I laughed. “Can you really tell fortunes?”
“I can see that you’re about to get chased!” She shrieked and howled and I ran right into the center of the square. We collapsed on the ground, under one of the huge oaks that shaded the little park. From there, if you craned your head around in a circle, you could see every shop and restaurant and bar in Oakley, lining the square. In the distance you could see the green of the hills, the cut-up lines of the fields and crops.
“Can you see my fortune?”
“You,” she said, “will be something special. I can see that much. Does that make me a witch?” She tapped my nose, then pushed herself up into a sitting position.
I just lay there on the grass, staring at the sky, then at the people rushing past on the roads surrounding us.
“Look.” I pointed. I saw Mrs. Adams hurrying along with a bag of supplies.
Mary looked over, shielding her face with her hands. She nodded casually, then lay back down on the grass.
I glanced at Mary, surprised. “But don’t you want to talk to Mrs. Adams, see how it went? Yesterday she was so sad.”
“I never talk to people like her outside the library.”
“Why not?”
She smiled and shook her head at me, sitting up again. “Watch,” she said. “Meg!” She waved her hands. Mrs. Adams glanced back and then practically ran into the grocer’s that bordered the south side of the square.
My mouth dropped open. Mary shrugged, laughed at my surprise. “They’re all like that. Ashamed. What are you going to do? Take their money and let them get on with their lives.”
“Was it different in the circus?” I asked.
“Different? It was another world! One day you’ll see for yourself. You’ll go there and everyone will look at you and see the same thing I do, a gorgeous and amazing little girl. You’ll know that I wasn’t just some maniac. Now, are you going to be my official librarian’s assistant or not?”
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, yes!”
“Okay, listen up: I need some paper and some more pens. Why don’t you go to the stationer’s, then meet me at the post office.”
She handed me a couple of bills, winked, and walked off. I stood for a moment looking after her. Mary seemed so bright and out of place in the midst of the Oakley town square. When she reached the street, she turned around and waved.
“Don’t just stand there like a bump on a log!” she yelled, laughing at me and all lit up by the sun, and I dashed off, my cheeks burning.
It seems ridiculous now, but I felt, for the first time, grown up as I entered the store. The bells rang as the door swung shut behind me, and I was hit with the sharp scents of ink and fresh paper. I walked nervously into the aisle, toward notepads full of creamy, lined sheets. I picked up a couple, then set them down, trying to remember what kind of paper I’d seen at the library. I thought as hard as I could. Finally, I picked the white loose paper, with shaking hands. Another ten minutes or so later and I had selected a set of shiny black pens.
When I paid at the counter, I was shocked that the old man didn’t give me a second glance but just handed me my change along with the paper and pens in a bag.
I ran to the post office, thrilled, clutching the bag in my hand.
No one was at the front counter. I stood, waiting, and then heard the sound of Mary laughing, from a back room. Sneaking behind the counter and piles of packages, I tiptoed into the hall stretching off the main office. A second later I came across a half-open door. Peering through the crack, I saw Mary, her mouth open as she kissed a tall, mustached man. His right hand was tangled in her hair, the left one cupping the side of her lower back, pulling her toward him. Her hand snaked between his legs.
My heart raged with jealousy. I ran out and sat on the sidewalk out front. I had thought Mary was my friend, and now I felt betrayed, abandoned. I should just leave now and go home, I thought. Forget about her, and everyone. Tears dripped down my face. I heard people passing by, whispering to each other, but I didn’t care.
“Tessa,” I heard then. I looked up and wiped my face. My heart skipped a beat when I saw my mother’s friend Ruth standing over me. “What are you doing? Is your mom around?”
“No,” I said quickly. “I’m just running an errand.”
“Is something wrong?”
I looked up into her pale, pinched face. “Nothing is wrong,” I said. Just then, at the worst moment possible, Mary walked out of the post office, her cheeks flushed and hair even more wild than usual.
Mary saw the tears on my face and Ruth standing over me; she took it all in, in an instant. “What the hell are you doing to her?” she said, striding up to Ruth. “What’s wrong with you?”
Ruth backed away and looked from Mary to me, and back again. “I just saw her crying,” she said. “I wanted to know if she was okay.”
“Well, why don’t you mind your own business?” Mary asked. She was fierce, like a lioness, and I couldn’t help but feel happy that she was so quick to defend me. I didn’t correct her.
“I’m sorry,” Ruth said, giving me one more look and then practically running away. I watched her, guiltily. I knew I’d have hell to pay later, at home, but when I looked up at Mary that didn’t seem to matter.
“Are you okay?” Mary asked, turning to me.
I nodded. “I’m fine.”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me today,” she said. “I just don’t care, or something. You know what I mean, Tessa?”
I didn’t, not really. But I wanted to.
“Yes,” I said.
“Good, now let’s head back, assistant.” Mary rubbed my shoulder with her palm—a friendly, sisterly gesture that made me feel sparkly and whole. As hurt as I was, I just basked in her, her kindness to me.
That night my mother stood waiting for me at the door. “Where were you today, young lady?” she asked, staring straight down at me.
“I took a walk.”
