by Webb, Peggy
“I’m not looking for one.”
“What are you looking for?”
“I don’t know anymore.” He stood up and held out his hand. “Good-bye, Casey. Take care of Tess for me.”
Flannigan walked out without looking back. Even saying good-bye to Casey was hard. As he climbed into the rented Ford, he decided that he was getting old, too old to handle greetings and partings. Maybe he would fly back to Tupelo and get his Skyhawk and fly off somewhere in the desert where nothing except jackrabbits and an occasional rattler would keep him company. The way he was feeling now, he would be good company for a rattlesnake.
He drove along the beach, going nowhere in particular. His only purpose was to stay away from the motel until Tess and Casey had gone. Cowardly. That’s what he was.
He parked on a deserted section, then pulled off his shoes and walked across the sand, toward the water. The sun beat down on him, beaming hotter as the day progressed. And when it was coming straight down, burning the top of his head, Flannigan looked up.
A jet was lifting into the sky, its engines a dull roar, its contrail blooming white as it made a graceful turn and headed north.
“Good-bye, Tess, my girl.”
Flannigan sank onto the sand and watched the water beat against the shore.
o0o
Flannigan stayed a week in Biloxi, roaming the beaches alone, looking out across the water and brooding. At night he sat in the back of one smoky piano bar after another, nursing a glass of scotch and listening to the keyboard tinkle out the lonesome blues. He wondered about Tess and Casey. What were they doing now? Were they singing Irish songs? Were they walking along Lake Michigan, with Casey twirling his cane and Tess laughing? It seemed he could hear the sound of her laughter, rising bright and sparkly just underneath the sounds of the piano.
Suddenly he could endure the music no longer. He left his glass of scotch, untouched, and returned to the rented car. It was time to be moving on. Time to stop brooding and start moving forward again. He’d stood still far too long.
He turned the car back toward the adobe motel. Up ahead, the lights of the carnival beckoned to him. He slowed the car, looking at the lights blinking in the darkness. His hand tightened on the wheel, and then he was making a right turn, heading to Brinkley Brothers’ Carnival.
A sense of deja vu overtook him, and he felt as if he were coming home. That was foolish, of course. Uncle Arthur was long since dead. And he hadn’t kept in touch with the others—Macky, the clown, and his wife, Lisa, the trapeze artist; Joseph, the elephant tamer, and Glen, the Daring Man Shot from the Cannon. Where were they now? Were they all dead? Or were they still here in the midst of the sawdust and the greasepaint and the cotton candy and the tarnished spangles?
He parked the car and started toward the bright lights of the carnival. First he walked, then he began to jog, and finally he broke into a run. But he wasn’t running toward the midway, toward booths of stuffed bears and the hot-dog vendors and the crowds of people; he was skirting around the edges, running toward the patched canvas tents that served as dressing rooms, dining rooms, and homes for the people who followed the carnival.
His footsteps slowed as he came to an area where the elephants were chained. Uncle Arthur had told him never to do anything that would excite the elephants.
“Mick.” He turned toward the sound of the voice. An old man, stooped under the weight of two buckets, stepped into Mick’s path. “Mick Flannigan. Is that you?”
“Joseph?” Mick studied the old man, looking for signs of the younger, more virile man who had handled the elephants as if they were nothing more them housebroken kittens. Joseph’s dark hair had turned gray, and his face was seamed with age; but his eyes were the same, as black as two raisins on a cake.
“Joseph, it’s you.” Mick caught he old man in a bear hug, causing water from the buckets to slosh over both of them. “I never thought I’d see you again.”
“I don’t know why not. We’re your family. A man never forgets his family.”
Joseph set down the buckets and took Mick’s arm. “You’re just in time for supper.”
Joseph led him into a sprawling tent. It was the same mess tent Mick remembered. Patches had been added over the years to hold it together, but the side flaps were tied up to let in the evening breeze, and the mingled smells of cabbage and sausage and ripe tomatoes hung in the air, just as they had so many years ago.
