Bitter Spirits Part 14

Sook-Yin held her chin high. "I am one of Ju's honored women. These girls"-she gestured to the girls taking her measurements-"are wh.o.r.es. They are lower than me. They have no choices. Ju tells them to work in the factory, they work. Ju tells them to work in the bed, they work. But I have choices-I can say no, and I earn more money. Do you understand?"

"You're a concubine."

"Yes, you could call me that. I only choose the best men. Winter was one of my favorites."

Aida studied Sook-Yin, seeing her in a different light. She was pretty, her figure slim. It was hard to tell her age, but she was fairly certain the woman was many years older than her. Maybe older than Winter. Aida's stomach knotted painfully. She worried she might be sick. "Were you in love with him?"

Sook-Yin laughed. "No, but he was very kind. I always liked to make him smile. I could see he was ugly after accident, and Ju warned me that he was angry and sad, but he smiled for me. I made him forget about his wife."

"Which wife?" Aida said carefully.

"First wife. She died. You know." Sook-Yin used her finger to make a slash over her eye. "Accident."

Aida tried to swallow and failed. Her mouth was dry as dust. "His parents . . ."

"Yes," Sook-Yin said. "Mother, father, first wife. All together in automobile with Winter. All dead but him. Very sad. Last year, Winter began coming to see me. I made him forget about dead wife."

Understanding hit Aida like a punch to the stomach. The "other" house that Bo had moved into with Winter-the house that Mrs. Beecham had brought up at the seance. The one Winter had clammed up about. It belonged to him and his dead wife.

She felt sick and confused.

"Did they have children?" Aida dared to ask.

"No children. First time I saw wife was three years ago, before accident. She was very sad. Sick and frail. Unhappy. Too serious. Not a good match for a big man like Winter. But I watched you at the dining table." She nodded toward the front of the house. "You are much better match."

"We aren't a match," Aida said weakly. "It is only a business arrangement."

"Like me?"

"No," Aida said angrily. "Not like you at all."

Sook-Yin didn't ask any more questions, and Aida was ashamed to have snapped at her. Didn't she herself hate when people turned their nose up at her profession? What made her think that she was any better than someone like Sook-Yin?

When they finished, Sook-Yin led her back into the courtyard, where the boys were joking and talking boisterously. She glanced at Winter and felt a tumble of conflicting emotions. Anger. Pity. Hurt. Disappointment. When he lifted his face to smile at her, she turned away.

"Which silk?" Sook-Yin asked, poking her shoulder. She pointed to the bolts of fabric.

Aida couldn't have possibly cared less. She didn't want the gown. She just wanted to get out of that house and go back to her room at Golden Lotus, as far away from here as she could get.

"Red is pretty but would not look good with your freckles."

"It doesn't matter," Aida answered. Why didn't he tell me any of this? Why? A fresh wave of anger and hurt renewed itself inside her constricted chest.

"What about yellow, like mine?" Sook-Yin gestured to her own gown.

"No," Winter said unexpectedly behind Aida's head, making her jump. "Use that." He pointed to an oyster color, softer than gold, darker than cream, with a hint of gray.

"The very best silk from China," Ju said, joining the discussion. "Magnusson has excellent taste. A peac.o.c.k feather design embroidered on silk means royalty and beauty. A very good choice for you."

Aida stared at the fabric until her sight blurred. Standing in a room with Winter's wh.o.r.e, she thought. How utterly delightful. She had to get out of there, or she'd cause a scene and embarra.s.s herself.

She glared at Winter, defiant and bitter. "I'll take the yellow."

FOURTEEN.

AS SOON AS AIDA SLID INTO THE BACKSEAT OF WINTER'S CAR, HE rolled up the privacy window and lowered the shade.

"What's wrong?"

"Oh, gee, nothing at all. What would be wrong?"

Winter s.h.i.+fted, stretching his legs. He removed his hat, scratched his head. Put his hat back on. Took it off again.

Oh, he knew. Of course he knew.

"I mean, what could Sook-Yin and I have possibly talked about?" Aida said, crossing her legs. "The weather? Poetry? Politics? Oh, wait. I know. How about the fact that she's a prost.i.tute, and you're her favorite customer?"

"s.h.i.+t."

"Yes, s.h.i.+t. That's what I thought, too, especially when she was going on about how she could make you smile-"

"Aida-"

"So there are others? This is routine for you?"

He groaned in angry frustration. "This is not routine. Sook-Yin was the only one."

Was that worse or better? Aida honestly didn't know. "She did brag about how special she was and seemed to know you quite well. She even asked me if I was the 'new wife,' because apparently there's an old wife that n.o.body told me about."

Winter said nothing. Just stared ahead at the canvas shade as the car began rolling out of Ju's garage.

"Were you ever going to tell me?"

"She's dead," he said without looking at her. "There's nothing to tell."

Aida rocked her foot and opened the side shade to stare outside. "I asked you about the house and you growled at me," she said in a much calmer voice than she thought she was capable of at that moment. "You could've told me. I told you things about me. I've told you secrets about my job-about the lancet. About my plans for the future. How many lovers I've had. I told you all these things, and you couldn't be bothered-"

"This is a business relations.h.i.+p. I am paying you to do a job."

Her mouth fell open. "Then why was your hand up my skirt yesterday?"

"You attacked me!"

"I did not!"

He narrowed his eyes.

