by Cat Winters
The door shut behind them, and the little bell punctuated their exit with a jingle. The illusion ended.
“You see what I mean?” asked Frannie, coming toward me. “You stirred up something remarkable with that letter. What does your father think?”
“He doesn’t know I wrote it.”
“If he finds out . . . do you think . . . what about the hypnosis?”
“I wrote that letter after he mandated that hypnotism cure”—I spat out that last word—“so, clearly, it did nothing but push me into trying things I never would have dared before.”
“You’re not saying you like being hypnotized, are you?”
“No! It’s just . . . Look here . . .” I squatted down and fished around in my right shoe. Henry’s theater tickets, along with some quarters I’d brought in case I got hungry, were hidden between the stiff leather and my thick stocking. “I’ve seen Henry—”
“I thought it was On-ree.”
“His real name is Henry Rhodes, and he gave me these tickets so we could stay in contact with each other.” I pulled out the tickets and stood upright. “I begged him to end the hypnosis, but he needs my father’s money for his sister. She has a tumor that requires surgery. It’s cancerous.”
Frannie took the tickets from my hand and, with her lips pursed, read them over.
“He can’t change me back,” I continued, “until my father gives him his full payment on Tuesday. That’s when he’ll be taking his sister to San Francisco for her surgery.”
“He’s about to leave town?”
“In three more days.”
“Are you still seeing strange sights?”
“Yes.” I grabbed for the tickets, but Frannie hid them behind her back. “Frannie?” I tugged on her elbow. “Give those back.”
“You’re telling me”—she swung her arm away and inched backward—“you’re going to keep viewing your father as a vampire, and doing whatever other horrible things that hypnotist is making you do, for three more days?”
“I’ve got no other choice. That poor girl might die if she doesn’t undergo her surgery. The cancer’s in her bosom.”
“How do you know he’s not making up her illness?”
“Don’t be mean.”
“How do you know, Livie?”
“I trust him.”
She stopped and thrust the tickets at me. “Fine. Trust a traveling, mind-altering showman.”
“There’s no need to get upset.” I took the tickets from her.
“I bet he smells terrible, too.”
“Frannie!”
“I’m just worried about you. Wait . . .” She squinted at the backside of the tickets and snatched them straight back out of my hand. “What’s this?”
“What?”
“This note. ‘Come to the side door of the theater after the show—’”
I grabbed the papers so hard, one of them ripped. “Never mind what that says.”
“You’re going to meet him in private?”
“I don’t know.” I slunk toward the exit. “I’m not sure what to do about any of this, but I know whom to trust and whom to avoid, so stop frowning at me like I’m an idiot.”
“I didn’t say you were an idiot, Livie.”
“But you’re looking at me as if I am one.” I turned and pushed open the door.
“Wait! Livie . . .”
The door slammed shut behind me before she could say another word.
I climbed aboard my bicycle and pedaled away, toward the Metropolitan.
enry’s matinee performance wasn’t scheduled to start until one thirty in the afternoon. To bide the time, I stopped for a ham sandwich across the street in a smoky café with a pressed-tin ceiling and theater posters hanging from knotty-pine walls.
Halfway through my meal, one of the other diners plopped himself across from me in my booth.
“What’s a good little girl like you doing all by herself in the city?” he asked, and when I raised my face, I found Sunken-Eyed John from Sadie’s party, grinning at me. “Does Percy know you’re not a respectable woman?”
I set the second half of my sandwich aside on the bone-colored plate. “I don’t care what Percy does or doesn’t think of me.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. I am not his sweetheart.”
“Well, that’s unfortunate for him.” He leaned forward on his elbows, his breath stinking of cheese and ale. “I learned a little secret about you.”
I knitted my eyebrows together. “What secret?”
“Well . . .” He ran his tongue along the inside of his cheek. “I told my father about your odd behavior with that hypnotist last night, and he said he knew who you were. Your father used to work on his teeth—before last Wednesday.”
My skin went cold. “Who is your father?”
“John Underhill Sr., owner of the city’s largest shipping firm. My mother is the president of the Oregon Association Opposed to Women’s Suffrage—or whatever the devil that thing’s called.”
“Oh.” My voice cracked with too much of a quaver for the heroine of the morning’s newspaper.
A smirk inched up the side of John’s face. “Your daddy telephoned my father to brag about a hypnotism cure. It sounds as if Monsieur Reverie has you on the end of a leash, performing tricks like a trained little monkey.”
“Why did my father tell him that?”
“I just said, to brag.” He leaned back with a broad smile and spread his arms across the upper ridge of his side of the booth. “So, you say you’re not Percy’s girl anymore?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Are you a lesbian?”
“A what?”
“Are you in love with women, not men?”
“No, I—”
“Why don’t you come home with me right now”—he slid his shoe across the floorboards and wedged it between my feet—“and I’ll thrust the masculinity straight out of you myself. I’ll break you like the wild filly you are.”
Without even thinking, I raised my right foot and stomped John’s toes with my heel.
“Ouch! Christ!”
