Page 25

THREE

C itarella is temporarily closed. Not for long, according to the store manager out front who’s telling the crowd of frustrated shoppers, just temporarily. It will reopen just as soon as the fire department leaves. Someone set off the alarm, he says, but there’s no fire. No danger. He says it emphatically, a little too much so for some customers, who peel off and reroute to another grocery store up the street. To the prospective customers who remain, including Eddie, who is taking Cookie’s strict instructions seriously, the manager hands out complimentary cans of flavored seltzer. Watermelon, peach-raspberry, and lemon. Eddie, who hadn’t realized he was thirsty until he saw the beads of condensation clinging to the outsides of the cans, chooses lemon.

While he waits, he crosses the street to investigate a striking old building he sees there, a striped brick thing with a soaring circular clock tower and elaborate windows all around. He’s walked past it once or twice already, but never took a closer look. No time like now.

It seems old, like it’s from a different time, one of those buildings in New York that stands out not for its shiny steel or gargantuan size, but for its anachronism. It reminds Eddie of a fairy-tale castle, a folly designed and built in isolation before a neighborhood sprung up around it. If it were set on a foggy hillside or on a cliff overlooking the sea, it would surely be inhabited by a brooding monster or a hapless prince or a family of quirky, comic witches. Eddie can picture them cackling over a cauldron of newts’ eyes and bat wings.

The sign on the front door reads: JEFFERSON MARKET LIbrARY .

But Cookie said Jefferson Market Courthouse, not Library. What gives?

He scans the stonework. A faded etching reads: THIRD JUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT-HOUSE .

A market? A library? A courthouse? Eddie wonders what the story is. Maybe Cookie knows. He’ll take a photo and ask her about it later.

He stands next to the building and aims the camera straight up, framing the spire against the blue sky. The image won’t show all the things he knows Cookie will want to see—people on the sidewalk and all that—but it’s such a beautiful sky today, endless and open, like the sky in Mesa Springs. He almost, but not quite, misses home for a second, then snaps the photo and gathers the little plastic card when it emerges. Before it develops, he turns and points the camera back to street level, aiming it across to Citarella for another picture. Cookie would enjoy seeing the commotion over there.

Except… looking through the viewfinder, he sees that the people and firetrucks gathered outside the store are gone. The store itself is gone. In fact, he can’t even see the building across the street where Citarella should be, because there’s an elevated train track in the way, massive iron legs holding up a viaduct with a train rolling past. The street itself is dirt, not paved, and it is crowded with cars, mostly old-fashioned and boxy, with dull black finishes and slender-spoked wheels. They send puffs of black smoke into the air as they chug along. Two or three much shinier sedans swerve through, sleek and long and languid in their cruising. He also sees a horse pulling a buggy with the words Windy’s Seltzer stenciled onto the side, and underneath, Try it with Fox’s Syrup! A man with a drooping handlebar mustache and the reins draped across his lap sits on a bench atop the buggy. He scowls at Eddie as he and his horse pass.

It’s a vibrant vision, and Eddie would linger in it if he could, but he’s eager to get the photo of Citarella for Cookie. He lowers the camera and rubs his eyes to clear it.

But when he opens them, the seltzer buggy is still there, plodding along in the shadow of the elevated train, through the black cars, the sedans, and the dust. To his left, a man in a bowler hat, his hands tucked into the pockets of his nubby woolen jacket, walks slowly with a woman whose hair tumbles across a faded gray damask dress just skirting the dirt.

To his right, three girls in pale blue dresses with nautical flap collars and mud-spattered stockings skip in a circle, chanting Spanish dancer, turn around! Spanish dancer, touch the ground! A fourth child, younger than the rest, darts around and through them, laughing as she goes. As she dives between two of the girls, one of them snatches her blue sailor’s cap and tosses it into the air. It catches a breeze and lands at Eddie’s feet.

Eddie reaches down to pick it up and notices his own feet. They aren’t laced into sneakers anymore. He’s wearing dusty, worn, black boots with leather straps, boots that look like they’ve walked forever to get to where he’s standing now.

The little girl races over, giggling. She smiles up at him, unafraid and self-assured. “Try it on!” she shouts, but before Eddie can obey, she reaches out and snatches the cap out of his hand. “Mine!” she shouts, still laughing. She turns and runs back to the others, who begin their dance again. Spanish dancer, turn around!

Eddie looks back at the mysterious boots. Where did they come from? He wiggles his toes and feels stiff leather against them. He takes a step and the boots move with him. They fit perfectly. They are his scuffed black boots. And these are his woolen trousers, and his white shirt and black work jacket. And, he realizes when he reaches up, this is his nubby, frayed newsboy cap. Everything feels like it belongs on him. What is happening?

A shout arises from behind him. “She’s coming out!”

Eddie spins to see a crowd of young men dressed in old-fashioned clothes like his, only much cleaner—their trousers much less dusty and wrinkled, their shoes much less scuffed—gathered around the steps at the entrance to the Jefferson Market building. They are buzzing, talking over one another, pushing against one another, flipping their floppy hairstyles and trying to get closer to the door, which is no longer glass, but wooden. A burly man in an old police uniform stands in front of it with his arms crossed, blocking the entrance.

“Back up!” the cop booms. “Clear the way!” The crowd ignores him, pushing even closer.

