“Oh, Cowney. Do you really believe someone would just keep their mouth shut when they’ve lost their own child just so they don’t lose their job?” She rolled her eyes like she’d been practicing the motion her whole life.
Of course I did not believe much of what I found myself telling her, but it seemed to keep her attention and that was motivation enough to continue. “All I know is there ain’t a helluva lot of jobs floatin’ around and maybe they’re afraid for their own lives. Who knows why people do what they do.”
“So why are you going to work in a place like that?”
“Correction. I work for a place like that. I won’t set foot inside unless I have to. And even then, I sure as hell won’t go up to the guest floors. Excuse my language.”
“So I guess I’m just a fool, huh?” Her lips pursed again.
“Oh, gee. No. That’s not what I meant. Ahh. I just wanted to tell you about the place. I didn’t mean to scare you. We all have to work somewhere. It’s probably nothing. Plus, they have all kinds of security at the place. US Army detail scattered like ants on a hill.”
“Are they really prisoners?”
“The guests? Yeah, but not like soldier prisoners. That’s why they call them guests, by the way. Best to remember that. Have to call ’em guests. The way it’s been explained to me in the letter I got last week, they’re foreign diplomats and foreign nationals. Not American, but not Hitler’s frontline henchmen either. Been in the United States for some time, but had to be moved during the war.”
“Diplomats? I thought you said they were bloodthirsty vampires running death camps.”
“Oh, here we go again. You said that. Not me. Just tryin’ to hold a conversation.” I checked my side mirror needlessly. The steep, green banks hugged the car as we bumped along what were little more than plowed dirt paths. A sweet honeysuckle scent seeped in through the cracked windows, fighting its way past the swirling dust. I mentally marked the point in case Lishie needed vines for new baskets. There were only a few wooden guardrails periodically placed, and I worried that I’d take a curve too liberally and we would careen off the bank and roll down into a ravine—possibly never to be seen again. “The manager will tell you all you need to know anyway,” I conceded.
“I’m sorry, Cowney. Sometimes I poke fun when I’m on edge.” Essie settled deeper into her seat and pulled a small, golden mirror from her handbag. She drew an errant strand of dark, chestnut hair from her left cheek and tucked it behind her ear. With her other hand, she steadied the compact in front of her and admired the reflection of the procedure. If she had been like most girls I knew, her next move would be to produce a shiny tube of deep red lipstick and slowly apply it as I wiped away the beads of sweat forming on my own upper lip. Unfortunately, at least in this moment, Essie was not like most other girls. She tucked the mirror back into her black bag and balanced her chin in the palm of her hand, resting her right elbow on the passenger side door.
And still the perspiration came. It edged its way up my spine, forcing me to pull my chest forward into the steering wheel so that fresh air could dry the back of my damp shirt. The sweat then ringed my collar and finally framed my hairline. I rubbed my face as if I was still sleepy from the early-morning departure, but the foggy embarrassment was too much to absorb. Until now, I assumed that I looked at Essie like I looked at every female of a certain age. There was little distinction in my immature lust, not that I had the right to be discerning. She did nothing to evoke a deep longing. She sat prudishly, reserved and so utterly unaware of her femininity that it was as if I was compelled to seek it out on my own. Though I was slightly older, I felt ingenuous in her presence.
From the margins of my peripheral vision, she appeared almost wistful. The car’s right two tires grumbled across the rocky shoulder of the road, and I eased the steering wheel straight so as not to worry her. I was sure the awkwardness of my lame foot anywhere near the gas pedal had already done enough of that, and I didn’t need her questioning my equilibrium on top of everything else.
“It’s okay. I talk too much. Everybody tells me that.”
“No. I mean, it’s a long ride, right? Tell me more. I like a mystery.” Essie smiled, crossing her arms and leaning back.
