Jonathan Evison - This is Your Life, Harriet Chance!

“Well, am I?”

“Of course you’re going to die, Harriet.”

“Soon?”

He rolls over on his side so that his back is facing her. “Tell me,” she says.

He reaches over and turns off the lamp. “It’s getting late.”

“What do you mean? For heaven’s sake, it’s only seven ten.”

Just then, the door opens as Caroline returns from the observation deck. Cheeks red, hair windblown, she looks around the cabin.

“Who were you talking to?”

“Just the television, dear.”

“Seriously, Mom, are you sure you’re okay?”

“Just sleepy, dear.”

Ring-a-ding-ding, it’s your thirtieth birthday, Harriet Chance, let the party begin! Bernard has risen to the occasion, once again proving that he’s a thoughtful husband, in addition to being a good provider, an excellent mechanic, and a prolific shoe shiner. He’s arranged a sitter for Skip. Dinner reservations with the Blums at Canlis! A table by the window, overlooking Lake Union. Filet mignon and Chianti by the bottle. Why, just seeing Bernard in a suit and tie ought to be worth the price of admission.

So, why so glum, beneath that courteous smile, birthday girl?

Is it because you couldn’t find a thing to wear, not a stitch of clothing that would fit over your blasted stomach, swollen as it is to the size of a bowling ball? Because your ankle straps are cutting off your circulation? Because after barely a year back on the workforce, another unplanned pregnancy has sunk your prospects for a career?

That’s part of it.

But there’s more, isn’t there? Something darker troubles you, Harriet, as you and Margaret retire to the ladies’ room for a powder. Something you could never confide in Margaret. Or Bernard. Something you’ll never tell Mildred. Something you’ll have to confront by your lonesome. As a matter of fact, it will be forty-eight years before you will confide the information to anyone.

But let’s put things in perspective here. It’s not the end of the world. That’s still coming, Harriet. No, in the big picture, what troubles you probably won’t matter.

Unless you make it.

So c’mon, birthday girl, turn that frown upside down, and start counting your blessings! Things won’t turn out so bad. It’s just a little setback. So you’re gonna lose your administrative job, so what? Really, you should be thrilled. It’s not like you’re barefoot. Go on, take a nip of that flask Margaret carries around in her purse. That ought to help. Hey, it’s 1966, smoke a cigarette in the bathroom while you’re at it. Hell, you can smoke it at the table.

The thing to remember, the thing not to lose sight of, the thing your mother has been trying to tell you forever is this: Quit being so selfish, Harriet. You’re not worth it. Quit being ambitious, quit wanting so much, you don’t deserve it. Once and for all, quit casting yourself as the victim. Just be a good woman, and bear the load life hands you. Put on some lipstick and live a little. And order another martini while you’re at it.

This is your life, Harriet, the first day of the rest of it.

By the time Harriet and Caroline stake out a window seat and unfold their napkins, the public address has sounded its call for Skagway and the Lido deck is beginning to empty. The mighty Zuiderdam slows to a crawl as the tiny borough of Skagway appears off the port side, a little slab of a town wedged deep in the gullet of a steep valley. Above and beyond, loom the great snowcapped domes of the Yukon.

“You’re sure you won’t join me for the train excursion?” says Harriet. “I’ve got two seats.”

“I’ve gotta pick up Skip’s wire and buy some clothes. Find some other stuff.”

“Then why don’t I just forgo the train and come along with you on your errands?”

“No.”

“It’ll be fun.”

“No, Mom. Definitely not.”

A little crestfallen, Harriet turns toward the window.

“Mom, don’t be that way.”

“Lord knows, you don’t need me slowing you down.”

“It’s not that.”

“What is it, then?”

“Look, I just won’t have you missing that train trip. It sounds amazing. Much better than slogging around this frontier looking for a fax machine. I can meet you afterward. We’ll go to some shops and grab a bite.”

Within the hour, Harriet has taken her place alongside the railroad tracks next to cruise facilitator C.J. and fifty or sixty other cruisers. From this vantage she can see straight through the center of town, which could be a film set, with its lone, wide avenue dressed up in gold-rush glory, its wooden storefronts, facades painted cheerfully in reds, and pinks, and yellows, brimming with tourists.

The trip to White Pass Summit does not disappoint. By the midway point, Harriet has deemed the excursion well worth the $130 she paid in advance. The vintage railway coach is both comfortable and tasteful with its burnished wood and expansive windows. And the scenery is nothing less than breathtaking. A panorama of jaw-dropping grandeur: of gorges and glaciers and cliffhanging corners. Ice fields, thawing meadows, and alpine lakes splayed fingerlike between the broad-shouldered mountains. Even the names are evocative: Bridal Veil Falls. Dead Horse Gulch. Inspiration Point. And oh, how Bernard would have loved the tunnels and the towering wooden trestles, the feats of engineering, of jobs done right, how he would have adored the noisy workings of the train itself, the thrum of the rails, and the clatter of the coaches.

Harriet finds it virtually impossible to entertain anything but reverence for the rugged splendor of the Klondike. She can’t remember the last time her imagination was so free to wander. The vastness of the place is profound. Here at last is the perspective she’s been looking for these past few days through the myopia of her emotional and psychological distress.

Harriet’s lone regret is the vacant seat beside her, its emptiness so dense that it seems to occupy space. Is she weak to forgive Bernard so readily, weak to let him off the hook so easily? Is she pathetic — gazing out the window of that bygone train as it carves its way through what was once the last frontier — to wish that she could once again summon the ghost of her husband?

Of course she is.

Like a prayer answered, Harriet turns to find Bernard seated beside her, paunchier and slightly jowlier than his last incarnation. His Brylcreemed hair is receding, his eyebrows are nearly growing together in the middle.

“Don’t get too cozy over there, Bernard. I finally enjoyed myself today in spite of everything else, and I don’t need you badgering me with apologies.”

“What can I say, doll? I like our little talks. Hearing your voice, it’s like old times.”

“I guess it took death to make a conversationalist out of you. The Bernard I remember could go an entire evening with little more than a few grunts from behind his newspaper. Anyway, what makes you think you can waltz in here and act so familiar? You must think I’m pretty quick to forgive.”

“Quick to forget, anyway. Besides, you’re polite — it’s your good breeding. How do I look, honestly? Do I look fat?”

“No.”

“See? You didn’t even hesitate.”

“Well, you don’t. You look healthy.”

“Admit it, you miss me.” Harriet averts her eyes.

“You do,” says Bernard. “The quiet little things that didn’t add up to much: watching TV together, stringing Christmas lights, beating me at Scrabble.”

“That’s not fair, and you know it. Nothing is what it was. It’s like my entire past has been rewritten. And for the record, you were a terrible Scrabble opponent. Always hurrying me. Grousing about your lack of vowels. Double-checking my math. Rolling your eyes every time I consulted the dictionary. You were incorrigible.”