Anita snorted. “So you’re saying I have to tell you my problems to alleviate your white guilt?”
Now she was sounding more like the Anita I loved. I laughed sleepily. “You know what I mean. I’m here for you. I know I can’t be what your mom was to you, but you are my family.”
“You are my family too, Tess.”
“I’m sorry I was so caught up in my own bullshit that I didn’t ask how you were doing sooner.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, too.” She gave me a hug that blotted out more pain than opium ever could.
Morehshin and I made it back to Chicago in December. It was almost 1894, the Expo was over, and Aseel had moved into Soph’s old rooms now that the Algerian Village was gone. She made beds for Morehshin and me on the floor as we told her about Soph’s sacrifice.
“I suppose she loved that. Calling on the goddess was always her specialty.” Aseel looked down. “I miss her.”
“She misses you, too. I’m sorry it had to be like this.”
“We did the right thing. Plus, Soph’s ‘death’ got people riled up about how terrible Anthony is. Have you seen the pictures of him doing the hoochie coochie?” She pulled out a copy of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and spread it on the soft rug where we sat on cushions. Holding up a lamp so we could see clearly, Aseel pointed at a long article about Comstock’s fight against the dancers at the Expo. Apparently he had tried to get another theater shut down in New York, and granted a press conference about his efforts. To describe the horror of the dance, he stood up and did some wobbly gyrations, much to the amusement of the audience. A political cartoonist had quickly drawn a sketch of the portly Comstock, buttons bursting on his waistcoat, face flushed, shaking his ass. That picture was more of a blow than the twenty inches of arch commentary in the article. It turned Comstock from a moral authority into an out-of-touch loon.
This was progress. But unfortunately, politicians didn’t care what the newspapers said about Comstock. He still had powerful people on his side, including wealthy New Yorkers who dumped cash into Congress.
“We need to organize another anti-Comstock protest, but even bigger than the last one,” I said.
Aseel made a face. “I don’t think a protest will work.”
“But the last one was great! I have some ideas—”
“We need to switch tactics. If we protest again, without the Expo, we look like crazy children. It’s easy to ignore us.”
That stung a little, especially when Morehshin grunted assent.
“All right then, Aseel—what’s your plan?”
“I started thinking about this a few months ago, when the burlesque girls stole our moves and… our song.” Aseel dropped her eyes for a moment, and I remembered her helpless rage that night at the Persian Palace. “Now that Sol and I are selling the sheet music at the shop, it’s become incredibly popular. What if we had an event to celebrate the hoochie coochie? People really hate Comstock for going after hoochie coochie dancers. That’s the biggest stumble he’s made. We could do something in New York that was so spectacular that even those rich socialite Astors would come see it. Comstock would have to go after us, and it would make him terribly odious to everyone.”
Morehshin nodded. “It would put him in a very bad position. He’d damage his reputation if he tried to stop it, and damage his reputation if he didn’t.”
I imagined a hoochie coochie protest and was filled with so much glee that it almost chased my headache away. “Yes!” I yelped, pumping my fist in the air like I was at a show.
Sol and Aseel named their new business the Independent Music Company, shortened on the sheet music to Ind. Music Co. Far north of our old haunt on the Midway, it was nestled among tall brick buildings in the riverfront district along Wabash Street. Cable cars clanged outside, and the theater next door had a massive billboard advertising “The Original Midway Dancers Here.” In the mornings, when the street was redolent of bacon and fresh bread, the neighborhood had an air of respectability. But as the afternoon wore on, and the barkers hawked their ten-cent tickets, packs of young men with beer foam in their moustaches smoked cigars on the street. The stench of rotting meat drifted in from the water. That’s when it was obvious that the Midway had found a permanent home in Chicago. Still, it hadn’t been domesticated. Not yet.
The Independent Music Company storefront was crammed with carefully alphabetized offerings in wooden racks labeled with signs advertising COMIC SONGS and HITS. A modern cash register with brass fittings occupied most of the marble-top counter, and a glass-front display case held a hodgepodge of impulse items: piano strings, guitar picks, wood polish, Smith Brothers cough drops for singers. Cozy and well lit, the place attracted a steady stream of musicians and promoters. But it wasn’t the heart of Aseel and Sol’s operation. That lay behind a door in the back, which opened into an airy warehouse. The previous owners used it for storing barrels of liquor, and a few busted casks still huddled in a corner, smelling faintly of sherry. Now half the room was taken up with a printing press and paper, and the other half was a woodworking shop where a former drummer from the Algerian Theater made fiddles. A spiral staircase led to the manager’s office, where Aseel worked from Sol’s favorite chair at a large conference table.
This room became our informal planning headquarters. We met for the first time on an icy Tuesday, as Aseel was going over sheet music mockups for a new dance hall hit. The cover would be in two colors, and she used a red fountain pen to sketch out where she wanted the title to swirl upward, spewing flowers and curly lines. At last she looked up at Morehshin and me, gathered earnestly at the table. Here, at the center of a thriving music business, it was more obvious than ever that Aseel was one of the few turn-of-the-century women who had managed to unbind herself from the strictures of her time. Partly that was thanks to her strength and talent, but also to the lucky edit that brought her a male boss who recognized both and rewarded her for them.
I was certain she would bend history to make room for more women like her.
She motioned for us to sit down at the table, and we talked for a while about her idea for a New York event. “But how will we organize it?” I asked. “Comstock has eyes on the post. Given what happened to Soph, we have to assume he’s still watching our correspondence. We can’t mail anyone if he’s spying on us.”
There was a banging on the stairs, and one of the printers knocked on the door. “Miss Aseel? Do you know how many copies of ‘Chicago Dancers Polka’ we’re going to need?”
“Make two dozen.” She waved him off.
That gave me an idea. “What if we sent something through the mail that looked completely innocent? You could issue a special edition of the hoochie coochie song, but with a new name, something innocuous like… ‘Country Lad.’ We could include the description of our event in the sheet music booklet.”
Aseel’s eyes gleamed. “What if we made it a dance contest? Twenty-five bucks to the best interpretation of… ‘Country Lad.’” She giggled. “I bet we could get some of the Four Hundred to shell out for prizes and a ballroom.” She was referring to a fabled group of New York socialites, whose number supposedly never topped four hundred. Rumors swirled in the gossip pages that some of their secret parties included private dances from a Lady Asenath imitator.
“How are we going to do that?” Morehshin was zapping tiny holes in the table with her multi-tool, then repairing them. When Aseel glared, she made a protesting noise. “What? I’m practicing!”
I twirled a pencil around my thumb, lost in thought. “There must be some dumb, rich dudes in New York who want a bunch of hoochie coochie girls to perform for them.”