When Mick stepped into the tent, a chorus of voices rang out in welcome. People from all over the tent rose from their places at the table and converged on him—Macky was there, wearing his bulbous red nose, and his wife, Lisa, still trim and erect, walking gracefully in the ballet shoes she wore everywhere. Others from his past were there, the dog trainers, a couple of old roustabouts, the leader of the band, and Natasha, the little Gypsy fortune-teller.
They all began talking at once, and gradually Mick caught up on the doings of his carnival family. Glen had left for another carnival, and was still being shot from a cannon daily. Some of the others he knew had moved on, and some had died.
“Come and sit by my side.” Natasha took Mick’s hand and led him to a table. “Tell us all about your travels.”
Mick laughed. “How do you know I’ve been traveling?”
“Because that was one of your dreams. You used to run to my tent with your dark curls bouncing and your blue eyes shining, yelling, ‘Natasha, come out and see this.’ And you’d be holding Arthur’s old Atlas in your hand, pointing to some faraway spot like Mexico City or Montreal. And you’d say, ‘Someday I’m going there, Natasha. I’m going to have my own airplane, and I’m going to fly high above the carnival and wave when I go by.’“
Mick remembered. “I’ve been to those place, Natasha. In my own airplane.”
She squeezed his hand, looking deep into his eyes. Suddenly he remembered another dream, one he’d told only to Sasha. She was remembering too. He could tell by the way her eyes glowed in the center. She leaned closer to him, peering into his eyes, her hands holding tightly to his.
But she didn’t say anything. She didn’t ask, “What about the rest of your dream, Mick? What have you done about that?”
He had the eerie feeling that Natasha really was a fortune-teller, and that right now she was seeing not only his future but also his past. He didn’t shift away from her scrutiny.
There was a waiting stillness around them, a respect always accorded the carnival’s oldest, most revered member. At last Natasha released his hand and began to eat her soup.
There was a collective sigh from the watchers, partly of relief, partly of disappointment. They never knew what Sasha would do or say, but she was always good for a show.
“Are you going to stay for the last performance?” Joseph asked Mick.
“He’s staying.” Natasha never looked up from her soup as she spoke.
“I’ll stay.”
His old friends pressed him to have supper, and he obliged. Afterward, he let them escort him to the best seat under the big top.
The trumpets blared, the ringmaster came on, and the show began. Funny how age took none of the magic from the circus. Too soon it was over, and long after the crowd had gone, Mick continued to sit in the bleachers, the smells of sawdust and parched peanuts and buttered popcorn drifting around him.
He looked out across the big top at the empty rigging, still swaying as if Lisa were swinging there, and all the dreams of his youth came washing over him.
The carnival had given him a taste for travel and excitement and adventure, and it had never left him; but he’d had smother dream too. “Someday,” he had said to Natasha, “I’m going to have a family of my own, a real family, with a wife and children and a little house that I can always come back to.”
In his hell-bent-for-leather pursuit of adventure, he’d lost sight of part of his dream. For ten years he’d traveled the world, restless, always searching, and always coming up empty-handed. Suddenly he knew why. The thing he
had been looking for was the thing he’d left behind: love, family, home, children. He’d had all that in Tess and had been too young and foolish to know it.
“Seeing ghosts?”
He turned his head, and there was Natasha, arranging herself on the seat beside him, her gold earrings swaying and her fringed shawl dragging the floor.
“You shouldn’t have climbed all those bleacher steps.”
“I knew you needed me.”
He reached for her hand, then lifted it to his lips for a kiss.
“If you’re planning to tell my fortune, Natasha, you can forget it. I’ve already thrown my future away.”
“Your future is what you make it, Mick.”
“I’ve been a fool.”
“Everybody is at one time or another.”
“I threw away the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“Remember what Arthur used to say?” Her face softened and her eyes got misty.
