I Don't Know How the Story Ends (20 page)

Ranger was the ill-at-ease one. Like a theater usher, he seated us in the three rows of chairs: Esperanza, Solomon, and Masaji at the back, then my parents and his father, and me and Sylvie in front. Aunt Buzzy sat at the piano, which had been turned so that she could see the screen, and opened her score book. I'd taken a peek at it before supper. Each page had a column running down the outside margin, with page numbers for themes suitable for “Monotony,” “Battle,” “Horror,” and so on. Aunt Buzzy had stuffed it with bookmarks.

When we were all settled, Ranger stood before the screen holding a handful of square cards. He cleared his throat.

“I know you're wondering what this is all about,” he began and, in a voice thinned with anxiety, went on to reveal what we'd been up to with our streetcar jaunts and late-for-dinners. He left out the more lurid parts, such as my turn as a Boy Scout and Sylvie's near-drowning and our raid on the Keystone supply hut. During the recital he was plagued by a fly that took a liking to him, and at the fourth or fifth swipe, all the cards tumbled to the floor. When Sylvie bolted out of her chair to help pick them up, she jerked the projector plug out of its socket. All of which prolonged the introduction and created something other than the mood of high-minded anticipation Ranger wanted for his work of art.

“
Anyway
,” he said after regaining his feet, “it's not very long, and what we ended up with is not what I… That is, it may be even better than… Never mind. I guess that's up to you to decide. Oh—we didn't have time to shoot the title cards, so I'll just read 'em. And Buzzy will… Sorry, Mrs. Beatrice Bell has graciously consented to provide the musical moods. Thank you for your kind attention to our humble efforts. Amen. I mean, roll it, Sam.”

Aunt Buzzy struck the opening bars of “Song without Words.” That's when I felt the butterflies in my stomach—very rowdy, obstreperous butterflies, for I had no idea what Ranger had done with my flickering image. I glanced back at Sam, as though to stop the projector by force of will. My mother and Titus Bell wore expressions of amused curiosity, while Father slumped forward and peered up at the screen from under his eyebrows. In the last row Solomon stifled a yawn and Masaji frowned and Esperanza gazed in openmouthed expectation. Sam was a mere shadow behind the projector's powerful beam.

When I turned back, that beam was reflecting owlishly off Ranger's glasses. Beside him unfurled the words
LOVE'S WAIT REWARDED
.

“What?” I queried the screen.

Sylvie could hardly contain herself. “Ranger thought it up,” she whispered, squirming. “Isn't it grand?”

Our names then blazed up:
Matchless – Isobel Ransom. Little Sister – Sylvia Ransom. Directed by R. A. Bell. Photographed by Samuel Patrick Service.

Scene One was a view of the ocean from Santa Monica Beach, and in an unnaturally high voice, Ranger read, “Waiting is life's great trial. Families wait for loved ones to return. Soldiers wait for the enemy's advance… How oft would we fain to speed the hands of time.”

My mother suppressed a small groan. A neatly dressed colored woman and her little son showed on the screen. Who were they? I belatedly recognized the train platform they stood upon as
the
platform. Was this shot taken on the day of Father's arrival?

“They're waiting,” Sylvie whispered helpfully. Ranger himself was the next one waiting, watchfully posed on horseback.

“Ah-ha,” Titus Bell murmured as the scene changed again, this time to Sylvie and me walking on the beach. My expression could pass for anxious expectation, I suppose. Ranger continued: “But nothing can be more difficult than awaiting a loved one who's serving his country in far-flung battlefields.” Matchless, her father's pride (close-up on me, to my intense discomfort). Little Sister, her father's joy (close-up on Sylvie, who barely stopped herself from squealing, “That's me!”).

Murmurs of amusement abruptly stilled when Father's picture appeared—his photograph, that is, the one I so longed to include in our at-home scenes. As “My Country, 'Tis of Thee” transitioned to “Over There!” he faded into views of marching soldiers, including the overhead shot contributed by Jimmy Service.

All murmurs, chuckles, and rustlings had stopped, I noticed.

The unfathomable ocean filled the screen again: “Sorrow came to this house long ago, with the tragic loss of a mother. Now the father has departed as well, and their loving grandmother, in whose care they were left, has been cruelly stricken.” Miss Blanche, in her bath chair, fussed over Sylvie while I hovered nearby. Then the shot of Sylvie in her lap, which in the context seemed unbearably touching.

“Little Sister is a spritely spirit, unbounded by care—” Sylvie ran toward the Santa Monica Pier, coming closer in view, passing, and receding as the camera turned to follow. I had not anticipated how her personality would leap off the screen.

“But Matchless bears burdens unseemly for one so young.” I dragged the picture into gloom with a series of sorrowful shots: fretfully tending Miss Blanche, searching the house for a morsel of food, anxiously standing by the picket fence, pleading with the oblivious Jimmy Service (“The Landlord,” Ranger intoned) as he caroused with his chums.

