Love and Other Consolation Prizes(77)

Ernest struggled to his feet with Fahn cradled in his arms. Her body was cold, and as she went limp, he heard the wail of a siren. He thought it was a motorized police wagon until he saw flames erupt from the windows of a building five blocks away, tongues of flame illuminating old brick, licking the sky as clouds continued to weep. It was a crib joint, the Tangerine.

The fire brigade arrived shouting, “Move!” and “Make way!” as more bells rang.

Women shrieked and fled; dozens of men with axes and buckets, a horse-drawn steamer, a hose wagon, and a new motorized chemical engine made their way up the crowded avenue.

Ernest opened the passenger door to the car and set Fahn in the backseat as gently as possible. He found all the driving robes and covered her shivering body. With a small lap blanket, he tried to dry her long hair, which clung to her face like swashes of ink, strange letters, foreboding characters. Her lips were pale, and she began to shake.

“It’s going to be okay,” Ernest said, though he wasn’t sure.

Then Fahn drew a deep, shuddering breath, as though she’d kicked her way to the surface of the ocean, released from the grasp of a hidden current. She blinked and looked around. She stared, recognizing him as the rain dripped from her bangs down her cheeks. She swallowed and cleared her throat, smiling, trembling as she spoke. “A-a-are you still going to marry m-m-me?”





STILL


(1962)



Ernest sat in his apartment at the Publix while Gracie slept in the bedroom.

After his arguing with his daughters at the hospital about where she should go, Gracie herself spoke up. “If you don’t mind…I’d like to go home with young Ernest,” she said with tired eyes. “He always took excellent care of me.”

I did, Ernest thought.

From that moment I found her bleeding in the street, I never let go again.

—

JUJU HAD BEEN furious—at the doctors who murmured about Gracie’s unstable behavior and how she’d be better off in a mental hospital. And at Ernest for thinking Gracie would be fine back in Chinatown and not at Juju’s house on Queen Anne Hill.

But as Ernest stared through the cracked window toward King Street Station, he knew that while his apartment was certainly lacking, Gracie’s home was with him. That had always been true, except for the time when she’d become lost to herself. And to him. At least the neighborhood still had a certain familiarity. Despite the good and the bad, there was also peace. In the end Gracie had chosen to be here, and she seemed more comfortable now. Though she didn’t always remember him as her husband, she now always remembered Ernest as her friend—a beacon, a safe harbor. After a day of sporadic rest, always waking up with him nearby, that was still the case.

Even Juju had to relent then.

Ernest stretched his back and tried to relax as he read the Sunday Seattle Times. It was the World’s Fair Souvenir Edition, THE LARGEST EDITION IN THE PAPER’S HISTORY, or so a front-page headline declared in bold black and blue type.

Gracie still wanted to go to the expo. In her waking moments, that was all she talked about—often mixing up the new fair and the old.

Ernest skimmed articles about pencils and postcards being given away; stories about livestock judges from France; the Spacearama featuring twenty-five UFO experts and astronomers from around the world; even photos of the feathered, high-heeled showgirls who would be performing Salute to Ziegfeld. Nothing surprised him anymore, not even reading about the Russian cosmonaut Gherman Titov, who’d visited the fair last week and had offended everyone by stating that he didn’t believe in God. “I,” he declared, “believe in man and science and the future.”

The future, Ernest thought. Everyone in town seemed to be happily abuzz, even at the hospital, where silk-screened Century 21 decals had been slapped on doors and windows. It was a collective celebration—the future was here, ready or not. Meanwhile a part of Gracie was still marooned on an island somewhere in the past.

Ernest was finishing the paper, reading about abstract paintings that had been hung sideways at the Fine Arts Pavilion, when Rich, Hanny, and Juju arrived. They carried an enormous basket of flowers and a bouquet of helium balloons that swayed and twirled beneath the ceiling fan. Ernest watched their strings slowly twist into a knot.

“Someone from church sent these,” Hanny said with a smile. “The manager downstairs asked me to bring them up.” She put them in a corner of the room where other arrangements from the hospital had already begun to wilt.

Ernest smelled something savory and was surprised to see that Rich had a familiar carton on his lap, tied with twine. Hanny’s fiancé undid the string and folded back the lid, tilting the box so Ernest could see inside.

“The Lun Ting Bakery?” Ernest asked in disbelief.

“Hanny said these were your wife’s favorite comfort food.”

“Mine too,” Ernest said as he took one of the bau. It felt warm as he peeled the wax paper from the bottom and bit into the pillowy pastry, a barbecue-pork-filled cloud. He could smell the mushrooms, the scallions, even before his taste buds could react to the filling. The buns were a welcome change from the bland hospital meals he’d been subsisting on for the past few days.

“How’s Mom reacting to her new surroundings after her little setback?” Hanny asked. She reached into her purse for a pack of Winstons. Ernest watched as she lit a cigarette with a matchbook from the Golden Apple Nightclub down the street.