Beautiful to the Bone (The Enuis Trilogy #1)

by P. G. Lengsfelder

  “You and Carly.”

  “Me and Carly?!” The gall!

  “You know what I mean?”

  “You know, I don’t.”

  “Well, don’t get all Chivas and Mercedes with me. It’s not like you made anythin’ with your dream of test-tubbin’ Frankensteins.”

  “So you’re bitter.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “Never mind.” My lips tightened. “I’m going to wash my hands.”

  “’Kay.” He went back to flipping pages.

  ***

  As soon as I was far enough from Lyle, I picked up my pace. I slid open the metal door between cars, taking in the roar of the accordion gangway and the passing countryside, then hearing the door latch behind me as I slid open the next.

  With the lights low and many passengers asleep, I carefully perused each passenger, with the hope that he or she would not wake and look up at me. Mostly on my mind was what I might have to do with myself if Gordon’s secret was as dark as he suggested. Or what I might have to do with him.

  I passed through seven or eight cars, and not a few uncomfortable looks, before I found Gordon with the African-American woman, boxing the air above her purple hair, regaling him with a story, loudly, as if the rest of the car was gathered around her rather than trying to sleep.

  “Eunis!” he said, glad to have a life preserver.

  “I’m not done,” said the woman.

  “Beatrice, this my friend. Remember? We planned to have dinner together.” He started to get up. She pushed him back down.

  “I remember. I didn’t hear your name called.” Beatrice frowned at the sight of me.

  “They’re using mine,” I said. “And it’s last call.”

  “Only heard man’s names being called.”

  “Yes,” I said, “I’m a man. I just look like a woman.”

  “No woman I’ve ever seen.” Beatrice puffed out her eyes.

  “Exactly,” I said.

  “Excuse me.” Gordon tried stepping over Beatrice.

  “No hurry, I can come with you. I ain’t eaten yet either. You’ll want to hear the rest of my Michael Jackson story.” She started to get up, propelling her bosom into Gordon’s left eye.

  “It’s personal,” said Gordon rubbing the eye and straddling Beatrice.

  “What, you one of them gay boys? I’m too much woman for you?” She was eyeball to eyeball with him.

  Gordon tugged at his sleeves. “It’s personal.” He lifted his leg over Beatrice, who gave a fake grab for his balls. He balked, almost falling into the aisle.

  Beatrice cackled brashly. “Don’t stop till you get enough.”

  “It’s personal,” I repeated, stabilizing Gordon and helping him over Beatrice.

  “I’ll finish the story when you get back.” Beatrice was miffed.

  ***

  “Where can we go for privacy?” I asked.

  “It’s a train,” Gordon said shutting down privacy as an option. “But thank you for that back there.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “I should have gotten a sleeper. I figured maybe after we switched trains in Chicago —”

  “How about this?” We’d come across a door marked “Powder Lounge,” and I opened it to a room almost twice the size of the train’s bathrooms. “Okay?”

  I drew him in, closed and locked the door behind us, and assigned myself a stool that didn’t require that I admire myself in the counter-to-ceiling mirror. He took the other seat. I removed my shades.

  “So?” I heard myself sinking into deep water.

  “So, what?”

  “Why didn’t you fly?” My ears wouldn’t clear.

  “Oh. You’re not gonna repeat this, right?”

  “Neither one of us.” I pointed back and forth. “What you know about me stays secret too. We have a deal. Right? Bemidji buddies.” The hollow timbre of the room solidified in my chest.

  “I’m scared of flying.”

  “That’s it?” If I could have brushed the hostility away I would have, but it was the room, the atoms in the small lounge. My ears were plugged, ‘my gift’ overtaking me.

  “It doesn’t look good for me,” continued Gordon, “to have phobias like that. I’m already the center of enough gossip at the station. People have a lot of stories.” He stroked his beard.

  “If you say so.” The tide hadn’t crested. It continued to gather in me.

  “How about you? Why not fly?” He pulled out a cigarette, stared at it as if it would talk to him, and when it didn’t he put it back in the pack and in his pocket.

