The Marbury Lens (24 page)

Henry isn’t real.

Conner isn’t real.

Nickie isn’t real.

Marbury is.

I kept playing with that lens in my pocket, flipping it over and over again through the thick denim of the jeans. But I was too terrified to touch it, knew that in my weakness, if I did, Jack would be gone again; and I’d completely destroy any slight chance I’d have of rebuilding things between me and Conner, between me and Nickie.

I couldn’t help it. I wanted to go back to Marbury so bad that it was starting to hurt again, so I tried to do anything I could to distract myself. I folded Conner’s note and put it inside my pack; then I started picking up the clothes I’d thrown all over the floor, shoving them into my pack. And all the while, I’d stop from time to time and just listen, because I was really expecting Seth to come around and tempt me with those little noises he’d make, to let me know it was time for me to go back to Marbury.

But he never did.

I tried to stop thinking about the lens in my pocket, to stop worrying about Griffin and Ben.

When I felt the sweat coming on again, I even opened another beer, forced myself to drink it.

Then I lay down on the bed and called Conner.

The brave Jack.

“Hey, Con.” I know it’s hard to really hear yourself, but to me, as I lay there on the bed, I sounded lifeless. Miserable.

“Jack! Where were you?” Conner seemed genuinely happy that I called.

Happy.

But I honestly didn’t know where I’d been, so I tried to play my way around the question.

“At Nickie’s. Hanging out. Nowhere, really.”

“She told me you broke up with her.”

Everyone knew more about Jack than I did.

“I must be out of my mind, Con.” I tried to joke, but it didn’t sound funny. “But she’s coming over right now.”

“That’s better,” he said. “Dude, I am, like, totally in love with Rachel. I’d marry her right now if I could. And we haven’t even had sex yet, either. It’s like, I can’t believe I’m actually talking about me. Virgin Saint Conner. Ow! Okay, I’m sorry!”

I could hear Rachel laughing in the background.

“Where are you?”

“I’m at her parents’ house. In Harrogate. It’s really nice here, Jack.”

“Are you coming back?”

“Tomorrow afternoon,” Conner said. “So let’s go out tomorrow night for our last night, Jack. It’ll be fun.”

“Yeah.” And then I said, “Conner, I’m sorry about how I’ve been acting and stuff. And what you said in your note to me is right. I just don’t know what’s wrong with me. Maybe you can help me when we get back, okay? I’m fucking scared.”

“We’ll get it fixed, man. I promise.”

“Con, do you know what happened to the pictures in my camera?”

“No, dude. What?”

“It’s all empty. We took pictures, right?”

“Yeah.” I heard him pause. “It’s no big deal if you don’t have pictures of St. Atticus to show off to Wynn.”

“It was all real, right?”

This is real.

Conner exhaled.

I asked, “What are you doing right now?”

“Sitting here, watching TV with Rachel.”

“Tell her I said hi.”

“Okay.” Then Conner cleared his throat. I guess he must have thought I sounded insane, because he said, “Jack. Don’t do anything dumb, okay? Just relax, and wait for Nickie. Wait for me, tomorrow, and everything’s going to be good, okay?”

“Okay.” And I said, “Call me tomorrow when you’re almost here and I’ll come meet you at King’s Cross. I miss you.”

Conner laughed and said, “You are so gay.”

“All right, Con. See you tomorrow.”

Then it was deathly quiet, and I just stayed there, stretched out on the bed, waiting, like he told me to do. And I could feel that goddamned lens in my pocket like it was a living, pulsing organism, giving off heat. Whispering to me like Seth did. I knew that if I so much as touched the bare skin of a finger to it that I’d be gone again, so I just concentrated, saying, “Nickie, Nickie, Nickie,” over and over in my mind.

And I watched the clock beside me until I fell to sleep.

Midnight.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Fuck.

I opened my eyes, sat up.

Just the door. It was Nickie.

Dizzy, I got up from bed, me and the blankets, all damp from the rain, still fully dressed, wearing her brother’s tennis shoes.

My hair hung down in front of my face when I opened the door. I didn’t swipe it back with my hand; it was an old defense of Jack’s when he didn’t want to look Wynn or Stella in the eyes. And I was kind of embarrassed about seeing Nickie in my pitiful state.

She flashed a careful smile when she saw me. She held a blue nylon bag that she dropped at my feet.

“I brought your clothes back,” she said. “I’ve laundered them all.”

Nickie kept her arms straight down at her sides, waiting, just beyond the threshold. And I was so stupid and confused that I didn’t really know what to do, so I kept my eyes down and said, “Thank you.”

