Echo Moon

by Laura Spinella

  He rolled his eyes at his own thickheadedness. Two days ago, she was no one but Esme. Now he had a whole name. If Esmerelda Moon existed, maybe her history did too. All these years, it was the first promise of real hope—finding Esme’s past. Pete put the photo back. Something else occurred to him. It seemed he had not one, but two ghosts conspiring on his behalf—Brody St John and Zeke Dublin. He mentally rewound the message Zeke had offered at the bungalow: “It’s no carnie sleight of hand. You have to pay attention. If you want your life back. If you want a murder solved.”

  What the hell did a dead grifter, far more associated with his mother than Pete, have to do with any of this? He closed the car door. “Holy. Shit.” His gaze scanned the sea. “Connected to my mother, but maybe even more connected to his niece. Ailish Montague.” He hurried around to the driver’s side and got in. “She’s more than a bit player in this ghost hunt.”

  Before backing out of the spot, turning away from the sound, Pete looked once more at the sun-soaked view. The beach his uncle had patrolled, the “Move it, Soldier” advice Brody had given. Pete needed to heed it, not just for the sake of the past, but to recover his family in the present. “Thanks,” he said. “You may very well have saved two St Johns.” Like the lifeguard advised, if you kept driving, you’d run right into New York City.

  ACT V, SCENE I NEW YORK CITY SEPTEMBER 1917

  They drove in the truck from Long Island to the city line. Along the way, Phin shared his news with Esmerelda. By the time they reached the Brooklyn Bridge, the two were silent, Esmerelda mentally floundering with what he’d told her: Phin’s number had been called up, along with Hassan’s. Tomorrow they’d leave for Camp Upton.

  “Camp Upton?” Her emotions had spiraled from the happiest of news to facts she did not want to be true.

  “Camp Upton. It’s not far from where we were today, out on Long Island—some town called Yaphank. It’s the training camp for enlisted men. It’s where they teach soldiering, how to fight, win battles.”

  “How to kill,” she said.

  “I suppose there’ll be that.”

  After his training, Phin, Hassan, and thousands of other men would board ships like the ones she and Cora had seen, delivering them all to Europe and the conflict that raged. Rally cries had become war cries. Phin and Hassan would answer. So it was silence that dominated as they drove west in the truck of a man whose life had been taken by the war.

  The vehicle rumbled to the foot of the bridge, where Oscar and company had agreed to meet them. Phin said one more thing before exiting the truck. “It’s you, Esme, I’ll be thinking of when I look upward at night. Heaven has its moon, and I’ll have mine. No world can exist without either.”

  Oscar was waiting. His hulking frame appeared slightly less large without his team and wagon. It took Esmerelda’s best dramatic performance to hide her joy and upset. But Oscar was too taken by his new vehicle and paid her no mind. As Phin gave him a quick lesson, pointing out the gear pedals and starter button, all-important brakes, and accelerator lever, it was Esmerelda who noticed Cora. She looked a mess, the way she did after her bathhouse duties. But there was something different, and a good whiff piqued Esmerelda’s curiosity. The girl didn’t smell of piss and lye soap. She smelled of tobacco and whiskey.

  “Cora, what did you do?”

  Cora only wrapped her arms tighter around herself, tugging on a threadbare shawl. She stared straight ahead. But from her skirt pocket, Cora withdrew the edge of paper money—more than Esmerelda herself had ever carried.

  “I earned a decent wage,” she said.

  Esmerelda’s heart pounded harder than it had on the beach. The Elephant Hotel . . . She knew instantly the kind of work to which Cora had succumbed. The girl moved away from the group, pulling harder on the shawl, and waited on the bridge’s narrow catwalk. Motor vehicles buzzed by, even at the late hour. The boys—Barney, Bill, and Jimmie—offered strange looks but kept mum as they turned for the back of the truck. Oscar was lost in the excitement and a fear of smashing up his new vehicle. He noticed nothing—certainly not the feelings of a girl he saw, at best, as a burden.

