The Last Blue

by Isla Morley

  “I don’t know what to do about it,” he says.

  They say to starve a fever.

  “Fix it,” he whispers.

  She splays her fingers and drives the heel of her hand against his chest. She lets her forehead fall against his chest, breathes in his smell, and closes her eyes as his hands fold around her head. He strokes her hair. Eventually, she lifts her head and raps her knuckles against his chest, softly at first, then harder.

  He puts her fist against his mouth. Her fingertips unfurl and touch his lips as if to read what is too soft for her to hear. He kisses her hushing fingers, and she rises on tiptoe so he can kiss her mouth. He isn’t a greedy man. He kisses like a man eating the last peach of the season, pausing halfway, and then savoring the rest.

  * * *

  Mama meets Jubilee at the back door. Jubilee knows she’s late for her chores, but Mama doesn’t wait for her to finish apologizing.

  “Where’ve you been?”

  One small hesitation, and Mama’s on to her. “I told your pa it was a mistake to let you spend so much time with him. No chaperone, even.”

  “Nothing happened, Mama. We’re friends.” As if even friends isn’t the biggest thing ever to have happened to her.

  “A pair ought to be yoked evenly or it ends up with one always owing the other,” she says. “Have you not heard me and your pa getting Levi to understand that?”

  “Loving isn’t two mules plowing, Mama.”

  Mama’s cold assessment goes on too long. “Don’t you go mistaking that man’s attention for affection, Jubilee Buford.” Mama says the word “affection” as though it were a rusty nail Jubilee’s foot was about to come down on.

  HAVENS

  In the cellar, Havens has Jubilee stand beside him as he pours into three separate basins the developer, the short stop, and the fix, explaining each step. “Just as long as I get to say which ones of me get thrown away,” she insists.

  Though he is impatient for each image to appear, he works with diligence, carefully dipping and bathing the sheets before handing them to her to hang up to dry. In the red glow, they marvel at the landscape shots—the spindly trees gathered on each side of the brook, bending toward one another like relatives at a reunion; the premature moon rising above the piney spires; the one Jubilee insisted would be worth the wait, an elk buck emerging from the morning fog.

  “These are so good!”

  He’s never taken better photographs. “It’s your doing.” Photographing with her has made him find his calling again. With haste, he develops another batch, eager for the portraits of Jubilee, and what he said before about photographs not being facts, he ought now to retract. Her surroundings seem to crane and bend just so they can be included in the frame with her. The mountains deserve credit for showing scale, for showing both how delicate and commanding a person she is. Trees dress themselves in sheen as an act of solidarity with her light, dewdrops reflect the sincerity in her eyes. The horizon, too, must be credited. A man could follow it all the way around and back to this same spot and not meet anyone as wondrous.

  He studies each one. “Nothing I’ve ever done can compare with these.”

  That she doesn’t have any reaction makes him worry, until she covers her smile with her hand.

  Aim a beam of light at a prism and it will refract a rainbow, the short blue wavelength bending the most, but Havens’s pictures reveal the reverse: Jubilee is a prism through which all colors enter and are fused and are emitted back into the world as a beam of bright white light. He gestures to the one where she is sticking her tongue out at him. “Now, there’s a trouble-maker.”

  She retaliates by pointing to the photograph she took of him at her aviary. “You look so serious.”

  “Being a male model is serious.”

  She asks if she may keep it, and he asks her to choose any of the others, too, and while she considers her selection, he moves behind her. “I’m going to come back and visit you and give you another chance to take a better picture of me.”

  She turns her head to the side. “You are?”

