Threadbare- The Traveling Show

by Alexandra DeMers

  “Nick Thatch could do it,” René said feebly. “Maybe.”

  “Nick can design a bridge, but he can’t change a tire,” she laughed. “No, René. It’s you. Who else could be so needed, so loved, and so loyal as you?”

  Amandine didn't like to see how much this conversation was troubling him, so she gently stroked his cheek. René took her hand and kissed her palm, holding it firmly to his lips.

  “We don't have to talk about any of this now,” she said, lowering her voice to a murmur. “We don't have to talk about anything.”

  “Yes,” he answered softly, reaching for her. “Que mes baisers soient les mots d'amour que je ne te dis pas.”

  Amandine didn't understand that particular phrase, but she quickly learned that she didn't have to. He pulled her whole body close as easily as if she were a pillow, one hand pressing her lower back and the other in her hair. Slowly, he brushed her lips once with his; testing her, exploring her before she drew him in the rest of the way, and they shared a passionate kiss. As her hands gripped his shoulders, she took a deep breath of him, smelling gasoline, woodsmoke, and line-dried cotton. His lips were soft but they pressed hard with urgency and he tasted like…

  Curry.

  Amandine laughed, overwhelmed with too much longing to care.

  The way he touched her now and the way her body responded was unlike the static energy she experienced with him before. Now she felt an all-consuming need, a hunger from within every fiber that could only be satiated by René. She wanted him to kiss her more. She needed him to touch her everywhere. Any self-discipline or restraint she might have summoned up moments ago was slipping away faster than water through her fingers and soon she surrendered to him completely.

  Sensing his control, René pinned her. This show of force drew a small sound from Amandine, and he stopped.

  “I am sorry,” he said. “Am I hurting you?”

  “No,” she whispered, breathless. “It's just that... I haven’t done anything like this before, and... well, it feels incredible.” Her leg moved up his side seemingly on its own, and René held it against his hip from back of her knee. “But we had better stop.”

  “Must we?” He sought control once more with another kiss. Amandine shuddered, stunned into submission again when she parted her lips, and he eagerly kissed her deeper. She savored this for as long as she could bear it before gently breaking away.

  Pained, he asked, “Why?”

  She didn’t know how to explain the conflict within her. She didn’t know how to say how badly she wanted to give herself to him, yet feared the consequences if she did. Marmi’s strict position was very much like her father’s; or at least, she imagined it would have been had Will Stewart been given the opportunity to express it. Caroline, on the other hand, made her opinion clear. Not long before she was arrested, she held Amandine’s hands over the kitchen table and told her, “When you fall in love, ma puce, enjoy the thrill but always try to land gracefully.”

  Disrespecting Marmi would not be graceful. Being discovered in such an intimate scenario by Sangria on her own bunk wouldn’t be graceful either. In voice that did a poor job of hiding her unwillingness, she said, “Not yet.”

  René sighed, knowing that she was right.

  “Let’s stay right here together,” she whispered.

  He laid back and held her in his arms, wondering how he could truly fulfill her request.

  The next morning, René awoke in slow disbelief as a stripe of late morning sun came through the curtains and fell across a strange sight. He didn’t recognize the room, the beauty in his arms, or even himself in his new clothes. Gradually, memories of the night before fell back into place and soon he remembered everything with a smile. He lifted his head from the pillow to check on Amandine.

  The seamstress was still sleeping, curled against him and breathing softly into his shirt. Though he felt he could watch her sleep forever, he couldn’t resist turning his face into her hair to take in her sweet, clean scent.

  “Good morning,” he said when she stirred. “But I must still be dreaming.”

  She smiled with her eyes still closed. “Could we both be dreaming at the same time?”

  “It’s not likely.”

  “How do you figure?” She stretched and clung to him a little tighter.

  “It can't be real, because I never could have kissed you like that. I never could have held you close to me all night.” He got a mischievous idea. “I think I am going to need some proof.”

  In an instant she climbed on top of him, sunk her fingers into his hair, and pulled him into a kiss. René liked that she took control, but he especially liked that he was free to touch her from this position. Her body arched, craving contact as his hands mapped out her form. Her shoulders fit into his palms, her ribs expanded with each deep breath, his hands could almost encircle her waist.

  Amandine paused, lips hovering over his, when she felt his fingers reach the hem of her dress. He stopped as well; the cotton border may as well have been a brick wall without her permission.

  “Now?” he asked softly. It wasn’t a plea, nor was there any insistence in his voice. He dipped his head against her neck and waited, though he knew what her answer would be.

  She granted a final kiss to his forehead and reluctantly moved away.

  René sat up and casually dropped his hat over his lap while Amandine fixed her bow. He didn't want to sour the mood by picking up their conversation from the night before, so he changed the subject.

  “What do you suppose happened to Sangria?” he asked lightly. “She never came back to kick us out of her bed.”

  Realizing he was right, Amandine leaped off of the bunk. “I don't know, but I have a pretty good idea!”

  The camp was an absolute disaster. Dishes, tables, chairs, and bottles were strewn everywhere. René gasped when he found that Big Polly was still humming quietly. The generator had been left on all night and he rushed over to switch it off.

