Sideshow

by Amy Stilgenbauer

  At the edge of the grounds, they marched through a collection of trucks, wagons, and trailers. Abby rushed forward and clutched his arm, letting go only slightly when he grimaced. “I don’t think we’re supposed to be here,” she whispered.

  “We’re fine,” he hissed back, going up to a trailer that had a garland of feathers over the front door. He rapped hard on the metal frame, which vibrated through the night much louder than Abby would have liked.

  “Who’s there?” a woman’s voice with an obviously faked Swedish accent called out.

  “Natale Amaro.” There was something off about his voice, a note of sweetness that Abby didn’t often hear from him, and then only when dealing with family.

  The door flew open. A thin blonde in lacy red lingerie burst from inside the trailer and wrapped her arms around Natale. “Baby! What are you doing here? I thought we already said our goodbyes. You’re not gonna try and tag along now, are ya? You know I ain’t that kind of girl.”

  “This isn’t for me, Della.”

  The girl pulled back and looked at Natale’s face. Even in the dim light, she seemed able to make out his injuries. “Baby, what happened?”

  “Trying my hand at wrestling. Didn’t go so well.”

  Della’s face shrank, contorting into a mixture of concern, confusion, and annoyance. “If you’re about to tell me that you need to go on the run—”

  “No, Della,” Natale pressed. He stepped down the trailer stairs to allow Della and Abby a clear view of each other. “My sister does.”

  The young women stared at each other a long while. Abby had the intense feeling of being appraised, much as she felt with the other girls at the opera. She didn’t like it at all.

  “Your sister?” Della asked, her voice tense, but trying to sound soft. Natale nodded. “Both of you, then. Come in.” She disappeared into the trailer.

  Natale gestured for Abby to follow, but her feet felt stuck. This had not been her plan. It took several moments of intense concentration before she managed to move her feet enough to go inside.

  Having never been inside a trailer before, Abby didn’t know what she had been expecting, but it wasn’t quite like this. Every available surface, including the walls, was draped with fabrics, strings of sequins, beads, and feathers. A battered dress dummy loomed ominously in the corner with more pins sticking out of it than Boleslaw’s face. Everything seemed to be half-finished, as if once begun a project could only hold Della’s attention for so long.

  “Excuse the mess,” Della said. “We didn’t have a show tonight, so I was trying to get some work done.” She cleared a partially disassembled, cherry red tulle skirt off some cushions and gestured for Natale and Abby to take a seat. “Need a new costume for Toledo.”

  Abby stared at the collection of clothing. “Are you a seamstress?”

  Della half-laughed, half-coughed. “Suppose I could be if I had to be, gorgeous, but, no, I’m the star of the girl show.”

  “Girl show?” Abby asked. Then she saw Natale blush and realized exactly what it meant. “Never mind.”

  “Now, now,” Della said, tsking for show. “You mustn’t judge your brother too harshly. This softy is my Cleveland sweetheart.” She pecked him on the cheek as she sat down across the small table. Then her manner became serious. Her thinly drawn eyebrows pulled close together, and her bright red lips practically disappeared. “Now, tell me what we’re in for.”

  Natale began to tell the story of Abby and Frank Butler, and Abby was grateful that she wouldn’t have to be the one to relate it. Her mind was still reeling. She could barely process what had happened, except that it was somehow because of Frank, and that she needed to get out of his sight line to protect her family.

  “Ugh, Gregor. I should have guessed. He’s been known to pull this kind of thing. Take some side money to rig the fight. Not that I can blame him. You should see that man’s medical bills. And, he’s got two kids. No offense, baby.” She gingerly touched a bruise near his eye, looking sheepish about her defense of Gregor. “You want me to scrounge up some ice for that? The beer garden guy’s probably still kicking around out there somewhere.”

  Natale shook his head. “Nah. I can handle it when I get home, I just … Abby? Can she ride with you a while?”

  Della sighed, but didn’t answer.

  “Just ‘til, uh, Kalamazoo or Chicago? This thing should blow over by then. I can tell people she’s sick and, when Frank loses interest, meet the show and pick her up.”

