Yesternight (22 page)

The conductor loosened his grip, and Michael tripped sideways, holding out his arms to catch his balance.

“Watch my bags,” he called to me. “Take them to the hotel for me. I need to think. Oh, Christ.”

He turned and lumbered across the street. A car skidded to a stop to avoid plowing him down, but Michael kept going, disappearing into the night.

I
obtained two rooms at the Brighton Hotel but remembered nothing at all of the face of the man who'd jangled the keys my way, nor of the décor of the lobby, which may have included a Christmas tree. I paid the clerk to deliver Michael's bag to his room and whisked myself behind the closed door of another room, one story higher, where I dropped down on the edge of a bed that smelled of the colognes of strangers. My head throbbed from the echoes of Rebecca and Michael's war over Janie—the pushing and pulling, the tears, the pleas, the panic, the rage. I feared Michael had wandered off to die. I worried Janie now sobbed in that westbound train, traumatized even more than during her dreams of Violet's drowning.

I covered my face with my hands.

Oh, God,
I thought.
What am I doing here? What have I done?

All of the successes of the day spent with the Rooks shattered to pieces.

I debated calling Bea for advice, but thought better. She would only chastise me for giving up time with our own family. She would remind me of my status as an interloper.

Interloper.

That's what I'd become.

School psychologists did not climb aboard trains with students' families during the Christmas holiday. They did not bother strangers in other states to explore bizarre phenomena that would make ministers and regular psychologists quiver with discomfort. They did not cause women to shout lewd accusations about their sex lives in front of a crowd of people in railway stations. They did not consider throwing away their entire careers to jump headfirst into the world of psychical research.

And yet . . . part of me didn't care if that's what my life was to become—if that's how people viewed me.

Crazy reincarnationist
.

Bossy go-getter.

Slut.

I had tried to be a good girl. Oh, my Lord, after hopping into boys' beds, how I worked until my brain ached; how diligently I had played by the rules. I had stopped seeing men altogether, dressed in skirts that fell well past my knees, and wed myself to a “female-appropriate” stratum of a male career.

And where had such sweetness landed me?

Tell me,
I asked myself as I held my head between my hands in that stagnant hotel room that lashed me with its silence,
why should I care about my reputation, when my reputation is stifling me? Killing me? When everyone assumes the worst anyway?

T
HE ONE FEATURE
I remembered from the narrow hotel lobby was a wooden telephone with an attached coin box. Once I composed myself and powdered my nose, I ventured downstairs with my coin
purse in hand, my chin raised, my footsteps steady. The scents of broiled steaks and seasoned soups drifted through an open doorway that led to an adjoining restaurant, just a few yards beyond the telephone, which hung on a dark wooden wall that separated the lobby from the staircase.

“Is there something I can help you with, miss?” asked the clerk from behind the front desk.

“I would like to use the telephone.”

He nodded toward the phone. “Help yourself.”

“Thank you.” I walked over to the contraption and lifted the earpiece from the latch.

“Number, please?” asked a female voice at the other end of the line.

I moved my lips closer to the mouthpiece. “I need to place a station-to-station call.”

“Please tell me the long-distance number you would like to reach, as well as your name and number.”

“I'm trying to reach the Hotel Yesternight outside of Du Bois, Nebraska. My name is Miss Alice Lind, and I'm calling from”—I squinted at the numbers written on the phone's information card—“Sycamore 4322.”

A short pause ensued, during which the operator must have been jotting down my information. “Thank you, Miss Lind,” she then said. “Please hang up while I put the connection through. I'll call you back at Sycamore 4322. The charge will be twenty-five cents for the first three minutes of conversation.”

“Thank you. I appreciate your help.” I hung up.

Down the hall, the clerk lifted his head of thinning brown hair.
The youthful fullness of his face and smoothness of his skin indicated that he wasn't much older than I—perhaps thirty at most—but his hair, swept over a bare patch on top, fought to age him. That balding business was one of the only cruel jokes men's bodies played upon them, or so it seemed to me. I wondered if it was a fair trade for pregnancies and monthly bleeding, for drooping breasts and ballooning bottoms and the distinct notion that one was being punished with illegitimate children, while the chap involved simply got cozy with a brand-new girl . . .

