Love and Other Consolation Prizes Read online

  Ernest shook his head and went back to his newspaper, where he read about the musical West Side Story, which had swept the Academy Awards. He’d watched the movie, alone, at the Atlas Theatre. The story had reminded him of classic romantic tragedies like Pyramus and Thisbe, Odysseus and Penelope, and of course, that famous tale of the daughter of Capulet and the son of Montague, which in turn made him think of his own years of teen angst and heartache with Fahn and Maisie. That was forever ago. He chewed his lip and turned to things more wondrous and less nostalgic. He was reading about a test pilot named Neil Armstrong when the phone rang in the downstairs lobby.

  Ernest wished the rooms had their own phones as he heard the hotel manager shouting his name up the stairwell. That’s when he realized he was late for his meeting with Juju at the University of Washington—she hoped strolling around the former grounds of the AYP might jog loose a few memories. He grabbed his hat and coat and quickly trundled down the stairs, past the manager, who held the phone out at arm’s length.

  “Tell her I’m on my way,” Ernest said. The man rolled his eyes and smacked on his unlit cigar, as he went back to reading his Life magazine bearing the headline OUT OF THIS WORLD FAIR IN SEATTLE.

  —

  ERNEST CLIMBED INSIDE his old black Cadillac, thinking how he’d once made a fine living with the elegant sedan, as the favored driver of visiting jazz musicians, colored celebrities, and the occasional prizefighter. Gracie had always loved this car as well, and he had so many fond memories of road trips, weekend getaways. But Ernest also had recollections of trips to the hospital, and driving Hanny to Sea-Tac Airport last year.

  Now she’s back, Ernest thought. I have more people to hide Gracie’s secrets from.

  When his wife moved in with Juju and Hanny moved away, Ernest had slipped into marital limbo. He tended a small garden in what used to be Kobe Terrace Park. He volunteered at the Chinese Community Center. And he’d haunted the Seattle Public Library, catching up on scores of books he’d wanted to read. Until he grew restless and paid a visit to Kawaguchi Travel, where Gracie used to work part-time, and on a whim he inquired about visiting Canton. A part of him longed to find the village of his birth, where his mother must have died. But in the end he knew traveling there wasn’t an option—visits had been prohibited to U.S. citizens.

  So instead, Ernest had been forced to settle for a book of Chinese poetry. As he drove, he thought of the words of the great poet Shijing.

  I search but cannot find her,

  awake, asleep, thinking of her,

  endlessly, endlessly…

  Ernest’s route north to the U-District paralleled the gash of construction that had almost healed, leaving a scar the size of a superhighway through the heart of the city. As he saw the towering figure of George Washington who marked the entrance to the campus, Ernest knew that memories had always loomed over him, connecting him to places and people. He waited at a stoplight near the statue, which had been erected when the grounds were being converted to a university campus at the end of the AYP. He remembered that when he was a boy, the sculpture had sparkled, shining almost cobalt blue. But now the first president had taken on the color of dark ash, and his shoulders were covered in epaulets of pigeon droppings.

  We are all a bit worse for wear, Ernest mused.

  After he parked, Ernest fed the meter a dime and donned his hat. He walked briskly across the old red-brick plaza now known as Red Square, toward the old Geyser Basin, which had been remodeled and renamed Drumheller Fountain. Ernest used the reflecting pool as a compass to orient himself. The trees had added the growth of fifty summers and the view of Mount Rainier wasn’t quite as spectacular as he remembered, but if he squinted he could almost recall the grand vista, the cascading waterfalls that had now been replaced by an unadorned walkway. Now the Court of Honor, the massive Government Building, and the Grand Cupola atop Denny Hall were gone. And most of the turn-of-the-century buildings had been replaced by brick structures of a more modern era, designed to please school administrators instead of visitors from faraway countries.

  Students milled about, bicycling from class to class, hurrying from building to building, kissing and making out on the wet grass.

  As Ernest baptized himself in memory, he searched for the surviving buildings that he could remember from his days at the fair. A few of the big halls remained, but their Doric columns were now a patchwork of repairs. He kept walking until he finally found the marble steps of a modest building that looked like its two stories had sprouted up in a thicket of tall trees. The sign read CUNNINGHAM HALL, renamed after the famous Seattle photographer, but Ernest remembered standing atop those steps surrounded by elderly matrons of the Woman’s Century Club and the Daughters of Saint George, raffled off like the strange, peculiar novelty he was.

