“Let’s you and me go swimming.”
“Oh, Felix, where? I’d kill to be cool for just one minute.”
“You would, would you? I know a nice place on the river. Got some shade trees, too.” He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingertips. “How ’bout that?”
She nodded. “I’ll run get my swimsuit.”
“No,” he said.
She laughed. “It’s a pretty snappy swimsuit. You’ll like it.”
“No, I won’t,” he said. I hid my eyes then. I didn’t want to see what they were doing. After some time passed, he sighed. “Sure you want to go?”
“Yes. Please. It’s so hot.”
“All right, honey. Go get your snappy swimsuit, and I’ll run around and get the car.” He kept his car in the alley behind our house. He started off, but she didn’t let go of his hand. He glanced up at her, his face a question. “What?”
“I’m glad you’re back,” she said.
He smiled. “Me too.”
She skipped up the stairs and he watched her go. Then he turned on his heel and went out the front door without making a sound, the way he did.
Then I went back to being alone.
—
I took a bath. I could have read The Beautiful and Damned in the tub if I had wanted to, but I didn’t. I just sat and looked at my legs. They stretched almost the length of the bathtub now. I could lean back against one end and stuff my washrag into the faucet with my toe at the other. When I scootched down, I had to bend my knees. There was no one to tell me not to get my hair wet, and it bobbled in the water against my neck.
It was impossible to know if what I thought was the truth. I thought Father would never choose Miss Beck instead of us. I thought she had bewitched him, made him not himself. I thought if I could recall him, show him the light, he’d thank me. But I wasn’t sure. In books, even in books like The Beautiful and Damned, things were connected; people did something and then something else happened because of that. I could understand them. But outside, here in the real world, things seemed to happen for no reason that I could see. Maybe there was no reason. Maybe people just drifted here and there, aimless and silly. But no, people had been thrown out of the Garden of Eden for knowing, so there must be something to know, reasons, all the time and everywhere, for the way they behaved. Reasons I couldn’t see yet, no matter how hard I tried. I had always hoped that Jottie would call me into her room and tell me the secret, the thing I needed to know to understand why people did the things they did. So far, she hadn’t. When she called me into her room to explain where babies came from, I thought I was about to get wind of something good, but I was disappointed. What I wanted was bigger, a giant blanket that would hold the world. I had become ferocious and devoted so I could learn the secret truths, but I still didn’t know them. Did Father love Miss Beck? More than he loved me? I couldn’t understand why, I couldn’t understand how, I couldn’t understand if. It seemed so hard that I had to work out the answers on my own, but that’s what I had to do. I had to keep at it, finding out, guessing what would happen next, fighting for the right ending, trying to save them all.
I didn’t know how long Father and Miss Beck were going to be gone, so I got out of the tub and even dried it with my towel in case they checked. That was pretty clever of me, I thought. I was feeling kind of hungry by then, so I went to see what I could rustle up in the kitchen. If they appeared suddenly, I could slip down the cellar stairs. They didn’t, and I ate some tomatoes and bread and butter, carefully wiping up my crumbs. I washed my milk glass and plate and put them away. Even Mr. Sherlock Holmes would be hard-pressed to find evidence of my existence. Frank and Joe Hardy would be stumped, too, but they stumped easy.
There was still plenty of light to read by in the parlor. I got a pillow to sit on and picked up my book. I couldn’t believe how much fuss that Anthony Patch made about kissing Gloria in a taxicab. You should come around here, I told him. You’d go out of your mind.
—
It was almost dark when they came in; there was only a thin band of hot orange on the very edge of the world. I had gotten tired and was sort of stretched out on the floor. I was still behind the door, but they could have seen my foot if they’d looked toward the parlor. Which they didn’t.
“You sure you’re not hungry?” Father was saying as they walked in.
“Not a bit. I ate all that ice cream.” I thought of the ice cream we were supposed to have for Jottie’s birthday.
“Wasn’t much.”
“It was plenty.”
“You want some coffee?” I could see him but not Miss Beck. He looked cool and clean.
“No.”