“Food is scarce, the money dwindles, sickness threatens, the wolf is at the door…” Sylvie and I were walking down the path in the woods, starting at every sound, clutching each other fearfully. Closer and closer, as my eyes widened and Sylvie's grip tightened: “Where will it all end?”

More marching men thronged toward us, like inexorable fate. Then rows of boots, swinging smartly around a corner. A turning point in the story?

As if in answer, the ominous music shifted to hopeful rippling chords. “One day, the long-awaited news arrives from overseas:
Father is coming home!
” I received the word from a mustachioed postman, and Sylvie and I rejoiced together. The relief I felt while watching was exactly as though the future were unknown. But not for long.

“On the long-expected day, Matchless and Little Sister eagerly await their father's arrival. Others also wait.” There was the shot that began the picture, of the mother and child on the platform. A cut to the locomotive's approach on the tracks, and back to the woman's head turning as it passed her. I expected to see the three of us next, in our eager pose, and then it struck me: where was the Dauntless Youth?

He appeared in the shot of us waiting on the platform, but with no preparation or “establishment,” he might not have belonged to us at all. The passenger cars were sliding to a stop alongside the platform, and I felt my heart tightening, exactly as it had the week before while we waited for Father to step off.

The camera caught him early. Not in a true close-up at that distance, but a standard three-quarter that painfully showed his state of mind. His left hand hovered awkwardly about the right side of his face as though to shield it from the other passengers, who avoided glancing his way. My heart went out to him as he stood anxious and alone, looking for us.

I was dreading the moment when Sylvie would throw herself at him, but something else happened first. The porter walked up on Father's right side, carrying a little boy. With a start, I recognized the same child we had twice seen waiting with his mother at the edge of the platform.

Beaming, the porter introduced his son to Father, and vice versa. The two men must have become acquainted on the journey. Father put his hand in his pocket, but the porter waved away the tip. Perhaps the little boy was being told what an honor it was to meet a hero who'd risked his life to save others. The child seemed more interested in the hero's face. As the porter talked, his son's little hand went out and cautiously rested on the man's puckered cheek. All three were very still for a moment.

Then Sylvie shot into the picture, wrapping herself around Father. He turned in surprise, revealing his face and the lack of an arm. A gasp ran through the audience, as though we were seeing him for the first time. Sylvie slipped from his unsteady grasp.

The picture jerked; people would appear and suddenly disappear, or magically skip from one spot to another. That was the cost of eliminating Ranger's handshake and mother's welcoming kiss, but it reflected my jangled feelings at the time. In the shuffle I was the only one who didn't move. My face did not show, but my back—rigid and shocked—told all. The moment when Father finally had to walk up and embrace me wrung a strangled cry from my throat—a cry I couldn't even muster when it actually happened.

The camera never stopped, recording the little procession we formed with Ranger and Aunt Buzzy in the lead. Sylvie grabbed Father's left hand; Mother reached automatically for his right arm and drew back in confusion when it wasn't there. My face showed briefly as I watched them pass—a stony mask. The camera turned to follow us down the platform, nearly empty now. I brought up the rear, falling farther behind all the way to the corner of the station.

Ranger's voice startled us all. “So the long wait is over,” he read as Aunt Buzzy began the first movement of “Moonlight Sonata.” “But what now? Will our little family sink in the rising tide of despair?”

Cut to two heads bobbing in the ocean—at this distance it was impossible to tell that one of them belonged to a dog. Next was me on the beach, screaming. I remembered calling to Sylvie to hold on because Ranger was on the way, but it looked like I was furious, hurling outrage at the uncaring sea.

“Or will they reknit their bonds and learn to take the bitter with the sweet?” Ranger's voice had been gaining strength and now rang out like a revival preacher's. I was wondering if the sermon was for me when a new scene appeared: two wounded soldiers sitting under an alder tree. Sam must have shot it at his mother's hospital. Then Sylvie was skipping beside a pond I recognized from Echo Park, while holding Father's hand. I straightened up in my chair, staring. When had they shot this? Next, they were sitting in the grass, and after a pause, she raised her hand and laid it on the damaged side of his face—exactly like the porter's boy, but lovingly.

A youth in an outlandishly checkered cap wandered by, tossing a ball. It took me a moment to recognize Ranger, as he caught sight of the pair and did an elaborate double-take. His lips moved.

“‘Pardon me for staring, sir,'” Ranger read from his card. “‘But I must ask, have you seen action?'”

Father looked down at the grass with a little smile. It was the way grown-ups often responded to Ranger, and it seemed beautifully natural and commonplace. With a jolt, I saw for the first time that he was
still there
behind that face. I knew that smile from the many times Sylvie was being outrageous and I was striving too hard to act grown-up.

