The Last Blue

by Isla Morley

  She has to remind him about his skillet. “Your eggs.”

  After he dishes up, he pulls out a chair for her. She starts eating and he becomes fixated again. She breaks off a piece of bread and puts it in her mouth and dusts the crumbs from her lips. He forces himself not to watch. Abruptly, he snatches up his fork and takes a bite, then pulls a face. “They’re burned!” He removes her plate. “Who’s ever heard of someone who can’t even cook eggs?”

  Her smile is high beams, and he decides burned eggs aren’t such a bad idea after all.

  * * *

  Avoiding the noonday sun, Havens rests on the porch, where the breeze provides just enough relief from the mugginess, but not his impatience. Once Jubilee finishes her chores, she comes to get him. Other than a few rest stops to give his foot a break, they spend the afternoon selecting locations and setting up the Graflex. She spends almost as much time behind the lens as he does, though she won’t be persuaded to pull the trigger except on two occasions—once for a vine-covered chimney, the only remains of what once was a cabin and which she insisted looked like a hunched old man, and a second time at the spider tree, which he refused to photograph.

  “It’s creepy,” he said.

  “It’s not creepy, it’s beautiful,” she insisted, peering through the viewfinder aimed at the black gum tree, all its boughs enshrouded in webs, the work not of spiders after all, but thousands of webworms.

  “It’s not what it seems,” she adds. “That’s what I love about it.”

  Even when he’s run out of film, they stop to admire and imagine different natural treasures—to her, the fist-sized spiny mushroom is a hedgehog; to him, the slope terraced with deadfall is the decayed rib cage of a giant. When they come across a patch of galax, he plucks one of the waxy heart-shaped leaves and presents it to her, and neither of them has to imagine.

  JUBILEE

  The men come up from the cellar, Mr. Massey as if he’s on springs. “Either you all are the most photogenic bunch of people ever to have faced a camera or else Havens here is at the top of his game again.” He wipes the table with his handkerchief. “Go on, Havens, show them.”

  Mr. Havens catches Jubilee’s eye before laying out his pictures. He’s been down there most of the evening while everyone else, having been instructed not to disturb him as any bit of light would ruin his work, has been milling around the front room trying not to watch the trapdoor. Now there’s a rush to see the end result. A collective sigh of approval rises from the assembled.

  She’s heard that some primitive people won’t allow for their pictures to be taken, believing it to be a kind of thievery, and seeing these pictures, she’s inclined now to disagree. Instead of stealing their likeness, Mr. Havens has returned to them accented versions of themselves. Grandma seems like she’s come on a far journey, Willow-May sits as though she’s riding on top of a hay wagon, and Mama like she knows nothing but to wait out the course of things both good and bad. Pa stares out from the frame, a proud man, his kin portrayed as he’s always wished—not distinguishable by blue, but tied to time and nature same as any other family. And there she is—in gray tones, not a shade darker or lighter than anyone else. Instead of turned away as she’d intended, she is clutching the button on her blouse, pressing her lips to keep from smiling and aiming her eyes at the man in front of her with what was supposed to be her secret admiration of him.

  “Juby, why’d you make that face?” Willow-May complains.

  Jubilee reaches over her sister’s shoulder and places the picture of Pa and Mama on top of the family portrait. “You should put this one in a frame, Mama.”

  “Didn’t you marry yourself a handsome fella, Glad?” Pa squints at the picture from various distances and acts like he’s being introduced to his long-lost twin, before giving Mama’s behind a pat.

  She flicks him with her dishtowel, which makes him assume the bearing of a man shot in the ribs. In slow motion, Pa falls to his knees and rolls onto his back.

  “Gosh darn it, Delbert, I only just washed that shirt,” Mama half-scolds.

  Seldom is Pa silly.

  Levi, too, casts aside some of his gloom and asks about the process of printing pictures, and Mr. Havens explains about film speed and light readings, inviting him any time to the cellar for a demonstration. Between them forms a place where there is no blue. When Mr. Havens catches her eye, there, too, is a place without blue.

