by Lyndsay Faye
“No. No, I don’t expect you to.”
“Blossom also wants you to know that she’ll write the instant she gets to wherever she’s going.”
“That’s how we started, you know.” Evy’s memory reads love letters that I can’t see. “Clever as she is in person, have you any idea how clever she is in writing? It’s. She’s uncanny. She knew just how to make me laugh, simply by putting the alphabet in the right order.”
“She said much the same of you. And if Tom objects to her corresponding, she can address them under a false name to Wednesday Joe and he says he’ll deliver them during Weekly Betterment.”
“Oh. I hadn’t thought of Weekly Betterment, but I don’t suppose I can quit, can I?” she muses exhaustedly. “Please don’t think me a hateful hypocrite, Alice, but as much joy as I got out of the cause itself, it paled in comparison to holding Davy, watching how his tiny hands grew, putting my nose in his hair.”
“That’s the least hypocritical thing I’ve ever heard. You’re trying to do what’s best for him, and in my opinion it’s goddamn heroic. Evelina, please don’t answer this if you don’t like to, but do you . . . as Mrs. Vaughan . . .”
“Do I mean to have children with my husband?” She worries at the edge of the coverlet with listless fingers. “Davy took up so much of my mind before, I took precautions. Now? I rather like the idea, but I don’t know how useful a mother I’ll be in five years. Ten. It would be wonderful to have more children. Tom would be so happy. But right now I only want to see Blossom and Davy again, and—” Evelina thumps her fist against her breastbone. “It’s like a hole. It’ll always be there, yawning open.”
“Unfortunately, I know the feeling. But just think of students like Jenny Kiona—ones who have something to show for it.”
“Yes,” she sighs. “I wonder if Tom will object to my going to the Paragon after all that’s happened. He supposes I never knew about Blossom’s true nature, that was easy enough to pretend, I was so genuinely horrified. I did the same the morning Davy went missing—the feelings were real, I just. Pretended they were for another reason. And he was far from hateful over Blossom. He only thought it strange, and sad, and wondered if there might be treatment for her. Oh! She must be headed somewhere she can continue the radium cure. Yes, of course. She’ll write me soon, I know she will, and if Tom objects, well, I’ll just talk him ’round, won’t I, I can’t be expected to hear from her once a week.”
Blossom figures finding a new doctor is about as likely as electing a black Portland mayor. But I see no reason to upset Evelina further.
“In light of how topsy-turvy everything is, once a week would be grossly inadequate.” Rising, I bend to kiss her cheek. “Mavereen says no one will ever be charged with Dr. Pendleton’s death, and maddening as it is, I can hardly disagree with her. And what with Blossom displaced, and Overton bound to be set free any second—I had a tasseled dress once with fewer loose ends.”
Evelina regards me with a quicksilver light in her eyes. It startles me. I’d nearly forgot she’s a wood nymph, with a host of spirits and spells at her disposal.
“Officer Overton won’t be set free, Alice.”
I set a blank envelope on the nightstand, another parting gesture. “But Blossom said a policeman being arrested for assaulting a black woman—well, man in this case, which makes it worse—would never lead to a conviction.”
“Oh, well. She’s right. It wouldn’t. He’ll rot in jail all the same.”
“How?”
Evelina snugs closer into her pillow, a fire-haired witch with vengeance on her mind. “I mentioned before that Tom’s at the station house. When he told me what happened, I was—well, you can probably guess I was so hot I could hardly breathe, and I thought the same thing, that nothing would come of it, so I told Tom that Officer Overton attacked me too.”
“He—you what?” I stammer.
“Oh, I’m fine, Alice, he’d never do anything so stupid, but Tom doesn’t know that.” Evelina smiles, and I think she could give Cleopatra tips. “I was already crying over Blossom being hurt, so I just kept right on crying and I said I went to find Tom at headquarters once, during one of my spells, and that Overton took advantage of my confusion. Touched my breasts, kissed me. I said I’d been too ashamed to tell him before, since I’m meant to be ever so careful when I feel a rush of nerves coming on, but that I’d got it into my head I needed him right that instant, and afterward thought he’d be furious. Dear Tom. He fixed me a drink, and stroked my hair. He says that Overton will be locked away for ever so long, and he’ll speak with the judge personally. He’s filling out the police report now. Sweet, loyal Tom.”