  “Soon,” he says. “Before you change your mind about me.” He gathers her braid in his hand. She doesn’t move, doesn’t tell him no, so he turns his wrist under it, then drapes it over his shoulder as he bends his head to her neck. She smells like damp freshly fallen leaves. He wants to do what any man since the beginning of time has wanted to do with the woman who has taken hold of his heart, but he also wants to pay tribute to her uniqueness. She is not any woman. For the life of him, though, he cannot think of one original gesture, and so he does what he cannot keep from doing. He hooks his finger into the neckline of her dress and pulls it slightly to one side, and as she shifts her weight to her heels, he kisses the curve where her neck and shoulder meet, where she holds herself together in such a taut line. There is a small shiver in her, and a deep riving in him. He moves his mouth back up to her neck, parting his lips so she can feel his breath, so he can taste her skin. He kisses the tip of her ear. Her arms drop loosely at her sides. He reaches down and finds her right hand. She splays her fingers, and he weaves his between them. “Don’t forget what we have.”

  Above them is a knock on the trapdoor. “Havens, you down there?”

  They startle apart. Jubilee dashes up the stairs past Massey, who rushes down, flapping a telegram. He waits for the trapdoor to swing shut, then announces, “We’ve got an offer! A cover story!” Only now does he survey the wash line of photographs. He whistles. “Oh my God, you’ve become obsessed with her.”

  Possessed is what Havens is. Dispossessed. No longer are all his vital parts under his control. They have a new owner—ask any toe, any artery, any nerve.

  Havens snatches the telegram from Massey’s hand. “Look magazine? They’re not going to want a story about prejudice and social justice.”

  “Look, Time, The New York Times, National Geographic—they’re all expressing serious interest!”

  “Look will only want the shock value,” Havens keeps insisting, still having trouble registering that Massey has even made contact with these publications.

  “We want a guarantee on a cover, and Look was the first to offer one, which is our leverage with the others.” Massey can’t keep from being distracted by the photographs.

  “But you were supposed to wait till we got back to Cincinnati. You weren’t going to send telegrams. What if Buford gets wind of this?”

  “Who’s going to tell him?” Massey crosses his arms.

  “It’s a small town! People talk!”

  “Well, things are heating up in town and I didn’t think we could risk delaying getting the story out there.” He holds up his palms as if to say, Guilty.

  “You haven’t given a copy of your article to Levi yet—what if he backs out? Or is this you going it alone again?”

  “Who else is going to take the lead? Tell me? Because all I see is you out taking pictures”—he gestures at the line of photographs—“of gimp birds and bunny rabbits, so yes, I took the initiative!”

  Havens lunges at him, driving him backward. “We’re going to town right now and you’re going to send a telegram saying the deal’s off!”

  “We can’t call it off. They’ll just send someone else up here to do the story, and they won’t give it half the justice it deserves.”

  Havens feels winded. Each of those news agencies knows the Bufords’ location now.

  “Then we’re going to come clean with Levi and Buford.”

  Massey drops his head. “It won’t do any good.” What he doesn’t need to spell out is that Levi’s consent is no longer a factor.

  Havens gets Massey by the forearms and shakes him. “What the hell have you done!”

  Ripping himself free, Massey insists Havens collect himself.

  “My father grumbled day and night about how the railways treated him. He was passed over for promotion half a dozen times by guys way less qualified, he wasn’t paid for overtime, and he was injured on the job more
than once, but when the union came in and gave him the chance to improve his situation, did he take it? No. He didn’t want to rock the boat. Christ, he crossed the picket line. A month later, he gets hurt so bad he can’t ever work again, and does the company come to his aid? Fuck Benjamin Massey, they said.”

  “I’m not interested in one of your speeches!”

  Sighing, Massey sits on the step and rubs the spot above his left eye. “What I’m saying is people seldom know what’s in their best interest. They keep putting themselves in harm’s way and somehow think they’re playing it safe, until one day”—Massey punches his fist against his palm—“bam! Game over.”

  “Get up, we’re going to find a way to fix this!” Havens grabs Massey’s arm and starts yanking him up the stairs.

  Massey wrestles free. “Don’t pull the plug on this. Please. I need this story. I’m out on the street at the end of the month.”

