She should know. She’s been with you almost half your married life.
Several of Kerr’s friends from the other cemeteries showed up at the meeting then, bringing with them their gravediggers, a cast of rougher characters, muckers, Kerr called them, who kept their distance from the police officers in attendance. People started shouting. Over the crowds, over the speechifying heads, you and Lucy spoke soundlessly to each other.
Lucy: How long has it been?
You: Three months. Three months and nineteen days, to be exact.
Lucy: Feels longer.
You: Yes.
Lucy: How’ve you been?
You: Bearing up.
Lucy: Still miss me?
You: Every goddamn centimeter.
You might have played a small part in the fight that subsequently broke out. You had drunk a bottle of beer, possibly three, before the meeting. Consuming several drinks remains the only way you can propel yourself into Simon’s Hall, the only way you can keep tackling this cemetery fight. Each time, it pulls the teeth out of you. This close to Jack’s birthday, it pulls the eyeteeth. And seeing Lucy and Blue upended you.
People started leaving their seats as the argument worsened. The crush of foot traffic blocked your exit. You glimpsed Lucy steering Blue toward the door, leading her outside to safety. She didn’t stay. She didn’t wait to speak with you.
Back up front, someone demanded that the police officers arrest the cemetery foremen. The older of the two officers shook his head.
—Far as I can see, this is still a discussion. Arguments ain’t illegal.
But then Hubbs started shouting, and the women in the front rose from their seats, terrified and disgusted; they wanted no part of this nonsense. Hubbs demanded the police take charge. Kerr left his row and approached the dais, pushing past the crowd. Kerr was a mighty old man, Neptune with his trident, when he chose. He banged his cane and shouted Amen and Amen as Hubbs demanded the officers return the room to order.
—Amen, damn it! Kerr hollered again.
The two officers strode over and arrested him for disturbing the peace.
You lost your calm.
—How dare you, you said.—If you take Kerr to jail, I’m going with him. He hasn’t done anything.
You glanced back at the door—no Blue and no Lucy.
—Glad you can join us, Plageman, the younger officer said, and he brought out a second pair of handcuffs.
That was when you shoved Chairman Hubbs with your shoulder, but only because you were frustrated, only because he was bobbing and weaving in your face, demanding that the officers arrest you this red-hot second, as if a policeman required any encouragement, all the while continuing to spew bunk about the need for order and quiet, about how all the Richmond needed was peace and order and quiet.
And Lucy and Blue were gone. Vanished. Out the door. Your hands would not stop shaking. The older officer rapped you with his club, though he apologized as soon as he’d leveled the blow. Your hands shook so much, the younger officer had a hard time putting on your cuffs.
—It’s a cemetery, you shouted as the police pulled you outside into the night.—It’s a goddamn cemetery. How much quieter do you want?
Inside the cell, Kerr picks at his unevenly spaced teeth. It’s nearly half past nine.
—I say we rustle ourselves up some breakfast. What do you say, Plageman?
—I doubt they serve it here.
—Not here. Outside. There’s a diner on Point Lobos.
—We seem fairly tied up, you point out.
—I ate there once, Kerr says.—Finest fried potatoes a man’ll ever get.
He pushes up from the cot and hobbles to the door. Gripping the bars, he peers out, a lord surveying his estate.
—Ham bits and all, he adds wistfully.
—We’re not going anywhere until we’re released.
Kerr shakes his head.—You’ve got a lot to learn.
9:30 a.m.
Lucy
YOU ALMOST WALKED UP to him last night. Almost marched right up to the front of Simon’s Hall. You couldn’t stay away. The urge to see him compelled you.
Reporting on street conditions requires attendance at those meetings, so you had an excuse. But the cemeteries would dominate the agenda. And where discussions of the cemeteries are found, there Henry can be found too. You knew that heading into it. A guaranteed opportunity to run into him.
You needed to do it, to test yourself. To find out if you were over him yet, if your body was over him. Your mind too. You needed to learn if the sight of Henry Plageman had lost its power.
It hasn’t.
