The Midnight Cool Read online

  Charles would wait for her in the decided spot, his heart pounding, jumping at every creaking branch or squirrel rustle. When she came they would kiss until their faces were raw in the cool autumn air. It would get cold when the sun dropped, but they never noticed. Heat. That was all he felt. Heat rising up off of her skin. Heat in his blood. Heat in his bones. Heat between their knocking front teeth. Once, an old groundskeeper walked into the boathouse, and Charles had pulled Catherine so close to him against the shadows, and they had stood so long, hardly breathing, until the old man went back out, that it took hours that night for his hot blood to cool down.

  That day he told her the story about his father. The streetcar accident in Philadelphia, the heartless family, his mother left with nothing. As she listened her eyes got sad. She reached out and touched his face, eyes full of understanding. Yet she rarely talked about her own family, except to say how much she missed Edmund, who had written to say that he had arrived in Paris. Let’s change the subject, she would say, if he asked her about it, or she would find something to tease him about. She did love to tease, which made it so hard to read her. One time she said she had a dress for every day of the week, and as he laughed he realized it wasn’t a joke. Another time she told him she wasn’t a virgin and when he nodded gravely she gave him a shove and said, Shame on you, Charles! It was odd but she reminded him of Billy sometimes. The way Billy could tell any story in the world as if it was gospel truth and you’d never know until later that half of it was made up.

  She still gave him a hard time for believing her when she said they ate off of gold plates. After a while it became a little game they played.

  What’s for supper at Everbright tonight? he would ask, wrapping his arms around her, and she would wave her hand and say, Oh, quail with dollar bills and crushed diamond sauce. Oysters—and pearls. And for dessert nothing but a dish of ice cream with bananas and walnuts and rubies on top.

  How long ago it seemed now, the day he had watched her eat that sundae in the window of the soda fountain. And yet sometimes she still felt so out of reach, even after he had kissed her hot mouth all evening. When his first paycheck arrived he had gone up to Court Square and bought a new hat at Suddarth’s department store. When he came out she was sitting on a bench, eating a bag of popcorn, and he ducked into an alley and watched her, awestruck, just stood there and watched her hand lift each golden kernel to her perfect lips.

  Names

  Bristol

  Maura likes to try out her stage names on him.

  Dusty Rose, she says. Lillian Loveworthy. Maybelle Mayhem. Princess M.

  Billy laughs. How about the Mysterious Monkey Mistress?

  His own name is invented, he admits to her. He was William O’Maonlai when he left the island, but when he stepped off the boat onto American soil, he was William Monday.

  No reason, he says to her. I changed it just because I could.

  She sighs happily, nodding.

  This is a hell of a country, isn’t it? she says. You choose your story. Then you go out and make it happen.

  Boneshakers

  Bristol

  There are bicycles everywhere in Bristol. It is the height of the craze. The horses hate them. There are countless accidents. Buggies overturned, riders thrown. The streets are nothing short of chaos.

  Maura is a crack rider. She has sewn lead into the hem of her skirts, to keep them out of the way of the wheels. She tries to teach Billy. He is hopeless.

  I see why they call these things boneshakers, Billy grumbles. He has fallen again. He rights himself, kicks the tire. Give me a horse any day.

  He looks at her. Anyway where the hell did you learn to ride a bicycle?

  Fella taught me, she says, and his face burns and he gives the thing another kick.

  It takes all afternoon, but she teaches him. They ride all the way out to see a baseball game, Bristol against the Johnson City Miners. He sits beside her proudly. She spends the whole game watching the Dukes and the Kings. Their children sit in a row, eating popcorn and peanuts.

  Those little boys will never want for anything, she says. They are practically aristocrats.

  Well, he points out. After all, they’re Dukes. And Kings.

  When they ride back to town, they pass a house that burned to the ground in the spring. There is still rubble everywhere and they stop to see if there is anything of value. A cheap tin frame around a blackened photo, the newel of a bedstead. Something catches on the leaded hem of Maura’s dress, and Billy bends to carefully extract it. Someone’s spectacles, lenses gone, wire frames twisted.