She turned to leave.

“Wait.”

I went into the hallway after her, but she kept walking away from me.

“Nickie?”

“I really do think we should leave one another alone now.”

I began to panic. It felt like everything was giving away beneath my feet. I stumbled toward her as she paused at the elevator.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I said.

“Neither do I, Jack. And I don’t believe you know how much I care for you, either. But I wonder what happened to the boy I was so taken with to make him turn so selfish and cruel. I’m tired of feeling like an idiot, and I’m scared for you. I can’t be a part of your self-destruction.”

All I could say was, “I’m sorry. It’s not me, Nickie.”

“Whatever it is, it’s turning you into a monster.”

The elevator opened and Nickie stepped inside. I wedged my hand against the door.

Her eyes flashed anger. “Let me go. I’m tired.”

She meant it.

I moved my hand.

The door closed.

I leaned against it, holding myself up, wondering why I would just stand there doing nothing, and let Nickie sink away from me.

I couldn’t remember anything about the Jack she met on the boat, about the Jack who told her she shouldn’t see me again. And I couldn’t come up with any reasons why I was letting this happen, here and now.

Why I was turning into a monster.

So I ran after her, flew down the stairwell, and caught her on the street outside.

“I’m so sorry, Nickie. Please come talk to me.”

“I don’t think I can help you.”

“Nickie. I promise…”

“You promise
what
, Jack?”

“Please?”

“No.”

She left me there.

I sat down on the side of the road and watched cars that drove past the hotel.

At that moment, I thought about the ways things could have been different, the other places I could have been—or not been. It would have been so much easier if I had simply said, “Yes, Dr. Horvath, I
do
want you to kill me right now.”

But I fought back instead.

And now here I was, sitting on some rain-pissed road and arguing in my mind about whether I should go back upstairs and find my goddamned phone so I could call Henry Hewitt and ask him—again—if any of this was real; or if I could get up off my ass and try to find Nickie one last time.

I ached.

This is real.

The doorman stood there watching me.

He wore glasses.

Stop fucking looking at me.

I ran.

And with each step, every breath, I whispered in the back of my throat,
This is real this is real this is real
. I couldn’t let her go, couldn’t let myself push her away. Nickie was the only thing I could hold on to, the only thing that would keep Jack from floating into Marbury and never coming back.

Panting, miserable, wet, I found her sitting on a bench in front of Baker Street Station.

“Nickie?”

I scared her.

I didn’t want to scare her anymore.

“I can’t let you go like this,” I said. “I can be the person you think I am. I am that person, but I need to hold on to you.”

She’d been crying.

“Will you help me, Nickie? Can I talk to you?”

She nodded.

In the dark, we lay together under a single thin sheet. And I’d gotten up from bed to open the window so we could hear and smell the rain.

Nickie put her head on my chest, her hand stroked my belly, just like she did that first night we were together in Blackpool.

“I can hear your heart,” she whispered.

“What’s it sound like?”

“An angry little boy.”

“Does it?”

“Well, he acts angry about all sorts of things, but to me it sounds as though he’s hurt.”

“How can you tell?”

“He’s not a very good pretender. He’s just afraid that it’s not very manly to be hurt, so he cheats at acting angry.”

“He should stop telling you things about me,” I said.

I held her so tightly.

“I think I know why I told you that I couldn’t see you again, Nickie.”

I felt her hand tense against my skin when I said it, like she’d been burned.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t even remember how I ended up wearing your brother’s clothes. Because I don’t know where I was the entire time between Saturday night and when I called you from the Underground in Green Park.”

She was silent. I could feel her breath on my chest.

“There’s something wrong with me, and I’m afraid.”

Freddie Horvath did something to my brain, and I’m going to hurt you, Nickie.

I felt my throat constricting.

Jack doesn’t cry.

I said, “I just don’t want to hurt you. Because I really love you.”

“You won’t hurt me, Jack. Let Conner help you. I talked to him about it. He wants to help you work things out.”

“I don’t want to hurt him, either.”

She inhaled. Her breath made a cool whisper of wind on my chest. “You were in Ander’s clothes because you showed up drenched from the rain on Monday evening. You’d gotten lost trying to find your way. You looked quite pathetic. Not the best first impression for my parents, I’m afraid.”

“Oh God.”

She breathed a silent laugh. “They’ve since adjusted nicely to my American friend. And you stayed the night, as well.”

“With you?”