I laugh harder than I’ve laughed at anything since I arrived in this wonderful, terrible town of roses and rainfall. Then Evelina grins at me, the Cheshire smirk of a woman who took about six seconds figuring out how to destroy the man who assaulted her lover, and I laugh even harder. Only yesterday, I reached the conclusion that Miss Christina could never hurt me, but that Blossom would readily snap a neck in a good cause.
Evelina would too, I discover. Jail will be a lucky break for Officer Overton. She wouldn’t blink over crushing his windpipe with her bare hands.
“It must sound ever so odd coming from a near stranger, but I’ll miss you,” I tell her.
“Oh, not odd at all, you’re lovely, but surely I’ll see you soon?”
“Mrs. Meader set me adrift along with your beloved. I’m for the Israelites-in-the-desert routine.”
“Alice!” she exclaims in dismay. “And here I never even thought to ask whether you were harmed in all this wretched business. Forgive me. Where can I visit you, then?”
“I’m leaving Portland, actually.”
She sits up fully, hair cascading around her shoulders. “No. Oh, I wish you weren’t! Please write, you must promise that you will. Where are you going? And why?”
“There’s important business I have to settle. And of course I’ll write—I’m sure my prose isn’t much doing compared to Blossom’s, but I’ll write all the same.”
Now Evy understands this is to be a more permanent goodbye than she’d imagined, she insists on embracing me in a warm cloud of moonlight and moss. It lingers on my blouse as I depart. I wonder what her reaction will be to the ten thousand bogus dollars I left her, with instructions that it should go to Davy’s schooling. Around thirty-five thousand still resides in my bag, minus expenses, which is simply staggeringly important, because I know precisely—God willing and the Creek don’t rise—what I’m going to do with it.
It will be, supposing I pull it off, exquisite. The jazziest expenditure in the history of ill-gotten gains.
* * *
—
The platform at Union Station is alive with the bustling crush of busy train departures, farewells and admonitions and rustling newspapers humming in my ears. A little towheaded chappie in a sailor suit wants to know whether there will be ice cream on the journey. His mother shushes him, which is unfortunate, because I admired to know her answer.
Any second now, Nobody, and do try not to make a profounder idiot of yourself than you already have.
“Hey there, Miss James. Ain’t this a swell surprise.”
A smile lights my face as I pivot. I amend the Cinderella-at-the ball routine for a calmer expression. But sweet berobed Jesus, does Maximilian look fine. Wearied in body and soul, yes. Awfully plentiful lines etched around his honey-colored eyes, his Pullman uniform pressed in haste. Still.
I could, as Blossom puts it, eat him with a spoon.
“Five more minutes and the southbound express oughta pull in. Carry your bag for you?”
“That would be just fine, George.”
“Watch yourself there, miss.” His hand lingers scandalously long over mine as he grips the handle of my valise. “They’re still sore at me about the last few days. I had to pull in some
favors so’s I could work this here train, and I ain’t gunning to get kicked off it ’cause I had words with a passenger.”
“Blossom seemed to think you’d be drummed straight out of the Pullman racket.”
“Nah, they love me. On accountta my looks, I figure.”
“Surely not.”
“Aw, nuts. My charm?”
“Doubtful.”
“’Cause I bathe regular?”
“Now you’re on the trolley.” Under my breath, I add, “By the way, I’m ever so glad Blossom told you. Secrets are a particular area of specialty, but this one—I don’t know if I could’ve kept it buttoned that Davy was safe, not where you’re concerned.”
Max grimaces, but there’s no anger in it, only sorrow. “Us two had a real long chat last night while he was packing. I ain’t gonna pretend to understand it. But if there’s one thing I knows for certain, he loves that kid. And Mavereen did what she figured she had to, but . . . I don’t gotta like losing friends that way.”