  No one else appeared to be up yet, so the pair crept towards Coronado's truck. They peered into the cab and found the illusionist behind the wheel, snoring softly with a bottle of wine on one side of him and Sangria on the other, curled up like a kitten under his jacket.

  Amandine nodded with approval. “About time.”

  “Marmi will certainly have a thing or two to say about that,” René whispered, moving away quietly. “If she asks you about this, it’s probably best if you say nothing.”

  “I am sealed up tighter than a drum.” She zipped her lips and tapped her temple. “She won't even be able to read my mind because all I’ll think about is quilt block patterns.”

  “Oh, really?” he said, amused. “Is that how it works?”

  “Maybe,” she chirped. “All joking aside, our divas should both be much easier to work with after this.”

  “Or worse,” he frowned. “Much worse.”

  They tiptoed around the rest of the camp, peering in cabs and behind trailers. The others who were caught misbehaving were Ludmilla with Sasha, Margaret with Ambroise, and most surprising of all, Marmi and Glorious. They were propped up behind the electropolyharmonium; her head rested on his chest and his face was buried in her unraveling turban. Even in his sleep, Glorious looked very pleased with himself.

  They stifled their laughter and wordlessly decided that they had better start breakfast. Amandine picked up the trash and dishes while René built a fire. Next she explored the food crate while he rolled up his sleeves and went to get water from the stream. She was mixing up batter when he returned, so he started coffee and the aroma wafted around camp.

  Juan appeared first, yawning and scratching all the hair that was matted flat on one side.

  “Buenos dias,” René said from the dishwashing tub. He dried a cup and held it out to him. “Coffee?”

  Amandine soon had a stack of pancakes and cornmeal bacon cooked up on platters. When she finally sat down to eat with René, they kept a respectable distance, but they couldn't h
elp smiling to themselves. Warm, tingling feelings from the night before were still fresh in their minds.

  By now, almost everyone was awake. Though the morning was clear and pleasant, no one stopped to chat by the fire. One by one, they retrieved their food and retreated to the privacy of their trailers, either too ashamed or hungover to face anybody else. If he hadn’t been watching for her, René might have missed Marmi sneak back to her tent. He wanted to judge her mood, so he fixed a tray of food and tea for her as usual. With a wink to Amandine, he trotted up the hill after her.

  Marmi let him in when he rang her chime. She had changed clothes already and was brushing her long, black hair at the vanity.

  “I have pancakes with jam and tea,” René said casually, stepping over the tiger that laid by her table. “Did you sleep well?”

  “Better than you, I suspect.” She swiped her corkscrew curls furiously. “The twins didn't cook this morning.”

  “Amandine did.” He answered the question she didn't ask and set the tray by her chair. “She takes such good care of us. We will all be very sorry to see her go.”

  Marmi didn’t have any patience for small-talk. She could guess what René had been up to the night before, but when she whirled in her seat to confront him, she knew in that instant that she was wrong. The truth was in his eyes. René was no scoundrel. Although he had changed much in the years since they met, the depth and sincerity in his eyes had always remained the same.

  “I am sorry,” she said, humbled.

  “Don’t be.”

  “No, I am.” She reached for a colorful scarf and tucked her hair inside it. “I was ready to lash out at you for something a great number of us are probably guilty of. If there’s anybody I should blame, it’s that forked-tongued con-man Glorious! It’s those damned Pasternakovs! I don’t know what they put in my cup, but it wasn’t like any kvass I’ve ever had.”

  “Don’t blame anyone,” he said gently. “Least of all yourself. Everybody had more fun last night than we’ve had in years. We should be glad for the chance to cut loose a little.” He prepared her tea for her, straining the fragrant red water into her ceramic cup. “Speaking of which, there was something I wanted to talk to you about.”

  The tiger eyed Marmi’s breakfast, and René jerked the tray off the table just as Rao nipped at the cornmeal bacon. “Rao! Honte à toi!” He pushed the tiger away with his foot. “This is not for you! Go get Sasha. Sasha’s got your breakfast.”

  “Chale jao!” Marmi clapped her hands in Rao’s face and with an impatient huff, the tiger sauntered out of the tent. Marmi reached fore the tray, but the moment her fingertips touched René’s, she nearly dropped it in shock. “You're thinking of going with her,” she murmured, setting the tray aside.

  René smiled and offered her tea.

  Marmi took the cup, stared into its swirling contents for a moment, and decided she needed something stronger. “You want my permission.”

  René watched her pack her pipe and wondered if she could carry on their entire conversation by herself.

  “Nevermind what I think, child,” Marmi said with the pipe in her teeth. “The girl won't let you. She believes very much in the bonds of family. She doesn't want you to choose between her and us.” She took several deep drags and her eyes slid out of focus as if she could see through the tent walls into something far beyond. “And there is something serious, much more sinister at the end of Amandine’s path. She is coming to realize it herself, and she does not want us to have any part of it.”

  “I know,” Rene said, frustrated. “I hate to say it. I hate to even think it, but she’s doomed to fail. Amandine wants to hire a solicitor for her poor mother, but she’d be lucky if she could hire a cab with what we’ve paid her.”