I strolled over to the clerk on the thick heels of my oxfords. “Do you happen to have anything I could read for fun while I wait for the operator to call me back? I'm afraid I've already read all of the books I brought with me on the train.”

“Um, well . . .” He pivoted around and bobbed about, as if he wasn't sure whether he should bend down and scrounge around for reading material on some lower shelf, or if he should just admit that he didn't have anything. “I have a railway timetable.” He stood up straight and slid a folded piece of paper across the counter.

“That would be quite helpful, actually. Thank you.” I picked up the schedule and gave it a cursory glance. “After I receive my call, I'm planning to eat in the adjoining café. If the man whose room I reserved—my brother—if he enters the hotel, will you please direct him to the restaurant? He's blond, in his late twenties, and stands close to six feet tall.”

“Certainly, miss.”

“You haven't seen him yet, have you?” I rose to my toes and looked out the window beside me. “I'm a little worried about him.”

“It's not that large of a town. I'm sure he won't get lost.”

“I'm sure you're right. Thank you.” I meandered back down toward the telephone and opened the timetable to study my options for traveling to Nebraska. The telephone hovered in the corner of my right eye, but its little gold bells stayed silent.

With a sudden squeal of arctic air, a man opened the front door. I jerked my chin upward, but, instead of Michael, I found a young brunet couple, huddled together. The gentleman of the pair wrapped half of his coat around the young woman, like a bird nestling its young under a wing. I stepped over to one of the lobby windows and scanned the darkening streets.

Seven minutes later, the telephone rang. I lunged for the machine and grabbed the earpiece, and the operator instructed me to deposit my coins, which I did with sweating fingers.

After the money clattered into place, a male voice traveled down the line: “Hello, this is Mr. Al Harkey of the Hotel Yesternight.”

I tottered; my knees buckled. Precious seconds of my three minutes flitted away.

“Hello?” asked the man again.

“Hello,” I said, breathing into the mouthpiece. “I would like to inquire about the availability of rooms at your hotel.”

“When would you like to stay?” he asked.

“As soon as possible. Are you closed for Christmas?”

“No, we only close for a week during March when my wife and I celebrate our wedding anniversary. We're open through Christmas, specifically for those of you Spiritualists who only have time to visit during the holidays.”

“Oh, I'm not a—” I shut my mouth, not wanting to waste more time by explaining that I wasn't a Spiritualist exactly. “I plan to travel by train from Brighton, Kansas, to Du Bois, Nebraska, to
morrow. Would you happen to have a room available for me tomorrow night?”

“Yes, there's plenty of room. We had two other guests scheduled, but they canceled due to the weather. May I get your name?”

“Miss Alice Lind.”

There was a pause at the other end. “Did you say ‘Lind'? L-I-N-D?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Now, that's odd . . . Just yesterday a telegram arrived for someone with . . . I believe it was addressed to someone with your last name.”

“Really?” My heart gave a queer jump that made my fingertips tingle. “No one's expecting me to arrive there. Are you sure it was ‘Lind'? It's easy to mistake the name for another one.”

“I could be wrong. I'll have to ask my wife where she put it. How many are in your party, Miss Lind?”

I hesitated, glancing out the window once again. “One . . . perhaps two. My husband isn't sure if he'll manage to take time off work.”

“Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that.”

I cringed at my own lie—at my hubris for assuming that Michael might abandon his troubles and tag along with me. “Thank you,” I said. “How would I best reach the hotel when I arrive at the depot?”

“A train arrives at a quarter past three. Try to get yourself on that one. I'll drive into Du Bois and pick you up.”

“That's awfully kind of you. Are you sure you wouldn't mind?”

“Blizzard conditions are expected tomorrow night. I recommend you don't arrive any later than that particular train.”

“I'll be there at a quarter past three. Thank you so much for your help.”

“I'm looking forward to meeting you and your husband, Mrs.—or did you—did you say ‘Miss'?”

“It's
Mrs.
Lind. Thank you. I'm looking forward to meeting you, too. Good-bye.”