  Oscar took in the last of his instructions and Cora made an abrupt move. Esmerelda leaped forward, sure she was about to throw herself into the heavy traffic. It turned into a chain reaction as Phin hurled himself in her direction, shouting, “Esme!” He grabbed her, and Esmerelda saw his life flash before her eyes. A truck as large as Oscar’s nearly clipped him. In turn, Cora looked at them as if they’d lost their minds. She did not thrust herself into the traffic but turned and walked idly toward the truck.

  Phin held Esmerelda tightly about the waist. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Nothing. I thought . . .” She quieted as Cora announced to Oscar that she preferred to spend the night at camp with him and the boys.

  Cora reached the back of the truck and brushed her hands together as if the motion removed whatever layer of filth Coney Island had left on her. Only once did she look at Esmerelda, pulled so close to Phin. The expression on her face was vague, detached. “Seems,” she said, hoisting herself aboard, “the night has landed us all in places we didn’t expect.”

  ACT V, SCENE II

  The next day, Esmerelda waited at the alley entrance between Hupp’s Supper Club and its new next-door hotel. She’d all but begged Phin to stay the night before; she’d asked to go with him to Hell’s Kitchen. He wouldn’t consider either.

  “It’s not proper, Esme,” he’d said. “If I’d known what today would bring—me asking for your hand, you saying yes . . .” His forehead pressed to hers. “I would have come a week ago. We could have seen a city preacher today and made tonight a honeymoon.” He laughed. “Though I doubt Mr. Hupp would be keen on us making a lovebird’s nest out of his hotel room.” The deep kiss he’d left her with was meant to suffice. It didn’t, not hardly. But if Phin’s artistic sensibilities were his flesh, integrity was his bone. She also knew stubbornness claimed a good bit of his mind.

  The September air could have been mistaken for mid-August that morning, and the sun seemed to glint off him as he walked toward her now. Over his shoulder was a small sack—all his worldly belongings, she thought. Except one. There weren’t many words—what could one say in a moment when it was a lifetime they needed? But Phin was quick to maneuver them into the alleyway, where crates were stacked. Tucked beside them, he kissed her like he might never on the open street.

  Esmerelda absorbed the feel of his arms, solidly around her. And his eyes, filled with the color of a brewing storm. She looked away, thinking only of the storm for which he was headed. “How . . . do you have any idea how long you’ll be gone? Do you stay until the war is over? If you do, I’ll start going to church tomorrow, see if any of the saints my mother used to pray to might move things along.”

  “I don’t know. I imagine once the army goes to all the trouble of getting you there, using a man where he’s needed . . . as long as he stays a—” He pulled her closer. “I would think until I’ve been there longer than those ahead of me. It’d only be fair.”

  Esmerelda’s chin quivered, the movement out of sync with the rest of her trembling body. Yesterday, miraculously, everything she wanted seemed to fall at her feet. Today it was a rug being yanked out from under her. She coaxed words from her tight throat, ones that might distract. “Did I tell you?” she said cheerily, pointing to the hotel across the alley. “The lobby has a photographer’s studio. In fact, it has several shops. It’s a new idea, offering guests merchandise so they don’t go miles to spend their money. When I saw the studio, I thought one day you could inquire about a position.”

  “How, um . . . how did you come by that bit of knowledge, the idea about commerce?”

  Esmerelda cast her gaze downward.

  “All right. Let’s get it out of the way. If we were married, I’m not sure leaving you to sing in Hupp’s club or traveling with Oscar is a suitable way of life. But seeing as we aren’t married, I can’t
really say that. ’Course, if you were my wife, the prospects of what I’d be leaving you with are even dimmer.” Phin stared at the alley’s dirt lane. “A hovel behind a butcher shop in Hell’s Kitchen would make you no more than a pauper’s better half. So let me be blunt, since we’ve no time for bush beating. I don’t like leaving with circumstances as they are.”

  Wanting to reassure him, Esmerelda dove at a dubious solution. “I could go home.” Her gaze shot from the buttons on his shirt to Phin’s face. “I could wire my sister, Hazel. It would get me out of New York. As it is, you’ve no need to be concerned about Benjamin Hupp, but if it’d ease your mind . . .”

