The Last Days of Dogtown (18 page)

Stanwood scowled but knew he’d do anything she asked. In the full light of day, Mrs. Stanley was older than he’d first thought, with fine lines around her eyes and blue veins starting to show on the backs of her hands. Still, he was dazzled by the straightness of her nose, the curl in her hair, the throaty pitch of her voice, the way she touched her finger to her lip as she considered her next move.

“Now,” said Mrs. Stanley, pointing to the door and tapping her foot.

“You do what she tells you,” he said to Molly and Sally as he hurried away.

“Help me with the trunks, ladies,” Mrs. Stanley said with a bland authority that quickly became the ruling force of their lives.

Within a week of her arrival, she had a door for “her” room and moved the girls into the front room, with blankets hung from the ceiling to separate their chamber from the parlor and kitchen. She got Stanwood to put glass in the windows and rehang the front door so it closed properly. One of her crates produced a few curtains and sheets enough for three beds. A sturdy table and two chairs appeared soon thereafter, and by Christmas she acquired a small chest of drawers and a real bedstead for her room.

All of this was paid for by whoring, though Mrs. Stanley was never heard to use the word. She behaved as though the three of them were merely women of reduced circumstances. “I myself am a widow,” she’d say, softly. “Lacking any family, I have been blessed by the charity of dear friends, gentlemen, all.”

No one ever learned her Christian name — not even Stanwood, who over time became familiar with every inch of her. No one ever called her anything but Mrs. Stanley for all her days in Dogtown. Sally never even called her that, managing to avoid using any form of address. “You there” was as much as she could squeeze out. With Molly, she referred to her as Beelzebub.

“What?”

“That’s the devil’s first name, don’t you know? I get the feeling she’s run away from something,” Sally said, with the glassy look that tipped Molly to the fact that Sally was having one of her visions.

“Well, there’s nowhere farther to run than this,” Molly said.

“I figure she kill’t a man.”

“Oh, Sal, you have murder on the brain.”

But Sally shook her head with conviction, and Molly felt the hairs at the back of her neck prickle. There was something icy and entirely calculating about Mrs. Stanley, which was as plain as the nose on her face. But men didn’t see past the flattery and fluttery glances that promised more than any woman could deliver, and they gladly paid her twice what it cost to have it off with Molly or Sally.

Mrs. Stanley led her customers to her tiny bedroom like she was showing them into a gilded drawing room, and she used the words “lady” and “gentleman” so often that Molly wondered if the old tart actually believed her own lies. She and Sally rolled their eyes when the bass groan, baritone howl, or tenor hoot issued from behind the door, where Mrs. Stanley made quick work of them. They stumbled out minutes later, faces still flushed, with boots, trousers, and coats in hand.

Few of her callers returned for a second visit. Sally said they didn’t come back because “Beelzebub” smelled so strongly of brimstone, but Molly said it was because her price was so high. Whatever they thought of her, Mrs. Stanley’s johns were satisfied enough to send plenty of others, so there was often meat on the table as well as sugar for tea, and even a banana when the madam had a hankering.

Mrs. Stanley spoke to Molly and Sally as though they were her servants. She expected them to do as they were told, and in return gave them her old shifts and dresses, which meant they were better dressed than either had ever been before. On cool, sunny days when she was inspired to go shopping, Mrs. Stanley insisted they attend her, and led the way with stately, measured steps, holding her head so high her hat seemed to float above her shoulders. Walking the Gloucester streets, she fixed a knowing half smile on her lips, which seemed an insult to any woman who recognized her and a greeting to any man, whether he’d made her acquaintance or not. Sally and Molly trailed behind her wide wake, huddled against each other, barely noticed.

They hated those excursions into town; Molly wilted under the glare of the women on the street. Sally couldn’t bear the smell of fish, which permeated the whole city. Mrs. Stanley made a show of paying for their shoes and buying an orange for them to share. This prompted the most forgiving souls in town to credit Mrs. Stanley for looking after the two simpleminded women.

One day, when Mrs. Stanley announced an outing to town, Sally claimed she had a headache, “something terrible,” and Molly begged to be left to take care of her. Mrs. Stanley considered: without them, there would be no need to buy a second orange and she might even get a cake for herself. “As you wish,” she said, and went on her own.

No sooner was she gone than Sally threw her arms around Molly and giggled.

“You’re not sick?”

“You are the most believingest girl,” Sally said. “Now, come over here and read me the papers.”

Tucked in a nest of clothes and blankets on the mattress, they leafed through cast-off newspapers and magazines, stopping at every advertisement for skin cream and kitchen soap, patent medicine and farm machinery. Sally could not believe that there were people stupid enough to think that Mrs. Philby’s milk tonic would remove freckles or that Hanson’s thresher would double the yield of a rocky field. “And them’s people smart enough to read!”

On the day of the feigned headache, Sally took the newspaper from Molly’s hands and kissed her on the mouth. Molly hugged her and kissed back, but when she felt the advance of Sally’s tongue, she was startled and drew back. There was a new slyness in Sally’s eyes, and something else, too. Longing. “My Mol,” she said, and kissed her nose.

Molly felt the rise and fall of Sally’s bosom through their shifts: her own breath quickened to match. Eyes locked, Sally took Molly’s face between her hands and began covering her eyes and cheeks with soft, running kisses, returning again to her lips.

“Are you game, my darling?”

Molly still had no idea what Sally was driving at.

