I melted inside and quickly put a hand over his. “You don’t need to worry about Philippe Chu. I swear to you.”
He twined his fingers through mine tightly. “He’s not the man I worry about.”
“Del. Del. I don’t know what to say. Except that I miss you. I miss your friendship. I miss your trust.”
“I miss you, too,” he said gruffly.
We leaned toward each other, sorrow and affection rising like a poignant shadow between us. Nothing was settled, but at least we had gotten past my betrayal—for now. I managed a teary, sincere smile. Del lifted his other hand and tenderly stroked the back of his fingers along my cheek. For a minute we forgot that our fellow Creekites were gaping at us in the candlelight.
Pitty pat pitty pat. Pitty pitty pat. The sound of mime fingers fluttering over the starched heartland of a waiter’s coat.
We looked up. The mime stood there, smiling as he fluttered. He mimed a huge, happy sigh of admiration. The restaurant erupted in applause.
“I’m going to hurt you bad,” Del told him.
The mime froze. He looked at me for some hint Del was joking.
“They’ll never even find the body,” I said.
Peggy
AS MARCEL AND I walked to my house under streetlights that cast a chilly glow, I thanked him profusely for a lovely day. “How about some dinner? I am not the world’s greatest cook, Marcel. Nothing like your wife, I’m sure.”
“I am a circus performer, my dear Peggy.” At some point I had gone from Madame to Peggy, which I preferred. “Anything that is not a cold cheeseburger between shows is haute cuisine.”
I broke out a lovely white Bordeaux that would probably be past its prime in another year, anyway. Marcel approved, or said he did. I baked hunter’s chicken with wild rice, salad and as close to real French bread as you can get at Ingrid Beechum’s bakery on the town square. For a man who looked as if he lived on health-food shakes and tofu, Marcel ate as though he were going to the guillotine come morning.
“Is your wife having a baby a boy or girl?” I asked. “If you don’t want to say, please don’t feel you have to.”
“She is a girl. We are still arguing about names, I’m afraid.”
“I’m so glad! I mean, that she’s a girl.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“Oh, I know how men feel about sons, but having had only a daughter, I like them. And so do daddies. My husband spoiled Marilee rotten.”
“I, too, like the idea of having a daughter.”
“And she’ll be a performer?”
“She can take up medicine or be an astronaut, so long as she is happy. The circus is actually a good place to raise children. If, as they say, it takes a village to raise a child, the circus is very much a village. All the children have many parents, excellent tutors, and they see the world.”
The telephone rang. When I picked it up, it was Carlyle. I must have blushed, because Marcel raised his eyebrows and started to get up to leave me alone with the call. I waved for him to remain. “Tomorrow night? Yes, I’m still coming . . .”
I caught Marcel’s eye. He was grinning and nodding. “A romantic dinner for Valentine’s?” he mouthed.
“Well, I suppose,” I whispered. Then, to Carlyle, “What? Oh, that’s Marcel. I have a houseguest—one of the Cirque d’Europa performers. He’s young enough to be my grandson—well, my son.” We chatted a bit longer then I hung up.
Marcel smiled. “Your son? Nonsense. So he was jealous?”
“Now you’re being silly. He’s just a friend. A colleague from the university before I retired.”
Marcel made that pouf sound only the French can manage. “If he is a man, he wishes to be more than a colleague to a beautiful woman like you.”
“Knock it off, Marcel. Your charm worked with Marilee, but I’m a much older her.”
I started to take the dirty dishes to the kitchen. He picked up his dishes and followed me. “I prefer women of a certain age.”
“Are you hitting on me?”
He raised his hands in front of his chest. I could see the calluses. His hands were ugly. Good to see he wasn’t perfect. “I am very much married and completely faithful to my wife. Before Jeanne I must admit I took advantage of a number of opportunities presented to me.”
“I’ll bet you had to beat women away with a stick.”
