“What’s happened?” Berni asked.
The new woman, who wore ancient Egyptian dress, her black hair coated with oil, looked very excited. “A ship has gone down in 1742. All hands went down with it.”
Pauline stood. “I must go. This doesn’t happen very often, and—well, I don’t want to miss it. You stay and watch Nellie.”
“Wait a minute.” Berni caught Pauline’s arm. “Explain what’s going on.”
“The men went down with the ship. There are usually hundreds of them, and they’re young and healthy, and they’ve been at sea sometimes for a year or more. Alone. With no women.”
Berni was beginning to understand. “You mean that a few hundred—”
“Two hundred and thirty-six,” the Egyptian woman said.
“Two hundred and thirty-six lonely young sailors are coming to the Kitchen?”
“Exactly,” Pauline said.
“So when I get through watching Nellie I can—”
“There are no men allowed in the Kitchen, remember? Not real men, anyway. There are men in some of the rooms, but they’re actually just images. These men are real.”
Berni thought of all the things she liked about men, the way they laughed and strutted, the way men could make you feel gorgeous, the way they could make you feel rotten and wonderful at the same time. “Real men,” Berni said dreamily.
“Yes.” Pauline smiled. “When a ship goes down or a mine explodes, or there’s some other natural disaster where a lot of men are killed, sometimes they’re sent here before being sent on to heaven or hell. They’re only here a few hours and then they’re gone. If you want to visit with them, you have to go now.”
Berni looked back at the screen. Nellie was in the kitchen, her arm extended into the pantry, and that gorgeous Jace Montgomery was hungrily kissing her. Berni didn’t think Nellie looked too bad off. If only she weren?
??t so fat…
“Let’s go to the sailors,” Berni said.
“But what about Nellie?”
Berni waved her arm. “Get skinny, kid.” She looked back at Pauline. “That should do it. She gets skinny and she won’t have a problem in her life.”
“I’m not so sure. Maybe you should stay and—”
“Come on,” the Egyptian woman said. “The men will all be claimed by the time we get there.”
“Don’t worry,” Berni said to Pauline. “Nellie will be fine. She’ll be thin and beautiful, and all her problems will be solved. Now let’s go.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Pauline lifted her long skirts and started running after Berni and the Egyptian woman.
Chandler, Colorado
1896
Jace was roused from sleep by someone pounding on the door of his hotel room. He struck a match, lit the lamp by the bed, and looked at his pocket watch. Three-thirty A.M. “All right, I’m coming,” he called, pulling on his trousers, buttoning them as he went to the door. He opened it to see a boy standing there, a thick kid of about ten or eleven.
“I got a telegram for you,” the boy said.
Rubbing his eyes sleepily, Jace took the telegram and looked at it.
YOUR FATHER GRAVELY ILL STOP COME HOME AT ONCE
Jace read it three times before his thoughts began to clear. “When’s the next train east?”
“There’s one at four, but it’s a freight train. Don’t take fancy passengers.”