A year ago, when she’d set things in motion, Esmerelda’s lies and life had gone according to plan. Perhaps even better. She’d sung at the Palace from last fall and through the next three seasons. She’d sent a note or two to Oscar, making sure his commission had arrived in New Orleans. The only part Esmerelda had failed at was securing other living arrangements. She’d looked for a flat nearby, but even decent pay, less Oscar’s commission, couldn’t rent her one-room cellar housing—not in such an upscale section of Manhattan. She considered Phin’s old neighborhood. But between the unrest of war and what was left in Hell’s Kitchen, she wasn’t keen on the idea.
Cora had come by ages ago. The first time was to ask if Licorice could stay on—the Elephant Hotel wouldn’t allow pets. Esmerelda had taken the visit as a quiet cry for help. She offered Cora their old arrangement, tried to coax the girl into moving back to the hotel. Maybe if she’d been more convincing—less worried about Cora dragging her seedy life along—Esmerelda wouldn’t be in such a spot now. Regardless of the lukewarm offer, Cora’s dismissal had been immediate. “Once you get over the shock of it, it’s not so bad. I have my own room. Keep more money than Oscar ever gave us.”
Cora tucked fine strands of brown hair behind her ears. Oscar used to say her ears stuck out so far, a fellow could hide a whiskey flask back there. Her old roommate had gone on about her new line of work. “Although with so few younger men, it does leave a girl with nothing but old codgers, the kind who couldn’t get water to freeze stiff in January, never mind their . . .” Esmerelda’s eyes drew wide and Cora’s thought trailed off.
When the spring of 1918 blew in, so did more alarming news from Europe. Battles dominated every headline, German U-boats sinking American ships and ground conflicts that bled farther into Western Europe with something called the Spring Offensive. There’d been talk on every street corner of bloody battles, men pointing to images and photographs in newspapers like the Tribune.
War seemed physically upon them when the city enforced blackouts and curfews. Esmerelda took it as precautionary when Benjamin insisted that the window of her room be boarded up. It was common practice up and down the avenue. “It’s for your own safety, Esmerelda. New York’s harbors would be first in an attack. Imagine how I’d feel if Germans made it ashore and their mustard gas or shelling reached your room.”
The next most noteworthy change occurred when Benjamin was called to duty, though his father had managed to have him assigned to an office in Washington, DC. After this, for some time, Esmerelda had maintained a routine—performing at the Palace, though the upheaval of war dulled the crowds and the venue cut shows by half. No one’s mind was on the frivolity of entertainment. Curfews made it a nonnegotiable point.
In the always-dark room, lit by candles, Esmerelda wrote to Phin and he wrote back. Correspondence might arrive in a bundle, then none for weeks, sometimes more than a month. In reply, Esmerelda sent letters spritzed with gardenia mist. It was robust toilet water she and the boys had given to Cora on her last birthday. Esmerelda never wore it, though the heady scent had infused itself into everything she owned.
It was late that spring when Esmerelda looked through the writing desk, in need of more ink. She came across a postcard from Bayport, Long Island. It showed off the dock and gazebo where she and Phin had shared their picnic dinner. The beach where Phin had proposed. Oscar’s friend, who’d owned the restaurant, had given her the card as a memento. She’d sent the postcard to Phin that day, writing in the small space at the bottom: “When I spent two weeks on this beach, I didn’t dream of you then. E.M.” She mailed it off, hoping he’d find it uplifting, romantic . . . pretty.
Love letters mounted. Among her favorites were two miniature paintings from Phin. The postcard she’d sent inspired him to paint similar images while on a short reprieve—a place he called Walberswick. It was on the River Blyth in England. The stack of mementos grew so thick Esmerelda eventually splurged on a handsome leather letter box. It was sturdy enough to hold the emotion that flowed through ink. Every letter from Phin began with “My Dear Esme, If Paris is France, You are the World . . .”