Suddenly Mick saw all the times the three of them had spent together in a new light—the picnics after dark when the last performance was over; the quiet times with Arthur carving wooden animals and Natasha sitting nearby, mending her shawl; the lively times with Natasha spinning around a bonfire, doing a wild Gypsy dance and Arthur stamping his feet and clapping.
“You loved him, didn’t you?”
“Yes. I loved him. He was my lover, my friend, and my companion.” Natasha squeezed Mick’s hand, “And you were the little boy we could never have.”
Mick knew why. Arthur had a wife in Kentucky he’d never divorced.
‘“Anything worth having is worth earning,’“ he said, quoting Arthur. “He didn’t take his own advice, did he?”
“No.” Sasha leaned close, her black eyes boring into his. “She will take you back, you know. She loves you.”
“How did you know about Tess?”
Natasha laughed. “I’m a fortune-teller, Mick. A real one.”
He stood up, taking her hand. “Come with me, Natasha. You made me part of your family once; let me make you part of mine.”
“Someday, maybe.” When she tossed her shawl over her shoulders and shook her head, setting her gold earrings swinging, she looked twenty years younger. “But not yet. I have places to go and fortunes to tell.”
o0o
Two weeks later Mick entered a small smoke- filled nightclub in Chicago.
Tess was on the stage, her head thrown back, her eyes closed, the mike held close to her lips as she sang “Stormy Weather.”
The blues lament sent shivers down Mick’s spine. He stood in the doorway, spellbound.
Tess moved slowly across the stage, and the spotlight turned her to gold—her hair, her dress, her shoes. She was one bright, shimmering spot of gold, the gold at the end of his rainbow.
Tears of rejoicing wet his eyes, and he let them come, unashamed.
The song ended, and she took a deep bow to the applause. Mick started making his way to the front. When Tess looked up, she saw him. Her eyes went dark, and her hand whitened on the microphone.
Ever the consummate performer, she turned smoothly toward the piano, consulting her accompanist. The pianist played the opening bars.
Mick recognized the song, Gershwin, “Love Walked In.” Tess was singing for him, to him. With her hips pressed against the piano, she sang, never moving, never taking her eyes off his.
The pianist took her smoothly from one Gershwin song straight to another, “Embraceable You.” Mick’s heart soared. Tess had always sent him messages in song. She was saying plainly, for all of Chicago to hear, “This is the man I love.”
She ended her set to thunderous applause. Mick stood with the rest of the crowd, clapping the loudest of all.
She stood on the stage, taking her bows and watching Mick. When he had walked in, she had almost forgotten the words to her song. That had never happened to her before. Never.
Damn that unpredictable Irish wildcat. What was he doing in Chicago?
She made one last bow, then turned to leave the stage. She heard a small commotion, and turned in time to see Mick leap onto the stage. Her hand flew to her throat.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Instead of answering, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her, so thoroughly, so passionately, that by the time the kiss was over, he was practically holding her up.
The audience applauded.
“Damn you, Mick Flannigan.” She pulled out of his embrace. “Who do you think you are to come waltzing back into my life again?”
“I’m the man who is going to many you.” His big Irish laughter boomed around the nightclub. “I’m planning to be your fourth and last husband.”
She grabbed his hand and stormed off the stage pulling him with her. They sped down a narrow hallway and into a small dressing room. It had Tess’s unmistakable stamp, silk and feathers strewn everywhere, jasmine perfume clinging to the air.
When they were inside, she slammed the door so hard the walls shook. Then she faced him, hands on her hips.
“I told you good-bye in Biloxi!” she shouted.
“No. I told you good-bye. I’ve changed my mind.”
He stalked her. She moved behind a chair.
“Don’t you come a step closer.”
“Why? Afraid you’ll let me see how much you love me?”
“I don’t love you anymore.”
“That’s not what you told me a while ago.”
“That was a song. I was entertaining my audience.”
“Believe me, Tess, I was entertained.”
