The wicked redhead, p.34
The Wicked Redhead, page 34
Julie fared better. She always does. Only a bump on the noggin for our Julie, because she did as Marshall told her and hid inside the Ambrosia until somebody found her and drug her upside and . . . well, that’s just details, isn’t it? Don’t worry, Julie’s just fine. Not violated, if that’s what you’re wondering. I guess they didn’t have time to mix pleasure with business. She returned to Long Island in the Ambrosia with her brother and awful news, just as soon as the city of Halifax released the body to them.
So it’s just the two of us left here in Canada, me and Anson, waiting for my depleted veins to gather strength enough to sail home. In fact, I can hear his quick, heavy footsteps on the stairs right now. Went to purchase tickets on a New York steamer, because the good doctor from the hospital—the one who stitched me up when they carried me in a week ago, a thing I don’t properly remember, you understand, as I fainted for good soon after Anson had tied his shirt around my arm—anyway, that same doctor inspected me just this morning and pronounced me fit to travel. Coming along right strong, according to my mountain breeding.
Anson, however. Anson is not coming along strong, though he puts up a front for my sake. Anson knocks briefly and opens the door, and this time I don’t bother to scramble back into bed. I rise and stand before him in my virtuous white nightgown, and he just stares at me with those anguished eyes of his and doesn’t say a word. He’s holding a tray. Tray contains tea and broth and egg and bread and some apple, cut in small pieces the way you cut food for invalids and small children.
“At last,” I say, so cheerfully as I’m able. “I’m famished.”
3
WE EAT. Anson reads aloud from the newspaper. Tells me he’s booked us passage on the L’Oiseau two days hence. A single cabin, he says, looking away, blushing a little. The ship was nearly full. Summer season coming on.
I shake my head. “Then I guess we’ll have to get married first,” I say, tone of resignation, and that’s the first time I’ve laughed since God knows, just looking at his face when I tell him this.
“You’ll bust your stitches,” he says.
“No, I won’t.”
“I can bunk in steerage. I’m sure there’s room.”
“The hell you’re going to leave me alone in second class.”
“First.”
“Well, la-de-da.”
He regards me as you regard someone who might be drunk. I regard him right back, until a muscle contracts at the leftmost corner of his mouth and breaks open a dam of joy inside my chest. I lift my hand and touch that merry corner with my thumb, and then the remainder of his mouth, sliding across the top lip and then the bottom lip like a typewriter carriage.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “You were right. You were always right. I should have stayed with you in Florida.”
“I was stupid. Can’t beg you to become someone you’re not.”
“I spoke to Mama on the telephone. Terrible connection. She’s moved the funeral to Thursday.”
“So you can attend after all. That’s good. How’s Billy?”
He looks stricken. “I forgot to ask.”
“Don’t worry. If there was any news, she’d surely tell you.”
Anson steps away and starts to clean up the tray.
“It wasn’t for nothing,” I say. “You caught those pirates. Luella—well, she came up trumps, I’m bound to admit, she found you in time. You caught the schooner, you have its papers. And now we know this was an inside job, we know we’re just a step away from finding out—”
“No.” He stacks the teacups on the tray. “You were right. I shouldn’t have taken the bait and gone back to the Bureau. You were right about pretty much everything.”
“Anson—”
He lifts the tray and heads for the door. “You should call me Ollie. Everyone else does.”
4
WHEN I lift my head sometime in the middle of the night, he sits naked on the end of the bed, facing the window, resting his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.
I crawl from the blankets into the cool air. Slip my arms around his waist and rest my cheek on the nook where his neck meets his shoulder. Heat of his body shocks me.
Go back to sleep, he says.
I am so slight and small, resting against his coal-hot skin. Maybe half his weight. Maybe a little more, I don’t know. Bastard redheaded child, bred up hardscrabble, no family nor friends nor treasure to speak of. Mountain water runs through my veins. I have got just about nothing to give this man, no gift at all, no light nor hope, not the slightest glue to hold him together. Save one small promise.
No, I say.
He sighs beneath me. I ride it out like you ride upon a wave, floating atop the ocean by some Florida beach in another universe.
I slide my hands down his waist and place them upon his thighs, palms down. In his ear, I whisper something. I won’t tell you what.
5
YOU MIGHT think he would resist, but he doesn’t. Maybe there’s no fight left in him; maybe the state of his soul is even worse than I thought. Maybe he was sitting naked on my bed for just this reason. He pauses only to ask me if I can stand this kind of thing, am I strong enough. I tell him I believe I am, so long as he takes on most of the labor.
Though he has not much experience in these matters, still Nature guides him well. Nature and his own imagination, maybe, for I reckon a fellow like him—quiet, vigorous, disciplined—might ponder much on the act of love, though he lies but alone in his bed, night after night. He kisses me for some time before he reaches for the hem of my nightgown. Then he kisses me more, not on my lips, while I indulge the luxury of lying passive for once, lying nearly still while Anson’s mouth touches my throat, my arms, my breast, my stomach. Back upward to the tenderness behind each ear. He rises on his elbows. Slides right into me, and for a moment we rest there, not even breathing. In the lamplight, his eyes might be green. I tell him he smells like the ocean, the smell of brine and fresh air. He dips to kiss my mouth. Commences to ride me vigorous, until we are both flushed red, each one desperate as the other. At last, the sweet burst of incandescence, leaving me warm and woozy. We remain joined as a single, strange beast while I drift to sleep, listening to the slow draft of his breath in my ear.
