Breakfast at Hennessy’s (106)

PSI-1

Ann and Hyacinth met Calliope just as she was stepping from the dining room into the kitchen, one on either side, like courtiers. Calliope snickered. “Lady Otis and guest,” she said in a low voice, for the announcement. They didn’t get it. She was pretty used to people not getting it when she made jokes. That was funny too.

“Calliope, what do you think about going shopping for some clothes that fit?” Hyacinth said. “You up for that tomorrow? It’s not a weekend and I can leave Mordecai in charge. Ann wanted to take you, but if I let her go by herself she’s gonna dress you up like a doll and I don’t think you’d like that very much.”

Ann was smiling with both hands over her mouth and even that wasn’t enough to contain her. “We can go to Hennessy’s!” she cried.

Hyacinth sighed. She didn’t understand why Ann was so fixated on that. “Ann, name me one thing you’ve ever bought at Hennessy’s.”

“Sometimes they have clearance sales,” Ann said defensively.

“And at one of these magical clearance sales you have managed to afford…?”

“I like to look in the windows,” Ann admitted. Her smile returned and she put both hands on Calliope’s shoulders. “They’ll have the animated displays up for Yule! We can look at those! And they have a restaurant! We can eat breakfast there!”

“And the breakfast you can afford at Hennessy’s is…?” said Hyacinth.

“Toast and coffee! Jam and cream and sugar are free!”

“Whereas we can have a full fry-up in Strawberryfield or SoHo and buy Calliope a whole wardrobe in a thrift store,” Hyacinth said.

“There are lots of thrift stores on the way home from Hennessy’s!”

Hyacinth smacked both hands over her face and moaned like a monster in a horror movie. “Ann, we’d have to get dressed up for that nonsense! What is Calliope supposed to wear? Her clothes don’t fit!”

Calliope blinked at Hyacinth and grinned. “Oh, wow. I’d like to see that!” Hyacinth and ‘dressed up’ went together like soda crackers and bananas foster.

“I’ll loan her a dress!” Ann said. “We can take in the seams, Milo knows how to soft-stick things.”

“One of Ann’s dresses?” Calliope’s eyes grew round. “On me?” She laughed. “Oh, man. Yeah, let’s do that. I’ll get photos taken. Mom and Dad’ll think I’m having an identity crisis! Does Lucy have to be all fancy too?”

Ann sobered a bit. “Well, I think we’d better leave her with Ted and Maria, honey…”

“Ann, we are not dropping another baby on Maria without notice for no reason!” Hyacinth said. “Mordecai is perfectly capable of looking after the house and Lucy.”

“No, he is not.”

“Glorie could have her upstairs,” Calliope offered weakly. She knew why Ann and Mordecai were on the outs and she knew it was her fault.

“No,” Ann said. She shut her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose, where Milo’s glasses went. “Gods, no.”

“If we just go to a thrift store, they won’t mind us having a weepy baby or Calliope’s pants being done up with a safety pin,” Hyacinth said. “Or being pants,” she added.

Ann’s expression, and her whole head, fell. She nodded like a mop in a bucket. “You’re right. I know. You’re right…”

Calliope reached out and took her hand. “I think Em could watch Lucy okay, Ann.”

Ann, for gods’ sakes, Calliope wants to go to Hennessy’s with us and wear a pretty dress, would you please let her do that? It’s not like he’s going to sneak off and kill himself while he’s got Lucy and Erik to take care of, is it? He’s not even sad!

I know, Milo, it’s just… It was just that she couldn’t explain what it was without making a whole new mess to clean up.

Ann, it’s Hennessy’s! It’s… It’s home.

Ann smiled weakly. She nodded and squeezed Calliope’s hand. “All right, dear. You’re her mother. If it’s all right with you… Okay.”

“Excuse me, weird sisters, you are standing between Calliope and dinner!” Mordecai called over from the table. “Can whatever it is wait or be made public?”

“We’re just asking her if she wants to buy into our heath rental!” Hyacinth shot back. “We need a maiden, a mother and a crone — and don’t you dare ask me which one I am!”

