by Hilary Sloin
The door to the restaurant swung open and the employee stepped outside.
“Would it be possible to move in tonight?” Francesca asked, tears forcing their way up.
“Give me the goddamn phone,” the employee said, reaching her large hand over Francesca’s shoulder. “Get off your lazy ass and meet her there, you moron.” She returned the receiver to Francesca and stormed inside, down the length of the restaurant and behind the counter.
Sherry, as the employee was called, described how to get to the cabin. To facilitate the effort, she loaned Francesca a rusted bicycle kept in a shed out back. Francesca thanked her profusely, comforted by the kindness that hid in the most unconventional places. She rode quickly the half a mile or so that separated the pizza place from the small cabin, and leaned the bike against the front. The building was run-down and small, covered in cheap asbestos tiles.
The landlord arrived promptly. He was short, homely, with dark, thin hair, a heavy five o’clock shadow, and broad shoulders. He climbed out of his truck and walked across some sunken train tracks, then pointed to the ground. He followed the tracks with his finger as they dissolved into a distant curve. “These here are functioning train tracks. You can expect a train to come ripping through here four times a day.” He looked her over uncertainly.
Francesca took the money out of her pocket and placed it on the palm of his hand.
“I told you there’s no running water. Just a spigot.” He fiddled with the rusty padlock. “That means no toilet.” He turned and looked at her, then pushed open the heavy door and handed her the key. “I want the rent on the first of each month. You can bring it to Sherry.”
Francesca stepped into the dark room. The mustiness was so thick, it made her eyes water. The room was dark but for the large, paned windows that let in the weak evening light. A dry sink was surrounded by cabinets, a hot plate, a mini-refrigerator; several cubbies were built into the wall. There was a bunk bed, and a wood stove occupied the center of the room.
“Spigot and outhouse are in the back,” he said. “I’ll get the outhouse cleaned for you tomorrow.” The smell of liquor wafted between them, even as he moved a wad of peppermint gum from one jaw across his tongue to the other. “Lights work,” he tugged on a string, illuminating a bare bulb in the center of the ceiling.
“Thanks,” she said.
After he’d left, Francesca rushed outside to scavenge for firewood before night settled. Behind the cabin a small field was surrounded by woods. She piled sticks on her right arm, straining her fist around a bundle of kindling, then returned to the cabin and dumped her bounty in the center of the floor. She removed her shoes, tucked them neatly under the bottom bunk, and bolted the door.
It was quiet. The whisper of Route 6 traffic blended with the grass sashaying in the ocean wind. She sat on the thin mattress. “I must learn every sound,” she said calmly, “so nothing will startle me.” She remained still for quite a long time, listening for the nearing of large black birds, vehicles, the creaking of the cabin’s foundation. Semi-darkness made the windows fade and the room grow chilly. For the first time since leaving New Haven, she was frightened. She remembered her grandmother scowling. Lisa standing on the lawn—a slim, dark-headed form against the dawn. Everything moved in her memory but Lisa herself—clouds overhead, ambulances approaching, Francesca’s own heart and blood. Neighbors cluttered the driveway to investigate. For one moment Lisa stood certain as a stain, her head turned, looking at something off to the right. Then she was gone.
She could run out and use the pay phone by the pizzeria. Call Lisa and tell her to come quick. They could be together. Away from Mr. Sinsong. You’ll never believe where I am, she’d say. I’m here. In Cape Cod. Or was it on Cape Cod?
And then darkness descended thoroughly. She unpacked her knapsack and covered the large panes of glass—several of them cracked—with her clothes, tucking sweatshirts and jeans into the crevices between the window frames and the walls. Better not to know what’s out there. The train passed later in the evening, making the walls shudder and the floor vibrate: The whole structure seemed on the verge of collapse, more frail even than the hovel she’d constructed so many years ago. Still, it was hers; she’d gotten away. She unraveled her sleeping bag on the top mattress, then persisted gallantly in trying to light the wood stove, relying on Sam Gribley’s advice: (1) Roll the paper into logs. (2) Straddle them with kindling in the shape of a teepee. (3) Add logs, the smallest ones first. (4) When the flames are as tall as your finger, blow gently.