Nickie drew a circle around my heart. I felt her face tighten into a smile. “What else could you do? You couldn’t leave. I had every bit of your clothes. Ander gave you some pajamas, and you stayed in our guest room. I pouted when you told me you were too shy to sneak out and come to my room with me while my parents were home. But I think you were most frightened that Ander would be on his sister’s guard.”

“I remember him now,” I said. “I’m sorry, Nickie. I know I shouldn’t be doing this to you. I’m so messed up, and I feel so guilty about everything, not being in control.”

“Shhh…,” she said, and pressed her finger onto my lips.

And I remembered how her brother had given me clothes and shoes, that the three of us had gone together for breakfast; and, later, how I’d told Nickie that I was afraid of things and, even though I didn’t want to, I had to leave. She didn’t understand. She started crying. And when I turned away to vanish into the Underground, I felt like crying, too, but Jack doesn’t cry; I’d gotten onto one train after another, just trying to get lost somewhere in the darkness and the crowds beneath the city.

And I knew that I’d gone to see Henry, too; that he was aware that Jack wasn’t really here. When I left him, I wandered around London overnight, aimlessly, until I came back to myself in the Green Park Station and phoned her.

She whispered, “Tell me how the story ends, Jack.”

You mean the one where Jack kills himself?

You won’t like it, Nickie.

“I don’t think this thing ever will end.”

“I mean the story about the boy. Seth. You promised you’d tell.”

“Okay.”

SETH’S STORY [4]

I found paying work in Napa City loading freight every day except Sundays. I wasn’t as strong as the other fellows on the crew, but I tried hard, and got along with them, too. Of course, to be hired I had to lie about my age, but I didn’t consider it a genuine lie, since I was never absolutely certain how old I was by any account.

Still, I believe that Mr. Pursely, who ran the freight office, knew I wasn’t eighteen years old, because he did remark on a number of occasions how there wasn’t the first sign of a hair on my chin nor chest. But every day, following work, I would sneak off and sleep in the woods or in some quiet barn, since it was still warm enough in the year to allow for that.

The other boys I worked with knew I was living away from home like an orphan, but they never bothered me about it; and I always did manage to keep myself reasonably clean and properly fed. From time to time, they’d go down the river to San Francisco to commune with the whore-women; they would frequently urge me to accompany them, but I believed I was already too wicked and sinful in my own heart, and so begged them to tolerate my abstinence.

Of course, they would regularly tease me about my youthful purity, them not having any idea what a black and loathsome thing I truly was. But I would never miss a day of church, even though, for all I’d attend and focus my mind on the words of God, I could never feel that I had truly come any closer to the light.

In November, I took a room at the Sutton House, which was a nice family hotel where I once again enjoyed the comfort of sleeping in a bed and having access to regular baths, which, although lacking a great degree of privacy, compensated for that shortcoming with an abundance of hot water.

I owned two books: a Bible and a copy of Longfellow, and I read from each of them every day. Neither book provided much comfort. For while one reminded me nightly of my corruption, the other only recalled to my mind thoughts of Hannah. I ached so desperately for her that I would sometimes lie in bed and cry, especially on those cold and silent nights when my loneliness became a particular frailty. I missed every one of the Mansfields.

December brought the darkest rains; work became an unpleasant labor for me. I had not brought suitable clothing for such weather, and scarcely earned enough to pay my board. But I remember that it was on the twelfth of that month, when I had retired to my room following supper, that I lay in my bed reading Longfellow by the smoky light of a lantern, and there came an unexpected knocking on my door.

I pulled the blankets up over myself, unsuitably dressed as I was, and said, “Come in.”

And there, dripping in rainwater and coated to his knees in mud, stood my brother, Davey Mansfield.

He said, “Seth Braden Mansfield, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

At first, I scarcely recognized Davey, because the hat he wore hung so low across his brow; and his face was covered with a sparse amber beard, which I had never seen on him. But when I was certain it was him from the look in his eyes and sound of his voice, I tore the covers off from me and threw my arms around him.

“Davey!” I was overcome with happiness, having become so used to the drudgery of my sad life away from Pope Valley. Then I held him at arm’s length and said, “Is something wrong at home?”

And Davey said, “Hell yes, something’s wrong, Seth. Ma and Hannah are about sick to death from missing you, and Pa won’t even talk no more except to tell me what jobs I ain’t doing right enough to suit him.”

Davey just stood there, dripping in my open doorway. I sat on the bed, suddenly aware that in my attempt to spare the family my wickedness, I had inflicted some degree of harm to them.

“I didn’t mean to hurt no one,” I said. “I was afraid, Davey, of what I might do to you all if I didn’t leave. You have to believe that I wouldn’t ever do anything intentional to hurt Ma or Hannah, nor any of you.”

