by Amanda Dykes
“Wouldn’t dare.” He kneels next to the bumper, slides his hand behind it, searching for the bolt. He finds it, then stills under her gaze. “If you’re not opposed to a fella sticking his nose in . . .”
She crosses her arms. “I . . .” She clears her throat. “That would be fine.” She catches his eye, and her posture eases. “Thank you.”
“So long as you keep that crowbar still for the duration,” he says, “and you have some tools in your trunk.”
With a glimmer of a smile, she sets the crowbar gently on the brick sidewalk and opens the trunk.
Finding a wrench, he loosens the first bolt and moves on to the next. She bends to watch, sending him furtive glances every now and then. He matches them, glance-for-glance, and the steady loosening of the bolts weaves a calm into the atmosphere that had not been there when the crowbar was about.
“I . . . um . . .” The woman—phoenix, force, conflagration, whatever she was—seems to be replaying the whole scene that’s just passed in her mind. She winces and brushes the dusting of snow from the shoulders of her fur coat. “I don’t suppose you’re from around here.” Her voice has taken on the air of polite conversation, as if they’ve just met in a restaurant somewhere and not in a tangle between a crowbar and a bumper.
He laughs. Even in his best attempt at would-be dance attire, he didn’t fit in, not even out here on the streets. “I guess a fisherman from Maine doesn’t know how to camouflage himself for Boston,” he says. “Was it the clothes? They didn’t want me at the dance, either.”
“Good heavens, no.” She looks at her own dress. “I’m not one to talk about clothes. Mother brought this back from New York so as to ‘dazzle those soldiers.’” She smooths out the skirt where the crowbar left its black mark and laughs. “So much for that notion.”
“Don’t give up too fast. I’d say you just gave a dazzling performance with that crowbar,” Robert says. “I’ll give you that.”
She laughs, and it’s musical. Straight from some place of light inside her.
“It wasn’t your clothes,” she says at last. “You’re just not entirely . . . Boston. You’ve got a sort of”—she waves her hand in a circle in the air—“wilderness about you. But steady, too. A wild peace.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Certainly it does. There’s no wilderness quite like peace.” She studies his face. “You do remind me of someone, though.”
Something in him sinks a little, and he doesn’t want to think about why. It feels too familiar. “You might have seen my brother around town.” He turns his attention back to the bumper and pulls the final bolt off. “We’re twins. Mostly.”
She pushes her lips to the side, thinking. “No, sir, it’s not your mostly twin.” She snaps her fingers. “It’s that man from the movies. The one with that sort of . . . knowing look.” She pauses, the gaslight behind them hissing. “Gregory Peck! Gregory Peck.”
“Gregory Peck with a knowing wild peace,” Robert says.
“That’s right. Gregory Peck if the wind got into his hair a little, and his soul, too. That’s you, mister.”
He holds her gaze, thinking how if he’s knowing, she’s seeing. The way she looks at him, studies him openly, as if he’s the most fascinating mystery she’s ever encountered. She’ll be disappointed once she finds out he’s just a plain man of the sea, no mysteries to be found.
“Robert,” he says at last. “Robert Bliss.”
“Robert Bliss.” She turns the name in her mouth and nods. “Yes, that’s a good name for you.”
“Can’t take any credit for it.” He wriggles the bumper until it slides off.
“Well, Mr. Bliss . . .” The phoenix stands and offers her hand. He shakes it, and the shake slows until he’s just holding her hand, wrapped in night. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Likewise, Miss . . .”
The smile on her face disappears.
“That’s right,” Robert says. “What was it you said? Names don’t matter?”
“Unnecessary contrivances,” she says. “Unless it’s one like yours. But if you must know, my name is Eva. Eva . . . Rothford.”
She drops the last name as if it’s a shadow, a heavy one.
“Well, Miss Roth—”
“Eva.”
