by Brian Tacang
“Was I?” Felicity clasped her hands together on her lap. He was a fan. She wanted to hear more about how much he’d liked her act.
“Oh, yes,” he said.
“Do tell,” she said. “What was it about me you admired so?”
“Your bravery,” he said, “the way you made it look so effortless.”
“I was pretty good, wasn’t I?” asked Felicity.
“Goodness, yes. Mother and Father took me to see you every visit the circus made to town. I loved acts of extreme daring. But my personality is of the type better equipped to watch such exhibitions of courage.” He paused for a moment, looking as though he were making a wish. “I collected your autographs, though,” he continued. “To this day, I have them arranged in a scrapbook in order by date. In fact, I got your signature scant minutes before you went through the tent roof—my last entry under your name.”
“Ah,” she sighed.
“Saddest day of my life,” he said.
“Mine too,” she said.
She wished she could tell him she remembered him. There were so many children, though. Too many to identify their adult faces years later. Did that matter? What mattered was right now. Now, he was a grown-up child with a face full of wonder. In him, she saw the face of every child who’d ever loved her.
“Say,” he said, pulling a piece of paper and pen from his chest pocket, “can I have another autograph?”
“Gladly,” said Felicity, taking the paper and pen. She was almost brought to tears again, happy to have a name to sign and a fan for whom to sign it.
She signed the piece of paper and handed it to him.
He folded it carefully in two and put it in his wallet. “So, what happened to you? How can you be alive? The fall alone would’ve killed anyone.”
Felicity told him of the events following her supposed demise.
After ripping through the circus tent, she’d hurtled through the sky for a number of minutes, Pinnimuk City stretching below her like a relief map. She truly thought all was lost. Fortunately, Pinnimuk City’s annual Hot Air Balloon Festival had been taking place the same day. The sky bulged with hundreds of hot air balloons in every size and color, like a huge kaleidoscopic mattress, to break her fall. She saw one balloon in particular growing larger and larger with each fraction of a second. She didn’t remember the impact, but the balloon pilot, a kindly man who went only by Ed, later told her that she’d appeared out of nowhere and came crashing into his carriage, hitting her head in the process. She’d gotten amnesia from the collision and lain unconscious for nearly an hour.
Upon awakening, she remembered nothing of her human cannonball career, of her inventor husband. Her helmet had come off when she’d torn through the tent and the polka-dotted leotard she once adored now embarrassed her.
Ed invited her to stay at his place, in a gardener’s cottage on his property. In exchange for free room and board, he asked that she care for his small agricultural plot while he conducted balloon rides and trainings. She agreed since her schedule was wide open for the foreseeable future.
She lived there, on Ed’s Balloonist Dude Ranch, for a year, tending his gardens and eating fresh vegetables. Over time, though, she became restless. One spring day, the weather full of promise and the vegetable seeds tucked into their soil beds, she told Ed the time had come for them to part. Ed gave her a seldom-used brown tweed suit of his and a jar of pickled beets. He bid her a teary farewell and a smiling good luck.
She wandered for the next twenty or so years, up and down the complex street system of Pinnimuk City, searching for that special house that would jog her memory. She didn’t find it. Gradually, she came to accept the streets as her future and discarded her dreams of a warm fire, a place to belong, and love. Home, she came to believe, was a cardboard box, a burrow under a bridge, or a space between trash cans in an alley.
She managed to maintain her health and enjoy hot meals through the generosity of the Sisters of Routine Kindnesses and Involuntary Thoughtfulnesses, an order of nuns who wore wool habits as soft to the touch as asphalt, and who gave the downtrodden free medical and dental exams and baked lasagna.
This was her life thus far: a series of unsavory places to rest her head, of dental torture, of free Italian food. And it would have proceeded so if it were not for the recent smells in the park. She told him that she’d been asleep on a grassy knoll, that she’d been awakened by the most marvelous smells descending from the sky. They were circus smells, love smells, smells of her past. And she inhaled them like fresh air. What was wrong had been righted simply by breathing. Her memory had returned.