“We’re going to Hennessy’s tomorrow,” Ann said, and despite all efforts to deal seriously with Mordecai she could not suppress a squeal. She cleared her throat. “For breakfast. That’s all.” But she was beaming, ear to ear.

———

“I liked the orange one best,” Calliope said, examining the sleeves. She’d tried on all seven last night, while Ann scampered about in a nightdress and tried to be competent with a piece of tailor’s chalk.

“It’s just a bit form-fitting, dear,” Ann said. “There’s not much space to tuck things in. Taffeta hides a multitude of sins.” She tugged on the fabric. Milo had applied so many soft-stick charms that they probably could’ve adhered Calliope to the side of the bus and saved fifteen scints if they wanted. It made fitting the dress much easier and more exact, there was just a small problem with her sticking to herself.

“Ann, how is she supposed to sit down?” Hyacinth demanded. She was in her nice dress, the one that was the same as the other ones except more brightly-colored. She had brushed her hair. And somehow she looked even more disheveled than usual. Maybe it was the contrast. Or the irritated expression.

Ann looked a little less ‘done’ than usual, as well. Base coat and contouring only. They would do your makeup for free at Hennessy’s! All you had to do was look like you were going to buy something. Ann was very good at appearing nervous and not in charge of her own pocketbook and saying, “Oh, dear. It’s just lovely, isn’t it? I’ll have to ask my husband. I’m certain he’ll say yes when he sees how pretty I am!” Only very rarely did the sales ladies get suspicious of her and ask her to leave. Well, she couldn’t help being tall. She had also put up her hair, which helped a little bit with the feminine mystique, just not the height or intimidation factor.

“It’s only soft-sticking, Hyacinth,” she said. “If she pulls, she’ll come loose.” She yanked down the skirt in the back, leaving it at about ankle height. Calliope’s shoes were not very impressive, nor did they ‘go’ with any of Ann’s dresses.

“She’s going to show the entire bus her boxer shorts,” Hyacinth said. Calliope did not possess anything like appropriate foundation garments for wearing a pink taffeta tiered cake, which Hyacinth respected.

“She’ll have her coat on! She’ll stick to that, mostly. I’ll stand behind her and make sure she’s arranged. It’s not hard!” Ann stepped away, brushing at her skirt, and the lower hem of Calliope’s skirt followed her.

“Conjoined dresses,” Calliope said, grinning. “What won’t they think of next?”

Ann cleared her throat, gave her dress a firm yank and took another couple steps away to be sure. She smiled. “Calliope, will you let me do your hair?”

Hyacinth cringed like she’d just trod on a thumbtack. She protectively pulled back her own hair. It blossomed like a dandelion when she let go. Thanks for scarring me for life, David, you twit. “Calliope, you don’t have to. Just because…”

“Oo, will you braid it like a slumber party?” Calliope said. “Can I do yours?”

Ann patted her painfully elaborate hairstyle. “I think I’ll just go as I am, dear. What if I braid part of yours and pull it around? Like this?”

“Lemme look in the mirror!” Calliope said. She beelined for the bathroom, shedding bobby pins.

“We’re gonna have lunch at Hennessy’s,” Hyacinth muttered. She plunked down on the staircase and put her chin in her hands.

———

They rode much farther uptown than Hyacinth was comfortable with, making two transfers — on the lower deck, indoors, so they would stay neat and pretty and Calliope wouldn’t pick up bugs like a flystrip. Thankfully, they did not go past David’s old townhouse, which Hyacinth was still able to discern under the repairs on the rare occasions she saw it. However, Hennessy’s was David’s second home, preferable even to the country manor in South Hestia, and she wasn’t too thrilled to behold its grinning edifice either.