  “And how can we be sure this Frank is gonna lose interest?”

  Natale opened his mouth to speak, but it was Abby’s turn. “When I started my opera classes, and we didn’t see each other every day, it took him all of a week to meet a new girl and forget all about me. And I was still in the same town then.”

  Della still looked skeptical, but her lips had returned to their normal size and shape. Her eyes were more sympathetic. “Can you do anything? I mean, I can’t just hide some possum belly queen in my trailer for a few jumps and hope no one will notice. They watch the food like hawks—unless you don’t eat or drink, princess? That too much to ask?”

  “I can sing,” Abby tried.

  “She can sew,” Natale added, gesturing at the trailer full of half-finished costumes. Abby tried her best not to look surprised.

  Della stood up and paced. Natale tried a few times to add something, but Della just held up her hand, which silenced him immediately. She went to the trailer door and peeked out. Then she turned back and nodded slowly. Both Abby and Natale breathed a sigh of relief.

  “On one condition,” Della added. “You never put me in her position.”

  Natale looked confused. “I don’t—”

  “Never. And I mean, never, Natale. Never ask me to marry you.”

  He looked stunned at her serious tone, then laughed. “Sure, Del, if that’s what you want.”

  “I’m serious, Natale.”

  He nodded. It was hard to tell from his face if he was disappointed, but Abby decided not to make any snap judgments.

  “Thank you,” she said, then stood up. “I can have my things packed in—”

  “No can do, sweetie,” Della interrupted. “We’re making the jump right after they pack up the AT show. You’re gonna have to stay put.”

  ~1940~

  FOUR-YEAR-OLD ABBY’S FIRST OPERA IS a kaleidoscope of color, a mélange of scents, and flashes of feeling. She grips Nonna Gaetana’s hand as they scurry across Euclid Avenue. A gust of wind tries to separate them, and the snow flutters about her face and the looming brick building. Her grandmother whispers the name Carmela Cafarelli with such reverence that young Abby mistakes it for that of a saint.

  Abby exults in the music, the arching elegant melodies, the overlapping disparate harmonies, and the high Cs that send shivers through her. The colors of the auditorium itself do not register. She has never heard anything so beautiful and is convinced that the performance did not include humans at all, but an almost pagan mixture of angels and the donas de fuera, the mysterious Sicilian fairies her nonna spoke of in hushed tones.

  The eggs her mother puts on her plate at breakfast the next morning are light and fluffy as her mother’s laugh when Abby tells her, mouth full of frittata, that she is going to be a “soprano.”

  “Do you even know what that means?” her mother asks. “To be a soprano?”

  When Abby doesn’t answer, her mother laughs again and goes back to the sink. She sings in a voice that is much thinner than the women Nonna Gaetana took Abby to see, but sweet and lovely in its own way: “Vinni la primavera li mennuli sù n’ciuri. Lu focu di l’ammuri lu cori m’addurmò.”

  Spring has come; almond trees are in blossom; the fire of love took over my heart.

  Chapter Four

  ABBY COULDN’T REMEMBER FALLING ASLEEP. She only remembered the dark night and how, outside the window of Della’s trailer, the rolling slopes of eastern Ohio slowly flattened into the farmland of the western side of the state a
nd faded into darkness. She didn’t say much during the trip, but her mind was spinning, unable to process what she had done.

  Once, when she was a little girl, barely older than Annette was now, her mother had taken her and Natale to visit their aunt in Chicago for a week. It had been a nice visit. They had embarked on the train with a great deal of ceremony, and Za Teresa had spoiled the pair rotten, loading them up with peach-shaped marzipan and pizzelle until they were both sick. She hadn’t left Cleveland for any extended period of time since. Oh, sure, she’d talked and dreamt about it. Nonna often wistfully mentioned taking a trip back to her girlhood home one more time now that the war was over and taking Abby along to look after her, and then, if Abby’s opera career took off as she had once hoped, she would be visiting all the great cities. In her scrapbook, clippings of Palais Garnier, La Scala, and The Met were decorated with carefully drawn hearts and hopeful stars and the scrawled word: someday. Still, she had never imagined that when she departed the Coventry neighborhood again, it would be in a burlesque dancer’s trailer.