“And that,” she said, “is what happened.”
“Remarkable,” the porter said. “Astounding.”
“And that,” she said, “is why I must get home to my inventor. I’ve been gone for so long.”
“We will get you there,” the porter said. “Name’s Garner, by the way. Garner Netterby.” He reached out his hand. She took it heartily and shook it, nearly seesawing his arm off. “First, we need to get you some presentable clothing, or you won’t be allowed on the bus,” he said, standing.
“I’ve got five measly dollars,” Felicity said. “I don’t think I can afford an outfit.” Her heart dropped. She was on the verge of crying yet again, unable to handle another obstacle.
“My dear.” Garner laughed. “You are sitting in the unclaimed baggage storage room—the final resting place of all abandoned, unwanted travel accessories. Amazing what people leave behind: dresses, shoes, socks, makeup. Where the people go, why they desert their belongings is a mystery. Anyway, whatever you can find in this monstrous pile of luggage that fits you and is to your liking, you can have.”
“Oh,” whispered Felicity, surveying the room, awestruck, her eyes welling with tears. “How can I thank you?”
“By washing and dressing quickly,” he replied. “I could get into trouble for this. Regulations state that only employees are granted access to this room. There’s a shower through there.” He indicated a door on the rear wall. “Now, hurry. I’ll be outside guarding the entrance. Knock when you’re ready.”
Twenty minutes later, a rap at the door rang out. Garner, who stood at attention, leaned toward it secretively. “You done?” he asked.
“Yes,” Felicity answered.
Garner opened the door. He did a double take.
“Interesting choice,” he said.
“You like?” Felicity asked, doing a fashion model turn.
“Well,” said Garner, thinking briefly. “Yes. Yes, I do.” He laughed. “I do. Get it? I do?” he asked.
Of the garments available to her, in those mounds and mounds of totes and duffels and suitcases, Felicity had chosen a wedding dress. It was the color of a parchment scroll or breakfast tea with milk—beige, with tiny pearls cascading from the neckline down to the waist. The narrow sleeves ended in points at the wrist and the skirt was a hill of satin. She’d swept her silvery hair into a bun. Yards of matching gossamer tulle formed the veil, sprouting from a ring of silk flowers resting solidly on her head.
Layered over the wedding dress was an orange parka with a fur-trimmed hood and so many pockets it looked like an overgrown fishing vest.
“I love this dress,” Felicity cooed from beneath the veil, swishing her skirt around, “and the jacket is divine. Lots of storage space.”
“You gonna wear the—” Garner started to ask, pointing to the veil. “Never mind. You look stunning.”
She pulled the veil back to reveal that she had done her makeup: purple eyeshadow, peach lipstick, and round pools of berry-colored blush on her cheeks.
“I picked out shoes, too,” she said, lifting her skirt to show him her selection. “They kind of match my eyelids. Hope I didn’t go overboard.”
His eyebrows jumped at the sight of the lilac hiking boots she had on. “Not in the least.”
“It’s been so long since I’ve felt pretty,” she said. “I feel magical. Absolutely magical.”<
br />
“Good,” said Garner, “because we’re going to need a dose of magic to get you on the last bus to Masonville. C’mon.”
He grabbed her by the arm and they ran together, weaving through the throngs of people, to the south ticket counter. Garner sounded his gold whistle to clear a path. People applauded as they swept past, cheering what they thought was a bride. They clattered over one of the glass bridges where Felicity stopped to wave at a gondolier. Garner urged her forward.
Soon, they stood breathless at the ticket counter.
“Nick,” said Garner to the ticket agent, who was preparing to shut his gated window, “we need to get this beautiful lady a ticket to Masonville.”
“But it’s leaving in—” complained Nick, checking his watch, “one minute. Regulations say we can’t sell tickets within five minutes of departure.”
“Nick, my friend,” said Garner, leaning so that his nose touched the glass window. “Regulations, schmegulations. This is urgent.” Nick stared at him blankly. “It’s her wedding day,” he lied.
