Wildwood Creek (8 page)

A collective exhale went out as that knowledge seeped over the room. Suddenly, the plans for this summer became real to me. I’d known for weeks, as much as anyone at the lower levels did, the sketchy details of this thing we were attempting, but I’d been somewhat removed from it. Now, listening as Chevis went on to describe the set under construction—high tech in its abilities to record ongoing life in the town, yet by all appearances, a frontier settlement of 1861—I felt as if I were already there.

“With that, I would like to introduce you to the panel, allow each of them to speak of their particular areas of interaction with you, and then open the floor for questions. As you know, however, we will not be revealing the name of the settlement, nor the location until the ceremonial surrendering of the cell phones as we move to the set. Buses will transport the cast and crew. No communications devices will be permitted. All interaction with the outside world will be via the village post office, which will operate in a time frame most appropriate for the frontier of 1861.”

Around me, hands went self-consciously to purses and pockets, which would have contained cell phones and electronic tablets, if they hadn’t already been surrendered to security at the box office.

This summer would be like nothing we’d ever experienced. If Kim was nervous before we got to the Berman, she was probably scared to death now.

I turned around, scanned for her blond head, and found her trading cell phone numbers with the guy beside her. She probably hadn’t heard a word Chevis said, and maybe that was a good thing. If she really contemplated all this, it could make for a very long weekend. Right now all I wanted to do was finish a project due in one of my classes and catch up on some sleep before it was time to head back to the Berman on Monday.

As usual, Monday came sooner than I wanted it to. I slept right through my first class, made the next two, then hustled off to the Berman. When I arrived, Tova was already in a meeting with what turned out to be the key players in the Costume Department—a tall, skinny guy with a gray ponytail and two women. They were dressed in a funky, casual style, and like most of the people in the departments upstairs, they looked . . . sort of . . . relaxed and fun, compared to Tova.

“This is Allison,” Tova said blandly, motioning me in the door.

I lifted a few fingers and did a little wrist wave, still clutching my backpack, a box of refills for the Kuerig coffee maker, and a bag full of cups, plates, and plastic utensils.

The introductions were quick. The guy with the gray ponytail was Randy, the costume designer, and the two women, Phyllis and Michelle, were his costume supervisors. All three were in their mid-forties, and they seemed friendly enough, which made me wonder if they worked with Tova very often.

Tova gave a backhanded wave in my direction, then turned her attention toward an abundance of sketches laid out on the
desk. “Please feel free to use Allison in
any
way she can be of service to you. I’ve been told that your stitchers will be here in the morning. Our preproduction schedule is horrendously short, as you know, so I am once again asking you to do the impossible, which of course is nothing new. So, if you have personal matters you need to attend to and have not already done so, it would be best to wrap them up now.”

Bracing her hands on the desk, she pushed to her feet, the wheeled office chair skittering backward and bumping into the wall. “I am due at a meeting with the accountants and the lawyers. Allison will show you around the building, make certain you know where to find the various departments, then take you to the space you’ve been allotted. No doubt, you will need to rearrange it to make the shop operate efficiently.”

Crossing to the door, Tova glanced my way, seeming to relish the taste of the words. I had devoted every spare minute the last two weeks to making that space as close to perfect as was humanly possible, and she knew it. Now she’d just set everyone up to dislike it before they’d even seen it.

Don’t say anything. Don’t say anything. Don’t react.
My molars shifted like tectonic plates as she passed by. When she was gone, Randy, the costume designer, smiled at me. “Welcome to the jungle.”

Phyllis and Michelle snickered, and I decided right away that I liked them.

Dumping the groceries, I took them on a tour of the building, introduced them around upstairs, then held my breath when we returned to the costuming rooms, now fully appointed with the latest in shelving, fabric and notion racks, the electronic pattern plotter, cutting tables, dress forms, and the endless bolts of muslin for making dummy garments. I had set up the sewing machines and equipment for the cutters, fitters, and stitchers in a second room.