“Didn’t you never make yourself, well, feel nice?” Sally whispered and reached under the covers, cupping Molly’s breasts, and lightly dancing her fingers over her belly and on down to her sex. Molly clamped her legs together and pulled away.

“It’s not like with them,” Sally promised. “It’s nice. Nice as kissing me.”

“Then let’s just kiss.”

Sally sighed and turned her back to Molly.

“Don’t be angry,” she begged. “I was just surprised is all. You know that I love you, don’t you?” Molly threw her arm over Sally’s side and pressed up against her, making spoons. Sally took Molly’s hand and kissed each finger.

“That’s my dearheart.” Molly sighed with relief.

“Shhhhh,” said Sally as she took her friend’s hand and led it back under the covers, under her shift, to her need.

Molly kept her eyes closed and let her friend do what she wanted. Feeling Sally pant and gasp, Molly felt an odd pressure between her legs, and an urgency to go somewhere, though she didn’t quite know where. Finally, Sally sighed, let go of her hand, and fell asleep.

Molly rolled to her back and stared up at the ceiling, happy and frightened and suddenly resolved. She didn’t know what to think about what they’d done, nor how to speak of it, but it had changed something between her and Sally, and she couldn’t remember when she’d been so happy. She would never again suggest that they leave the quiet of Dogtown for Portsmouth or anywhere else.

Molly dozed off, too, waking up to the sound of Mrs. Stanley’s return. She leapt to her feet, afraid that the madam would be able to tell that something had happened in her absence, terrified that she would send the two of them packing.

But Molly had no cause to worry. Mrs. Stanley paid little attention to anything that did not directly touch upon her own needs and comforts. Once Sammy left, Sally and Molly had the whole of the front room to themselves and looked forward to long winter nights when business was dead and they could bundle without fear of discovery, warm and content in each other’s arms. In truth, there was no one on earth who cared what Sally and Molly did, which suited them just fine.

Oliver Younger’s Heart

T
HE COURTSHIP
of Oliver Younger and Polly Boynton began on the day he brought John Stanwood to yank out two of Tammy’s rotten teeth. Oliver was fourteen at the time, and though he’d gotten his height, his voice was still changing and he was far too shy to look Polly square in the eye as she stood, half hidden, in the doorway of her father’s house.

She had retreated to Dogtown, planning to remain a widow the rest of her days, but Oliver’s visits seemed harmless and she appreciated having a little bit of company besides her father. He found a hundred reasons to stop “on his way” from one place to another, and he always brought her a gift: a bucket of clams, fistfuls of lilacs or bittersweet, or at least a few sticks of kindling.

While he was there, Oliver fixed broken clapboards, carried water, pulled weeds from the kitchen garden, and whittled a new walking stick for Mr. Wharf. In exchange for his help, Polly insisted upon washing and mending his clothes.

Sundays became their regular day together. Polly stopped walking to church so she could stay with her father, who claimed that his swollen knees would carry him no farther than Easter’s place. Oliver would appear midmorning — as clean and combed as he could manage — and drink a pot of tea with father and daughter. He would bring whatever news he had from Tammy or from town and then spend the better part of an hour while Mr. Wharf dissected the weather as though it might contain the secrets of the universe. “Rain this early is usually a good sign,” said Mr. Wharf and Oliver agreed heartily, though he didn’t quite know why that should be so.

Polly would prepare the Sunday meal while the men talked, serving apologies alongside the burned fish and gummy bread. Oliver protested that it was the most delicious food he’d ever tasted.

“No need to fib, son,” Wharf said, laughing. “Though it would all taste a fair sight better if we had something to drink.”

After living with Boynton, who had rarely been sober, Polly refused to permit any spirits in the house. So after dinner her father invariably pronounced himself “parched,” patted Polly’s cheek, shook hands with Oliver, and hobbled to Easter’s for refreshment. Oliver dried the dishes and lingered while Polly took out her sewing basket; her clever dressmaking earned enough to keep the last two Dogtown Wharfs fed and clothed.

Polly asked Oliver to read aloud from the Bible while she worked, gently guiding him over the words he’d never seen before and helping him to pronounce the impossible Israelite names. It took them two years to work their way through the scripture, both Old and New, and by the end Oliver was as fluent as Polly.

“Should we get another book?” she asked.

“I think we better start over on this one,” he said, trying to figure how they might skip right to the Song of Solomon, which did not seem at all pious to him but was a treat to share with Polly, who blushed all the way through it.

Reading wasn’t their only entertainment. Once Oliver’s voice found its bottom, Polly taught him all the hymns and lullabies she knew. One day, he offered up a sea shanty he’d heard at Easter’s, pruned a bit for decency. Polly was delighted. “What a wonderful gift.”

“I’d rather give you some ivory combs for your hair,” he said, thinking of the displays in the dry goods shops in Gloucester. “Or a silk paisley shawl.”

“But a song never wears out,” said Polly.

Oliver believed that was the wisest and sweetest thing he’d ever heard. Indeed, he thought Polly the cleverest and kindest girl who ever lived and agreed with everything she said. Or nearly. When she mentioned her longing to hear the pastor up in Sandy Bay, who was said to have a fine baritone voice, he grimaced and shrugged. He had never been inside a church and was sure that he’d do something stupid and prove himself a backwoods simpleton in front of Polly and the whole congregation. He knew he’d have to go to a church to marry Polly, but that would be worth it.