  Had Pa any experience in receiving gifts, he’d know to be gracious. Instead, he treats the pictures as a trade, offering Mr. Havens his horn pipe, one of his few prized possessions, which Mr. Havens is quick to decline.

  “These pictures are my thanks to you for your hospitality.”

  “You’ve done Havens a huge favor,” adds Mr. Massey. “It’s been ages since he’s produced anything near as good as these pictures.”

  “I guess I just needed the right inspiration.” Only when everyone’s attention goes back to the photographs does Mr. Havens look at her again.

  She ought to do something other than hold a man’s gaze so. She hardly knows herself.

  “That being the case,” suggests Pa, gathering up the pictures, “you ought to take more while you’re here.” He arranges them on the mantle, and everyone forms a circle of chairs in front of those pictures, as if any moment the figures will come to life and step down into their midst.

  Mr. Havens cocks his head at her, and lays another batch of photographs on the table. Thomas on the porch rail, his weak wing stretched out like a lady’s fan; the baby foxes capering about; Pa’s view nothing short of a depiction of Zion. Mr. Havens has made a story of her world, one picture like the first page of a novel, another like the next-to-last page where the reader longs to know how it all ends.

  “What do you think?”

  She faces him with admiration. She wants him to photograph everything of her life, to see it as he sees it, to see how he feels about it. These pictures are different from the ones of the big bustling city—she’s had no first-hand experience by which to compare reality with his portrayal of it, but these surroundings are as much a part of her inner landscape as they are part of Kentucky, and how he’s depicted them is a window into how he feels about them. About her, even.

  Pleased with her reaction, he says, “They’re yours,” but she shakes her head. “You must keep them.” That way she can be a story he’ll never forget.

  * * *

  Having put aside his songwriting and guitar-playing, Levi keeps mostly to himself, busying himself in the toolshed and making repairs to the roof before winter arrives. Pa tends the crops when he’s not making a farmer out of Mr. Massey, who divides his free time between writing in the barn and going into town. Jubilee, who is now always awake before sunrise, races through her morning chores so she can take Mr. Havens out into the woods. Each day he is able to walk a bit better, and their outings take them farther and farther afield. Though the men’s stay is no longer a matter of Mr. Havens’s injury, Pa wouldn’t hear of them moving back to the boarding house and couldn’t hide his disappointment when Mr. Massey announced that their departure was to be brought forward. Everyone chimed in when he suggested the weekend, so now he’s promised to stay until after Socall’s frolic, maybe even leaving as late as Tuesday next week. Futile as it may be, Jubilee has sought to delay their leaving in her own way, finding more subjects for Mr. Havens to photograph, which turn out mostly to be places where they sit and wait for the subjects to appear—nests, burrows, the branch where the baby possums sleep hanging from their tails. Twice she’s taken him to her aviary, where he photographed each patient multiple times, as well as her hut from every angle and distance. Even objects you wouldn’t think would warrant a picture, he photographed—her water pitcher, the bag of seed propped beside the barrel, the cowbell hanging in the doorway. When he’s had his fill of pictures, there is never any hurry to return to the house. Instead, they follow the shade around the meadow, talking sometimes, and sometimes letting the birds do all the jab
bering. One of their games is to compete to see who knows which call belongs to which bird. She lets him win on occasion. One time a certain frantic chirping had them both stumped. Mr. Havens said they were the dots and dashes, boasting that he knew Morse code, and when she asked him to prove it, he translated, “In this meadow sits the clever maiden who knows almost as much about birdcalls as the handsome man beside her.” She’d punched his arm.

  Today she’s taking him to her favorite place, a hidden spot, and maybe there they’ll wait for angels to appear.

  On the last stretch of the trail, she takes his tripod and has him close his eyes. “No peeking.”

  He covers his eyes with one hand and holds out the other for her to take. “And now, ladies and gentleman,” he says in a stage voice, “the fair maiden leads the poor trusting fellow down the garden path.”

  Getting him through the rocky crevice is tricky, and more than once she causes him to bump his head. “Sorry,” she says. “Nearly there.”