The store entire was a great big gray and white box, with fluted pillars around the sides like gift wrap stripes. The first floor was all glass — huge, ornate entrances to the north and south and window displays everywhere else. Because of the season, there were tasteful clear lights strung around them, and bold Yuletide colors inside. Red, green and blue. Silver, gold and white. The snow in the window displays was soft, glistening mounds of heaped cotton and glitter. On the street outside, it was a thin, muddy scuzz with gray footprints and horse apples in the gutters. But the entrances were impeccable — at sidewalk level with domed awnings above in dark green with gold fringe, and black rubber-backed carpeting beneath for the wiping of feet. ‘Hennessy’s Fine Goods and Imports’ was emblazoned in proud golden capitals above each. Beneath this, slightly smaller but no less memorable, ‘est. 1200,’ that being even before Emile Cloquette’s National News, and, ‘2101 Mille Fleur Road.’ Here was surely the central location for fashionable commerce, with all the other stores being judged by their proximity. (Courtney’s Shoe Outlet, where Ann swooped down like a vulture for the clearance sales at the change of season, was about two blocks east.)

There were three storeys total to the layer cake of consumerism, the fourth having been blasted into oblivion during the siege and replaced with a glassed-in park of boxed trees and flowers. Hyacinth was amused to think that Hennessy’s also found it easier to build windows than walls. The restaurant was on the third, with a lovely view of Mille Fleur Road and the treetops of Guillory Park just visible beyond the flat roofs. The fact that you had to take two escalators and eel your way past all the merchandise to get up there was pure coincidence.

Outside the bus the uptown people were in fashionable winter drabs, brown and gray like the snow. Most of them were wearing furs, either muffs and linings and edgings or full coats like human grizzly bears, and all of them were in hats. Hyacinth stepped out of the bus and into polite society with a practiced sigh of resignation. Here I come with the circus again.

She had been one of these people once. Briefly. Life with David and Barnaby had forever broken her desire and her ability to be ordinary. But she was also not fond of going down the street like an enormous parade balloon, attracting double-takes and disbelieving grins and stares, and she regretted having gone with the bright blue dress. Dark gray would have suited her just fine. There was no helping Ann and Calliope in gauzy blue and fluffy pink, indecently hatless, like debs at a ball. The coats only mitigated it somewhat, all three were cheap cloth and Ann’s was the only one even a little stylish or feminine in cut — tan with thin plaid stripes in dark red and green and black. Calliope had just peeled the stained trench coat off her wall when Ann delicately told her the green sweater with the holes wouldn’t quite do. (Milo, panicking, had managed to instruct Ann in basic stain removal this morning.) Hyacinth was still using the shearling model she stole when she bugged out of the army and she pulled it a little tighter around her.

At least I don’t have to cope with a man in a… The thought trailed off as she focused both eyes on Ann, as if her body already knew and was waiting for her brain to catch up.

Well, at least he’s not screaming.

“Oh, Calliope, you’re so precious in pink!” Ann cried. She reached up and offered a hand down to the slippery street. Calliope’s skirt stuck to the bus and Ann tugged it gently away and arranged it. “We must get you some dresses! In your size, of course. Any color you like! The thrift stores don’t do seasons. And some shoes! Boots! You must have high-heeled boots for the snow. It’s a safety issue!”

Hyacinth grumbled and shook her head. The constant praise didn’t seem to be making much of a dent in Calliope, she just grinned and examined herself like a little kid playing dress-up out of random boxes in the attic, but the manipulative intent was clear.

“Excuse me, Miss Rose?” Hyacinth declared. “I am here from the Committee to Keep Miss Otis Butch and I have a petition with one hundred signatures that says she’s allowed to have all the trousers and suspenders she likes and she does not need to be ‘precious.’”

Calliope laughed.

Ann turned up her nose. “Hyacinth, I am acquainted with butch people and Calliope is not butch. She is far too soft and petite and adorable. She is like a… a… a wood nymph!”

Calliope frowned at that and wrinkled her nose. “Man, I’m okay running around with Deana Divia and cursing guys into deer, but I’m not sure about all the raping…”

“Oh, we’ll get you a hatpin, dear,” Ann said absently. She arrowed across the street towards the south entrance with determination.

