She turned the cards over quickly, one after another, talking all the while—rat-a-tat-tat—like she was afraid someone would interrupt her with questions or commentary.
The Knight of Cups. “Alice, my dear. You’ve been courted recently, and rather seriously, by a romantic young man with a soft spot for soft women.” Five of Wands. “But you sent him away. He did not understand you, and you weren’t prepared to live with that. It was the right decision, I’ll have you know. He would’ve never come around, and before long, you would’ve wanted to kill him.” Three of Swords, reversed. “Your refusal hurt his feelings but did not break his heart. He will carry a torch for a while, but he’ll find someone else. There’s a better match for him somewhere, and he’ll find it eventually.” The Emperor. “Your father has been quite a force in your life, largely for good.” She paused over this card, tapping it gently. “In this position, the card suggests a subversive figure. He’s working in opposition to something . . . someone . . .” She turned the last one over, revealing the Empress, reversed. “Ah, it’s your mother. He’s the supportive and understanding one . . . No,” she said, correcting herself, “tolerant. He’s quite tolerant. Your mother looks away; she buries her head in the sand. She pretends she can’t see. She cares, but she doesn’t know what to do. You must forgive her. Or you might as well forgive her. It’ll do you no good to stay angry.”
“I’m not . . .” Angry, I wanted to say. But I didn’t.
Dr. Floyd scooped up the cards and slipped them back into the deck. She smiled, a little tense. She smiled to the room at large, and to Mr. Colby in particular she said, “I’ve seen enough, and I’m prepared to waive the other tests. The objects were mine. I’ll verify her reading and—unless anyone has any objections?—I’d like to see her join us here and begin tutelage.”
She turned her back to me and rested her rear end on the edge of the table. She braced one hand on either side, like she was prepared for resistance . . . or even a fight.
No one fought her, but the elderly Mr. Colby asked, “Who would you recommend to tutor her? You hardly have the time for a new pupil.”
“When Oscar returns from Orlando, he might make a most excellent teacher. Until then, Mabel? If you could be persuaded . . . I think you two might be a good match.”
Mabel regarded me kindly, but with curiosity and uncertainty. She might’ve been in her thirties, with blond hair knotted up in a ribbon and a fine lace shawl across her shoulders. She was terribly thin, and I wondered if there wasn’t something wrong with her. Maybe she was sick. I would do my best to keep from asking. She said, “As you like, Dr. Floyd.”
It was not the most ringing declaration of acceptance I’d ever received, but it was better than hearing, “Pack your bags and hit the road.” I nodded slowly, stoically, and without so much as a sniffle I said to my new mentor, “Thank you, ma’am.”
She shook her head. “No, no. It will be Mabel, not ma’am. Nor miss, or missus, or anything of the sort.”
“Mabel,” I whispered. “Yes, thank you.”
“Then it’s settled!” Dr. Floyd said cheerfully. To me, she added, “Alice, I’m afraid you’ll have to stay in the hotel for another week or two, or perhaps longer—until the first wave of snowbirds goes home to roost.”
“Snowbirds?” I squeaked.
“The northern guests, who come for the seasonal sermons and lessons. They’ll be cycling through town quite a lot over the next month or two—until the weather warms up for them back in New York, or Vermont, or wherever they hail from. They come in droves in the fall, especially since the influenza has taken so many to the other side. But as soon as something becomes available, we’ll get you settled in.”
“You mean it?” I was overwhelmed, and relieved, and still not quite convinced that everything would be all right and that I was going to stay.
Dr. Floyd left her seat on the table’s edge and came around to stand beside me. She put a hand on my shoulder. “Would you like a tissue, dear?”
“No, because I’m not crying. Not yet.”
All the same, she passed me a handkerchief, just in time to catch the first of my happy sobs. “Come along, I’ll take you to lunch. Mabel, would you care to join us?”
“I’d be happy to. Alice and I should get to know one another, shouldn’t we?”
Outside through the open-air corridor the pastor guided me, while the rest of the council members murmured among themselves. Mabel paused for a word with Mr. Colby but assured us that she’d be along momentarily. We left without her.
“Thank you, Dr. Floyd,” I said, in case I hadn’t said it enough. “Thank you, a thousand times and then some.”
She grinned and squeezed me around the shoulders. “On the contrary, I should thank you for stopping when you did. I had no idea you’d read so clearly on your very first test.”
“Was the reading really that good? I felt like it wasn’t specific enough, like I wasn’t clear enough. I never got a good look at the woman’s face, so I couldn’t describe her. I couldn’t figure out which city I meant, or the name of the train she took. Are you sure it was all right? I couldn’t tell anything about either of the men . . .”
“Darling, in another ninety seconds, you’d have blurted my sister-in-law’s name, and Dr. Holligoss would’ve been very embarrassed indeed.”
“Oh. Oh dear, oh, Dr. Floyd, I am so sorry.”
“For what? Rising to the challenge? I’m the one who picked the items on the table. I should’ve chosen something less closely connected to the town and its . . . oh, let’s call it ‘confirmed gossip.’”
