Dangerous Neighbors (11 page)

She blinks. He leans a little closer, confides: “World of wonders on the other side.” He smells of lemon. He smells of chewed hay, horse sweat, smoked ham, smoke. Katherine’s fingers knot into one another, and now she turns to find the soda girl, who is hopelessly and profoundly unhurried at the counter’s other end. Katherine’s hands announce her discomfort. She unclasps them, looks forward, toward the mirror, looks back down at the counter again, and feels the man’s elbow suddenly high in her side. There are white rays around the man’s eyes, lines, and the watches on his vest report vastly different times.

A huckster
, Katherine thinks, and she thinks, too, to leave, but the crowd presses from behind, and she hears her mother’s heartless voice in her ear: “Don’t run from whom you’ve become. There is no one else to hide with, Katherine. From now on, you’re on your own.”

Thank you, Mother
, Katherine thinks.
You are so kind. You should have seen me for who I have become. You should have asked me what happened. You should have given me the room to be forgiven
.

You should have shown me that you cared
.

“World of wonders on the other side,” the man says again, meaning Shantytown, Katherine concludes. She hates his rattling voice, the raw flinch and spackle of it. She glances the opposite way, and now as she looks down at the bar she finds herself confronted by a filthy scrap in the huckster’s hand—something drawn and distorted, lewd.

“Delicious,” the man says, the scribble in his palm. “And not far either. Close by.” Bile rises to the back of Katherine’s tongue.

“Excuse me,” she says.

“Anything you like.” He lifts his free hand to Katherine’s chin, threatens to touch her, calls her lovely, and after everything, this is the thing that undoes her—this one word,
lovely
, and with her own hand she reaches for his and cuffs it. His skin is like chicken skin. The knuckles on his hands black and bristled.

“A little bit of kick, have you now?” the man says, laughing, putting his lips close toward Katherine’s ear. “I like kick. Always fancied it. Thought to myself when I found you here, now—”

But she’s loosened her hand from his, and she’s turned, facing the crowd, thinking how, if Anna had not done what Anna had done, Katherine would have been spared all this in the first place, the awful red rage of it, the push
through the crowd, the sound of the girl at the counter, calling after her now, about the soda.

“Lovely.” She hears that word again and now in every angle, mirror reflection, corner, shadow, sunbeam, there is the possibility, no, the probability of her sister’s lover. For months Bennett has been seeking Katherine, and Katherine has been spurning him, and there have been letters left, and she will not read them, and she has heard him call her name out on Walnut and she has taken off running.

And there he was, just those few days ago, at the Colosseum. Saving her only because he wants to talk and because she has not yielded. Because he has something to tell her, but what good will it do? He wants her to forgive herself, but why? Katherine is not required to open her heart, not once or ever again. She senses Bennett. She smells him. She lifts her shoulders and lowers her head and through the Centennial crowds she starts walking. Toward the stairs that will lead to the tower that will lead at last to flight.

S
HE IS BREATHLESS FROM THE CLIMB AND FROM THE VIEW
, which renders the Brunswick diamond an undetectable glass mite, the tapping of the telegraph as mute as a pulse.

There is the scent of flour in the air, indisputable and rising.

From where she stands, the spaces in between things look like streets, the rows and rows of American silks like they belong in a department store, and in the benches hunkered down before the music stands whole families wait like congregations for the entertainment to begin.

The organ doesn’t sing, it exhales—filling the volume of the Main Exhibition Hall with elaborate moans and peeps. The sound works like a hand in water, sending pulse waves through the minnows below, or at least that is how Katherine, from her perch, has come to see this crowd: as scales and fins, pooling and scattering.

She sees him now.

He sees her.

She turns, but there is nowhere to go.

Not moving as the multitudes pass by, as the elevator
slides, raised up by its bed of steam, its immaculate cables. Not shrinking. This is the future, not the past. This is where the present ends. He will say his piece, be done with it. She will tell him thank you, and seem content to live. He will leave her free, at last. That’s the only way out, the only plan. Finally, Katherine understands this.