I tried to stand up with some semblance of dignity, but I banged my knee on the table, which sent my water spilling into the cretin’s lap.
He jumped up. “Hey! You little—”
“All is well.”
“Oh, God, not that again.”
“All is well.” I grabbed my hat and pushed my way through a crowd of other young men piling into the restaurant with hunger shining in their eyes and growling in their bellies. Clouds of tobacco smoke and spiced colognes blew in my face, telling me, You don’t belong here . . .
“Hey, watch where you’re going, girlie,” cried one of the men, grabbing my elbow and smiling as if I were part of a bawdy joke.
I shoved his scratchy tweed arm aside and made my way past all the plaid coats and derby hats and waxed mustaches, out into the sweet fresh air.
A MIDDLE-AGED COUPLE WITH ACROBATIC TOY POODLES opened Henry’s show, and their yippy little dogs and gaudy sequined costumes sucked every breath of enchantment from the Metropolitan Theater. I could now see that the stage floor was streaked in sawdust and filthy trails of footprints, and the pipe organ appeared shorter and duller than the tower of copper and beauty from Genevieve’s ethereal rendition of “Danse Macabre.” Cheap was the first word that came to mind when I sat in the sparse audience that Saturday afternoon. Cheap. Gaudy. Disappointing. It wasn’t even the hypnosis showing me the way the theater truly was. All it took to sour my belief in magic was a lack of Halloween glamour and that disgusting encounter with Sunken-Eyed John.
The poodle couple took their bows to overly generous applause, and after they pranced off to the wings, the organist with the pumpkin-colored hair swaggered across the stage without any special introduction or fanfare. She plunked down on the bench in front of the pipe organ and embarked upon a slow and lumbering rendition of “Sleep, Little Rosebud”—not even “Danse Macabre.”
I couldn’t stand sitting there, subjected to her ruckus, and I couldn’t bear the thought of Henry’s appearance in the show looking fake and lusterless—not when I required him to possess the power to set my world right. I got to my feet and fled to the lobby, where I asked a gray-whiskered gentleman in the box office for a piece of paper and a pen.
At the counter next to the ticket window, while the organ music plodded along in the background, I scribbled down my frustrations on an ivory sheet of theater letterhead.
Dear Henry,
I am writing down my thoughts for you, because yelling at you will only make me say that “All is well,” and I am tired of that damnable phrase spouting from my lips. I am not sure if I can last three more days. That meaningless sentence you have forced me to say is turning me weak and putting me in danger.
I just came across that ogre of a boy, John, from Sadie’s party, and he got uncomfortably flirtatious with me—but all I could say was “All is well.” Someone else left unwanted bite marks on my neck last night (please do not ask why or mention this indiscretion to anyone), and I am sure you can guess which three words shot from my mouth when I tried to shout, “Stop!” I may be able to tolerate my strange visions until Tuesday evening, but I fear I will be allowing myself to become the victim of something even more heinous if my shouts of anger and distress continue to be silenced.
I know you love your sister dearly and fear for her health. I believe your story about her tumor to be true and not a ruse to keep me from complaining about this “cure” of yours. Yet you must imagine what her world would be like if she could never complain about her discomfort or cry out to protect herself. You would never wish such a dangerous fate upon her, would you? If not, then please take pity on me and allow me to stop saying that all is well.
Let me speak my anger again—please! I swear upon my grandparents’ graves I will hide from my father my ability to say what I mean. You must change me today. Do not leave me like this.
All is NOT well.
I waited with my letter on the cement steps leading up to the theater’s side entrance, ten yards down from the streetcar tracks. The gray clouds continued to do nothing more than hang over the city, teasing of rain but refusing to spit a single drop. I stretched out my legs on the stairs and enjoyed a small sip of sunlight that managed to steal across the sidewalk. My bicycle rested against the rails beside me—my horse awaiting the getaway.
One of the city’s electric-powered streetcars whirred to a stop down the way, its brakes squeaking in the damp air, the wheels clenching against the tracks. Only its rounded front end was visible from where I sat, but I assumed departing theatergoers were climbing aboard around the bend.
Behind me, the theater door swung open, and the substitute organist exited. She tramped down the stairs with a gold and green carpetbag hanging over her left arm, and she screwed up her lips when she saw me sitting there, perhaps remembering me from the day before, when I had kept Henry from rehearsing. Her newtlike eyes studied me, as if she were evaluating an apple for bruises and wormholes, finding more bad spots than good.
The wind shifted—or maybe it was just my brain switching directions. In any case, the organist tipped her head a certain way, and her orange hair careened down to her waist in plump curls. Her face slimmed and softened with youth. The carpetbag transformed into a German hurdy-gurdy instrument with strings and a crank, and her frumpy brown dress blossomed into a ruffled blue slip of a gown, like the shocking costumes of lady entertainers in North End saloons.
Without a word, her regular fussy, sharp-eyed looks reappeared, and she wandered around the corner, toward the streetcar. I stared at the place where she had vanished, my mouth hanging open, for I felt I’d just encountered a person much like my mother—a beautiful entertainer trapped in the body of an aging woman. Not an easy place to be, I’m sure. I wondered if my mother also shot bitter glares and unkind words at the young theater people around her.