  “Have you go back to a house where your brother-in-law considers everything in it his property? Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “It’s been nearly three years. Perhaps Lowell has changed, or my resolve has. Who knows, maybe he’s gone off to war. I could tell Hazel what he did, why I left.”

  “You didn’t tell her when it happened. You think she’d believe you now? She’d take your word over her husband’s—a man bold and unprincipled enough to . . . no, Esme. You won’t be going back to New England.”

  “Then the answer is simple. I’ll tell Benjamin I’ve accepted your proposal. That we’re to be married at the first chance. Wouldn’t that settle things?”

  “It might,” he said. “It’ll also likely get you booted from the supper club’s billing.” He held up a hand. “We don’t have time to argue your talent versus Hupp’s objective. Shun his affections like that and you’ll likely be working alongside Cora by week’s end.”

  Esmerelda’s mouth clamped shut. He’d meant cleaning bathhouses. Phin would be shocked to learn the depths to which Cora had sunk. Bells from the Church of the Resurrection tolled. Noon. Phin looked over his shoulder. “Hassan will be here any moment. Look, we haven’t any time—”

  She kissed him—a wanton but tender meeting of lips. It left Esmerelda with no chance to launch into a persuasive argument about how Oscar would find her other work. Conversely, Oscar also wouldn’t find much favor if she were to get herself fired from Hupp’s or if she were to turn down Benjamin’s lucrative offer of Palace billing. With no time to weigh the risks, Esmerelda settled on a lie, meant only to lessen Phin’s burdens. “I’ve had another job offer,” she said. “At the Palace.”

  “The Palace?”

  “Yes.” She forced a tight smile into her cheeks. “I didn’t say anything at first . . . well, because if we were married, you didn’t seem to be in agreement about my performing. I believe I’m clear on all the current obstacles. Regardless, one has to earn a living. I see no reason not to accept an offer of employment that would resolve everything for now . . . until you come back. Your focus, Phin. It’s the most important thing. It could be the difference between life and death. That said, where’s the harm in taking the Palace’s offer?”

  His expression turned contemplative. Phin let go of her, scrubbing a hand around the back of his neck. “I suspect this is why I’ve the good sense to marry you, Esmerelda Moon. You’re able to sort out the answer to any question in my head.” His whole being lightened. He kissed her one last time. She wanted to live in it forever. But as the kiss ended and the embrace held, Hassan was standing at the edge of the alleyway. Time was up and Phin needed to go. He moved to the edge of the alley, their twined gazes the last thing to let go as Phin vanished, for now, from Esmerelda’s life.

  Several days passed. It took that long for Esmerelda to settle herself. It wasn’t anything like the shame-filled, haunted feeling with which she’d left home. Then, she’d spent two nights in an old barn only a mile or two from her house. It had taken that much time to gather her wits, the instinct that said she would survive Lowell’s attack. This pain was more of a tender ache, mostly tied to Phin leaving, perhaps the slight underbelly of the lie she’d told. The one he’d taken with him to war.

  Not unlike when she first set out on her own, Esmerelda left home with fierce determination—even if that determination was all pretense. After the initial wave of melancholy, she decided her most immediate action should be coming clean with Oscar. He’d have good advice, while surely at the same time calculating his commission for accepting a Palace billing. At worst, he’d tell Esmerelda what she already knew: taking Benjamin Hupp up on his offer would tighten the marionette strings.

  Surprisingly, Oscar’s opinion fell to the middle. “So this is what you want. To marry a boy with nothing, less than the gypsies we look down on?”

  “You don’t know him, Oscar. I understand that it’s money that drives you—”

  “It’s money that feeds me, girl—all of us.” He sighed heavily, a sure indication he was irritated but also working the problem. “So why not fall back in with the troupe? Thanks to the truck, I’ve got a new plan for this winter. We’ll get out of New York, head south.”

  “Oscar, why is it the draft doesn’t find you or the boys?”

