The Last to See Me

by M Dressler

  “Easy now!”

  Be careful, I whisper and hear his work boots stop.

  “What was that?”

  “Everything okay?” Pratt calls.

  “Dunno. Feels a little wobbly again.”

  I see his hand fumble at a broken slat as he tries to catch his balance. He can’t see it, but as his hand reaches inside the tank, the expensive watch Alice gave him hooks on a nail that has been worming its way through a cracked hole. The clasp catches. The name the living give to such a thing is accident. The gold tumbles inside with me, and Manoel lets out a little curse. He tries reaching for it, but his arm is too short. He’ll have to come in with me, now.

  “Everything still okay up there?” Pratt shouts.

  “I need to get inside the tank.”

  “No, Manoel! Come on down. I’ll do that.”

  “It’ll only take a sec,” he calls out impatiently. And then, under his breath, “You might be getting paid a fortune today, but not me, pardner. I need my Rolex.”

  He finds the gap and squeezes in through the wood, though his shoulders have a hard time. Now we’re together in the shadows. His gift rests where it fell, in the dust beside my skirt. I’ll let him take it, and go back down, and tell Pratt the inside of the tank is safe for him to crawl up and into; and then Pratt will come and feel something of my “charge” here, and think he’s found the spot he needs to stay close to and guard with his weapon, though I’ll be safe, watching from a distance, planning from a better bed.

  “Shit. It better not be broken.” Manoel ducks and stretches his arm out to reach the watch. “All I got to show for fifteen years of misery with that old cunt.”

  Hot. Quick. Anger. I can feel it. What Alice might have felt, what I am sure she would feel were she here to hear such filth and foulness. What I might feel too, hot, blazing, if I were the one who’d given my lonely heart to a dog-faced man who spat on me when my back, my life, was turned. How dare you. How dare you. How dare you.

  With another oath Manoel pulls himself backward out of the tank, as a long creak sings through the wood underneath us. The tower leans and lets out a groan.

  “Manoel? Manoel! Get off of there now! I think she’s going!”

  I fly free and am out of the cask in time to see the tower begin to twist and coil like a living thing uprooted, a vine twisting and trying to hold itself high in the sun but with nothing to hold onto. Manoel crouches on the platform, gripping its curling edge.

  “Do it, get down!”

  The tower’s rotten legs are buckling underneath him.

  “Jump for it!”

  Manoel can’t move. He’s frozen. He’s terrified.

  “Get clear right now!”

  I see the white in his eyes, the blood running backward inside him. I whisper to him: You can move or you can die.

  He shouts and falls away from me, pulled as we all are by the earth, and the tower chases after him, catching up to his body and driving him into the ground.

  Pratt lies motionless on his side, covering his head.

  I fly down to Manoel.

  Poor man, only his head left untangled, free. He can see me. In the same way everyone who has died in this house has always seen me, in the end.

  It’ll be over soon, I whisper to him. You’ll rest now.

  He can’t nod. His lips move. I hear him.

  Is that what you really want?

  His eyes blink.

  All right then.

  I go and find the watch winking in the splintered wreckage, beside the growing pool of blood, and turn its face over. I carry it to him and hold it up so he can see the inscription Alice made for him: The heart goes all day long.

  He blinks.

  I know. You didn’t mean what you said. You’re sorry for it now, aren’t you?

  He blinks again.

  It’s yours, I whisper, and place the metal carefully on his cheek, as gently as I placed the pillow over Alice.

  Too late, I know I’ve done wrong.

  Pratt is standing again.

  He’s seen the gold move through the air, all by itself.

  He’s seen.

