Threadbare- The Traveling Show

by Alexandra DeMers

  “I really mean it, Dad,” she said sincerely. “They were good people who took good care of me. I was really happy to work for them.”

  “Tell me about what you made,” he said, eager to learn more about his daughter in his three-year absence. He knew that even if she never supported the cause with the same fervor, they would always have sewing in common. “When I left, you were already a very resourceful dressmaker.”

  She pulled her blue journal out of her pocket and pushed it across the table to her parents. Will and Caroline sat shoulder to shoulder and thumbed through the pages, murmuring with interest at the drawings, notes, and swatches. Everything she made, from feed sack underwear to the show-stopping festival costumes, was laid out in detail. Her father noticed that the dress Amandine was wearing was in the book, so he made her stand up so they could scrutinize the workmanship.

  “You're not a dressmaker.” Will returned her notebook. “You're an artist.”

  “Thanks, Dad.” Amandine beamed with pride.

  Will reached for his toast and was startled to find that it had vanished. Caroline offered him an apologetic shrug and signaled for more food.

  He drummed his fingertips quietly on the table while he waited. It was obvious to the others that Will wanted to say something, but it was some time before he finally asked, “Are you... absolutely sure you don't want to stay?”

  Amandine stopped chewing.

  “You don't have to fight,” he added quickly. “In fact, I'd prefer if you didn't. Not unless you wanted to.” He could already see her answer in her eyes, so he quickly tried a different approach. “Once all this is done, we can start over. I daresay, you’ve got more vision and skill than most people in the business. Can you picture it, Button? All of us Stewarts sewing together again?”

  Amandine regarded him sadly. “Daddy, you know I want to, but... I can't.”

  “No, she mo’ fertainly can’t,” Carver mumbled around the extra pieces of toast he had clamped in his mouth.

  Will and Amandine looked up in surprise. Carver was completely unrecognizable. He had slept in the scorched remnants of his uniform, and his once perfect hair was a wild mess. Amandine thought he better resembled his chaotic radio personality, especially now that he was wearing a pair of wire-rimmed glasses.

  Carver dropped his tray and an entire pot of coffee beside Amandine. “She's working for me now, remember?”

  “Button, what do you know about radios?” Will asked his daughter impatiently.

  “Nothing.” Carver refilled Caroline’s outstretched mug. “But her boyfriend sure is handy for a dimwit. I figured he could help me and my ham buddies while she could be safely tucked away in scenic Slate Plains, Wyoming. They're safe out west together and supporting the cause. Everybody is happy.”

  While Caroline enjoyed Carver’s company, Will could scarcely tolerate him, especially after last night's heated exchange. His stony glower did a poor job of hiding the fact, so Carver tried to reason with him.

  “What's a teenage dressmaker going to do in a bunker or pirate submarine, anyway? Besides take up a ridiculous amount of space with her fabric?” He tucked a napkin into his collar. “I once dated a girl who knitted, but I had to break it off when she started hoarding her yarn at my place. It was heartbreaking to learn she only wanted me for my storage space.”

  “'Boyfriend,'” Will grumbled, ignoring Carver's tangent.

  “I like him,” Caroline put in. “I thought he was a bounty hunter when I first saw him because he had Marcus’s gun and Amandine’s silver thimble. You should have seen him on the horse.”

  “You should have seen how he barbecued the blues,” Carver chirped as if he hadn’t been nearly incinerated himself.

  “All I saw him do was put his paws all over my daughter,” Will complained. “He has no spine, no concept of what is proper, and Marcus seems to think he's mentally deficient.”

  Carver snorted until he choked. Clearing his throat, he said, “No, he's not really a moron. At least, I’m pretty sure he isn't.” He wiped his mouth with his sleeve before starting on his second cup of coffee. “He's just a French kid of fighting age, fitting the kind of profile any aspiring inquestor would die for. The magic-man fooled the blues into thinking the kid was an idiot so they'd leave him alone.” Carver doctored his coffee with a little cream, and he sucked the residual sugar off of his spoon. “Which reminds me— boss, I need a new gun.”

