Love and Other Consolation Prizes(87)

As Ernest read the final page, he cleared his throat, drew a deep breath, and changed the ending. He gave Gracie what he thought she needed, a grand rescue at sunset and a happily ever after for good measure.

She furrowed her brow as he closed the book.

“People don’t find real happiness in the end, do they, young Ernest?”

He regarded the wrinkles on his hands, the loose skin. He didn’t feel so young anymore. “I found you, all over again—that makes me happy.”

Gracie pursed her lips and stared into the past.

“I remember…” She paused. “I remember you and Maisie. I miss her.”

“That was a long time ago,” Ernest said. “I miss her too.”

They sat in silence for an endless minute, as Gracie continued searching, weighing something in her mind. Ernest heard a siren in the distance.

“You…should have been with the Mayflower,” she said. “She offered you the whole world. And you missed your chance…somehow…I messed things up, didn’t I?”

Ernest watched as Gracie’s gaze swept the small room, the old books, the sepia photographs, the magazines that featured the Century 21 Expo, the newspapers with Juju’s bylines, Hanny’s latest head shots, Rich’s business card, her own reflection in a glass of water, distorted and yet transparent, like her memories.

Gracie fidgeted with the button on her blouse. “You never asked what happened at the Tangerine.”

Ernest nodded—she was right about that. Over the years he had never wanted to engage in that particular conversation—it was ancient history as far as he was concerned. But he also realized that those tarnished memories were cobwebs now, blocking Gracie’s view. She needed to acknowledge them if she was to have any chance at moving forward, cleaning them from the sills of her mind.

“I didn’t need to know,” Ernest said. “And I never asked because I didn’t want you to have to relive a moment of what happened.”

Gracie nodded and stared out the window as though she were only partially listening. “I remember the strangest things, you know. I remember the way Madam Flora wore those feathered hats. Miss Amber’s wigs. I remember laboring in the kitchen…the warmth of the oven, the smell of freshly baked bread, the scent of coal oil and perfume, the wine bottles and old, dusty carpets and drapes. But that wasn’t the Tangerine, was it? That place smelled like…lye. And vinegar. That place…was run by a man named Jun.” Gracie paused, then she shook her head. “That’s not right either, is it? Whoever they were—I never knew their names, but they seemed nice at first.”

“Gracious.” Ernest held her hand and shook his head. “You don’t have to…”

But she ignored him, kept talking, kept trying to remember. “They charged us rent, gave us…secondhand clothes. They told us that we owed them for the cost. The other girls…were working on contracts that never seemed to end.”

Gracie stood and looked into a dressing mirror. She reached out, touched her reflection. “At first…I sleepwalked through the men, dozens of them, sailors, cannery workers—their hands smelled like salmon and fish oil.”

She touched her cheek as though recognizing herself. “But my pride couldn’t keep up with my body. So I said I wanted to leave…I wanted to go home. They refused.”

Ernest watched as Gracie drew a deep breath. Then another.

“They…locked me in my room. And when I banged on the door for hours, they gave me something…that made me…sleepy. When the medicine wore off, I said…I was going to run away, shouted that I was going to call the police. Said that I knew people. That’s when they took my clothes. They kept me in a room with nothing more than a lamp and a bottle of poison. I suppose most of the girls just ended it there.”

“But you’re not most girls,” Ernest said.

Gracie slowly shook her head. “With my memories, I lit the fire. I thought of you and Maisie as I took the lamp oil, and I splashed the walls, the carpet, and I set the bed aflame. I felt the heat on my bare skin, tasted the smoke. I thought that if I was going to die I was going to bring the roof down around me. That’s when the owners came bursting into the room with buckets of sand, yelling…and I ran.”

You’re still running, Ernest thought.

“I burned that filthy place to the ground, didn’t I?”

Ernest nodded, oddly proud of her. He remembered worrying that someone might have been hurt, or killed in the blaze. That the police would come around and arrest her. But no one had ever come. He later realized that they’d have been upset only if the Tenderloin had burned.

Gracie glanced around the room. She cocked her head as she looked out the window. “What am I doing here, young Ernest? What is this place?”

“We’re…together, like we’ve always been.”

“No…” She shook her head. “What are you doing with me? You shouldn’t be with me. I’m…holding you back. You should be with Maisie.”

Ernest sighed. “That ship sailed a very long time ago.”

Gracie furrowed her brow. “She goes by Margaret.”

“We’re all grown up now,” Ernest said, nodding. “We survived.”

As Ernest watched her struggle to reconcile the past with the present, he thought about the book he’d read to her once again—about tragic endings that couldn’t ever be fixed. But that’s when Ernest understood. Sometimes you need to feel the sadness, you need to feel everything to finally leave it behind, to have peace.