“You have your own restaurants? I didn’t know . . . ” She knew of some free colored men who owned property in Richmond, but she’d never heard of a woman owning anything like this.
Mrs. Hyde shrugged. “There used to be laws about it, but those laws are getting looser. And there’s ways around them now. These days. ”
“Restaurants,” Mercy said again, taking the card and reading it. “You’ve got three of them?”
“The one in Memphis just opened last year. We started in Knoxville and worked our way west,” she said proudly. Then a sly look crossed her face. She added, “You’re a southern girl, I can see that plain as day. But I bet you never had anyone but your momma cooking for you. ”
“Yeah. I grew up on a farm. We had farmhands, but nobody to help with . . . ” She was beginning to catch on. She said, “You, and your sister—I guess you used to be—” She stopped herself from saying house niggers because suddenly it seemed impolite, or maybe she only felt outclassed. She continued, “You used to do all the cooking for the rich ladies, in the plantations. ”
Mrs. Hyde winked at her. “Some of us didn’t feel like sticking around as employees, for what they were talking about paying us. We figured we could do better on our own. My sister Adele, she wrote our first cookbook, and it sold like crazy! Then we went into business together, thinking we could make the food ourselves and sell it just as easy. ”
“Nice!” Mercy exclaimed with genuine admiration. “And it’s called the Cormorant? Or all three of them are?”
“Mm-?hmm. It’s a franchise, that’s what it’s called. And you listen to me, dear,” she said it again. “You take this card, and you show it to the host at the Memphis Cormorant. You tell him I said to let you have anything you want, and I’ll take care of it. ”
Mercy said, “Gosh, thank you—I mean it, thank you very much. I’ve been eating travel food for the last few days, and I don’t mind telling you
, that sounds real good right about now. ”
Mrs. Hyde patted her arm. “Don’t you worry about it. And thank you, for fixing up my Charlie. ”
The nurse left with the card, and returned to her original seat in the forward car.
Memphis was only a few hours more, plus or minus a stop or two where people got off and people got on. The train filled up and emptied out in unequal measure, since more people were headed for Memphis than to Lawrenceburg, Kimball, Selmer, or Somerville.
But eventually the Memphis station rolled into view, a beautiful white beaux arts building that looked like a museum. Mercy thought it was definitely the prettiest thing she’d seen in Tennessee thus far, day or night, city or countryside. Fort Chattanooga was a military garrison, and every stop in between had featured small-?town nondescript style. This station, though . . . it made the nurse crane her head around to see out the window again, if only to admire it before she could enter its undoubtedly hallowed halls.
The train pulled into its slot with a squeal of the brakes that pinched the track all along the vehicle’s length, and Mercy stepped out into a crowd that flowed riverlike along the platforms, under the overhangs that shaded waiting and debarking travelers from the sun.
Now it was growing late again, and cooler, which the nurse found disorienting. It felt as though her entire life had been lived from dusk to dawn ever since she learned of Phillip, only tiptoeing around the edges of sunset or sunrise, and sleeping or traveling all day.
She stretched, then turned her neck to and fro to let it pop and spring back to its usual position. Her satchel was heavy in her arms, more so now than ever with the added weight of the guns; she slung it over one shoulder, under her cloak. The cloak felt almost too warm, but with night coming on, she’d be glad to have it—she knew that—and, anyway, she didn’t want to carry it.
Mercy shuffled along in the crowd until she’d reached the lovely terminal building and filtered inside it. The interior was as lovely as the exterior promised, with marbled floors that shone so brightly, the lanterns’ reflections made Mercy squint. Every surface was shined, from the polished wood of the handrails and guardrails to the brass of the fixtures and the glass of the ticket windows.
But although the building was a marvel, Mercy was famished, so she hastily ushered herself out and away from it, pausing only to ask directions to the restaurant called the Cormorant and hailing a buggy cab to take her there. She fondled the card between her fingers and hoped it’d be enough, as promised, and furthermore that she wouldn’t find herself embarrassingly underdressed. This latter thought burrowed beneath her outer layer of security and festered there, remembering Mrs. Hyde’s fine clothes and her mannered children and comparing them to her own stained dress and gunsmoke-?smelling cloak.
The Cormorant looked to be a firmly middle-?class establishment, and a popular one. Mercy saw mostly white people coming and going, but there were a handful of colored people (relegated to a separate dining section, she noted when she arrived inside), and even a pair of Indian men wearing matching clothes that may or may not have been some kind of uniform.
A man at a pedestal asked if he could help her, and she handed him the card that by now she’d worn so thoroughly that the corners had curled. “I . . . I talked to Mrs. Hyde, on the train here from Fort Chattanooga. She said if I gave this to you, that—”
“Oh, yes!” he said sharply. “Yes, indeed. Are you alone tonight, Miss—” He spied the ring on her finger. “Missus?”
“Lynch. Yes, I’m alone tonight. Is that all right?” She looked around and saw no one else dining alone, and her sense of conspicuousness grew. She was on the verge of changing her mind altogether and begging the host’s pardon before she left when a familiar voice cried out from a table by the far left wall.
“Nurse? Nurse Mercy, wasn’t that it? Well look at you,” declared Mrs. Henderson, from the dirigible and its terrible aftermath. “Dear child, you made your way to Memphis after all. ” The older woman stood and crossed the room, dodging a serving girl or two and taking Mercy’s hand. “I’m so glad you arrived here safely! Won’t you join us?”
She gestured toward the table, and to her husband, who was freshly washed and smiling happily at her over his shoulder.
Mercy said, “That’d be very kind, thank you. ”
The nurse continued to feel out of place, but when seated with the Hendersons, she grew more at ease. Mercy suspected quite quickly that Mrs. Henderson was overjoyed by the prospect of conversation with someone other than her addled husband, and it was hard to blame her. The two of them did most of the talking until supper arrived.
Mercy had chosen the sweet potatoes and pork chops, with apple pie for dessert, and she could scarcely pause between bites to keep up her end of the chatter. When she was finally so full that she thought she’d burst, she leaned back and said aloud, “Well, that was just wonderful! That lady sure knows how to make a pie, I’ll tell you what. ”
Mrs. Henderson’s brows knit ever so slightly. “Lady? But I thought you said you met her in the colored car?”
“Yes ma’am. ”