“I still feel sorry. I am seized with the compulsion to tell you so, repeatedly, until I get it out of my system.”
“Please do not. Young women apologize too much already. It’s an awful habit, and I’ll break you of it if I can.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry, ma’am. I’m sorry for saying I’m sorry.”
“Are you joking with me?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I halfway lied.
She sighed—at me, or about me, or because of me. “That’ll do for now. Now, come along, we’ll eat in the hotel’s restaurant, downstairs. The food is good and the prices are reasonable. You have a bit of money to live on, I believe?”
“An allowance from my father. You were right about him,” I told her. “You were right about my mother, too.”
“Lolli’s cards were always on point. Or maybe Lolli was always on point, and she guides the hand that holds them, even now,” Dr. Floyd said modestly. “But I’m glad you’re not pressed for money just yet. It’ll buy you a bit of time to learn before you take on clients of your own.”
“I cannot wait to learn.” It was the most truthful thing I’d ever said in my whole life, and I believe that Dr. Floyd knew it. After all, she knew everything else. I walked beside her, and I walked on air.
At long last, the world was opening up before me!
6
TOMÁS CORDERO
Ybor City, Florida
1920
I CALLED UPON the electricity man, as I’d promised the fireman, and my shopman, too. He shook his head, and he put away his instruments. I sent him back to his office with my money, my thanks, and my apologies. Cautious, perfunctory measures thusly performed, I returned to Cordero’s to see how Emilio and his brother, Silvio, were doing in my absence.
I opened the door to find Emilio behind the counter. He smiled at me, those picket-white teeth as pristine as his choice of suit—a crisp linen design of his own, with a three-button jacket that boasts lapels a little lower than I usually cut them. He’d chosen an ivory fabric with flecks of brown, and beneath it, he wore a buttercream yellow shirt.
“I hope you don’t mind,” he said before I could speak. He meant the suit. He had seen the way I was looking at it, gauging it from seam to seam. “I’m only trying this one out. What do you think?
”
I held up a finger and twisted it, suggesting that he should spin around. “Let me see the whole thing.”
Merrily, he performed a pirouette that would’ve done any dancer proud. Then he cocked his head. “Well?”
“I like the length; it hits your thigh just right. But the leg seems a little loose.”
He shrugged. “It’s an experiment. A looser fit will be the cut of the future, I think. It’s very comfortable, and it’s not so warm.”
“It’s not so . . . sleek, either.”
“But it does not look bad, does it?” His warm brown eyes went tight with worry. “I left off one set of flap pockets to compensate for the lines. That’s sleek, isn’t it?”
“My friend, you would look sleek in a thin coat of dirt and gravel. The suit is not to my taste, but you make it look smart. An experiment, you called it?”
“I’ve been looking at magazines from New York and England.”
“England?” I frowned. “Shop for ideas in Paris if you’d look across the ocean.”
“I could not get my hands on anything from Paris, or Madrid, either. This city is a backwater, Tomás,” he informed me with a dramatic sigh. “Therefore, I take my inspiration where I can find it. And,” he added more brightly, “I’ve already had someone ask me about it. So I must be doing something right!”
I joined him behind the counter but ceased to argue with him. “Really? Someone wants you to make one?”
“A fellow named Ruiz; he manages one of the cigar plants. He’s new.”
“To town?”
“To country. But he knows a clever cut when he sees one. If I make him something like this, a custom piece based on my own . . . do you think . . . is there any chance . . . ?”
“You can take twenty percent,” I quoted him. “Your usual salary, and twenty percent, since the style is yours.”
His smile stretched wide, and his lips slipped down to cover his teeth. His cheeks were so tight, I thought they might burst. “You’re very kind.”
“You’re very talented, and I’m very fortunate to have you. But tell me. This shirt.” I changed the subject to a garment spread out for inspection. “Who is it for?”
“It’s the Saladin order from last week. He’ll come to collect it this afternoon. This shirt goes with the light gray flannel . . . over here. The medium-weight, not the more tropical stuff, because he’s headed back to Pennsylvania next month. Speaking of which—in a roundabout way—what would you say if I tried making suits with cotton?”
“I’d ask who on earth would want them.”
“Good cotton, Tomás. Fine-grade Egyptian, not the rolls they send to Britain. We already use it for some of these shirts.”
I sighed at him and folded the shirt into a tight, flat square. “For a shirt, cotton is fine. For a suit . . . it looks cheap.”
“I could make it look not cheap.”
“Not this year, please. We’re still getting back on our feet. I love you and I trust you, my friend, but let’s not take too many risks. Linen and wool for now. Cotton for the future. Good heavens,” I groaned, not as serious as I pretended. “A future of loose cotton clothes. How I fear for the generations to come.”
“You fear what? That they’ll have cooler legs than we do? You’re a silly man sometimes. Fashion changes, that’s all. It moves in a great circle, but it comes and it goes. Today it all is fitted and slim; tomorrow it will be flowing and light. Or something else. Really, there’s no telling.” Still grinning with pride, he took the shirt and collected the four-button, two-flap-pocket, traditional gray suit with which it belonged. “But with your approval, I’ll set these pieces aside for Mr. Saladin. When he arrives, I will dress him like a doll for one last check of the details, and I promise you, he will never want to take this off.”