  “I took care of it already,” Caroline replied, pinching a bite of powdered eggs off of Will’s new tray. “I visited the armory and put something that might suit you a little better in your car.”

  “You have your own armory at IHQ. Why do you need to root around in our supplies?” Will turned in his seat to guard his food. “You shouldn't be handing out guns like Cracker Jack prizes in the first place. They aren't toys. That dirty vagrant could shoot himself, or worse, my daughter.”

  “What have you got against the maghreb?” Caroline demanded.

  “Nothing!” Will exclaimed. “Is it wrong to have high standards and expectations for my only daughter? Whatever happened to the Cordell boy back home? You remember? His family grew cotton. Didn’t he walk Button home from school a few times?”

  “Drafted,” Caroline said.

  “He took up chew and spit everywhere,” Amandine grimaced.

  “How about Jacob Silverman’s son? Now there was a young man raised right. He was going to be a banker, like his fath—”

  “Drafted.” Caroline took a bottle of aspirin from her pocket and swallowed a few pills with her coffee.

  “Simon called me a few nasty names once after a disagreement over what we considered to be historical fact.” Amandine reached for a few pills herself. The painful throbbing in her head was beginning to make her vision go dark around the edges. “In any case, I didn’t leave the house after you were gone unless I had to find food. I didn’t see anybody at all, let alone any potential suitors.”

  Will gave up. “I never imagined you were so impulsive that you'd fall for the first boy you laid eyes on.”

  Amandine shrugged and shared a knowing look with her mother.

  “I was exaggerating,” he growled. “You mean he really is the first boy you've laid eyes on?”

  “The first boy who wasn't in uniform.” She smiled into her cup. “If you think I ought to shop around before I buy, Mr. Carver here tells me that the NAR has a special place for young ladies looking for a fella.”

  The old sailor grunted indignantly at her sass. He could command an army of patriots and the hardened crew of the Osiris, but he had no control over the people at this table.

  Carver rolled his eyes. “You know, I’ve had such rotten luck in the romance department that I’ve got half a mind to just pick up a decent laundress from the replacement home.” He stuffed his mouth full of eggs and added wistfully, “Though I’d gladly do all of Sangria’s laundry if she’d let me take her out to dinner.”

  “Over your last great romance already?” Will grumbled.

  Carver only bared his teeth in an artificial smile.

  Amandine didn’t pay any attention to their bitter exchange; she was thinking about where things stood between Sangria and Coronado. Though they were certainly closer after the party, they weren’t even remotely romantic, so she thought that perhaps some attention from somebody as pushy as Carver would get Sangria to make up her mind. After all of the trouble at the prison, it couldn’t hurt to have a friendly inquestor keep an eye on Marmi’s group for a while either.

  “If you want to see Gia, you should go to the show tonight.” Amandine said. “It's her first, big, starring performance, and Glorious has got her doing some really hot numbers. It would just tickle her pink to have a fan already.”

  “Ooh, can I?” Carver spun on Caroline.

  “Marcus, we have a job to do,” Will reminded him firmly. “You'll be attending the festival to work, not chase skirts.”

  “You know, I don’t remember ever agreeing to work duri
ng the festival.” Carver cocked his head mechanically towards Caroline. “Do you?”

  Caroline shrugged and scratched her bandage with her little finger.

  “Does that mean I can’t count on you after all?” Will snarled.

  “Of course not, Willy. I’m your Old Faithful. You can time a souffle to my punctuality. I was just thinking aloud, because it seems that the decision to move away from resource appropriation towards high-profile assassinations was made without me.” Carver smirked, clearly enjoying how easily he could push Will’s buttons. “Here’s a thought. How about this?” He held his hands up like a frame for his idea. “After breakfast, I head back to IHQ to get debriefed, and you three meet me at my apartment later tonight. I'll give Amandine a ride back to her boyfriend before the rest of us have to clock in, and I can watch the show and still do my part from the square. It will be easier for me to handle a bit of business for my side-gig if I’m already down there anyway.”

