I wouldn’t say it’s affected my dignity, though. Being a coochie girl. Which Minnie says is the way it has to be. Some women can’t ever get past the idea that they show their bubbies to make a living, she says. But women like us, like Minnie and me, we’re of a stronger nature. It’s Bilis’s belief that no one can make us feel anything. That we choose how to respond to life, the good and the bad. When I started doing this, I chose not to feel bad about myself, no matter what people in these little Podunk towns think of me. I know who I am and what I want in this world and what I can give, and that’s what matters.
“Do you see him?” I ask Bilis again. He’s standing on the stage, waiting for the marks to quiet down. He’s wearing his top hat today and looking very smart.
“I don’t know. They all look the same to me.” He talks out of the side of his mouth so none of the men lined up on the benches can hear him. Bilis is being grumpy with me. I think he’s jealous about Joe.
I met Joe a few days ago. He came to our first evening performance here in Hoboken and has come to two or three shows every night. Third night he came, after turning him away both nights before, I agreed to a private meeting in one of the little cubicles curtained off in the back of the tent. I had never done it before with a mark. Partially because I was scared. Partially because having a bunch of men watching me take off my clothes onstage is one thing. Doing it alone with one man is another. And Jacko said I didn’t have to do it, so I don’t do it.
But there was something about Joe’s handsome, rugged face and his kind voice that just . . . it got to me. And the fact that he offered double the usual tip didn’t hurt. Because I’m saving money. Hoarding it, Minnie says. For what, I don’t know.
I didn’t take my clothes off for Joe. In fact, I wore a silk dressing gown over my costume. I told him I wouldn’t show him my bubs, and he said he’d pay anyway. He just wanted to talk, he said.
So we talked. Until Bilis sent Junior T in to tell us time was up. Joe tried to pay again to stay with me longer, but Junior T sent him packing. Said Bilis wouldn’t like it. Besides, it’s not safe, he said. You spend too much time with a mark, and they start getting possessive, and those are the kind that end up having to be taught a lesson with the tent stake he keeps in his pocket.
Only Joe turned out to be safe. He really did just want to talk, though last night I got a little silly and sat on his lap and even kissed him. Fact of the matter is, I realized that I’m lonely. Lonely for a man who tells me I’m pretty and smiles at me the way any girl wants to be smiled at. A man I can feel the same way about him that he feels about me. There hasn’t been a boy in my life since Henri took off a year ago. My choosing. I really did love Henri, and I feel like I lost a piece of myself to him. I just decided I couldn’t let myself fall for too many men, otherwise, when the right one came along, I wouldn’t have any heart left to give.
And I want to have a heart to give someone someday. Rude-baker’s has been an adventure from the first day I took off with Henri. And I’ve liked it, for the most part. I’ve met amazing people and seen more of the country in two years than most girls do in a lifetime. But I know this isn’t going to be my life. Not like it’s been Bilis’s and Jacko’s and the bearded lady’s, who I’ve really gotten close to. I know it’s not for me because, at heart, I’m still an old-fashioned girl from Indiana. I want to marry and have babies. I want a house and a bed to call my own that’s not in the back of a tent truck. I want to love and be loved. And I want to grow old with the person I love.
“He’s got to be here,” I mutter, trying not to be annoyed with Bilis. I know he just wants what’s best for me. Only he can’t accept that he might not necessarily know what’s best for me.
I peek around the corner as the cymbals clash in the pit and Bilis walks to the middle of the stage to introduce the new girl. Mousy brushes past me on tiptoes and onto the stage, her little hands high in front of her, pressed together like she’s praying. It’s part of her act. She’s wearing fuzzy ears and a long tail pinned to sparkly underdrawers, too. I think it’s silly, but what do I care if she wants to act like a mouse?
The men go crazy, stomping their feet and whistling catcalls.
I peek around the curtain again, and this time I see Joe. He’s on one of the far benches, on the end. He’s a tall, medium-built man with brown hair and the nicest brown eyes you ever did see. And there he is, sitting there quietly like he’s on the front pew at church. Waiting for me.
And I smile.