Fresh air in the car gently circulated and for the first time during the whole ride, I began to really see Essie for who she might want to be: a respected lady rather than a respectable lady. Maybe she would be a detective, a mystery writer, or a scientist. Maybe we would both become scientists, discover cures to childhood diseases and deformities together in our shared laboratory. The possibilities coursed through my thoughts, but I forced myself to confine them there. I gave her that moment. Shut my big mouth and just nodded.
Within half an hour, Essie was drifting in and out of sleep, jerking her head upright periodically and fumbling to make a pillow of her clenched hands. There was a sweet innocence in her uncontrolled movements. It was a vulnerability that made me feel that at least her unconscious self had some level of trust in me, that maybe she wasn’t worried that my gimp foot would cause us to wreck or that my unsophisticated ways would lead us down the wrong road.
The only two people who had ever trusted me to drive them before were Lishie and my uncle Bud, and Bud had to be pretty damn desperate or incapacitated to allow someone else to drive him anywhere. He would huff like a deflating balloon because I was driving too fast or sigh, with a slow leak, because I was driving too cautiously. We shared the car between the three of us, so with me working in Asheville, Bud would have to get used to walking while I was away or get his broken-down pickup fixed after three years sitting idle in the yard. But Essie’s trust, that was something far better than Lishie or Bud could provide, and even though she didn’t say another word to me on the drive for quite some time, I still relished knowing she might be dreaming next to me.
When Essie and I arrived in Asheville proper not long after, she yawned, arched her back, and smiled again. The sidewalks on either side of us seemed to move like conveyor belts as sharply dressed men fell into office buildings and tightly dressed women pulled small children behind them, careful not to drop purses or their early-morning purchases. An almost rhythmic opus of car horns signaled lackadaisical street-crossers and distracted drivers. A haze of dust and cigarette smoke billowed from passing cars. The starched pallor of city dappers (as my uncle liked to call them) was threatened with each turn of the steering wheel or application of the squeaking brake pads. Emerging sunlight sparkled off copper guttering and art deco tile designs framing doorways. I wished desperately that I could tune a car radio to mellow jazz. One of the first items on my list after a few paychecks was to buy a radio. I wouldn’t be able to buy one just for the car, but maybe I could take it with me on long rides if I stockpiled enough batteries. In truth, I didn’t know a whole heck of a lot about jazz, but there was no denying that one true fact—Asheville was a jazz city. It breathed blue notes.
By the turn of the second signal light, I was swerving consistently to avoid an errant stray dog or misguided fruit cart. The tempo had taken a strong upturn. Essie, now fully awake, gripped her purse with one hand and the edge of the seat with her other, signaling her distaste for my navigational talents. “We’re not in that big of a hurry, are we? I think we could have bypassed some of this. That way you wouldn’t be in such a rush.”
I had little time to consider her comforts, not entirely sure of my route, though I had navigated the streets before. In truth, this was not the most direct route to the resort, but I thought the excitement of downtown might conjure a smile from Essie. She seemed more “city” than any other girl I knew back home. I gambled on her inborn metropolitan inclination.
My foot ached from the constant stop-and-go pressure on the brake and clutch. I needed to stretch my legs. My toes started to go numb. I was quickly regretting my decision to prolong the ride. The slow traffic allowed me the opportunity to fully sense a distinct nervousness about Essie as well. She lifted her chin as
she looked out the windows, as if to imply to the passersby that I was most certainly her driver and that was all. She brushed the skirt of her dress flat and patted the sides of her head, sticking her up-do into permanent alignment. None of this was for my benefit. Her breathing became deep and rhythmic, in the way that nearly forced me to mimic it myself. She was calming herself. I never would have thought a girl like that got nervous.
By the third traffic light, as we now eased into the heart of Asheville’s downtown, Essie sighed again; but this time it was different. The tall buildings folded around us, concrete sisters of the Smoky Mountains edging the horizon. Essie squared her shoulders. A peaceful energy surrounded her. It was almost as if she had finally aligned herself with the morning sunrise, a calm after an invisible storm. The golden glow cocooned her body.
