by Leslie Parry
For a moment she didn’t want to go home. She didn’t want to go back to Guilfoyle’s. She didn’t want him to stare at her sister, so changed. Lascivious, inquisitive, snickering things under his breath like Dumb Belle! Haha!—get it?—then swiftly ordering a stack of pamphlets that heralded the arrival of Rubberwoman, Tongueless Wonder from the Orient! “I promise,” she said, taking her sister’s hand, “I’ll look after you. It’s your life to resume without consequence, to live as you please.”
Belle bobbed her head, and a long silence stretched between them. Odile realized it was the same thing Mrs. Bloodworth had said to her in the hothouse.
“Will you tell me what happened?”
Belle spelled a word across the palm of her hand: Someday.
“You’ll tell me everything, right?”
She nodded. Her mouth ticked up, the glimmer of a smile.
Then from up the river they saw it—the steamboat coming in to dock. The painted paddle-boxes, the piping stacks—the Coney Island Queen, drifting grandly through the harbor. On the pier people began to queue, holding their hats to their heads.
The baby started to cry. Belle stood up and took a slow turn by the ticket booth, patting and soothing her while seagulls chased crumbs across the ground.
Sylvan tucked the newspaper under his arm and studied the boat, scratching the rough ends of his beard. “What if something happens to it?” he asked Odile. “Can you swim?”
“Sylvan! Of course I can swim.”
“Are you sure?”
“Nothing’s going to happen,” she said as he dusted the chalk from her shoulders. She pointed to the banner above them. “See? Invincible.”
HE READ THE WORDS slowly to himself and over again, but still felt a twinge of despair. How could something like that boat—piled with so many woozy people, with a deck so low to the sea, possibly stay right? Then, just over Odile’s shoulder, he saw Belle returning to them, flushed. She moved the baby to her hip, brushed a strand of hair from her eyes. She held out a third ticket to Sylvan.
“No, no—” he said, but she pressed it into his hand.
Odile reddened, then looked quickly away. “It’s her way of thanking you. You should take it.”
He stared at it, a small scrap of paper curled up in his palm. He’d never been off the island before—not once in his life—unless it was a long time ago, with the white-kerchiefed woman who had cried in her hands.
“It’s not all tinsel and sea-slime,” Odile was saying. “Everyone thinks that, but it’s lovely, it’s more. And if you hate it, you can come right back tonight. But we should celebrate, at least. Have a good meal. And perhaps”—she looked to her sister—“Belle will even play us a song.”
The two of them stood side by side, leaning into each other, their faces expectant, so alike. “Thank you,” he said. He gazed down at the baby, now kicking in her mother’s arms, her eyes open and turned to the sky. He didn’t know what to do—he’d already planned his good-bye. The whole walk there he’d prepared himself, going over it in his mind: deciding on the particular cast of his eyes, his blithe but level words, even the pressure he would give to Odile’s hand if they chose to shake. Now he felt disoriented, and the energy he’d worked up for that moment—as tight as a knot in his stomach—faltered and began to unravel. He didn’t want to part, not so awkwardly, but drawing out the day and knowing it would only happen later seemed even worse. He’d never really said good-bye to anyone, he realized; he wasn’t well rehearsed. He could turn and walk home; he could go back to Ludlow Street and find another match, a better purse, and hope that Mr. Everjohn would give him back his shovel. The loosened knot spun out in his gut—the ticket grew clammy in his hand, the blood rumbled like the ocean in his ears—and then he met the girls’ eyes and said all right, yes. He’d go.
THEY BOARDED THE STEAMBOAT, The Coney Island Queen. Three tiers of sanded decks and fresh white paint and scuppers as dainty as eyelets. A floating petticoat, Odile thought. She followed Sylvan and Belle up to the highest deck, where they stood at a bend in the rail, watching the muslin sea. Everywhere people chittered and laughed, giddy as crickets, their faces turned up to the sun. They were happy fools—ready for their clambake, their valentine parade—sailing to the seashore under a cloudless wash of blue.
