#micahs-kitty

All we’d need to do is get rid of whatever these are, Lawrence Overton had said, waving dismissively towards the threadbare little cabins clustered around the town’s hot springs. And we could build a health resort right over the waters. They’re very big right now with the New York bourgeois, you know — with the right timing and a generous amount of funding, why… Strawberry could become the next Las Vegas!

The cabins were demolished, and in their place the sleek new bathhouses had sprung up almost overnight, like mushrooms from the soil. And from what you can see, it seems like they’ve done a damn good job of attracting their intended clientele.

Strawberry’s main road is crowded with a curious mix of salt-of-the-earth type locals and New York gentry. Lace parasols and bags of potatoes slung over shoulders in equal measure. The saloons down the street boast cheap liquor and clean rooms, while the more respectable establishments 200 ft away advertise nightly soirees and deluxe suites.

The town is still in an awkward adolescence. And like all unruly teenagers, it has developed its own set of unique problems, each of which seems to center completely on its own growth. A spate of thefts, unsurprisingly. Class tensions. Barroom brawls. And grifters and gamblers and every other unsavory character that trails after the scent of money like wolves to a fresh kill.

“It’s really quite frightful,” the girl beside you sighs. The disdain in her voice doesn’t match the youthful, delighted excitement in her blue eyes. “Just yesterday, Mr Humboldt was stabbed in broad daylight. Right in front of the butcher’s stand.”

The other women gathered at the Occidental Hotel’s refreshment table give pretty, practiced gasps of horror, murmuring low, delicate renditions of “oh, how awful”.

“Perhaps someone mistook him for a pig,” snickers Evie, raising her flute of champagne to her lips. The old woman had told you her name a few minutes prior, when you’d lent her your arm to help her hobble from the stairs to the ballroom. “I know I would have.”

“Mrs Steelwell!” the blue-eyed girl chides. Her mouth is twitching. She’s trying very hard to keep from smiling. “That is quite improper —”

“It’ll be a cold day in hell before I find anything positive to say about Robert Humboldt.”

“You’d do well to express at least a little sympathy.” A woman with an unfortunate pinched expression says coolly. Her green dress shimmers with the lustre of real silk. “From what I’ve heard, the things that happen to his detractors are… hardly fit to talk about in polite company.”

Blue Eyes’s mouth flattens to a straight line when she realizes Green Dress has no intention of sharing any gruesome details. Since she’s too polite to press on, you do it for her.

“Who exactly is this Robert Humboldt fellow, anyway?” you ask.

“Only one of the biggest crooks in New York,” Evie replies.

“You mean one of its biggest benefactors,” Green Dress interrupts in a sharp, biting voice.

“You’ve heard of Tammany Hall, surely?” A woman wearing a ruby brooch inquires.

You’d like to punch yourself in the face. There’s not a surer sign of revealing yourself as an outsider than not recognizing the dominating political machine in New York.

“Vaguely,” you counter. “My apologies, ladies. I’ve spent so much time in San Francisco that eastern politics have simply become too much for me to keep up with.”

Suspicions momentarily allayed, Ruby Brooch takes pity. “He’s a politician. A highly effective one.” She glances around the room before continuing. “He’s very popular with the working class. Especially those with ties to certain organizations who use… unconventional methods to profit.”

You can read behind the lines well enough. Some fancy New York politician with mob ties has been stabbed. His guards are pissed and highly aggressive. Security in the area’s training their eyes on any and all violent activity. Which means they’ll be less focused on nonviolent crime, at least for the immediate future.

Blue Eyes has perked up again, having sniffed out the possibility of the salacious. You decide to give her a little something to chew on. “Organizations whose methods involve creative new uses for crowbars and thumbtacks, I’m supposing?”

“Very creative,” Evie says with a mischievous, conspiratorial grin. “Though their real artistic talent lies in their novel interpretations of exactly how many fingers a human hand should have —”

“Why don’t we talk about something else for a little while?” Sapphire Bracelet interrupts, nervous-eyed as a spring hare.

“Oh yes, let’s.” Blue Eyes says. Her smile is bright and hungry, her appetite clearly not yet sated. “Word is that there are thieves all over the place now.”

The other women warm to the topic, eager to have something to discuss that doesn’t involve grievous bodily injury.

“Mrs Calder told me she had her necklace stolen off her in the middle of the street. Someone undid the clasp and took it just like that,” Blue Eyes snaps her fingers. “Said she never even felt it.”

Green Dress tsks loudly. She raises her head with the air of someone preparing to give a particularly moralizing lecture. “Well, I don’t know what she was expecting, going out into the street like that. Some of these women are practically begging to be robbed. Olympia Vanderbilt won’t even step foot outside her room without her mink stole and her bloody diamond earrings. Oh no, it wouldn’t do for her to be seen in anything other than her finest, lest the rest of us mistake her for a commoner—”

It’s very clearly a subject Green Dress feels strongly about, and has probably expounded upon more than once at this point. Her voice is so loud as she condemns the vanity of Mrs Vanderbilt (“a mortal sin,” she specifies) that one of the other women has to intervene.