A nervous little pulse thrummed under my skin as the three of them discussed the accommodations, the work ahead, and how they would set up production. Somewhere along the way, I began to clue in to the fact that they weren’t talking about changing everything. They actually seemed happy with the arrangement just the way it was.

Finally, Randy braced his long, thin hands on the braided belt that seemed the only thing holding up his pants and turned a full 360, surveying the room one more time.

“This looks good.” He smiled at me. “This looks very good. From what Tova said in the meeting, I expected much worse. Someone has put just a bit of time into this place.”

“Just a bit,” I admitted.

“It’s a magnificent job.” He surveyed the territory again. “Yes. This will work. We can do miracles here.”

Somewhere in the distance, I heard angel song. Despite everything, I had gotten it right. Even better, there were now three people in the basement who were . . . nice to me. The road to my future suddenly seemed exponentially brighter. Maybe Tova was determined to squash me like a flea, but Randy, Phyllis, and Michelle were willing to give me a chance. That was all I needed. A chance to prove myself. A start.

Randy homed in on the Computer Aided Design system and the pattern plotter. “State of the art. Even
I
haven’t worked with one this new.”

“He can afford the best,” Phyllis remarked.

“It’s a pretty amazing machine,” I admitted, suddenly feeling comfortable, as if this were my domain, and they had come in as guests. “The technician gave me a lesson while he was troubleshooting it.”

Phyllis leaned over the plotting printer, her spiky hair casting an uneven shadow on the paper roll. “Well, that may come in handy, because Randy’s known for botching the technology.”

They bantered back and forth, and I gathered two things. They had been working together off and on for years, and they knew who was backing this production, but they weren’t saying.
He can afford the best,
Phyllis had said. She was talking about the executive producer. Whether that was actually Rav Singh or not, it
was
someone big, and that was the reason these three people, who clearly had contacts all over the film industry, were here in Texas, in the shadowy basement of an old theater, working with Tova Kask.

Randy paused, looked at me, and scratched his stubbly chin. “What else does Tova have you doing around here . . . besides this, I mean?”

“A little bit of everything. Mostly managing invoices and helping to make sure the loading dock deliveries go to the proper departments.”
Should I mention the three full-time downstairs production assistants that have come and gone already? Probably not.
“The deliveries have slowed down now, though.”

“She did say we could make use of you in whatever way we want, right?”

“She did.” At this point, I was up for almost anything, especially if it involved the new costume shop.

“Then I think we’re going to steal you.” He pulled a set of keys from his pocket. “There’s a white Suburban down in the parking garage. In the back, you’ll find a huge box of notebooks. Those are the costume diaries for our show participants. We’ve been working on them hodgepodge while finishing a film in Canada. Do you have any experience with historical research?”

A giddy feeling started somewhere near my big toe and fluttered upward, lightening my entire being. Costume diaries detailed everything about each character’s wardrobe, from historical examples in old photographs to layer-by-layer
descriptions. Fascinating stuff, and much higher level than what I’d been doing here so far. Upstairs, the historical experts and the Art Department were knee-deep in similar research for the props and building interiors on the set. “I do. I’ve worked on a lot of community and university theater projects.”

“Perfect.” Randy slipped the keys into my hand, and I closed my fingers over them. “Then you’re our girl. We’ll turn the costume diaries over to you. I’ll let Tova know about it. Scamper off, now. We’re on a timeline.”

“I’m already gone.” I was trying for dignified and professional, but I’d only made it a few steps out the door before a giddy squeal erupted and echoed down the corridor.
Today . . . notebooks. Tomorrow . . . hello, Hollywood. Here comes Allie Kirkland.

I couldn’t help thinking of my dad again. Maybe he’d started with a job just like this one. It would make sense that he had. For most people, the film business was about working your way in. I didn’t really know my dad’s trajectory, other than the fact that he was successful and people in the industry respected him. Being ten years older than my mom, he was already directing feature films by the time I came along. His career success, I had a feeling, was one of the reasons my mother was willing to hitch her wagon to an artistic type. Despite my father’s quirks and some epic fights, the two of them were in love. Mom had been in denial of that ever since. Perhaps she thought it would hurt Lloyd’s feelings, but I remembered things the way they really were.