  The news stuns Havens, and Massey slumps back down on the step. “Don’t worry—they’re not going to let go of a Pulitzer winner any time soon, but without this story, what do I do? Wind up working for a greeting card company? Or worse, like my old man?” Massey gives Havens an imploring look. “I didn’t plan for this story to turn up, but it did. Maybe I could’ve gone about it better, but is it so terrible to think this story could save all of us?”

  Havens grabs his Contax and unscrews the back, and while Massey is launching himself toward him, he removes the canister and reels out the color film until every frame is exposed.

  * * *

  By the time Havens gets upstairs, the house is empty. Everyone has left for Socall’s frolic except Gladden, who is waiting for a pie to cool. She gives Havens directions, and he takes off. Without pictures, Massey has no story, but it’s true that others will hunt Jubilee and Levi to see for themselves, and when they do, blue is all they’ll see. Blue, as though that’s all there is to them.

  Jeremiah Wrightley has set himself at Socall’s front door as the official greeter of the frolic, and though Havens makes it clear he’s anxious to find Buford, the man insists Havens oblige him with an inspection of his foot. The man regards the puncture site and promptly rolls up his sleeve to show the scars where he was bitten worse, and introduces the two young men in gray trousers, gray shirts, and gray felt hats beside him. “These here are my begats, Wyatt and Ransom.” The bulkier of the two has on a filthy neck brace. Something is being said about the occasion of that injury, but Havens excuses himself, casts about the living room, and ventures down the hallway, checking the other rooms, one in which two small children are sprawled on the bed like discarded coats.

  When he returns to the porch, the one called Chappy has just arrived. He leans his hubcap against the porch rail and pumps Havens’s hand and introduces his grandmother, his aunt, and two girl cousins. Havens wants only to find Buford, but Chappy’s grandmother says, “Sit a while, fella, and keep an ol’ lady company.” She stakes out the rocking chair closest to the door and recounts how Chappy’s father ran off and married a floozy and how his mother succumbed from a broken heart not a year later and how if it wasn’t for the Lord’s benevolence, Chappy would’ve starved.

  “I said that man was trouble. Slicker than a pan of grease. A man like that had more vanity than a roomful of girls at a beauty pageant.”

  Havens spots Jubilee approaching the house with a covered basket, and the pistons in his chest start up again. She is wearing the short-sleeved white dress with a yellow ribbon around her waist and a white shawl, which has slipped off one shoulder. Her hair flows down her back. Watching her is to get the impression she is skipping just ahead of concern, gliding past dangers as though they do not exist. Her arms swing in wide, carefree loops and she lifts each foot high to clear the weeds. He half expects her to grab the hem of her skirt and pirouette the rest of the way.

  She greets Chappy and smiles at Havens when he opens the screen door for her. He catches the scent of mint in her hair. He ought to find Buford first, but he follows her inside, where Levi and his guitar have set up with a fiddle player, a banjo player, and someone with a squeeze box. Jubilee whispers something in her brother’s ear, and in response he strikes up a tune. What begins as a merry love song takes a sudden sad turn.

  As morning breaks she takes her leave

  A ribbon ’round a curl gives she

  Nevermore to meet, they carve their names

  In the budding sycamore tree.

  I’ll sing, sing, my voice shall ring

  through the hills and the hollers too

  I’ll sing, sing, the true love song

  of the lark and the boy so blue.

  The next song is no less plaintive, and the dancing commences. Women, unsmiling, take the hands of men who behave more like harnessed mules about to drive across pitted land than dance partners. Havens watches Jubilee unpack her basket, greet Socall, and find a chair in the corner. Though she avoids looking at him, he knows she’s waiting for him to make good on his promise. What harm can come from postponing bad news a few minutes longer?

  Havens makes his way around the perimeter of the room and is just about to ask her to dance when the snake handler scoops her from her seat and delivers her into the arms of his son with the neck brace, who then trots her around the living room as though she were a filly needing to be broken in.

  Havens can’t bear it. He cuts in.

