The Uncertain Season

by Ann Howard Creel

  After Reena had fed her a plate of her famous deep-fried shrimp, and when the air was cooling and the sun was beginning to melt over the Texas mainland, the girl slipped into the pale-blue dress, put the yellow bonnet on her head, and made her rounds about the alleys.

  She visited old Madu and gave him some green cattails she’d found in the marsh, where she’d stalked a blue heron until she could see the gleam in his eye, and she also gave Madu a perfect sand dollar she’d found on the beach. Madu would cook the cattails and eat them like corn on the cob, and then he’d crush the roots for flour. He picked up the sand dollar and held it up to the waning light. “Well, this’d be a real fine one, girl.”

  Madu liked the whitest ones without a single nick or crack or chip. He’d told her once that they were the sea’s good-luck charms. And the one she gave him on this day was as unmarked and perfect as any she’d ever found.

  After leaving Madu, she took Harry a plate of dinner down on the docks, courtesy of Reena, and while Harry shoveled down Reena’s food, he told her about the silver king tarpon some deep-sea man had caught that day out in the gulf. The giant fish had leapt six feet out of the water over and over as it attempted to lose the hook and free itself. She listened to the story until the sun went down and the stars came out.

  Later that night, she walked back up Pier 19 toward the city at a slow, easy pace, swatting mosquitoes from her neck with the new white linen handkerchief she’d found in the bottom of the bag from Grace. Under the blue dress, her bare feet were light on the weathered wood planking, and she couldn’t stop gazing down at the way the skirt flowed with each step like a series of waves. She tried to imagine the kind of life such a dress had known before and wished she could trust the young woman named Grace. She wished she could get a glimpse into her world.

  The girl walked down to the dark end of the dock, where she could gain the alleys. Behind her, a guffaw, a throaty laugh, and a hoarse comment that she couldn’t quite understand. She turned and saw three men, apparently dockworkers, but men she didn’t know, new ones, not from Galveston, not friends of Harry’s. In the moonlight, their faces were as ugly and pinched as crabs, with reddened, veiny, sun-scorched skin tracked with lines. They had sweat circles on their clothing and blackened hands as big as claws.

  “How much?” one of them shouted.

  Reena had been right. Men such as these three wouldn’t have paid her any mind before, but now they were teasing her, asking her how much the dress had cost. Of course they knew she couldn’t have bought such a thing. Of course they knew she’d received it through some act of charity. She turned away and walked faster.

  “We’re takers,” said another man. “Don’t you be leaving.”

  She kept walking, head down, her bare toes peeking out from beneath the blue skirt’s frilly hem.

  She smelled them next. On her heels now, an odor like day-old fish, brackish water, unclean bodies, and whiskey. She picked up her skirt and walked faster. They matched her pace, and she couldn’t understand why were they so intent on catching her. She didn’t know what they wanted, but she was old enough to sense danger.

  Then a claw on her arm, spinning her around. “Like I said, how much?”

  The biggest of them was standing there, his breath coming out in snorts like an angry bull with a smell like bitter, rotten milk.

  Confused, she shook her head and wrestled free. Obviously they had mixed her up with someone else, but instinct was telling her to get away, and to get away fast. Her heart was hammering as if it would bound out of her chest, and her throat went dry. She darted looks about to see if someone she knew was nearby to help her. No one. Not a soul in sight. She took a step back.

  “Don’t come down here if’n you don’t mean business.”

  The other two laughed.

  Now sensing the wrong in it, the danger in those leering stares, she took another step backward away from their smells and hatefulness. Panic gripping her gut, she recalled a line of Brontë: I know not how it falls on me.

  “Well, would you look at that? She’s playing hard to get.”

  The men laughed again and glanced at each other.

  Another one said, “A tease we have us.”

  They glanced at each other and chuckled even louder, their coarse laughter and breath stinking of tobacco and spit.