After the show, it doesn’t take Junior T more than five minutes to come backstage to me carrying a crisp dollar bill. Tells me Joe wants to see me.
My eyes get big. “A dollar?”
He’s grinning ear to ear as he hands it over. “He gave me a nickel just to come tell you he wants to buy you some cotton candy. Go for a walk on the midway. With your clothes on,” he adds.
I don’t know why, but that makes me laugh. And I say yes.
And a week later, I’m sitting on the bumper of my truck, watching Bilis pace in front of me, smoking a store-bought cigarette. “I think you should go with him,” he tells me.
I tuck of lock of hair that’s slipped from the scarf on my head behind my ear. It’s late at night, and Joe’s just dropped me off. I told him to go for a ride and come back in a while. Because I have to talk to Bilis. Because I feel like I’m standing on the edge of a cliff, trying to see what’s below. Trying to decide if I’m brave enough to step off the edge.
We had the best day together. Joe and I. The best day of my life. Joe came for me in his cousin’s car this morning and took me to the ocean. It’s the first time I ever saw water that big, and I fell in love so fast, so hard, that I actually cried when we packed up so he could bring me back. Because I’m afraid I’ll never see, never smell the sea again. Because we’re pulling up stakes in two days. And we’re headed to . . . I can’t even remember where. I just drive behind the monkey-boy truck. Because all these towns are the same. The men and the boys who come to watch me dance, practically in my birthday suit, are the same.
Except Joe.
Joe’s different. At least I think he is. I want him to be.
Joe asked me tonight to marry him. He’s known me less than two weeks, and he asked me to marry him. He says we can get married tomorrow. And then he wants to take me home to his family, to a place in Maryland. It’s an island. Joe says his family has been farming and fishing the Chesapeake Bay for hundreds of years. I’ve never seen the Chesapeake Bay, but he says it’s big. Not as big as the Atlantic Ocean, but every bit as beautiful. And magical. That was the word Joe used. He said the place is magical.
And I want to go to a magical place.
I tried to point out to Joe that a good Methodist man like him couldn’t marry a girl like me. Not a girl with a tattoo. That’s one of the reasons I think I liked Joe, right from the start. Because he liked my tattoo. Because even though a good church man like him shouldn’t like it, he does. He had to have the whole story behind it, of course.
I told Joe about Haru, the old Japanese man, and about his dwarf wife who died before I joined Rudebaker’s. And about how sad Haru is without his wife because he loved her so much. I told Joe about the English teacup and saucer set Bilis gave me that has bluebirds with ribbons in their beaks on it. About how it’s my most prized possession. Joe didn’t even get jealous when I told him about Bilis and how he’s in love with me and wants to marry me. Joe seemed to understand that, for me, that teacup means I’m worth something. To someone. My bluebirds on my thigh remind me of that, every day. I think that’s the best gift Bilis gave me, the sense of self-worth I have now, that I didn’t have when I left Bakersville.
Actually getting the tattoo was an impulse. Kind of like running away from home and joining the carnival had been. And I wasn’t even drinking hooch when I did it. I don’t like hooch. We were all sitting around on a rainy night in the mess tent, the Rudebaker’s crew. Everyone was comparing tattoos, and the girls started teasin
g me about my virgin skin. They all have tattoos, ones you see in plain daylight, ones you can only see in more intimate settings. Even our bearded lady has one: a little heart with the name of her little boy who died under it. Haru offered to do my tattoo for me. Free, he said. The garter was his idea. Classy tattoo for a classy lady, Haru said in his broken English. But the bluebirds, they were my idea. Bilis warned me at the time that a tattoo was a bad idea, that it would make it hard for me to hide my carnival life when I got to the point in my life that I wanted to hide it. And he said I would, some day. But I wanted the bluebirds tattooed on my thigh so I would always remember who I am. That I can be somebody. And I don’t regret getting it. Not for a second.
