Black Eyed Susan

by Elizabeth Leiknes

  When I glanced in the backseat, Will didn’t have the aroused look I expected. He tried to hide it, but he looked defeated and jealous, like his best girl just asked someone else to dance.

  Calliope noticed the tension, so she grabbed the map and blurted, “Let’s see, where’s the connection? Do you see a town called Tracy? What about Chapman?” She sighed. “There wouldn’t be a town called Fast. That’s just stupid …”

  Finally, I had my chance. “No, I’ve got it,” I said. “‘Fast’ in Spanish is ‘rapido.’ Look.” I pointed to the atlas while intermittently looking at the road. “Rapids … that’s it!” I said with my finger on Grand Rapids, hoping they would buy it. “We’re supposed to drive our car really fast to Grand Rapids.”

  Calliope was relieved. “Perfect. It’s less than two hours. We can hang out there and spend the night.”

  “Will?” I said. “Sound good?”

  He was still smarting from his lesbian fantasy gone bad. “Yeah, sure.”

  We switched seats and I fell asleep.

  TWENTY-ONE

  “Susan?” She touched my shoulder.

  I knew right away it was her. She hadn’t come for three weeks, but when she spoke, it was like she’d never left.

  When I opened my eyes, she was kneeling by my bed. Her soft blonde hair looked messy this time, less tidy than before, and her eyes were wide open and a bit crazed, as if she hadn’t slept in days.

  “How are you, darlin’?” she said in a raspy voice.

  I rubbed my eyes and forced out a sleepy, “Fine.”

  She just stared at me. There were three entities in the room: me, her, and a living, breathing unbearable sadness.

  “You have been spared.”

  I sat up and whispered, “From what?”

  She caressed my hair and nodded her head, like she was trying to convince herself of something. “I had to do it … there was great danger for you.” Suddenly, she looked different, like a different person.

  My grogginess gave me the courage to ask, “Are you a good ghost or a bad ghost?”

  She was offended.

  I was quick to undo the damage. “I mean, you seem like a good ghost … I was just wondering.” I knew I’d hurt her feelings. “Sorry. People say I have an overactive imagination.” I put my head down. “They say I’m weird.”

  She gently put her finger up to my mouth as if to quiet my nervousness. “Shhh, my dear.” Her eyes welled up, but she was smiling, and it seemed strange to see them in concert. “You … are perfect.” Her voice was strong. “Perfect.” She spoke with conviction, and I felt, for the only time in my life, like I had someone on my team, someone looking out for me.

  We heard one of my parents rumbling upstairs, and she stood up. “I must go.”

  And just like that, she walked away.

  TWENTY-TWO

  I awoke to Calliope poking me. “Suze? Suze! We’re here.”

  When I saw the sign for Grand Rapids, my body tingled with excitement, like when you see an old friend you haven’t seen in years.

  Will was behind the wheel, soaking up the scenery. “Where to, Spector? Any ideas? Where’s our adventure—”

  Without hesitation, I interrupted him, “Straight ahead for three blocks. Go left on Third Street. Take the gravel road four miles out into the country … I’ll tell you when to stop.”

  Puzzled, Will asked, “You’ve been here before?”

  I stared straight ahead.

  Calliope noticed my intensity. “You all right, Suze?”

  I nodded.

  Calliope and Will exchanged a look that told me they understood something was going on. My stomach began to knot up when I thought about what I might find buried in the backyard. But then I panicked. What if I dig and dig and find nothing? What if I’d imagined the whole thing?

  We went through town and headed out toward the countryside. Then we coasted over the last hill, the one right before my house—the same one I used to fly over, no hands, on my bike. When our farm came into view, I squinted, because it looked like I’d gone to the wrong one.

  “Susan?” Will was unsure what to do. “Are we stopping?”

  “Turn there,” I said and pointed to my old driveway, but everything was different than I remembered. No, different is an understatement. What I saw made my mouth fall agape. Where our rickety mailbox used to be was a sturdy, professional sign sticking out of the ground that read, “Welcome Home. You Are Now … Over the Rainbow,” in dreamy letters.

