Did this mean Paige was finally over Josh? Was this her way of officially moving on? Saskia hoped so. She was tired of feeling simultaneously guilty for having hooked up with Josh and resentful that Paige had the ability to ditch him as effortlessly as he’d ditched Saskia.
Paige had finally met her match.
His name was Samuel Pendleton. At least, that was what was written on the back of the photo.
“Samuel Pendleton?” Sara Beth sniffed dismissively. “That sounds so blah.”
“Shut up,” Paige replied, her eyes still glued to the daguerreotype. It was in near-perfect condition, unlike the off-center, faded self-portrait of Cornelius. Samuel’s hand rested atop a book, and he was holding a quill pen. Dressed like a dandy, he had smooth skin and thick hair styled in a pompadour. He looked lost in reverie, like he was pondering a sunset.
“He’s the definition of vanilla,” complained Sara Beth.
“Maybe, but he’s cute. He looks like he’s creative. Artistic.”
“Well, I found someone, too,” Sara Beth said, gazing at her own daguerreotype. “I like his smile—like he just robbed a bank and got away with it.” When she waved the picture in the air, the girls gathered close to take a look. Saskia had to admit she liked the man’s roguish smile, too.
Two things set Sara Beth’s daguerreotype apart from the rest. First, the photo had color. Hints of it, at least. The man’s cheeks and lips were pale pink, his skin vaguely beige. Saskia wondered what technique had been used to make the daguerreotype more lifelike. The second thing was what had drawn Sara Beth to it in the first place: the man’s smile. In the archive most of the people looked contemplative, serious, even dour. Sure, there were hints of liveliness: a gleam in the eye, a turn of the lip. But it was clear to Saskia that photographers in the mid-1800s had never said, “Smile! Say cheese!”
“I like his clothes,” said Sara Beth. “Check out the top hat. He’s rocking it like Lincoln.” She removed the photo despite Lila’s admonishments and turned it over to examine the back. “There’s nothing, no name or date.” She smiled impishly. “But I’ll get to the bottom of the mystery.”
“Well, I guess that’s four of us,” said Adrienne. “What about you, Lila? You’re the last one.”
Lila shook her head, looking like she’d had enough. “I’m not a part of this.”
“But you know we’re going to borrow the photos, right?” Paige said.
Lila frowned at Saskia. “I don’t approve,” she said. “I don’t approve at all.”
“Come on, Lila,” Saskia begged. “Please?”
Lila stared at the floor for several seconds; she looked torn, like she was having an argument with herself. Finally she rolled her eyes. “Oh God. Fine. Hide the pictures in your clothes. Carefully! Security only checks backpacks.”
As the three girls giggled and slid the daguerreotypes into their shorts and down their tops, Saskia pulled Lila aside. “I forgot to tell you . . . we need to take more mercury,” she said. “I have a little, but not enough for everybody.”
Lila stared at her incredulously. “You realize I’m this close to losing my job, right?”
“This whole thing won’t work without mercury.”
“When is this going to end?”
But Saskia couldn’t answer that.
Lila shook her head and stomped off. A minute later, she returned and handed a bottle of mercury to Saskia.
“Thank—”
“Just don’t ask me for anything else, okay? It’s beginning to feel like you’re taking advantage.”
Saskia tightened the lid and slipped the bottle into her bra, painfully aware that Lila was right.
Lila was the last person to leave the Collection room. But Saskia noticed something just after her friend flicked out the lights and closed the door behind her, something that made her feel a little better. It was the glint of a white box hidden in the waistband of Lila’s cutoffs.
“Any collateral damage I need to know about?” Rich asked the girls on their way out.
“Of course not,” Lila replied.
“No floods, fires, car accidents?”
Lila shook her head.
“Did you borrow more pictures?”
Of course not, Saskia wanted Lila to repeat. Instead, Lila looked at Rich guiltily. “Only a few,” she replied.