  Amandine had no idea what he was talking about, but Caroline seemed to follow.

  “Making an appearance?” she asked.

  “I need to tie up a loose end,” he answered flatly, avoiding Amandine's inquisitive look. “The sooner, the better.”

  “What do you plan on telling Everild?”

  “The truth,” Carver said. “The best way to lie is to stay as close to the truth as possible. I’ll simply—” He waved his fingers in the air as if the right word was floating in front of him. “—Omit certain details that he doesn’t have to know.”

  Caroline reflexively touched her missing eye, and Carver’s grin widened.

  Will felt that he missed some important information. “Why the hell would all three of us need to go to your apartment?”

  “Amandine needs a ride back to her boyfriend,” Carver enunciated, peering over his glasses. “And I’m gonna need some new uniforms fit.”

  Caroline chuckled; she expected nothing less from the vain Inquestor.

  “I have been going through suits on this mission like the president goes through mistresses, and I’m going to pick up some new ones just as soon as Everild turns me loose.” He plucked at his hanging, charred collar pitifully. “Be sure to bring your big sewing kit, and when you get to my place, tell the doorman you're all tailors.”

  “And the doorman wouldn't find it unusual that you hired three tailors to make an after-hours house call during the festival?” Will asked skeptically.

  “I've stayed at Marcus's apartment many times,” Caroline answered. “Believe me, that would not be the oddest thing the poor fellow has had to let through the front door.”

  Carver looked very pleased with himself since nobody opposed his plan. “The other inquestors would just die if they knew I got my uniform fit by the man who designed them,” he said smugly. “There’s nothing better than going to a party in a sharp new suit.”

  “René and I wanted to see the show together before we left town,” Amandine said amicably. “You could watch it with us if you wanted.”

  “Can’t. When the uniform is on, I’m all business, and business dictates that I only fraternize with other inquestors and the occasional easy woman. Where's that drugstore cowboy of yours, anyways?” Carver sat up a little taller to search the busy room. “Decided he wasn’t so eager to die for the cause after all?”

  “He went home,” Amandine replied with a sigh. When they parted ways last night, he looked exactly like the cover of a Rogue Rider novel, handsome and heroic on horseback. “He had to get some things and say goodbye to Marmi.”

  “His mommy?”

  “Marmi,” she repeated. “Remember? She's the tall woman from—” Amandine paused. She never learned where Marmi came from. “She was the fortune-teller.”

  “Speaking of that band of bums...” Carver pressed his hands together and broke the news as delicately as he could. “They aren't exactly in the clear.”

  “What?” Amandine felt her stomach pitch in panic.

  “Remember when I said the blues told my boss about the suspicious traveling show?” he explained. “He's got inquestors all over Nieuwestad probing the acts this week. That’s why I told your friends they probably shouldn’t attend the festival.”

  “Can't you just say, ‘Never mind, they're fine, my mistake?’” Her heart sank as she imagined everyone tortured, shackled, and wasting away in a dark dungeon. Just as this picture sprang into her mind, she was struck by the realization that she never once imagined her mother this way.

  Carver narrowed his eyes. “That's not— inquestors don’t make mistakes. They always get results. They’re going to expect somebody's head, metaphorically or quite literally speaking.”

  “Oh, no!” She paled and pressed her hands over her mouth. “Mr. Carver, you can't!”

  “Unless you can think of somebody else I could nab instead, I’m going to need to get at least one person, and soon!” He threw his hands out to his sides in a helpless display. “I could have negotiated a raise if I got the French kid, but since he's off the table, my vote is for that musician. That bastard’s got a record, and he was the one who set the tiger on me.”

  Will and Caroline watched their daughter closely to see what she'd do. Amandine imagined that this was how her mother, once just a busy tailor’s wife, got started on the bloody path she was on now. She had been backed into a corner, and she had no choice left but to fight to protect the ones she loved.

