Awake Unto Me (27 page)

“You can offer nothing to keep me here, Beth,” she said angrily. “You won’t be honest with me and tell me what’s wrong. You won’t touch me. You can barely look at me.”

“I can’t give you what you want. I can’t…do things with you. I’m sorry.”

“Do you think that’s all I want?” Kerry demanded. “Do you?”

Beth cried harder and put her hands over her eyes. She whispered, “You are the best and most loyal and loving person, and you have no idea about me.”

“Then tell me.”

“I can’t.”

“Tell me. I swear it will make no difference. If it does then I’ll tell you and I’ll go away and there will never be anything between us. If you don’t tell me why you can’t be my love, then I’ll leave you.” There it was. Kerry knew there would be no turning back now.
Roll the dice. Win or lose.

“I can’t. It will kill you. The shame would kill me.”

“Beth. How can anything about you be more horrible than what I already know? I know about Chinese girls just eleven years old made to be the toys of old men for money. Drug addicts who sell themselves for the opium and the men who would use their bodies. You know very well where I came from. My mother was a whore who died of an infection when she had me. My father was a criminal. He kidnapped and sold defenseless sailors like slaves. Is what you have to tell me really so much worse than that?”

Beth kept on crying, but it was clear she wouldn’t say anything more.

Kerry turned and left the bedroom, slamming the door behind her. Without a word, she walked past Addison and Laura, who sat in the living room. She took her coat from the rack and stomped out the front door. She’d be dammed if she’d spend another minute begging a woman to love her who wouldn’t even speak to her truthfully. She was tired of feeling like a top, spinning endlessly with nowhere to go.

*

Addison and Laura stared at the front door in surprise. Addison was genuinely concerned. Kerry hadn’t lost her temper like that since she’d first come to live with them.

“Whatever’s wrong, do you suppose?” he asked.

“I am sure it’s nothing,” Laura said airily. “Young women can be so moody.” She went back to her embroidery.

Addison was quiet and thoughtful for a moment but then jumped up abruptly and went upstairs.

Addison knocked softly on the door, but before Beth could say anything he opened it a crack and peeked in. “Beth, is something wrong? Kerry just left and it seems she was quite upset.”

Beth clearly tried to stem her crying and sound normal, but she failed miserably.

“No, nothing’s wrong, thank you.”

Addison drew a chair to the side of the bed and sat down. He touched her shoulder gently, handing her his kerchief. “I’m concerned. Kerry hasn’t left this way since she was newly here and had an upset with…” He was about to say with Laura, but thought better of it. “I see you’re distressed.” He made it a statement that invited a confession.

“It’s nothing. We had an argument. I’ll recover my composure soon. Thank you.”

He sat quietly looking at her for another moment. “As you wish, but please feel free to confide in me if you’re inclined.” He returned the chair to its corner. “I’ve become quite fond of you, and I think of Kerry as a daughter I never had. I hope you both know you can come to me with anything at all.”

He smiled gently at her, hoping she would take him up on his offer as he closed the door softly behind him, sighing as he heard Beth start weeping once again.

When Kerry walked through the door of the Grey Dog, she saw Sally at the bar. Her back was turned and she was chatting up a natty-looking gentleman standing next to her.

Sally had on a fine green damask frock and her face paint was perfect. She had an apparently happy grin on her face. Her long eyelashes lowered seductively as the gentleman said something to her. It was Leo who tapped her shoulder and pointed to Kerry, who stood a few feet away. Sally turned and rested her elbows on the bar. Her eyebrows went up.

“Well, look what the cat drug in. I knew you’d be back, girl. You finally tired of them swells, eh?”

“Yes, Sal, I believe I am. May I buy you a drink?”

“My good man, please give me a moment,” Sally said smoothly to the gentleman. He nodded, obediently turning back to the bar and calling on Leo for another drink.