Fortunately, there was a pile of old newspapers, yellowed and crisp, from 1978, beside the stove. She lit the paper logs in several spots and puffed hopefully until a small, red ember swelled. Patiently, Francesca listened for the popping sounds of burning wood, but heard only a dry hiss, like someone was trapped in there. Spooky. Worse, it meant that the wood was rotted and wet. That there would be no fire.
She slept on the top bunk, in all of the clothes she hadn’t used to cover the windows—two sweatshirts and an extra pair of jeans. At 4:30 a.m. a freight train seemed to be gunning directly through the room—rattling cans, tossing the legs of the iron bed. When she opened her eyes, her first thought was that she was home, amid an earthquake or explosion. She sat straight up and looked around at the unfamiliar room. Then she remembered.
Sherry told her about a nearby flea market, the major source of industry in the milder months of the off-season. Sherry’s old friend, Gus, ran a booth called Antique Alley, and she offered to put in a good word for Francesca. He was always looking for some kid to help him peddle his secondhand merchandise—bottles, lamps, broken musical instruments.
“You got any experience in retail, kid?” he asked her, lighting up an Old Gold, throwing the paper match on the ground. He wore crazy pants made of patchwork like you’d find on a quilt on some grandmother’s bed and a New York Yankees hat that said Redsocks Suck on the back.
“I’m very adaptable,” said Francesca. Truer words had never been spoken.
He hired Francesca to work alongside him for the first two weekends so she could learn the ropes. “It just needs strings,” he would tell the customer, or “You just have to oil it,” and he’d demonstrate the stickiness of the keys. He paid her fifty dollars a weekend to work all day Saturday and Sunday.
It turned out she possessed a knack for convincing people to buy things they didn’t need: little glass sun-catchers, mobiles, dusty antique bottles in unusual colors. She couldn’t squeeze a twenty from a millionaire, Gus teased, but she could get a quarter out of almost anyone. Even Jack, the sneaker guy across the way, visited every afternoon to listen to Francesca pitch something frivolous (an embroidered napkin for his wife, a synthetic scarf that said “Made in Portugal” on the label, a candle in the shape of a frog with the words “Prince Charming” across its waxen sweatshirt), and he always walked away with something.
It wasn’t long before Gus left her to run the table alone, freeing him up to work another flea market further inland. For Francesca, New Haven took on the shape of a morning dream, reduced, finally, to flat pages shaved from a picture book. Each day it became easier to stay away. She passed the pay phone on her street and sometimes thought of calling Lisa, but she could no longer imagine what she’d say. She wondered whether Evelyn, having had some time to think things through, might be sorry and, upon hearing Francesca’s voice, beg her to return. But she didn’t want to return. She was solitary now; it suited her. At night she ate hot dogs, beans, and Snickers bars, cooked dinner on the small hotplate, read comic books as it grew dark outside. Sometimes she’d crack the door to the bar refrigerator, lie on the top bunk, and admire her home in the dense yellow light of the utility bulb. “Mine,” she’d whisper, unafraid.
Her flea market days began at 5 a.m. and often lasted until 8:00 at night. Still, she needed no alarm clock. The freight train woke her each morning, just as her landlord had promised, and she hurried around to the back of the cabin, held a milk container under the spigot, re
veling in the sound of water pummeling the soft, pliant sides. She washed up, brushed her teeth, and gathered wood to heat the small room upon her return in the evening. Then she dressed for the day and rode her bike to the flea market. All of this, strange as it may seem, made her happy.
A chilly, overcast Saturday in October. The sky was thick with flattened clouds, and the market was empty. It was the end of the tourist season and all the merchandise was stiff with salt. Vendors wore windbreakers and denim jackets, hovered over steaming paper cups of coffee. No matter how many watery cups of Snak-Shak-Wendy’s coffee Francesca consumed, her eyelids fell heavy as wet towels. She considered closing up early, covering the goods with the large, blue tarp, and asking Jack, the sneaker guy, to keep an eye on things until Gus showed up.