“Have you perhaps considered,” Sapphire Bracelet cuts in. “That to Olympia Vanderbilt, having a single mink stole and a set of diamond earrings stolen is the equivalent of losing a handkerchief?”

“If she can stand to lose so much, then I won’t feel any pity for her at all when someone finally cleans out her safe,” Green Dress snaps.

“I’ve always maintained that it’s foolish to bring anything you’re not prepared to lose when travelling,” Evie says, frowning. “But it’s not just jewelry that goes missing. To think that someone would stoop so low as to take an old woman’s hair pins and cigarette case…”

As her sentence trails off, she shifts her gaze in your direction. Her tone of voice and facial expression remain mild as ever, but her eyes are sharp and knowing. Lucid and sly as foxes’ eyes.

This morning, you’d picked up those very two items from an unlocked room on the second floor. You swallow hard, then say quietly, “It must have been a very desperate thief.”

At this, Evie seems to soften a little. “Well, they’re just things after all. Things can always be replaced.”

You feel as though you’ve just been chastised by your mother. Embarrassed, you try to nudge the conversation in a different direction. “At any rate, this town could certainly do with some better security. I would very much like to stay unstabbed for the duration of my stay here.”

“Oh, I don’t think you’ll need to worry about that, given the state of your husband,” Evie chuckles.

You glance at the poker table. Arthur is losing at cards, if the look on his face is anything to be judged by. He seems to be having a heated argument with one of the other waistcoated men sat there, looking for all the world like an angry falcon stooped among a clutch of chickens.

“Which one is he?” Blue Eyes asks.

“The one who looks like he’s about to turn the table over. Blue waistcoat.”

Ruby Brooch’s mouth hangs open. “Him? The big one?”

“That’s him.”

“Thought he was one of Humboldt’s hired thugs,” Green Dress whispers, cupping her hand to her mouth and whispering (loudly) in Sapphire Bracelet’s ear.

The other women crane their necks to get a better look at him. As if on cue, the man sitting beside Arthur scrapes his own chair backwards and gets to his feet, then throws his glove on the table. He shouts something you can’t make out over the ambient murmur of the crowd and motions furiously at the cards on the table.

Don’t do it. You concentrate hard on the words, as though doing so will mentally project them into his head. Don’t hit him. If you hit him, I’ll push you in the fucking river on the way back.

Arthur stands up. Slow and casual, with the corner of his mouth pulled up in a condescending smile. His shirt is stretched tight against his broad chest, its sleeves rolled up to showcase his thick forearms. The other man, though perhaps only an inch or two shorter than him in all actuality, now seems very small. He sits down meekly.

“Is this your man’s usual way of handling conflict?” Ruby Brooch is looking him over with a wary, critical eye.

“No,” you answer truthfully. “Usually involves fisticuffs, if I’m to be honest.”

“He hits you?” Sapphire Bracelet asks, horrified.

“What? No, not at all — he’s never been rough with me in the slightest.” A small, conspiratorial smile crosses your lips. “Except for when it matters.”

The women’s reactions vary from scandalized to titillated. Either way, you’ve got their full attention.

“You know how it is with those boys in the oil business. Rough and tumble types, mostly. And it shows.” You nod in the direction of the poker table. In a low voice, you continue. “He might not be quite as refined as some of the other gentlemen here, but as you can see he’s certainly more… substantial than your average man.”

Evie laughs, and Ruby Brooch surprises you by snickering and sneaking in an underhanded comment about her own husband, who is apparently away on business. “Perhaps you might introduce me to some of Mr Callahan’s colleagues,” she says. “My Louis is very interested in oil, and I was thinking I might do him the favor of… let’s say, ‘exploring’ the topic in his absence.”

Blue Eyes slyly asks you to expand on exactly what you mean by “rough”. Green Dress shakes her head and makes an offended noise, but makes no move to remove herself from the table.

This is both your favorite and most hated part of the whole charade. It gives you free rein to confess every dirty thought you’ve ever had about the man, consolidating all the wistful scraps of impossible hope into something deliciously vicarious. And yet it always feels a little pathetic in hindsight, listening to yourself weave with obvious pleasure a comprehensive and fully thought-out fiction of you and he as a married couple.

“Well,” you say. “This is about the extent of his gentility you’re witnessing here. He tends to throw decorum by the wayside — which I don’t mind at all. There’s something thrilling in being with a man who knows exactly what he wants, and isn’t at all shy about taking it.”

“I believe manhandled is the word you’re looking for, Mrs Callahan,” Sapphire bracelet quips with a conspiratorial giggle.

“You know how a rancher carries sheep? He’ll pick the animal up around the waist and throw it over his shoulder just like that—” you mimic the motion. “Then goes ahead and hauls it wherever he wants. Before I met him, I had no idea. But since then… well. It’s become a practice I’ve become rather familiar with.”

“So you’re telling us your husband handles you like livestock,” Green Dress sniffs. “I’d say that’s hardly desirable.”

“No, what I’m telling you is that my husband’s lived his whole life working with his hands. And I’d say he’s still very talented with them.”