A whistle sounds in the distance, and the crowd shuffles its feet. “Where did you take her?”
“Boarding house not too far from the docks I knows from before I found the Paragon. Pretty clean, mostly day laborers. Communal bachelor dining hall, cheap grub, but plenty of it—stew and taters and biscuits. Medea should take care of the mouse situation.”
“Blossom will detest it,” I say with quiet certainty.
“Yeah. But it ain’t like he’ll be there for long.”
She won’t be. But it hurts all the same, the way sometimes large griefs engulf, send you blessedly reeling, while smaller ones rankle maddeningly. I’ve been shot twice, and that was unpleasant—but I’ve also had the chicken pox, and was just about ready to walk into traffic over it.
I glance back at the station I first met when I was dying. Not expecting to see it again for quite some time, if ever, I breathe in tall trees and pure skies. A family of six pack themselves onto the southbound express, squalling and hushing, before Max and I hoist anchor and head for the same entrance. A smartly coiffed young gal and her porter. Two people whose worlds are only meant to intersect in moments like these ones. Trying not to look as if anything electric is passing between us, sparks as real and as glittering in our heads as the fire soon to be thrown from the great iron wheels of our locomotive.
* * *
—
Later, in the deepest dark, after he’s seen to all his duties and then some, Max skips out on shut-eye and pays a visit to the single-person first-class compartment I’ve booked. It’s an indulgence. And a gamble. He sells me a few more jazz records, at a steep discount, bartered for my door being locked and his tongue on my hip and my laugh quiet in his ear as he times his movements to the clatter and roar of the train.
Afterward, Max captures what remains of the curls framing my face in loose fingers. “You still ain’t answered one thing, and I gotta admit to curiosity.”
I push my hand up his shoulder, admiring. “Well, go on and interrogate a girl. It isn’t as if I can escape you.”
He shakes his head, pretending not to be amused. “You reminds me of me. And Blossom reminds you of your friend what liked the poppy juice. And I reminds you of somebody else. So who?”
We can’t risk a light, so I pull the curtain aside to see him better. It seems decadent, only a glass pane between our naked selves and the headlong rush of countryside, and even though I don’t suppose evergreens fret much over human relations, I feel exposed.
I want to feel exposed.
“You remind me of my friend Nicolo, the way he was when we were kids,” I tell Max as he studies what Alice James looks like lit all in silver. “Life was hard, but he didn’t hate anyone else for it. He was strong and good. It was awfully hard to be good in Harlem. And he loved me. I wasn’t ready for that—I was too young. Then the wrong people died, and parts of Nicolo died with them. So. I missed him, you see, I missed the Nicolo I did love back, the one before he changed, and you—you went to war, and you still manage to be strong and good, and I don’t know how anybody admires to do that. But you remind me of him, before. And I think it’s ever so miraculous, you know, that you’ve seen the wrong people die too, and it didn’t change you.”
“I ain’t as special as all that, Alice.” Max’s face darkens, and he shifts his weight to the side. “You gotta understand. . . . Last night, after we found out Dr. Pendleton done got strung up, I was crazy. Wanted to wreck that whole city, set it on fire. I went down to take care of his body myself, but they already cut it down, them coloreds as got there first, and took him to the station house. There I was—empty hands, aching to use ’em.” His lips tighten grimly. “If it hadn’t been for Blossom’s situation, and me needing to have words over it, ain’t no telling what I mighta done.”
“You’ll miss his funeral, escorting me like this,” I realize with a pang.
“I don’t want no part of that sham funeral,” Max growls. “Doc was a soldier, and you think they’ll bury him like a hero? I’d carry him to Paris if I could, throw my own goddamn parade. There’s times I wish I’d never left. At least in France it was clear what sorta man you were—the kind what kept marching, or the kind what fell, and you was all on one side and at least could figure out who was gonna shoot at you. Christ. See? That there’s crazy talk, Alice. Ain’t the notion of a sane fellow to want to be back at the front.”