She was, in fact, looking across the aisle at Jack, weighing her options, when a red Porsche parked behind the booth in front of a “No Parking” sign. The fender was marred by a large, rusting dent, and the windshield was dusted with sand. Out of the car stepped a woman in a great hurry, sharp and unnatural against the slow humidity of the day. She arrived at Francesca’s table, pressed her hip to the ribbed metal casing, clamped her thin waist with her manicured hand, and removed her dark sunglasses which she clipped to the pointed opening of her blouse. She had ripe tomato-colored hair and skin covered in freckles that were, in turn, covered in powder. “This is exactly what I’m looking for!” She wrapped her right hand around the head of a smooth blue bird, then tapped the glass with her fingernail. Under the table her two long, arched feet pressed into steep shoes, their heels secured by a precarious strap. The short hem of her dress brushed against the table’s edge.
She sat the plump bird in her palm. “Heavy,” she said approvingly, dipping her hand up and down to demonstrate.
Vanilla perfume drifted across the fold-out table. Francesca took a step closer, detected lipstick, thick black mascara over brick red lashes, intricate, freckled ears.
“How much?” The woman held out the bird.
Francesca shrugged. “Two bucks.”
“How about one?” She stared, unflinching, into Francesca’s eyes. The book lady on the other side of the aisle was watching. Jack peered over the lip of his coffee cup.
Francesca shrugged. “Yeah, alright.”
The woman’s long fingers opened her small black bag and disappeared inside. She gathered, along with bits of tobacco from the deep corners, a pile of sticky change which she spread on her palm, moving the pieces about until she’d amassed ten dimes. She scratched them up with long nails, arched her wrist, and let the coins fall onto Francesca’s palm.
“I’m Lucky,” she said.
“I’m not.”
“No, I mean I’m Lucky. That’s my name.”
“I was making a joke.” Francesca crossed her legs at the ankles and removed her worn pack of Marlboros from the center pocket of her overalls. She stuck one in her mouth and ran her finger along the rough metal wheel of her Bic. Then she leaned in like a cowboy and squinted against the groping flame. She looked up and grinned.
“Good one. First time I ever heard that.” Lucky rolled her eyes. “I’ve seen you around here. What’s your name?”
“Francesca.”
“Very nice name,” Lucky nodded, impressed. “Very sophisticated. Have you ever been to the Provincetown hills?”
Francesca shook her head. “I’ve never even been to Provincetown.”
“Never been to Provincetown? How old are you?”
Francesca shrugged and played with the heavy pile of quarters in her pocket.
“You don’t know how old you are?” Lucky leaned over, showing Francesca the muscles in her neck, one slate blue vein that ran just under the skin, a hint of cleavage. “Hello?” Lucky waved back and forth.
“I’m an orphan from Appalachia and no one ever told me when I was born.”
Lucky squinted her eyes. “An orphan?”
Francesca nodded sadly.
“You don’t sound like you’re from Appalachia.”
“I haven’t lived there in a long time.”
“And now you live here.” Lucky put one hand on her hip. “At the flea market.”
Francesca was learning she had no gift for flirtatious banter. “I have a cabin.”
“You live alone in a cabin?”
It made her feel powerful to give away so little about herself. She looked up at Jack across the way. He watched, solemnly, as did the other vendors on all sides. “I don’t think you’re very popular here,” said Francesca.
“They don’t like their own mothers. Could I have a bag or something to wrap this in?” She held up the bird.
Francesca found a sheet of newspaper under the table. She placed the bird down on its side on top of several sheets of newspaper and rolled the paper tight around it, then tucked in the ends carefully and taped them together. She found a piece of pink ribbon that happened to be hanging around and made a bow at the center.
“That’s sweet,” said Lucky. She put on her sunglasses and peered dangerously over the tops. “Want to come over for dinner?”
“Why?”
“I’m making steak,” Lucky replied flatly. “Yes or no?” Again, she put her hand on her hip; the other was extended holding the bird. “Come on. It’ll be fun. I’ll bet you haven’t had a good steak in a while.”
Francesca wasn’t sure she’d ever had a good steak. There was the rib-eye special at Bonanza. She thought it was tasty, tender, but Evelyn insisted it was nothing more than a pile of Steak-umms pounded into pressboard. “I can’t leave ’til at least 4,” she said.
“I have errands to run. I’ll come back for you.” Lucky turned and walked away, providing a view of her smooth, practiced hips shifting from side to side inside her tight skirt.