  Later that day they are up on the knob, collecting persimmons. He calls them permissions, a weak joke, maybe, but it makes her laugh.

  With your permission, Miss Maura, he says, slowly unbuttoning her shirtwaist. In the air is the first snap of autumn. Here and there, a few leaves, red and yellow, as if paint has dripped on the trees. A perfect stillness. The mountains around them are a bluish bowl. Nothing beyond even exists. Certainly not California. His fingers taste of her, and the sweet sloppy orange fruit. He lays his head in her lap and she puts her fingers in his hair. Above the trees is a cloud shaped like a hand. He looks up at it and whistles.

  Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do

  I’m half crazy all for the love of you

  It won’t be a stylish marriage

  I can’t afford a carriage

  But you’ll look sweet upon the seat

  Of a bicycle built for two

  She sings back to him, as she always does:

  William, William, I’ll give you my answer true

  I’d be crazy to marry the likes of you

  If you can’t afford a carriage

  How can you afford a marriage?

  Yes I’ll be damned if I’ll be crammed

  On a bicycle built for two

  They laugh. Then her brow wrinkles.

  What’s the matter?

  I’m just thinking of that house down there. That poor family. God rest their souls.

  You ain’t afraid to die, are you?

  No I ain’t. Not at all. But I’ll miss you when I do.

  Well then I’ve got it.

  What?

  Let’s not die.

  Climbing up the Golden Stairs

  You’re a good secret, Catherine said to Charles one night.

  I don’t want to be no secret, he said. They were sitting on the rickety staircase on the back side of the Paradise. He was watching a rat nose around in the alley. He felt about as good as that rat. She had been at a party, and had been late meeting him. Earlier he had been tying up two mules on Court Square when he saw her heading there with Cherry and a pack of boys. She was walking next to Wad Taylor, and had taken his free arm and laughed at something he said, causing him to take an awkward misstep with his cane. Charles’s hand had curled into a fist around the mule’s lead.

  That’s not what I mean, she said. She sighed. I’ve never known anyone like you. I like being with you. Even if we have to sneak around.

  Moths were weaving in and out of the streetlight’s glow. Late in the year for moths. One fluttered past them and Charles reached up and closed his hand around it and then let it go. He had followed the group all the way to the house where the party was going on. Then he had stood in the boxwood hedge and watched them through the window. Cherry Tisdale played the piano and they all sang along. ‘Come On and Kiss Your Baby.’ ‘Climbing Up the Golden Stairs.’ ‘The Ragtime Mockingbird.’

  Well then, he said, let’s quit sneaking around.

  Below them a man walked around the corner into the alley, whistling. Catherine started.

  She had been saying lately that she was afraid her father suspected that she was up to something. She said that he had been acting strangely, distracted, that he had been shorter with her than usual and even more distant. But when Charles pressed her for more, she would close up, as she always did when she talked about her family.

  I’m not afrai
d of your father, Charles said. He looked up at the streetlight, thinking of Billy’s busted face. No matter what he did to that horse.

  She looked at him, confused. What he did to the horse? What do you mean?

  Ah, I don’t want to tell you, Cat. It’s too ugly.

  I can handle anything, she said. Believe me. Nothing shocks me anymore. Tell me.

  He explained to her that the black mare, to end up so vicious, had most likely been beaten, terribly and repeatedly. Just talking about it made him angry, that men could be so cruel. She listened silently, nodding, biting her lip.

  Well then that poor animal’s just another thing he ruined, she said finally, and shivered. She rubbed her arms. She was wearing a heavy blue coat, though the evening was warm for October. She was all done up for the party, her hair swept back.

  She looked up at the moths.

  Sometime I just feel like I’m on an island, all alone, looking out at everyone else on shore.

