“Jim Brown was a movie star too.”
She would have been good in an old movie, in that dress. The yellow so faint that in this light you could mistake it for white. A breeze caught the hem and it whispered and I was staring again. I did that when she stopped talking — it was easy to stare. The dress, so sheer, and the fact that she wasn’t wearing anything else. Underneath was just her in that beautiful dress and red sneakers, each sneaker with a big white star on the side. It should have been a ridiculous look but it wasn’t, not on her.
She was a watcher, like me, and she was watching again, noticed my gaze.
“The shoes. I know.” And now she did kick her legs back and forth. “It was the same day he got Hammer. He was so happy. My boy’s never happy, not ever. But that whole week he was happy. And that day? He couldn’t stand it, right? He said, I got my most favorite wish. Now it’s your turn.”
“He made you buy those shoes?” I said.
“I know, right?”
I noticed that one of them was untied and she dangled it from her foot. This beautiful woman just dangling a red sneaker like she hadn’t a care in the world — when obviously she was being crushed by it.
I thought she was going to kick the shoe off but she left it there, dangling high over the water.
“You think I was going to disappoint him? Not that day.”
“Can I move a little closer?” I asked.
Behind her, the sun had almost disappeared and her face gained detail in the softer light.
“No. Just stay.”
“Okay, okay, I’m staying.” There was too much space between us — six feet, probably more. Too much space. “It’s just, the sun’s almost gone, and with this wind you must be getting cold.”
“Is it that obvious?” She looked down — right, then left. “I guess it is.” She drew her arms around herself. “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”
I didn’t have to think about that. “I steal books.”
Two geese — not enough for a formation — flew at us, then the lead angled its wings and the other followed, up and over.
“Well, just one book. But lots of copies of that book. Every time I see it, I steal it. Then I burn it.”
“Burning books is wrong,” she said.
“Not if you copy a poem from a book, put that poem in a letter to a girl, and tell the girl the poem is yours.”
“You tried to show off by writing a letter you didn’t write?”
“Pretty much.”
“So, your plan is to steal every copy of that book and this girl, she’s never gonna know you lied? Is that right?”
“Pretty much,” I repeated.
“What do you do, break into people’s houses and go hunting for books? That’s messed up.”
“Not houses,” I said. “Sometimes libraries, but mainly it’s bookstores. If they’re selling it, I just—”
“Steal it. That’s the Eighth Commandment you’re breaking right there.” She looked at the railroad tracks next to us, then back at me. “The trains, they hardly ever come anymore. Why not?”
“Just less need. This year is their last.”
“I thought they’d run forever,” she said.
“You’ll have to trust me on this one.”
She continued tapping on the rope. Blue nylon bigger around than the fingers she tapped it with.
“1999 is the end of a lot, then,” she said.
“It doesn’t have to be.”
“Oh? Can you keep the trains running?”
“No,” I said.
“Then shut up.”
The clouds behind her glowed like embers from the sun’s last light.
“How long have you worked here?” she asked. She was just killing time now — that couldn’t be good.
“Five years,” I said.
“How did you decide this was for you?”
The questions were as ridiculous as her shoes should have been, but she was earnest — like she really thought there might be answers.
“I stay because I like being in the middle. Not Oakland, not Alameda. I like it, being halfway. At first it was just a job. It’s not like in kindergarten when all the other kids were saying astronaut, or Wonder Woman, that I said bridge tender.”
“That’s what you’re called?”
New sirens now, not going somewhere else. They were headed here.
“Someone has to be on site in case the bridges need raising, so yes, that’s us. Bridge tenders.”
“But the trains are ending. So you’ll be watching over nothing? Halfway over nothing?”
With the sun having just disappeared, the clouds were magnificent, glowing even brighter orange, brighter red. She moved her head, heard the sirens for sure. Behind her — San Francisco’s skyline, backlit with the glory of those clouds. The clouds really on fire now. And the tears on her face, so many tears.
“Your son—”
“Don’t,” she cut in. “Please. Not him, not now.”
“But you’re his mom,” I said. “A good one.”
“You don’t know anything. Not one thing. Not about him, not about me.”
On the water, a lone rower in a single scull leaned forward, then pulled back on her long oars, her motion powerful, fluid. Lean, pull. Lean, pull.
“How many of you work here?” she said as her fingers tightened on the rope. Where had she learned to tie a knot like that?”
“Four. There’s at least one of us here around the clock.”
“And you have to raise the bridge for boats? Whenever? They have right of way, always?” She was talking so fast.
“Don’t do this, not today,” pleading now. “Not on such an easy day to remember, a holiday.”
“It’s not Christmas.”
The rower was already on the other side of the bridge. Her boat skimmed fast, its narrow shell slicing open the skin of the water.
“This is gonna cause trouble for you.” She started crying again. “Sorry about that.”
I wanted to get her away from thinking about the trouble she could cause. “What’s your son’s name?” I asked.
“No, that’s mine.” A flurry came out of the orange light and carried away what she said next, so she repeated herself: “What’s yours?”
“I’ll tell you if you tell me,” I said.
“No, you didn’t answer my question.” She cried harder, shaking from the tears.
“Okay, okay. There’s two times a day when the bridge is down and stays down — an hour in the morning, two at night. Otherwise, yes, we’re all of us at the mercy of the boats.”
Her nose had started running so she blew it, wet and messy, into her fingers, wiped her fingers on her dress. Then she looked between us at the railroad track nestled between girders.
“This one’s almost always up. Only comes down for the trains, am I right?” She tugged on the other end of the blue nylon, checking that it held. “How high are we?”
“Not that high. It just feels that way with Oakland there, and Alameda here, and the road and water below.”
She shook her head. “Not high enough to just jump. That’s why.” She tapped the rope.
Oakland, I wanted to tell her, it’s so very pretty right now. And San Francisco? With its outline on fire? “Look,” I said.
“No.” She drew the back of her hand against her slick cheeks before she tugged on the rope again. Then her fingers slid up the rope’s other end to the figure eight she’d tightened against her neck.
“Your son,” I tried to say, but I was crying now too, and I couldn’t see the fire in San Francisco — it was just a smear of red.
“So curious,” she said. “He is so curious. And going to be so handsome.”
The sirens were loud, the wind couldn’t take away the sirens, not now, and they were coupled with flashing lights strobing from between the trees, the red light mimicking the colors of the clouds. The wind was so strong, I was trying to dry my eyes, but there was no way.