"Okay, maybe I did attack you a little bit," she said in frustration. "But I'll tell you what. It's one or the other. Either you pay me and I advise you about spiritual matters, or you don't. Because if you think I'm going to take money from you when you're kissing me and holding me, you can think again. I'm not a wh.o.r.e."

"I've never thought of you that way," he said in a low, angry voice. "Never."

"You don't have to think of me in any way at all. Why would you? I'm just a low-cla.s.s spirit medium you picked up in a speakeasy."

"My father was an immigrant fisherman. I make my living by breaking the law. If you're low-cla.s.s, so am I, and-Jesus, Aida."

She swiped below her eyes. "These are angry tears, not sad tears. I'm not crying over you. How could I cry over someone I don't even know?"

The question hung in the air for a moment before he spoke again. "Just because I haven't told you my life's story doesn't mean you don't know me."

"I don't know you as well as Sook-Yin, apparently. You could have at least warned me before you took me there."

"I haven't seen her for months. I told Ju I didn't want her there today-I told him."

She stared out the window. "It was humiliating."

"I don't know what to say."

"Me, either." She tugged the ta.s.sel of the privacy shade and lifted it. Wide-eyed, Bo stared back at her in the rearview mirror. She looked away.

Winter pulled the shade down. "I was lonely. Is that what you want to hear? I'm not proud of it. But in case you haven't noticed, I'm not exactly prime husband material."

"Boo-hoo, you have a scar. You're easily the most handsome man I've ever met in my life, and you're rich and influential. If you'd stop scowling and quit being so d.a.m.n defensive-"

He stuck a finger in front of her face. "You can't begin to imagine what I've been through. I lost everything in one day. Everything."

A wave of pity crashed over her, subduing her indignant anger. She couldn't bear to look at him. "I'm not judging you about Sook-Yin. I'm just hurt that you didn't tell me about any of it. About your wife."

"I don't like to talk about her."

"It's fine. You don't owe me anything. I made a.s.sumptions I shouldn't have."

She raised the shade.

They sat in silence for several seconds. He lowered the shade again.

"All right. I'll tell you everything. What do you want to know?"

"I . . . I want to know about your wife."

He hesitated. "Her name was Paulina. Her family was from n.o.b Hill. Lost their fortune after the earthquake. My mother encouraged the marriage to distract me from getting caught up in the bootlegging with my father. She thought it would bring us a certain status that the money alone didn't. We were married for a year."

Aida waited for more. It was slow to come.

"The summer of 1925, when one of Paulina's relatives invited us to a charity dinner at the Elks Club, my parents accompanied us. My father's mental health was not stable. He was having manic episodes when he wasn't himself."

Oh . . . Ju's comment about Winter having all his marbles. Aida didn't know what to say.

"He'd been seeing a doctor for several months. During the charity dinner, he went through one of his fits and caused a scene. Embarra.s.sed Paulina. We left the dinner in a rush, to get him home and call the doctor. He was screaming in the backseat. Paulina was arguing with my mother, telling her that my father's fits were caused by the devil, or some such nonsense. And I was trying to calm everyone down. I accidently jerked the wheel as a streetcar was turning a corner."

Aida made a small noise.

"One second of distraction. That's all it took. One second, and I killed three people. It was my fault."

"You can't believe that," she whispered.

"People have told me that again and again, so why do I still feel guilty?"

"Oh, Winter."

"I'm not looking for pity. Just don't tell me that my life is all champagne and caviar, because it d.a.m.n well isn't."

He tugged on the shade to lift it once more, and they spent the remainder of the ride in silence. As they pulled up to her building, she said, "Maybe it's not a good idea that I work for you anymore." When he didn't answer, she exited the car.

"Aida!" he called after her. As he stepped onto the sidewalk, a woman with an unruly toddler pa.s.sed. The child, attempting to escape her mother's grip, twirled around and looked up at Winter. The tiny girl wasn't even the height of his knees, and Aida could only imagine what he looked like in her eyes: an angry giant towering above her. But it wasn't just his size. The girl saw something Aida didn't notice anymore: his mismatched eyes and scar. She screamed b.l.o.o.d.y murder and ran to the shelter of her mother's legs, sobbing in terror.

Winter's face fell.

Ever loyal, Bo lurched from the car, shouting in Cantonese at the woman, motioning for her to take her crying daughter away. Protecting the monster from the child.

Aida's throat tightened as her own eyes welled with tears. She took one last look at Winter and walked away in the opposite direction from the crying girl, more depressed than she'd been in years.

With one hand on the open car door, Winter stared out over the black roof of the Pierce-Arrow, watching Aida retreat inside Golden Lotus. He slammed his fist against the car frame. Pain shot up his wrist. He angrily threw his hat into the street.

"I take it she found out about Sook-Yin," Bo said as his gaze tracked the hat.

"And Sook-Yin told her about Paulina."

Bo whistled. "You probably should've told her that yourself."

"Not another word."

Bo managed to stay quiet for all of five seconds. "Is she never-want-to-see-you-again angry, or just temporarily angry?"

"How the h.e.l.l should I know?" Winter felt as if Aida had just pulled on a loose thread of a sweater, and he was left watching it unravel before his eyes, powerless to do anything to stop it. When he picked her up that morning, he'd felt happier than he had in years.

And now he wanted to pummel every stranger on the sidewalk.

The crying girl didn't help, though he couldn't say he blamed her-or that it was the first time, either. A face that makes children cry. What a perfect ending to a perfectly p.i.s.sy afternoon. "She doesn't want to work for me anymore," he said miserably.