  One of the moths circled down and flew between them. She turned to him. There was a furrow between her eyebrows. Her mouth was pinched, serious.

  Can I trust you?

  I told you, Catherine. I told you I’d always be a gentleman. I told you.

  She shook her head. Oh, Charles. That’s not what I mean. There’s no one in this town I can talk to—

  She leaned forward and pulled an envelope from the pocket of her coat and handed it to him.

  This is Ed’s latest letter. She tapped it. Go on. Read it.

  Charles unfolded it.

  Dearest Cat,

  Well I moved again, and now they’ve got us stationed at a big old chateau. Photo enclosed. You’ll agree it makes old Everbright look small. They’re keeping us too busy for much fun, though. French lessons and driving lessons from dawn to dusk. Does Cherry miss me something terrible? Tell her to be good. Tell her if I’m home by Christmas I’ll bring her a little something from Paris that will make her knees knock.

  And you. I do worry about you, Cat. Now that I’m here I can see how bad it is there. It’s a hell of a weight for you to bear, Cat. It might be for the best, in the end, how it happened. If she were still alive I hate to think how life would be. You need to forgive him, Cat. I think you’re in worse straits than I am, Cat, and I am headed to the Front.

  With it was a photograph of the chateau. Edmund had drawn an X over one of the windows and written on the back, My room. Charles looked at it for a long time. He was right about it making Everbright look small. What was she trying to tell him? He had no idea.

  She was looking at him expectantly.

  I don’t understand.

  She shook her head. I don’t even know where to begin.

  He put his arms around her. After a while she reached out and took the letter. She touched her fingertips to her forehead.

  Have you got a cigarette?

  He rolled and lit two cigarettes and handed one to her. She took one pull and then ground it out on the landing. She folded the letter carefully. Before she tucked it back into the envelope, she kissed it. Her hands were shaking. She said she sometimes dreamed that she could go over to Europe too. She had read a story in a magazine written by an American girl who had gone to the war as a nurse. The girl had said it was the only worthwhile thing she could think to do with her life.

  Charles hurled his cigarette on the ground. He did not like all this talk of leaving. The war’s no place for a girl like you, he said.

  At this she reared back, nostrils flaring.

  Look at Mata Hari! Or Edith Cavell. Florence Nightingale. There’s plenty a woman can do. Why, in Paris girls are driving taxicabs!

  Is that what you’re trying to tell me? You’re going to Paris to drive a taxicab? But Cat. We’re only getting started.

  She shook her head, pulling farther away.

  That’s the thing, Charles. You’re only passing through here yourself. Someday you’ll be gone and I’ll still be here—

  She wrapped her arms around her knees and looked over the edge of the staircase to the alley below.

  I’m so tired of being on the outside, looking in. At that party tonight, that’s exactly how I felt. Wad Taylor recited one of his poems and I nearly cried. How did it go? It was called ‘Brothers of the Gridiron.’ ‘Valorous men—something—something—’ Wait. I have it now. ‘Valorous men, they spar and clash, free of doubt and—something—and fear. While here I sit, just half a man, no power but to cheer.’

  She looked at him, her eyebrows knit together.

  That’s how I feel, she said. Powerless.

  His face burned, remembering the way she had taken Wad Taylor’s arm and made him laugh and stumble.

  Maybe you’d be better off with another fellow, he said sharply.

  Charles. Please. I don’t think you’re understanding me. She stood up suddenly. Let’s not sit up here any longer. Let’s walk.

  Walk? he said. They never dared walk together.

  It’s dark. No one will see us. She was already standing, groping for his hand. Come on.

  They walked down the alley, along the back sides of the buildings, past the ash bins and rubbish pails. He was mad at himself for getting so sore about Wad Taylor. Sometimes he felt his jealousy was a wall he put up between himself and the power of his feelings for her. Like some sort of fire curtain. Otherwise the heat was too much to bear.