  She woke to the sound of a window scraping open. All at once, she heard the clattering sounds of hammers on metal blended with a buzz of people shouting to be heard over one another. It took Abby a moment to remember where she was. Taking a deep breath, she opened her eyes. Della was leaning over her.

  “There,” Della said, moving back from the window. “We’ve got to get some air moving in here or we’ll be baked alive.”

  “How long have I been asleep?” Abby muttered. Now instead of wide open fields, Abby saw a cluster of trucks and trailers. Men and women of all shapes and sizes milled about, carrying boxes, tall poles, and canvas rolls. “What’s happening?”

  “You missed breakfast,” Della said, setting a small packet of folded napkins on Abby’s lap. “Probably for the best for now, but I managed to sneak out some blueberries. Told them I was gonna feed the birds.”

  Abby opened the packet and popped one of the blueberries into her mouth. “I suppose it would be too much to hope for some coffee?”

  Della leveled a steely-eyed frown in her direction; Abby nodded and went back to her blueberries.

  “I’ll talk to McClure this afternoon,” Della suggested as she rummaged through a drawer beneath her bed. The clothes she removed from it seemed far more functional as everyday wear than the piles of tulle, chiffon, and feathers that still decorated the table and much of the floor. She tossed a red and white polka-dotted shirtwaist dress in Abby’s direction. “See if I can get you a tryout for the girl show.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “It’s a little outdated, sure, but I think it should fit, and if you need to give it some volume—”

  “I’m not talking about the dress, Della. I’m sure it’s fine.” Abby held the dress up for inspection. Style-wise it was quite similar to the uniform she wore at the diner, only red instead of pink, but it looked too small. One glance at Della and she was almost certain that it was. Della was petite, but while she and Abby were about the same height, that was one of the few places their figures matched. Abby could already foresee a struggle with the row of buttons down the front. She swallowed hard, unsure if she would make it to Kalamazoo if she had only Della’s clothes to wear. “You wouldn’t happen to have an extra girdle, would you?”

  Della didn’t seem to hear her. She pulled a few pins out of her dress dummy and adjusted the drape of filmy red fabric around the base.

  Abby sighed and set the dress down, once again returning to her blueberry breakfast. “And, about the—well, I’m not a prude. I just don’t think I’m comfortable letting other people see me naked, is all.”

  Della gathered up a string of purple beads and tried them around the dummy’s waist. Then, without warning, she began to laugh. “Oh, princess, the fact that you’re not from a theater family is going to take some getting used to.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re afraid to change while I’m in the trailer?”

  “No, I—” That wasn’t what she had been referring to at all. She took a deep breath watching Della. It almost seemed as if she were skirting the issue on purpose.

  Della tried hard to stifle her giggles, but they kept bubbling through. “Oh, poor little sheltered princess—”

  “I do theater, you know,” Abby protested. “I study opera at the Cleveland Institute! It’s very prestigious.”

  “I’m sure it is, precious. I didn’t mean to imply anything.” Della took a deep breath and patted Abby on the arm in a mock calming gesture. “I, however, did vaudeville from the age of two, traveling the country with my parents. It’s a little different. You get a certain level of comfort with people.”

  Abby eyed her suspiciously and shrugged. “That dress isn’t going to fit anyway.”

  Della waved her hand. “So you got a little more going on upstairs than I do. The boys’ll love how much it clings.”

  “I’m sure I—well, the whole—not just ‘upstairs’—” Abby paused and took a breath before starting again. “I don’t like to be looked at,” she finally managed to force out. “And I don’t want to be a part of your show either. I’m sorry, but I’m not exactly—”

  “Exactly what?” Her eyebrows leveled once again, Della turned back to Abby. Her expression wasn’t quite a glare, but it wasn’t far from becoming one either.

  “You know …”

  “No, I don’t. Enlighten me.”

  Abby looked down at her blueberries, but she could still feel Della’s eyes watching her, evaluating. She felt sick to her stomach. “I just … it’s not for me.”

  She could almost feel the roll of Della’s eyes. “Do you want to live on blueberries?”