  When I’ve flown, afraid, far enough away across the headland, out to the ledge, the very edge of the cliffs and the cove, I look back and see Pratt, small, raging at the boundary of the property, his chest heaving, his face torn and white. I can see him angry, straining, afraid, too, because he has a terrible choice to make: he can follow where my racing has flattened the tall grasses or he can sit with a dying man while that man draws his last breaths. I see him ball his fists helplessly and then turn and run back toward the piece of empty sky where the water tower once stood. The sun, having hidden behind a cloud, comes out again, its face as bright as Alice’s China-yellow robes, as the gift of a gold watch, as the mustard seed waving, as a great globe of electric light and the glow on Quint’s face, in the summer of 1914. For it was June then, too, and I went hurrying, like this, through the waving cliff grasses, through the wind, to escape, escape.

  10

  The Music Hall. Then, in the summer, it still stood. Then, it was a deep forest-green hexagon planted like a carousel in the grass, with wide-sashed windows all around and a striped green-and-white awning out in front. Inside, a beamed ceiling rose to a point, like the center of a circus tent, decorated with striped bunting. At one end was the musicians’ wooden stage, in a half-circle, and at the other a banquet table set up with refreshments, punch cups hovered over by the women from the Temperance League, who made faces whenever a sunburned lumberjack came in wearing his Sunday best but looking as if he’d already had a nip of something hard. Still, all the men, and we girls, too, had to be allowed to come, because the Ladies’ Committee had decided it would be much better for us all to gather where at least we could be seen and watched, and where our steam could be let off without burning. Dances were allowed only two nights out of the month, and since the Lambrys had put up the money for the Hall, the music was Scots-descended. But the Lambrys rarely set foot inside and their sons and daughters never came, and that was all right by us.

  On the night after Mrs. Lambry and I bargained over my seven-dollar wages for going to the Point, I told Mrs. Strype, after dinner, that I would be leaving soon. She’d cursed me for being an ungrateful hussy and for being dim enough to think that lightkeepers would be easier than jacks. I ignored her and hurried under the streetlamps toward the hall, hungry for escape, for a waltz, or a reel.

  Frances was already in the doorway, waiting for me. Franny, my dearest friend in all the world.

  “Well you’re a fast one,” she whispered in my ear, “in your short skirt.”

  I laughed. I’d only shortened it because one row of old ruffles had ripped as I’d pulled it over my boot. Franny looked so fine that night in her brass buttons and sailor-blue frock that I hugged her. The freckles stood out on her cheeks like copper flakes.

  The fiddlers struck up and she grabbed my arm and we promenaded around the room, elbows linked, in the thickening smoke and sweat. Her beau hadn’t shown in the doorway yet, so we circled again until we came to the punch bowl and took our cups and sipped and watched over their white rims.

  “I’m sure he’ll come,” I said.

  “I know he will. I just don’t want every calf-eyed saw-boy thinking he has a chance with me when he doesn’t. But you should look around and make your pick, before Lighthouse Point snatches you away.”

  “You mean old lady Lambry. Lucky me.”

  “I call it luck. Seven dollars a week.”

  “I’m not saying it isn’t. And all for keeping Quint Lambry from trailing after me.”

  “Then who’s that standing like a lost sheep in the door?”

  “It can’t be.”

  “It is.”

  The swirling smoke from the men’s cigars and the girls twirling their skirts getting ready to reel made it hard to be sure, at first. But then, there he was. His collar high and white, his cheeks shaved, his shirt starched, and his
coat cut finer than any man’s in the hall.

  I turned my back, heart pounding. “I can’t let him see me. He’ll gum up the works.”

  “Just keep thinking seven dollars a week and your afternoons free,” Franny said, gaping at him.

  “Has he seen me?”

  “He sure is looking around. Maybe he followed you?”

  “He’s been doing that.” I kept my chin down, behind my cup. “Watching me at Mrs. Strype’s.”

  “Look, the Temperance League biddies are about to faint! A Lambry coming into the Lambry Music Hall? What on earth is the world coming to?”

  “Pipe down, Franny. He’ll hear.”

  “Oh-oh, one of the company managers has spotted him.”

  I peeked that way. The poor, gushing man was waving his cigar and bowing under the flag-draped entry, holding out his free palm.