“Well, Miss Eva.” Her hand relaxes in his. “I gather maybe that name means something around here, but—I’m sorry to disappoint—I don’t know just what that might be. I do know, though, if you point me in the direction of the nearest scrap pile, I’d be glad to take this bumper there.”
“Oh, but I wanted to—”
“With you.” The words push out too fast, as if he’s flinging a lobster cage out into the deep. Good gravy. Words were never his strong suit.
His face heats. He should not hurl clumsy ideas at this woman, who’s looking rather too amused just now. “That is, uh. . . if you’ll have me.”
And now it sounds like he’s proposing marriage. She seems to find no end to the amusement in all this, but thanks be to God, Eva Rothford brushes her grease-streaked hands against her skirt as if it were a dish towel, leaving black smudges across the crimson sheen, and holds out her hand, awaiting his escort.
“All right, mariner,” she says as she takes off her fur coat, tosses it in the trunk, and slams it shut, “let’s scrap some metal.”
He takes one end, she the other, and they turn down a cobbled road—Acorn Street, the white metal sign upon a brick house says. The road is narrow, with black-shuttered brick homes all in a row, wreaths and red ribbons upon their dark doors, and garlands wrapping the gas lampposts. They make a sight, he knows—she in her fine dress, he in his civvies, and a shiny, dented bumper between them. All is quiet, and though this city still gives him the urge to loosen his collar and run until he reaches wide open sea, this . . . this is nice.
At the end of the street, a mountain of tangled metal grows up from the sidewalk. Bed frames, wrought-iron fence panels, pots and pans, and every other form of metal imaginable. Someone’s chalked SCRAP METAL FOR VICTORY onto the brick wall the mountain leans against.
“Feel better?” Robert asks as they slide the bumper into the mound.
“Much.” Eva brushes her hands together, satisfied. “But I wonder if the whole car would fit in the pile. . . .”
“Now, listen,” Robert says. “We make a good team, but I don’t think even the likes of us could carry your car.”
There’s something about her laughter, the way it slips right into his chest like it belongs there.
Something tumbles from the pile, pinging to the ground with its tinny clash. He stoops, retrieves it. It’s a metal deer, a child’s toy. Cherished, for the way its details are worn nearly smooth.
She comes close. He opens his palm, offering it to her, and she takes it—her touch light. She holds it as if a treasure, and there’s a sheen across her eyes.
“Well,” she says, sniffing and pulling herself up straight. “If that doesn’t just smite me.” She places it atop the bumper, toy on a throne. “Come on, Robert the Fisherman. If you don’t mind a walk, I’ll show you a sight a touch closer to your home. Wherever that might be.”
Concerned she might be getting cold—her dress’s long sleeves don’t seem warm enough to ward off the increasing chill—Robert starts to take off his coat, but she shakes her head. “Thank you, but I’m fine. Walking will warm me.”
She leads him through her city, talking all the way. It’s as if she’s been storing up words for a lifetime and has decided he’ll be the one to hear them all. Not that he minds. The opposite, actually. Her warmth and ease spin a spell that makes him feel not so far from home. She talks about the jobs she’s tried for and how her parents have not allowed her to take one, no matter what. How her father, with his connections in the city, has thwarted her attempts at welding, ship work, even selling war bonds. “The only thing I can contribute to the war is to ‘engage myself to a worthy young officer.’” She deepens her voice for
this impersonation and though she smiles, it’s a sad one.
“I . . . take it this officer has a name?”
“My parents like to think so. But we already know how I feel about names.” She’s quiet for a moment. “What about you? You have a girl holding that heart of yours?”
He takes his gaze from her, directs it to the body of water ahead. She’d told him it is the Charles River, reflecting Boston’s lights and Cambridge’s across the way. “No,” he says, but his pause muddles the straightforward answer.
“Ah,” she says. “That’s the look of a man in love.” She tilts her head, waits. It’s an invitation, and that spell she’s woven reaches into him, beckons an answer.
No. The word lingers, its roots digging around for explanation. “Maybe once. But not now.”