He shrugged. “I didn’t carry a stick.” Then he grinned and winked and took my hand. “Come sit on your deck with me. I am not hitting on you, I promise, but the night is beautiful, and I don’t get outside all that often.”
So we put on our coats then sat companionably side-by-side in the swing.
“Your lover, he was jealous?” he persisted.
“He’s not my lover!”
“He wants to be?”
“Yeah.”
“And you?”
“I don’t know. I mean, the whole logistics thing . . .”
He began to laugh. I joined him, and we sat there hooting like owls. Finally, he sputtered into silence. “For an intelligent and charming woman, Peggy, you are nuts.”
“Not very romantic.”
“I’m French. We are the least romantic people in the world.”
“You’re kidding.”
“We’re practical about sex and love.”
“I’m worried I’ll disappoint Carlyle. I haven’t a clue whether I’m sexy, or whether I’m good in bed, or even what being good in bed means.”
“It means he pleases you. Sex is supposed to be fun, not a test one either passes or fails. Take a chance.”
He stood and pulled me to my feet. “I am going to bed. Alone. Think about what I said. Maybe it’s time you swung free, pretty Peggy.”
Louise
WHEN CHARLIE, LISA and I reached the gym that night, Lisa introduced us to the three other members of her group—all male and all about half my size, not to mention Charlie’s.
We sat on the bleachers among an excited crowd of Creekites, while the performers put out tumbling mats and other things I couldn’t identify. Everybody was wearing sweats. The gym was freezing cold and bare. The basketball goals hadn’t been installed yet, and the wooden floor hadn’t even been sanded. The scene was far from festive.
We watched Lisa and her guys finish warming up. “And now, we invite you to enter the magical world of Cirque d’Europa,” Lisa announced to the crowd. “Where circus and theater meet in the realm of fantasy.”
Ethereal music poured from the CD player. Lisa had already told me the bones of the story, so I did know what I was watching. It was a kind of Chinese Cinderella. A Tang Dynasty prince is searching for a concubine. He has princesses to dance for him and play for him, but he is not interested. The other girls weren’t there, so we had to imagine that part.
Then the prince spots a slave girl in the market. He has her brought to entertain him with gymnastics and spinning poles.
He is enchanted and demands that she become his concubine, so that she will spin only for him. Instead of being delighted, she is annoyed with his arrogance. She tosses the plates and the poles to the prince. He keeps the first three aloft with ease, but when she tosses the fourth, he throws it and all the others to his two counselors, who scramble for them, but wind up dropping everything. In the process, they do a very involved tumbling routine. Even Charlie clapped in amazement. He never does that.
The counselors are furious and embarrassed. They demand that the prince have her beheaded. Instead, he vaults over her head, lands on one knee, and offers her his hand humbly. When she takes it, he tosses her up so that she’s standing on his shoulders, and they walk off in triumph.
As she’s leaving, she waves at the audience and gives them a big thumbs-up. It’s obvious she doesn’t plan to do much spinning in the
future. He may carry her off in triumph, but it’s obvious that she’s the winner. In the future, he’ll be the one performing for her.
The Creekite audience, including me and Charlie, gave the troupe a standing ovation. I had tears in my eyes. For a few minutes I’d forgotten my fear of the future, and I smiled.
Magic.
Harry
JOSIE AND I GOT very little sleep that Valentine’s Eve.
Dinner was ready by the time I made it home an hour after dark. After explaining why I’d arrived short one guest, I told Josie the whole story as we ate. As I’d known she would be, Josie was enthralled by the bear’s tale.
We spent the next several hours discussing possibilities for Yuri’s future. Everything from Yuri living in the cabin and helping me expand my research, to finding a new circus troupe for him to join with the bear, to me writing a grant and helping him establish the first Appalachian Home for Aging Dancing Bears.
When Josie came up with that one, I knew she was exhausted. She’d spent most of the day tending to her sick parents. I was tired, too. I didn’t exactly wrestle a bear, but I felt as if I were wrestling a bear of a problem.