His experiences were terrifying and glorious. Over time, he’d written about different battles, one in particular—Belleau Wood. It appeared to affect him greatly, and Esmerelda could tell Phin was holding back ghastly details. His many letters left Esme proud and fearful, each one prompting a greater sense of longing. Back then, when she could claim her own freedom, if the worst were to happen, she’d only know because Phin’s letters would stop. The war office wouldn’t notify someone who was less than a wife.
Now, sitting there, Esmerelda had no idea if Phin was dead or alive. Was Phin thinking the same thing about her, wondering why he hadn’t heard from her in months? She pushed the sad thoughts away, reverting to warmer memories of Phin’s letters. Aside from Marigold, recollections of his words and handwriting provided Esmerelda’s only source of comfort. Other letters had spoken of battlefield rigors that left her heart pounding. Curiously enough, it was one of Phin’s first letters that had brought a smile to her face.
The letter had been mostly about Oscar. Phin asked Esmerelda to thank him for the saddle. She knew of the saddle but could not imagine how or why Oscar would have given it to Phin. The letter had gone on to explain that Phin found it waiting aboard the ship on which he’d sailed to Europe. He told her about a note from Oscar, which said, “This fine leather saw me through a Rough Rider battle. I’ve no use for it now. Our girl tells me it’s you she wants. Make it back safe, else I’ll have to track you down in Hell. Godspeed, boy.”
Phin often wrote while he was waiting for the next battle plan. He talked about the small village of Aisne, war-torn like most of France. The few remaining farmers were grateful to the Americans, offering them straw beds since they had no food. He mentioned the Gagne family, and how the daughter, Maree, who was only fourteen, risked her life to carry messages between Phin’s division of soldiers and officer camps miles away.
Phin had shared other glimpses of war, insisting that Hassan was the true hero. It all made clever sense then, why the army had recruited a Choctaw Indian from Oklahoma to New York and on to the war. Hassan’s native language was being used as code to thwart German attempts to steal information. Esmerelda thought it the one smart thing she could attribute to men in power, for those left to wage the bloodiness of war.
The letters mentioning Hassan and the daring French farm girl, Maree—reading them was the last time she recalled her heart beating with something other than fear. Not long after those letters, life came undone by way of a twisted spiral. Benjamin returned—a short leave from his Washington post. She knew this when he showed up unannounced in the audience of a Palace performance. She’d been wearing the white gown that night. With him seated in the front row, it crossed Esmerelda’s mind that Benjamin appeared more aroused than usual by the sight of her.
Her ambivalent reaction turned to terror when she found him inside her supper club hotel room. The conversation had gone crooked from the start. He’d been seated at the table, Marigold discarded carelessly onto the floor. The letter box was open, Phin’s letters strewn about like confetti, shredded to bits. Esmerelda was angry and she hotly confronted him. It’d been a spark that lit Benjamin’s fury, which unleashed itself in that singular moment.
Benjamin told Esmerelda what he’d witnessed the year before from his new suite of rooms. He’d seen her kiss Phin in the alleyway. He insisted that he’d been devastated but kept hope it was nothing more than a girl giving a boy a sendoff—a warm memory to think of as he died on a battlefield. When Esmerelda had approached Benjamin about the Palace stage and remained at the hotel, his hope had renewed. He’d gone on, saying that at first he thought, like Ingrid, perhaps he only needed to give Esmerelda more time. “Like Ingrid?” she’d said. “The German girl you fancied? The one you sent back home to the soldier who loved her?”
“Well, isn’t it lovely and convenient that no one quest
ions a happy ending—or the disappearance of an enemy wench.” He was seated at the table, and his dark gaze drew up and down her. “Not in this climate, nor on this side of the ocean.” He’d gone on to throw the pieces of Phin’s letters—which might as well have been Esmerelda’s heart—into the air, pondering how he could have been so wrong about two different women.
“I tried, Esmerelda, for so long. To keep my affections in proper order, to wait like the gentleman my mother expected I should be.” His rant escalated, Benjamin insisting that she’d done nothing but use him and his heart—just like Ingrid. “The girl cozied up to me only to keep herself stateside and employed. I swore I’d never be anyone fool’s again.” Benjamin paused, the moment at an impasse. Then his rage unhinged, starting with the mermaid painting. He’d slammed it against the hearth, tearing the canvas, before throwing it into the fire. Flames rose high, meeting with fresh fuel.