“Want anything?”
I could hear her breathe. “You,” she said, real low. He stepped away, toward her, where I couldn’t see, but I don’t think I would have wanted to anyway. I had thought that I would stop them, but I didn’t. I didn’t jump out and I didn’t frighten her away. I didn’t do any of the things I’d planned. I curled up and let my tears drip sideways over my nose and onto the pillow beneath my head. I did that without making a sound.
After a while, she said his name and he said, “Upstairs, all right?”
I could hear the stairs creak as they went, and then she sort of laughed and said, “Whose room?”
Father said, “I’m not doing it in Emmett’s bed. Come on.”
“Is that whose room I’ve got?” Her voice faded. “Emmett’s?”
“Shh,” Father said.
It was quiet a second and then she gasped.
Father laughed.
Charles Town was bustling with jockeys, breeders, and racegoers. The track had closed at five-thirty, but that seemed only to spur the crowds to new heights of gaiety. They surged out of the clubhouse and descended upon the quiet streets to celebrate their wins, their places, and their shows, or, failing that, their prospects for tomorrow. Now, at eight o’clock, the orange sky was paling to blue, and the sidewalks were thronged with hoarse, ebullient men and ladies who’d been in the heat too long.
Sol stopped before a restaurant. “I’ll just check,” he said, ignoring the pack of humans within.
Jottie raised her eyebrows. “It looks full.”
He pulled open the door, and a glad cry of “Chaaaar-lieeee!” escaped into the dusk. Through the plate glass, Jottie watched him shoulder his way toward a waiter like a man pushing through a blizzard. She tried to see him with stranger’s eyes: his fair hair—too long—and wide-spaced eyes, his broad shoulders and straight back. He looked intelligent, capable, and calm. His feet were enormous. Good thing he worked at a sock factory. If she married him, she would roll his enormous socks into pairs, carefully peeling one back to cover its mate.
She shook her head to clear it. She should be thinking about how wonderful he was, not about his feet. And he was wonderful, Sol. Good. And honest. She hoped Willa was all right. Of course she was all right. There was nothing to fuss about. Willa probably had her head stuck in a book, there on Minerva’s purple sofa. Probably hadn’t given a thought to her since the moment she’d passed out of sight. There was nothing to fuss about.
“Look what I got,” said Sol, appearing at her side. Smiling triumphantly, he produced a thick china plate upon which rested half a chicken and two buttered biscuits.
“The man returns from the hunt,” observed Jottie.
He laughed. “Come on. Let’s find us a bench. I got to return the plate before ten or that waiter’s going to stick me with a knife.”
“Let’s go eat in front of where they hung John Brown. I like to think of him dangling.”
“You’re a Confederate?” he asked as they began to walk.
“Me? No. Union forever. I just don’t like John Brown.” She sidestepped a man walking unsteadily in her path. “He was a show-off. The old fool.”
They entered a little yard between two buildings. This place, alone in the thronged town, was hushed and solemn. A bench had thoughtfully been placed before the site
of the gallows, which was marked by three stones.
“Taken from his cell,” said Jottie, settling herself on the bench.
“What?” he said, fixing the plate between them.
She nodded toward the stones. “Those stones. Taken from John Brown’s cell. He wrote on them in blood.”
She could see Sol smile in the deepening twilight. “Sounds like you’ve made quite a study of the old man.”
“I don’t like him,” she repeated, feeling flat. Willa would have wanted to know what he wrote. Even Bird would want to know that. And Felix? He would have pretended that he already knew—he’d be quoting now, something ridiculous.
They ate without talking, silent amid the soaring chorus of cicadas. Jottie patted her mouth with her handkerchief and swallowed. “No cooler here than at home,” she said. It was something to say.
Sol nodded.
“What did you tell Violet?” she asked.
“About what?”
“About—this.” Jottie waved a chicken bone, indicating all of Charles Town.
“Oh. I told her I was going to talk to a man down at Interwoven.” Sol chewed slowly. “She didn’t care.”
“How is it, living with her?”
