Two-Gun & Sun by June Hutton Page B

my attention from the shooting to the dance. Such an evening would mean a
dress,
and taking one of these wasps to get there, or else risk fouling the gown walking in the black filth of the street.
    A glance down showed my hem already smudged. I’d worn the lavender-grey, just in case. Of what, I wasn’t sure, until now, at least.
    I pivoted and changed direction, heading through the haze to a place I had planned to visit since my arrival.
    *
    Bells clinked softly when I opened the door, a sound echoed by silver bracelets on the brown wrists of the shopkeeper.
    We are having a busy day, she said to me, but if you don’t mind waiting a moment you are most welcome.
    I was not surprised when she added,
Mademoiselle
. She had the look of Paris, a fitted navy suit with a colourful scarf at her throat, though her accent was not quite French. I studied her while she opened and closed drawers. Her dark hair had a slight wave and was bobbed below the chin. Every so often she looked up at me and smiled apologetically for being busy. She had a thin nose, large dark eyes with lids that drooped luxuriously, a plump mouth. She could be a princess from Persia, or the Punjab.
    And the room. It had the same tin walls as everywhere else, but these were draped in sheer silk that barely concealed the room’s industrial bones. Had she used solid fabric, a customer could step into this shop and never see the pipes and metal. But glimpsed through the gauzy layers, the rust and bolts and corrugated tin became not only softened, but pleasing because of what they were. I turned my head to take it all in. Along the counter a row of lamp stands formed a flight of bare-bosomed women in chrome. Their upraised hands held globes of light.
    She gave one of the drawers a final slam and rounded the counter, smiling brightly and saying, At last. What might I help you with?
    I held my arms out and asked, Can you do anything with—me? I need something for the opera dinner.
    La Fanciulla del West!
She clapped her hands together, bracelets ringing. I will be there, as well, she said. I think everyone in town will be.
    I could hear voices behind a curtain, shrieks and coarse laughter.
    The dressmaker smiled and said, Yes, everyone, no matter who. Are we not modern thinkers? Are we not
avant-garde
? So them especially. And besides, it’s being held in their
Saloon
.
    I didn’t know who and what she meant.
    The Bombay Room
?
    We have two drinking establishments, Miss.
The Bombay
is part of the hotel.
The
Saloon
has rooms upstairs, but they are rented on an hourly basis. Sometimes, less.
    She smiled with her eyes until I got her meaning. Of course, I had seen my drunken competition outside the saloon that day, spraying into the street. I just hadn’t realized what else went on in there.
    There was an attempt to rename it
The Salon
, but no one uses it. My name is Meena, she added.
    She grasped my hand when I told her my name. The newspaper publisher, she said.
    At that remark the curtain whipped back to more shrieks and I saw bare arms and high-heeled shoes, garters that flashed like fishing lures caught up in fishnet, iridescent corsets edged in black lace, glossy feathers in black and dark green, glittering strings of beads.
    They spilled out from the dressing room, one after the other, a crude line of chorus girls pulling at their garters and lace and smoothing their robes in honour of my presence, gathering around me as though I were a news baroness, admiring my hair and congratulating me on my newspaper, even though it didn’t exist, yet.
    Even without Meena’s advanced warning I would have seen who they were at once. Their manner as well as dress gave them away as whores, though the word seemed too harsh for the young things. They had not been in the business long. Their attempt to look provocative fell somewhere short of alluring and closer to helpless. Lipstick that was too red and inexpertly applied. A pair of satin heels