6
THE STEAMSHIP tickets are made out to a Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Marshall of New York City. I poke Mr. Oliver in the ribs. “So we’re married after all.”
He hardly stirs. Poor fellow, during the course of the past day and night he has fucked himself near enough into oblivion, the way some men discover oblivion in liquor. Seeking to atone for all those years of abstinence, I guess, while I lie back and reap the abundant fruit of his penitence. He summons just enough strength to open his eyes halfway and mutter, Married?
I wave the tickets across the bridge of his nose. “Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Marshall, it says.”
Closes his eyes again and asks do I mind. So I settle myself down along the naked length of him, belly to belly, and draw the blankets close, for there remain but a few hours before we must rise.
I think not of that photograph of Mama and Duke, on the day of their wedding, but of something else. Some other world entirely. Warm sunlit house, man and woman smiling some secret at each other. The smell of the ocean.
“We’ll go away,” I tell him. “For good, this time. You and me and Patsy. Your mama and Marie, too, if they need. Find some corner of the world and never come back.”
He doesn’t reply, but in the hour before rising, when the window turns gray with the promise of dawn, he turns me over and pins me to earth, drawing my body back into rapture as quickly and easily as you might draw elixir from a bottle. When I cry out, he stops and asks me if I’m hurt, reopened the wound or something. No, dear fellow, nothing like that. Reassured, he finishes in a hurry, rolls us together on our sides, cradles me close, still buried deep, as if he does not mean ever to leave. His left arm crosses my chest, as heavy as an ingot, while his right palm rests against my belly. There is a looseness to his limbs that suggests he might be falling back asleep, but he isn’t. His breath is too wakeful. The hour’s too late.
Time to rise, I think. Time to rise and dress and face what remains. Grief and nightmare and mortal sickness. The innocent needfulness of kid sisters, who are left alone in this wicked world, their menfolk sacrificed to a constitutional amendment.
On the empty pillow before me lies the steamship ticket, curling at one end. Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Marshall of 11 Christopher Street, New York City. Stateroom 22.
Greenwich Village, New York City, April 1998
HE WAS playing the piano. Of course he was. Actually, he was composing something, probably something for the film he was scoring: the reason he spent last week in Los Angeles. Played a few bars, stopped, played them again. Stopped, played another few bars. There was no other sound in the building; it was only five o’clock in the afternoon. Hours yet before Hector could expect any accompaniment.
Ella walked up the steps on Daddy’s arm. He insisted, even though she said she was feeling much better. That wasn’t quite true; she was feeling better, but not much. Enough to climb stairs. Enough to keep down a little electrolyte water. Enough to swallow her pill and hold down the nausea. She let Daddy carry the Bloomingdale’s bag, but the pocketbook she slung over her arm. She had a little pride left.
“Are you sure?” Daddy said, as they passed her door at 4D.
“Yes. For one thing, I don’t even know if the water’s back on. The plumber was supposed to come . . .” She didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t care about the plumber, and she didn’t have enough energy to talk about things that didn’t interest her. The familiar smell of the building filled her nose, the old wood and the new paint, the indefinable essence of home. Her spine began to tingle.
At the top of the stairs, she turned right and headed for the door. Apartment 5, no letter because there was no other apartment on this floor. Just Hector. The music stopped; the door opened before they reached it. Nellie shot through the gap between Hector’s legs and flung herself at Ella, yipping and barking and whining. Ella bent and gathered up the soft, wriggling body. Buried her nose in the doggy smell of her. “Missed you, pup,” she whispered, stroking Nellie’s long, slippery ears.
“She missed you, too.”
Hector’s voice was rougher than she expected, pitched extraordinarily low. She set down Nellie and straightened on Daddy’s arm. “How are you feeling?” Hector asked.
“Much better,” she said, and this time she meant it. Sort of.
DADDY KEPT HIS COAT on and stayed near the door. Just kind of cast his eyes around the apartment, the way the modern father awkwardly assesses the apartment of the man who is sleeping with his daughter. Hector helped Ella to a counter stool, even though she didn’t really need help, and asked if he could get her something.
“Saltines,” she said. “There’s a box in the bottom cabinet, with the rice and stuff.”
Daddy cleared his throat. “When you’re finished, Hector, I’d like to have a word.”
“Of course, Mr. Dommerich.”
Hector found the saltines and put them out for Ella. Ran her a glass of water from the faucet. Kissed the top of her head as he passed her by, on the way to Daddy, who had stepped just outside the door. Ella could hear them talking on the landing, in low, quiet voices. Mostly Daddy. A few words from Hector. A short chuckle; she couldn’t tell from whom. Nellie sat at the bottom of the stool and looked up with her face of anxiety. Ella dropped a casual cracker crumb and ate the rest. The pills were helping; she still felt unsettled, a little dizzy, but not as bad as before.