Davey sighed. I reckon that he understood well enough the forces that drove me away from that home, but I could see he was determined to bring me back and make some peace there, too.

“Well, you’re damned if you do or don’t, I figure,” he said. “But I came all this way looking for you and I aim to bring you back, too. So we can leave right now, or we can wait until the morning, either one that suits you is agreeable to me.”

I wondered how strange my life was, because here I was, these seven years later, giving Davey clean clothes to put on, just as Ma did for me the day the Mansfields took me in and made me their son. I brought him downstairs and Mrs. Sutton fed him, even though it was not a regular thing for her to do once her lodgers had all retired. But since he was my brother, she said she didn’t mind being put out; and told me he could sleep in my room, too, if he didn’t have any other place to rest.

And that night, just before I fell to sleep, Davey told me, “Seth, the time is not right for you and Hannah. Understand me, brother. You’re coming back home with me, and I aim to give Ma some rest in that. But you’re going to see to it that you act like a proper man, now, and wait for the time to be right. You’ll know it when it is. Do you hear what I’m saying?”

“I reckon I do.”

“Good night, then.”

The following morning, with my few belongings and one sturdy mule between us, Davey and I set off for Pope Valley in a light gray rain. It was Sunday, so I felt a particular foreboding about missing church; and my hands shook noticeably from my heart considering the prospect of touching Hannah once again.

I knew I was cursed.

The weather slowed our travel significantly, so it was nearly evening on Tuesday by the time we led that poor and tired mule into Pa’s barn. Davey could see the relief on my face, I think, as I looked around inside that familiar shelter; and I was half-expecting to see Hannah there, waiting for me. I could sense her so strongly that I believed my knees would give out.

In the house, Ma cried and hugged me tightly, getting herself all wet from my sodden clothes; and she praised Davey for saving me once again. But Hannah stood back in the hallway, just staring at me, and I could see the tears on her anguished face before she whirled around and ran upstairs to her room without saying a word to me.

Pa extinguished his cigarette and stood over the both of us, kissing me on my wet hair, and he said, “Seth Mansfield, I reckon you’ve got quite a story to tell us about what you did, boy. Now run up and get some dry clothes on with your brother and Ma’ll set a supper for the two of you. I reckon you just about killed them both, Hannah and Ma, with worrying over you, son; maybe Davey, too, for tracking you down in this fierce cold.”

“I’m sorry, Pa,” I said, and followed Davey upstairs.

In the dark of the hallway, I stood outside Hannah’s door. Davey watched me. We both could hear her crying, and it made me feel terribly forlorn. I raised my hand to knock, and Davey said, “Don’t.”

So I put my hand down. And Davey held the door to our room open for me, and stood there, waiting for me to go inside.

Like he said, either way about it, I was damned.

At supper, Ma went and got Hannah so she could look at me. First, Davey seemed concerned when she hugged me around my neck and kissed me at least twenty times all over my cheeks and hair. Her lips and face were so wet from crying and it was all I could do to sit still and not put my mouth on hers and kiss her proper like I wanted to. My mouth watered for her tongue like I’d never been fed one time in my life. I turned red and shook, and was considerably attracted at that moment, and then Davey burst out hollering and laughing when his sister slapped me resoundingly across the back of my head and said, “Seth Mansfield, if you ever do a deed like that again, I’ll come hunt you down myself!”

And Pa said, “I reckon you don’t want to mess with that, boy.”

He lit a cigarette and sat at the table, watching his two boys eat.

And I was so flustered I could barely speak, but I set my fork down and looked at Hannah and said with a wavering and sorrowful voice, “I truly apologize, Hannah. I promise I will never leave again.”

Hannah blushed, but I don’t think anyone other than me noticed.

And that night, when Davey and I went up to go to bed, we both saw how Hannah was waiting, peeking out her door at us. Davey put his hand on my shoulder. It felt serious, and I knew what he was trying to say without words.

“You go on in, Seth. I’m going to have a talk with Hannah.”

I stood there, helplessly, and watched as Davey went in to his sister’s room and shut the door behind him.

By Christmas Day, things had gotten back to normal, and it was almost like I’d never been away at all. In the morning, we all rode in to Necker’s Mill and brought food to Uncle Teddy. We said prayers with him, and Pa allowed each of us to drink some hot cider, too. I enjoyed the drink, especially the way it made Ma and Hannah laugh and turn so red on their cheeks.