  Marmi’s focus returned to him, unwavering as if searching his very soul. He thought he’d save her the trouble of trying to read him.

  “I want to know if she has another path. Perhaps a place with us.” He met her gaze with confidence. “A place with me.”

  “I see. You want to know what your future together holds.” Marmi reached for his hands and turned his palms up. She hummed while she traced the lines that cut through the rough surface like ploughed field. “Let me see here... your head line says you are creative and adventurous. Your life line tells me that you have strength and enthusiasm, but it breaks, meaning you will experience a sudden change in your life. But this isn’t new. I’ve known all of this about you since Paris, back when your hands weren’t quite so big.”

  “I thought I was being very mysterious in Paris,” he chuckled.

  “You were a child, René.” She squeezed his fingers. “And now you know better than to try and fool Madame Marmi.”

  “If you weren’t desperate to uncover my secrets, then why did you take me on?”

  “Do you want to stand here all day and revisit the past?” She pinched his bristling cheek fondly. “Or do you want to talk about the future?”

  “The future, please.”

  She tapped the crease in his palm that ran horizontally beneath his fingers. “Here... your heart line tells me you will fall deeply in love with one person.”

  René beamed, but she shot him a serious look that gave him pause.

  “Perhaps Amandine is that person, perhaps she isn’t. You’re only nineteen, and we have thousands of miles ahead of us. Amandine’s road ends in Nieuwestad.”

  René closed his hands. He knew that palm reading was a party trick; Marmi had said so herself many times. What he didn’t know was why she was trying to use that on him now.

  “But you know,” he said. “You can tell me what will happen. You can tell me what to do.” Desperately, he demanded, “I want a vision. I want you to use your Infinite Sight.”

  Marmi scoffed, but the despair in his voice made her reconsider. She relented and thoughtfully closed her eyes, but all she could see was the past. She saw a little boy hiding in the back of Coronado’s truck, insisting he wasn’t a thief, but an aspiring cowboy who needed to get to America. She saw herself twelve years younger and a little fuller-figured, charmed by the child’s polite determination, but with no interest in an extra mouth to feed.

  “Every child wants to run away to join the circus,” Marmi told him. “And they all run back home to mama when my tiger tries to eat them.”

  “I’m not scared of tigers,” young René said. “I’m not scared of bears or mountain lions either. You’ll need somebody brave to chase them all off for you in America.”

  “I already have brave men who can wrestle bears. You have to go home, child. Your mama will miss you.” She remembered the way his heavy little eyebrows dipped down in disappointment and the way her heart softened a little to see it. “But I suppose my bear-wrestlers could use some help with dinner. Stay and eat with us, then at least you will have a story to tell when you get home.”

  Contented for the moment, young René pulled off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, and went to help the Russians serve up coq au vin. The boy never did tell Marmi where he came from, but the tag inside his jacket that read “Propriété de l’Orphelinat de Notre Dame” and the welts that criss-crossed up his forearms told her everything she needed to know.

  Marmi opened her eyes in the present. Even as the young man stood eye-to-eye with her, she still saw a little boy hiding from his hurt and dreaming of a bright future. “My darling, beloved child. I can’t tell you about the future, because both of you already know what it holds,” she said at last. “You need to open your eyes and see it yourself, because I don’t want to be the one to break your heart.”

  “Then tell me how to change it,” he begged. “Tell me what to do!”

  She shook her head firmly and released him. “Here is what you do: tell everyone to get ready to leave.” She turned her back and waved him away. “We press on to Nieuwestad tonight, and we finish that show.”

  It took all day and most of the night to reach the outskirts of New Work, New Jersey. The caravan was slow,
but they made good time as the roads became smoother the closer they got to the city. Coronado’s truck brought up the rear of the procession, and the illusionist drove with one arm out of the window, the other resting with a cigarette on the steering wheel.

  “Can you believe this?” he said to his passenger. “These roads have lamps now. Nothing was lit the last time we came here.”

  René was silent. He hadn’t spoken a word to anyone after delivering Marmi’s instructions, and Coronado was worried about the way he had completely withdrawn.

  “The city should be fun to explore, eh?” he went on, hoping to coax a response out of him. “I imagine there will be so much to do. Restaurants, dance halls, picture-shows… of course, it doesn’t sound very interesting to me, but to a bunch of young people— I could chaperone you if you wanted to take the girls out.”

  The passing lamps had a hypnotic effect on René. It drowned out most of what Coronado was saying, and it dulled the aching sadness he had been feeling since that morning. René had absolute faith in Marmi’s insight, but he could sense that she knew something else that she did not want to tell him. It confirmed that a parting would be inevitable, but he couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t just say so.

  Amandine knew this was coming, and she didn’t need Infinite Sight, he thought, tugging his hat lower so that the lamplights stayed out of his eyes. Yet how can she keep on smiling? Do I not mean as much to her as she means to me?

  Perhaps Marmi saw that Amandine didn’t truly care for him, and she was trying to spare his feelings. The thought hurt him so badly that he didn’t want to look at her. René feared his own reaction to seeing her radiant smile, knowing she would soon leave, and he could not follow.