2
TOMÁS CORDERO
Ybor City, Florida
JANUARY 1, 1920
THE POLICE MUST have called Emilio. Perhaps some policy requires them to seek out a friend or family member in situations like this—when a man’s sanity and honesty are called into question, and public safety is at risk. I understand why the authorities might have their doubts, but no one was harmed. No real damage was done. I remain as I have always been since my return: rational, nervous, and deeply unhappy. But that’s nothing to do with the fire.
My friend and right-hand fellow—the young and handsome Emilio Casales—sat in my parlor regardless, wearing a worried frown and the green flannel suit he’d finished crafting for himself last week. His waistcoat was a very soft gray with white pinstripes, and his neck scarf was navy blue silk. Bold choices, as usual, but well within the bounds of taste.
Emilio is not a tall man, but he’s slender and finely shaped. He wears his new suit well. He wears everything well. That’s why he has the run of my front counter.
Alas, he had not come to talk about clothes or the shop. He was there because the police had questions and they weren’t satisfied with my answers. I’d told them all the truth—from sharply uniformed beat officer to sloppily geared fire chief. But any fool could tell they did not believe me.
Emilio did not believe me, either.
“It was only a little fire,” I assured him. “It was discovered swiftly, then the truck came, and now it’s finished. You know, I’d been meaning to repaint the stucco for quite some time. Now I am graced by a marvelous soot and water stain on my eastern wall . . . and that’s a good excuse, don’t you think?”
He was so earnest, so sweet, when he asked me for the hundredth time, “But, Tomás, how did it begin? The chief said the fire began in a palmetto beside the back door. I’ve never heard of one simply . . . bursting into flames.”
We were speaking English, out of respect for the Anglo fireman who lingered nearby with his paperwork. The chief and the cops were gone, but they’d left this man behind—and he was listening, but he was polite enough to pretend otherwise.
“It must have been my own doing, somehow. Or maybe it was Mrs. Vasquez from the house behind me. Either one of us could have tossed a cigarette without thinking. It’s been so dry these last few weeks.” The winter weather had been a surprise—we’ve seen little rain since November, and it’s been so warm, even for the coast. “There are leaves and brush, and . . . it wouldn’t take much. Apparently, it didn’t take much.”
Emilio lifted a sharp black eyebrow at me. “A cigarette? That’s your excuse?”
He was right. It wasn’t a very good one. I rattled off some others, equally unlikely, but ultimately plausible. “Ashes from the stove—do you like that better? A spark from a lantern? Trouble with the fixtures? God knows I have no idea how those electrical lines work, or where they’re located. It might as well be magic, running through the house unseen.”
“Tomás.” He leaned forward, his fingers threaded together. “It’s your third fire in a month.”
I lifted a finger. “My third harmless fire. They’re silly things, aren’t they? One in the trash bin, one in the washroom. Now this one, outside. It scorched the wall, and nothing else. You worry too much, my friend.”
The fireman cleared his throat. “You should have a man from the electric company check the fuses. If only to rule them out, or diagnose the problem—and fix it before the house comes down around your ears.”
“Yes!” I agreed. I was too merry and swift about it, I’m sure. “That’s a wonderful suggestion. One can never be too cautious when dealing with electrical power; the technology is too new, and sometimes I worry for how little I understand its mechanisms. But it’s too late to call upon the office this afternoon. I’ll do it tomorrow.”
“Good plan.” He nodded, closing his notebook. “I’d hate to come out here a fourth time. My father would never forgive me if I let you go up in smoke.”
“I’m sorry, come again?”
He tucked a pen into his front breast pocket. “He wore one of your suits to my wedding. He says you’re an artist.”
I’m sure I blushed. “Why, thank you. And thank your father, as well. Could I ask his name?”
“Robert Hunt. You made him a gray wool three-piece, with four buttons and doubled flap pockets, back before . . . before you went to war. I doubt you’d remember it. He could only afford the one suit,” he added bashfully. “A simple model, but one for the ages; that’s what he’ll tell you. He still pulls it out for special occasions.”