  As Will slowly drove us up the lane, I rolled down my window to take it all in. A hint of mystery was everywhere, peeking out from behind the peony bushes and whistling through the willow trees. Even the usual scent of the country air, two parts dirt and one part manure, seemed indescribably enchanting. But still, it was unrecognizable. This was the place I had called home for sixteen years, but there was no trace of me. Not even another girl to take my place. Just a strange new world masquerading as my childhood memory.

  Will grew antsy. “Wanna tell us what the hell’s going on, Susan?”

  “Shhh,” I said, looking around, closely observing the many changes. Gravel popped beneath the tires as I searched for things that used to be. To my left was an empty hole in the horizon where our barn used to sit. In its place was a small parking lot sectioned off with chunky railroad ties. At the lot’s entrance stood a life-sized wooden cutout of the Wicked Witch of the West and two of her flying monkeys. In a cartoon bubble hanging over their heads, they warned us that the space was “For Paying Customers Only!”

  Paying customers?

  Just when I thought things couldn’t get any weirder, Will stopped the car and the Mayor of Munchkinland poked his head in my passenger’s side window.

  “Welcome,” he said in a small voice. Actually, all of him was small. What’s the politically correct term? Little person? He was a little person dressed in a shimmering suit and top hat asking me if I had entrance passes or if I’d like to purchase them now.

  “Entrance passes?” I mumbled.

  The wee politician, barely tall enough to see inside the car, counted us with his stubby finger. “One, two, three … Let’s see, dogs are free … That’ll be thirty dollars, ma’am.” He chuckled, “Unless, of course, one of you is Dorothy.” It must have been the off-season because we were the only visitors, and we were getting the full treatment.

  “Holy—” Will started to laugh, but was interrupted by Glinda, the statuesque and sparkly Good Witch of the North, who was outside Will’s window. Seemingly unaware of her beauty, the sweet witch exposed some of her corseted cleavage when she curtsied.

  Calliope, wide-eyed in the backseat, got a helping hand out of the car from Munchkinland’s bearded coroner, who was clad in a tiny black cloak, and was understandably smitten with our hearse and with Calliope. He winked and said, “Good work. She’s undeniably dead.”

  I looked in the coroner’s direction, assuming he was talking about me, but he was pointing to two black-and-white striped legs sticking out from behind one of our front tires. It was a plastic blow-up doll, likely a retired sex toy, dressed like the Wicked Witch of the East.

  I handed the mayor a fifty-dollar bill from our stash, and stepped out of the car.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” the mayor said, tipping his hat. “I’ll get your change inside.”

  Distracted by the strangeness bustling around me, I motioned for him to keep it.

  The mayor arched his eyebrows, which looked like miniature painted-on crescent moons. “How generous. The museum thanks you.”

  “Museum?” I asked, taking Eternity in my arms. We were all out of the car now, and our greeters took the three of us by the hand and walked with us on the sidewalk toward the farmhouse I used to call home.

  In a velvety smooth voice, Glinda, who seemed to glide next to Will, said, “Why yes, we’ve done our best to preserve Dorothy’s childhood home.” She winked at Will, who was enjoying her angelic smile. “I mean Judy’s home.”

&nbs
p; “Judy?” I asked, as the mayor helped me up the steps and onto the porch.

  “Frances, actually. This here’s the birthplace of Frances Gumm … You folks know her as Judy Garland. The museum was established in 1994. I manage it.” The proud mayor grabbed his shiny lapels.

  I brought my hand to my chest. “I used to live here.”

  The mayor turned grumpy and rolled his eyes. “We got another live one.” Then in a softer voice, he said, “Just when you think there aren’t any more, they keep coming.” He looked up at me. “Sorry, but I have no more patience for your type.” His teensy voice turned ferocious. “YOU … ARE NOT JUDY GARLAND!”

  Will gently stepped away from Glinda and between the mayor and me. “Easy, mister. She’s definitely not Judy Garland. You’ll see.” He poked me. “Sing something, Susan.”