Kerry took Sally’s elbow and steered her to a table. She was relieved, in a way. The familiar sights and sounds of the Barbary Coast washed over her. She was home.

Sally called over her shoulder, “Whiskey, Leo. A bottle of W.A. Lacey, if you please.” She named one of the better brands sold at the Grey Dog.

“I’m not really disposed to be nice to you after the last time you left me,” Sally said, looking at Kerry closely.

“I’m sorry about that, Sal. I was a lot younger then. I was stupid and didn’t know what I wanted.”

“Yeah. You’re all grown up now, I see.” Sally climbed into Kerry’s lap, wrapped her arms around her neck, and buried Kerry’s face in her cleavage. “You came back to me. I’ve missed you so, honey.”

“I’ve missed you too, Sal. More than I can say, but let me breathe a little, please.”

Sally frowned but she let Kerry loose. Kerry gently lifted her onto the other chair, and Leo slapped the bottle and two glasses on the table.

“Come on, Kerry-o. Let’s have us a drink.” Sally poured the whiskey to the top of the glasses. They picked them up and, smiling broadly, clinked them together. Kerry drained hers, coughed, and then grabbed Sally and gave her a long sloppy kiss.

Kerry broke their kiss and looked at Sally. She needed some diversion and here it was, such as it was. Sally had put on more than a little weight in the intervening years, and she looked tired.
Tired and ill used. But at least she wants me.

“Good to see you, Sal. I’ve been missing you too.”

*

Beth didn’t know how much time had passed. She usually knew exactly what action she would take next every moment of her life, without exception. Now she was immobilized and indecisive.
I don’t know what to do.

Beth’s head ached from crying and from despair. She sat up and took the glass of water by the bedside and drank it. It was warm and stale.
She’s out in the dark somewhere. She’s distraught.
Beth was suddenly afraid of something happening to Kerry.
At least I can go find her.
She went to the dresser, poured some water into the basin, and washed her face and tidied her hair. She ignored the puffy red swelling of her eyes and the paleness of her cheeks. It didn’t matter. Kerry mattered, and she had to find her.

She went downstairs and into the living room. Addison and Laura looked up as she entered.

“Addison? I fear that Kerry has gone off somewhere.” She bowed her head, but not before she glimpsed Laura’s triumphant expression and Addison’s sympathetic look.

“Well. When she’s had bad moments before, she has gone back to the Barbary Coast, where she grew up. Much like a homing pigeon.”

“And where exactly is that?” Beth asked.

“It’s down at the wharf, on Jackson Street. It’s very dangerous, though. It’s…You can’t go there yourself. I’ll take you.”

“No, Addison, thank you, but no. I must go by myself.” She lifted her chin. Laura was looking at her oddly.

“I see. Well, come to my office and I’ll write the address down for you.”

Once at his desk, he looked into a battered book. He wrote it out on a scrap of paper.

“The cable car will get you to within a few blocks. Beth, it’s a very rough neighborhood. A young woman alone…I should go with you.”

“I’ll be careful, I promise. Thank you for this.” She held up the scrap of paper.

“Yes. Please do try and get her to come home. It’s not a safe place for the reasons you think and for some reasons you may not know.”

“I do know, Addison. I know because she told me.” Addison looked at her closely and nodded and then did something that surprised her. He kissed her cheek. She pressed her lips together and nodded, squaring her shoulders as she left the house in search of the one person who might truly love her.

*

If Kerry squinted, she could see Sally standing at the bar. Sally was starting to look better than she had an hour before.
God, I can’t drink. I’m getting so drunk this ugly old whore is starting to look good to me.
She peered through the smoke of the saloon.
She must be ready to go. I think she said to wait for a half hour.
Kerry sighed.
I must be mad.

A half hour previously, Sally had once again been sitting in her lap and kissing her and whispering in her ear. Sally’s face hovered close to hers. Kerry could smell her—the odor of sweat and booze and cigarette smoke. Sally was sitting on her lap again and her legs were beginning to go numb. Kerry shuddered inwardly and stopped Sally’s babble with a kiss.