Given the week I had in Cherokee under Bud’s surveillance before Essie and I made our trip to Asheville, though I know now I was wrong, I would have thought it was sheer luck or divinity that placed me in the driver’s seat. Try and relax, I told myself. Perhaps it was the discussion about the inn’s rumors or what it might be built upon, but the road ahead felt uneasy in more ways than one—as if the wheels of the car were rolling over secrets.
Chapter Five
I eased the Model T up the private driveway, feeling as much a newcomer as Essie probably did. Essie’s fidgeting in the passenger’s seat seemed to feed my own unrest as we wound our way up the driveway to the inn. Iron gates and alabaster homes lined the path, each in competition with the Grove Park’s opulence. As we edged the top of the hill, newly erected barbed-wire fencing, completely at odds with the serenity of the property, unsettled me. The only barbed wire I had seen at home was used to keep cattle and horses corralled. I had ripped more than one pair of good jeans on those fences.
Aside from the temporary military structures dotting its grounds, the Grove Park Inn looked as if it had been forcefully extracted from the rocky earth by some red-gloved god. The base of the main structure mimicked the stone-formed mountain landscape. Succeeding generations of stonemasons must have labored to jigsaw the fragments together. It splayed across the hillside, dipping down and rising with the ridgeline. With its bright red terracotta tile cottage sag, the roofline was anything but natural. Nothing camouflaged this edifice among the blue-gray mountains; it set the Smokies ablaze. Even though I knew the buildings were older than me, I reminded myself that they were not older than the land on which they amassed. I felt as if I was arriving at some sort of sacred site. Not sacred to my people, but to the people of Asheville—or, more accurately, to the wealthy whites of Asheville. I approached with a sense of reverence and fear of the inn’s inherent power. I was a caretaker of a phenomenon. I wondered if Essie would feel the same impulse to say a prayer. Dear Father, dear Lord, dear God!
To the south, the grandiose Biltmore House pierced the horizon. To the west, Thomas Wolfe lay in rest at Riverside Cemetery, home again at last. To the east, Black Mountain College’s artist community woke the dead. To the north, Governor Vance’s old homeplace held fast to the landscape of stagnant time. There seemed to be many secrets in this town, far more than I considered the Boundary to have. But, of course, Asheville townies likely felt quite the same about Cherokee. So, during our time in Asheville, we would pass one another with both curiosity and secret-keeper confidence in our eyes.
“We have to check in at the gate first,” I explained to Essie, pretending that I knew what I was doing. She nodded. I slowed the car to stop at the makeshift gatehouse, a small white box of a structure much more recent than the rest of the property, and cranked the window down. “We’re here to work. I’m Cowney Sequoyah and this is Essie Stamper.”
The M.P. scanned his clipboard. “Yes. You’re right here. I was wondering how you pronounced your name. See-coy-ya. Good to know. Just a moment.” He walked behind my vehicle and wrote down my license plate number. “Take this pass and put it inside your windshield so it can be seen from the outside.” He seemed nice enough, even smiled as he waved us through the gate.
That was the last smile I saw for the remainder of the day.
Two other M.P.s waved us into a parking lot situated just above the resort’s main hall. I slid the sheet of paper onto the dashboard. Essie looked at me, silently, but still communicating, Well, here we go.
“Not too shabby, is it?”
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” she confirmed.
“Yeah, me neither. But I don’t think most folks have. Probably even a lot of people from Asheville have never been here.”
“Wonder why they thought to put prisoners here?” Essie asked as she opened her car door. I had intended to open it for her, but my left foot was knotted into a tight cramp from working the clutch, and I could only manage to get myself halfway out the door by the time she was stepping out.
“Guests,” I reminded her. “You mean to say guests.”
“Yes. Of course.” She nodded, straightening her back and lifting her chin.
I moved to the back of the car and opened the trunk, setting all three suitcases on the ground. “Not sure. I guess they figure they’ll keep them pacified in a resort and, well, we are in the middle of nowhere.”
“And I thought Cherokee was the middle of nowhere.”