He shoved the chair aside and pulled her back into his arms.
“I’ve been a fool, Tess, my girl. You’re all I want, all I’ve ever wanted. You’re the gold at the end of my rainbow... and I’ve come to claim you.”
“For how long this time, Mick? Two days? Two weeks? Maybe, if you don’t get the itch to travel, two months?” She shoved at his chest. “No, thank you. I can live without that kind of heartbreak.”
“Do you love me, Tess?” He caught her wrists and wrapped her arms around his chest, hugging her tightly.
“This is not about love, Flannigan. This is about truth. And the truth is, I’m not going to be hurt by you anymore.”
“Ahh, Tess. I will never hurt you again. Never.”
His mouth closed over hers, and she was a helpless moth, flying into his flame. Her knees went weak, and her heart melted.
With his mouth and arms locked tightly on her, Mick backed across to the door and slid the bolt shut. It made a final clicking sound.
“No,” she said, her mouth muffled against his. “I won’t.”
He lifted his head a fraction, smiling down at her. “You want me. Say you don’t want me, and I’ll leave.”
“I don’t want you. Leave.” Even as she said those things, her hands were busy unbuttoning his shirt. Mick Flannigan was back and she had to have him, just one more time. “Go,” she whispered, her hands on his belt buckle now. “Go chase another rainbow.”
He stood still for a moment, watching her face as she undressed him, his eyes so bright they almost blinded her. Suddenly he exploded.
“Oh God, Tess! All those wasted years.”
He hauled her into him and marched relentlessly toward a chaise longue littered with silk. They left a trail behind them, her gold-sequined shoes on his blue jeans, one of his boots under the hem of her dress, another boot tangled with her silk panties.
The fragile French antique protested as Flannigan braced one knee on the velvet cushions and lowered Tess to the pile of silk gowns. Red and blue and gold and purple bloomed behind her. She looked like an exotic flower with multicolored petals. He headed straight to the nectar.
With his eyes blazing down into hers, he slid home.
“Flannigan... Flannigan... Don’t think this changes a thing,” she said, her words spaced and breathless.
“It changes everything. This time you’re mine. Forever.”
“No.”
“Yes. Forever.”
The French antique rocked and groaned, and colored gowns went flying in all directions. They became frantic with passion and slick with sweat. Gaelic love words and the music of his name intermingled. Bodies and hearts intertwined.
They took the journey the long way around, and when they reached their destination, Flannigan sprawled back on the velvet cushions, taking her with him.
“You’re mine, Tess. Mine. All mine,” he said over and over, smoothing her damp hair back from her forehead.
“You gave up that claim long ago.”
“I just re-staked it.”
“I’m afraid you missed.”
“Shall I try again?”
With his dark curls plastered across his forehead and his wicked smile, he looked like a combination of a little boy with a new puppy and the devil himself. Tess had a hard time resisting him, but resist him she would.
She slipped out of his arms, and immediately felt the loss. She wasn’t going to let it show, though. She didn’t dare let him see how much she missed him already. Tossing her hair back, she faced him, naked and determined.
“I never give my former husbands a second time around.” She bent gracefully and picked up one of her silk robes. It was red, the color of her flaming hair. She slid into the robe, then sat down at her dressing table and began to brush her hair.
She could see Flannigan watching her in the mirror. Damn his hide, he looked as satisfied as a big jungle cat.
“I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy our little reunion, Flannigan.” She dragged the brush through her hair, heedless of tangles.
“I could see that, Tess, my girl.” He chuckled.
“You were always good for a casual toss in the hay.”
He chuckled again. She wanted to throw the brush at him. Instead she kept brushing her hair.
“The next time you’re passing through, Flannigan, give me a call. I might be in the market for a short-term lover.”
“You’ll have no more lovers, Tess, my girl. Only me.”
She spun around, shaking the brush at him.
“How dare you come marching in here giving me orders! You have no right.”