Down in the parking garage, Randy’s Suburban was stuffed to the gills. I found the box, set it on the ground, peeked inside. Atop stacks of notebooks was a list twenty pages thick—the master spreadsheet of cast members and their historical counterparts, beginning with generic cast posi
tions like Kim’s and continuing on to actual people whose lives would be assumed by modern-day replacements in less than two months.

The information within was fascinating. Names. Ages. Known facts about each person, place of birth, links to photographs in genealogical documentation on the Internet, physical traits if they were known—hair color, eye color, height, weight, distinguishing characteristics, build and facial structure, ethnicity. There were details on how each individual fit into the community—employment, place of residence, position in the social structure. I ran my fingers along the rows, read a few of the descriptions, felt the presence of bygone lives.

“Unbelievable.” This was the Holy Grail for a girl who’d been imagining characters and stories her whole life. But these people weren’t just characters. They were real. They had lived. Now they leapt off the page and lived again in my mind.

Clarence O’Day,
born May 1, 1838, Irish, a stonemason and carpenter by trade, husband, father of two, brought family west on the promise of employment erecting housing and other buildings in town.

Sam Horn,
born December 1830, ethnicity unknown, survivor of the Battle of San Jacinto, unmarried, gold prospector.

Ella Lively
, born June 10, 1849, Irish, indentured servant, cook in the Delevan household, brown hair, green eyes, known description:
a child of slight build, and quiet, accommodating nature. She was indentured to the Delevan household for seven years to pay for her passage.

Ella’s place of birth was Durban, Ireland. She’d been orphaned at the age of eleven. She’d be nineteen by the time she finally earned her freedom . . .

But it never happened.

Her date of death was listed as May 27, 1861. There was
a cause of death, as well, and the word on the page caught me unprepared.
Suicide, unexplained
.

My throat tightened, and suddenly I was grieving a little girl I never knew, a child who lived and died over a century and a half ago. I felt her disappearing in my mind, like a sketch being erased, the outlines first, then working inward, the brightest detail—her green eyes—disappearing last. Finally, she was gone altogether.

Shaking off the emotion, I flipped to the last page to see how many characters were listed in total. Over eighty soon-to-be time travelers at this point. The cast was even larger than I’d known. Getting these costume diaries in order was such a big job. I could in no way tell Kim about this. She’d be pumping me for details like crazy. But this, putting together the costume diaries, was the real thing. And Randy was willing to trust me with it.

He wouldn’t be sorry. I’d make sure of that. These would be the most complete costume diaries in the history of film, maybe in the history of the world.

B
ONNIE
R
OSE
A
PRIL
1861

S
omething I’ve eaten on the boat hasn’t settled well. I’m surprised by that, considering there should be nothing more offensive to the stomach than the scraps tossed me during my time in Indian camp. But nonetheless, I’ve been abed for two days now, feverish and not able to keep down even the bit of broth and bread brought by the quiet little Negro girl with the doe eyes. More than once, she’s cleaned up the slop pot and the mess I’ve made.

She’s embarrassed that I keep thanking her for aiding me, but I do it in any case.
Essie Jane.
I’ve learned her name, at least. She isn’t many years beyond Maggie May, perhaps thirteen or so.

I’m wishin’ I could tell her I know what it is to be lashed and bound, to be living as a slave, but I can’t be saying it, of course. Bonnie Rose O’Brien has been left behind. There’s no place for her on this boat that’s making its way up the winding river, fighting the shoals and the snags that grow more dire by the day. Often now, the
New Ila
sits still in the water while the men clear a tangle to allow us passage.

They’re at it again today, and I’m feeling a touch better.
Maggie May troubles me to let her up on deck. It’s made her bearish, the confinement in this tiny room without windows. Her spirit fights against walls. There’s that part of her that wants to break free and run again across the wild lands where there’s not a solid thing, save what God made.