Joe said my tattoo wasn’t a problem, though he agreed it would be where he was from. I guess his magical place doesn’t include tattoos. But he had an answer for that. He said no one would ever have to know. Not about the tattoo, not about Rude-baker’s or what I’ve been doing to pay my keep. He said no one would ever have to see my tattoo. That it would be our secret to share for the rest of our lives. Joe was supposed to be attending a gospel tent meeting with his cousins here in New Jersey. He said no one would ever have to know he met me in the coochie tent instead of a prayer meeting tent. And I believe him when he says he’ll never tell a soul.
“I don’t know,” I tell Bilis. I shake my head. The skirt of my polka-dotted dress is blowing in the wind, flipping up and flashing Bilis with my bare thighs. I push down my skirt, imagining what it would be like to go to church and wear a nice hat. “What if I’m wrong about him? What if . . . what if he’s just like Henri?”
“Not every man is like Henri,” Bilis says.
“I guess that’s true,” I say. “Because you’re not.”
He gives me a half smile, and by the light of the kerosene lamp hanging on a pole, I can’t tell if it’s a happy smile or a sad one.
“He says he’ll marry you?” Bilis asks.
“Tomorrow. He’s not trying to trick me because he said I could bring you along to sign for me. And he didn’t even try to get in my drawers, Bilis. Said it could wait until we were good and married.”
“He ask you about other men you’ve been with? Henri?”
“Nope. I tried to tell him, but he said it didn’t matter. He said we’d have our whole lives to talk about stuff like that.”
Bilis throws his butt on the ground and grinds it out with one little polished shoe. “I think he’s the real thing, Sarry. I think he means what he says.” He comes to stand in front of me. “He tell you he loved you?”
I nod.
“You love him?”
Again, I nod.
He takes both my hands in his and holds them tight. “And what do you see when you look in his eyes?”
I think for a minute. “I see . . . kindness . . . and laughter . . . and . . . I see happiness. The kind I want.”
He stands there for a long time, looking up at me, and then he lets go of my hands and tugs on the hem of his seersucker vest. “Then you should marry your Joe.”
“Yeah?” Suddenly I feel like I’m going to cry. Because I’m happy, and I’m sad. I want to marry Joe and go to his magical island, but I don’t want to leave Bilis.
“Yeah,” Bilis says. “You marry him, and you never tell him how old you are because that might make him feel bad. And you never tell anyone on that magic island about this grand escapade of yours.” He motions to the carnival trucks around us.
“And what about you?” I ask. “Do I tell them about my best friend in the world, Bilis? Bilis who is a dwarf and has the biggest heart of anyone I ever knew?”
He reaches out and brushes away a tear from my cheek with his thumb. “You don’t,” he says in a whisper.
The headlights from an approaching car suddenly get bright in my face, and I squint, holding my hand up to shade my eyes.
“Sarah!” Joe hollers out the window of the Studebaker.
The headlights are so bright that I can’t see him. I just hear his voice.
“Go on with you,” Bilis says.
I pretend not to see his tears. I get up from the bumper of the truck, and I walk into the light, hearing the sound of Joe’s voice calling my name. And I wonder what great adventure will come next.
32
Abby
“No, no, I don’t think it’s been long.” I put my arm around my mother. I just woke up, and I’m groggy. Or I’m dreaming. I wish I could go with the dreaming scenario. I’m not ready for this. I’m just not ready. “She still feels warm,” I whisper.
We’re both standing beside the bed, looking down at Mom Brodie, who doesn’t look any different than she did when I checked her around four this morning when I woke to find Birdie asleep in a chair beside the bed. Mom Brodie still looks like she’s sleeping. Only maybe her face is more relaxed. And I’m probably just imagining it, but I think she looks like she’s on the verge of one of her great big smiles. I swear I can smell peppermint in the room.
Birdie’s whole body is shuddering. Her nose is running. But she doesn’t make a sound.
Tears run down my cheeks. I’m relieved that Mom Brodie’s gone to be with Grandpop. Relieved I can go home to Drum. And I’m sad for my loss. But mostly I’m crying because I feel so bad for Birdie. She seems devastated. As if she didn’t realize Mom Brodie really was going to die.