“A nymph with a hat?” Calliope said, falling in line behind her. She snickered, picturing Deana Divia in modern hunting attire with knee-high boots and a rifle. Pick your jaw off the floor and get outta my bathroom. Why’s everyone always trying to get a look at me naked? Pisses me off. You’ve got three seconds, asshole. Two… One…

“Ladies’ things so rarely have real pockets,” Ann said. “You can take a hat anywhere. Anyway, switchblades aren’t legal, exactly, and you don’t have to press a button on a hatpin…” She stopped walking and looked back at Calliope with a frown. “We really must get you something, darling, you live in Strawberryfield now. Do you mind hats? Cin doesn’t like them and I don’t like hiding my pretty hair, but you don’t carry a purse.” That was where Ann kept her hatpin. She didn’t know what Hyacinth did, but Hyacinth didn’t invite concern like soft and petite and adorable Calliope.

“I can do you a sock full of sand, hon,” Hyacinth said. “We used to do ‘em with pennies. It’s called the Ladies’ Defender, knocks the guy out and pays for a taxi home. Theoretically.” She’d left quite a few guys stranded by the side of the road with pennies merged to their faces while she drove herself home in their cars. Oh, gods, my eyes! …I said ‘no’ and I meant ‘no,’ Andrew! She didn’t need pennies. She had David’s money.

Ann smiled. “Ah, yes. I knew you must have something, Cin, dear.” She nodded approvingly towards Hyacinth’s purse. “I’m just not certain Calliope can be relied upon to reach the back of a man’s head.” She turned to Calliope and beamed. “Unless we buy you some heels, sweetheart! Oo, like those! Do you like those, Calliope, dear?” They had nearly made the entrance and flanking it were two window displays. In one of them, fashionable shoes were nestled in piles of snow around repetitively frolicking polar bears.

Milo noted the smoothness of each motion, followed by the subtle pause and jerk afterwards, That’s a cam system, Ann! They must be in the Mamma Bear! but not much else about it. He was more interested in the shoes too. Ann pressed her nose to the window and fogged up the glass like a rosy-cheeked little girl in front of a toy store. The best ones were the black patent leather ankle-high boots with spiked heels and gray fur cuffs and buttons up the side!

“As an art installation or, like, to wear?” Calliope said. “Because I think I have too many toes.” She thought it was really fun to look at, though. Nice contrast. Bear with Cruel Shoes, she titled it in her head.

“You just get them a size up when they’re like that,” Ann said. She sighed. “Well, perhaps you could, dear.” Rarely did she find a ladies’ eleven. If she wanted pointed toes, she had to get a ten-point-five and tough it out.

Hah, it’s just cams, Hyacinth thought, shaking her head. Any idiot can program those. I know how to stack cams. David would’ve come up with something much more clever. Of course, the polar bears would’ve been engaged in some kind of obscenity, that was his sense of humor.

No, she thought. Maybe not at Hennessy’s. He’d respected the place too much. He’d sooner order a burger and frites at Cygnet. To go. Alice, are you mental? They know me here! She snorted and turned away.

The two baby bears nearest the glass were waving as if to direct passersby through the revolving door, and ‘Jingle Bells’ played at a tasteful volume from a programmed gear. Only one audible geartune per side, that was store policy, not the loud overlapping chaos of boops and blips like you might hear at a lesser establishment. The vaguely artificial scent of apples and cinnamon drifted out onto the street, as if they might have a bakery in there. Hennessy’s, like the gods, knew how to soften people up so they’d buy things.

Calliope waved back at the bears. Ann tore herself away from the shoes. “Oh, let’s go in, dear. Do let’s go in. It’s much nicer inside!”

———

A man in a fashionably trim dark suit and black tie rushed up to them with his long legs working like scissors. “Welcome to Hennessy’s! Happy Yule! May I take your coats?”