She took the note out of her pocketbook and read the words again.
No more running. Please come home. H.
The men walked back through the door, Hector stepping aside politely to let Daddy through first, and Daddy went up to her and kissed her cheek.
“We’ll talk more later, all right? You let me know if you need anything. Mumma says you hired Willig, Williams & White to handle the divorce.”
“Yep. Getting the petition ready as we speak.”
“Good.” He kissed her again, on the forehead. “You should talk to Mumma, when you’re ready.”
She took his hand and squeezed it. “Love you, Daddy.”
Hector was still standing by the door. Daddy stopped and shook his hand. “That was some good music you were playing there, son. Keep it up.”
“I will, sir.” (Ella smiled at the sir.)
“And remember what I said. You have my number? Yes, of course you do. Good night. Take care of her. Make sure she keeps those fluids down.”
Hector said something Ella couldn’t hear, because he was turned to the door. Ella wondered how Hector had Daddy’s number, and then she remembered what Nurse Campbell had said, about how Hector had been the one to call Daddy from the ER. Maybe they’d exchanged numbers, when Daddy came back from the diner without her. Made a pact of some kind. Daddy was an idealist, but he also knew when to cut a deal.
The door closed. Hector turned, and together they listened to Daddy’s firm footfalls, down the landing and the stairs, until they disappeared into the ordinary voice of a Manhattan apartment building in late afternoon. The weather was warming, and Hector had opened the windows fronting the street. You could hear the cars whirring past, the faint shouts and laughter and sirens and horns that made up the city’s everyday street music. The smell of fresh air and food, cooking in some restaurant nearby, prepping for the Saturday evening date trade.
“I guess I should thank you,” Ella said.
“Thank me for what?”
“For peeling me off the train platform.”
“I didn’t peel you off. You were staring at that photograph and you started to fall over, and I caught you, just in time.”
“Wait, you were there? Before I passed out?”
“Didn’t you hear me?”
Ella thought back. She couldn’t remember the scene clearly. Looking at the photograph and then—a voice of some kind—Ella, it’s me, I’m here, it’s okay.
“Maybe I did,” she said.
Hector’s hands were shoved in his pockets, his face uncertain. “Anyway, no need for thanks. I’m just glad—that’s a dumb word—grateful, thankful, whatever. On my knees before God, I guess, that I got there in time to help. What were you thinking, Ella?”
“I didn’t realize it was so bad. The dehydration—”
“No, I mean going out to the Hamptons. Running away.”
“I wasn’t running away. Aunt Julie called. She wanted to talk to me about something. And when your ninety-six-year-old aunt calls you up and says she has something important to give you . . .” Ella tried to smile.
“Was it something to do with that photograph you were holding?” Hector nodded at her pocketbook. “The Redhead?”
“You’ve heard of her?”
“Yes.” He pulled his right hand out of his pocket and rubbed his forehead. “I know her pretty well.”
“Really? You know she lived here and everything?”
Hector pushed himself off the door and walked toward her. Pulled up the stool next to her and swung onto it. Took her hands, the way he had on Saturday night, just before he made love to her for the first time. An age ago. When it was all so simple. Just a matter of falling in love and falling into bed. “Yes,” he said. “I know all that.”
“Seriously? You know? Why didn’t you tell me Saturday night? When I asked you about the building and everything?”
“You didn’t ask me about her. I didn’t know you knew.”
“And you weren’t going to volunteer the information?”
“Ella, I can’t read your mind. If I knew you had an interest in Gin Kelly . . .”
“Of course I do! Didn’t she live in this building?”
“She did,” Hector said. “In fact, she owned the building. She was the one who deeded it to my grandfather.”
“Bruno? The musician?”
“Yep.”
“And what else?”
“What else? I don’t know. He had stories about her. She was a real spark plug, my dad said. Pretty much as you might guess from the Redhead photographs.”
“But what happened to her?”
Hector frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, she apparently sort of disappeared, around 1930 or something. Do you know where she went?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Dad said something. I can’t remember. Why do you care?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I just do. When I look at her, I feel this weird connection, like she’s trying to tell me something. Like today, at the train station . . .”
The sentence trailed away, because that hadn’t been the Redhead’s voice, speaking to her in that moment, had it? It had been Hector’s.
“Hey,” he said. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah. Just tired.”
“Okay. Hold tight a second, all right? I have something for you.”
He kissed her hands and dropped them and went over to the piano, where he picked up a small, black enamel box that was resting on the case.
“My buttons!” Ella rose from the stool and hurried after him.
“Found them when I was ripping up the rest of your kitchen today. Box was wedged behind one of the cabinets.”
“That’s so weird. I left it on the kitchen counter.”
“Maybe the plumber knocked it back?”
Ella took the box from his hand and lifted the lid. The buttons nestled inside, the ones she’d found underneath a loose floorboard in her apartment, when she and Hector were taking out the soiled carpeting. She touched one, and a slight buzz communicated through the skin of her fingertip. Not painful or anything. More like hello. She looked up at Hector, whose face was soft in the early April light that coursed through the nearby windows. “Thank you,” she said.