“Seriously?”
“I know I said it wouldn’t happen again, but this really is the last time. Promise.”
“Okay, a) when you break a promise and then promise again, no one believes you. And b) for the life of me, I can’t understand why you’d want those pictures. Are they popular on the black market or something?”
“Rich,” Lila began, “it’s hard to explain.”
“Try me.”
She cleared her throat, but nothing came out. Meanwhile, Saskia wiped her sweaty palms on her shorts and waited for Sara Beth to try to flirt her way out of this one.
“What Lila didn’t tell you,” Paige said, “is we’re working on a project.”
Rich appraised her for several seconds before responding. “I might be old, yes. But I’m not dumb. School is out.”
“Oh, the project isn’t for school. It’s for independent study.”
He stared at Paige skeptically, but she continued. “Because all of us like photography, we formed a club. We’re tracing photographic history from the early 1800s to now. We’ve done a lot of research on tintypes, ambrotypes, cyanotypes, and especially daguerreotypes, and Lila suggested maybe it would be a good idea to look at them up close.”
“Can’t you look at them up close in the library?”
“We could, but it’s not the same. We want to look at them in natural light. We want to study them under a microscope. We want to take pictures of the pictures.”
“Why are you so interested in daguerreotypes?”
Paige gave him a bright, winsome smile. “Easy! This is learning for ourselves, not our teachers. I’ve wanted to study photography since I was seven. I saw a Diane Arbus exhibit at the MET: Portraits in Parks. I’ll never forget it. A little boy with an innocent face and a toy hand grenade. A young guy with his wife, her hair in an awesome beehive, like Amy Winehouse. It made me fall in love with photography, at the power of pictures, how they can be transportive. Sublime. These daguerreotypes . . . they’re like catnip to me.”
Damn, she’s good, thought Saskia.
Rich cleared his throat. “Can’t say I share your enthusiasm—especially about Amy Winehouse’s hairstyle. But I guess if you’re going to have a hobby, daguerreotypes are better than, say, collecting Hummels or old dolls. Those are just creepy.”
“Do you have any hobbies, Rich?” Paige asked.
“Oh no—this is about you, not me.”
“But if you did have an outside interest, something you feel passionate about, maybe you’d understand . . .”
Saskia could tell that Rich wanted to nod. He wanted to agree and maybe even open up to her. There was just something about Paige. Everyone felt it. She was like a star with gravitational pull. Saskia, too, wondered if Rich had a hobby and what it might be. Collecting comic books, Legos, Magic cards, action figures? Something that hinted of immaturity, a stunted adulthood? Something he was too embarrassed to admit?
“All right, what can I say?” he replied, clearing his throat. “You ladies do what you need to do. You obviously have something important you’re working on.” He turned to Lila. “But remember: everything needs to be returned in the same condition. I’m holding you accountable. Understand?”
Paige answered for her. “Perfectly,” she said, still smiling.
Outside the library, Saskia felt jubilant. There was the relief of not getting caught, and then there was the thrill of the plunder. And though Saskia couldn’t say it aloud, there was also happiness in knowing Lila was all in, to
o—even if she was keeping it secret. In the shadows the girls took out their daguerreotypes. The young men looked different outside of the confines of the library. More accessible. More real.
“I definitely made the right choice,” Adrienne gushed. She reminded Saskia of a starstruck boy band fan.
“I think we all did,” Paige responded. She put her arm around Saskia’s shoulders and gave her a playful squeeze.
Saskia smiled, feeling high on friendship, romantic possibilities, and the promise of an exciting summer. “You know,” she continued, “what you said to Rich about having a club isn’t exactly a lie. We are all interested in photography . . .”
“I think our interest is more specific,” Sara Beth said.
“Right. We’re specifically interested in photos of cute boys.”
“Not all of us,” Lila said disdainfully.
