The Last Train to Key West Page 2

  I set Tom’s breakfast in front of him.

  He clamps down on my wrist, applying just the right pressure to make me wince, but not enough to make me fall to my knees. The state of our relationship isn’t just evident in the physical condition of the cottage. I bear the marks of our marriage, too.

  “Why do you want to know if I’m going out on the water?” he demands.

  “I—I was worried. If the weather is bad, it’ll be dangerous.”

  He tightens his grip, his fingernails digging into my skin. “You think I don’t know my way around the sea? I’ve been fishing these waters since I was a boy.”

  My wrist throbs, my skin flashing hot as the pain crashes over me, my knees buckling beneath the weight of my belly and the pressure of his fingers.

  I grab the edge of the table with my free hand, struggling to steady myself.

  “I know. It’s the babe. This close, I’m just nervous. I’m sorry—”

  Words fail me as the pain crests, and I babble nonsensical things, anything to get him to let me—us—go, to stop this escalating into something more, something far worse than bruises on my wrist.

  Tom releases me with a muttered, “Women,” under his breath.

  My wrist throbs as he shifts his attention to the food I prepared for him.

  He digs into the johnnycakes with vigor, his anger momentarily forgotten.

  He eats quickly, and I go about my morning routine straightening the kitchen, sounds breaking into the daydream I slip into like a well-worn dress—his fork scrapping across the plate, the chair sliding across the floor, the heavy footfalls that follow him out the door, until I am alone once more in the cottage on stilts.

  * * *

  —

  Walking from our house to the restaurant where I waitress, my feet treading the familiar sandy ground, I pass lines of men trying to pick up extra work for the day. I’m lucky to have my job at Ruby’s with the Depression going on, the opportunities few and far between, and even more so for women. But Ruby’s nothing if not loyal, and she’s kept me on in good times and bad.

  As the “Southernmost City,” Key West is the end of the road, the farthest you can venture in the United States before your feet meet water. Such a distinction brings all manner of people: wanderers, criminals, people wanting to get lost, people wanting to get found, as though anything is possible down here at the edge of the world—for most of us anyway. It used to be, you had to have a boat to get here, but now there’s the railroad that runs over the ocean, connecting the little islands that make up the Keys to the mainland and Miami, the total journey spanning over one hundred and fifty miles and a few hours’ time, an ambition Mr. Henry Flagler—one of the richest men in the country when he was alive—was ridiculed for when he announced the project decades ago. But Mr. Flagler pressed on, and the railroad was built, bringing jobs to people like my father—native Conchs—and men who came down to the Keys searching for work who laid the tracks for the Key West Extension with their bare hands.

  The railroad’s one of the greatest things man’s ever built, Daddy would say. Can you imagine? Flying over the ocean in one of those big machines?

  I couldn’t.

  What sort of men dreamed of building things like floating railroads? What sort of people rode in them?

  Daddy told me there were two kinds of people in this world:

  The people who built things with their own two hands, and the kind of people who enjoyed the things others built. But then the Depression came, proving to be the great equalizer.

  A long time ago, before I was born, Key West was the largest and wealthiest city in Florida. But even before the rest of the country felt the effects of the crash in ’29, Florida struggled. Money and credit ran out, and problems have plagued the citrus crop. Now, people are out of work, hungry, and desperate, the city bankrupt, our fortunes anything but certain, thousands moving north with the hope of a better life.

  There’s some help from the government, which I suppose is better than no help, but it’s never quite enough. They’re trying to fix up the city, shipping veterans from the Great War down to the Keys to work on a new piece of highway linking Grassy Key and Lower Matecumbe.

  At the corner of Trumbo Road and Caroline Street, I pass the railroad station as I have nearly every day for the past nine years. Beyond it lie the new docks. The Florida East Coast Car Ferry Company offers daily service to and from Havana, Cuba. They load dozens of freight cars onto the boats, taking them, cars, and passengers across the sea. Flagler’s vision of connecting New York City to Havana is made possible by a few days of travel on his railroad plus several hours’ ferry journey from Key West.

  The familiar worn sign comes into view when I arrive in the parking lot of Ruby’s.

  Our proximity to the railroad station and the ferry terminal inspires visitors, the locals attracted by the possibility to gawk at the newcomers and take advantage of Ruby’s low prices. Ruby doesn’t hold much with pretensions, and it shows, the decor simple, the food hearty. It’s the sort of place whose measure you take as soon as you walk through the doors, a restaurant that relies more on the food to recommend itself than the atmosphere.

  We keep a steady pace of customers from the moment I arrive to midday, and I move from table to table, an ache settling in my back, the baby pressing down low. In the free moments when I’m able to sneak a break, I stand in the rear of the restaurant, leaning against the wall to relieve some of the pressure. The smells coming from the kitchen are nearly too much for my stomach, but at this point in the pregnancy, I’m so eager to take some weight off my feet it hardly matters.

  The front door opens with a loud clang of the overhead bell, an awkward crash, the flimsy wooden structure no match for the large man whose hand rests on the handle. Heads turn, the noise rising above the sounds of the kitchen, the diners’ conversations. The newcomer’s cheeks redden slightly as he ambles through the door and gently guides it closed behind him.

