Itd be hard for anyone, anywhere, to fail so spectacularly as that last batch of sailors.
Not all of them drowned.
Four out of five isnt anything to crow about.
I suppose not, maam. Marylin lowered her eyes and fiddled with her gloves. She didnt often wear gloves, given the heat and damp of the delta, but the elbow-length silk pair with tiny pearl buttons had been a gift from a customer, and hed requested specifically that she wear them tonight. Her hair was done up in a twisted set of plaits and set with an ostrich feather. The yellow dress she wore cost only half what the gloves did, but they complemented each other all the same.
Josephine vowed, Ill find someone else, and Ill show Mr. Mumler that Im right. Theyre going about that machine all wrong, I just know it. All I need is a pilot to prove it.
But you have to admit, the younger woman carefully ventured, it sounds strange, wanting an airman for a for whatever it is, there in the lake.
Sometimes a strangely shaped problem requires a strangely shaped solution, dear. So heres what well do for now: Tomorrow afternoon, you take one of the other girlsHazel or Ruthie, maybeand you go down to the airyard and keep your eyes open.
Open for what?
Anyone who isnt Southern or Texian. Look for foreigners who stand out from the usual crowdignore the English and the islanders, we dont want them. We want people who dont care about the war, and who arent taking sides. Tradesmen, merchants, or pirates.
I dont know about pirates, maam. They scare me, I dont mind saying.
Josephine said, Haineys a pirate, and Id trust him enough to employ him. Pirates come in different sorts like everybody else, and Ill settle for one if I have to. But dont worry. I wouldnt ask you to go down to the bay or barter with the Lafittes. If our situation turns out to call for a pirate, Ill go get one myself.
Thank you, maam.
Lets consider Barataria a last resort. We arent up to needing last resorts. Not yet. The craft is barely in working order, and Chester says itll be a few days before its dried out enough to try again. When it works, and when we have someone who can consistently operate it without drowning everyone inside it, then well move it. We have to get it to the Gulf, and well have to do it right the first time. We wont get a second chance.
No, maam, I dont expect we will, Marylin agreed. Then she changed the subject. Begging your pardon, maambut do you have the time?
The time? Oh, yes. Josephine reached into her front left pocket and retrieved a watch. It was an engineers design with a glass cutout in the cover, allowing her to see the hour at a glance. Its ten till eight. Dont worry, your meeting with Mr. Spring has not been compromisedthough, knowing him, hes already waiting downstairs.
I think he rather likes me, maam.
I expect he does. And with that in mind, be careful, Marylin.
Im
always careful.
You know what I mean.
She rose from her seat and asked, Is there anything else?
No, darling.
Therefore, with a quick check of her hair in the mirror by the door, Marylin Quantrill exited the office on the fourth floor of the building known officially as the Garden Court Boarding House for Ladies, and unofficially as Miss Earlys Place, home of Miss Earlys Girlies.
Josephine did not particularly care for the unofficial designation, but there wasnt much to be done about it now. A name with a rhyme sticks harder than sun-dried tar.
But quietly, bitterly, Josephine saw no logical reason why a woman in her forties should be referred to with the same address as a toddler, purely because shed never married. Furthermore, she employed no girlies. She took great pains to see to it that her ladies were precisely that: ladies, well informed and well educated. Her ladies could read and write French as well as English, and some of them spoke Spanish, too; they took instruction on manners, sewing, and cooking. They were young women, yes, but they were not frivolous children, and she hoped that they would have skills to support themselves upon leaving the Garden Court Boarding House.
All the Garden Court ladies were free women of color.
It was Josephines experience that men liked nothing better than variety, and that no two men shared precisely the same tastes. With that in mind, shed recruited fourteen women in a spectrum of skin tones, ranging from two very dark Caribbean natives to several lighter mixes like Marylin, who could have nearly passed for white. Josephine herself counted an eighth of her own ancestry from Africa, courtesy of a great-grandmother whod come to New Orleans aboard a ship called the Adelaide . At thirteen, her grandmother had been bought to serve as a maid, and at fourteen, shed birthed her first child, Josephines mother.
And so forth, and so on.
Josephine was tall and lean, with skin like tea stirred with milk. Her forehead was high and her lips were full, and although she looked her age, she wore all forty-two years with grace. It was true that in her maturity shed slipped from beautiful to merely pretty, but she anticipated another ten years before sliding down to the dreaded handsome.