I turned the name over in my head. “Was he a brown-eyed man with gold hair, fading to white? I believe he had a tattoo . . .”
Now the fireman was surprised. “Good God, that’s him!”
I warmed to the memory of wool between my fingers. The fabric was thicker back then, even a few years ago. The styles, the material . . . it’s all gone lighter now, and more comfortable for men like us, near the tropics. “I never forget a suit, though my grasp of names is not so good. You reminded me with the details and the bit about the wedding. Your father, he had been in the service. Yes?”
“Yes, Mr. Cordero. Back in ’ninety-eight. The tattoo . . . it was a flag, on his right arm.” He tapped his own forearm to show me where he meant.
“I saw it when I measured him.” I nodded. Then, to Emilio, I said, “This was before you and your brother joined me. Back then, I had my Evelyn to help with the cutting and sewing.”
• • •
IT never gets easier to say her name, but with practice and habit I can make it sound effortless. I can make it sound like I’ve fully recovered, scarcely a year since I came home from the front and they told me she was dead from the flu. She was buried in a grave with a dozen others, on the outside of town. Perhaps it was this grave, in this place—or maybe it was that grave, in some other quarter. No one was certain. So many graves had been dug, you see. So many bodies had filled them up, as fast as the shovels could dig. The whole world was crisscrossed with trenches and pits, at home and abroad. If the dead were not felled by guns, then they were swept away by illness.
It was just as well that I went to war. There was no safety in staying behind.
• • •
“MY Evelyn,” I repeated softly, testing the sound of it. My voice hadn’t broken at all this time. Hers could have been any name, fondly recalled but no longer painful.
What a pretty lie.
She and I said our good-byes when I went to Europe, but those farewells were in no way adequate for her absolute departure; and now, I cannot even lay claim to her mortal remains. I can only pray toward her ephemeral, lost spirit. I don’t have so much as a tedious, cold headstone in a proper garden of the remembered dead. Not even that.
• • •
“TOMÁS?” Emilio placed a hand upon my knee.
I didn’t realize I’d gone so silent. “I’m sorry. My head is aching, that’s all. I’m very tired.”
“Are you feeling well? Can I get you your pills?”
“It’s not so bad. Only the same old thing . . . the war strain.” I chose a term I liked better than “shell shock.” “Sometimes it makes my head feel full, and foggy. Or it might only be the smell of the smoke, you know. There was so much smoke in the war.”
Both Emilio and the fireman, whose name I never caught, finally accepted this explanation—at least in part. I settled for this small victory. I declined the pills, which were only French aspirin anyway, and wouldn’t have helped at all. I urged them both to leave me, that I might settle in and make myself dinner.
I wasn’t hungry, and I didn’t plan to make dinner. But Emilio wouldn’t depart until I’d assured him otherwise. He is worried, I know. He brings me candies and fruit empanadas with guava and cheese, like he wishes to fatten me up.
I do confess that I?
??ve lost a few pounds. Or more than that. I know my own measurements, and my clothes droop from my shoulders as they would from a wooden hanger. I’d rather not admit it, but there it is.
• • •
BY the time they were gone, the shadows had stretched out long enough to leave the house darkened, so I turned on some lights. Despite what I’d told my visitors, I wasn’t really afraid of the electricity or the bulbous glass fuses in the wall. Oh, I’d keep my promise and visit the office downtown, and I’d ask for a man to test them all; it would keep Emilio and his brother appeased (as well as the fireman and anyone else who might have an interest) . . . but whatever was happening, it had little to do with that impressive technology.
I couldn’t share my true suspicions about the fires.
God in heaven, they’d put me away.
3
ALICE DARTLE
Cassadaga, Florida
I CAME LAST night to the village of Cassadaga, in the wake of a tense, peculiar exchange with a nearly silent Spaniard who must’ve understood more English than he let on—for he crossed himself and began praying loudly when he loaded up my trunk and prepared to chuck it from the train. Then he demanded an enormous tip for the trouble of carrying it to the hotel, an attempt at extortion that I flatly refused.