  He stood there for a moment and looked up at the blanket of wet gray flannel that passed for a Seattle sky, sensing mist on his cheeks, the fresh smell of rain, and the sobering cold that came before the first drops of a heavy spring cloudburst. He watched the hermit sun peek out from behind the clouds, then disappear as though saying goodbye, farewell, nice knowing you. And he heard a low rumble of thunder as though timber were splitting and then falling in some faraway forest.

  Then he spotted Juju, who waved and crossed the parkway. He watched her fondly, knowing that she didn’t just want to meet him at the site of the first world’s fair—she wanted to follow him into the past.

  Ernest buttoned his coat and walked down the steps, as he’d done five decades earlier.

  “I thought you might have stood me up,” Juju said as she met him halfway. They found a quiet, somewhat dry park bench beneath the thick canopy of a red madrona.

  “I was tempted,” Ernest confessed. He sat next to her and watched Mount Rainier disappear as rain began to dapple the ground.

  “To do what?” Juju teased. “Run away from your fatherly duty of giving Hanny away in marriage to Lantern Jaw Legal Services of Las Vegas, Nevada?”

  Ernest nodded. “That too, now that you mention it.” He listened to the thrum of the rain on the leaves above them as the sprinkling turned to drizzle. “I take it you met?”

  “I had breakfast with Rich and Hanny this morning. Interesting fellow. I get it. Hanny’s not the youngest girl on the block anymore, and her clock is ticking.” Juju rolled her eyes. “Then Han came over for a while by herself. Mom recognized her right away, which was amazing…and surprising…and wonderful. Plus Mom keeps talking to me more and more—bits of real, salient conversation. She hasn’t been this engaged in—forever. She even suggested we go out for dinner tonight, if you can believe that.”

  Ernest was as delighted as he was terrified.

  “So, I was thinking,” Juju said. “We could introduce her to Rich at Ruby Chow’s, which was always Mom’s hangout of choice—order all her favorite dishes. We can go a few hours early, before the dinner rush. We can sit near the exit in one of those private booths in the back. She hasn’t been there in years, but Ruby’s staff has known Mom forever, they know all about her condition.”

  Not exactly, Ernest thought. “Are you sure that’s not too much for her?” he asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Juju said as she opened a notebook and licked the lead of her pencil. “It’s more of a baby step—like you telling me what I need for my article.”

  “I suppose,” Ernest said as the drizzle turned to heavier rain. “Do you know what they’d say back in my day? That it wasn’t just raining…it was raining pitchforks and mud turtles. Things were so different then…”

  “That’s the understatement of the year! Especially considering they thought it was okay to raffle off a little boy.” Juju found a blank page in her notebook. “I want all the details that you can recall—no matter how small or insignificant you think they might be. Because, face it, you’re about to become the biggest story of the Century 21 Expo—no one is going to believe this actually happened. Plus my editor bet me a hundred bucks that I cou
ldn’t get you to talk, so there’s that too.”

  “Do I get half if I’m a willing participant?” Ernest asked.

  “Absolutely,” Juju said. “Though we might have to split it three ways if Mom opens up tonight and starts talking as well.”

  Ernest nodded. He thought about Hanny and Rich. About Maisie and the Tenderloin. “Should be a night to remember.”

  PRECIOUS JEWEL

  (1909)

  Jewel’s coming-out party was indeed a grand affair. Ernest had experienced nothing so spectacular during his first month. Not on the normal, frolic-filled weekends, not when Madam Flora had a man from the Seattle Astronomical Society place telescopes on the roof so the girls could watch shooting stars, and not even when she’d hired a seven-piece chamber orchestra to play Vivaldi in the grand parlor to celebrate the autumnal equinox. Ernest supposed that the closest he’d come to such extravagance was reading Great Expectations, in which the wealthy and eccentric Miss Havisham had hosted such lavish parties.