Josie, however, noticed that it was past midnight and declared it officially Valentine’s Day. She slipped into the bedroom and donned her present to me, a nightgown she’d ordered from Victoria’s Secret.
I forgot all about being tired.
Chapter 6
Sunday Morning
The Grand Finale
Eula Mae
I AWAKEN VALENTINE’S Day morning to someone shaking my bed. Cowboy is in my room and he looks frantic.
I get frantic also. It’s been fifty years since a man’s been in my room. I call for Estelle and she comes running.
“What’s wrong?”
Cowboy speaks in broken languages, gestures and looks.
“Roxie’s gone,” I tell Estelle.
“Great Nan, I’ll go check.” She runs to their room and hurries back. “Her bag is gone. She left you, Cowboy.”
He sinks onto the corner of my bed and starts crying, big gulping sobs that make my skin get bumpy.
Now this is three new things for me in a short period of time. A man asks me to marry him. Another man comes into my room. That man sits on my bed and cries. Normally this would bring me a great deal of joy, but most people that know me know I have a desire to meet Jesus at the soonest opportunity.
Now that fun and interesting things are happening, I’m a little torn. It’s not as if I can compare the activity list from Heaven to Mossy Creek, so I’m not sure which is more fun.
“Cowboy, how about we sit in the kitchen and talk this thing over? I’m sure after we have breakfast, we’ll have it all figured out.”
He starts talking his gibberish and I can’t wait for him to leave. I have to hurry to the powder room or there’s going to be a great flood in Mossy Creek. I hurry as fast as an old woman can and finally meet Cowboy and Estelle in the kitchen.
We get the biscuits going and I’m real surprised at how good Estelle is at mixing the ingredients without measuring. She was watching and that’s a good thing.
“Cowboy, you can find another Roxie,” I say. “The circus must have a way to hire another girl that wants to climb trees with you.”
Cowboy pulls out a tattered notepad from his pocket. “He . . . want . . . her.”
Me and Estelle look at each other like somebody in the room is crazy and it ain’t us.
“What?” I say.
“He—”
“No,” Estelle cuts him off. “I want her. Repeat, Cowboy, I want—”
“I want her. Roxie,” he says and tears up. “Her here,” he says, holding his chest.
“You had her,” I tell him, putting a plate of smoking biscuits in front of him. “You had your chance. Maybe another circus man will want her. Or maybe she’ll settle down in Mossy Creek and start a business. I think that’s what she was saying last night when we were talking.”
Estelle stares at me. “You talked to her, Great Nan?”
“Yes, I did. She said she might leave and apparently she did.”
Cowboy has a mouth full of biscuits and he starts to cry again. He sho’ look like my nephew Junior used to look before he died in the forties. He was a crier, too. That wasn’t a good thing on the chain gang. Oh well.
“Cowboy,” Estelle snaps, “Great Nana and I have about had it with your crying. We’re about to float out of here if you keep it up. Roxie is moving on because of you. All you men want the same thing. Well she’s tired of giving it away. So pack up, Bucko. Your bus is moving on tomorrow and you’re going to have to face the facts that it’s moving on without Roxie.”
By now the man is sobbing and bits of chewed biscuits is flying all over the table. I feel like going to get my badminton racquet to protect myself from the spray.
I’ve never seen my great-great-granddaughter take charge like this.
Frankly, I’m stunned.
“Estelle,” I say real quiet, trying to talk her off the prison guard ledge.
“Yes,” she says, baring her fangs at Cowboy, who has quieted considerably.
“I think we don’t want to tear him down to nothin’. That’s how you get four generation of kinfolk livin’ in one house. It ain’t pretty. It’s usually cigarettes and guns involved, and probably some cussin’.”