Benjamin had demanded to know what Esmerelda imagined his actions meant—his assistance, his attention, his benevolent gift of housing. His endless patience. “Why are women so obtuse? Tell me, Esmerelda. The keeper and the kept. The first time I thought it was a language barrier. But is the concept so difficult?”
He hadn’t waited for an answer but took what he felt he was owed—forcibly and with greater zeal than Lowell. Initially, the act had only incensed Benjamin more. As his powerful, angry thrusts assaulted her body, he’d widened his eyes and said, “I see you did more than kiss the Hell’s Kitchen pauper goodbye. Tell me, did fucking you make him feel like he had promise in life?” And in addition to raping her, this was the first time Benjamin struck Esmerelda. “No matter. It only goes to prove my point—what you are. A vaudeville whore who I should have never trusted.”
After, his maniacal mood shifted again and he smiled, kissing her shoulder. Esmerelda gagged into a handkerchief, dabbing blood and tears from her cheek. “Not to worry,” he’d said, touching her hair, dipping to meet her glassy gaze. “I’ll make a distant memory of him—deader than the war has surely left him. With the fight nearly over, my father has seen to my reassignment, closer to home. I’ve seen to a lock on your door. The Palace will be informed that you’re not well and must regretfully abandon your performances.” He squeezed her bruised shoulder, and pain of every kind had snaked through Esmerelda, mind and body. “Forthcoming performances, my dear, will be a private New York affair.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX
New York City
Present Day
Pete’s heart moved faster than his feet up the hotel stairs. Em had taken the lead, pulling him by the hand. His head pounded. He couldn’t untangle a thought. Expected nerves and anticipation, or was he walking into an ethereal apocalypse? When they reached the second-floor landing, he stopped. He couldn’t shake the visual of heading up one more flight, turning left, opening the third door down, and finding Esme’s ghost. Of course, the fact that he knew the precise route seemed to indicate that they were on to something. He stepped in front of Em. “This way.”
From behind, she replied, “I know.”
The rows of doors were identical, except one. It had two locks, though the door was slightly ajar. Pete gave it a push, and appropriately enough, it creaked. The vacant square footage was stifling. Em moved forward and he stayed near the door. His eyes watered. The room had the same effect as Em’s doll—validation of a place he knew. Aside from a few scattered boxes, the room was empty. He knew the fireplace, the arch of brick, though the hearth had been sealed shut. He pointed. “The dresser was over there.”
“So Esme, she—”
“Stood right in front of it. I see the whole thing in the mirror. Well, my action . . . reaction.” Beneath their feet was hardwood, and the two looked down as if a brilliant bloodstain should surround their shoes. The floorboards were dull and scratched, but no more than the rest of the room. As the manager had noted, the bathroom was newer, or at least not circa 1919. Pete didn’t go in.
But he did approach the fireplace. The rain had stopped. A blast of sunlight burned through dark clouds and into the window, past his shoulder. The morning sun met with the fireplace. He traced a faint outline on the wall with his fingertips.
“The painting,” Em said. “You can see where the painting hung.”
“The English hunting scene,” he said with certainty. “The one with the fox running for its life.” Pete pivoted toward the window, where the ceiling wasn’t high and he could easily reach the top of the frame. “It’s the same window.”
“How do you know that?”
From the upper edge of the frame, he wiggled a small object free. “It’s a shank-head nail, common in the early twentieth century. It held the other end of the clothesline.”
“It held . . .” Her gaze rose from Pete’s palm to his eyes. “That’s, uh . . . that’s amazing.” She took a turn around the room. “Pete.”
“Yeah.”
“If we find tufts of black cat fur, know I’m out of here.”
“I just realized something about you.”
She spun around to face him, and he could see she was trying to hold her expression steady. “When you’re nervous,” he said, “you make jokes.”
“Karma’s yin to your yang?”