The door opened again, and I got to my feet when I saw Henry stepping outside in the dark coat from his Halloween performance. He wore his black square-crown hat pulled down over his eyes, as if to conceal his identity, and he chewed on something crunchy that sounded like hard candy.
“Henry?” I asked, and I gripped both the rail and the letter.
He looked up, revealing familiar blue eyes that brightened at the sight of me.
“Olivia, c’est toi.” He galloped down the stairs until he landed in front of me, smelling of peppermint. “You came.”
I slammed my letter against his chest.
He gulped down the last of his candy. “What’s this?”
“Just read it. Please.”
He unfolded the letter.
I chewed my bottom lip and watched his eyes shift back and forth over my writing. The longer he read, the more his brow puckered in a frown.
He blew out a sigh that rustled his hair and lowered the letter to his side. “Did Percy really bite you?” he asked in the American version of his voice.
“Why do you have two accents?”
“I asked my question first.”
Before I could gather enough breath and courage to answer, the pack of squeaky show poodles exited the side door, their exhausted-eyed owners following in a web of leather leashes. Henry and I both stepped away from the theater, and I grabbed my bicycle by the handlebars. Side by side, we headed toward Third Street with the barking ruckus trailing behind us.
“I’d like to see your neck,” he said over the commotion of the dogs and the hum of the streetcar breezing off in the opposite direction.
“Are you off your rocker? I’m not going to expose my neck in public.” I held fast to my bike, which I walked by my side up Third.
The streetcar’s bell clanged at an intersection in the distance, and the poodles yipped to the south while we trekked north. Our section of Third lay empty at the moment, aside from Henry and me.
“Why did he bite you?” he asked. “Was it a romantic bite?”
“No.” I blushed with such intensity that my eyes watered. “I’m . . .” I fanned my face with my hand. “I’m trying with all my might not to say that all is well, so please don’t ask any more questions about it. The point is, I couldn’t tell him no when I was alone with him in the buggy last night.”
Henry stopped. “Did he make you do anything else?”
I stopped, too. “As in what?”
“As in . . . um . . .” He nodded as if I should know what he was thinking, his face pinking up. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you about . . . ?”
“I don’t . . . he didn’t . . .” I pulled at my collar and cringed at the memory of one of Mother’s detailed letters that instructed how to avoid becoming in the family way. “I’m not sure if you mean . . .”
“Um”—he scratched his cheek—“never mind. Were you able to get away from him after he bit you?”
“Yes. I pushed him off me twice, and both times his head whacked the top of the buggy.”
I resumed walking my bicycle.
Henry stayed behind for a moment, but when I glanced over my shoulder, he grinned and caught up.
“Mon Dieu, Olivia. You’re much stronger than you look. I took you to be a frightened little bird when you came up onstage with me on Halloween.”
“Now, there you sound French again. Are you French or American?”
“My mother was born in Paris and grew up in Montreal. My father was from Toronto. My uncle took guardianship over us in Cleveland.”
“And French sounds more mysterious and exotic than a Cleveland accent?”
“Oui.” He smiled and slipped his hands into his pockets. “Uncle Lewis asked me to sound French whenever I appeared on the stage. I was always good at imitating my mother’s accent, and I speak both languages fluently.”
“Hmm.” I stole a glance at him. My fingers gripped the handlebars.
I summoned a vision of my own accord.
Large rips formed in the underarm seams of his coat an
d revealed glimpses of a striped shirt underneath. His red vest— the same dazzling garment from Halloween night—drained to the color of underripe cherries, and the black of his suit faded to gray. On his head, his felt hat deflated until it looked battered and squished and as well traveled as an old railroad car. His eyes turned puffy and red.
I shifted my attention to the sidewalk ahead.
“You don’t look like the mesmerizing Henri Reverie anymore,” I said. “Not when I get a good look at you.”
“I don’t?” He turned his face toward me. “What do I look like, then?”
“Tired. Desperate. A little like a hobo.”
He responded with a weary smile. “That’s exactly what I am.”
The commotion of the city—the wagons, the workers, the Canada geese honking across the sky toward the Willamette River—filled my ears again. The vision passed.
Henry, back in his regular, intact clothing, hopped into the street at the corner and waved for me to follow. “Come along. Genevieve is in here.”
I followed him across the intersection, my bicycle chain spinning as I hustled to avoid a horse-drawn milk cart jangling our way.
On the other side of the street, Henry stopped in front of the four-story Hotel Vernon, which had fuzzy strips of bright green moss growing between the walls’ red bricks. I saw two boarded-up windows on the third floor, and a round hole that could have been made by a bullet gaped from a piece of glass on the second story.
I kept hold of my bicycle and craned my neck to look up at the building. “Is this where she is?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t go into a hotel with you.”
“Genevieve isn’t feeling well enough to come outside.”
“If any of my father’s patients see me—”
“Go in ahead of me.” He nodded toward the entrance. “We’re in room twenty-five on the second floor.”