“Great Nan, you’re lucky. You got Mr. Wiley. And Roxie, she’s got him, but he didn’t want her. But guess what? She probably doesn’t know that he’s probably the last good man she’s going to get. I’ve been sitting here rotting away for almost a year and if it weren’t for my job at the coffee shop, I’d be applying for a room at the rest home waiting to die, too.
“But men like Cowboy, well, in this world, he’s got choices. But I’ll make him a promise. If he lets Roxie go, I’ll make it my personal goal to make sure she gets herself a real good man. Real good.”
Cowboy shoots out of his chair and runs to his room.
Estelle grabs my hand. “Come on, Great Nan! We’ve got to keep up if we’re goin’ to get the wedding organized on time.”
“What in tarnation just happened?” I start throwing biscuits in traveling bowls not even caring that they’re on top of each other.
“It’s called a set up,” she says as she slaps one of Harriet’s best wigs on my head.
I shrug. I know I’m lookin’ my best. I’m going to a wedding. And I’m going to be in the circus.
Louise
VALENTINE’S DAY. Charlie stuck a card on the bathroom mirror. At least it was a nice card.
I came downstairs to find Lisa doing Tai Chi in the den. She continued while I fixed her French toast with fresh strawberries.
“Did you enjoy the performance last night?” she asked.
“Marvelous! I just wish I could have seen the entire thing complete with the costumes and the rest of the troupe.”
“Did you learn something?”
“What was I supposed to learn?”
“I think of you as a kind friend, even though we have known one another such a short time. Louise, my friend, toss your Charlie the plates. If he drops them, what does it matter? Eventually, he will learn to pick them up.”
“But your prince dropped them.”
“No, he tossed them to others who dropped them. To have her love was more important to him than her ability to spin. Your Charlie loves you. I see it in his eyes, in the way he looks at you when you do not see him.”
“He loves this Louise. When the going gets rough, men generally get going the other way.”
“That is arrogant, Louise. Let the plates go. Give him the chance to pick them up.” She shrugged. “Probably most of them don’t even need to be picked up anyway.”
Was I reall
y being arrogant?
“Do you think your good Charlie is so shallow that he sees you only as a slave, the way the prince saw me at first? If he must nurse you, he will not like it. He will feel guilty, and angry with you, but perhaps you can both find that love is more important than deeds.”
At that moment Charlie came into the kitchen dressed for golf. He kissed me on the cheek, spoke to Lisa, and reached out for the glass of orange juice I had already poured for him.
Then I caught Lisa’s eye. She shook her head. I drank the juice myself, although I hate the stuff. “The pitcher’s in the refrigerator,” I said.
“Okay,” said my Charlie, and poured himself a glass. “I’ll pick up a couple of sausage biscuits on the way to the club. Happy Valentine’s Day.” He kissed me on the cheek again, waved to Lisa, and left.
Sagan
VALENTINE’S DAY dawned chilly but clear and sunny, dropping needlepoint shadows among the evergreens and gray hardwoods that covered the mountains outside my cabin. I heard the distant peel of Sunday church bells.
Nikoli paced uneasily. I took him by the sleeve and pointed him toward the bathroom. “Take a shower,” I ordered loudly and slowly, hoping it made my English easier to understand. “We’re going to town.”
He seemed to catch my drift. His shoulders slumped but he didn’t argue. I guess he figured that we’d survived a journey of sorts so he might as well take a chance. After he got cleaned up I handed him an old jacket of mine and my spare motorcycle helmet. “Let’s go.”
When he caught site of the Harley he grinned. “Okey dokey,” he said.
I took him to Mama’s All You Can Eat Café for a big breakfast. If the kid had to be turned over to immigration at least he’d get one last taste of freedom. We grabbed a booth, or rather, I grabbed one just as he was about to bolt. Then he saw a waitress walk by carrying a plate of hot cakes. That’s when I found out that Nikoli spoke more English than anybody seemed to know.
“Hot cakes?” he asked as he tried to lose himself in the corner of the booth.
At Home in Mossy Creek Page 18