The Lighthouse Road(87)

She took his hands, held them over the tangle of their feet. "You know, are there girls in school that you talk about? Pretty girls?"



" Danny says Sarah Veilleux's pretty."



"Do you think Sarah Veilleux's pretty?"



"I don't know. She's not as pretty as you."



Rebekah blushed.



" Danny says you're pretty, too. Everyone thinks you're pretty."



At this the blush washed from her cheeks. "Yes. Well." She paused, bit her lip again. "People don't know much."



"What do you mean?"



"You're only ten years old," she said.



Odd knew she was just thinking out loud, something she did all the time.



"Ten years old, raised by a misfit and me." She put her hand on his chin and raised his face. "You hardly have a chance, do you?" She shook her head.



"Why do you and Hosea keep saying things like that?"



"You're a very fine young man. And so sweet. Maybe too sweet, I think that's what I mean."



"You still haven't said what's a bub."



"You'll learn about bubs soon enough."



"What's in there?" Odd said. Again he pointed at the door. "Why ain't I allowed to see it? How come you can go in there?"



Rebekah stood up, she offered Odd her hands and pulled him to his feet also. "For once I agree with Hosea. You don't need to see the grown-up things in these rooms. Not now. Not yet."



"That's stupid," he said. He was angry and confused and tired of all the roundabout talking.



" Trust me, sweetheart. It's not dumb."



"Quit acting like I'm stupid and a kid."



He turned to stomp off but Rebekah caught his arm. "You are a kid, Odd. That's not a bad thing. It's a good thing. I never got to be a kid." This last she said in that way of thinking out loud again. She let go of his arm and he went away as quickly as he had the night before.





It was three days later that he broke into the room. A Wednesday, in the evening. The days were just beginning to seem like summer. Odd had rejected Hosea's invitation to dinner with Rebekah and him at the Traveler's Hotel with a snide and impetuous "I'd rather eat alone." Hosea hadn't even tried to persuade him.



Odd, as he had the Sunday morning before, stood at the window looking down onto Wisconsin Street. He watched as Hosea and Rebekah turned onto the Lighthouse Road, watched as they stopped outside the hotel to talk with Curtis Mayfair and his wife, the rose-colored sunset from above the hilltop faintly lighting their faces. When they walked into the hotel Odd ran downstairs. He fished the filched skeleton key from the pocket of his dungarees. The key fit easily into the keyhole.



He stood on the threshold. It was a windowless room. Dim. Even if it was oddly arranged, if all the furniture was pushed to one side of the room, nothing seemed overly queer. There was a davenport along the back wall, a floor lamp with a lacy shade, a rug on the floor, the divan Odd had heard mentioned the other night. He stood there for a moment, looking around in disappointment. But as the light from the hallway gathered, as Odd's eyes adjusted to the dimness, he stepped into the room and began to see the curiosities. He lit the sconce on the wall and shut the door behind him.



Along the wall to his right were dozens of wigs, a birdcage filled with faux flowers, a rocking horse built for an adult, a rack of silky undergarments and another of strange costumes. A coat stand draped with furs. There was a chest full of lifelike animals. When he looked closer, Odd saw they were indeed real animals. Dead and stuffed and piled in the chest. A fox, an otter, a beaver with his tail stiff behind him. He walked over to the wigs and inspected one of them. He set it back on the shelf and looked across the room.



Hosea's photographic equipment was stored along the opposite wall. There were shelves with cameras and jugs of who knew what. Next to the shelves was a closet door. Odd crossed the room and opened the door. The closet was lined with shelves and the shelves were lined with boxes. Each box was the same size. Each had a typewritten label taped to the front of it. Odd took a box labeled beaver / december 1905 from the shelf and walked back into the room. He stood under the light of the sconce.



Until that moment he'd only been confused. Such an odd assortment of bric-a-brac Odd had never seen, but taken together it seemed merely peculiar. Another of Hosea's strange hobbies. It wasn't until he opened the box that everything came together.



It was full of postcards. Odd took one from the box and looked at it for a long time. There was Rebekah. She lay on the divan, wearing one of the wigs that he quickly identified on the shelf across the room. She was naked, her breasts full and lying across her chest. One hand was behind her head, the other held the stuffed beaver on her leg. A caption stamped in gold lettering under the photograph read, the beaver trapper.