Peter Geye - The Lighthouse Road

Before long they were passing the east-end mansions, everything coming clear in the night. It was enough even to lift Rebekah from her spot in the cockpit. She stood beside Odd, her hand looped in his arm. The evening hadn't cooled much. It was still almost muggy. It took a half hour to get from the first houses to the harbor entrance. Danny had told him to go until the lake ended. And that was what it did. Marked by the aerial bridge and the breakwater lights, the city to his right unlike anything Odd could have imagined. He throttled down and passed through the canal at a crawl, the swells rising and falling gently, the boat riding them easily.

He followed the harbor east, hugging the shoreline, staying clear of the shipping lane. It was a thin spit of land between the harbor and the lake, lined with houses, a well-lit road running its length. After a half mile they came to the Duluth Boat Club, a Victorian-style building not unlike Grimm's apothecary, with several empty slips and a long dock on the harbor.

He turned the boat wide and sidled into one of the slips, resting against the fenders that hung from the pilings, then killed the engine and rounded the cockpit to tie the boat to the dock. He came back and tied a sternline as well.

" Where are we?" Rebekah said.

"The Duluth Boat Club, near as I can tell."

"What's a boat club?"

Odd crossed his arms and looked up at the building. "I don't rightly know, but it's a place to dock her. It's lit up. I'm hoping they can at least steer me to where I might pull her out of the water for winter."

As Odd spoke a dockhand came from the boat club. He was dressed in a blue blazer and khaki trousers. He wore also a blue cap in the style of a naval officer and black boots.

"Good evening," he said. "Welcome to the Duluth Boat Club. I don't think I've seen you before."

Odd looked at Rebekah, then at the dockhand. "Hello," he said without confidence.

Now the dockhand was standing beside them. "That's a fine boat," he said. " Looks brand new."

"She just spent her first day in the water," Odd said.

"Where'd you all come from?"

"We're up from Gunflint."

"A good day for a cruise," the dockhand said.

"A good day for sure," Odd said.

An uncomfortable silence passed between them. It was Rebekah who spoke next.

"We're on our honeymoon," she said.

"Well! Congratulations. Where are you staying?"

"We haven't made arrangements," Rebekah said. " Could you recommend a nice hotel?"

"Downtown here you've got the Spalding Hotel. It's as fine a hotel as Duluth has. There's a good dining room there called the Palm. It'd be a good place to honeymoon."

" Where is it, exactly?" Rebekah said.

"Corner of Fifth and Superior."

Rebekah turned to Odd. "It sounds like a fine place."

"Sure does."

The dockhand put his hand on his chin and said, "How long will you be in Duluth?"

It was Rebekah who answered. "We're not sure."

The dockhand said, "I only ask because most everyone has their boat out of the water by now. The harbor will probably be frozen before long."

"I reckoned that," Odd said.

"We offer wintering services," the dockhand said. "Get your boat

out of the water, store it for the season." He pointed up past the boat club, at a storage yard that Odd had somehow missed since they'd been standing on the dock. Masts reached into the evening, the boats beneath them covered with snug canvas. There were dozens of boats there, sitting for winter.

"That's just what we need," Odd said. He turned to Rebekah. "I'll have her put up for winter, right?" It was a question loaded with significance. More significance than Odd could even imagine, one Rebekah understood with a sense of dread. But there was only one answer. At least for now.

"Of course," she said.

So they went into the boat club and Odd made arrangements to winter his boat. They'd hoist it from the water the next morning and store it in the yard. There were fees for the hoisting, fees for the storing, fees for the tarp, for everything. By the time Odd and Rebekah were standing outside, awaiting a cab to bring them downtown, Odd was forty dollars lighter in the pocket than he'd been on arrival. It irked him for a spell, spending all that money on something he could have handled himself in Gunflint, but as the carriage pulled up, and as he helped Rebekah onto the bench and heard the horse neigh, and as the cabdriver cracked the reins and the carriage started up St. Louis Avenue, heading for the city lights, Rebekah's hand on his, he realized he'd have emptied his pockets entirely if it meant this scene played out forever.

I n no time at all the road ended under the bridge, the cab stopped, and the driver climbed down and lit a cigar and told Rebekah and Odd that they had to wait for the gondola to carry them across the canal. Odd looked out the canal, at the lighthouse on the end of the pier. The wind had come around from the north. He felt it on his face, knew winter would trail that breeze.

"It's getting cold," Rebekah said, as though she could read his mind.

"We just beat it," Odd said.

The gondola hung from the truss eighty feet above. By some magic of cables and pulleys that Odd could not decipher in the dark, it would cross the harbor entrance. The cabdriver walked the horse by the reins and set the carriage brake and the gondola started across the water. Rebekah and Odd remained on the plush seat in the back of the carriage, their hands warm in each other's. The surface of the water just beneath them.

When the gondola reached the downtown side of the canal the cabdriver unset the brake and cracked the reins gently and the cab moved toward the hills, toward the city. As they moved into the lights, onto the busy streets, among the ten-story buildings, Rebekah lifted Odd's arm around her and settled into him. He felt hopeful after that. And as they drove up Superior Street, behind the streetcars, under the gas lamps lining the street, all he could see was the beauty of it all.

They'd been twenty minutes in the cab before the driver stopped in front of the Spalding Hotel, seven stories of stone and leaded glass that was all the proof Odd needed of his insecurities. Still, he stepped from the cab, offered his hand to Rebekah, who took it and jumped down, landing beside him.

"Sir," a bellhop said, stepping from beneath an awning, "may I take your bags?"

Odd looked at him, this man dressed like a Mountie, and said, "You bet."

The bellhop retrieved a rolling cart and loaded their belongings. Odd and Rebekah moved cautiously behind him.

Odd heard Rebekah's breath catch as they entered the hotel. The chandeliers hanging high above the lobby cast a refracted light on the Oriental carpets, the long, elegant sofas and beautiful mahogany tables, each with a vase of fresh flowers at its center, the guests lounging on those couches, their muslin dresses and fine English suits lit by the chandeliers above as though made for that express purpose. All of it was gorgeous and elegant in a way that Rebekah couldn't have imagined. If the downtown lights, as they approached them in the cab, had softened her, the loveliness of that hotel lobby melted her.

At the counter a man with a handlebar mustache and slicked-back hair greeted them. He wore a black suit and a black tie and a boutonnière of blood-red roses blossomed from his lapel. "Good evening," he said. "Welcome to the Spalding Hotel. Will you be checking in this evening?"

"We will," Odd said.

Rebekah said, "We're on our honeymoon!" and curled her arm into Odd's.

The man looked from Odd to Rebekah and back again at Odd. "Your honeymoon, yes." He looked again at Rebekah. "Well, congratulations from all of us here at the Spalding." His mustache curled up with his forced smile. "Let me see what rooms we have available." He opened a ledger on his desk and ran his finger up and down a column of numbers. "We have a suite on the seventh floor. How long will you be staying?"