“Apparently they save reservations for real prisoners. Let’s go. We can check in with the manager together.”
Essie nodded and picked up her bags with no indication that she was accustomed to anyone else ever carrying them for her. I was relieved, certain I couldn’t have carried so many down the hill without tumbling into the front lobby.
“Alright. Keep up, will you!” She was almost cheerful as she started down the slope ahead of me.
That is, until we reached the large oak doors. She stood motionless in front of them, inhaling and exhaling slowly.
“You okay?” I asked, catching up to her.
“Yes. It’s just … Well, what you said about the children …”
“Oh, no! No, no, no. Just ignore me. Heck, everybody else does. It’s fine. Come on. You’ll see.”
I moved in front of her and pushed the right door open. I imagined how just a matter of months ago there would have been someone who looked a lot like me to open the door for us. And then there would be someone else who would sweep in and take our suitcases. They would have assumed we were on our honeymoon, perhaps. And though we weren’t exactly on some sort of upper-crust holiday together, my chest swelled to think that I was about to lead Essie anywhere. In truth, I can’t say for certain that I had ever led anyone anywhere.
I stepped back against the open door so Essie could walk through without shifting her bags. I watched as she cautiously surveyed the enormous lobby.
Stone-bolstered walls fortified the space, an impenetrable holding cell for the haves and the pretend-they-haves. I felt as if I was exploring a cavern, finding the only entrance through a tiny door compared to the enormity of open space inside. We were tumbling down Lewis Carroll’s rabbit hole.
“I wonder where we go,” she whispered.
“This way,” I motioned with my elbow, hands still holding my bag. “The main office is over here.”
She continued to follow me over to a small glassed-in office. A uniformed guard stood out front, but no weapon was visible.
“Can I help you?”
“We’re here to work,” I said.
“Well, I figured you weren’t checking in for holiday.” His eyes drooped in line with his tone.
Essie leaned forward past me. “I’m Essie Stamper and this is Cowney Sequoyah.”
She remembered my name again.
“We just got here and need some direction. So please excuse us. We need to find the person in charge.” Essie’s cool demeanor fully returned. I think she may have scared me more than the guard.
“Letcha off the rez, did they? In there.” He pointed.
As we continued through the door, I leaned over to her. “How’d you know he w
asn’t in charge?”
“His rank.”
“How’d you know his rank?”
“My brother’s in the army. My brother orders flunkies like him around.”
I felt strongly that she was about to order flunkies like me around, too.
“Wait there.” A thin man in a tan linen suit sat at the desk in front of us. He held the black phone receiver to his ear and pointed us both to a couch with his other hand. As he talked into the device, he kept his eyes on us.
The glassed room gave us a view to the sheer massiveness of the inn’s lobby. Great pillars formed an exoskeleton of dark wood, flecked with stone joints. Scaffolding lined the colossal windows, most likely to replace original ornate draperies with canvas tarps and to reach the delicate chandeliers so that they could be wrapped in protective sheets during the army’s tenure. In their desperate attempt to shield the resort from the economic laceration of the Depression by contracting with the US government, the inn’s owners would still go to great lengths to protect their architectural treasure from the scars of the war. I wondered just how much light, natural and otherwise, had been stripped from the palatial space when the military arrived. It was now hard to imagine the light ever being here.
“Alright, what may I do for you?” the thin man asked briskly.
“Yes, sir.” I wanted to speak first, before Essie had a chance. “I’m Cowney Sequoyah and this is Essie Stamper. We’re new employees.”
“Sure. Sure. Well, come on. I will show you where you’re staying and introduce you to the shift managers. They’ll take it from there. Show you where to eat. Go over the rules. All that.” He opened a file in his hands. “You’re Indians from over in Cherokee. That right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Hmm. We’ll make sure you get a proper orientation then. Things are probably quite different.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
“It’s late to start the day. Keep in mind you won’t be getting a full day’s pay today, starting so late and all.”
Even As We Breathe Page 4