Her sister stood close at her side. Odile had missed the familiar press of her shoulder, goading but affectionate; the way Belle canted her head slightly to the left to meet hers, as if they were huddled in together, sharing a secret. They watched as a lost kite skittered through the air above them, with a tail made from a lady’s checkered stocking. The baby reached up as if she saw it, too. Belle leaned back, shielding her eyes from the sun. The kite jumped through a rumple of steam, over the docks and the yellowing trees. The leg fluttered and kicked, dancing a jig over the rooftops of the city.
Odile smiled and laughed. Then Belle took her by the arm and kissed her on the cheek, fiercely, her eyes wet with tears. Odile felt the water bud on her own lashes, but it might have just been the sunlight on the deck, or the way the sails on the harbor glinted like tiny stars. The horn sounded, and everyone jumped, then laughed, including Sylvan, who put a hand to his heart. He started to chuckle—low and raffish, a bashful shake of his head. Odile started to laugh too, which only made him laugh harder, which in turn made her laugh so breathlessly that she began to cry, water spilling over onto her cheeks. Light-headed, she looked over to catch her sister’s eye, but Belle wasn’t there.
Odile blinked and stood on her tiptoes, craning her neck to see farther down the deck. There, beyond a group of older women, she saw the flash of her sister’s hair, the ruffle of the baby’s bonnet. She called out her name, but Belle kept walking.
Odile followed her, pushing her way through the crowd, but she lost her by the time she reached the stairs. She turned right, then left—maybe Belle had just ambled away to soothe the baby, or nurse her in the ladies’ quarters, wherever those happened to be. Still, Odile circled the deck, two full revolutions, looking for the custard-yellow dress, the high and freckled chin. But the faces were all those of strangers. Then, leaning over the rail, she saw Belle on a deck below—walking against the tide of last-minute boarders who were edging their way onto the boat. Odile called after her, but Belle shouldered on, her head bent over her daughter. She made her way down the gangplank to the pier. Odile saw the purple ticket stub flutter down to the water.
“Belle!” The horn blew as she leaned over the railing. “Hurry!”
The wet chains rattled and clanked; the wheels began to turn. Belle only stood there, watching as the plank was raised and unhitched, as the steam billowed from the stacks overhead.
Odile gazed down three decks to the water, black and foaming under the sputter of the wheel. She could jump. She could risk it—the cold shock, the pain splintering down her back, the pull and drag of the paddle wheels, drawing her under. She wedged her foot up on the rail, felt her skirts flutter around her ankles—but Sylvan was quick behind her, his arms around her waist, lifting her back.
The horn sounded again; the paddle wheels churned. Odile called her sister’s name, but it was lost in the wind. Belle raised her head to the light. There was something in her eyes: a wry sadness, a dogged smile. It reminded Odile of something—of being high up in the rafters and looking down at the Church of Marvels stage—at the Shape Shifter, standing alone in the spotlight.
Belle raised her hand above her head. She crooked her finger.
The wheels turned faster; a pipe organ played; the smokestacks left a pair of trails burned into the sky. All around them the crowds buzzed and laughed, a garden of sunhats blooming at the rail. On the shore beneath the pennants, her sister grew smaller—a fiery yellow dot, alone in a circle of light, her hand raised above her head. The Queen made a wide, waltzing turn into the harbor. The engine chuffed louder and louder. Then—a gust of steam, a passing ship—and Belle was gone.
Odile wavered for a moment, blinking back her tears
. In the wake she saw ragpickers and fishermen—all skimming the harbor with homemade nets, picking through the lost and the jettisoned. She turned to Sylvan, who only shook his head in wonder. They stared back at the city, a torrent of light.