“Oh, is that what you were doing?” she asked. “Strolling about like a little princess while the rest of us work?”
“No, ma’am,” I said, bowing my head. “I just . . . I just wanted to go into town.”
Behind my mother I could see Geraldine crouched on the top stairs, peering down at us. When she saw me looking, she opened her mouth wide and smiled.
“So I heard,” my mother said. “I heard all about you gallivanting around town today, prancing around like some fancy-pants. You think anything in town is more important than your dusting and sewing, miss? You think you can miss even one day of your stretches?”
My mother knew I could barely reach anything in that house well enough to dust it, and she never trusted me with the sewing work.
“I won’t even wait for an answer to that,” she said. “I know exactly where you were and who you were with. I don’t know what you and that tramp had to talk about, but so be it. We’ll just see what your father has to say about the whole thing.” She turned away then, toward the kitchen.
“No!” I screamed, running after her. “No, please don’t tell him! I didn’t do anything wrong!” My mind scrambled and grasped and then hit on the only thing I could think of. “I went to get a job! I did talk to that librarian, but it was to get a job!”
It was as if I had suddenly become someone new, and she stopped and looked me over, suspicious. “What kind of a job?”
“Helping out in the library. Helping with the books and with buying things. Today I bought paper and pens, for the library. So I can contribute to the good of the family.” It was a phrase I’d heard my father use: “Now maybe you’ll start contributing to the good of the family,” he’d say, usually while working one of us over.
“I see.” She kept staring at me. “And what are you getting paid for these valuable services, if I may ask?”
“A dollar a week,” I said, pulling a number out of air.
“A dollar? Every week?”
It wasn’t a lot of money, but I knew it was enough for my
mother to buy cold cream at the corner store, for my father to buy drinks at a tavern in town, for them to splurge once in a while on meals of steak and fish.
Her face changed and she didn’t seem as angry anymore. She stared at me so long I started to feel woozy. “Well, then, as long as you do your sewing in the evenings, that might be all right. I don’t think your father will have too much of a problem with it, if you’re contributing.”
She looked at me for one moment longer, her face softened now, before turning back to the kitchen.
I breathed an enormous sigh of relief, but it didn’t last long. My father had to agree, and then I’d have to convince Mary to pay me a dollar a week. I steeled myself for whatever was coming. Then another thought came: How could I help in a library if I couldn’t even read? I thought of all those books and marks and tea labels and felt faint. I ran outside, in those moments before dinner, and tried to remember the letters Mary had shown me when we had written my name in the dirt. I remembered the T and the beautiful S shapes, and I traced them again and again, burning them into my memory.
At the dinner table my mother told my father about my new job.
“I know she will be working for that woman, Lucas, but a dollar a week would be a nice contribution.”
“Tessa has a job!” My brothers laughed, and I glared at them.
My father leaned back in his chair and looked at me. He had a long, drooping face with a large cleft in his chin, and he almost never looked at me directly. His stare seared into me, made me feel exposed and unclean. I dropped my eyes immediately. “Well let’s just make one thing clear,” my father said, finally. “I never want to hear about that woman or see a book from that library in this house. You got it?”
“Yes, sir,” I said, staring into my stew.
“You see to that, girl.” He slammed his fist on the table, and I jumped in my seat, tried to control the shudder that ran through my body.
My voice dropped to a whisper. “Yes, sir,” I repeated.
His eyes bored into me. “Okay, then,” he said, turning from me and looking around the table, satisfied. “Now we can all make our contributions.”
“Is she really a big slut?” Connor asked, after a moment, laughing with his mouth full.
“I think she’s pretty,” Geraldine said softly.
At that, my father reached his huge hand over and smacked her right on the face. Geraldine just sat there, her face like a beet. As usual, I dared not say a word.
Mary?” I asked the next day, as she showed me how to organize the books by number.
She stopped what she was doing, turned to me right away. “What?”
“I did something terrible,” I said. I was so ashamed I wanted to disappear into the floorboards. I didn’t look at her, knowing that the want was written on my face in glaring letters. “I told my parents that you were going to give me a dollar a week. That woman you saw me with yesterday talked to them, so I told them that, and they said it was okay. I’m sorry.”
“Tessa!” she said then, releasing all the tension in her body and letting out a low laugh. “You’re going to be working with me. You think I’m not going to pay you?”
“Do you really want me to work for you?” I asked.
“Of course,” she said. “Aren’t we a team?”
“I wasn’t sure,” I said, even more embarrassed, cursing myself for getting into this situation in the first place. “Is a dollar okay?”
Mary laughed and bent down till we were face to face.
“And that dollar goes straight to them, right?”
I nodded.
“Shit,” she said. For a minute she just stared at me, but like she was looking at something past me. Then she said, “Okay, listen: I’m going to pay you a dollar fifty a week, or six dollars a month. You keep those two dollars. You do not tell your parents about them and you do not even touch them, okay?”
I nodded, afraid to speak.
“Your being here will help me a lot,” she said. She dropped her voice to a whisper, though there were only a few people in the library. “I was thinking about getting help before this, but these people? I couldn’t stand being around any of them that long. With you here, I can do more of my other work, you know?”