“You know, the greatest compliment I ever received came from Carlos Gallego, who told me he wished to be buried in something of mine.”
“Is that a compliment, though?” Emilio leaned forward on the counter, planting his elbows on the wood and his chin in his hands. “To hide your works of art from the world? Forever? Or until some grisly unearthing, in a distant future where everyone wears cotton . . . ,” he teased.
I rolled my eyes in return. “It was a selfish compliment, then. But I took it in the spirit he intended.” Then, while I checked the list of new fabric samples, I told Emilio about the man from the electricity company. I assured him that all was well with my house and its mysterious hidden wires that ran through the walls.
He was not much appeased. “If it’s not the wires, then where do the fires come from?”
“That’s a question for the ages,” I murmured. I retreated to the workshop at the rear of the store.
He followed behind me. “So answer it. For the sake of my sanity.”
“You know I can’t. Not for that sake, or any other.” The ensuing silence was full of accusations, and the smell of blood from the tongue he was biting. So I said, “I beg you to quit worrying. If I have been careless, then I shall endeavor to be more careful. If I have been thoughtless and clumsy, then I will keep my eyes open and exercise greater caution.”
“Is that all?”
I threw up my hands. “What else would you have me do?”
“Perhaps Padre Valero might have some ideas.”
It wasn’t the worst idea I’d ever heard, though I didn’t want to admit it, and I am not sure why. “I suppose fire safety is part of his job description,” I joked weakly. “Keeping the faithful away from the inferno, as it were.”
Emilio wasn’t smiling anymore. He was knotting his lovely hands together. “I did not know you had such a blasphemous streak. It’s never good to make light of the devil.”
“You’re right, you’re right.” I was happy for the excuse to withdraw from my ill-thought jest. “I’m only tired, and my head has been hurting again. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. If it will make you feel better, I’ll see if he can make some time for me.”
“Will you seek him for confession?”
Flatly, I told him, “I have nothing to confess.” Since the war, I have not been so devout. Nor so forthcoming, to priests or anyone else.
• • •
SO as promised (because I always keep my promises, I always do), I went to Our Lady of Mercy. Even the name of the place a promise, isn’t it? Promises all around. Maybe there are patterns, and at least there are promises.
That’s what I told myself. I don’t know why I was feeling so optimistic, but my moods come and go in a circle, like the fashions.
No, not like that—not a circle. I believe it’s more like the tide. The quiet misery comes, and the quiet misery goes. When it’s here, I wallow in it. When it’s gone, there’s nothing in its place but a dull sense of numbness and an idle desire to listen to music.
When it’s gone, I almost miss it.
• • •
AT the edge of the neighborhood I reached the grand church on the corner of Tenth and Seventeenth. Our Lady is long and made of wood, with windows that curve on top and a rounded bell tower mounted front and center. The style is usually called mission, thanks to the Jesuits of yesteryear, though more traditional mission structures are usually erected in stucco or coquina. I don’t know why Our Lady is different. Wood might’ve been cheaper, or easier, or someone might’ve liked the look of it better—I can’t imagine why.
With all those candles . . . and all those old hymnals and Bibles . . . so much kindling. It tempts fate. Or God. Or nobody.
• • •
IT tempts me, just a little . . . in the back of my head, some awful and strange dark spot that wonders what I’d find in the ashes. Not that I would consider taking a torch to the place, even for a moment. I involuntarily imagined it, and that’s not the same thing.
• • •
UP the steps
I walked, and the great door creaked loudly on heavy black hinges. I stepped inside and drew it shut, producing another great squeal to announce my arrival. But no one turned to look. The sanctuary was empty except for three old ladies, an old man with an open Bible draped across his knees, and two altar boys who were busy polishing the brass down front. Winter meant the sun was sinking early—or it felt early, though I hadn’t even taken supper yet—so the light through the colored glass was as warm as honey. Before me, on the altar, were more candles than I could count. Most of them were lit.
I should light a candle for Evelyn, I thought. Next I thought, What good would it do?
I’d lit a thousand already. What a stupid sacrifice of wax.
“Tomás?”
I hadn’t heard him approach. He was a few feet away, to my right. “Hello, Father. I am sorry. I know it’s been too long. But could we talk? I need some advice, and I don’t know if there’s anyone else . . .” My voice and my thoughts trailed off. I didn’t know what else to say.
“I am always happy to be your conversationalist of last resort, my friend. Come, this way,” he said, and we retreated to the office he keeps behind the dark closet of the confessional.
Mateo Valero is a very tall man with a shock of white hair and very soft hands. He stands with a little hunch, like he means to reassure the world that he is gentle, despite his size. His nails are always as clean and tidy as Emilio’s, and that’s saying something. His desk is always spotless, too. His robes, and his handwriting . . . everything precise, but somehow none of it seems cold. He is warm and friendly and efficient.
“Tomás . . . in these last few weeks, I’ve heard your name a time or two,” he began.
“Is that so?”