  Madam Flora had arranged to have out-of-town guests stay at the newly built Sorrento Hotel, where welcome baskets awaited them and a perfumed note from Jewel rested on each of their pillows. She then had the gentlemen picked up in style and delivered to the Tenderloin by 8:00 P.M. Ernest manned the door, politely greeting dozens of men who arrived in carriages and limousines dressed in their evening finery. Ernest took their top hats, made of gossamer and fur, and their polished canes and silver-handled walking sticks, and waited for the final name on the guest list, Hiram Gill, president of the Third Ward, patron of the First, and charismatic head of the Seattle City Council. He was the last to arrive, and everyone in the neighborhood seemed to know who he was as they called out his name and offered to buy him a drink or a cigar when he stepped out of a chauffeured sedan. Ladies working the street corners shouted, “Looking good, Mr. Councilman, if you run for mayor you got my vote, darling!” Though they couldn’t vote—not anymore.

  Ernest held the door as Hiram Gill smiled and waved, then sauntered inside and loudly proclaimed, “The esteemed Clara Laughlin likes to say that ‘well-regulated work is the best kind of fun.’ Well, ladies and gentlemen of Seattle, I’m afraid dear Clara got it backwards. I say that well-regulated fun is the best kind of work!”

  Everyone cheered. Professor True pushed his glasses higher up the bridge of his nose and began a ragtime version of “I Love, I Love, I Love My Wife—But Oh! You Kid!”

  Ernest looked at the guest list, checked all of the names, then helped put coats away as the men gathered in the parlor, where they were served Canadian whiskey and sweetwater oysters from nearby Fanny Bay, steamed in the finest French wine. The elegant ladies from upstairs flitted from guest to guest. Before he’d come to the Tenderloin, in his mind’s eye—based on Mrs. Irvine’s stark admonitions—Ernest would have expected the women to be perched on the men’s laps in their underthings, stockings rolled down to their bare ankles, or at least sporting knee-duster skirts. He’d imagined them lighting cigars, drinking to excess, and flouncing about. Instead they all wore floor-length princess dresses of raja silk and smoked machine-rolled tobacco from long, gold-tipped cigarette holders. The women sang along with Professor True, solo, in duets, or in the occasional harmonic trio. And whenever the piano player took a break, the ladies would hold court, putting their elocution lessons to the test. One young woman gave a brief drawing room lecture on Turkish girls and life in a harem. Several took turns elegantly reciting romantic poetry by Lord Byron, Emily Dickinson, and Oscar Wilde, from memory.

  Ernest listened and thought of Fahn as one of the girls spoke: “And there is nothing left to do but to kiss once again, and part, nay, there is nothing we should rue…”

  Ernest peeked into the kitchen, where Fahn and Mrs. Blackwell were hard at work basting stuffed pheasants and garnishing steaming cups of creamed barley soup. Fahn looked up at him, licked butter from her finger, smiled, and blew him a kiss. Ernest quickly shut the Dutch door, adjusted his tie, and sauntered back to the parlor.

  He noticed that even Miss Amber had cleaned up splendidly for the occasion. She had donned a wig the shade of pink cotton and wore so much makeup that Ernest hardly recognized her. She smiled at the guests and whispered orders to the servants, moving them around like chess pieces on a board. The only person missing—aside from Jewel, who would be presented later, and Madam Flora, who was waiting in the wings—was Maisie. He’d heard Miss Amber earlier yelling at the Mayflower to put on a dress and act like a lady for once. Ernest smiled at the thought.

  As Professor True played “Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland” and sang, “Come with the love-light gleaming…,” Madam Flora made her entrance, descending the grand staircase in a flowing gown of shimmering red and gold sequins. While all eyes were on the matron of the house, Ernest slipped upstairs to retrieve a set of grooming brushes so he could properly tend to the haberdashery. As he passed Maisie’s room, he was startled to hear gentle weeping. He hesitated and then peered past the partly opened door. But Maisie wasn’t the one in tears. It was Jewel, who sat on the edge of the bed in a simple dressing gown as Maisie held the older girl’s hand.

  “It’s probably cold feet. You just got a case of the morbs.” Maisie spoke softly, gently. “It’s happened to other girls. It’s perfectly normal.”

  Jewel wiped her eyes.