For the rest of the afternoon, Francesca waited impatiently for the day to end. A man asked about a violin Gus was selling for forty bucks. She knew right off that he wasn’t going to buy it. She could always tell from the body language. When they kept a few inches between themselves and the table, they were browsing. Someone who wanted to buy, who had the cash to buy then and there, either would give everything equal consideration or walk, determinedly, to one item and stay there. This guy was wasting her time.
But Francesca wanted someone to waste her time. Anything to pass the last two hours until the woman with the bird returned. She explained patiently to the man about the minor repairs that were necessary to make the violin play—bridge work and new strings, rosin for the bow—these were Gus’s stock answers, though he knew nothing about violins. After a while, the man thanked her and walked away. She settled in for a smoke.
“Jack,” she called. “You got the time?”
Jack crossed the aisle. “2:40 or so,” he said. She offered him her pack of cigarettes.
“You shouldn’t be smoking those things.” He took one, leaned in for a light.
They stood a few moments, smoking. Much as the vendors scolded her for smoking, saying they never would have started if they’d known what people know today, they trusted her more now that she participated in the favorite pastime at the flea market. They’d been wary of her at first: half-girl, half-boy, dirty and parentless, showing up from nowhere, so recalcitrant she seemed to be either a snob or an idiot. They thought she was a dyke from Provincetown, but when they learned she’d never even been into Provincetown, had never ventured beyond Wellfleet, they forgave her for looking like a queer.
“You know that woman?” asked Jack.
“Which woman?”
“You know.” He waved his hands around his head, indicating hair.
“I don’t know her. She just showed up.”
“I know her. Everybody knows her. You know why we know her?” Francesca shook her head.
“Because she’s got a reputation. She tell you she’s married?”
Francesca shook her head.
“Yep,” he said. “Married. I don’t know what you know or don’t know or what
all kinds of folks you cavort with, but that one’s not good people.” He stopped, as though he’d finished, took a long drag of his cigarette. “She buy anything?”
“A bluebird.”
“She might be married, but she’s one of them lesbians.”
Francesca shrugged. “That doesn’t mean she’s not a nice person.”
“Yeah, well, she ain’t. I’m not saying they’re all bad people or nothing like that. I got no prejudice. I’m just telling you what I heard.”
Francesca stuck her thumb in the air. “Okay, Jack. Thanks for telling me.”
“I’m just telling you.”
“I appreciate it. Thanks.”
“So you have the facts. You have to be careful.”
“I know. I will.”
“A young girl like yourself.” Jack spanned the table. “Sell anything else?”
“Just the bird.”
He nodded. “I hate when it rains,” he said. “I just feel crappy.” He turned and walked away, waving from behind. He stopped a few feet in front of his table to examine his wares from the customer’s perspective, adjusted a few boxes, shifted the pairs of sneakers around, then stepped behind the table and waved once more. She waved back. Probably, she thought, I should be afraid. Most people in my position would be. But I have nothing, just like Janis Joplin sang, so I have nothing left to lose. Even if the woman murders me, who cares? Who would notice? Jack. Maybe Wendy. Sherry’s boyfriend might come looking for me if he doesn’t get his rent. My parents would never even hear about it. And even if they did, they’d probably be relieved. And Lisa has forgotten all about me.
Lucky drove like a 16-year-old, with the top down and heat blasting. She downshifted into third and the old engine seemed to beg for a tune-up, sucking in its sides as they climbed into the hills. When she wasn’t shifting gears or fussing with the radio, her fingers wandered all over the floor searching for a wayward lipstick.
They whined up a steep hill and approached the house. “Lynn Cooke lives there.” Lucky pointed. “You know, Lynn Cooke—” She broke into song: “‘And there . . . that’s where I wanna be. Where the lights come up, the day tastes sweet. The big brass band sweeps you off your feet . . .’ She’s very famous. She does some work at the local theatre in town. And over there . . .” Again she pointed, this time behind her. “That guy’s gardens are famous, too. All over the world. Very famous. I don’t think he lifts a finger to tend them because he’s never here. But, there you go. That’s how the rich are. They pay people to do the work and they get all the credit.”