Saskia expected Paige to glower at Lila. Instead, she ignored her and said, “I think we should call our club the Dead Boyfriends Club.”
Sara Beth snorted. “The Dead Boyfriends Club? We can do better than that.”
“Hunks from the Crypt?” Paige said.
“Studs Six Feet Under?” Sara Beth responded.
“History’s Hotties?”
“Drop Dead Gorgeous?”
“Dead Dudes and the Girls Who Love Them?”
The sisters went on and on until Lila complained, “This is the shallowest conversation I’ve ever heard. I mean, you’re basically objectifying dead guys. It’s weird and morbid.”
“How is objectifying dead guys in old pictures any different from objectifying living guys on Instagram or Snapchat?” said Paige. “I mean, yes, we’re being shallow. But all modern social media is basically shallow, so you can’t say what we’re doing now is any worse.”
“She has a point,” Saskia said to Lila.
“Look, whatever we intend to call these guys, the question remains,” said Sara Beth. “Are we really gonna do this?” She took out a tarnished silver compact and reapplied her blood-orange lipstick.
Lana Turner, not Brigitte Bardot, thought Saskia.
“Sure we are,” Paige replied. “Are you in, Saskia?”
“I’ve got the mercury,” Saskia replied, fishing out the bottle from her bra.
“Perfect,” Paige said.
“Mercury for our Mercury Boys,” Adrienne said in a singsong voice.
“Hey, what about that?” Paige asked. “The Mercury Boys Club?”
All the girls except for Lila beamed.
“It works,” Sara Beth said.
Saskia thought so, too. The Mercury Boys Club suggested excitement, allure, mystery, even magic—all the things that came to mind when she thought about Cornelius.
“So we are really gonna do this,” said Adrienne breathlessly. And this time it wasn’t a question.
Paige turned to Saskia. “Okay, let’s get down to business. Tell us exactly how this works.”
Saskia
The weather in Philadelphia happened to be the same as in Coventon. Meaning it was hot. But here, at least, a constant breeze subdued the bright sun. Saskia and Cornelius loitered in front of the lighting shop. It was the first time they’d met outside the store, and they were both a little discomfited at being out in public.
Saskia gazed at the hand-painted street signs, trying to get her bearings. In researching Cornelius, she had studied some old maps of Philadelphia. In theory, she understood its gridded pattern, how numbered streets ran counter to major streets like Locust, Spruce, Arch, and Walnut. Cornelius and Co. was located on Eighth Street between Market and Chestnut, smack-dab in the heart of the city.
Looking beyond the signs to examples of bustling city life, she was acutely aware that she was now in the past. Women wore modest dresses with full skirts and puffed sleeves all the way to their wrists. Some of the dresses were bright and ornate, with ruffles and bows; others were plain and rough-hewn, made of only the most serviceable material. Saskia saw feathered bonnets, cloth shoes, gloves, hair coaxed into corkscrew curls. Like the women’s clothes, the men’s varied by economic status. The most extravagant included overcoats with back tails, tapered trousers, wide neck scarves tied in soft bows, standing collars, and tall silk hats.
Saskia felt as if she were at a costume party.
She also felt terribly exposed. Just about everybody who walked by cast a disapproving eye on her T-shirt and shorts.
Acknowledging her discomfort, Cornelius took off his overcoat and offered it to her. She accepted it gratefully. She swam in it, and it would probably make her sweat, but at least she was covered. They began to walk, albeit several feet apart. Saskia understood that he was wary of being seen with her. Even this, a simple stroll, could be misinterpreted.
They didn’t speak for several minutes, but the silence didn’t bother Saskia any. She focused on her surroundings. The sidewalks were swept clean and shielded from the sun by white awnings supported by simple wood beams. Here and there, children played marbles and rolled hoops. A boy in knicker pants whistled, offering them a penny newspaper. Cornelius bought two and handed one to her. She tucked it under her arm as she watched horse-drawn carriages and men on horseback travel along the street. The clapping of hooves filled her ears.