“Oh, thank you, Brian!” Ann said, noting the gold nameplate on his lapel. The lower echelons at Hennessy’s were all on a first-name basis. The Misters and Misses were sequestered in offices with desks and papers and only peeked out when someone wanted to ‘speak to a manager,’ which Ann never-ever did. All the Brians and Jessicas and Angeliques and Pierres were her friends! Even if she did not know them and she carefully spaced out her visits so they did not remember her and her lack of funds.

“I’d like to see you try,” Hyacinth said, eyeing Calliope.

“Oh, it’s that darn dry cleaners’,” Ann said. She laughed to cover the sound of flannel disconnecting loudly from taffeta and jerked down Calliope’s coat like a sleight-of-hand artist removing a tablecloth from beneath a full dinner. “They put so much starch in everything! I really must speak to them! Here you are, Brian, dear.”

“Hi, Brian,” Calliope said. She stepped forward and offered her hand to shake. The back end of her dress had unfurled somewhat and it adhered to the floor, pulling out behind her like a train.

“You ought to sue,” Brian said, wide-eyed.

“It’s adjustable!” Calliope said, smiling.

“It’s the very latest thing,” Ann said, re-bustling the skirt with a careful touch.

“Is it?” Brian said skeptically. He wondered why they weren’t selling them there, in that case. In better material, of course. This appeared to be some kind of a knock-off. Synthetic, and not even one of the impressive new ones. He regained his smile and reflexively bowed. “Here are the tickets,” he handed them to Hyacinth. “They will be at the coat check on the south side. There is a ladies’ lounge nearby,” he added, to Ann and Calliope, “if your servant would like to sit down. I can help you find whatever you need!” And get tipped for it, thank you very much, he thought, peering down his nose at the maid in the blue dress.

“Watch it, Brian,” Hyacinth said. She accepted the tickets and smartly shook his hand. “You never know when you’re going to run into one of those eccentrics who smells like a cat food sandwich and has a million sinqs in the bank but only spends it on toy mice, now, do ya?”

“I, um, I do apologize…” He leaned back from her at a forty-five degree angle and still she refused to relinquish his hand.

“You saying I smell like a cat food sandwich, Brian?” Hyacinth said, grinning.

“No, Madame. I, ah, I did not mean to imply…” Please don’t say ‘speak to a manager,’ please don’t say ‘speak to a manager…’ The sky darkened and you could smell brimstone when the managers came out!

Ann separated Hyacinth from Brian as she had separated Calliope’s coat from her dress. “Hyacinth, leave the nice man alone!” she hissed. She turned and smiled, “Thank you, Brian, but it really won’t be necessary. I know where just everything is!” She laughed and spun a joyful circle, indicating the space around her with arms flung wide. “Cin, dear… Calliope… Welcome to Hennessy’s!”

“Awesomesauce,” Calliope said.

“Seen it, bored of it, it was better before the war,” Hyacinth muttered in Brian’s direction.

It was like a train station to fairyland with hourly departures on Midsummer Night. The whole thing was done up in marble and polished wood, constructed around an atrium which spanned the full height of the building, with the greenhouse garden department above as a skylight. The open space was filled with bobbling, floating lights and ornaments in silver, gold and clear, which reflected off the tinsel strung around the glass-paneled railings and running up the wooden escalators. (Hyacinth recalled that someone had dropped a cigarette between the slats of one of those escalators ages before she was born and burned half the place down, killing a couple hundred people, because they couldn’t get out of the revolving doors. Barnaby had told her about it, he knew she liked morbid stories. The slats were much closer together now, with repel charms on them, and the revolving doors flanked on either side by push doors with crash bars.)

From the toy department on the second floor, someone was directing a remote-controlled airship with blinking lights that alternately informed them: Hennessy’s Famous Toy Dept!/Dreams Really Do Come True!/Happy Yule! in white, red and green. There were also multiple boomerangs being demonstrated and a skillful gentleman on a raised platform with a yo-yo that had a fifteen foot reach and no string. First floor central, Santa Claus was sitting beneath an enormous evergreen (not as big as the one they’d nicked from MacArthur Park, but much more tastefully decorated) and patiently laughing his way through a line of poleaxed, terrified, overstimulated children, who no longer had any idea what in the world they wanted for Yule. They gazed into the camera wide-eyed and with occasional tears. Happy memories for Mummy and Dad.