He looked at her, surprised. “It’s all right.” He thought for a moment and added, “I wish she’d get married.”
Jottie laughed. “Why?”
He frowned. “She’s bored. Or something. So she fusses too much. She fusses around and makes up things to do.”
“She needs a job.”
He nodded. “You could be right. I was thinking a husband.”
“Might be a little late for that,” Jottie said.
He lifted his head and looked at her. “She’s younger than you are, and I want to marry you.”
Jottie nodded.
“Are you done with this food?”
“Yes.” She held herself in readiness. She was prepared.
Sol picked up the plate between them and set it on the ground. Moving next to her, he said, “I sort of hate to propose at a gibbet, but I guess it’ll do.”
Jottie laughed nervously. “I got a soft spot for this gibbet.”
He picked up her hand and pressed it between his own. “Jottie,” he began. “That day last month when you came to Everlasting, that was the happiest day of my life. I’d thought, before, that you and I were going to start—talking—being friendly again. I’d thought that we’d run into each other; we’d see each other and talk. But you always looked away.” He squeezed her hand. “Then, when you came in with that girl Layla, you—it seemed like you wanted to know me again. I was so glad, Jottie, you can’t imagine. I can’t put it into words. You seemed like your old self, back when we were kids, and happy to see me.”
“I was,” she said quietly.
“You don’t know how that made me feel, honey. I’d been missing you for so long I’d got used to it. I was even thinking I’d maybe find someone else and get married. But then I’d see you—or even Emmett; he’d do it to me, too—and I’d feel hollowed out again. But then, I don’t know what happened. I don’t know why you came to Everlasting that day. I could hardly believe it, but—well, I’m going to go ahead and try to make it stick. Will you marry me?”
Jottie pressed herself hard against the slats of the bench, feeling his hand, dry and calm, around hers. “Sol?” she said tentatively.
Sol tilted his head, waiting.
“Why are you so set on me?” She looked sideways at him.
He smiled. “You fishing for compliments?”
“No!” She blushed. “But you could have anyone, a nice, pretty girl—”
“You’re nice and pretty,” he interrupted.
“A lot younger than me,” she continued.
“I don’t want someone younger than you. I’ve loved you as long as I can remember,” he said.
She looked at him sharply. Could it be true? Don’t be so suspicious, she chided herself. This is Sol, an honest man. Sol is wonderful, she repeated to herself. He loves me. If I marry him, I’ll be a new woman. I’ll be Mrs. McKubin. I’ll start fresh.
“I remember thinking that I was going to marry you back when I was about twelve,” he said reminiscently. “In my mind, it was all settled.”
“You never told me.”
“No.” Sol took her face between his hands and kissed her, gently at first and then harder. With one finger, he smoothed a line down her throat. “You’re so little,” he said, almost to himself. “I didn’t think you were going to be so little.” He moved his hands to circle her waist.
“Felix says I act big,” she said breathlessly, trying not to remember Vause doing the same thing.
He put one arm around her and lifted her onto his lap. “Felix ain’t invited to this party,” he said into her neck. There was a pause. “I always wanted to do this.”
“Did you?” If anyone besides me ever touches you, I’ll kill him. Go. Go away.
“Mm-hm. All along, this was how I wanted it to turn out.” She touched his face experimentally and felt him smile. “I used to get so worried that something was going to happen to you before I could ask you to marry me. You-all did so many crazy things.”
She lifted her eyes to the freedom of the deepening sky. Let me go, Vause, she begged. I’m so tired of the past. “How come you never said anything to me about it?”
Sol’s hands tightened on her. “Because you were in love with Vause.” He held her apart from him and looked at her. “And I’m not an idiot.”
She nodded, sorry she had made him say it.
“Goddammit,” he sighed, pulling her close again. “Marry me.”
“All right,” she said.
There was no way to sleep on the horsehair sofa, and of course I couldn’t go to my own room. I opened the parlor window a little and laid some pillows out beneath it. It wasn’t too bad. I woke when the clock struck one and a tiny breeze curled down from the window and ruffled the hair on my neck. I woke again later when I heard water running upstairs. Was one of them taking a bath? Was that part of it? Not having any answer, I fell asleep again.