Then Father looked up again and patted the ground. The youth eagerly flopped and began a lively (on his side, at least) conversation with the wounded veteran, during which the Iron Cross medal made an appearance. Meanwhile Sylvie crept into Father's lap and rested her head (close-up) on his chest.

The music shifted to “Morning,” and the camera began to back away, as though tactfully suggesting we had intruded on these nice people long enough. The smoothness amazed me, as if the tripod was on wheels. Which it probably was—another of Sam's innovations? Back and back it went, taking in more and more: ladies and gentlemen strolling, a boy rolling a hoop, little girls jumping rope. If all was not right with this world, there was still plenty of good in it.

“‘While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night, shall not cease.' So time heals all wounds.”

Ranger was reaching into his pocket as he read the last card, and the next I knew, he was holding something out to me: a handkerchief. “I keep
telling
you to come prepared,” he whispered.

I blew my nose with a discreet little “honk” and glanced behind me. Father's chair was empty. The camera was still rolling and piano chords still rippling as I sprang up in a panic. Where was he? I had to see him, had to tell him the angle had shifted and I didn't want to run away anymore. Light from the projector silhouetted me against THE END, and I spotted a slump-shouldered figure in the doorway to the east wing.

I don't remember covering the ground between us. Slamming into his chest was the very next thing I knew, his one arm holding me up, his one word my name, and my one thought:
I'm
home
.

When the lights came up, I gradually realized that the sounds of sniffling at my back came from Mother. Esperanza too. The men appeared unmoved at first, but moving back into the room, I saw Masaji's jaw work as he swallowed, and noticed Titus Bell blinking rapidly.

He was the first to speak after many seconds of shifting, shuffling, and quiet sobs. “Well, old man”—to Ranger—“I'll say this. You young'uns have certainly made creative use of your parents.”

“Yes, sir,” Ranger answered warily, as though he wasn't sure if he was in trouble or not. Then, with one of his quick, bright smiles: “But after all, that's the best material we've got.”

After an impromptu reception with punch and cookies, I ran to fetch something from my room. Now I clutched it with both hands in my lap as we sat together under the low roof of the hacienda's front porch. “We” being Ranger, Sylvie, and me—Sam too, though he wouldn't sit down and kept saying he had to go. He'd removed his collar and tie and looked more like the Sam we knew. But I think he was, for once, fully satisfied with an accomplishment and was taking time to enjoy it.

He told us how he'd aimed at the porter's wife and child only to focus the close-up lens, having no idea who they were or that the boy would later appear in the scene. “That was luck. Having Sylvie echo the action later was Ranger's idea.”

“
And a little child shall lead them.
” Ranger was spilling over with biblical quotations tonight.

So was I:
And the leaves of the tree shall be for the healing of the nations
. Between my hands was the smooth, cool glass of the snow globe. There would be healing; I was sure of it now. We had left the grown-ups in the front room, where they were now sipping wine and discussing grown-up things in a normal, easy manner they'd not been able to before. I kept glancing at them over my shoulder, and once, through the glass of the double doors, I saw Father reach out and take Mother's hand.

“Whose idea was it to back up the camera at the end?” I asked.

“Ah!” Ranger said eagerly. “That was Captain Ransom. He said the thing that helped him most after he got hurt was getting out of himself and trying to see a bigger picture. Sam thought we could show that if we put the tripod on wheels, but he'd have to have an absolutely smooth surface to roll on.”

“Sam made a railroad track!” Sylvie said.

“I found a couple of planed four-foot boards on the lot and nailed guide rails on 'em for the tripod wheels,” Sam explained. “At the park, we got a couple of kids to help us. When the camera rolled off one board onto the other, they picked up the first board and ran it around behind the second so we'd have a continuous track. Took a few tries to get it right, and the jump between the boards isn't perfect, but…” He shrugged, reluctant to heap praise on himself.

“It
looked
perfect,” Ranger said.

It did, I silently agreed. “Weren't you worried about attracting so much attention?” I asked Sam.

He shrugged again. “Not anymore. If you're thinking about my dad, I'm back to being a chip off the old block. He got the projection room for us on Wednesday night—even printed some of our rough cuts so we'd have a little extra film to play with. But that's this week. Next week, if he finds the camera missing again…” Sam trailed a forefinger across his neck.

“So's your old man,” Ranger scoffed. “His bark's a lot worse than his bite. You won't scare me with him anymore.”

Sam made a little snort, then remarked, “I'd better shove along.” But he stayed in the same posture, one foot on the ground and the other on the bottom step.

Sylvie threw her arms around me. “Weren't you surprised when Daddy showed up in the park with us?”

I nodded. Titus Bell had taken Ranger aside and told him he had a lot of brass, getting a war veteran to expose his wounds to public view. But there was an admiring lilt in his voice when he said it. My feelings were more mixed—and Mother's too. I could tell by the enigmatical way she complimented the boys: “It would certainly seem you have a future in pictures. Though not perhaps in subtle diplomacy.”

