"What's this about,lovey? Not enjoying your week with Mr. Hunter?" Myra asked as I pushed the curtain shut on my dressing room.
It was a good opening for me, an easy route into the topic at hand, but my tongue was thick in my mouth as I turned to face Myra.
"I am, very much," I said. Myra beamed at me, floating about my dressing room and tidying the space as if it were her own. "But…thirty pounds, Myra?"
Myra stiffened, her back to me as she smoothed the gown Hunter had purchased for my scene with Constantine, hands fisting into the silk fabric.
"He told you?" she asked, the corner of her frown just visible over her shoulder.
"I saw you in the hall with him. I asked."
Myra remained still and silent for a moment before finally releasing my gown, giving it a gentle pet to erase the wrinkles from her fist, and then turned to face me. Her lips were pursed flat and her chin jutted forward. I forgot sometimes that Myra was growing older, changing with the other humans, not frozen in time like me. But it showed on her now, the changing landscape of her features, the gathering lines over her brow and around her lips.
"It's for your own good. For all of you."
"So it isn't just me you were profiting off of?" I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.
"It's not profit!" Myra caught a deep breath and then shook her head, gaze dropping. "Not much, at least. I do... I have taken a little, when I had to. But so much is saved, Hazel, I swear. Enough for three or four girls."
Irritation pricked at my spine and made my words sharp. "What do you mean, 'enough'? Myra, you've been scamming the patrons!"
"Well, why do we call them patrons if they aren't going to do more for the theater? For the actresses they come to gape and paw at?!" Myra snapped. "So yes, I take a little here and there. No more than they're very willing to pay. And I put it aside, just in case."
I stepped forward and paused as Myra flinched. "In case of what?"
"In case a charm fails and a girl gets pregnant. In case one of you wants to leave the theater without beholdening yourself to a man," Myra said, eyes wide.
My mouth hung open and I blinked at Myra. A charm had never failed, as far as I knew. And no girl had ever retired from the theater with some secret gift of money to live on.
"You never told us," I said, jaw clenching as Myra's gaze glanced away. "Myra, you've been hoarding away money, and whether it's for you or for us, you made it from our bodies and our time without our knowledge. Who is going to know to ask for help when they want to leave if they don't even know the money exists to help them? I don't believe you!"
"What do you want?" Myra asked, arms flapping at her sides and an urgent squeak in her voice, her eyes glancing over my shoulder at the doorway. "Do you want the money from Hunter? I have this week and the time before. You can have it."
"No!" I cried out, and she fell back a step. "Myra, it meant a great deal to him to find out I was there with him for my own pleasure. Those monsters have as much right to know we're with them by choice, as any of the girls have to know there's money being exchanged!"
"It's only to help," Myra whispered, turning to the side, shrinking in on herself.
"It hasn't helped. Not anyone but you, as far as I can tell. And Reddy—"
"Don't you dare tell him," Myra hissed, spinning to face me again, charging forward, all her nervous apology vanishing in feral anger. It was my turn to lean back, stumble away, but she didn't spare me an inch. "Yes, I saved, and yes, I might need it in the future. I chose that man when I could've had...had dozens of others. I love him, I do. But I'm aging and he's not, and every other month there's a new girl in here and—"
"Stop."
"—his eyes will wander eventually, and I'll have nothing. No beauty left, no money. So I am saving, more than I need, but it's not just for me, Hazel."
"Myra, enough!" I shouted.
This time she stopped, her chest heaving and throat bobbing as she seemed to swallow down the flurry of words that had exploded from her.
"No more," I whispered, staring at her, those pretty dark eyes of hers now creased at the corners, slightly puffy dark circles remarking on years of lost sleep. "You have enough saved for yourself?"
She swallowed again, then nodded.
"No more," I repeated, frowning. "Ask the other girls what they want."
"Reddy would strangle me if he knew I was—"
"I don't care what you tell him or don't tell him. He…he'd probably take a cut for the theater, and he has less a right to it than you. But if you make any more deals with patrons, you do it on the girl's behalf. With her knowledge, Myra. I will find out."
I held her gaze, watched the anger fizzle into worry, through shame, and back to a firm, cold strength, her chin lifting again.
"Fine. And you don't want—"