  I don’t have to look to know which table he’s taken. For the past several months, he’s become a regular fixture in the restaurant even as he keeps to himself and his corner. The only thing I know about him is his first name—John—and even that was offered reluctantly months ago.

  “Your favorite customer is back,” Ruby says with a wink from her perch in the kitchen as she wipes her hands on the apron tied around her waist. As far as bosses go, Ruby and her husband are about as good as you can get. They pay a fair wage considering the times, and they have a tendency to keep an eye out for the staff from the kitchen they run. If a customer gets too friendly or too rowdy, Ruby and Max are always ready to swoop in. Ruby’s not exactly what you’d call sociable, and she’s content to keep to the cooking and leave the greeting and serving to me and the other waitress, Sandy, but over the years she’s become more than just my employer—a friend of sorts, I suppose.

  “Must be payday judging by how many of them have trickled down here this weekend. He seems hungry today,” she adds.

  “He always looks hungry,” I retort, ignoring the amusement in Ruby’s voice and the gleam in her eye.

  “It’s funny how he always eats here, isn’t it?” Ruby drawls. “Real curious.”

  “It must be for the key lime pie,” I reply, keeping my tone bland. “Everyone knows you make some of the best key lime pie in Key West.”

  The key lime pie isn’t just a popular choice because Ruby’s is the best in town. People still have to eat as well as they can, and pie’s one of the cheapest things on the menu.

  Ruby smiles. “I’m sure that’s what brings him here—the key lime pie.”

  John is always polite, definitely quiet, but no one who gets within a few feet of him can miss the fact that he’s clearly seen some ugly things in his time and carries them in a manner that suggests for him the war is far from over. He shouldn’t make me nervous—he always tips better t
han most, and he’s never given me any trouble—but there’s something about him that reminds me so much of Tom that it nearly steals my breath when I’m around him.

  When I set his food on the table before him, it’s as though another man sits in his stead, with the same immense size, the power to use that physical advantage to inflict harm, and I instinctively wait for his meaty hand to seize my wrist, for him to overturn the plate of food because it wasn’t hot enough when I brought it to him, to throw his meal at me because he’s tired of eating the same thing every day and don’t I know how hard he works, what it’s like out there on the water, don’t I appreciate all the food he puts on my plate when so many have so little, when people are hungry, how can I be so ungrateful, so—

  And suddenly, I’m not back in the little cottage where all manner of sins are hidden by man and mangroves, but at Ruby’s, my breaths coming quickly now.

  “You all right?” Ruby asks.

  I shudder. “I am.”

  “If waiting tables is getting to be too much this close to the baby coming, we understand. I could come out from the kitchen to help more. Or maybe Max could try his hand at it.”

  I’m lucky they didn’t fire me when I began showing; I can hardly afford to lose this job considering no one else would hire a woman in my condition.

  “I’m fine, but thank you. Besides, we need the money.”

  It’s difficult enough to feed two mouths right now; I haven’t quite figured out how we’re going to manage three. Then again, it hardly seems worth fretting over. Life happens whether you’re worrying about it or not, and it seems presumptuous to think we have much of a say in how things play out.

  I trudge toward the new arrival, refilling a coffee cup or two along the way, prolonging the encounter as much as I can.

  A wave of nausea hits me again, and I sway.

  “Do you need to sit down?”

  Surprise fills me.

  The only things I’ve ever heard John say in addition to his name pertain to his order, as though God only gave him a certain number of words to use each day, and he’d already expended his quota before he sat in my section.

  He’s a big man with a thick neck, broad of shoulder, and tall, so very tall. His body strains against the fit of his threadbare white shirt and his ragged overalls, his large hands clutching the silverware, making it seem dainty in comparison, his table manners at odds with his rough appearance.

  His voice is surprisingly gentle for such a big man, the words coming out cool, crisp, and not from around here.

  “I’m fine,” I reply, letting go of the table instantly. “Thank you, though.”

  His cheeks flush again as he angles his body away from mine. On his weekend trips into Ruby’s, I haven’t seen him in the company of the other veterans working on the highway. They never fail to acknowledge him with a nod of their heads or a tip of their hats, but they move past him as though he has erected a barrier around himself. He is one of them, and yet, he is not.

  Much of the town has given the veterans a wide berth, complaining of general drunkenness and disorderly conduct when they come down to Key West for the weekends. In the tight-knit communities up on Matecumbe and Windley Keys where the population is smaller and the days—and nights—quieter, they’re probably even less welcome. These are difficult times, and when you’re at your lowest, fear and uncertainty have a nasty habit of making you close ranks and view outsiders with suspicion, even if you’re cutting off your nose to spite your face. For all we need the railroad and highway to bring the tourists in, you’d think the locals would be a little nicer to the people working on them, but then again I’ve given up on trying to understand why people do the things they do.

  People are a mystery, and the second you think you have them figured out, they surprise you.

  “How much longer?” John asks, straightening in his seat, his gaze on my swollen belly beneath the worn apron. His eyes are a rich brown, a shade darker than his hair, framed by long lashes most women would envy.