  His hand closes around her delicate wrist. She pulls back her shoulders and lifts her chin. He holds her politely at first, the way men are taught to do with women who don’t belong to them, and then he holds her as if they belong to each other. He lowers his hand from her shoulder to the small of her back and pulls her so close she has to step between his legs, and even closer, where she must surely feel the drumming going on in his chest. Mine, if only for a song, he thinks.

  “This isn’t goodbye,” she whispers, curling her fingers around the creases in his shirt.

  How can he give her the news when she is pressed against him, when nothing has ever felt this right? Maybe they are dancing or maybe the room is dancing around them. The walls seem to have sucked the other guests into the grain, and the floor has opened, and they are dancing on clouds.

  He lowers his head and rests his chin against her brow. “I am such a muddied man, Jubilee, and here you are, a pure brook.”

  “I’m just a girl.”

  “No, not just a girl.” He smooths the back of her hand with his thumb. “I’m sorry,” he says. “So very sorry.”

  She searches his face, and when he does not say why he is sorry, her hand glides around to the back of his neck and her fingertips reach into his hair, and he moves his hand a fraction farther down the small of her back. Each of them steals a little more of the other, tries to fit into the space of the other, seal all the gaps.

  So lost is he in the nearness of her that she has to repeat herself before he comprehends.

  She is smiling. “I think Mr. Massey is taking our picture.”

  Havens follows her gaze and drops from her embrace. Slunk back in the corner of the kitchen, Massey lowers the Contax from his face, pivots, and cuts out the back door.

  “Stay here,” he tells her, then charges after Massey. “Have you no decency?” he shouts.

  Massey glowers back. “You’re the one who should be ashamed!” His attention turns to Jubilee, who has hurried to Havens’s side. “Has he told you what he’s doing here?”

  Jubilee turns the color of slate.

  “Please go wait inside,” Havens asks her.

  “Who’s really taking advantage of her now, hm?” Massey accuses him. “I trusted you!” Yelling about taking matters into his own hands, he says, “I knew you’d screw something up, but guess what? I brought an extra roll of film, so I don’t need your color pictures because I have my own!”

  “What’s he talking about?” asks Jubilee.

  Massey lifts the camera at her.

  Havens shouts for her to run, and she sprints across the yard an
d scurries between a gap in the bushes. Havens is racing after Massey when he hears her cry out. He turns around and tears through the bushes into a small glade, where he finds her in Eddie’s clutches.

  “You looking for something?” Even from three feet away, Eddie reeks of alcohol, and gauging from the jug in his hand, he has come to the still to avail himself of Socall’s liquor.

  “Let her go!”

  “She’s going to dance with me, aren’t you, Blue?”

  “Don’t you call her that!”

  Jubilee tries to free herself, but Eddie yanks her against himself. “Blues like it rough, ain’t that right?” He sneers at Havens. “You go on now, and leave us—”

  Havens punches him in the mouth.

  Eddie stumbles and then regains his footing. Blood gushes from his nose. He smirks and calls her names, and Havens lunges at him and knocks him to the ground. Before Havens can go after Massey again, Eddie makes a grab for Havens’s throat, which Havens counters by ramming the heel of his hand against Eddie’s jaw. They tussle in the dirt until they are pried apart by Buford and Levi, and no sooner are they on their feet than Eddie gives Buford the slip and lands a hit squarely on Havens’s chin. He feels his head about to crack, loses track of direction. He puts his hands out, but cannot right himself, and hits the dirt. Someone is coaching him into a standing position, telling him he’s all right, everything’s fine, when nothing is all right, nothing is fine, things are going from bad to worse with the worst yet to come. He scans for Jubilee and sees her on the other side of the still. He wipes his mouth of spit and blood. “Someone go after Massey and stop him.” Buford tries getting Havens to catch his breath, but he yells again for someone to apprehend Massey. “He’s got a picture of Jubilee!”

  “What do you mean?” Levi asks.

  “He’s got a color photograph of Jubilee that he’s going to sell to a news magazine! He’s got to be stopped!”