  She took that opportunity to spin and run in earnest, the dress now hiked up all the way to her waist, the pantalets below giving her almost as much freedom to move as her old knickers once had. She tore down the first alley, then sought the even darker alleys, where she could find help or at least disappear.

  But the men could move fast, too. They were never far behind, and as they gained on her, a kernel of fear exploded in her bowels and pulled into her center with the power of an undertow, then expanded, exploding until she was nothing but it, nothing but the fear of it.

  She would not remember the clutch from behind, the jerking, the ripping sensation of being pulled around, the shove to the ground. She would not hear their grunts, their triumph. She would not remember where she was, the time of night, the position of moon or stars in the sky. She would not remember the taste of foul, parched mouths or the touch of calloused, black-nailed hands; she blocked it out by sealing her eyes and cocooning all else, until it was done and left nothing except the excruciating heat, the sizzling, blistering, scorching, suffocating heat and pain. Her breath weak, her silent voice an even more silent cry, and finally only the whine of a distant wind.

  While she was held there, while it was done against her, she had thought of the moon snail. Such a lovely name for a creature, but one that drills into the shells of mollusks until it can digest the living creature inside. She darkened into black and then was nothing.

  She should have kept that sand dollar, that pure white piece of good luck. She should have kept it.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  ETTA

  First she had to think of a lie. It had to be a good lie, too, a plausible story, one that would explain her absence all day. She didn’t want to claim she was going on an excursion with someone else, as she didn’t want to involve anyone who might later contradict her story. Etta was well practiced at insinuation and avoidance, but she’d had little experience with outright lying.

  Innuendo was another matter. For instance, everyone in her social circle now believed she was the famous Miss Girl, who had run the seawall. Etta had playfully let them believe it, but she had never actually claimed to be that person. There was a distinction. If people made mistaken assumptions, she felt no compulsion to correct them, especially if it benefited her to let them believe otherwise.

  But concocting stories out of nothingness was more difficult. When she had lied to her mother to meet Philo, for example, she had eventually been caught. Etta decided to tell her aunt that she had been having some cricks in her neck, and that she planned to spend the day at the Galveston Athletic Club getting a massage and a vapor bath to see if the problem could be solved through relaxation. She would claim to have visited the tailor and milliner after that.

  “Do you suppose you should see a doctor?” Bernadette asked. Etta was donning her hat and preparing to leave the house. They were standing in the huge marble-tiled foyer, where their voices sounded hollow.

  “I despise doctors,” Etta replied in a whisper.

  “However, do you truly believe that only one day at the club will make a difference?” There was genuine concern in her aunt’s eyes, and for a brief moment, but only a brief one, Etta experienced a twinge of remorse. Bernadette said, “Perhaps you should stay home and rest.”

  Etta tugged on her gloves and leaned forward to kiss her aunt on the cheek. “I need to try something else. Then I’ll see how I am.”

  “I shall worry until you return.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  Her aunt looked resigned. “Have a useful day, then.”

  Useful indeed. If she were successful, then by evening she would return knowing s
o much more than she did now. She would know the reason for her aunt’s mysterious visits to the place she thought of simply as the “plantation,” for lack of a real name.

  As the train crossed the bay, Etta gazed out over the water, a strange color on this day, a frothy gray green sitting under heavy, overcast skies. The evening before, she had allowed Wallace McKay to visit her, to call on her again, so to speak. Because she had already been in Galveston for over two months and hadn’t yet been pursued seriously, perhaps this was going to be more difficult than she’d once believed. She couldn’t afford to discourage Wallace now.

  And besides, there was a new girl in town by the name of Jewel Ann Jones, whose name suited her well, Etta had been told. Jewel Ann was fabulously wealthy and did indeed wear jewels—rubies, diamonds, and pearls—according to those who knew her, and although Etta hadn’t yet met her and assessed her personally, she already feared that this new debutante would turn out to be as bright and brilliant as her name indicated.