  “It’s not an apology if you giggle.”

  A few more steps, and they leave behind every sound. “You can open your eyes now.”

  He lets out a big breath at what he sees—woolly green granite walls on all sides and an amber pool where an altar would go. After a heavy rain or during the snowmelt, water will rush over the ladder of rocks and fallen branches, but now only silvery daylight trickles down. “This is my church.” If any prayer ever had a chance of being heard, it would be here. Can’t he stay?

  While Mr. Havens sets up his camera, she frees herself of her shoes and flits to the edge of the water, where she peers at her reflection. There is nothing particularly distinctive about her color, certainly nothing that could put a person off—she’s part pebble, part leaves, part speckled sunlight. Toeing her image turns her into ripples. For a moment, she fantasizes he’s going to photograph her, but when she turns around, he is sitting on a boulder some distance from his camera, as if he and it have quarreled. “Is everything all right?” She can’t read his peculiar expression.

  “Fine.”

  “Come feel the water!”

  He smiles, but he does not join her.

  At its deepest, the water comes only as far as her shins. Her fingers sieve a rhododendron blossom and a couple of leaves from the surface, and she feels Mr. Havens’s attention track her to the other side of the pond. She’s never brought anyone here, not even Levi, and she wonders if this hasn’t been a mistake, because Mr. Havens is now putting away his camera.

  “I think I should go back,” he says when she approaches him.

  Fetching her shoes, she tries to cover her disappointment, and he says, “You don’t have to leave. Why don’t you stay and enjoy your time here?” Already he’s picked up his belongings and is headed for the exit.

  Everything she has wished in secret has made her as fragile as a clay figurine. Packing straw would be more useful to her than wishing he would stay and see the story of who she is. Moments later, she’s alone, her hideaway little more than a pen. What’s to enjoy anymore about being hidden? She picks up a handful of stones and shatters that foolish reflection.

  * * *

  Mr. Massey is still not back from town, Levi and Pa are at Socall’s helping her get the house ready for the frolic, and now that Mr. Havens is in the cellar making photographs again, she ventures from her room, where she retreated before supper last night and has spent the morning nursing a fictitious headache just to avoid him. Willow-May has hounded Mama and Grandma into a game of cards, and now insists Jubilee join in. Her sister’s games have rules that change with every hand.

  “As long as you don’t cheat,” Jubilee tells her.

  “You’re just sore because you never win” is her reply.

  Mama reads the sheet of paper on which Grandma is supposed to be keeping score. “Looks like Grandma’s winning this time.”

  Willow-May grabs the paper, does the sums in her head, pencils in new totals, and scolds Grandma, who grins and sneaks another card into her lap.

  Mama is dealing another hand when there’s a knock at the door. Theirs is a door that’s been banged on, every once in a while kicked in, and one time shot at, but never has it been knocked on. They all look at one another.

  “I’ll get it,” offers Willow-May, but Jubilee tells her to stay where she is.

  When Jubilee opens it, she has to resist the instinct to slam it shut. Even high-colored, sweated-up, and hair all tangled, Sarah Tuttle is pretty, and she has chosen a Sunday dress for the occasion of disturbing the peace.

  “Who is it, Jubilee?” Mama calls.

  Reeking of cigarette smoke, Sarah says in that no-nonsense way of hers, the way of people who’ve been fussed over by others all their lives, that she needs to talk to Levi. No good afternoon or please excuse me.

  “This is not a good time,” Jubilee tells her.

  Again, Mama asks who’s come.

  “He’s not here.” Jubilee attempts to close the door, but her visitor starts yelling for Levi, which brings her and Mama face-to-face.

  “You shouldn’t be here.” Mama peers past her as if to see whether ranks have formed up behind her.

  Either Sarah’s been raised to have no manners or agitation’s got the best of her. “I’m not leaving until I talk to him.”

  “You’re not to see each other anymore, so whatever you have to say to him you can say to me and I’ll decide if he needs to hear it.”