“I just nodded off for a minute,” Birdie tells me. She’s gripping Mom Brodie’s hand so hard that I think it would hurt. If Mom Brodie was still here with us. “I didn’t mean to.” She takes another shuddering breath. “I didn’t mean to leave her to die alone.”
I look down at my short, fat, ugly mother, and I feel like my heart is going to break. Like it’s going to snap right in two. “Oh, Mom, she wasn’t alone.” I wrap my arms around her, and I cry like I haven’t cried in . . . I don’t know that I’ve ever cried like this.
All these years, I thought my mother was cold. I thought she didn’t love me. Didn’t love any of us. I thought she wasn’t much of a mother to me or Celeste. She certainly wasn’t the mother Joseph deserved. And I never thought she loved Daddy the way he wanted her to love him. But standing here with her and my dead grandmother, I have an epiphany, the kind you only experience a couple of times in your life. If you’re lucky. I realize that if my mother didn’t love us the way I thought she should, it wasn’t because she didn’t love anyone. It was because she loved my grandmother too much.
I’ve never thought that love could be a quantitative thing. I love so many people, so freely. I loved Reed with everything I had, and then, when Sarah was born, it wasn’t that I had to divide my love; instead my love grew exponentially. But maybe that’s not true for everyone. Maybe some people can only love a certain amount. My mother grew up in an orphanage. She was fed and kept dry, but she was never loved as a child. Maybe that limits a soul. Then Mom Brodie brought her to Brodie Island.
I think Mom Brodie got all of Birdie’s love.
My mother clings to me, hugging me in a way she’s never hugged me before. Letting me hug her. We hold each other for what seems like a very long time. Almost enough time to make up for all the years we haven’t hugged. Almost.
It’s my mother who puts an end to our little pity party in the early morning light of the sunny sewing room with too much furniture in it. She stiffens, lets go of me, and reaches around me to take a handful of tissues from the box. She blows her nose loud and hard, making a honking sound. I can’t help myself. I laugh as I pluck one from the box.
“Hospice has to be called,” she says, honking again. “And the funeral parlor.”
I almost laugh again because parlor is such a funny word for it, but I don’t. I bet Mom Brodie would have laughed, though. Or cut her eyes at me, laughing with her eyes. “I can do that.”
“Your daddy has to get up. He slept in his office last night. He needs to get himself decent before they get here.”
“We’ve got some time,” I say gently. “The nurse will probably be
coming from Salisbury.” I close my eyes for a second, trying to remember if Gail said she was or wasn’t working today. It seems like it was weeks ago that we stood here and talked. Joseph’s here, so he’ll get to see her again. It occurs to me how ridiculous it is to be playing matchmaker in the room where my grandmother just died.
“You want me to tell Daddy?” I ask. I called her Mom just a moment ago, and now it seems weird to call her Birdie. But I can’t bring myself to call her Mom again. It just doesn’t . . . fit right on my tongue.
She’s fussing with Mom Brodie’s bedsheets, and I feel a sudden moment of panic. What if she pulls the sheet down? What if she sees the tattoo? She can’t see the tattoo. My mother isn’t very broad-minded. I’m afraid she’ll pass judgment about Mom Brodie if she knows. And the relationship between these two is already complicated enough. Birdie doesn’t need added complications.
I understand now what people mean when they say love is sometimes close to hate. My whole life I thought my mother disliked my grandmother. I even thought, at times, that my grandmother disliked my mother. Which couldn’t have been true because Mom Brodie was the one who decided Birdie would marry my dad, her only son. Her sun in her universe. If their relationship was confusing to me, observing it from the outside, I can’t imagine how confusing it must have been to Mom Brodie and my mother, living it.
“We shouldn’t disturb her until she’s officially declared,” I suggest gently. And by the time hospice does what they have to do, the funeral home will be here to get her. With a little luck, no one will ever know about the beautiful bluebirds but Angus at the funeral home, and I know he would never say a word, even to one of us.
Birdie smooths the sheet one last time, sniffs, and steps back. “I’ll put coffee on. Start some oatmeal. Then I’ll wake your daddy.”
What Makes a Family Page 25