“Actually, I think it’s eminently sensible.” I fall away from him, study as the line of cars curves around a bend, watching a great steam snake ferrying me to another unfamiliar new home. “It taught you precisely who you are. Who doesn’t admire to know that?”
The moon has risen, slender and delicate. Seeming awfully small. But that’s the trick about the moon. You might only be able to lamp a bit of it, like I do then. But that doesn’t mean the rest of the moon isn’t there. Only that it’s waiting for the right time to be visible. Showing sharp white sickles of itself until suddenly it’s flooding wheat fields and coastlines, shocking everyone over how much was hidden all that while.
EPILOGUE
It is breaking down the color line. It is destroying the psychology of caste. It is disseminating joy to the most humble and the most high. It is the dynamic agent of social equality.
—CHANDLER OWEN, “The Black and Tan Cabaret—America’s Most Democratic Institution,” The Messenger, August 1922
Stretching, I shuffle back through the pages I’ve written over these last months. You’ve asked me any number of times what I’m working on and whether it has to be so secretive, and I laugh, and ask who’s the shameless busybody now. But the truth is that I don’t think I could have shown it to you in what you call puzzle pieces. I wanted the entire portrait of how it happened. The unbutchered cow. The whole shebang.
Fond as I am of the current vernacular, I need to say plainly: I don’t like everything I’ve written here. But it’s as close as I can come to the truth.
Now, I’m awfully anxious you’re going to find this gift silly. But you aren’t feeling very well, and when you aren’t feeling very well, you like being told stories. So did I, when a mere stripling. Most of us, misfits and fits alike, hanker after a yarn when the chicken soup isn’t quite up to snuff. And ever since we turned roomies, it’s essential to keep you in the goodest possible cheer. When you’re sulking, you hog the whiskey and depress the cat. Don’t try to deny it.
Considering the stakes involved, I’m awfully glad you like it here. San José is prosperous but quaint. Gun ready but peaceable. Not shy on sunshine, not strong for overcoats. I can’t wait to pal around with you here—if they dole out more of these blue skies, we’ll be spoiled for anyplace else. But in the meanwhile, we do more of the staying put than the gadding about, and supposing I’m not careful, I’ll trip and fall in love with our cozy little rented corner of the world. I like our palm tree. I admire our gravel drive. I adore our bungalow, even th
ough it’s withering around its edges. I love that they let us abide here together because I’m budgeting, ostensibly, and you’re my devoted but ailing maid, theoretically.
Best of all, I like Dr. Ishimaru. Leaving you in Portland while I went off in search of good weather and a better physician was a dreadful wrench. But he makes up for it, what with the way his nose crinkles, and his marvelous facility with radium, and the way he nods to himself as if doing sums in his head.
But we have copious moola left over for jazzier prospects. I’ve half a mind to buy this place. I’ve half a mind to take us to Paris instead. I’ve never heard rust squeak as the gateway of a palace opened, never walked along a garden hedge trimmed with a straight razor. And now I’ve met you, I think I’d rather you showed it to me than going there as a solo act. I know you feel guilty over the moths flying out of your wallet just now. But it isn’t your fault Dr. Pendleton left the Paragon Hotel to the administrator of a veterans’ charity, and it isn’t San José’s fault they’re not strong for watching virtuoso vocalists wheezing.
Anyway—for now, we live on the cul-de-sac, with the orange-peel sunsets and the smell of eucalyptus trees. Halfway between the best amaro I’ve ever tasted and a pneumonia poultice. Wonderfully strange. As strange as living someplace other than a hotel for the first time in my life. But things happen, as my mum says, and you happened to me, and then there was no undoing of you. So I admire to help you understand why you thought that if I truly knew you, I wouldn’t hate you.
Because you were right about that. And sometimes you half suspect you were wrong after all, when you’re cross and hate me, or when you’re sick and hate the treatment, or when you’re sad and hate yourself, but you weren’t, so here.
Here.
This is the reason. I wrote it all down. And I could never hate you.