Near the tree, a woman in an evening gown at eleven AM (whom Hyacinth felt very sorry for) was plucking out popular holiday tunes on a harp with her perfectly manicured hands. It was a good choice for an instrument, audible over the constant conversation and the clicking and pinging of cash registers and new technology, but not obnoxious. The air smelled of cinnamon apples, fresh coffee, evergreen and floor wax. Well, they couldn’t help waxing the floors like Ann couldn’t help being tall.

“Oh, Calliope, do you think we should take Lucy to see Santa?” Ann said. “It’s her very first Yule! She’d look so sweet!” There was no point in taking Erik or Maggie; Santa was still a bit of a sore point for Erik, and Maggie thought he was just to sell sodas. She’d go after him like Hyacinth on Brian.

“You should not,” Hyacinth said quickly. “She will hate it. She will cry. She has no idea what ‘Santa’ is and she doesn’t speak enough Anglais for you to explain. If you want a sweet picture with her, do not hand her to a loud stranger and have a bunch of elves poke a huge prop camera in her face, put her in a photobooth with her mom and her cuddly lizard and do that dancey-dance thing she likes on your lap. You might even catch her smiling.” Smiles were a new thing with Lucy, it was fun trying to get one out of her but in no way a sure thing. She seemed to have some of her mother’s taste for weird noises and objects. She really liked that mobile with the cans too.

“Oooh, Ann, they’ve got toasters,” Calliope said. Of all things. There was a small table set up with random metal objects like cocktail shakers and watches and, yes, toasters, with an eager attendant standing beside. Have It Engraved! a sign advised, making the attendant rather redundant. Makes A Lovely Gift! Jewelry Department, 2nd Floor!

For the man who has everything, Hyacinth thought acidly. A goddamn engraved toaster. ‘Happy Breakfast, Uncle Johnathan! May your toast always be toasty! Not that you’ll ever see this because I’m sure you have servants to do all those nasty kitchen things like making toast for you! From Tamsin and Jasmine and Jean-Paul and the dog and the cat.’ Nobody should have that much money. It’s an obscenity.

Calliope had commandeered a toaster and was examining the cord at the bottom with particular amusement. “Hey, Ann, does Milo like Hennessy’s too?”

“He loves it!” Ann cried, over the open mouth of the attendant who was about to tell Calliope about the engraving, in case she was too wealthy to do her own reading. “He likes the first and second floors best and I like the second and third. First floor has housewares and electronics and all those clever things like that. But you have to be careful because the appliance salesmen are terribly aggressive. And the furniture men. They work on commission, it’s not like the second floor with the clothes and shoes, they’re salaried! Now, the perfume ladies can be a bit much, you don’t have allergies, do you, dear? Oh, of course you don’t! And the makeup ladies are always so nice! Would you like your makeup done on the way up to the restaurant, Calliope, sweetheart? It’s free! And sometimes they give you samples! Milo and I used to sleep behind the makeup counters because the sides were like a windbreak and you could put a tarp across them to keep the rain off! It was like a camp tent! Those are in outdoor goods, top floor with the garden department, but it used to be the toy department…”

“Baaack up, please,” Hyacinth said, lifting a hand. She thought she had detected something interesting in that catechism of consumer products.

Ann did, just a half-step, before bumping into the table.

“What was that about you and Milo sleeping behind the makeup counters?”

“Oh.” Ann came away from the table and straightened her dress. “Well, it was the siege, dear. The place was empty. Nobody said we couldn’t.” She frowned.

“Ann, Hennessy’s was open for most of the siege! I bought shit here!” Not a lot of it. Even on the barter system, Hennessy’s was expensive. Some of the refugees in their dusty linens and tweeds had been trying to open lines of credit.