  Wallace was more tolerable than most, so Etta had allowed him to come over after supper to sit with her again on the portico. But once he was there and once he had begun to make the usual small talk, Etta suddenly felt her clothes tighten, and the neck of her dress became scratchy and suffocating.

  They had been sitting and watching the streetcars, the long, lazy evening splayed before them. It was all too quiet, too sedate. She grew fidgety. A ruckus of gulls crossed the vermilion sunset, their wings black slashes against the vibrant color.

  Etta thought about what she’d be doing the next day, researching her aunt, and she wondered about herself, about where it came from, this desire to walk the edge between what might be considered a healthy curiosity and obsession. Because she loved her aunt—her aunt had made her feel valued and trusted, something her own mother had never done—and because she admired her aunt, she wanted to emulate her. Etta had to know everything.

  She bolted from her chair, leaving Wallace sitting alone, and went to stand at the railing. She gazed beyond the lawn and then turned back to face a surprised-looking Wallace. “Oh, couldn’t we please go somewhere?”

  Wallace lifted himself with effort from his chair and moved to stand silently beside her, apparently too surprised for the moment to answer. He raked his hand through his hair, and his eyebrows hunkered down over his eyes. “I’ll take you anywhere. Where do you wish to go?”

  “I’m not sure. Perhaps even a ride would help.”

  “If it pleases you.”

  “Wallace,” Etta said, glancing his way and trying to calm herself. “Please don’t be so patronizing.”

  “Perhaps I should be rude instead.”

  Etta sighed, exasperated. “Is there nothing in between for you and your sort?”

  His face was unmovable. “My sort?”

  “All of you. You’re so polite, so courteous.”

  “I didn’t know that would offend.”

  She had hurt his feelings and alarmed him, too. His normally round face was more drawn than ever before. She was going out of bounds, and for no other reason than she was tense about the following day. “I’m sorry. I’ve had a dreadful day and I’m taking it out on you.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that you’ve had a bad day. You may confide in me if you’d like.”

  “There’s nothing to confide.” But Etta gulped. “Nothing in particular happened today. I’m becoming a little homesick, perhaps. I’m truly sorry, Wallace. You’re being so kind, and here I am acting the beast.”

  Relief flooded Wallace’s face. “Apology accepted.”

  Etta moved closer and looped her arm through his. “Shall we go somewhere, then? I’d be much happier in another spot.”

  “Of course.”

  They took a carriage to the Garten Verein and then strolled the groomed lawns among riotous flowers, but the place said to kindle romance didn’t, and all Etta could think about was what she would be doing the next day. Visions of the plantation house drifted into her head from every direction.

  Later they sat on a bench as the sun lost itself behind the trees and the cool of evening finally appeared to be seeping in. Yet again Etta dwelled on her secret journey of the next day, so deeply that she almost forgot Wallace beside her.

  When he reached for her hand, Etta had pulled it away before realizing it.

  He appeared stunned. He sat still for a long tedious moment and then clasped his hands together and leaned forward over his knees. His voice was barely above a whisper, and Etta did truly feel deplorable at that moment. “Why, then, did you allow me to call on you?”

  She searched for an answer.

  Wallace went on: “No doubt you’ve taken a look at most of what Galveston has to offer, and I thought you’d chosen me.”

  Etta finally found some words but hated them when she spoke. He so desperately needed her compliments, but his vulnerability had the opposite effect on her. Contempt instead of compassion. “You are more pleasing than most.”

  Wallace hung his head but managed a smile. “Sounds like true love.”

  And she had nothing left to say except “I’m sorry.”

  On the train the next day, Etta chastised herself for not doing more to keep Wallace in play. She had to remain in favor. She couldn’t do anything to risk being sent back. Would her aunt be disappointed because she wasn’t succumbing to Wallace? What would she advise? Etta remembered Bernadette had once said something about making everyone a favorite. Another brilliant piece of advice.

