mostly in darkness. Blanche's neck is an interplay of white and grey, her flushed face seeming colorless as it turns towards the light.
'He'll give up soon,' says Jo, while her body jerks backwards, tearing a groan out of her throat.
-
'You'll leave me.'
'No, sweetheart.'
'You will do.'
'Only if you leave me first.'
'You're lying. Or you're suggesting one thing and meaning another. You always leave sooner or later. It's who you are.'
'Sweetheart.'
'It's okay. I get it.'
'I love you.'
'I know.'
-
The cold wind tears at Blanche's coat and her ankles are beginning to ache by the time she finally spots Jo through the tiny dining room window set on the promenade wall. Monsieur Villerond is leading her to the dance floor. She is all grace in her gown of orange silk, outshining every spangled flower turning about on the floor.
Blanche just wanted one look, and she slips away from the window, satisfied.
-
'They're not just wigs, are they?' Blanche asks.
'No, they're not.'
'You put one on and you become someone else.'
'It's a question of finding the code,' Jo explains as she watches herself critically in the mirror, adjusting her walking suit. 'The viewer will do the rest.'
'But you're still you, all along.'
Jo grins at her, a wide smile she rarely indulges in, her eyes twinkling. 'And that's the trick.'
-
'I understand now why you didn't like Annette,' Blanche says, her fingers gripping the rail.
'Do you?' Jo pulls her furs closer around her. The chill doesn't suit her, and her eyes are already watering from the stinging wind.
'Because she just let it all happen.'
'Sometimes you don't get a very good chance to begin with. I do understand that.'
'She fought in the end, though, did you know?'
'Did she?'
'For... for me.'
Blanche is shivering now in her simple overcoat. Jo opens her own fur coat in invitation. Blanche scurries over, her thin arms reaching around Jo as Jo folds the furs around the two of them.
They stand like that while the breeze parts the mists, rolling the clouds away from the out-thrust arm of Liberty.