  He smiled. “If it gets much worse, we’ll likely sign ourselves up. As it is, I’m not sure Mr. Wilson’s army is a good fit for Barney or Bill. That and it’s difficult to draft men with no permanent address.” He chuckled, folding his husky arms. “But I’m not the point. You are. I’m already negotiating dates south of here. New Orleans has a fine theater district, riverboats, and—”

  “I can’t go to New Orleans. I have to stay here. This is where Phin will expect to find me.”

  Oscar spit a wad of tobacco harder and farther than she’d ever seen. “This is why I’ve no use for permanent things. Women being one of them. I can’t conceive of a one that’d make me put down stakes.”

  “One day you might.”

  Oscar didn’t continue that argument but listened intently as Esmerelda went on to explain her motivation. “If I have a contract with the Palace, I’d no longer be in Benjamin’s employ. Isn’t that better than the situation I have now, beholden to the supper club?”

  “And when Hupp learns you’ve accepted another man’s offer of marriage, you don’t think that will change his willingness to follow through?”

  “I’ve considered that. I suspect Benjamin would rescind his offer quicker than you’d run from a good woman.” He started to agree, but the rest of her strategy silenced him. “So what I’m wondering is how much worse do you think things would be if I don’t tell Benjamin about Phin. Not until I secure an audience at the Palace, let my talents speak for me?”

  Oscar snickered. “Fancy yourself pretty clever, don’t you, Miss Moon?” He considered her plan before carving an answer out of experience. “There’s only enough age between us, Esmerelda, that you couldn’t be more than my younger sister.” He leaned against the truck, tapping his knuckles against the shiny black paint, his newly adorned bright yellow advertisement: Oscar Bodette’s Traveling Extravaganza. “If I’d had a younger sister, I couldn’t care more for her well-being than I do yours. The last thing I’d want is for that sister to end up in a spot like Cora.”

  “Like Cora?” Apparently Oscar had also discovered Cora’s new line of work. Esmerelda was regretful. In her own commotion, she’d so far neglected Cora’s fateful choice.

  “I’m not sure who was more shocked when we spied one another at the Elephant.”

  “What are you going to do about it?”

  His wide shoulders shifted. “The girl’s made her bed, so to speak. She won’t be climbing back into my truck.”

  “Oh, that’s fine, Oscar. You’ll sleep with whores, but you—”

  “Won’t have one in my troupe,” he said, speaking louder than she did. “That’s the way of it, Esmerelda. I’m not interested in your thoughts. It’s not my job to keep her . . . decent. You all make your own decisions—Barney, Bill . . . Jimmie. There are things I’ll tolerate. Things I don’t see as a choice.” Esmerelda guessed this was in reference to Barney and Bill’s unorthodox relationship. “Other ways of life are just that. It’s no more than wantin’ out from scrubbin’ toilets. Cora’s not my concern any longer.” He re
moved his derby hat, tapping the brim against the thigh of his thick leg. “I’m only sharing this much because I want you to realize that I see precarious choices. You’re about to make your own. Because it’s you, I’ll do what I can to keep your secrets from sinking you. But I’ll also warn you. You’re about to roll the dice in a chancy game. My advice is to keep your eyes on your lie while saying a prayer.”

  “What is it I should pray for?”

  “Pray for a short war. Pray that Hupp remains the gentleman.”

  “Which thing do you think has a better chance of coming to pass?”

  “I should say war, but for your sake, I’ll say the gentleman.”

  Phin was gone no more than ten days and Esmerelda had already written him three times. Before writing a fourth letter, she approached Benjamin. That morning’s frost appeared like a stage cue, alerting her to the movement of time. She hadn’t seen Benjamin in recent days—not in attendance during any shows. But she did catch him one afternoon in the supper club lobby. In an attempt to get his attention, Esmerelda lightly touched his coat. It was hard not to notice the smooth fabric, well-crafted fit. She asked if he’d been ill, and her concern was true enough.

  “Ill?” He shook his head, looking detached from his usual buoyant self. “No. I’ve not been ill. I’ve been inside my hotel suite, looking out the windows . . . thinking.” His nostrils flared with the breath he drew. If his deep dimples hadn’t emerged, she might have felt uneasy. “War and business. Both have kept me occupied. Did you miss me at your performances?”