  Patience. “Don’t like the attention, airport security, the lines. I just want to be anonymous.” Enough frigging small talk. I took deep breaths. “Plus I feel safe in trains.” I thought of Papa Karlyle, his reassuring way, his commitment to detail. ‘Every spike must be checked, every tie plate secured,’ he’d say. ‘People count on us.’

  Gordon nodded.

  “So what’s this deep dark secret about me?” I simulated a smile.

  “It’s something that happened in Bemidji.”

  That let out Times Square, Atara and Levi. “Okay.” It was Victor. It was Harold! “This going to be a guessing game?” My impatience spiked, a rising torrent of bile.

  “Come on, take a guess. Remember, I’m the only person besides you who knows this dark secret.” Definitely Harold.

  Hostility swelled. I sat on my hands to control them. I couldn’t remember being possessed like that —well, maybe the time with the carding comb. The surge strained to break through. I wanted to take him by the neck . . . “Just tell me.”

  “Ever pretend to be someone else? You were in plain view, but they thought you were someone or something else?”

  The sensation was so strong I nearly leapt at him.

  “The Beaver. You were The Beaver.” He grinned and waited, open-faced.

  Consciously I breathed in and out, expelling the fury passing through me.

  “You okay?” He reached out.

  I signaled him off. “I’m okay, just caught my breath.” The possession peaked and began to abate. “It was something . . . in the room.”

  “What?”

  I had mixed two universes. “Nothing.”

  “You’re sure? Because it looked like more than nothing. Maybe I shouldn’t have kidded you so much.”

  “About The Beaver.” The water ebbed. I regained equilibrium.

  “I was Beaver fifty-four, just before you. I never was supposed to know.”

  “Of course not.”

  “I ran late. I should’ve delivered the suit days before. I dropped it off last minute and I saw you. And by the way, I think you were the best Beaver ever, the way you moved. I could tell when it wasn’t you anymore because the next Beaver, whoever it was, wasn’t very . . . fluid. You were very athletic, moved like you were in water.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You still appear to be in great shape.”

  “Wow.” The energy had left me, thank goodness. “Two Beavers in a room together and knowing it. That can’t have happened before.”

  “What are the chances?” He slapped his knees.

  We beamed at each other.

  I sighed in relief.

  We traded stories of our experiences inside the suit. He understood, even agreed, with some of what I’d seen from in there: people, a strange bunch. I’m not sure I’d ever had a positive shared experience with anyone before, especially as Harold and I did almost everything separately. So Gordon was definitely unique. An ally? Maybe.

  Almost an hour later, well after midnight, someone rattled the door. When it didn’t immediately open, there was a rapid knock.

  “Somebody in there? I need to freshen up.”

  Gordon unlatched the door.

  It was Beatrice. “What in god’s name are the two of you doin’ locked up in this lounge together? Lordy, you be sick people. Get out, get me some privacy, please!”

  Gordon and I shared another g
rin as we were ushered out.

  “Don’t stop till you get enough,” I said.

  “Damn!” Beatrice exclaimed, and we stumbled out, snickering.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Returning to our seats, we stopped a moment between cars, me with a cup of hot coffee purchased from the snack bar, and he with an unlit cigarette.

  “That’s illegal,” I said as Gordon attempted to light up. “Even out here.” The gangway between cars was a funhouse, a moving floor tilting left and right, two chained accordion waffles of thick mesh on either side see-sawing up and down. Above, we could see sky, and below, fast-moving track and blackness.

  “Lend me a hand,” he said, wanting me to shield the lighter’s flame to his cigarette. An hour earlier I’d felt like throwing him off the train. Now I kind of liked him. As I moved closer I realized he was one of the few males I’d met recently who produced no corporeal vibration in me whatsoever. Zero. And apparently he had no attraction to me either because, as the cigarette glowed, he stepped away with ease. A relief.

  “Thanks.” He slipped the lighter into his jacket. “So you’ve been studying beauty all these years.”

  “I have.”

  “And what have you learned?”