Cornelius began to point out buildings: the five-story United States Hotel, Garrett and Eastwick Locomotive works, the railroad depot, a tavern, an inn.
“And that . . . that is where I made the daguerreotype,” he said, gesturing toward a nondescript stretch of sidewalk.
“The daguerreotype of yourself?”
He nodded.
“I’ve been meaning to ask: how did you make it?”
“It wasn’t difficult. I removed the lens cap, ran as quickly as I could into the frame, and stood still as a stone.”
“For how long?”
“Oh, maybe five minutes.”
He turned and smiled at her. They had an easy rapport now, a familiarity that sometimes felt a few degrees warmer than friendship.
“How did you become interested in photography in the first place?”
“That’s simple. Back when I did silver-plating, a man named Joseph Saxton approached me. He asked me to make a plate for his daguerreotype of Central High School. That’s here in Philadelphia. The more he talked about photography, the more interested I became.
“Saxton is an inventor, too,” he continued. “We make a fine pair! The both of us are mad as hatters. All we want to do is bring our imaginings to life.”
Saskia watched him wink at a little girl sitting on granite steps, sky-blue ribbons in her hair, chin in her hands. “But what I really want to know is,” Saskia asked, “where did you get the courage to try something new?”
“I took a deep breath and jumped.”
She shook her head dolefully. “You’re braver than me.”
“Nonsense! You’re here, aren’t you? You took a risk, though you couldn’t predict the outcome. That’s the very definition of bravery.”
“But I’m not brave in my regular life.”
Without planning to, she found herself telling him about her parents’ separation, and how challenging it was adjusting to a new town and new people.
“May I be so bold as to make a suggestion?”
She nodded.
“Perhaps you can try looking upon failure as a good, not an evil. We all fail before we succeed. Consider my example,” he said, smiling ruefully. “I have invented hundreds of things. Yet almost all of them have failed. They don’t work. Or the patent office rejects them. And still I persist.”
“Doesn’t all that rejection make you want to give up?”
He crossed his arms. She realized he’d assumed the exact same stance as in the daguerreotype. “On the contrary. It makes me want to keep trying! Failure is merely a necessary catalyst, propelling us ever clos
er to success.”
“‘Failure is merely a necessary catalyst, propelling us ever closer to success,’” she repeated slowly, committing it to memory.
“Besides, what’s the alternative? Being idle? Giving up? Then you’ll never stand a chance.”
“A chance at what?”
“At becoming your best self.”
She smiled. “Have you always been so philosophical, Mr. Cornelius?”
He winked at her the same way he’d winked at the little girl.
As they continued walking, she noticed they were closer. Their sleeves nearly brushed.
“What is it you want, Miss Brown?” he asked.
“You mean, in life? I—I don’t know. Most of the time, I feel like I’m just drifting along, aimless.”
“What about the rest of the time?”
“Well, every so often I feel like I’m on to something—that it’s within my reach, if I could only figure out what it is.”
“Well, when you do find it, I hope you’ll come back to tell me about it. I suspect it will be very special.”
Under Cornelius’s heavy coat, Saskia flushed. “There is something else I’ve been wanting to ask you,” she ventured.
“Don’t hesitate. Go on.”
“Well, what I’ve been wanting to ask is . . . what we’re doing—right now—do you think it’s real? I mean, that it’s really happening? Do you think it’s replacing what already occurred? Are we rewriting history?” She sighed. “I’m not even sure I’m making sense.”
He was silent for several moments before answering. “You make perfect sense. I’ve been thinking about the very same questions. If in fact I’ve already lived, as you say, and my story is already known, then your presence here in the past is a very serious matter. Without knowing it, you could inadvertently steer me from my predetermined course. Even a word or action could have major consequences.”
“Right,” she said. “The butterfly effect.”
“What is that?”
Mercury Boys Page 11