The attendant nervously stepped forward, “I’m sorry, Madame, if you would please lower…”

“We’re discussing whether we want to buy a toaster,” Hyacinth said. She snatched it from Calliope. “I’m very passionate about my small appliances, Philippe. Go away or we shall ask for a M-A-N-A-G-E…”

She didn’t have to finish it. Philippe stepped away, bowing. “Anything you need, Madame. Anything you need.”

“It’s like a Prokovian gulag down here,” Hyacinth muttered. “I wonder if they put the disobedient ones up against the wall and shoot them? You know, I think they did shoot some people,” she added. “Looters. They had their own security force. Mahmoud Abdul-Hamid sent his family back to Farsia and he holed up here to protect his investment.” There hadn’t been but a few token Hennessys on the board at Hennessy’s for about fifty years. “Like an idiot. I heard he hung himself from the ceiling fan in his office when the fourth floor fell in,” she whispered, mindful of Philippe.

“Milo and I didn’t like the offices,” Ann said gravely. She shook her head. “It was like a rats’ maze in there, you couldn’t get out if you had to.” And it had smelled of decay and death. They didn’t hang around long enough to check the ceiling fans for bodies. “The second floor was much better, because of the gas. We tied sheets together and hung them over the railing — it used to be a wooden railing, with spaces — in case we had to get out quickly but we never did. Nobody wanted the place, there wasn’t a roof anymore and it was open like that.” She gestured to the space above, now filled with baubles and music and lights instead of birds and dust and stray shells.

“What department is sheets?” Calliope asked, looking around.

“Oh, they weren’t from here, darling,” Ann said. “Well, we don’t think. There wasn’t anything here, just the racks and the signs and a lot of dusty old ads with happy people, and the broken mirrors. Milo and I used to take things.” She cringed and put up her hand. “Er, that is… well… We wouldn’t have, really, we just didn’t know…”

Not about the workhouse, Ann! Not about the workhouse! Oh, my gods!

Ann braked her mouth like a freight train. She put both hands over it and shook her head. The engine keeled over and fell off the tracks and the brakeman bailed out of the caboose. “I’m sorry, I got excited,” she said weakly.

“Ann, where were you staying before Hennessy’s closed?” Hyacinth said. This was more than she’d heard about Ann and Milo’s past over the last four years combined and Ann now appeared incredibly uncomfortable about it, so naturally Hyacinth plowed forward looking for more information. “It was almost a year before the supply ships stopped getting through. And then they had, like, an army of starcatchers. And how come you didn’t hear about them shooting people and stay away? It was in all the papers. Well, the one paper.” The papers had consolidated to conserve their resources and gone back to apography instead of ink, like Emile Cloquette. They did it with different headers every time they printed it, the Times, the Daily News, the Smart Shopper, even the Dirty Rag. It was really fun, except for all the bombing and deprivation, but that was like floor wax and Ann being tall.

“I don’t know,” Ann said. We hid a lot, she wanted to say, to explain it, but Milo wouldn’t even allow her that. She shook her head again and turned away. “We’ll miss breakfast.” She walked off towards the escalator without looking back.

Calliope took the toaster from Hyacinth and shoved it back at Philippe, “Sorry, man, we were looking for one that makes ‘Pacifism’ and ‘Compromise’ bread. You should get some of those, they’re awesome.” She picked up her skirt, which stuck that way, and jogged after Ann.

Ann paused for her and then glumly mounted the escalator, staring at her shoes on the wood slats.

“Does Milo like the escalator?” Calliope said.

Ann glanced back at her and then winced at the state of Calliope’s skirt. “Oh, your pretty dress…”

“It’s okay. This way it won’t get stuck and I get pulled under and come out the bottom like a bunch of spaghetti noodles.” She smiled and stepped off bravely. “I like how it looks. I feel like a ballerina.” It was almost up above her knees and it blossomed around her for two feet in every direction. You could tell she was wearing men’s socks, striped ones.

“We’re sorry. I wish I knew how to fix it. We shouldn’t have done this. Do you just want to go home?”

“No, I want breakfast. Or lunch. Whatever it is.”