“What happened?” Her brow is pressed into compassion, concern. And a spark of that driving fire.
The short answer is best, he decides. “Sometimes love is a choice.”
“And you choose not to love?”
“Sometimes the best way to love is to choose to let go.”
She’s studying him. He feels the warmth of it, hears it in how everything is silent but the black river currents and strains of music—a slow accordion, so unlike the brassy pomp of the dance.
Ahead he sees cafés that have come alive for the evening. Their warm, tantalizing smells swirl—garlic and cheese and herbs—and he hopes his stomach doesn’t betray him in this moment. He doesn’t want to shatter whatever is going on in this stitched-together connection of theirs.
“You don’t seem like the type to let go,” she says at last.
His jaw shifts. She’s right. He is not, and it’s taken more than he ever imagined to do it, dug out his very nature. He has never spoken a word of this to anyone. He’d entrusted the heaviest burden to the safest of vaults. She slips her hand into his as if it’s a key, unlocking this truth.
“Maybe not,” he says. “But it’s a different story when the feeling”—he can’t call it love, because he’s worked long to carve it into something different—“is not returned.” He should just let the rest of the story lie still, but he speaks it. “And when your brother loves the same girl. And marries her.”
She tilts her head, contemplating. Narrows her eyes, stays this way for a moment too long, and the silence begins to stretch until it burns.
“Now, look here . . .” She’s going to give him a speech. Tell him he should have fought. Make him regret ever speaking a word of this.
“I’m going to dance with you,” she says.
He opens his mouth. Dumbfounded, trying to find words to protest, but she holds out a hand to stop him. “The way I see it, you and I were both bound for a dance tonight, and though neither of us looked too keenly on the notion, you’re a fool if you think you can lug a girl’s fender—”
“Bumper.”
“—through the city and not have it do something to her heart. You’re downright chivalrous, Mr. Robert Bliss, whatever you may think, and I’m going to dance with you.”
And there on the banks of the Charles—with the soldiers and girls all jitterbugging in a dance hall across the city—the fisherman slowly, perhaps not so smoothly, but deliberately, pulls the woman close in his sea-hewn arms. When she, in her grease-streaked dress, places a hand on his un-uniformed shoulder, it feels for all the world as if she’s given him some medal of honor.
And they dance. Snow-dusted sidewalk for a dance floor, stolen strains of music coming in snatches on the December wind.
He feels how she is like him. They are the same—lonely souls beating against the walls of war, asking in, being denied. But tonight they find a home together.
The chill in the sky thickens the falling snow, and together they look up. They still. There’s something about this moment completely outside Robert—a sense they are standing in the calm before a coming storm.
She shivers, and he releases her long enough to place his humble jacket over her New York dress—and this time she doesn’t resist. It should be something better, he thinks, than the worn wool that’s seen too many winters. But she slips her hand back in his and tugs him over to the railing.
They’re at the mouth of the river now. She points out Charlestown Naval Yard across the harbor. Always an ocean between him and the navy.
Eva gestures toward the docks. “There,” she said. “I thought you might like to see that.”
He scans, trying to pick out what she’s brought him here for. There are ships, docks, buildings. . . . But one ship sticks out from the others, its tall wooden masts strung from history itself, lines running to deck in perfect symphony.
This is not a gunmetal-gray warship, all bulk and might.
It is a frigate from another era, one when ships began as saplings in a forest and grew their strength from the earth. Steady and great, like the men who hauled those logs from the deep, snow-laden forest. The men who labored them into vessels mighty enough to traverse unkind seas.
“Is that the—”
“USS Constitution,” Eva says with pride. “Named by George Washington himself.”
Unseen sinews unfurl in the dark, reaching over the black shimmer of water and gripping him.
“Why . . .” He clears his throat. “Why did you show me this?” he asks, trying to sort out this feeling of being stitched to that ship with iron thread.
Eva studies him, then gives a light shrug contrary to the depth in her eyes. “It reminds me of you.”