  “And now,” Frances giggled, “you’ll see glad-handing like it’s Easter Sunday and smiles as if the Pope himself had stopped by. And all just for pretty-boy Quint.”

  It was true a girl couldn’t help but like what she saw. The pale skin. The rosy cheeks. The way he ducked his whiskered chin as another manager approached him, like a swan trying not to show its long neck.

  “Of course, haven’t you heard?” Franny raised her cup. “He’s the new village hero.”

  “Why’s that?” I stared.

  “Why, he shot a panther that pounced on the trestle over at River Camp today. And I’ll bet doing it made him feel just like one of the jacks. Bet that’s why he’s here. So he can feel like he belongs to us.”

  “I thought you said he was here to see me.” I watched the way his blue eyes darted around the room, searching.

  “Well look who’s pretty sure of herself now!”

  “Look, all the men are going over to him. He’s the one being pounced on now.”

  “No,” Franny marveled, “he’s breaking off. He’s coming this way. He’s wants some refreshment!”

  “Don’t you move one muscle, Franny.”

  “That’s a boy who wants his punch.”

  “I’ve changed my mind. Go away right now.”

  “I’m going.” She took my cup with her.

  Quint Lambry stood right in front of me. I felt my face flush the way it did when the laundry tub was hot and fresh. His cheeks turned red as Christmas. He bowed, awkwardly.

  “Excuse me, Miss Finnis?”

  “Mr. Lambry?”

  “I hope you’re well this evening?”

  “Very well, thank you. And you?”

  “I’m well.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  “It’s a fine night.”

  “It is.”

  “Though it’s a little—warm—tonight?”

  “It is.”

  “It must be the damp from the high tide.”

  “It’s always damp in Benito, though, isn’t it?”

  He blushed even more deeply, and hesitated.

  I had to feel sorry for him. It must be hard, carrying the Lambry flag everywhere you went. “It might,” I said to help him out, “just be that there are so many people here.”

  “Yes.” He nodded gratefully. “So many. And I don’t like—Do you like crowds, Miss Finnis?”

  Seven dollars a week, seven dollars a week.

  But not until next week. And who said a girl needed to be haughty in the meantime?

  “I don’t mind the crowd here.” I turned to face the dancers. “A lot of us don’t have anything else to do in the evenings for excitement. It’s dull in Benito for all us jacks and jills.”

  He came alongside me, rubbing his tucked chin. “I think you’re absolutely right. There’s never enough to do in this camp and—” He stopped himself. “Do you know what I feel? That too much time isn’t good for the modern soul.”

  “The modern soul.”

  “I mean … the soul that isn’t tied down to old ways. To old ideas and forms of thinking. The modern soul needs action and … to break out of stagnation.”

  “Like Quint Lambry talking to Emma Finnis?”

  He beamed at my honesty, relieved. His cheeks went less pink, and his shining hair looked less boyish. “My parents are full of such stale notions, Miss Finnis. I’m sorry. It’s … burdensome. It’s terrible.”

  “I don’t know. I think it must be nice—having parents who mind where you go and care what you do.”

  “I’m sorry. That was stupid of me to say. With your father—”

  “I don’t talk about it.”

  “Of course. I’m sorry. It’s just I see the world a bit differently than my mother and father do. I want you to know that.” He leaned toward me, meaningfully.

  Those blue eyes. Enough to turn a girl’s head like a flag in a gale.

  “Would you like to dance?” he asked. And then he was holding his hand out toward me, and I was taking it, while Franny lay her hand on her cheek and made a face full of fun at me, right under the eyes of the Temperance League gossips, who couldn’t believe—I saw it written all over their amazed faces—that Quint of the fortunate Lambrys was about to lead Emma of the unlucky Finnises out onto the floor.

  He said as we waltzed, the web of his hand low on my back, “I like this.”

  “Me too.”

  “They don’t.” He smiled. “Look at them. So Victorian.”

  “Is that why you’re dancing with me?”

  “Why?”

  “To spite them?”