After a moment, a thud signals the unlatching of the door, and the crowd goes silent. The door starts to swing open, slowly, slowly. Every boy in the crowd cranes his neck in anticipation, Eddie, too. The burly policeman steps aside as the door opens fully and a small, bleach-blond woman in a giant fur coat steps out, flanked by two more uniformed guards, one on each arm, epaulets on their shoulders and thick belts around their waists. They wear smug expressions, as if proud to be escorting her, but they scowl as the crowd erupts into cheers. “Miss West! Miss West! We love you!”

The woman beams unabashedly in response. She strikes a seductive pose in the doorway, and then another, winking and smiling to the crowd as she steps, drawing in their energy, sending it back tenfold. Eddie is entranced. She is like a magnet, drawing his eyes and holding them tight. It’s as if this is a stage, and a spotlight far above the scene is fixed on her. She knows everyone is staring at her as she vamps—the definition of conspicuous—and revels in it. How confident she must be! How self-assured! She is extraordinary, a star!

“My beautiful boys!” she says, her voice barely detectable amid the whoops and shouts. “My pansies!” She raises her arms over her head and throws her hips to one side, then the other, a kind of dance. Everyone follows the movement, throwing up their own hands and hip-switching with her. She laughs, blows a kiss, and starts stepping down the stairs, clutching the guards seductively.

“This is a travesty!” one young man yells, holding up a newspaper with the headline, Mae West Arrest! Police Close Show .

“Anti-American!” another shouts, holding up the headline Mae West Defies Cops! Indecency Is Charged!

Soon everyone in the crowd is shouting. “Injustice! Injustice! Free Mae! Free Mae!”

“Where are they taking her?” one boy shouts.

“Welfare Island!” another answers. “They’ll force her to wear a muslin slip!”

“No, they won’t!” says another. “She’ll bring her own unmentionables! Silk and satin!”

“Boys, boys,” she says, smirking and vamping as she reaches the bottom of the stairs. “Make way, my lovely garden laddies.”

“And ladies!” one boy shouts.

“And ladies,” she echoes, winking.

“Stand back!” Her police escorts push the boys aside as the woman shimmies into the scrum. She doesn’t rush, soaking in the adoration, even as the cops swat their hands away.

A man who doesn’t appear to belong to the core gaggle of boys approaches the woman. He takes a pencil out from behind his ear and taps it on the pad of paper in his hand, ready to write. “I’m a reporter with the Morning Telegraph . Do you think this sentence will end your career?”

She pauses, and the crowd goes silent waiting for her answer. She taps her finger to her chin as if she’s thinking, then turns flirtatiously to the reporter and says with a lazy wave of her hand, “I expect this will be the making of me.”

The crowd erupts in laughter and cheers.

“Goodness, what a beautiful coat!” one boy shouts as she follows the guards through the crowd.

“Goodness?” she says, taking the boy’s chin in her hand. “Goodness had nothing to do with it.”

The boys cheer again. Eddie cheers, too.

She swings her hips and shoulders in exaggerated circles as she walks, playing to the crowd. Whistles and whoops fill the air as she and her uniformed escorts, who, despite their practiced scowls, appear to enjoy basking in her glow just as much as everyone else, approach a police wagon at the curb.

When she reaches the wagon, she turns to the crowd and raises an arm to wave.

The boys cheer. “We’ll wait for you!” they shout, and, “Forever!”

One of her guards opens the door to the wagon. She taps his cheek, like a lover saying good night, and slips inside. The wagon pulls off and away, the crowd of young men chasing after it as it goes, kicking up dust from the unpaved street.

Eddie stands and watches it go, as entranced by her words— Goodness had nothing to do with it —as by her presence. Who is she?

The dust clears, and the crowd disperses, and there’s only one young man left from the crowd. He’s dressed in gray and standing calmly on the curb, looking straight at Eddie and smiling warmly. It’s the boy again, and this time Eddie isn’t surprised but fascinated, not only by the boy’s beauty, but by his familiarity. Almost as if they know each other. Do they know each other?

The spiral of anxiety spins again through Eddie’s stomach. Easy, he tells himself. The boy is not real. None of this is real, right? Just another vision. So why can he smell the exhaust from the police wagon? Why is the dust in the air stinging his eyes? Why can’t he blink this away? The boy begins walking toward Eddie.

Eddie feels for the Polaroid at his side. He raises and aims it at the boy, who stops short. He squints at Eddie, as if he’s trying to figure out what Eddie is doing, what he’s holding up.

And then, a flash of recognition. The boy appears to understand. He brushes his hair off his forehead and smiles. A broad, deep-rooted smile that eclipses everything else in sight. It is an extraordinary smile, infectious, and Eddie feels one start to surface on his own face.

Eddie snaps. The camera begins its whirring and spits out a plastic card. Eddie holds it carefully in both hands. The crowd disperses around him, some chasing the police wagon, others breaking off into pairs, arm in arm. The sole cop left at the courthouse door lights a cigarette, looks around, and steps back inside. A train approaches on the elevated track, its rumbling growing louder. Eddie looks back at the picture. It should have developed by now, but all that’s emerged is a black square. Nothing. No picture at all. Eddie shakes it. Nothing. He shakes it again. Nothing.

“Hello! Hey!”

It’s the boy, shouting over the din of the train, and he’s walking toward Eddie again.

But before Eddie can answer, a siren wails from across the street, sharp and abrupt, like a needle piercing the scene. The sound shocks him, searing his ears. He flinches, stumbling backward and nearly losing his balance. He catches himself on a lamppost, then looks over to see if the boy heard it, too.

But the boy is gone.