  Crossing the bay gave her the feeling of leaving something large behind, and her remorse at acting so badly was an ache as big as these waters. When she stepped on mainland soil, it had the flat feel of going back home, and she didn’t enjoy the association. She would need to be more careful, more prudent. She needed to find just the correct balance of encouragement, enough to keep Wallace interested, but not enough to keep others at bay.

  Etta disembarked in Houston and wove her way among the random throes of humanity to hire a carriage. She had the sensation of being pulled in a specific direction, as if a rope were tied about her waist.

  When the driver stopped on the road in front of the plantation, she told him to take the long drive to the house. He did so, and Etta sat waiting in the carriage, fanning herself with her hat.

  Soon, a densely boned, wiry-haired woman, who looked so efficient she must have been the one in charge, descended the steps and peered into the carriage. She inquired of Etta’s business, but this one was not the one she wanted.

  Etta told her, “I was traveling by and was overcome by the heat. I asked my driver to pull under the shade of your lovely trees until I feel able to go on.”

  The woman straightened. “I see. You may stay as long as you require.”

  “Thank you,” said Etta, still fanning herself.

  The driver glanced back at her and then swiveled forward again.

  Etta waited in the carriage until she saw a nurse pushing one of the patients out into a small garden area on the side of the property, not far from where Etta waited. But this one was too young and pretty. Etta had to wait for one who looked hungry.

  She spotted the type she wanted in a half hour’s time. A young woman dressed in a stained white dress emerged from the back of the house and pushed a different man in a wheelchair. This man’s head lolled on his chest, and Etta thought she saw spittle dripping from his mouth. The nurse had brown hair with braids knotted at the back of her head, long loose hairs drooping around her face, and she was as lean as a coatrack, no color in her face. She was perfect.

  A breeze gusted every now and then, and Etta released her handkerchief out of the window for the wind to float it away. Then she let herself out of the carriage and went after it. After retrieving the handkerchief, she checked for the gray-haired matron and then, with no sight of her, Etta walked straight to the nurse with the braided hair.

  Up close, she appeared even hungrier. Etta tucked the handkerchief into her pocket and retrieved a small roll of
one-dollar bills, some of the spending money her aunt was accustomed to giving her. “See here,” said Etta to the young woman, whose eyes were etched around the corners in early lines.

  No need for introductions. “You may have this money,” she said, extending her hand so that the young woman could see it, “in return for some simple information.”

  The girl glanced at the money, and then she looked up at Etta with lifeless eyes. “I’ll give it.”

  Etta went on to ask the nurse her questions, and in only a matter of minutes she had learned what was huge enough to shatter the sky above. It was more than she had ever expected, or guessed, or thought to imagine, more deceptive than even the schemes she used to read about in dime novels. If she had heard about such a secret, she would have proclaimed it unbelievable, but here it had been done. The powers of the very wealthy to do as they please with whomever and for whatever purpose were enormous. And the bigger the secret, the more effort required to hide it.

  Slowly the wind scattered through the trees again, the sun broke through the clouds, and a cat prowled through a garden patch nearby. Etta studied the light. She now held a key that even Grace didn’t have.

  But as Etta retraced her steps back to Galveston, she thought hard. She had no plans to tell anyone; instead, the power came in holding the secret and keeping it deep inside her. Yes, the power came in the secrecy.

  On the journey back, Etta couldn’t help smiling, even though she wasn’t heartless. She did recognize the inherent sadness in the situation. She remembered her aunt’s earlier comment: Living is costly.

  Over the next week, Etta was tempted to share her newfound knowledge, to observe the silent shock on others’ faces, but she held herself in check. She needed to woo Wallace back with her charms. Wouldn’t it be fun to tell him what she knew? To confide in him? He would be honored, and it would draw them closer. The sharing of it could have fit nicely into her plans, but she resisted. This secret, after all, could keep her in Galveston for as long as she wished, and now that looked as though it could be forever.