At first. Eventually, out of pure desperation, I offered him whatever was at the bottom of my bag.
Having pocketed his excessive fee, the coward then tossed my trunk into the middle of the road—and ducked back onto the train, taking my money with him. The bastard left me stranded in front of the hotel beside my trunk, which was now scuffed, dented, and toppled onto its side. It was also too heavy for me to wrangle alone, so I wasn’t entirely sure what to do with myself.
But I did arrive. Safely, and in one piece, with a little less money than I’d planned—but all of my belongings. So what if the sun was freshly set, the town was dark, and I was alone in an unfamiliar place? Who cared that I did not yet have a room at the hotel and had only assumed I’d find one upon applying?
I was thrilled to have arrived.
As I stood there marveling at my good fortune (obnoxious porter aside), I heard the settling mutters of songbirds, the awakening hoots of owls, and the rising calls of frogs and insects I might not recognize even if I held them in my hand for some up close and personal inspection. Overhead, the large, lacy leaves of palms filtered a few lights, and down along the streets I saw great fluffy plants with leaves like swords. Scraggly beards of moss dangled from trees, and beside my feet rested fist-sized magnolia pods, as hard as old leather.
This did not feel like a jungle, as I’d been warned it might . . . but it definitely felt different from Norfolk. In my narrow, nighttime opinion it also looked quite different from Norfolk, but I reserved that full judgment for morning, as the daylight might tell me something else.
• • •
FLORIDA is only another state, not another universe.
I am only a long way from home, not lost to it forever.
• • •
I lingered beside my trunk, my initial marveling completed.
Before me stood probably the largest building in town, and they called it simply the Cassadaga Hotel. It’s a lovely wood structure with three stories and a marvelous porch that runs the full length of the front, and then some. I took my carpetbag, left the trunk behind, and climbed three short steps to take a deep breath at the front door.
I opened it and let myself inside.
Indoors, the place was bright, with a warm, friendly feeling to it. The windows were tall and pretty, and electric lights shined right through them—and through the lacy curtains, which were mostly for show. One of these windows was open to let in the evening air, which was stirred slowly by three high ceiling fans all in a row, their long brown blades shaped like leaves. The rest of the windows were shut, because apparently in Florida, this glorious evening air is considered just a touch too chilly for comfort.
Inside the lobby there was a beautiful wood desk with a glass-shade lamp atop it, its light glowing down on an open register . . . and upon the hands of a colored man who might have been old enough to be my grandfather. His eyes were sweet, his hair was salt-and-pepper, and his white cotton shirt was crisply ironed.
“Good evening.”
“Good evening,” I replied in kind. “I was hoping you could offer me a room, and I want to thank you in advance for any effort you might make to accommodate me on such short notice. I wrote letters to Pastor Floyd and Mr. Colby, but I should’ve written the hotel, too, I suppose, or perhaps found a phone and called first. Now that I consider it,” I rambled, “this expedition has been conducted largely by instinct and enthusiasm, without much in the way of good planning.”
“There are worse ways to go about having an adventure,” said the man with a smile. “Besides, you’ve come to a community of clairvoyants. You might have known we’d have a room waiting.”
I giggled, which isn’t something I often do. But he was just so nice. “I am so grateful, sir—and so relieved.” I took the pen and signed myself in to the hotel, and he handed me a key. “Thank you so much,” I told him, noting that the number on the key was 14. “And one more thing, if you could, please—do you think it’s too late to call upon Pastor Floyd?”
He shook his head. “Not at all. I’m sure the pastor will be pleased to learn that you’ve arrived.”
“I have an address . . . ,” I said, mumbling the last syllable or two of my declaration, because I was trying to dig the paper out of my carpetbag. “If you can point me to Stevens Street, I’m sure I can find it— Oh no!” I cut myself off, exclaiming like an idiot. “My trunk! I left it in the road.”