  I must have smiled because, before I could answer, he remarked, “Nice dimples.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Sorry to interrupt.”

  “I’ve learned that there are a number of scientific ways to quantify beauty. But they seem to be even less reliable than predicting the weather.”

  “Now, now, we do our best.”

  “Do you know about crickets and low-flying birds?”

  “You mean their alleged ability to predict weather?”

  “Yes. Do you think a person can have that skill?”

  “Skill?”

  “Intuition,” I said and frowned.

  He took a long drag from his cigarette. “Maybe. I’ve never heard of anyone like that, but if I did I’d keep them close to my desk and feed them caramels. You know, in case the weather service computers went down.” He blew a stream of smoke from the side of his mouth. It disappeared, ghost-like, into the night. “I’ve learned to live with insecurity. You can’t imagine the hate calls I get, especially when it comes to people’s vacations. Like I control what the good lord doles out.”

  “I can do it. Or at least I could. And you can keep the caramels for yourself.”

  “You can make it rain!”

  “No, but at certain times, under the right conditions, I can predict with certainty. I did it all the time when I was growing up.”

  “I see. You haven’t grown out of it? Is your talent relegated to Bemidji? Kind of a small market.” He popped his lips. My fondness for him compounded, and I felt bad that I’d manipulated him to that point. But it was time to reel in my catch.

  “Don’t think so. Hey, let’s make another deal — Honor of The Beavers: you let me sit in on the Miss USA trials and I’ll tune into the weather and feed you whatever I get?”

  “Sounds irresistible.” He scratched his beard. “Except you get more than I do. Can I pick the ones I want? I’m partial to catastrophic events. You got those? Catastrophe pulls audience. You want me to look good, right?”

  “I can’t promise. But anyway, wouldn’t you like my scientific take on the pageant contestants? Sure you would, you’re a scientist too.”

  “We seem to be mixing media.”

  “It’d be a different way of viewing the girls. Come on.” I gave him a playful punch.

  “I’ll bet the organizers will love your systematic input.”

  I was learning his trademark sarcasm —and appreciating it. “So?” I asked. “Do we have a deal?”

  His cheeks puffed out, then he exhaled. “I guess it could be fun. You’d certainly have a different approach to evaluating the girls. Might be interesting, though you’d have to apply your science to the pageant format.”

  “I can do that.” I cut him off, excited to have found a friend. “And don’t forget I might be forecasting some weather for you.”

  “That’ll be a bonus.” He stomped on the cigarette. “Let’s get some sleep. It’s a long ride.”

  ***

  Our arrival in Chicago’s Union Station, wrinkled and grumpy from nineteen hours on the train, had the peculiar stickiness of a dream. While we waited to board The Empire Builder for the additional fourteen hours to Fargo, Lyle disappeared again, leaving me with the luggage, his guitar, and titanic irritation. In some absurd, inexplicable way, he and I were related.

  I’d been through the station, briefly, on my way to New York. I’d wrapped myself in my overcoat and had kept my head down that whole time. This time was different; I was different.

  I watched the cantankerous Beatrice trail-blaze through the crowd, as if —based on her supposed familial relationship to the pop star— she was heir apparent to Michael Jackson’s right of way. Gordon suggested that tomorrow she’d be Denzel Washington’s ex-mistress or Kerry Washington’s aunt, whatever held attention. But I wanted some of that chutzpah, even if it was contrived.

  As I waited at the far end of the hard wooden pew in the station’s Great Hall, I took inventory. Yes, I’d grown comfortable with my anonymity but not, I decided, attached to it. Progress. I could enjoy the gallery’s grandeur. Sharp voices, expectant footsteps, and blurry train announcements bounced off the Great Hall’s barrel-vaulted skylight and marble floors. A giant fishbowl.

  I laid my head back so it rested on the pew. The cathedral ceiling, more than 100 feet high, was the tallest I’d ever seen. A palace in a fishbowl.