So before we left for home, Davey and I went out to get the wagon around for the family, while Pa stayed inside and smoked and had another drink with Uncle Teddy. I’d been waiting for days to get the chance to talk to Davey alone, but I just hadn’t worked up the backbone.

“I need to ask your permission to do something,” I said. “I’ve been making a present for Hannah and I want you to say it’s allowable to you that I give it to her.”

Davey said, “Why would I tell you no?”

“Well, I want to give it to her alone. Where it’s just her and me.”

He looked at me. I can’t say that Davey didn’t trust me, because our kinship went beyond that; and neither of us ever kept a secret from the other, which is why I asked him in the first place.

He let out a long breath of air. I watched it make a cloud in front of his face. “I expect you’re going to remember to act like a man, Seth.”

“Thank you, Davey.”

And that was all we said about it.

So while Ma prepared our dinner, the rest of us sat in front of the fire admiring the coats and hats we’d received as gifts, and Pa told us stories about Christmas when he was a boy. I was uneasy because I knew Davey kept watching me and Hannah; and I felt especially sinful, it being Christmas and all, with the thoughts that kept plaguing my mind about me and Hannah out by the river’s side last summer.

I finally worked up my nerve. I nudged Hannah’s foot with mine and cleared my throat. “I have a present for you, Hannah.”

“Well?” she said. And she watched me without blinking, which made me feel as though I would shrink to nothing under that stare.

“Well.” I looked at Pa, and then at Davey. “I don’t want no one else to see it until you do, in case you don’t like it.”

Pa shrugged. Hannah looked confused. Davey seemed like he was maybe about to hit me. But he said go do it, so I gave him a stare like he better just leave me and Hannah by ourselves a bit.

“Come on.” I pulled her up by her hand. “Put your coat on. I got it out in the barn.”

And without so much as glancing back at Davey one time, I led her out into the cold.

I lit a lantern in the barn.

I closed the door behind us.

Then I slid the bolt through the handles. I was so nervous, I couldn’t say anything, but I didn’t want to, either.

I couldn’t keep my hands away from her, she was so beautiful, and I had waited so long, tried to be good, but I didn’t care about anything else once we were shut inside and finally alone together. Her skin was so cold and smooth. It felt like glass to my lips.

Her mouth tasted of cider, it made me alive; and I twisted my fingers into her hair and pressed myself so tightly against her hips. In honesty, I felt weak enough at that moment that I would have unfastened my clothes and thrown them entirely off without regard, but I tried to think about Davey and the family, so I softened my pull on her and held my face away.

“I love you so much, Hannah.”

“Oh God, Seth. I thought I would die when you left.”

She began crying, and I felt a tear in my eye at that moment, too, so I held her close and smelled her beautiful hair.

“Don’t cry,” I said. “I really do have something for you, my Hannah.”

“I don’t want for anything but you, Seth.”

“Look.”

I led her over to the work table by Pa’s vice and anvil.

“I made this for you.”

I’d carved a toy horse for her from walnut wood—a gray Appaloosa with black mane and glossy, striped hooves. The paint had just finished drying. It was slightly bigger than my hand; and I’d fashioned a kind of wheel from one of Ma’s thread spools between his back legs by fastening a strand of rubber there. I showed her that if you pulled it backwards and let go of him, the horse would roll forward a few inches, and then, just when he’d stop, his front legs would rear up and stamp down three times.

Roll.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Hannah laughed, and put her hands to her face.

“Seth!” she said. “This is the most beautiful thing I think I’ve ever seen!”

I didn’t say anything. I only could watch her, I was so mesmerized by the look of wonder on her lovely face.

“Can I try him?”

I held my hand over hers and dragged the toy backwards along the surface of the table.

“Now, let go of him,” I said. My lips were right against her ear, and I purposely caught a strand of her hair in my mouth.

Roll.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

She laughed again, so lightly, and then she threw her arms around me. We kissed.

Awkwardly, overwhelmed by my weakness, we nervously fumbled at each other’s clothing and fell, tangled together, onto the floor right at our feet.

We brushed the dirt from one another’s hair, hurrying, breathless; and Hannah clutched the horse to her breast beneath the folds of her coat, while I lowered the mantle on the barn lamp. We kissed once more, swearing our love forever, and crossed the muddy yard back to the house in the rain.

And I felt like the most horrid and contemptible animal when we all sat down to Christmas dinner together. Pa said grace, and I believed it was going to cause my heart to stop on the spot because I knew I had allowed the devil inside of me. But Hannah shined and gleamed in her contentment, that little painted horse resting on the table between her and Davey, while she slid her foot across the floor and placed it so softly atop mine.