She’d have me turn her out to wander the boat, if I would. But the first mate is on my mind, and the only good result of my being ill is that it’s given us reason for keeping away from the others. Essie Jane has let me know that we anticipate making our destination tomorrow noon, and I’m feeling the relief of finally leavin’ the boat.

But there’s a tightening in me too. The trip overland awaits. The caravan of wagons and supplies taking us to Wildwood will be travelin’ well guarded, but we’ll be moving through untamed country from here to there. I know what can happen in such a place.

“I want to go up and look for the horses again, sister.” Maggie crosses her arms over her chest, in a fitful humor again. Then her eyes take on a pleadin’ look. “Please, Bonnie Rose.”

“What’ve you been told about callin’ my name that way?” My nerves are edgy, worn from the sickness and made raw by worry. There’s little more to do, lyin’ abed than feel the worry-devils nippin’ at my flesh.

I move ’cross the room, lay a hand on Maggie’s head, looking her full in the eye. “What have we been practicin’?
Bonnie,
and Bonnie
only
when you’re speakin’ to me now.
Rose
is the surname. Like a game of
we pretend
, only we’re playing it all the time. Day and night, Maggie May. And when we arrive in our new home, there’s not a soul who’ll be knowing of our shame. And we’ll not tell a thing to nobody. There’ll be no more boys like that Jacob, thumbin’ a nose at you. It’s a new life for us, Maggie May, but you can’t be forgetting yourself. Not so much as once. Are you hearin’ me?” My voice sounds
like Ma’s—so much so that it wrenches my heart like a fist reaching in. That’s how the grievin’ becomes after a time. You’ve tossed off the black blanket, but scraps of it fall on you unexpected, your life always a quilt with a dark patch or two. The Good Lord uses those to show off the bright colors, I think.

Maggie’s eyes are wide and clear, filled with more knowing than a girl of nine should be having. “If we go to the deck, I won’t forget. I’ll be behavin’. I promise, sister.”

“Well and good, then. Only for a bit, though. I’ve not got my legs under me full well yet, but if I stay in this room any longer, I’ll have cottage rot myself.” The men are occupied with clearing the snag for now, and no doubt Mrs. Harrington and the other passengers are on the upper deck, fanning the heat off themselves and watching the progress. There’s little else to do for entertainment other than stitching and gossip for the women, and card play for the men. But even those pursuits grow tiresome. All are ready to make our landin’ tomorrow and set feet on dry ground.

I follow Maggie from the cabin and up to the deck, where we might watch the men work, but after so many days in the dim stateroom, the bright afternoon sun is more than my eyes can bear. I’ve forgotten my bonnet.

“Stand here and don’t wander a bit, Maggie May,” I tell her. “I’ll hurry down and fetch my brim. Don’t be climbing on the railin’ while I’m off.”

She nods and whispers, “Yes’m,” in that quiet voice she uses if others are nearby. On the lower deck, the workers are milling, and nearby, young Jeffrey Harrington and his da watch the clearing of the snag, so it’s well enough to leave her here a moment.

Nearby, an osprey skims the water for fish. Maggie points to it, gaspin’ as it swoops past.

“That’s a pretty thing, now, isn’t it, Maggie May?” I stop in the doorway to watch a moment before hurrying in for my bonnet. By the stair, I pass by Essie Jane with a bundle of table linens. “It is a beautiful day, is it not, Essie Jane?” I ask. No doubt she’s happy to see me up and around. She won’t be having to clean up after me anymore.

“Yes, miss.” She smiles, her doe eyes inching up only as far as my chin, but she’s a tall girl for her age and could just as easily look me in the eye.

“I’ve forgotten my bonnet to go on deck,” I say by way of making conversation, but I know there’s no sense in it. Essie Jane keeps to her business as if her life is dependin’ on it. Having seen the treatment of the male slaves on deck, I wonder if it might be. I question whether Mr. Delevan condones such treatment of living, breathing persons, or if he is unaware of it completely.