  Just then, Calliope broke the tension by giving the coroner’s little-person face a big-person smack. “Back up!” she yelled, directing him to take six steps back, which ended up equaling three. It turns out he’d used his inferior stature to nuzzle up to her flat and scrumptious navel.

  “He licked me!” Calliope hollered in disgust, wiping her belly with her hand.

  Will shook his head. “I can’t take you girls anywhere.” He walked over to the tiny, cloaked assailant. “And you … keep your tongue to yourself.”

  We all followed Will and the naughty coroner into the house. After all, we’d already paid. And to my surprise, my old house was a museum. The hallways were open and intact, but ropes were draped in front of every room to protect each scene, which was frozen in time. But these were scenes from another time, not mine. When I last saw my house, it had been bare—Moving Day—but today it was packed with antique furnishings and a ghostly presence.

  Will, Cal, and I walked toward the preserved kitchen on display. As we stood outside the ropes in the designated viewing area, I saw a faded and tattered calendar from April 1927 hanging on the wall by the sink. The mayor pointed to a circled date, the fourteenth, on the calendar. “That was the last day Frances and the Gumm family lived here.”

  Just as he said that, I remembered something my mother had told me long ago. “Someone special used to live here before us.” I never asked who that special someone was because I didn’t want to know. I didn’t need another bizarre detail to add to my already freaky life’s resumé.

  He rambled on, telling us tidbits of Gumm family memories, but I had something more important to do.

  “Hold on. That’s the second part of the tour …”

  Before he had a chance to finish, I headed down the hallway and out the back door, Will and Calliope following close behind. When I opened the door, a lot was missing. No clothesline, no shed, no swing set. Instead, I witnessed the most fantastic sight I’d ever seen. The cornfields were familiar, but everything else leapt off the pages of an almost-fairy-tale. The sidewalk that used to be concrete was now a perfect winding path made of brick.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “Yellow?”

  Will nodded.

  We stepped onto the yellow brick path, which began in a tight spiral and straightened out into a mini-road. In the distance, about the length of a football field, the road ended when it met what looked like a gigantic stage backdrop. It was a huge drive-in movie screen, and playing on its canvas was a detailed painting of a towering castle. You could say the castle was big enough to hold a whole … city.

  I pointed to it. “Emerald?”

  Will nodded again.

  On both sides of the path, hundreds of poppies danced in the breeze. We began walking.

  “Oh, Suze, they’re this amazing pinky-orange sherbet color. I’ve never seen anything like it,” Calliope said. Then she brought her hand to her forehead and dropped to the ground, pretending to faint, and said in a loud, forced whisper, “Poppies … poppies will put you to sleep …”

  I ignored her antic because I was busy trying to spot the big oak tree. When I got my bearings, I realized it was just beyond the giant backdrop in the distance.

  Suddenly, from the house, we heard a voice behind us. The mayor was standing at the back door, yelling in our direction. “Get ready—they’re coming!”

  “Who’s he talking to?” Calliope asked, recovering from her pseudo-fainting spell.

  Within seconds, we had our answer. From behind a big fake boulder jumped a scarecrow, obviously on the museum payroll, but unconventional. Tan, young, and muscular, the shirtless scarecrow wore cutoff denim shorts with a few signature pieces of straw hanging out of his chiseled waistline. His face was painted, and he wore a floppy hat, but it was his dancer-like movements that defined him. He hummed “If I Only Had A Brain,” then wobbly-legged his way over to Calliope and gazed into her eyes.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “Hello,” she said back.

  “How are you?” he asked with his head cocked to the side.

  She moved her head to match his. “How are you?”

  He was standing on his own, but he dangled his arms and positioned himself to look like he was hanging on a post, overlooking the fields and incoming crows. “Stop repeating me,” he said with a raised and animated finger.

  Calliope smiled and pointed back. “Stop repeating me.”

  “It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?”

  “It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?”

  “Damn, these birds.”

  “Damn, these birds.”