  Scowling, Sarah tells her, “We aren’t all the same, you know. We aren’t all ignorant and prejudiced and agreed on how your family ought to be treated, and you of all people ought not to judge someone before getting to know them.”

  Maybe years ago Mama could have been provoked by such a rebuke, but not anymore. “We don’t want any trouble, so be on your way.” She gives Sarah that look that says she will outwait God if need be.

  “Well, trouble’s coming whether you want it or not.” Sarah stomps off down the path, and Mama goes back to her seat. Jubilee watches Sarah get a good long way before running after her. When she catches up, Sarah is smoking a cigarette and won’t even look at her.

  “It’s not that he doesn’t want to see you, it’s that he’s sworn not to.”

  “Leave me alone.”

  “Why can’t you see it’s better this way?”

  Sarah swings around. “Better for who?”

  “What good has it done acting like you two can be together? Instead of pretending you don’t know circumstances would never allow it, why won’t you let this make-belief come to an end, for your sake and Levi’s?”

  “Make-belief, huh?’ ” She takes another drag on her cigarette and considers the clouds before giving Jubilee a once-over. “Do you think I chose to fall in love with Levi Buford? Do you think that’s how love works? That you assess all your options and pick the one who makes the most sense?” She tosses the cigarette to the ground and grinds it with her shoe. “People put a nickel in the plate on Sunday and think it buys them the right to order the preacher around and order his daughter around, too—sing this, wear that, visit this one, pray for that one, be better than every other girl, but don’t act higher. Levi is the only person who’s ever just let me be me, and I couldn’t talk myself out of loving him even if I wanted to.”

  Compared to her firm words, Jubilee’s come out jellied. “In time you’ll forget how you feel now.”

  Sarah loses patience with her. “You just tell Levi I’ll be waiting for him at the Granger place until he shows up. Tell him he’s going to want to hear what I’ve got to say.”

  Jubilee is in the middle of explaining that the Granger place is where they were spotted by Uncle Eddie when Sarah takes off. The same determined steps that brought her up the holler take her back. How does love get to act that sure of itself?

  HAVENS

  By the time Havens makes an appearance at the house, Massey has cornered Levi on the porch, an encounter Havens was hoping to have avoided. Massey had woken up Havens with a sheaf of paper
s in his hand, a rough draft of the article, which had kept him up most of the night. “All that’s missing are the photographs,” Massey bemoaned, trying to recruit Havens for a tag-team effort to secure Levi’s consent. Consent was Massey’s department, Havens reminded him.

  Who knows how long Massey’s been at it, but Levi does now seem less reluctant to have his picture taken than when Havens shot the family portrait last week.

  “If for no other reason, you should tell your story for Sarah’s sake,” Massey implores Levi. “What other hope do the two of you have for a future together? A lesser person would’ve walked away and found someone else, but Sarah’s a fighter, and she’s betting on the come.”

  Levi rubs his forehead. “But what if my pa’s right? What if your story is proof to the town that we poisoned your minds?”

  “Their minds are already poisoned,” Massey counters. “You’re not going to score any points with them by not going on the record. Nobody’s going to congratulate you.”

  Levi folds. “Okay.”

  “So, you’ll let Havens here take your picture?”

  “I want to read the story before it gets printed, and if there’s anything I don’t like—”

  “Anything that doesn’t sit right with you doesn’t get published.”

  “And Pa ought to read it too.”

  “Deal!” Massey claps Levi’s shoulders. “But let’s hold off on telling your father until you’ve given your go-ahead on the final draft.”

  Havens sets up his camera while Massey fetches a chair, and Levi soon returns with combed hair, a fresh white shirt much too large for him and buttoned to the neck, and suspenders. Havens would prefer a shot with him beside the chestnut tree, but Massey positions the chair so the house looms in the background, the shotgun resting against the porch post, an obvious prop. Havens suggests he be photographed with his guitar, but he declines.

  Once the tripod is positioned, Massey whispers for Havens to get in closer and hands him the Contax loaded with the color Kodachrome film, flapping his hand to signal that Levi has signed off on color.