  “When Madam Flora brought you here, you were practically being forced by the county shelter to marry an old widower you didn’t want to be with. This is different—this is better. It’s just one night, Jewel Box, and you’ll be rich tomorrow instead of cleaning up after another woman’s children, or out there drifting on your own, hoping some clod treats you to a nice dinner or a string of pearls that you can pawn to pay your rent.”

  “I know that”—Jewel sniffled—“I know I’m so much better off this way. But what if he’s some disgusting monster? What if I can’t go through with it? Or what if no one wants me, what if no one bids…?”

  “Who wouldn’t want you?” The whispered words slipped out of Ernest’s mouth before he could stop himself. He covered his mouth.

  Both girls froze and looked up at him.

  “I’m sorry for eavesdropping,” Ernest whispered, “I didn’t mean to. I came upstairs to get something.”

  “You didn’t see a thing,” Maisie snapped. “And you didn’t hear a thing.”

  Ernest stepped into the room. “I heard enough. But I would never tell a soul, I promise you that. It’s just…” He knew exactly how Jewel felt, being put on display, worrying that he was merely part of some terrible joke. He handed his pocket square to Jewel. “I don’t know you all that well, but what I do know is that you’re smart, and kind, and beautiful, and honestly, who in the world wouldn’t want a girl like you?”

  Ernest thought Maisie might groan at the sentiment, but she said nothing.

  Jewel dabbed at her eyes with the handkerchief. “Well aren’t you a keeper? You’re a regular blue serge, Ernest.”

  Ernest wasn’t sure what she meant, but her words sounded kind. He wondered where Jewel might go if she didn’t go through with it. And whom she might end up with if she went downstairs.

  “They’re all rich and educated and come from proper families, but money doesn’t automatically make you a gentleman, does it?” Jewel asked of no one in particular. “If all those fellows were as decent as you, Ernest, this might not be so hard.”

  Maisie suppressed a sarcastic snort. “Unfortunately, he’ll probably grow out of it. He’ll just be one of them eventually, minus the bank account. Come on, let’s get you cleaned up,” she told Jewel. “And, Ernest, I’m sure you’re needed downstairs.” She took the damp handkerchief and handed it back to him with a wan smile.

  Ernest nodded as he heard the dinner bell ringing from the kitchen. He slipped back downstairs, returning to his station in the dining room just in time for Madam Flora to begin her first toast of the evening—one of many.

  —

  AFTER A NINE-COURS
E meal, which included poached salmon with mousseline sauce, parmentier potatoes, pheasant lyonnaise, cold asparagus vinaigrette, and three courses of wine, the guests were invited to the smoking lounge for a cigarette course and a dessert of fresh fruit, cheese, and Waldorf pudding.

  Ernest had never seen so many grown men in distinguished suits titter like schoolboys—they seemed giddier than Ernest after his taste of fairy floss at the AYP. He thought their behavior was merely due to the abundance of alcohol, but he fully understood why such anticipation filled the room when the real dessert cart arrived.

  Ernest gaped at Jewel as she was wheeled in, lounging atop a polished silver truss. Maisie led the way in a plain dress, showering the room with white rose petals. Jewel looked lovely, innocent yet decadent as she sank her teeth into a Red Delicious apple, staining the fruit with her freshly painted pomegranate lips. Her long auburn hair had been curled so the tips framed her perfectly powdered cheeks. She smiled, the way she’d been trained, and wagged her manicured finger at the men who got too close. She wore a shimmering gown of radium silk, trimmed with Cluny lace and pearls, and a diamond-studded headpiece (which belonged to Madam Flora, according to whispers). The tiara glittered in the lamplight. She seemed to have left her tears and doubts and sadness upstairs as she slowly orbited the room, the guests bowing and gushing their praises. She made eye contact with Ernest for a fleeting moment and then looked away.

  Madam Flora offered a toast of tawny port and then proudly announced that the bidding would begin at one hundred dollars. In American currency, she added, noting that one of the guests had come all the way from Vancouver, British Columbia.

  That’s when Miss Amber asked Ernest to answer a knock on the front door.

  As he reluctantly stepped away from the spectacle, past Professor True, who was still playing, Ernest cast his mind over the guest list. Everyone who had sent an RSVP was accounted for. And besides, who would be showing up at this late hour?