chose to come back. I missed you girls terribly.”
“Did you go to London?” asked O’Leary.
“A few times. And every time the weather was rubbish.”
In any case, what a gorgeous, beautiful sight it was to see Rosa wearing that dress! Victoria laughed when she saw her dancing, and not with the bitter sneer common to antagonistic sisters, but truly content at Rosa’s gaiety.
Even the drunkard had a compliment for her. “You look nice,” he said. “You remind me of the Blessed Virgin.”
The young girl yipped in delight every time she saw Rosa standing against the afternoon light coming through the window. She truly looked like a Marian apparition, the young girl thought, feeling happy for her sister, especially now that Rosa referred to her no longer as a stinky ass but as a “dahling.” “Dahling” here and “dahling” there; Rosa still treated her like a servant, but it was nice to be given orders in a sweeter tone, accompanied with an affected “please” and followed afterwards by a “thank you.” Maybe she too would receive a dress like that sometime soon, the young girl dared to think. Maybe she too would be magically transported to New York in an instant. But, no, she wouldn’t come back. Not for the love of nothing. Not after one year, not after twenty. Not to this horrible house and not to this city. Not ever. Wonder of wonders, she kept repeating to herself, examining up close the fine embroidery in her sister’s dress but not too close as to actually touch it. She only needed to be patient.
Rosa forwent mourning attire and wore the dress every day and every night for a full ten days. She became the best dressed debutante in Venice; the most photographed, and the most solicited. Alas, the dress was so delicate it tore apart on the eleventh day, when she tried to wash it—more tears, more fists thrown into the air, and more heartbreaking drama!
Thank God she had not been appointed with the task to wash it, the young girl thought with horror. Rosa would have killed her.
A few days later, they received a telegram from Harris: “‘Magnolia and I delighted to have you,’” Victoria read aloud. “‘Rosa welcome too.’”
Anticipating that the fairy may not give a favorable response to her sister, Victoria had asked her godparents to also take Rosa.
“We fight, but we are the best of friends too, aren’t we? It would break my heart to live away from you. I wouldn’t wait a year to come back if I couldn’t take you. I wouldn’t ever leave if it was without my favorite sister.”
Rosa was stupefied. She would have preferred to move to England, of course, and Venice was still fun—the beach, the rides, the dance halls and the gaming houses—but it couldn’t compare to the thrill of living in the burgeoning city of Los Angeles, “a city of over three hundred thousand,” Victoria said, “a size commendable enough to justify our presence.”
Rosa begged for a tissue to clean up her nose. She was moved.
“Magnolia is a bore,” Victoria continued, “but Harris is a lot of fun. What do we have to lose? We’ve worn out all our welcomes in Venice. In the city, we will be incredibly happy!”
What other choice she had? Rosa said yes.
They obtained their father’s permission—it took only one trip to the liquor store—under the condition that the youngest would stay behind to take care of him and of the house.
“But she wasn’t invited,” the girls laughed.
They packed their bags, said good-bye to a few friends and acquaintances, and that same afternoon they took the Red Car to Los Angeles.
In little over an hour the two of them were trudging up the hill on Olive Street, singing Christmas carols (in mid-September!) and congratulating each other on their good fortune.
“We’ll go to the theatre every day,” Rosa commented, admiring the majesty of the high rises along their way.
“And to the opera,” Victoria stroked a column made of alabaster with the tip of her fingers.
“And to the shops on Broadway.”
Back then Bunker Hill was a petit paradis, a Mount Olympus on the outskirts of the city, full of tall apartment buildings, houses with intricate window frames, turrets, steep pitched roofs, and dainty rose gardens, all less than a five minute walk away from Central Park (today’s Pershing Square), a more suitable place, the two sisters reckoned, than Windward Avenue or the Boardwalk to trap a husband.
“I’m going to marry a millionaire,” said Rosa.
Why wouldn’t she? Los Angeles was full of millionaires!
“So will I,” replied Victoria.
“I will marry first, though. My husband and I will live in a two-story house with a grand salon and a piano.”
“We’ll have to be good,” Victoria reminded her sister one last time before they knocked the door.
“Of course.”
“Amenable,” Victoria adjusted her skirt. “Courteous—” she pinched her and her sister’s cheeks to make them look healthier. “And well mannered.”
“We’ll be so happy!”
“Happier that we ever were at the beach.”
“Happier than we would have ever been doing witchcraft.”
They had done one last thing before they left Venice that afternoon, their little sister found out when she entered to clean their bedroom: They had gotten rid of all their magic supplies: the dolls, the rusty knives, the books of incantations. Everything was gone. Everything the young girl had hoped to inherit. She ran downstairs to search in the mother’s closet. All of her notes, all of her potions, they had left nothing behind but a few worthless items.
“Welcome!” Harris hollered from the second floor window. “Welcome to Los Angeles,” he repeated one minute later, opening the downstairs door and lifting up both girls at the same time.
My, Harris was handsome! A well trimmed beard, a curled mustache, and just the right amount of hair coming out from his chest and arms to make a lady tremble, victim of her own lustful imagination.
He put the girls down and kissed both of them twice on the cheeks. He had the manners of a French gentleman and the build of an Irish boxer.
Magnolia came down, too. A comely face, but plain in comparison. She kissed the girls and then her husband, who immediately repaid her with another kiss. Victoria let out a few tears.
The apartment was smaller than the girls remembered it, but quite comfortable and equipped with all sorts of modern appliances: electricity and central heating, hot and cold running water; even a telephone line.
Magnolia showed the girls to their room. Small, too, and they would have to share a bed, but it had a magnificent view of downtown and the river.
“How do you like it?” Harris asked.
“It is beautiful!” the girls cried at once.
“We are so thankful!”
“We