“I’m sorry,” Ann said. “I know you like how it looks, but please, let me pull it down in the back. I don’t know what I’d do if they spoke to you about the dress code.” She was wavering between punch them and run away crying. “They’re not really nice here, we both know that. They only think we might buy something or get them in trouble.”

“But you like it here,” Calliope said, frowning.

“It’s pretty,” Ann said. “We like how it’s pretty and they’re using it again and everyone loves it, but they don’t love us.” Ann looked up and narrowed her eyes. “We are not interested, Jacqueline. Put the bottle down and back away.” An impeccably lacquered woman in angular business attire frowned and sat down at her counter again, crestfallen.

Ann finished arranging Calliope’s dress and walked past the makeup counters where they used to sleep without stopping for any free samples or advice.

“It makes you sad to talk about it,” Calliope said.

Ann nodded.

Calliope took her hand and swung back and forth with it. “We don’t have to anymore, it’s okay. We can just eat toast. It’s too bad about the ‘Pacifism,’ though. I like that kind.”

“The bread here is a little nicer,” Ann allowed.

“Does it say ‘thank you?’” Calliope asked, smiling.

That is a joke, Ann. She is trying to cheer us up! Don’t stand there looking cockeyed at her. You know how to laugh!

Ann managed it rather stiffly and nodded, while demanding of Milo, What do you mean it’s a joke? How is that any different than anything else weird she ever says? How can you tell?

…I dunno. Why can’t you?

“If you spray me with that I will end you,” Hyacinth told Jacqueline. “Ann! What are you doing? Why’d you take off on me like that? …I’m sorry,” she added, just to be sure. She would be in a minute if it was required, but at the moment she was irritated that both her friends ditched her in a goddamn department store where she didn’t want to be in the first place.

“Ann can’t play house under the makeup counters anymore and she doesn’t like it,” Calliope said. “It’s like she met this homeless guy on a street-corner and they were friends, but now he’s all snobby and he fakes like they didn’t ever know each other. She made herself sad thinking about it. You shouldn’t poke things all the time, Cin, sometimes people don’t like it. You’re like the squirt bottle lady over there.”

“No!” Hyacinth said sourly. She grumbled and combed back her hair with a hand. “Maybe! What do you want? Did I ruin everyone’s day?”

“No, Cin,” Ann said. “I’m not sure what I… What we… I think… I think we didn’t really want to remember it, we just wanted you to like it. But we know you don’t, and that’s okay. We can just show Calliope the restaurant and have some toast and coffee and go shop someplace sensible.”

Calliope slipped her arm around Ann’s waist and squeezed lightly. “I like it. I’d like to come visit with you again. We can get me a dress so I’m legal.”

Ann withdrew and pressed both hands over her mouth. Her eyes brimmed over. It was a good thing she’d omitted the mascara this morning. “Oh, darling, a dress?”

“I don’t mind one of ‘em,” Calliope said with a shrug. “But I like pants too.”

Hyacinth enumerated on her fingers, “I do not want to come back and visit with you, I will not buy nicer clothing to make it easier for me to do that, and I do not like it here.” She sighed. “But I don’t unilaterally hate it, Ann. I just used to come here with David all the time. I don’t like remembering it either.”

“David?” Ann cried, clasping hands. “Could he buy things? Anything he wanted? Dresses? He did, didn’t he?”

“Ann, if you make me talk about David over breakfast at Hennessy’s I will end you.”

Calliope closed her open mouth. Okay, don’t poke Hyacinth about David, whoever that is.

Ann smiled through a hand that was physically impeding more David-questions and nodded as if to ensure a positive reaction, “Did… Did you see it before the war, though?”

“Yes. It was even more ridiculous. They had a pets department. Do you want to talk about that?”

Ann nodded frantically, the hand still over her mouth. “Mm-hm.”

“All right, then let’s eat toast,” said Hyacinth. She grabbed Ann’s hand and dragged her towards the next escalator, still two departments hence.

“‘Compromise,’” Calliope noted with a grin.