  This went on for another few lines, and when it gained ample momentum, the scarecrow tried to outsmart Calliope by sneaking in, “I am a stupid woman!”

  “I am …” Calliope raised her eyebrows with confidence. “… looking for a match.”

  “You wouldn’t,” he said. “I’m a tinderbox!” Then the scarecrow performed a clownish jump.

  “No,” she winked. “I’m looking for a match.” She pointed first to herself, then to him, to invite a romantic pairing.

  This sparked something in him, so the smoldering scarecrow took off his hat and walked toward Calliope. But before they had a chance to touch, the mayor, still keeping watch on the back steps, hollered for him to get back to work.

  Limp and disappointed, he returned to his post, letting his right arm swing back and forth at the elbow like a pendulum on a hinge. Using his other hand to point to the road ahead, he said, “Your journey lies ahead,” “You must leave me behind.”

  Calliope studied him for a moment, and then nodded, as if to confirm his brawn-over-brain status. She blew him a kiss goodbye.

  The three of us continued walking together and, in a few paces, we came to a man-made hill covered with Astroturf. It jutted out among the surrounding poppies, and it was big enough to hide a full-grown man—a full-grown Tin Man.

  We heard creaking metal as he got to his feet and mumbled, “This job sucks.” He clanked toward us, wearing a cumbersome aluminum costume, and he reluctantly handed Will a small oil can with a spout. “I’m supposed to ask visitors to oil my squeaks, but it’s fucking hot in here and I’m not in the mood.”

  Will empathized. “I know the feeling.”

  The cranky hunk of metal leaned against the imitation hill. “Any of you guys got a cigarette?”

  “Hey, now,” Will said, “that’s bad for your heart. Oh, wait. Scratch that.”

  The Tin Man flipped him off and took the polished funnel from atop his head and began drinking from it.

  “Cool,” Will said, taking a closer look.

  A proud Tin Man showed him his leak-proof invention. “This is my friend, Jack.” He took a drink. “Daniel’s.”

  “What’s the going rate for a Tin Man?” Will asked, knocking on his rigid protective covering. “A hard man is good to find.”

  The Tin Man leaned in close and confided in Will. “The pay isn’t great.” He leaned in closer. “But the thing is, I got my eye on someone here.” He looked up toward the house, then picked up part of his costume, a glossy plastic heart hanging from a bulky chain, and held it tightly in his hand.<
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  Will gave him some advice. “If it’s the coroner, I should tell you he has a disturbing belly fetish.”

  Stuck in a dreamy stare, he answered, “Sarah,” and then elaborated by adding, “Glinda. She doesn’t even know I exist.” His face showed tenderness when he revealed, “She’s so … good.” He sighed. “She—”

  “Makes you wanna be a better Tin Man?” Will said.

  Nodding, the Tin Man took one last drink from his funnel and retreated behind his hill.

  “Tell her how you feel while you can, man,” Will said to him, but he was looking at me when he said it.

  Calliope noticed our exchange and gave me a questioning glance, so I motioned for us to move on.

  “Let’s go,” I said. “Looks like we’ve got another surprise.” I pointed up the path and to the right, where a tail was sticking out from behind a bush. The tail, about two feet long with a matted tuft of fur on the end, lay motionless. We walked up to it, and out popped a fierce lion—sort of.

  A little person in a small lion’s costume said, “Grrrrr?” It was more a question than a statement. Elbows and knees buried in the grass, he looked like a baby dressed up for Halloween.

  When I started laughing, he hung his head and crawled back to the bush and into a blanket-lined doggy bed-basket. His eyes darted back and forth, and he had this nervous twitch that made me want to rock him and read him a bedtime story.

  I felt bad. “No, no, come back. I wasn’t laughing at you.”

  Calliope and Will looked at me like the liar I was.

  “Okay, I was laughing at you, but only because you’re so cute.” As soon as I said it, I regretted how condescending it sounded.

  He waddled back out, this time on his feet, and it was as if the baby had grown into a toddler. He moved a little like a penguin, but he was a man. I could tell because I saw cheek stubble peeking through the penciled-in whiskers.