I hung up and attempted to walk to supper on legs that wobbled and bowed.

A
FTER DINING,
I
inquired again at the front desk about the arrival of my “brother” but received a headshake and an apology from the clerk. Just to be certain Michael hadn't shown up without anyone noticing, I opened the door to his hotel room. Only his tan leather suitcase resided within those snug quarters.

“May I sit down here in the lobby and read while I wait for the gentleman?” I asked the clerk, a Willa Cather novel that I'd purchased on the coast tucked under my left arm. “I wouldn't be taking the chairs from any other guests, would I?”

Only two chairs occupied the lobby, scarlet ones, planted next to a small table bearing a three-foot-tall Christmas tree.

“Certainly you may read down here,” said the clerk with a little brush of his fingers through that thin patch on top. “Most of our guests are out visiting family right now. They'll return once they tire of the relatives whose houses they didn't want to sleep in in the first place.”

I chuckled and thanked him and noted that a clock mounted on the wall behind his desk showed the time as half past seven. I promised myself that if Michael didn't arrive by eight thirty, I would seek out the local police station.

Did he perhaps hop aboard the next train?
I wondered.
Would
he have dared risking the ire of that bulldog of a conductor a second time around?

I seated myself in the rightmost chair of the two and leaned forward to better speak to the clerk from around the Christmas tree. “Are there any speakeasies in Brighton?”

The fellow cleared his throat. “I wouldn't know that information, miss.”

“All right. Fair enough.” I sank back in the chair and read.

Eight o'clock arrived.

Eight fifteen.

Eight twenty.

The worst possible scenarios flooded my mind: Michael throwing himself off of a bridge. Michael strangling a woman who resembled Rebecca. Thieves strangling Michael. Bloodshed. Arrests. Sanity trials.

At eight thirty, I shifted about and peeked out the window. The lobby sweltered from the oppressive heat of a fireplace that blazed as though fighting to warm a castle. I fanned myself with my book and struggled to breathe air that seared my lungs.

“Are you all right, miss?” asked the clerk.

“Yes, I'm just worried about . . . my brother. It's getting awfully late.”

At that, the door opened.

Michael stumbled across the threshold with such a clumsy to-do that his cap slid off his head and plopped onto the floorboards. He laughed at the sight of the little mound of tweed splattered in front of his feet.

“Michael!” I rose from my chair. “I was just telling this man how worried I've been about you.”

Michael flashed a grin and sauntered my way, reeking of liquor. His eyes had become two faint-blue life preservers, drowning in a bloodshot sea.

“Do you remember, Alice”—he pointed straight at me—“you asked me what Vlad the Impaler would be like if he returned for a second life?” He stopped in front of me and tottered. “Well, I figured it out. Good old Vlad came back from the dead as Rebecca Simpkin O'Daire, queen of the fucking whores.”

“Hey!” called the clerk from down the way. “Mind your language, sir.”

“Yes, please stop cussing.” I brushed snow off of Michael's right shoulder. “I understand why you needed to drink so much—really, I do. But don't get yourself arrested. That won't solve a thing.”

“You care about me so deeply, Alice. Don't you?” He placed his hands on both of my cheeks and leaned in so close, his breath stung my nostrils. “You really and truly care about me. And you care about my Janie.”

“Yes, I do.” I grabbed hold of his wrists. “So please don't say or do anything else that would spoil my compassion.”

“You're an angel sent from heaven.”

“No, not quite.” I leaned my face away from his booze-soaked lips, which lingered rather close to my own mouth. “Do go to bed, Michael, and sleep off today. If you behave nicely, I'll be here to help you in the morning.”

“I went to the depot . . . to buy a ticket back home.” His eyes pooled with tears. “But that son of a bitch . . .” He glanced over his shoulder at the hotel clerk before lowering his voice. “That
conductor
was prowling around out there again. I don't understand why Bec took her away from me.”

“I know . . .”

“I don't understand. I helped solve the mystery of Violet Sunday. I gave Janie everything—
everything
—she's ever needed, and I helped prove it, damn it. We proved she's not crazy.”