The fountains beneath Katherine have gone off and died down—a hush and haunt. The telegraph is self-assured, every tap as crisp and right as the last. Through the stained-glass windows the sun has come, thin rays of red and blue that press a shine down hard upon things.

Bennett has begun to move—down the thoroughfares, between the crowds, toward the stairs that will bring him up. She stays where she is.

And yet.

At this very instant, coming toward Katherine in a hurry up the steps, is a young woman Katherine’s own age—her eyes alert and alive, her arms encumbered by a baby, her aspect cheery and unguarded. The young woman’s costume is the color of blueberries and impeccably modern with its slender collar and shoulders, its complicated cuffs, each finished, Katherine notices at once, with five royal purple buttons and a crisscross of amber thread. It’s the sort of dress that Anna would have picked out for herself and paraded about in the upstairs hall, anticipating Bennett’s appreciating eye, demanding Katherine’s. The sort of dress
that Katherine herself would never choose, for it requires an innate confidence in one’s own beauty.

“God-awful organ,” the young woman proclaims, as if this were any other day, as if Katherine were not in the high ascent of her own final act, and Katherine nods. “Lottie’s certainly had her fill.” A little out of breath, the color high in her cheeks, the young woman swivels the baby so that Katherine can see the plump face, the ruffled lavender gown. The child has her whole fist pumped into her toothless mouth, the other hand twisted about the young woman’s thick-chained necklace. She has no bonnet on her head, only whorls of soft brown hair. The baby is six months old, Katherine guesses. Maybe nine.

“Yours?” Katherine asks feebly, her mouth dry, her head fizzy. She casts her eyes out over the floor, and sees Bennett caught in the clot of people who have come to see the telegraphs work. He is watching her. He is snagged.

“Heavens, no,” says the young woman. “My niece. My sister’s down there somewhere, lost in Brazil, I imagine. Or Italy. I came up here to scout her out. Lottie thinks it’s time for us to find her mother. Don’t you, Lottie?”

Lottie’s eyes go bigger. The fist remains plunked down in the wet grotto of her mouth.

“Bird’s-eye view from up here,” Katherine says.

“Something like that. I’m Laura, by the way.” She tips forward, for she has no free hand to extend.

“And I’m Katherine.”

“You’re from here? A Philadelphian?”

Katherine nods. “All my life.”

“So you belong here. We’re in from Iowa. Iowa,” Laura repeats, rolling her eyes. “It’s our last night here. Just my sister and me and her daughter. She left her husband at home. Which is good for all of us.”

Laura laughs, and when she does, Lottie drags her fist out of the
O
of her mouth, surprising herself with the whopping, sucking sound.
How close is Bennett?
Katherine wonders.
How far?

Laura turns the baby again and positions her high on her left shoulder, then rotates herself and leans out rather precariously over the rail, scanning the floor below.
Fearless
, Katherine thinks,
like Anna. Alive
. “I wonder where she’s gone to,” she says. “My sister, I mean.”

Katherine turns and peers out, too, over the exhibits, the crowds, the spaces in between—leans far out, like a less cautious person would, and the truth is, she does not see Bennett; the crowd has consumed him. Strange, she thinks, and she doubts herself, doubts the tricks her own mind has played on her since Anna’s dying—the in-and-out of the past, the relentless remorse.

“Look at that bright red hat,” Laura says now. “The one with all the feathers.” Katherine scans the crowd and stops her eyes at the music stand, where five or six women in
wheeled chairs have rolled in and a whole phalanx of people press behind. A mass of Chinese men have appeared at the front, their strange hats and black hair stirring a slight commotion, but the biggest commotion arises from the tower of red on the head of a woman who seems, from this distance, to stand some six feet tall.

“I could use a sarsaparilla soda water,” Laura sighs. “I think I’ll miss those most when I’m gone. Not the technology, but the fizz.” She closes her eyes and smiles, as if conjuring the sweet drink. “I will not, however, miss the oysters,” she says, wrinkling her nose. “Do you chew them, or just let them slide?” Lottie snivels and Laura gives her a bounce. The baby whimpers and Laura changes shoulders, and suddenly Katherine will do anything on behalf of this new, impossible friendship.