Au contraire
, I thought,
if diplomacy was the art of getting what you wanted without bloodshed
. I hugged the globe to my chest. Sylvie had begged me to let her make it snow, but I wouldn't give it up. “That's the burning question,” I said. “How did you talk him into appearing in your picture?”

“Just got to know him, like I told you. Since he's interested in photography, it wasn't too hard to get him down to the projection room. Seeing himself on film—that was tough. But from then on, it was easier.”

Ranger was brassy indeed, and where it would take him was probably limited only by his imagination.

“How about that Sylvie?” he said, reaching over to tickle her. “Ain't she sweet on screen?” For an answer, she threw herself at him and nearly knocked him over.

“She's photogenic all right,” Sam agreed. Almost everyone had remarked on this—with some surprise, for I was always considered the beauty. But my personality did not charge off the screen as hers did, and it wasn't just a matter of liveliness—it was a Mary Pickford–like quality the camera adored. “Maybe she oughta be in pictures.”

I recalled how Ranger had launched this project on my appearance, but the one who ended up contributing the least was me. Perhaps I had received the most though.

The night was soft but clear, with stars (the real kind, not the Hollywood kind) blinking sleepily down on us. A light breeze carried the faint, sweet scent of orange blossoms, and I missed California already, though we wouldn't be leaving for another three days.

“I'd really better go.” Sam finally removed his foot from the step. “The old man's waiting up. At least he said he'd be. Wants to know how it went.”

“Will I see you around?” Ranger's brashness seemed to slip for the first time since
The End
had shown on the screen. “I mean, before?”

“Before you get shipped off to Palo Alto? Sure, why not?”

“You're a genius, Sam. I mean it.”

“Well…” Briefly abashed, the genius looked at his shoes. Then, turning away with a sly smile that took up both sides of his mouth: “You're no slouch yourself, Aloysius.”

Ranger sputtered with outrage as Sylvie shook him by the arm. “
Aloysius?
What's that?”

“What the
A
stands for. My grandfather, Aloysius Bell, the Gold Rush flapjack king.
You weren't supposed to tell anybody that
!
” he yelled at Sam's retreating back.

Sam turned around, and somehow I could tell he was still smiling, though the darkness had claimed him already. “Say, Isobel?”

“What?”

“You have the eye of a first-rate film cutter.”

“…I do?”

“Yeah.” I could hear his voice receding as he backed away. “If you come back, I'll show you how to do a split screen. So long.”

Sylvie nudged me. “He likes you!”

“Hush!” I whispered, blushing lest her piping tones reach Sam's ears.

“You know,” Ranger mused, “I think maybe he does. He doesn't give knowledge away to just anybody.”

I thought of a way to change the subject. “Speaking of film cutters, why did you cut yourself out of the picture?”

“Well, if you hadn't been so stubborn there at the end, we might have settled things between Matchless and the Dauntless Youth—”

“That's not it. All those scenes you agonized over…the rally, the rescue…all gone. A boy with your fertile imagination could have worked them in
somehow
.”

“For one thing, there wasn't enough time. But more than that…the story just went somewhere else. I couldn't argue with it. It was one of those times when you feel like you're part of something bigger, and you just have to go along. You know what I mean?”

I did know. That's what his little picture had helped me see, by cutting up our story and rearranging the parts. There were still a lot of pieces to pick up, but now I had a bigger frame to fit them in.

“Besides,” he said in a lighter tone, “I never wanted to be
in
pictures all that much. I just want to make 'em.”

“It was good,” I said most sincerely. “And…it didn't lie.”

“Thanks,” he replied. Then, after a hasty clearing of his throat: “I couldn't have done it without you. Both of you.”

“But I gather it doesn't save you from military school.”

“Nope. That was wishful thinking all along, I guess.” His face took on a mournful cast in the twilight.

To make him feel better, I said, “Try to imagine it in the worst possible terms. Like the prison in
The Count of Monte Cristo
, or something. Then it won't seem so bad when you get there.”

“Oh, yes, it will. It'll be just as bad as I think. But I'll have something I didn't before.”

He meant the picture; I knew that without asking. It was something we all had now that we didn't before.

“I still think you're the wonderfulest boy I've ever met.” Sylvie crawled into his lap, knocking his chin with her head.

Lest we drown in sentiment, I said, “Hollywood will still be here when you get back.”

“I know,” he replied. “This too shall pass. Onward and upward.”

I nodded. “It's always darkest before the dawn.”

Sylvie caught on. “A penny saved is a penny earned.”

He made a noise of disgust. “You girls have no sense of artistic expression.” Then he grinned his broad-beamed grin, and I got the idea that our story hadn't ended yet.