“Okay, okay,” said Nick. “Don’t tell anyone I did this.” His fingers flew across the buttons of his ticket machine and a strip of hard paper shot out. He slid it under the glass partition. “No need to pay. It’s on the house,” he said to Felicity. “Have a wonderful wedding.”
Garner and Felicity ran to the platform. The Masonville bus was pulling away from the boarding zone. He blew hard on his whistle and the bus screeched to a stop, then gasped. The double doors hissed open.
“Madame,” he said, “your coach awaits.”
She put her palm to his cheek. “I can’t thank you enough,” she whispered in his ear as she hugged him tightly.
“Nonsense,” he said, his forehead going red. “On board you go.”
Felicity hiked up her skirt, easing into the bus as though she’d worn a wedding dress every day of her life. She found a seat near a window. The bus groaned into action.
Garner stood, waving with his right hand. His chest puffed. He was proud to have played a small part in sending his boyhood heroine on the most important trip of her life. He stuck his left hand in his jacket pocket, feeling for a hanky to dab a tear from his cheek. He felt a crumpled piece of paper and he removed it. It was a five dollar bill.
From her seat on the bus, her hand pressed against the window, Felicity watched Garner get smaller and smaller as the bus backed out of the station, until he was the size of a child—a child who would grow into an exceptional young man.
Thirteen
When Millicent got home from school, she saw flashes of light coming from the basement windows and heard pops and bangs. Uncle Phineas was working. Curious about what he was doing, she snuck over to a window and peeked in. Her uncle was surrounded by rolls of tape, his head in the sink under a stream of water. She’d seen enough sinks for the day. She tiptoed across the porch, shivering in her drenched, icy-cold clothing, and turned her key as quietly as she could. She crept upstairs, showered, dressed in her fuzzy bathrobe, wrapped a towel around her head, and crawled into bed. She felt like such a failure.
A knock rattled the door.
“Millicent, is that you? Are you home?” asked Uncle Phineas. “I felt the water pressure drop. Were you showering?”
She didn’t want to answer.
“Millicent?” he called again.
“Yes, Uncle Phineas,” she said softly. “I’m home.”
“May I enter?” he asked.
“Okay.”
The door opened and in walked Uncle Phineas, daylight from the window glinting off his bald head. He’d shaved it while Millicent was in school. A strip of tape ran across the center of his head from where his hairline would be to the base of his skull.
“What’s that?” she asked, pointing at his scalp.
“An experiment,” said Uncle Phineas, sidling up to her bedside. He sat and continued. “A new product, Diffollicle Mohawk Tape. Orange. Think of the possibilities: stripes, geometrics, bull’s-eyes, labyrinths. Why, an industrious person with a working knowledge of textiles could even do a plaid, yes?”
“That’s nice, Uncle Phineas,” she said glumly.
“Some reaction to a product bound to shake up the cos-metological universe,” he said.
“Yeah,” she said, her expression vacant.
“Will I have to tickle the source of your depression out of you?” he asked, his fingers poised, “or will you offer it freely?” She didn’t reply, so he scooted her over and lay down next to her. “It must be pretty bad, yes? You’re home early and you appear healthy.” He knew her so well.
She didn’t respond.
“Well, seeing that I’m conversing solo, I’ll tell you a story which may be of assistance in what I assume is your hour of need.” He gave her a sidelong glance. She smiled limply. He was silent for a moment. “Where was I?” he asked.
“You were going to tell me a story,” she said. “You hadn’t begun yet.”
He grinned broadly. “So, you were listening,” he said.
She nudged him with her elbow.
“The year was 1989,” he began, propping his arms behind his head, “or was it 1984? Maybe it wasn’t the eighties at all. Anyway, your mother was freshly graduated from college. Oh. It had to be the eighties. That’s when she graduated, yes. I’d graduated ten years before and had started my own company, Vaccu-Matic Carpets Limited.”
Millicent sat up. She’d never heard the Vaccu-Matic Carpet story before.