“I could watch her,” Katherine offers, but is this what she wants? Taking this child on? Holding on for a while more?

Laura turns and looks searchingly at Katherine. “You would do that? Really?” The baby has dropped her grip on the necklace in favor of her young aunt’s chin, which she’s pawing with her fist. A bead of sweat makes its way past Laura’s ear, and now sits ready to plummet down the pale cavern of her neck.

“I have rather had my fill of the exhibition,” Katherine says, her voice sounding strange to herself, “and I prefer the view from up here. Besides,” she says, touching the back
of Lottie’s head, smoothing her dress, “your niece seems in need of a new variety of entertainment. All this stuff”—and Katherine gestures toward the exhibition hall—“is just so much stuff after a while. Even a child can see that.”

Laura looks from Lottie to Katherine and back. She glances down across the exhibition hall, as if scanning the floor one last abject time for her sister. “Actually,” she says, “it doesn’t sound like a terrible idea. If you’d be willing, I’d be grateful.”

“I’d be willing,” Katherine says.

Laura gives Katherine one more long look, then fits her hands beneath the tiny cups of Lottie’s arms. Katherine reaches and suddenly Lottie is hers—a warm, damp weight and two scrunched-up, needy fists. Katherine moves the child about until she fits in her arms. Laura reaches in and smoothes the child’s dress.

“I won’t be gone long. And if you need me—if she fusses—just come and find me. You’ll be able to see me from here.”

“We’ll be fine. I’ll walk her about a bit. Keep her distracted. Take her upstairs, to the rooftop, for the broader view.”

“Let me give you something. Get you—”

“You’d take the fun out of it for me. Really, you would. We’ll just go and have a look around. We’ll meet again, right here. Five o’clock?”

“You’re the nicest Philadelphian I’ve met all week long.”

Katherine laughs. “There are others,” she says. “Honestly.”

Laura smiles. “You be good now, Lottie,” she says, touching her finger to the child’s miniature nose. The baby squirms and kicks out her feet. She starts to fuss, and Katherine moves her from one arm to another, adjusts her grip. “She’s got a mind of her own,” Laura warns.

“Well, that makes three of us.”

“Do you want anything? Are you sure you don’t?”

“I’m sure.”

“Five o’clock, Katherine,” Laura says, putting a lilt at the end of Katherine’s name, a near question. “Right here at the turn of the stairs. I promise.” And then: “Thank you.”

Glancing back over her shoulder, Laura takes long strides toward the steps. Then she turns, straightens her shoulders, and smoothes her hands across her blueberry costume. Lottie kicks her little cotton-swathed feet. “Now, now,” Katherine says, but Lottie squeals. Katherine resettles her, but the child protests again.

“Mind of your own, is that it?” Katherine says gently. “What do you say to a change of view?” Bundling the bobble of heat even closer, Katherine steps toward the uprising stairs, where others are headed—all afternoon they’ve been headed—to get the rooftop view of the Centennial grounds, of Philadelphia, of the world, as far as it will yield. The elevator slides by them, and Katherine doesn’t care;
she climbs. Pressing against Katherine’s chest, Lottie waves her tiny clenched fists. Sometimes her face rubs against Katherine’s.

“What do you think so far?” Katherine whispers into the child’s ear, midway up the stairs. She feels a warm wet tear begin to fall from her right eye, her lungs sobbing for air within her chest, something going weak in her arms. Lottie gurgles her approval. Katherine places a kiss upon her cheek and refuses to glance back over her shoulder. Bennett will find her soon enough. Bennett will come, but she has Lottie.

“Wait until we get to where we’re going,” Katherine promises, and now Lottie laughs a brilliant, hiccuping laugh, as if she’s already imagining the wonders of the view, as if she has it within her power to keep her keeper safe.