Your name is Lucy Christensen, and you generally triumph in your head more than you do in real life. You are careful, rash, generous, penny-pinching, wise, foolish, and private. You avoid using certain words: suffer, trouble, swoon.
Henry understands this difficulty. Henry steers around certain words too. He used to think so hard about finding the right words and avoiding the wrong ones that he’d halt outside your cottage, stop short, midsearch, the sea in his sightline, much like Richard will hesitate outside Henry’s front door, in limbo, unable to trot in or out, torn between mistress and master, two competing goods. You have not actually met Richard in person. Henry has talked about him. If you were to see him on the street, observe his flopping ears, his belly that grazes the earth, you would recognize Henry’s dog immediately, but Henry’s dog would not recognize you.
Today’s another test. Today’s the real one. Saturday morning, the Outside Lands. Henry’s day, but you’re still in it. A person can put an end to something, but that doesn’t make it stop. Catch a wolf in a trap, and the wolf doesn’t die. It’s just trapped. Its eyes stay fast on you.
To keep away from Henry today, you’ll recite self-admonitions. You used to have a fair number, but in the past months you’ve whittled them down to two:
Stop being who you’re not.
Start being who you are.
But being who you are isn’t something God guarantees. It’s not a right; it’s not a law of self-preservation.
A woman can’t be two things, your mother once wrote. She can’t be irresistible and unmarriageable too.
It appears she can, you wrote back. But you never mailed the letter.
You’ve been reading about rights and responsibilities as part of Blue’s American government assignments. Yesterday the two of you tackled the Declaration of Independence. You worked your way through the pages of your daughter’s reader, sitting at the kitchen table beside the glow of the lamp; you bit your nails, looking at her fine hair shining in the thrown light.
After Blue read the part where the Founders insisted on the right to seek happiness, she pointed out that they hadn’t mentioned how many people found it.
Maybe that was wise of them. Maybe people are better off not knowing.
Your name, your full name, is Lucinda Anna Christensen, and you do not think your age is relevant—but it is thirty-two. Your appearance is not relevant either. You’re a reader. My literary interlocutor, Henry once called you; you rose and left the room. You thought he’d meant interloper; sometimes he uses words unfamiliar to you. But you’re catching up. An entire Sunday morning can pass while you browse volumes in Adolph Sutro’s library. You can lose a Sunday morning and afternoon if you don’t keep track of time.
You don’t like keeping track of time. At this point in your life, time ought to be keeping track of you. That’s the least it could do.
Right now, you’re backed against the brick exterior of the Olympic Salt Water Company pumping station. The station supervisor leans in, his sun-filled face close, the scent of tobacco and yesterday’s sunshine radiating from his skin. Behind the pump station sprawls the Great Highway, and west of the highway lies the ocean.
—By damn. You’re a curious one, he says.
He crosses his arms over his jacket. Spilling from his overall pockets are sections of lead pipe and pairs of pliers. At his feet, in the sand, rests
a pasteboard lunch basket painted to imitate leather.
You try again, raising your voice to be heard over the sound of crashing waves: I’m reporting on the pipe repairs. Aren’t you the supervisor for this station?
—By golly, you’re a busy one. Quite the interrogator.
Gracefully he expectorates into the sand, taking care to aim away from your shoes. Then he directs a level stare at you. His eyelashes are long and full; his hair’s a ginger hue. You’re only a couple of inches shorter than this man. You’re not used to that. Henry’s almost a full foot taller.
—That’s not what I meant, Mr. . . .
You’ve forgotten his name.
—Stone. J. B. Stone, at your service. For anything a woman needs except playing twenty questions. Sandwich?
He bends and retrieves his lunch basket, offers its contents.
—It’s too early for a sandwich, you say.
He shrugs, producing a roll of bread separated by a slice of ham.—Suit yourself, he says, and proceeds to tear into it without once taking his eyes off you.
The two of you are about as far west as a person can travel without standing in the ocean. Most maps don’t include the Outside Lands of the city and county of San Francisco. Adventurers find their way here, as do loners, misanthropes, missionaries, women of a certain ilk. Mud and sand pave the streets. This far out, the city has erected telephone lines but not streetlamps, has installed water pipes but not sewer clean-outs. It’s half neighborhood, half dune. Perfect for not being asked what your life has turned into.
