The Nightingale of Atlantic City (Steampunk Short Story)

4

By the time I was eighteen, Cathy was twenty and had fallen in love with an engineer named Corin. He was despicably good-looking, like a cartoon man on a tin of hair pomade. This world traveler and inventor became smitten with Cathy the instant he heard her sing. Between her sets, he would regale her with stories of his travels by airship, soaring over the Temple of the Moon of Machu Picchu or swooping low into the Grand Canyon.

Corin sold toys made of brass and tin. They were complex wind-up birds that would chirp, flutter their wings and crane their necks. The one he kept perched on his shoulder had an ocular modification that would every now and then flick a magnifying glass over its cobalt lens. Corin took advantage of the wealthy patrons at the Lighthouse. Anyone who showed an interest in his mechanical bird was referred to his vendor on the boardwalk.

When Corin's business in Atlantic City was through, he gifted Cathy one of these elaborate toys as well as a device he called the ARIA, the Audio Recorded Instantaneously Apparatus. Like a victrola, the ARIA played records, but it could also record. Cathy carried it everywhere with her in a wicker briefcase.

If I got to the boardwalk before dark, I could catch her on a bench, using the ARIA at sunset. She and her beau exchanged love letters this way, but they could hear each other's voices even after an ocean divided them.

I stopped bothering her then. I could see she was happy, and she didn't need some boy meddling in her love life. As friends we drifted apart and I came to accept that as a man's wife, she would not be able to carry on a friendship with me. It would look inappropriate and possibly damage her reputation. I really only saw her once during this time away from the restaurant when she invited me to her engagement party.

The Vicaris family had a charming middle class home not far from the shore. As I flipped the lock on the white picket gate, I heard swells of piano music emanating from the parlor. The sky reflected an orange glow from the horizon. Even from the porch of this little residence, I could smell the ocean. I briefly dreamed of what life could be like if Cathy had never met her engineer. She couldn't have married someone like me with no fortune and no prospects, a man whose only wedding present was a box of saltwater taffy wrapped in newspaper.

The fiancé answered the door and shook my hand. His clothing was made of fine linens and brocade. A silver chain from his pocket watch flickered like a moonbeam.

"Good afternoon," he said. His accent was distinctly French. "I am Corin Longchamps."

"My name is Will," I said. He led me into the main hall where striped wallpaper was accented by pale wood wainscoting. The silver plated installation in the middle of the room was impossible to ignore. Tin planets spun slowly around a large brass orb on a platform. Corin showed me how to pull a lever to send the planets orbiting the sun. As they spun at different speeds, a recording played from a victrola mount, amplifying the sound of the tide.

"Amazing," I gasped.

"While Cathy and I were apart, I couldn't sleep, couldn't eat. I poured myself into my work and this is what came out of my suffering."

I managed to slip away when a colleague distracted Corin. In the parlor, I found Cathy playing Chopin's Fantasie Impromptu for two elderly women. It was a perfect scene, and the powerful music set a tone of longing that I very much wanted to escape. I placed my gift on the piano bench and started to go, when Cathy stopped playing and rushed after me, catching me in her arms.

"Boy!" Her smile and her clinging embrace almost made me feel welcome again, but I hunched over nervously and pressed on her shoulders.

"Good afternoon, Cathy."

"Let's get you some cake."

"I can't stay." I pointed to her gift on the piano bench. "I just came to wish you well."

"Don't leave," she said, taking her present and pulling me into the hallway. "Who is going to help me with the cake?"

"I imagine Corin will."

"He doesn't eat sweets. Please don't go. We can have a drink or two. We can all stroll along the shore and you can get to know my betrothed."

"I should not have come here at all."

Cathy pulled the newspaper from her gift. Something about the cardboard box with illustrations of mermaids and aristocratic children got to her and she had to blink back her tears. She kissed my cheek.

That was the moment I lost, the origin of my regret. It was the last time to walk together on the beach, the last time to share cake and champagne. Those adolescent joys slipped away, washed up by the ocean as the sun sank and a silver moon ascended.