  What had she been trying to tell him? You need to forgive him, Cat, her brother had written. He thought of what Billy had said: That girl’s got a weight on her shoulders. He wanted to lift it for her, if she would let him. But the more time he spent with her, the more her mystery deepened, and the more he feared that whatever the weight was, he might not be strong enough to shoulder it. Sometimes it made his heart quail. Lately just looking at Billy’s battered face could make him sink into panic that he was in over his head, had been since the moment he paid Leland Hatcher for that maniac horse. Poor Billy. The bruises on his face had faded to a sickly yellow-and-green patchwork, and his gone teeth made his cheeks drawn as an old man’s. He could still hardly drag himself across the room.

  Just another thing he ruined, she had said about the horse. What did she mean?

  Now that they were walking she had cheered up. She was teasing him and had slipped her hand into his coat pocket, and it was so exciting, to be out in the open with her, walking, even if it was in an alley. They walked all the way out to a quiet neighborhood behind Court Square, where there were no streetlights and no one was around. He found himself trying to steal a glimpse through windows, just as when his mother used to take him up to Solar Hill in Bristol, and he would try to filch for his own self a bit of the happiness he perceived in the people inside. In one house a man and a woman, alone, were in their living room, waltzing to a record on a gramophone.

  I’m tired of it too, he said to Catherine, watching them. Being on the outside looking in.

  He pulled her to him and kissed her. Right there in the middle of the street.

  She stepped back from him.

  I’m sorry I’ve been so blue, she said. I haven’t scared you off, have I? Cherry always tells me there’s nothing a fellow likes less than a girl who’s blue.

  He shook his head and pulled her back to him, his blood throbbing with desire. I can’t think of a single thing that would keep me away from you, he said.

  They went back towards Court Square, keeping to the alleys. She said she wanted to see his mules. She said she didn’t care who saw them. Her sadness had disappeared completely, replaced by a boldness that seemed on the edge of reckless. It excited him.

  Alright, he said. Let’s go see the mules.

  They stood right there together in Court Square. At first he jumped at the few figures who appeared out of the shadows, but they were all low types, coming or going from the blind tiger, paying them no mind. She was making a big fuss over the mules, petting them and talking to them. He lit a cigarette and watched her, so pretty next to those pretty mules in the dark. Strange to
see her with them but it had been a strange night. He felt as if he knew her somehow better and somehow less. She had started to open up and then had closed up tighter than before. Thinking of how she had let him kiss her in the middle of the street, he smiled. She was a hell of a girl. Someday when he was better set up with a place and a position they wouldn’t have to sneak around and it would all be different.

  Over on East Main, two drunks shouted at each other. Catherine didn’t even seem to notice. She reached over and took his cigarette from between his fingers and took a pull.

  King Midas, she said, letting out a thin line of smoke.

  Who?

  She handed the cigarette back. They make me think of King Midas.

  Charles had never heard of anybody named King Midas. But he made a noise that he hoped made out like he had. The drunks moved on up the street, still arguing, in the direction of the depot. Now they were alone.

  Catherine touched the mule’s neck.

  Well everyone knows the story of how he wished that everything he touched would turn to gold. Bad thing to wish for, it turns out. Wife turned to gold. Children turned gold. Got pretty lonely to be King Midas. But there’s another story, how afterwards he was cursed. The gods gave him donkey ears. He was so ashamed he kept them hidden under his hat all the time, even in bed, except to have his hair cut. Only one day his barber couldn’t keep the secret to himself. So he ran down to the river and whispered it on the bank. After that, whenever the wind blew, all the reeds and rushes would whisper his secret. ‘King Midas has ass’s ears! Ass’s ears!’

  She sighed. The mule next to her stuck his head between them. She reached up and touched his nose.

  My brother told me that story, a long time ago. It reminds me of my father.

  The mule swung his big head towards Charles. Charles stuck the cigarette between his lips and reached up and gave the animal a pat behind the ear, roughed him up a little and talked sweet to him. Then pulled away suddenly, embarrassed by his tenderness.