  I flush at the matter-of-fact manner in which he asks the question.

  Pregnancy has a way of exposing your most private intimacies to the world whether you’d like them to be exposed or not.

  “A few weeks,” I reply.

  The baby kicks again.

  John’s eyes narrow slightly as though he is attempting to work something out in his mind. “You shouldn’t be on your feet so much.”

  I don’t spend much time worrying about “should.” As much as Ruby has some affection for me, she’s running a business here, and there’ve been times when this job has meant the difference between us having food and going hungry when Tom’s hit the bottle too hard to go out to sea or drunk his pay away.

  “Can I take your order?” I ask, ignoring the intimacy.

  “I’ll have eggs and bacon,” he answers after a beat. “Black coffee, too, please.”

  He orders the same thing every time he comes in here.

  “It’ll be a few minutes,” I reply.

  I lean forward and brush a speck of food from the table left from one of my earlier customers, and my sleeve rides up on my forearm, exposing the dark purple bruises that decorate my skin.

  Five fingerprint-sized bruises, to be exact.

  I tug the sleeve back in place, my cheeks heating.

  “What happened?” he asks, his voice low.

  “Nothing,” I lie.

  You can tell he’s not a local, because I doubt there’s anyone left in Key West who doesn’t know that Tom Berner gets a little rough with his wife when he drinks—and when he’s stone-cold sober.

  “Can I get you anything else?” I struggle to keep my voice steady, to plaster a polite smile on my face.

  I don’t want his judgment or sympathy; have no use for well-meaning words that would do more harm than good. What’s between a man and his wife is a man’s business, or so they tell me. I am Tom’s wife, Tom’s possession, to do with as he wishes.

  The baby will be his whether I wish it to be or not.

  John shakes his head in response to my question, letting me know he doesn’t need anything else, and he is once again the taciturn stranger to whom I have grown accustomed.

  The bell above the front door rings, and the room quiets considerably more than usual as new arrivals stroll in.

  The woman is far more elegant than our typical fare, in a dress that looks like it came from Paris or some fancy city like that. She’s beautiful in an almost untouchable way, as though she sauntered off the pages of Photoplay or one of those other Hollywood magazines, her hair an inky black, a slash of red across her lips, her skin flawless. The dark-haired man beside her strides in like he owns the place, while she appears as though she’s skimming through the water, gliding through life.

  Railroad folk for sure. I’ve never seen a dress like hers in all my life.

  They sit at one of the empty tables in my section, and I head over to my next customers, but not before the daydream sneaks up on me again, and I envision Tom out there in his boat on the sea, the wind whipping around him, the waves growing stronger, a storm brewing in the distance, lightning cracking through the sky, thunder booming, the heavens unleashing their righteous fury.

  I close my eyes for an instant and offer the prayer that has run through my head for much of my nine years of marriage.

  I pray the sea will keep my husband and he will not return to me.

  Two

  Mirta

  “Milk?”

  I glance up at the blond waitress, struggling to form a response to her question.

  What kind of wife doesn’t know how her husband takes his coffee?

  From the moment Anthony led me into Ruby’s Café, all eyes have been on us. My dress is too formal for such a simple place, my jewelry ostentatious, my features darker than those of the other customers.


  I have never felt more out of place in my life.

  “I’m not sure,” I reply, stumbling over the unfamiliar English, my stomach churning, the breakfast I ate hours earlier on the ferry from Havana to Key West leaving a metallic taste in my mouth. The entire journey, I feared I would lose my battle with the nausea and upend my eggs and fruit on Anthony’s flashy black leather shoes. I hardly slept during the ferry ride, the question of whether my husband would choose that moment to consummate our marriage weighing heavily upon me. In the end, though, my worries were for naught. However Anthony chose to spend the journey, it wasn’t in my bed.

  The waitress’s brow rises at my response, the milk jug hovering in midair. Her eyes widen as her gaze sets on my ring finger, her reaction to the diamond not far off my own when Anthony presented it to me weeks ago.

  “Milk, please,” I decide, taking a wild guess while Anthony is outside making a phone call.

  The waitress leans forward to pour the milk in Anthony’s waiting coffee cup, a wisp of her nearly white blond hair escaping the bun atop her head. She’s pregnant, her stomach jutting out of her petite body with an aggressive force that suggests the baby could be due at any moment, the coffeepot seemingly too heavy for her slender wrists and hands to bear. Her skin is chapped and red, nearly raw in places.

  She appears to be about my age—in her early twenties, perhaps, or a few years older. Far too young for the tired set of her eyes, the hunch of her shoulders.

  And still—she’s quite lovely.

  She reminds me of one of the watercolors that used to hang on a wall in my parents’ house in Havana—muted, faded colors giving the distinct impression of loveliness, an ephemeral quality to her beauty. There’s a nervousness to her movements, though, a jittery frenzy of limbs at odds with her serene countenance.

  Belatedly, I flip the diamond on my ring finger around so it’s no longer visible, a hint of shame pricking me at the ostentatiousness of the stone, the clothes he paid for. If fate had turned out differently, would I have ended up like this woman: my clothes worn and threadbare at the seams, eyes tired and filled with desperation?