“I thought, and rightly so,” he continued, “that vacuum cleaners were archaic mechanisms, doomed to go wherever outmoded appliances go. So I invented the Vaccu-Matic Carpet with Autosuck Technology. Instead of using a vacuum cleaner to extract dirt from your carpet, with the VMC, you simply flipped a switch and the carpet retracted dirt, in a sense. Dust, soil, and other small debris were sucked through the carpet and into a plastic bag.”
“Neat idea,” Millicent said.
“It did moderately well. But then your mother joined the company and added her own touch. She invented a cache system that disposed of the debris by means of a hose running directly into your trash can. Inspired by your mother’s enhancement, we expected a big sales increase.”
“So what happened?”
“We had instructions for the new and improved VMC professionally printed in a brochure. They were supposed to clearly state that all humans and pets should be vacated while the VMC was in use. However, as luck, or bad luck, would have it, we made the mistake of contracting the services of Mr. Cedric Cerrif, a one-eyed typesetter and printer with half a brain. Literally. Lost his right eye and half—or most of a half—of his brain in a barroom brawl.”
“Oh, no,” she said.
“Oh, yes,” said Uncle Phineas. “Poor fellow was prone to great bouts of confusion. He printed our instructions but accidentally replaced the part about vacating people and animals with a section on baking a soufflé from a cookbook he was typesetting. Astrid and I did not proofread before the instructions went to press.”
“Goodness,” she said.
“That came of it, too,” he said. “But badness came prior. Our first sale was to Bitter Pill Pharmaceuticals, purveyors of less-than-tasty medicinals and tonics. You can imagine how ecstatic we were at landing such an important account. Carpeting their six-story office complex in Pinnimuk City would put us in Prosperityville for a good while.”
“I’d say so.” Millicent mentally estimated the total square footage of a six-story office building and multiplied that by her best guess of the square yardage price of VMC. “That was a lot of money,” she added.
“Yes,” he said. “If it were not for the lawsuit that ensued. We installed the VMC, adhering to our own strict guidelines, accepted a whopping check from our client, and went back to our offices and waited for word of mouth to bring us our next account. That evening, the night-shift janitor in charge of buffing and shining the Bitter Pill offices flipped the VMC switch. He didn’t bother checking to see if a
nyone was still working because he didn’t know he was supposed to. In a matter of seconds, he heard horrible screams coming from an executive’s office.”
“What happened?” asked Millicent, clutching her blankets to her chin.
“Your mother met your father,” said Uncle Phineas.
“Wh—huh?” she asked.
“Oh, it wasn’t love at first sight,” he said. “Love at first sight resides in the dominion of writers, painters, and psychics. The rest of us must learn love as one must learn to operate a table saw, carefully and under supervision.”
Millicent’s face puckered. “I’m lost,” she said.
“Yes, sorry,” he said. “The janitor called us immediately. We told him to shut off the VMC, but he already had and it was still sucking. Your mother and I rushed over to Bitter Pill’s offices. This wasn’t as easy as you might assume. First, my car wouldn’t start. Second, we couldn’t take a cab because of the taxi driver’s strike. Our sole mode of transportation was a rusty old tandem bicycle that carried us about five blocks before the wheels fell off.”
“What did you do?”
“We ran the rest of the way, fueled by adrenaline and an overwhelming sense of responsibility,” he said, raising an eyebrow at her.
“Oh.”
“When we got there, I dismantled the VMC while your mother got as close to the office in question as she could without stepping on the carpet. Fortunately, the office had a glass wall and she could see into it quite clearly. There was a man, handsomer than plain but not especially striking, wearing a white lab coat. He was stuck to the floor, hollering at the top of his lungs.”
“Dad,” said Millicent wistfully.
“Doctor Adair Madding, yes,” said Uncle Phineas. “Long story edited for consumption, he sued us for excessive suction—which put us out of business; Adair and Astrid dated and eventually got married. End of narrative.”
Millicent found that listening to Uncle Phineas’s stories was very much like water-skiing: you could be going along at a decent clip for quite some time, then abruptly wipe out.