—The steeper the street grade, the better, you’d told Blue before her eighth birthday, back in February.—If I could live on top of a mountain, I would. Like Moses.
You added that last part for Henry’s benefit.
Your daughter, hair mussed from the day’s outdoor explorations, was tucking into split-pea soup at the table. Henry was putting on his coat.
Blue lifted her head.
—I thought Moses lived in the desert. And if we lived on a mountain, where would Pa live?
Henry started to reply, but you interrupted from your station by the stove.
—Wherever he wants.
Then you took a knife to two heads of lettuce still on their stalks and decapitated them. Henry rubbed his temples. He left for his house soon after.
—Mr. Stone, you say again.—If you can’t tell me about the pipe-repair delays, I’ll find someone who can.
—Will you, now. He nods, wipes his mouth on the back of his hand.—Sure hate to be replaced. Sure do love being peppered with questions.
He studies you before returning his lunch basket to the sand.
—I’m out of time, you say.—I have to get this into the Banner before deadline.
That second sentence is a bald lie. The first—that’s another story. Out of time? What woman isn’t?
The truth: You don’t work for the Richmond newspaper. You’re not a reporter. You’re a taxidermist’s assistant. You make the dead lifelike. But you do hope to be a reporter. You’ll write about one subject only; you’ll cover just one beat: the city beneath the streets. You’ll deliver tales of bitumen paving, describing the engineering and taming of the Richmond district: Here lie the subterranean avenues, the ancient springs, the cesspools and gas lines and clean-outs, the metropolis beneath our feet. Here lies the world everyone walks on and no one sees.
Stone slides an arm up the station’s brick wall. This close, he’s younger than you thought. He might be several years your junior.
—Surprised I haven’t seen you before, he says.—You live close by? I would’ve remembered you.
He straightens.—Hear that?
Stepping away from the brick, he raises a hand. You don’t hear anything unusual. Then again, your hearing isn’t infallible.
—Where’s your girl? That kid you brought? She didn’t sneak inside the pump station, did she? The engine room.
—She’s too smart to do that. She’s smarter than I am. Blue?
The only reply to your query is the constant sound of waves plowing into sand. Where did your child go roaming? Why in God’s name did you allow her? To the north lies a ramshackle strip of simple concessions hardly anyone visits: a beer hall of splintered wood, a photography booth, a shabby play palace, a shuttered shooting gallery. She could be almost anywhere. Here it is, May 22, and you’ve bungled things already by trying to steal an hour before the day settles in, a few minutes of feeling like a reporter. It seemed important, even today, especially today, to drive a stake in some territory that’s still yours. To face forward, not sideways and not backward. To keep away from Henry for the duration.
The corners of Stone’s mouth turn down with concentration.
—I hear something. Swear I do. Someone calling.
—She does this. She wanders. She knows the coastline.
—What’s her name again?
—Blue.
—Blue. What sorta name’s that?
—Her real name’s Anna, but it never took.
He nods and looks around, so intent you start searching too. Your daughter’s scrappy. She’ll outthink, outtalk, outrun anything. She’s gunpowder. Combustible. And she sees more than she should.
The Olympic Salt Water Company uses steam power and an underwater pipe to suck the ocean past the Great Highway and into a well encircled by the pump station. From there, with the help of gravity and more steam, the water travels underground, through pipes headed east. Its destination is the Olympic Club downtown, which provides heated salt water and a steam room for businessmen to swim in and then sweat out the previous night’s indulgences.
—There it is! Heard—
The supervisor wheels around, sentence unfinished.
—Blue?
The wind drags your call across the highway. Mist is sliding in from the ocean. It will erase the saloon, the tintype booth, the gallery. Behind the station hulks an engine room with a tall stacked chimney. Stone tilts his head at the building.
—Repaired it right before you came. Engines’ll be back up soon. Pipes were leaking in a couple places. Not enough to conk out. They’ll be swimming in the deep end downtown today.
