Page 24 of Our Violent Ends
Juliette scrunched her nose, then turned back, asking without words what the list was.
Rosalind held her hand out. “Patrons at the club I’m to accost for funds. Would you like an in-depth explanation about how I drug their drinks? A chronological order of who pulls out their coins first?”
“Oh, hush,” Juliette chided lightly, returning the slip to Rosalind’s hand. She ran her gaze across the other papers for a brief while before determining that there wasn’t much to scrutinize. Kathleen had been concerned about Rosalind’s involvement with foreigners, but to live in this city was to be involved with foreigners.
“Don’t tell me you’re getting on my case too.”
“Who, me?” Juliette asked innocently. Rosalind’s bed jangled with noise when Juliette plopped onto the mattress for a makeshift seat, all the pearls and feathers from Rosalind’s dance costumes tangling together atop the deep blue sheets. “Whatever about?”
Rosalind rolled her eyes, getting up from her desk. Juliette thought her cousin was coming to join her, but Rosalind pivoted the other way and wandered over to her window instead.
“Kathleen cannot go two seconds without trying to trail me across the city. I’m on neutral territory, not operating on White Flower ground.”
“I think she’s more concerned about the foreigners than the blood feud.”
Rosalind leaned up against the windowsill, propping her chin into her hand.
“The foreigners see this country as an unborn child to keep in line,” she said. “No matter how they threaten us with their tanks, they will not harm us. They watch us split internally like embryos in the womb, twins and triplets eating each other until there is no one left, and they want nothing more than to stop it so we can come out whole for them to sell.”
Juliette was grimacing when Rosalind turned back around. “Okay, first of all, that’s a disgusting metaphor and not how biology works.”
Rosalind jazzed her hands around. “Ooh, look at me. I studied with Americans and I know how biology works.”
“Ooh, look at me,”Juliette imitated, her hands doing the same. “I’m a triplet and yet my French tutors forgot to tell me I can’t eat another sibling in the womb.”
Rosalind couldn’t hold back her laugh. It spluttered out in a short and loud sound, and Juliette grinned too, her shoulders lightening for the first time that week. Unfortunately, it didn’t last long.
“My point,” Rosalind said, sobering, “is that the danger in this city is its politics. Forget the foreigners. It’s the Nationalists and the Communists, tearing at each other’s throats then working together for revolution in the same breath. No one should be messing with them. Not you. Not Kathleen.”
If only it were that simple. If only one thing could be to blame. As if they didn’t all ripple off each other like the world’s most cursed game of falling domino tiles. Whether they wanted it or not, revolution would come. Whether they ignored it or not, it would come. And whether they carried on business as usual or shut down every operation before they could be hurt, it would still come.
“Your necklace,” Juliette blurted suddenly, “it’s new.”
Rosalind blinked, taken aback by the switch in topic. “This?” She pulled at the chain, and out came the silver, dangling with a plain strip of metal at the end. “It’s nothing special.”
A feeling prickled the hairs at the back of Juliette’s neck—a peculiar anxiety that she couldn’t quite place.
“I just never see you with jewelry.” She scanned her cousin’s desk again, then the shelf space above, where Rosalind’s loose knickknacks sat. Short of a few earrings, she sighted little else. “Imperial women used to own mounds upon mounds of jewelry, you know. They were seen as vain, but it wasn’t that. It was because it was easier to run with jewelry than it was with money.”
The clock on the mantel gave a loud chime. Juliette almost jumped, but Rosalind only quirked her left eyebrow.
“Biaomèi,” Rosalind sighed. “I’m not a merchant that you need to speak in metaphors with. I’m not going to run. The whole reason I’m picking up after my father is because I have no interest in leaving.” She splayed her hands. “Where would I even go?”
There were plenty of places to go. Juliette could list them, by distance or by English alphabet. By safety or by likelihood of being found. If Rosalind had never considered it, then she was the more righteous person here. Because Juliette had, even if she could never actually carry it out.
“I don’t know” was all Juliette said, her voice faint. The clock chimed again to mark the first minute of the hour passing, and noting the time, Juliette quickly stood, feigning a yawn. “Anyway, good talk. I will retire now. Don’t stay up too late, all right?”
Rosalind waved her off, casual. “I can sleep in tomorrow morning. Bonne nuit.”
Juliette slipped out from the room and, after closing her cousin’s door, retrieved her basket. Rosalind’s words had left her uneasy, but she tried to push the apprehension down, to swallow and repress it as she did with all things in this city that needed to be dealt with, for otherwise one might implode with all that rested on their shoulders. With a quick pitter-patter, Juliette hurried through the rest of the house and out the front door, easing it shut with a quiet click.
“The things I do,” she muttered to herself. The moon glowed overhead, lighting the driveway. “And for what? To get a gun held to my head, that’s what.”
She slid into the car, waking the chauffeur, who had been snoozing at the driver’s seat.
“Hold out for a little longer, could you?” Juliette said. “I would really prefer not to crash.”
“Don’t worry, Miss Cai,” the chauffeur chirped, immediately sounding more awake. “I’ll get you to the burlesque club safely.”