Something passed through her then, a feeling she couldn’t distinguish, but she’d felt it before—one summer day years ago, when she was still a little girl in a metal brace. She hadn’t been allowed to swim, but her sister took her into the ocean anyway, when their mother’s back was turned. Belle, small but tough, hoisted Odile up on her back and carried her down to the surf. Odile kept her legs and arms wrapped around her sister, shrieking and laughing as Belle marched into the water—feet, then ankles, knees and hips—the waves rolling over them, lifting them up. They kept going, farther and farther out, until the sandbank fell away. Odile closed her eyes as they dropped—she held her breath, clung tighter to Belle. The water surged over her shoulders, tickled her chin—a mouthful of salt—but they didn’t go under. Belle kicked and kept swimming. You don’t weigh anything! she marveled. Maybe I’m a strongman! Odile laughed, her cheek against Belle’s sunburned scalp. They swam past the breakers, their bodies slippery and locked. Faster! Odile cried. Faster! Belle paddled through the dappled water, frog-kicking and spitting back foam, until their mother—alone on the shore—called them back. Odile knew there would be a soft blanket to dry her, a lunch of seltzer and waffles from the stand on the boardwalk. Come in now! Their mother’s voice, drifting out over the waves: Come in now, girls! But they didn’t stop. Faster, faster! Together they dove underwater and came up for air. A two-headed mermaid!
Now she gazed back to Manhattan as the dark water carried them away—the huge sky above, the pale glimmer of stars, the shipmasts in the haze. She reached over and took Sylvan’s hand. They cannot burn! They cannot sink!
And the city itself: an island of light. All of those windows, all of those rooms—lit now by candles and electric bulbs, hearthfires and stoves. Deep in its burrows were a thousand hands to kindle the torch: the flick of a match, the turn of a lamp, the spark of a switch; embers rising from chimneys to join the sun. The great hive glowed in its smoke. The world was lit by fire.
THIRTY-ONE
ALPHIE LIFTED THE BOWLER OFF HER HEAD AND RAN A HAND through her chopped, sweaty hair. She asked a passing man on the street for a smoke. When he stopped, she saw that it was Mr. Moro, the olive-vendor, rolling his pushcart home, but he didn’t recognize her—not here, with her naked face and man’s clothes, her sweaty chest and scabbed tattoo. He just nodded, distracted, and handed her a cigarette without a word. She thanked him as he continued on—grazie, signor—and for a moment she smelled the salty oil sloshing around the olive jars and was hungry. She lit the cigarette, inhaled the smoke, and stared up at the sky. The moon hung low in the pale light, just above the bridge. Salt and sand blew in from the sea. For the first time in a long time she wasn’t sure what to do.
She kept walking. She had nothing on her—no money, no clothes, no box of powder and paint. She could do a little bit of bartending, perhaps, at any tavern with a blue star on the door, at least until she got her Rembrandt stand up and running again. She could live week by week at her old boardinghouse, eat supper in a saloon of her own choosing, with no one to please but herself. Her stomach cramped at the thought of it. Roasted chicken and crispy potatoes. Egg-drop soup. Rarebit on sweet brown bread. Beer.
She made her way down Orchard Street, toward the water. She passed the shipyard with its scaffolds and ladders and pots of tar, the whale skeleton rising from the earth. She passed the rickety wooden building where she’d tricked those first few months away from home, where she’d lived on black liquor and raw potato skins. She looked up to the terrace and saw the Widows at the rail—waiting out the heat in their tangled blond wigs, whistling down to the sailors and smiths. The littlest one smiled, dazed and grim, at Alphie, rubbing at the blue circles under his eyes.
A few blocks down she saw the door to the Shingle and Plank. Inside it was dim and cool, a relief after the heat of the streets, smelling like Irish beer and sour-bread. Here she knew every knot along the bar, every lewd drawing and lonely initial carved into the wood; she could see shapes in the darkest corners of the room. She had once navigated the paths between the tables as if they were the streets of her own little city. But now the bartender looked at her oddly, perched on a stool by herself. Alphie could see that he recognized her somehow, but he couldn’t place her. She thought of the little Rembrandt he remembered: walking in with her folded stand, smelling like cologne and lemon drops, all the men buying her drinks while she smiled agreeably and looked past them, waiting for a glimpse of Anthony.