There’s a stirring deep in his chest as he watches the wooden hull rock over the harbor waves effortlessly.
“That boat,” she says, “was carved by time. It’s not like the rest of these.” She sweeps her arm out over the harbor, encompassing the fleet of warships. “They were churned out in a hurry, all for utility and speed and power. Sure, we need them right now. But that?” She lifts her delicate chin toward the Constitution. “That one tells a story that’s taken time. And it’s one that’ll be around long after this war is over. No less needed, either. Just as important and courageous as the others.”
Why is she saying all this? They’ve only just met, yet somehow she knows him better than he understands himself.
“Think of this harbor without that boat. Think of what those seamen see as they embark. When they look back at that frigate, they see inspiration—the reason they’re going. It gives them hope, strength . . . and if someone hadn’t been willing to put the time in to build it . . . well, this would be one sorry harbor.”
She closes her eyes and lifts her face to the falling snow, leaning back and letting her hands catch the rail to hold her. “I get that feeling about you, fisherman Robert. You’re meant for something great.”
He’s about to protest, to tell her the truth—that he’s just a humble man of the sea, better with waves than people. But he’s interrupted when a black Bentley pulls up to the curb next to them.
“Fiddlesticks,” Eva says. She brushes her dress straight, and the way she tries to look dignified with her face streaked in axle grease drives her further into Robert’s heart. “Don’t mind whatever he says. He has eyes all over the city and likes to remind me of that.”
He? A backseat window rolls down, and a man speaks from the shadows. “There you are, Evelyn.” He gives a cursory glance over Robert, then apparently decides he’s not worth acknowledging.
“Hello, Father. Are you having a nice evening?” She speaks with polish, presumably imparted by the famed Misses Hampstead, and acts as if it’s nothing out of the ordinary for her to be found here, blocks away from the dance, in such a state. Unchaperoned with a strange man.
“I was, yes. Passing a very pleasant night at the club, until the proprietor of Giovanni’s telephoned that you seemed to be lost way out here.”
Eva gives Robert a quick glance as if to say, See?
“How kind of him,” she says, “to care so for a damsel who has no idea of her whereabouts in this foreign city.”
Robert h
as a feeling these two match each other wit for wit just as strongly as they collide.
“Yes,” Mr. Rothford says. “Well, do come home now. Your mother has wedding details she’d like to sort out, and you’re clearly free of other obligations tonight. . . .”
He lets the insinuation settle.
“Oh, I’m very occupied this evening, Father.” She looks at Robert, and back at the car. A flicker of concern. She seems to want to spare him something. “But it’s nothing that can’t be continued—soon—another time.”
She turns her back on Robert and starts to lift his jacket from her shoulders. Placing a hand on her shoulder, he leans forward ever so slightly.
“Keep it,” he says. He has no need of it, not when she’s given him something that brought far more warmth tonight.
“I will,” she says. “For a time. I’ll find you, Robert Bliss.”
He watches, torn, as she slips into the Bentley. His sense of honor tells him that she clearly is—at least in the eyes of some—committed to a different future. A different man. And he knows now he is capable of schooling his heart away from love.
But something deeper pleads with the heavens that she might be free. That someday he might be the one to find Eva Rothford.
twelve
MAY 2001
The boathouse door creaks open. Annie holds her breath, the darkness within conjuring up images of her imagined dragon from the past. She’d always thought Bob kept this place locked to keep her safe from whatever was inside.
Jeremiah slides in and disappears into the dark abyss. After a moment, the light of a kerosene lamp hisses to life. She peers in, not seeing Jeremiah, and nearly jumps out of her skin when he reappears suddenly, thrusting the lantern at her.
“After you,” he says, holding an arm out to gesture her in.
She takes a tentative step inside. Crossing the threshold is like stepping into another world—one where the dark air hangs heavy with the spice of sawdust, the mellowed fragrance of old wood, and a tinge of campfire smoke.