“Yes, missus,” the girl says and slides away, eager to let me go to my stateroom. She thinks I’m an odd sort, I’ll wager. To most on the boat, she’s not visible unless they’ve need of something.

The bonnet isn’t where I’d remembered it to be. It’s been lost in all the rubble of my sickness, and I’m a moment finding it. I hope Maggie May is behaving herself on deck. There’s a happiness in me as I go out the door and move toward the sunshine again, and I let the bonnet dangle from my fingers, swinging it as I hum a little tune beneath my breath. For some reason, I’m thinking of Ma and Da and how they loved dancin’. Before we came west, there were parties here and there about the neighborhood, and weddings too. There’s nothin’ like a good Irish gathering for music and dance.

“Well, now, if this isn’t a spry young lass.” The voice surprises me, and I know before looking up that it’s the first mate, Mr. Grazide. He’s just come out a door up a bit from
our own. I stiffen as I pass by, wondering at his business in a passenger’s room. And then I catch a glimpse through the openin’ and see a Negro woman inside, gathering up her mop bucket and her dress all at once. She turns her head away, hiding her shame, and I feel my stomach rising to my throat.

I grip my bonnet strings tighter, my arms straight as bits of wood. Is he wondering if I’ll speak of this to the captain? I most certainly will. I know what that poor woman is feelin’. My heart pounds inside me now, ringing like a hammer on an anvil, molten splinters shooting out. I want to tell him what I think of this, but I pretend I’ve noticed nothing out of the ordinary.

I think I’ve gotten by him when his hand catches just above my elbow, his fingers closing tight enough that it hurts. He whirls me around so I’m facing him with my back to the wall. There’s no place for me to go.

Behind him, the Negro woman slips out the door and hurries down the hall with her bucket, glancing back, her eyes large and fearful as she rushes ’round the corner.

I pull away, but he doesn’t release me, and my mind tumbles wildly back in time, like leaves caught in a scatterin’ wind. For a moment, I’m frozen, and all I can think is,
Not again. Please, Lord, not one more time.

The memories rush over me in sharp shreds, a scattering of glass. I open my mouth to scream, and he covers it with his hand. Over my nose as well, so that I can’t catch a breath.

He leans close, and I smell whiskey, sour and thick. “Tell, and I’ll say it was you who asked for it. Who do you think they’ll believe? You think these fine folk can’t see what you are? Little Irish harlot?” His fingers rake into my hair, pulling hard, and I struggle with all that’s in me, but there’s no use in it. His weight hems me to the wall. I turn my face aside,
catch sight of Essie Jane standing just down the corridor, her eyes wide. I blink, and then she’s gone.

His free hand trails down my neck as I’m trying for air. He presses hard, so I’m choking and coughing against his palm. “Try to make a fool of me at the dinner table, did you?” His fingers slip inside the ribbon ’round my neck, his fingernails scratching jagged over the scars.

My mind is running then, bolting like so many times before, looking for a place to hide from the
now
. Somewhere inside, a voice screams,
Fight back! Find your backbone, Bonnie Rose. You cannot endure this again.

But still, my body stands frozen.

“It’d be a shame if anything happened to that little sister you watch after so careful, now, wouldn’t it?” His chin rubs hard against my hair, twisting my head aside so the pad of his palm can slide the ribbon down and press into my collar. The ribbon slips loose, and I hear a seam of the dress tearing a bit.

My mind dashes farther away—to that place again. That place where nothing stays but darkness. There’s no feeling there. In my wilderness time, it was the only place I could run to.

He stops his perusal unexpectedly, cranin’ his neck up and away from me.
Please,
I whisper in my mind, daring for hope, though so many times on the prairie, the same hope went unanswered. The same plea went unheard.