A man’s voice cuts in from behind you, low and amused. “Talented how, exactly?”

You sputter. Mortified beyond belief, you turn your head and stare dumbly at your purported husband. Arthur looks down at you with raised eyebrows and an intensely smug smile. Caught you, is its unspoken message. In the now inconsequential backdrop of the refreshment table, the women titter like powdered parakeets.

“Sorry to break up the party, ladies,” Arthur says apologetically. He lays a large hand on the slope of your shoulder and you blush so hard that every drop of blood in your body seems to rush into your cheeks at once. “The missus and I have some ‘private matters’ we need to discuss.”

“Oh, by all means,” Ruby Brooch says. “Sorry to hold her up, Mr Callahan.”

“Here’s to a productive discussion,” Sapphire Bracelet smirks, toasting you.

“Just a moment, Mrs Callahan,” Evie says. “Might we have a word?”

“Oh yes,” Blue Eyes says with a mischievous little grin. “And in the meantime, I’m sure Mr Callahan can keep us all occupied.”

Warily, you follow the old woman through the ballroom’s french double-doors to its courtyard. She leads you towards a secluded corner framed by a potted cypress and states in a matter-of-fact tone, “Olympia Vanderbilt’s in room 106. She tends to stay out quite late, and I’m reasonably sure that tonight is no exception.”

“Why are you telling me this?” you ask, nonplussed. Frowning, you follow up, “Is this some kind of set up?”

“No, not at all,” the old woman chuckles. “If I’d wanted you to get caught, I’d have called security the moment I’d spotted you slipping out of my window and onto the balcony this morning. I was taking my 9AM constitution here in the courtyard,” she goes on to explain, eyes twinkling. “And there’s an excellent view of the second floor from the bench by the fountain.”

“I am sorry, ma’am.” Sheepishly, you lower your gaze and bite your lip. “If… If I’d known they were yours, I’d have--”

“You’d have still taken them, I’m sure. It’s alright, my dear. I can very well afford it. But you seem like an enterprising young woman, and I’d expect that you have much higher aspirations than an old woman’s toiletries.” Evie’s smile is warm. She speaks to you as indulgently as she would to a favored grandchild. “And what better time than the present, while Mrs Vanderbilt finds herself quite embroiled in a scandal of her own?”

“Scandal?” you frown. “What scandal?”

“The one I’m about to cause right now,” Evie says sweetly.

When the both of you re-enter the ballroom, Evie immediately begins hobbling towards a red-haired woman wearing a mink stole trimmed in black ermine. “Why Olympia,” she says loudly. “What a pleasure to see you! And this must be…” Evie turns to the nattily dressed gentleman whose arm the woman has linked with her own. “Mr Fairfax! Forgive me Olympia, my memory really is starting to go. This whole time I’d remembered you as a Vanderbilt, but that can’t be right, can it?”

The ensuing murmur Evie’s statement sparks is more akin to a stage-whispered roar than anything else. Olympia’s face is purple with rage, and she responds to the accusation with a furious barrage of indignation.

Evie winks at you. You acknowledge her with a friendly wave of farewell, then slip your way between the clustered gawkers and gossips beginning to make their pilgrimage towards what promises to be the main spectacle of this evening’s entertainment.

When you return to the refreshment table to retrieve Arthur, you find the women cooing over him indulgently as he tells a very inappropriate story about a pig farm he’d stumbled upon in Aberdeen. Green Dress in particular is redder than a cherry tomato, no doubt turning your earlier claim over and over in her head as she stares at the man’s hands.

“And the moment I heard the phrase ‘our parents’, I froze in my seat and started starin’ from one of ‘em to the other --”

“I am fairly sure,” you interrupt, tugging urgently at his sleeve. “That this is not a tale fit for our present company. I do apologize, ladies. Mr Callahan sometimes misplaces his manners when he’s had too much to drink.”

“Forgive me, ladies,” he says, addressing the women with an apologetic smile. He leans his arm on the table and pulls himself out of the spindly wooden chair you’d occupied earlier. The chair creaks as he leaves it, seemingly a wooden sigh of relief. “Lost myself there and forgot that Mrs Callahan prefers I keep that particular trait restricted for her personal use only.”

You stare at him with your mouth open and your eyes wide with incredulity. Sapphire Bracelet lets out an undignified bark of laughter. Green Dress somehow manages to flush an even deeper shade of crimson.

“Perhaps Mrs Callahan should learn to share,” Ruby Brooch teases, giggling like a schoolgirl.

“Well, I for one quite enjoyed Mr Callahan’s story,” Blue Eyes says. She sits with both elbows on the table, holding her head in her hands with a dreamy smile on her lips. “And I’d say the two of you are welcome back anytime. That was more fun than I’ve had in ages.”

As you depart with Arthur for room 106, you briefly stop and speak to the receptionist.

“Excuse me,” you say. You lay a silver cigarette case and three pearl hairpins on the counter. “I believe Evie Steelwell dropped these on her way to the ballroom. Will you make sure she gets them back? I believe she’s in room 205.”

“I will indeed,” the man says, slotting the items in a small box. He slides it into a cubbyhole on the wall.