What a sight she must be now, after the care she’d taken. Her hair cut short, her skin clammy, an ugly scrawl beneath her throat. Would anyone think to find her here? Would they know where to look? She’d have to hide out for a while, she realized, keep away from the places where they knew her as Mrs. Leonetti, the undertaker’s wife. She could not be seen with Anthony again.
Perhaps she’d move west, to the ports on the Hudson, just to be safe. She knew there was a shop nearby, above the cobbler’s, where an old vaudeville star named Carlotta discreetly made dresses for men’s bodies. She’d go there and order something new. But later. Now she ordered a pint of beer, prayed she could pay tomorrow, and put her head down on the bar.
It was Dolly, the songbird who lived in a room above, who recognized her.
“Not Alphie Rembrandt?”
Alphie raised her head. She felt ashamed of the way Dolly looked at her, tentative and scared, as if she were something that had washed ashore from a wreck.
“I almost didn’t know you!” Dolly said, a hand fluttering up to her cheek. “You’ve gone back to—”
“No, I haven’t.” Alphie drank her beer too quickly and coughed. “But I’m a sight, I know.”
“What happened to your gallant knight, your grand opera singer?”
“They all found me out.”
“He’s not with you then?”
“No.”
“Well, we always knew he was the wrong sort,” Dolly sniffed. “What did you want with the likes of him anyway, prancing around up there like he’s straight as a preacher’s prick? Sometimes it’s too risky, trying to cross all the way like that.”
“You’re right,” Alphie said. “He didn’t love me.”
“I think he did, little bird. He must have, to marry you.”
“I don’t know anymore,” Alphie said. “I think he was just trying to hurt someone else.”
Dolly ordered another round of beer and reached out to brush Alphie’s arm. “Hey, I heard from Robbie that The Chandelier is looking for pretty female impersonators for their new revue. You’ve got a sweet, lovely alto, you know. I think you could try for it.”
“No,” Alphie said, hearing the edge in her own voice. “But thank you.”
“Of course,” Dolly said, blushing. “I only feel sorry you have no home to go to now.”
Alphie didn’t know what to say. She had wanted to feel safe and normal in a world that made her feel like she was wrongly made at every turn. She wanted to prove she was just as much a woman as anyone else. She’d seen Anthony’s troubles as some kind of wrong she could right, as a place for her to be needed. She believed their pain was the same. She had given herself over to making his life better, believing that if she did, she’d somehow atone for her own. But he needed her far more than he loved her. And she’d mistaken her devotion for something more heroic—an unassailable moral purity; a high-mindedness above even sex. But she saw now it was little more than vanity and desperation, a desire to be known.
She could guess now what had happened that night. She’d seen Anthony’s face at the funeral, heard it from the man on the street—he’d been down in the poppy box. How foolish could she have been? He had likely been gone all afternoon, drifting from den to bar and back again, lost track of the time. And when he finally returned home�
��well past the four o’clock train—the Signora had already found out the worst. Her own husband, rather than coming to her aid and defense, rather than protecting her—had chosen instead to protect himself. Now she remembered the lights of Bellevue Hospital, the swish of money exchanging hands; a brief glimpse of the wardens, vole-eyed and taciturn, folding the bills in their crisp paper bibs. An ambulance, already crowded with women, was bound for the moonlit wharf. He had left the person he loved, signed her away to the island to rot—to be discovered there for what she was, and then to be punished forever; a work-camp slave, a life of rock-breaking and maggot-meat—never to see Broome Street again.
FOR A MOMENT she imagined what her life might have been like if nothing had gone wrong that day—if he and his mother had gotten on the train, if the Jennysweeter’s girl had delivered the baby without incident. But she knew what would have followed: a life even lonelier, waiting up for Anthony night after night, raising a child by herself while he drifted and drank—but it’s my fault if he’s that way, isn’t it?—and then having that child (that sweet little girl!) fall under the obsessive tyranny of his mother.