  I watched the shop lights glitter. I inhaled the confluence of food and people smells, aged and woven into the stone. Strong and pleasing. Yet even in the palace there was unease. Besides Beatrice, I tracked other harried travelers until they noticed me and turned away. I closed my eyes.

  Someone tapped me on the shoulder. It was Daryl Hannah, older and grayer than I’d ever seen her, and she held the hand of a sweet, round-faced little black boy, maybe eight years old. “Would you like to join us for tea?” she said.

  “Me?” I said.

  “You’re Eunis, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, come with us.” And she led me and the little boy to a small door behind a cart stacked high with luggage.

  The door opened into another royal room, with the same cathedral ceilings and nothing but a large table covered in white linen, four chairs, all crowded together in a corner of it, a teapot, four cups and saucers.

  “Please,” she said offering me a place at the table. The little boy smiled at me and sat to my left as Daryl sat to my right.

  “This is lovely,” I managed to say, still unsure of my invitation. “Do you like tea?” I asked the little boy.

  “I do,” he said and I could have sworn his face changed, more hair certainly, an Afro. And it wasn’t exactly a smile after all, just his wide eyes unafraid to meet mine.

  “Here,” said Daryl, lifting her cup in salute, though I hadn’t seen her pour from the teapot. “To us.”

  “To us.” I turned to the little boy once more. He’d changed again. Older. Acne skin. Broader nose. He still watched me but his eyes were blank; he could have been one of Carver’s stuffings. Daryl didn’t seem to notice anything unusual.

  “Will you talk to me like my next door neighbor?” asked the young man, now clearly in his early twenties.

  “Yes, what would you like to talk about?” I faced him fully. As I did his face changed again, nose thinner, skin lighter, eyebrows, cheekbones —every facet tighter, sculpted.

  “Beauty,” he said. “What was so beautiful about Harold? You’re an expert aren’t you?”

  “Well, I’ve—”

  “Because if you’re not,” said the young man, now aged once more, his lips thinner, his nose pointed, even his eyelashes extravagant in their length and thinness, “you have no right being here.”

  “But I was invited.” I
looked to Daryl for support but she wagged her left index finger at me to refrain from arguing. She was missing part of the finger.

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “Precisely,” said the black man, now ghoulishly white, bony, and feminine. “And why not?” He sounded belligerent. Then he answered for me. “Because you didn’t try.”

  “Try?”

  “You could have put all that money toward surgery.”

  “There would have been nothing left for my education. I would have been forever in that farmhouse with nothing to give.”

  “Give?” The black man and Daryl said in unison.

  “Yes.”

  “Then why are you here?” The completely ghost-white black man slammed his hand to the table, overturning the cup and spilling my tea.

  “Now look what you’ve done!” he screamed, expression grotesque.

  “I can’t sleep like this,” Daryl said. “I just can’t.”

  “Am I beautiful?” he asked.

  Something brought me to the surface, dragging my constant career failure with it. “Because you didn’t try,” he said. “Then why are you here?” he said. And as passengers streamed by me, I thought I actually saw Daryl. I had to turn completely around to find her again in the crowd. There! Just her long blonde curls. Born in Chicago, after all. She wouldn’t have wanted to be in a fish bowl — a mermaid — with all those people, and yet . . .

  ***

  The hours passed. When I saw Lyle across the colossal open floor of the palace, he appeared more aimless than usual. His head was down, but it was his gait that lacked motivation. If he spent the rest of his life making his way the final seventy yards to my bench, he would not apparently have cared. That he somehow managed to point his way in my direction at all appeared to be the only measureable constant.

  “Here.” I handed him his guitar. “You’ll feel better.”

  “Thanks.” With a wan smile he pulled the D-35 to his chest, but he didn’t open the case. He stared across the large hall from whence he’d come.

  I put an arm on his shoulder and sat with him without another word.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  At 4:30 in the morning Fargo is a desolate town. We wandered the empty streets for a couple of hours, during which Lyle said little except to nod when I reminded him that, “This was the Great Northern Railroad. Your father helped lay rails all the way here.” We rented a metallic blue beater Plymouth Neon to drive the final three hours to Bemidji.