“Were you dropped off by the gate pillars? In a hasty, impolite fashion?”
“Does it happen often?”
“Often enough. I’ll ring for Timothy. He can see the trunk to your room.”
Eagerly, I began to describe it. “It’s oversized, steamer-style with a rounded top, and—”
“Dear, is it alone? Or might it be mistaken for someone else’s luggage?” he asked.
“Yes, oh yes. Don’t I feel silly . . .” My cheeks were going pink—I could feel it. I hated the feeling of pink.
“Now, now, Miss Dartle, I was only teasing. Let me summon our bellhop to help you right away. Poor Timothy needs to head on home for supper. If he dallies here too much longer, his mother will wonder what’s keeping him, but yours was the last train into town, so he’s almost free to leave.”
When Poor Timothy arrived to go fetch my bag, he didn’t appear to care one way or another about supper or his mother, either, but I surely wouldn’t have expected that kindly older man—whose name turned out to be Evan Rowe—to tote the heavy trunk on my behalf. While Timothy attended to my belongings, Mr. Rowe led me to the front windows. “This is Stevens Street, right out here—see? Follow it two blocks that way.” He indicated left. “Pastor Floyd’s home is the big blue house on the corner.”
Holding these directions in mind, I set off for the minister’s place, down sidewalks that were still warm enough to feel toasty through my shoes, despite the season. Where there were no sidewalks, I saw sand so white and soft that it should’ve come with a powder puff. In the distance I heard soft splashings, like a waterbird wading or a hungry frog chasing flies.
Or chasing mosquitoes.
I hoped those frogs were chasing—and catching and eating—a great quantity of these odd winter mosquitoes. I slapped one on my wrist, stunning the insect and stinging myself in the process. We hadn’t seen mosquitoes in Virginia since the season’s first freeze. I’d blissfully forgotten they existed.
Not quite two blocks down the way I found the correct number displayed upon a two-storied house. It was a clean affair, with azalea bushes flanking the front steps and dark-painted storm shutters on either side of each window. Inside,
the lights were on.
I took a deep breath, scaled the steps, and knocked firmly upon the door. I shuffled from foot to foot, on the verge of knocking a second time when I heard footsteps, and then the squeaking turn of the knob. The door opened, revealing a tall, distinguished woman with silver hair tied up in a great Gibson bun. She wore a light green dress. Its sleeves ended at her elbows, and its hem stopped before it reached her ankles.
“Hello,” I said, with my bravest face forward. Confident and calm, I reminded myself. “My name is Alice Ellen Dartle, and I’m looking for Mr. J. A. Floyd.”
“No you’re not,” the woman said. She wasn’t cruel about it at all, but it took some of the wind out of my sails.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You’re looking for Dr. J. A. Floyd. Or pastor, if you like. And you’ve found her.”
“Come again? Oh dear, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean . . . I should’ve begun with Pastor Floyd and saved myself the embarrassment . . .”
She took no offense. “It’s all right, Miss Dartle. I’m glad to see you’ve accepted our invitation to visit. Please, won’t you come inside?” The light caught her eyes so they almost twinkled. They were very blue, I have to say. Or maybe they only looked that way because her hair was so very pale. She did not seem nearly old enough to have such hair, and I almost said so out loud—but I caught myself before I could be so very rude.
I also didn’t ask aloud how she’d known it was me, the sender of passionate, fraught letters, in search of a true home down south among these gentle mystics.
“Have you eaten?” she asked.
“No, ma’am, I have not.”
“I was just pulling together a light meal when you knocked, so I’ll add enough finger sandwiches and orange slices for two. I can’t leave a guest hungry, now, can I?”
I was only too happy to agree to her hospitality. I was tired from the road, half starved, and uncomfortably warm from my walk. Also, to my great embarrassment, I was sweating under my shawl. I held my arms loosely and hoped my dress would dry swiftly. This wasn’t quite how I’d intended to make my first impression—a damsel in distress with damp clothes and wisps of hair stuck to her face.