Steam plumes from the waking engines. Vapor streams from the brick chimney and dissipates into the morning air. You shake your head. Something’s not right.
—My daughter.
—Right. Right. Let’s check inside. Make sure she didn’t wind up someplace she’s too smart to enter.
He’s teasing you, or trying to. He retrieves a corduroy cap from his pocket and shoves it low on his forehead before testing the handle to the station door. It sticks. He tugs, intent on his task.
—Stand back, lady. Need to get it open.
He shoulders the door, hard. He’s wiry, bristling with energy. Humidity and damp have swollen it shut.
—Rot, he mutters.—Might take a minute.
You’re used to waiting. You’re good at it.
Another letter arrived from Henry last week. The longer this separation has ground on, the more impenetrable his sentences have become. He’s waiting for the separation to stop. You’re waiting for it to stop feeling like separation.
I used to believe that one could live fully having seen a magnificent sunset. I was wrong.
It is customary to observe a period of protracted, complete silence out of respect for the departed. God knows if or when a space may open within which words might again pass between us.
Did you write him back? No. There’s no safe place to mail it to.
You’re having difficulty breathing, so you unhook the top of your dress’s collar. That’s better. When it comes to a choice between decorum and breathing, you’ll take breathing. Every time. Though that can lead to problems.
Stone backs up. Again he throws his shoulder into the door. It flies open, sending him stumbling forward. He recovers his footing, and you both peer in. The sound is like three steam dummies colliding in a wind tunnel.
Inside, a cornice and
firewall skirt a cistern. Overhead, a broken skylight provides the only illumination.
—Hold on, he says, raising one hand.—I see something.
Here in the dark, he stands awfully near, so close you catch the scent of his skin again: bread baked in sunlight. Henry’s skin never absorbed the sun’s scent. Your mouth is drier than dry.
Over the past ten years, you’ve grown used to missing someone, grown accustomed to it. If you didn’t miss anyone, if your life brimmed over, brimmed full, if the one you loved stayed by your side, in grasping reach at all times, you have no idea what you would do. Is an ordinary life even what you wanted?
No, Henry would say. Yet still you went from me.
Stone again: By damn. Look.
He grasps for a metal skimming pole and points with his free hand at the well. In the water, you see a flash of open mouth, two white eyes, your child’s eyes, just breaking the surface. The pump screams into high gear.
—By damn, Stone says again, and you both move.
Blue
FALLING THROUGH THAT SKYLIGHT was an accident. Anyone could have done it. I took a bad step, that’s all. I slipped while climbing on top of the pump station, while climbing against the rules, because what else is there to do when Ma’s too busy playing reporter to pay attention to me?
Someone has hooked a ladder over the lip of this well. My left foot searches underwater for a rung. The top of the ladder seesaws away. It’s loose. It smacks my nose and scrapes my wrist. It disappears into the water. I touch my nose; still there, still attached, though when I draw my hand away, two fingers come back bloody. I keep swimming. The ladder has failed me. My mother has failed me too. Her job is not to live as she pleases. Her job is to take care of me, her daughter, her only beloved, eight years old as of February 2.
Blue Christensen is my name, and I am old enough to know better. Or to know more. Old enough to be told, Ma said when she thought I was outside organizing seashells.
It’s not my fault I fell. Ma was standing outside the pump station pelting a redheaded man with questions, which she loves to ask and hates to answer. She was taking too long, so I made tracks and went exploring. I passed the folding table where Johnny the Birdman and his parakeets and lovebirds hold their show. My shoes crunched over old sunflower seeds. Johnny’s birds weren’t up this early. I passed the saloon and the shooting gallery; they were closed too. The pump station’s rounded top called me back. It said: Climb me. Ma didn’t notice. She didn’t turn around. I climbed all the way to the top. My hands planted themselves on a glass skylight sticky with bird droppings. My knees found the pane too, my knees and hands both. Then the skylight cracked. And then it shattered. I fell through. I fell into the gaping mouth of this well that holds the ocean.
The Half Wives Page 4