Jottie kicked at the thin, clean hotel sheets, waking herself up. For the first moment, she lay still, panting, dread flooding her veins until her fingertips tingled. She’d been dreaming of Willa and kittens. An awful thing, trying to pull Willa from a sea of kittens as they dragged at her with their tiny claws, their milky eyes unblinking. Jottie shuddered, dislodging the dream but not the dread. The dread stayed. Befuddled, she struggled to find its source: What’s the matter?
Sol. She’d said yes; she’d agreed to marry him.
Her heart commenced to thump, to gallop. What is happening to me? she asked the dark. Cautiously, she lifted her hand to her breast and felt the wild beating inside. Like a bird breaking its wings on a cage, she thought. But why?
She’d said yes; she’d agreed to marry Sol.
Oh God, what have I done? she asked herself. She rolled to her side and drew her knees up to her stomach. It helped a little. The voice of reason, shrill as it was, could be heard in this position: What have you done? Why, you’ve done exactly what you set out to do! You got yourself a fresh start, a new name, a new everything! Sol loves you! And Sol’s wonderful, you know he is! You’re going to marry him and move into his house, and you’re going to be so happy!
No, I’m not.
Of course you are! This is what you wanted!
I was wrong. I don’t want it.
Yes, you do. You’re loved. You’re going to be married to the president of the mill! Everyone in town will smile when they see you coming! The girls won’t have a care in the world! They’ll swish up the stairs, and there you’ll be, with a plate of cookies in your hand!
The scene had become lifeless through overuse.
And Felix would never speak to her again. He would hate her. She had broken faith with him.
Felix, she pleaded with him, I’m sorry. I was so worried that the girls would be hurt, and I couldn’t c
hange you, so I had to change myself. I needed to have Macedonia on my side, for Willa, and Bird, too, so they wouldn’t be ashamed. I’m sorry. I have to stop being a Romeyn. I have to do it.
Felix didn’t leave me. He could have, but he didn’t. I owe him.
No, you don’t. You don’t owe anyone your whole life. Lie still and count your blessings. Sol’s a fine man. Most women would be thrilled.
I think I’m sick.
Hushup. Breathe. Again. Again. That’s right. Of course you’re a little worried. It’s a big change. But that’s what you wanted, to change. Felix put his hand over her shaking fingers. “You don’t have to look at anyone. You just hang on to me and I’ll stare ’em down for you.” Oh God, what have I done? I’ve betrayed my best friend.
She rolled over in her fetters of sheet and buried her face in the pillow. Nothing eased her, nothing helped. Vause? she called in desperation. Help me, honey, please. But he wouldn’t come, wouldn’t help, until she stopped trying, and then he appeared in a flickering picture from the last day of his life, when she’d loved him so much that there wasn’t enough air in all the world for her to catch her breath. His arms taking her in one last crushing hug because he had to go, had something to do, he’d meet her later. I have to go, Josie. Give me a kiss for luck. Uh-huh, but why do you need luck? I don’t, I guess. Just kiss me, all right?
No, this was unbearable. She sat up. She stared at the white hotel wall that separated her from Sol. She could bang on it—he’d said she should wake him if she wanted anything. But no. He’d come to her door in an instant, his face all lit up with hope, thinking that she wanted him in bed. Jottie hid her face in her hands. That’s what other people want, she told herself. That’s what’s normal. And when I say, No, I’ve made a terrible mistake, I can’t marry you, I’ll have to watch the happiness drop away from him like bricks collapsing. I can’t do it. I can’t do anything. I can’t go forward and I can’t go back. I want to go home.
Layla opened her eyes and lay very still. Outside the window, the night had turned from black to blue. Day was coming. But the important thing, she told herself, the terribly important thing, is the location of the window. The window is on the left. Which means I’m not in my room. Which means that I’m in Felix’s room. In Felix’s bed. She shifted slightly, onto her back, and smiled at the languor of heavy usage in her hips.