Via Dolorosa(56)

“Confused?” said Emma—who looked it.

“Something like a controversy,” Isabella added.

“Oh, that’s just silly,” Emma said. To Nick, she said, “Isn’t that silly?”

“I can’t seem to keep it straight,” Nick confessed. “Any of it.”

Isabella shook her head. “I do not know what that means.”

Placing one of his chopsticks flat on the table, he traced it with his finger. Said, “Straight.”

“How do you keep a painting straight?” Isabella asked. “I do not understand. This is artist talk?”

“Straight,” he said, turning away from her and looking out into the street. A number of people were moving across the boulevard toward the water. They all seemed to be laughing and talking loudly, having a good time. “Keeping with the line. It’s seeing the vision and following it through till the end. Walking the line.” He repeated, “Straight.”

“Straight-straight-straight,” said Isabella. “This is too much for me.”

It suddenly occurred to Nick that, in Emma’s presence, Isabella quite deliberately took on the role of the ignorant foreigner which, in reality, she was anything but. For her, it seemed the donning of a guise—a clever part to play. Nick knew Isabella understood more about the aura of art than he did, and he did not need to explain the straight-straight-straight to her. When alone with her, and without Emma, Isabella Rosales was a different woman. Thinking this now, though, made him feel that he was somehow boring a hole into Isabella’s fa?ade which, for whatever convoluted reason, he did not wish to do, and so he hurriedly chased the thought away.

“Where is everyone going?” Emma asked. She, too, had turned to watch the people move down toward the beach. A busboy, determined to work a patch of dark fuzz from his upper lip into some classification of mustache, came to clear the table. Emma asked him where the people were going.

“Yes,” said the busboy.

“Yes what?” she said.

“Oh, yes,” said the busboy. “Yes.”

“Where are all the people going?” she asked again.

“Oh,” said the busboy. “Oh, yes. Yes.”

“Yes,” said Emma, and broke into a laugh.

“Yes,” caroled Isabella.

“Oh, yes,” said the busboy.

“Yes,” said Emma, still laughing.

Nick paid the bill. Then the three of them walked across the boulevard on the heels of the crowd. Isabella came in between them and took both Nick and Emma by one arm. Isabella laughed and sang while they crossed the boulevard, which made Emma laugh and sing, too:



What is the purpose of a bastardful man



Who beats all his women with a bastardful hand?



What is the purpose of a man without money



Who hounds after women for a taste of the honey?



What is the purpose of a son of a bitch



Who neither is handsome and neither is rich?



What is the purpose of a drunk, loudmouthed fellow



Whose heart is stone cold and whose belly is yellow?





“Oh, that’s terrific,” Nick said.

“Tremendo!” bellowed Isabella, which set both her and Emma off again.



What is the purpose of a gentleman caller



Whose pockets are empty of even a dollar?





They crossed the boulevard and crested the grassy dunes that partitioned the roadway from the beach. The beach itself was a bone-colored strip of velvet against the bejeweled glitter of the sea. Many people had gathered down by the shore. Visible on the water was a lavish cabin cruiser with an exaggerated front deck. The cruiser was too far off to visually surrender its occupants, but perhaps the boat belonged to someone famous, because many of the people gathered at the foot of the sea were waving at the craft, swinging their arms high above their heads and shouting nonsense into the air.

“I could live on a boat like that,” Emma marveled.

“Could you?” Nick said.

“It would be the best way to have no home,” she said.

A blast of magnesium registered on the craft’s wide front deck and, an instant later, a bright pink streak of dazzling light soared vertical into the night sky. The sun had completely set now, and the fireworks were brilliant against the backdrop of night. As the display began, the crowd applauded. A few children ran ahead of their slow-roving parents and balanced themselves precipitously at the cusp of the sea, jumping and shouting and waving their thin, white arms with little fear of falling.

“I love fireworks!” Emma exclaimed.

Watching, Nick felt a weight lift from him and a gentle ease pervade his senses. The fireworks whistled and whizzed and popped. They reverberated in his chest. He felt Emma rest her head against him. Isabella did so, too, at one point. He betrayed no reaction. The cabin cruiser slowly drifted closer to the shore (either that or his eyes simply grew accustomed to the dark) and he could make out a few men onboard now. Occasionally, the men would wave back at the crowd. There were three men, from what he could tell. Purples, reds, oranges, greens, pinks—the bursts of colors brought into alternating relief the coast of Sea Pines and Harbour Town, as well as the blur of onlookers, the flashes of their shadows like the barely remembered fragments of dreams. He felt a hand gently at the small of his back. He did not know if it belonged to his wife or Isabella. He did not move to find out.