  “No. I already miss coffee.”

  Della laughed; the ice was suddenly gone from her voice. Abby wondered if it were truly gone or if she was just very good at covering her anger. “Then we need to find you a purpose. A carnival doesn’t run with extra parts.”

  “Well, Natale told you that I can sew.” This was a lie, of course, but she was willing to give it a try if it meant getting a cup of coffee. It wouldn’t matter if it were instant. She wasn’t going to be picky.

  “Which is why I let you come in my trailer. That ain’t gonna be enough for the McClures if they find you hanging around.”

  Abby puzzled over this, allowing her eyes to flick around the trailer, hoping to catch a sudden jolt of inspiration. All she could see were mountains of tulle. “Well, I… I may have mentioned last night that I sing.”

  Della waved a hand. “People don’t come to a carnival to hear some girl sing Carmen.” She paused and smirked. “See? I know things.”

  “They don’t?”

  “No. They don’t. You want to be a singer, you go join a Broadway show or something, Miss Rogers and Hammerstein. Your usual lot lice are looking for something more—”

  “I don’t see why not. I mean—”

  “No!” The vehemence in her voice stopped Abby cold. The pair stared at each other; Della seemed to dare her to protest one last time. When she didn’t, Della gave a decisive nod. “Right then. I’ll go talk to McClure. Maybe we can get you on the bally or something, if you’re really that uncomfortable with what I do.” Then she slipped out her door after flashing a look that Abby hoped was more sympathetic than pitying. She couldn’t be sure.

  Abby watched the aluminum trailer door for a few minutes after Della left. When she was certain she had gone, she returned to her blueberries, still trying her best to ignore the dress. The trailer was sweltering. Her head felt as if it were being boiled in some sort of stew; something spicy and filled with cannellini beans, one of her favorites. Then, for a split second, instead of a blueberry, she tasted the sweet almond flavor of marzipan. Puzzled, she popped another into her mouth, but this one tasted exactly the way a blueberry was supposed to.

  “I’ve got to get out of here,” she whispered to herself.

  The air outside the trailer wasn’t much better than the air in
side. The day was hot and humid with a relentless sun, but at least there was movement. Every so often a tent would go up, sending a wave of man-made breeze in Abby’s direction. Her mind still felt as if it were bobbing in a pot of minestrone, but at least she wasn’t cooped up. All around her, people bustled this way and that, speaking quickly, shouting words that only half sounded like English.

  “Cut it with the gaff, Bobby! This here’s a Sunday school show!”

  “One of them candy butchers blew the route around Amherst. You’re on your own!”

  Some of the words weren’t English at all. They were German or Spanish or Russian or other tongues that Abby couldn’t begin to place. Something inside her felt deeply displaced, like a book put on the wrong shelf, and she wondered if Nonna Gaetana and her father had felt this way when they arrived in Cleveland all those years ago. At least they’d had their family with them.

  Trying to tune out the commotion, she carefully picked her way through the vendors, who were in various states of setup. “Not yet, miss,” one of the game operators called out to her as she walked past his booth. He appeared to be filling a small pool of water, and Abby recognized it as one of the games she and Natale wouldn’t let Annette and Carla play. The prize had been a choice of bunnies, and they had begged and begged. “Where in the world would we put it?” she had asked the younger girls. Now she wished she had let them try to win the rabbits. It wasn’t as though she would be home to deal with them after all.

  At the end of the midway, she found that at least one ride’s setup was complete: the haunted train. Once again, she heard Annette’s voice, “Pleeease can we go again, Abbbyyy? Pleeease?”

  Her walk down memory lane was interrupted by the ride operator, who leaned out of his booth and said, “Would you like to take the inaugural ride, Miss?”

  Abby startled, but only briefly. When she turned to face him, she laughed. Maybe it was his out-of-place ringmaster’s top hat or simply his voice, but something about him immediately reminded her of someone she had seen before. After a split second she decided that he must have been a customer at the diner when they were in Cleveland, or perhaps he just looked a little like Roman around the eyes. What would Natale tell the diner staff about what had happened to her and where she had gone? “Nothing else looks ready yet.”