  “Surely there was some performer you didn’t like,” Carver went on. “Someone who was mean to you or thought your designs were passé?”

  Amandine dropped her hands into her lap as a monstrous idea came to her. She suppressed her guilt before she changed her mind and tugged on the Inquestor's sleeve. He leaned close, and she nervously whispered something in his ear.

  “Oh, you wicked little thing, you.” Carver chuckled darkly. “Well, I think it’s safe to say that Marmi-dearest has nothing to worry about anymore.”

  Sufficiently caffeinated and looking perfectly wretched, Carver took his pulverized car back to Inquestor Headquarters in the city, leaving the Stewarts alone once more.

  Amandine would always remember that day in the bunker as one of the best days of her life. She decided to help her father make a dress for Caroline since she couldn’t wear her prison jumpsuit to the festival, but the only material on hand was some old canvas. Will agonized over the design. After so many years away, he wanted to make something beautiful for his wife, but he kept wadding up sketch after sketch. “Canvas is for seabags, not party dresses,” he grumbled. “Oh, what I’d give for just two yards of gabardine.”

  Inspired by the challenge, Amandine took her mother’s favorite drawing from Will’s discard pile and added a few details she knew she could make from her scrap bag. Her contribution surprised and delighted her parents, and with a plan in place, they set to work.

  While they pressed, cut, and sewed over cups of sweet tea, Amandine kept looking from her father to her mother in disbelief, wondering how the moment was possible. They were alive and all together one last time.

  That evening, the train took them to the city where the Inquestor was anxiously awaiting them at his downtown apartment. He flew to the door in his bathrobe when he heard them knock.

  “What took you so long?” he fussed, pushing them inside one by one. He did a double-take when he saw what Caroline was wearing.

  “What’s wrong, Marcus?” She floated past him and made herself at home, leaving her shoes, scarf and sunglasses at the door. “Don’t you like my new dress?”

  “Oh, I do.” He studied it with his head tilted to one side. “I think it sure is something! I’m having a hard time working out how it can have so much going on and yet look so balanced.”

  “It’s a combination of traditional, structured dressmaking and a little gypsy resourcefulness,” she explained proudly from his kitchen. “Do you still have my hats and wigs here?”

  He pointed absently down the hall. “Your clothes are in the bedroom, same place
as always.”

  Will glared at the Inquestor like he wanted to knock him across the room.

  “What?” Carver rolled his eyes. “Don’t give me that. She keeps her disguises here.”

  “So why don’t you hide them?” Will demanded.

  “Why should I? If anybody ever found her clothes, I’ll just say I get my kicks by dressing in drag. Goodness knows they’d probably believe it.” Carver grabbed Will by the sleeve and pulled him down the hallway. “Anyway, you’re worried about the wrong outfits. I was reissued three uniforms today, and we’re running out of time.”

  “What?” Will blinked as he was led to an entire room dedicated to the care of Carver’s uniforms. The room was filled with every laundry appliance, utensil, soap and solution imaginable, and Carver pointed urgently to the suit bags hanging by his trifold dressing mirror.

  “You deaf, man? I need them fit.” Carver dropped his bathrobe and pulled on his new trousers. “Let’s see that legendary needle fly!”

  Caroline appeared at the doorway, blowing on a fresh cup of coffee. She handed the mug to her husband with a smirk. “I told you he was serious, chéri. Better get to pinning.”

  Will steeled himself with a hot drink and rolled up his sleeves. Amandine came to help after she put on a dance record from the Inquestor’s extensive music library. She pinned and listened to her father complain, but she noticed that he couldn’t help smiling as he worked with fine material once again.

  Before long, it was time to part ways, and Amandine bid an emotional farewell to her parents. She didn't know when she'd see them again but felt comfort in knowing that at least they had each other now.

  “Goodbye, Button.” Will held her for as long as he could. “It’s not safe for either of us to write or call directly, but please let us know when you get settled.”

  “How?” Amandine asked.

  “Leave a message with Marcus, and he’ll get it to us.”