“What’ve we got here?” He pulls the collar hard. The thread loops pop open. He combs along the scars with his fingertips, soft at first, then harder. “You’ve been in the hangman’s noose.” He shakes my head hard against the wall. A shower of lights explode behind my eyes, brilliant as the Chinese fireworks over the Harbor Bay in Chicago. Beautiful for an instant, then fading into darkness. “Look at me,
girl! I said, you been in the hangman’s noose? Where’d you get this?”

He slowly releases my nose and mouth. I gasp a breath. His eyes bore into me. “You holler out, and that little sister girl is gonna pay. You savvy?”

I nod, cough for air, try to form the words
Yes. The hangman’s noose.
Is a lie better than the truth? I am branded either way. Will he find one more repulsive than the other? The questions rush, swirl, wanting answers.

Of a sudden, he is ripped away from me, tumbling backward, his boots drumming the hollow floor as he staggers, then crashes to the wall, unable to find his balance. It is the captain standing over me then, his eyes fierce and wild.

Behind him, Mr. Grazide staggers to his feet, wiping a drop of blood where his forehead has hit the timber. The redness seeps over his brown hair. There’s a softenin’ in his posture as he lifts both hands. “Now, Cap’n, sir, what’s a man to do when a fiery little strumpet offers herself up, willin’ and waitin’? I know you been fancying her for yourself, but—”

Before I can comprehend what’s happened, the captain’s sidearm rises. “Back away, man, or I will shoot you where you stand.”

Mr. Grazide’s mouth hangs open in horrified surprise. “But, Captain, sir . . .” He lowers his hands slowly, lets them hang motionless at his sides as if he no longer knows what to do with them. “There’s been no crime committed here . . . just an invitation offered, and I’ll wager it’s not the first time, for her. I’ve seen her plying her wares toward the young Herrington boy. She’s not some helpless schoolmarm, this one. Have her show you. She wears the mark of . . .” He’s reaching toward his neck, mimicking my scars, glaring at my collar, where I’ve grasped it together and pulled it high, covering
myself with that and the bonnet. Beneath, the skin goes hot as coals in a billows.

My stomach rises up, and my head whirls. I taste the bile of the small meal I managed this noon. There’s movement down the hall, little more than a shadow. Essie Jane is there. It is she who’s saved me, I know it.

The captain cocks the hammer. “I said stand down, Mr. Grazide.”

My mouth fills. I clamp my hand over it, turn and run, the muscles beneath my ribs tightening in spasms, the bonnet slippin’ from my hand as I reach the door of the stateroom. I barely make the chamber pot before I’m retching and retching.

When I’m finished, I slide down the wall, limp and trembling, hot then cold.

Will my life never be my own again? Will it always belong to the shame?

What’s the use in living this way?

My heart cries out to God, and I wish He’d taken me along with Ma and Da and baby Cormie. This life, this world . . . I’ve no place in it. Pain and shame and surviving. That’s all there is for me now.

A hand strokes over my hair, small soft fingers. I reach for it and clench it beneath my cheek, thinking it’s Maggie May. But she kneels down and wraps herself around me, and I smell her scent of mop buckets and hard work, the sharp lingering of lye. I know it’s Essie Jane.

I cling to her, this living soul who’s come into the circle of pain. She whispers against my hair. “Shush now, shush now, miss. Cap’n gone put dat man off the boat.” Her voice stirs my hair as it coos. “Heard him say dat myself. Say he ain’t gon’ have no such on the
New Ila
. Cap’n a good man, miss. Ain’t gon’ let nothin’ happen to you.”

When my senses creep back, she fetches water and the basin
and cleans me up, then puts me abed as if I’m a child. It’s then I remember Maggie May and the fear strikes me again.

“I’ve left Maggie May by the railing.” How much time has passed? I’ve no notion of it. Mr. Grazide’s threats ring in my ears.

Essie Jane presses me into the blanket. “I gon’ go for her. I go for her, miss.” Off like a rabbit, she is then. And even though I’m ashamed by it, suffering the humiliation of my own weakness, I curl into a ball atop the bed and cry.