“Kerry, honey, I have to go. Don’t move. I’ll be back. Have another drink,” she added. “Just you wait for a little bit. I have to turn one more trick then I’m all yours, Kerry-o.”

“Just make sure you clean up good or I ain’t doing it with you,” Kerry mumbled.

“Oh, don’t worry, honey,” Sally crooned in her ear. “I’ll be fresh as a daisy. I can’t wait until we get together and I can feel your tongue in my cunt.” She slipped away and went back to the gentleman waiting at the bar. He grinned hugely and put an arm around her and called Leo for another drink.

Kerry wanted to be much drunker before even thinking about what she was going to do. She sat sipping the whiskey and thinking,
A half hour? I can’t really tell time.

I’m going to sleep with a fat, over-the-hill whore because I can’t have the woman I love. Well, it don’t make sense but there you are. Oh, Beth, and you think you’re not worthy of me.

Kerry sipped her whiskey.
I want to be drunk but not too drunk.
Not having Sally as a distraction was hard. She kept thinking of Beth. Beth dressed for work. Beth swimming in the pool at Sutro Baths. She pictured Beth asleep, her face at rest. She thought about how her breasts felt in that brief moment when she could finally touch them. She shook her head and rubbed her eyes.

She heard a voice. “Hey. You don’t look so good.” Kerry looked up. There was Minny, dressed up, painted, and regarding her seriously with a hand on her hip.

“Minny. Don’t tell me—”

“What do
you
think?” Minny’s voice was brittle and angry.

“I guess you’re working,” Kerry conceded tiredly.

“What are you doing here? You don’t live here no more.”

“I don’t know, to tell you the truth.”

“You came for Ma, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I suppose.” Kerry sat back in her chair and poured another glass of whiskey. “You don’t need to be a whore, Minny. You could do something else.” Kerry was feeling a little sentimental about her childhood friend.

“What else would I do?” Minny sounded a little sad now instead of angry.

“I don’t know.”

“I got to get back to work. You oughta leave, you don’t belong here no more.”

Kerry couldn’t read Minny’s tone. She could have been sympathetic or dismissive. It was hard to say. Kerry continued to drink and wait for Sally to transact her business. Her mind kept returning to Beth and her abrupt departure during their argument, and she was starting to regret it.

*

The trip downtown had taken far longer than Beth imagined it would, and that fed her anxiety. She got off the cable car near the Ferry Building and walked along the Embarcadero to the north. Within two blocks past the Ferry Building, she felt distinctly unsafe. The genteel passersby coming and going to and from on ferries gave way to slightly threatening figures. Men with glittering eyes leered and muttered at her. Groups of toughs drifted by and catcalled to her.

She held her head up with her eyes forward, clutched her handbag, and marched on. She stopped under a lamp to check the address. She shivered in the cold breeze blowing off the Bay. She asked someone for Jackson Street. It was two more blocks away. She wasn’t at all certain that she would find Kerry, let alone induce her to return home. She had no idea what she would say or how she would explain her predicament.

Finally, she made it to Jackson Street and peered into the Grey Dog. It was so crowded, smoky, and dark she had to wait for her eyes to adjust. She peered into the gloom for quite a while and was beginning to despair of ever finding Kerry. Then she spotted her at a table in the back, hunched over a bottle, her head drooping so low it was nearly on the table.

Beth smoothed her dress distractedly and squared her shoulders. She walked over to the table, feeling as though half the room was watching her.
It’s likely they never see a respectable-looking woman in this place.
She was nearly to the table when a plump, blond woman came out of nowhere and plopped down in the chair next to Kerry. Beth stopped. She watched as the woman scooted her chair close to Kerry and practically smothered her with kisses. Beth’s heart sank.
I let her go. She doesn’t know I’m here. I have to at least try. If she won’t come home with me, then so be it.