  “No.” His mouth bent close to my ear. “It’s only because, Emma Rose, you’re so very fine, and no one else sees it. You’re so pretty, you could put the lights out.”

  I felt both of our hearts beating close in our pressed chests, leaping ahead of the music.

  “What if I told you,” I said, pulling away, “that I was doing this out of spite.”

  “I wouldn’t believe you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re feeling the same thing I’m feeling. That’s how it works, I think.”

  The waltz ended. Applause for the fiddlers, who put away their bows. A quartet of young clerks from the mercantile came up to the stage, Tommy Allston among them. They put their heads together and opened their mouths and sang:

  Candle lights gleaming on the silent shore;

  Lonely nights, dreaming till we meet once more.

  Far apart, her heart is yearning,

  With a sigh for my returning,

  With the light of love still burning,

  As in days of yore.

  Neither Quint nor I moved. I finally asked, “What did it feel like to shoot the panther?”

  “You heard about today.”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know. I just reacted.” He shrugged and looked at the pegged slats of the floor.

  “Did it … die right away?”

  He shook his head. “Not right away. It was still breathing.”

  “And you weren’t afraid?”

  “There was nothing to be afraid of. There was blood. It was finished.”

  “How old are you, Quint?”

  He straightened. “Eighteen.”

  “Me too. My father said, on the day I was born, there was a storm and a flood and the seawater pushed so far upriver the current ran backward. You should know that about me, Quint Lambry.”

  “All right, Emma Finnis. Are you thirsty?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I bring you a cup?”

  “Please.”

  “And after we drink, maybe we could take a little stroll outside, away from all this?”

  “Yes.”

  My business was all my own, I decided, until the Lambrys started to pay me. Let the biddies stare and the managers step aside, amazed. Let Mr. and Mrs. Lambry hear and know why it was seven whole dollars a week they were paying. Tonight and for a few nights more, I told myself as Quint Lambry took my arm, I was still my own keeper. I would take a chance at dizziness and daring, while I could.

  Later, at the clif
fs, I learned that a dark edge feels safer when two pairs of feet walk beside it. And that a tongue is made not just for bargaining your wages but for happiness, too. For kissing. And I learned that you can still feel a mouth, long after, even when it’s no longer pressed against your lips. For how long can you feel it? For how long can you carry it?

  Ask me, ghost hunter. Ask me for how long.

  11

  Ellen stares past the constable’s deputies.

  The ambulance stands in the street with its two doors flung open. The drivers in their blue jackets are lifting Manoel from the grass. His body is hidden by a sheet; a clear plastic cup cradles his gray face and feeds him air. They push the rolling bed of the gurney under the yellow tape and toward the flashing lights. The deputies are studying the spars and spears of wood that were once the Lambry water tower. The townspeople and tourists have been pushed back and are coughing, holding their throats in the still-floating dust.

  Pratt says numbly, at Ellen’s side, “I did this. I let him go up first.”

  She doesn’t seem to understand. “He’s going to be all right?”

  Pratt closes his eyes. I think he must be playing the collapse over again in his mind. He thinks it was me, my doing. Because he saw me lift the timepiece. Because I was there, with Manoel. But how can he, how can anyone know what the heart might do, or where it might lead you, to what edge? A tower. A cliff. It can all seem so solid. You think you know your own heart and the heart of the one standing, breathing right beside you. But do you?

  Ellen’s eyes are widening, beginning to see. “I was the one who called him to come.”

  “Don’t do that.”

  “Why did he go up if it wasn’t—”

  “He was fine.” Pratt squats at the curb and finally sits down on it. “I saw him. He knew what he was doing. This isn’t what it appears to be. Trust me.” He lifts his hand as though it could explain something to Ellen. Then drops it. “This was no accident. Something brought that tower down on Manoel. Something unfeeling.”

  Isn’t gravity the most unfeeling thing of all, Mr. Pratt?

  “You don’t mean the ghost.” Ellen reaches for the curb beside him and sits down, too, crookedly.