“It’s been noted that my sober nature could use a counterweight.”
“Lifelong habit for me. I make jokes if I’m uncomfortable, socially challenged.”
“Interesting. Usually I say ‘fuck this’ and leave.”
“I see.” She continued to circle the room. “Right now, I’d probably slay it at open mic night downstairs.”
“Why?” He stepped into her nervous path. “Tell me what you’re afraid of, Em. What am I missing? What’s here that’s got you as spooked as me?”
The corners of her mouth turned down. “You’ll be disappointed. It’s more about me not being like you, not having any sort of extrasensory gift.”
“We’ve established that. You don’t speak to the dead. You haven’t lived another life.”
“No. But I think I may be the caretaker of one.” She said it fast, like ripping off a Band-Aid. “Dreams,” she said. “I’ve had endless dreams since I was little. They’re all about one thing . . . a single time period. Dreams I vividly recall since . . . oh, since about the time Zeke gave me Mary.”
“Dreams,” Pete said. It was the go-to word people might use to describe his past life experiences, and he was leery of how easily one could be confused for the other.
“Back in East Marion, at the Rabbit Lane house, when I mentioned déjà vu, you were so quick to dismiss it—”
“I apologized. I shouldn’t have been so insensitive . . . rude.”
“It’s okay. I can see that about you.”
“More humor?”
She didn’t say anything.
“Okay. So a fact. Still . . .”
Em squeezed shut her eyes. A tear seeped through and Pete brushed at it. He let the camera bag slide to the floor and pulled Emerald to him. He wasn’t sure whose heart was beating harder. “Tell me, Em. If nothing else, maybe I can fix the parts that affect you. That’d be something.” Pete sank into the notion. Actually, he reveled in it—the idea of fixing someone else’s fucked-up life. Or in her case, the potential for one. He felt her arms tighten as Em whispered into his ear.
“My dreams, they’re not like your repetitive, real visits. I understand what you’ve told me about that. My dreams, they’re tiny pieces, brilliant flashes from another era. At least, that’s the way I’ve come to think about them—like a mixed-up, torn-up storyboard sprinkled into my nights. There’s no order. Sometimes there’s a boy in them and sometimes they’re beautiful.” She clung tighter to him. “Sometimes he’s the hero. Other parts are haunting . . . traumatic.”
“I can definitely understand that.”
“And it’s not always about what I dream. The thing that bothers me most is what I feel when the dreams are over. When I wake up, it’s as if—”
> He stared down into her face. “It’s as if all the emotion of what you dreamed belongs to you.”
“Yes,” she said, nodding hard. “I feel it—all the way to my bones.”
“Different than, say, if you dreamed about showing up late to an exam or even had a disturbing dream about your family, friends.”
“Very different. Like I’m not able to convince myself it wasn’t real.”
“Okay, so you’ve got my ear. I can relate.”
“No. I don’t think you can. Unlike your visits to another life, these dreams aren’t about me.” A flutter of laughter that wasn’t terribly funny lilted from her. “Why do you think I majored in psychology? I wanted to figure out . . . why me? But it didn’t help, or I was too afraid. So I end up talking to murderers, people who surely had to face worse things in their own dreams. I know . . .” The breath she pulled in bordered on hyperventilating. “I know it sounds crazy, doesn’t it?”
Pete reached forward as if to touch her face, then didn’t. “I’ll let you know when you get to the baseline of the crazy meter. You’re safe, believe me.” Her bottled-up troubles continued to flow, Em swiping an arm across her snotty nose, tearstained cheeks. Pete wished it were 1919. Surely he’d have a handkerchief to offer her.
“So here’s the rest. There’s a girl in my dreams and she isn’t me.” She blinked at him, dabbing at a smudge of mascara. “It’s . . . it’s like being the caretaker of someone else’s dreams, maybe their life.”
“You’re the eyes of the dream. Say it, Em. With everything you’ve learned since you walked into that bungalow. I saw you stare at the English saddle, look at the carousel horse. You know the beach in Bayport. You knew the truck in the barn too, didn’t you?”
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