I nodded again, though I had no idea what she meant.
“Fortunes,” she whispered, laughing. “The library gets money from the county and late fines, but there’s real money in fortune-telling, if people believe in you. I learned that much before I came here. Maybe I can even give you a raise after a while.”
But I couldn’t imagine anything better than that two dollars. I had never even had a penny of my very own. “Thank you,” I said. And then, blushing, “Why are you so nice to me?”
“Why? We’re friends, Tessa. And you’re not like the others around here. There’s something different waiting for you, out in the world. You remind me of me when I was your age.”
“Really?”
“I was so much like you,” she said. “So scared, with no idea of what I could do, how big the world was. When I got to the circus, everyone was so different, and it was the first time I felt at home, anywhere. Do you know what I mean?”
I looked at her, and the stacks of books behind her. “Maybe,” I said.
“You will know. I guarantee it. This is not all there is, by any stretch.”
“Thank you,” I whispered. I breathed in her spice scent and looked at the bracelets dangling from her wrist, which made a slight tink-tink noise as she moved. “Why did you come here, though,” I asked, “when you had the circus?”
“That is a long story, little girl,” she said, and I saw a wave of something pass over her. Something bad, I thought, but did not know what to say.
“Where did you live before?”
“A place called Rain Village,” she said. “A sad place, sadder than a willow weeping over a country pond. It’s where I was born and raised.”
“Rain Village?”
“It was strange there, Tessa.” She seemed far away from me then. “A place where rain shimmered onto the river and water never reflected the sky above it. A place where leaves and pine needles fell into your hair and stuck to the bottom of your feet, and everyone had a secret. It rained all the time, hiding us away from the world.”
I stared at her, transfixed. “Why did you leave?”
“I just did,” she said. “You can always leave. Always. That’s why you should save your pennies, little girl. You know what I used to do to hide money from my parents? And then, later, from everyone else?”
I shook my head.
“I sewed it into my skirts and shirts,” she said. “In the hems. But in your case we can just keep a box here, okay? So whenever you’re ready to get the hell out of here, you’ll have your money with you. In the meantime, why don’t we celebrate with a glass of champagne?”
“Okay,” I said, though I was sure she was joking. When she disappeared and came back a moment later with a bubbling glass in each hand and a big silver box tucked under one arm, I just drank it all in and laughed.
Rain Village, I thought later, and imagined leaves clinging to my hair, soaked through with rain.
CHAPTER FOUR
I immersed myself in Mary and that library, and the books surrounding me. During the day I learned to shelve and check out and check in, and I soaked in the stories Mary read to me, listened carefully as she recommended books to the farmers who lined up at the library doors each morning. Though I couldn’t read very well yet, soon I, too, could recommend books to people based on the way they moved through the room, the way they looked at me as they approached the front desk. I gave my mother a dollar every Friday, and my own two dollars a month piled up, along with the money Mary gave me from what she earned telling fortunes and selling herbs. I was always conscious of the money I had sitting in that silver box: it seemed to chain me to a mysterious but thrilling future, one far away from Oakley, Kansas.
I worked every day from morning till ev
ening, and then at night I sneaked my way into the fields. With a book spread before me I struggled with those marks that covered the pages until early in the morning when my family started to rise. I lay back in the field, the corn swaying all around me, above my head, and the moon shining through and lighting up the pages. The more I studied those pages, the more different everything seemed: the cornhusks pulled back to reveal rows of shiny jewel-like kernels, and the moon marked out the shapes of the corn and the stalks, spooky and wonderful against the sky.
Every day I brought in a list of questions and problems for Mary, and with one glance at the page I was reading she could erase all the roughness and all the awkwardness I’d brought to it when I was struggling in the fields alone. Her voice was rich and low, humming in my ear, and everything she saw she saw differently from any way I had thought to see it before. The stories and words stayed with me, overlaid my mind and heart and protected me from the world outside the library, my world back home. As time passed and the words on the page came into focus for me, I’d sometimes open a book and forget to breathe, I’d slide out of myself so completely. I’d jump up, astonished and gasping for breath, to see Mary looking over at me from her desk, smiling curiously. I would drop a book from my hands sometimes, feeling its beating heart under my fingers.
I loved the cigarette smoke that coiled above the library desk, the shapes carved into the wood, and the way Mary sat bent over some book, her right arm tossed to the side, her fingers playing with the crinkling paper of her cigarette. Though on most days the men were lying in wait for Mary out front and the women practically formed a line behind the library stacks, pretending to look through books while anxiously checking the door Mary was sitting behind with someone else, there were other days when we had that long stretch of afternoon all to ourselves, to read or talk or play cards or just work to get all those books shelved before the next round of scholars and heartbroken women. Those days were heaven for me: I had a million books pulsing around me, and Mary, too, had story after story inside her, so vivid they pressed into the corners of the library, into every nook and cranny, and leaked out the windows that had been cracked open and were jammed crooked into their frames. I would wait for those moments when Mary would look up and tell me a story, or read me some ravishing poem by Christina Rossetti or Robert Browning, or a tract on gardening, or a line about dreams, tulips, or Egyptian kings.
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