Circa Now

by Amber McRee Turner

  After church let out, Circa and Miles met up with Nattie in the parking lot, where they grabbed up some foil-wrapped sandwiches from the big tray in Mom’s arms and retrieved the stack of posters and two rolls of tape from the car.

  “Thanks for coming with us today, Nat,” said Circa.

  “Sure thing,” said Nattie quietly. “And sorry about that friend thing I said yesterday.”

  “That’s all right,” said Circa. “I’m sorry I forgot your birthday.”

  “No sweat, marmoset,” said Nattie. “That’s the thing about birthdays. There’ll always be another one.”

  Nattie looked sheepishly at Circa, like she hoped Circa hadn’t heard that last part.

  “Be safe and be sweet,” called out Mrs. Boone.

  “Take care of each other,” said Mom, searching for her keys.

  “Bye,” said Circa and Nattie in unison, accompanied by a quick wave from Miles. Then they set off to go hang forty-nine posters, planning first to hit the church side of town, and then work their way toward the business side. With each poster, Circa considered saying a little prayer that no one would respond, but then felt guilty for it.

  By the time they turned onto Third Street, most of the posters had been successfully taped to bulletin boards all over town. Circa rolled up the last few in the stack in her sweaty fist as the three friends neared the Maple Grove Residence, where she conveniently suggested they stop and rest their feet out front.

  “Hey, how about we go in for a visit?” she suggested as if it had just popped into her head.

  “No, Circa. Not today,” said Miles, already sweating through Dad’s old dress shirt. “I’m not in the mood for Stanley today.”

  “Yeah, Circ, come on. We’re all kind of pooped out anyway, right?” said Nattie.

  “Stanley, schmanley,” said Circa. “He’s probably off on Sunday anyway.” Circa nudged Nattie with her elbow. “And you’ll get to meet my friends,” she said.

  “Well…okay,” said Nattie.

  “Come on, Miles,” said Circa. “We can check on Captain Mann.”

  At the mention of the Captain, Miles seemed to briefly consider her offer, but then declined.

  “You guys go…and tell him I said hello,” he said. “I just want to hang back this time.”

  “You sure?” said Circa, but inside, she really couldn’t blame him after how the last visit had made him feel.

  Miles nodded. “Wait,” he said as they walked toward the door. “You sure that creep won’t be in there to bother you today?”

  “Sure as I can be,” she said. “You just wait here and don’t go anywhere.”

  “I’ll be on that bench over on the side,” he said. “And you all don’t make me sit in this hot sun forever.”

  “Got it,” said Circa as they walked toward the front door, hope-hope-hoping she’d been right about Stanley being off on Sunday. Then sure enough, hallelujah, he wasn’t in the lobby.

  “See, I told you guys,” she said to Nattie. “No Stanley.”

  “Hey, Lily,” said Circa as they entered the cool lobby.

  “Circa. What a treat,” said Lily.

  “And this is Nattie,” said Circa.

  Nattie smiled and waved as she looked around the lobby.

  “Pleased to meet you, Nattie,” said Lily. “Where’s your other friend, Circa?”

  “Oh, Miles?” said Circa. “He couldn’t come in today.” Circa rolled and rerolled the posters in her hand. “We just want to say a quick hey to everybody,” she said.

  “Well, you go right on, then,” said Lily. “Most of them are napping right now, but you might catch one or two awake.”

  “What about Captain Mann?” said Circa. “Can we see him?”

  Lily sighed and shook her head. “Still not talking to anybody,” she said. “He hasn’t even come out of that room in days. And the only thing he’ll let inside is a food tray.”

  “All right,” said Circa. “Come on, Nat.”

  When the two of them entered the atrium, Nattie gasped. “Ooowee, Circ, you never told me it was this beautiful,” she said.

  “Yes, I did,” said Circa.

  Keeping Miles in mind, Circa began a fast-talking tour of the circle for Nattie. Sure enough, Lily had been right. Most all of the residents were asleep. All but Hank-not-the-Mayor, who managed to tell Nattie all about his colon polyps before Circa pulled her away.

  Within a matter of minutes, they made it around to the purple door.

  “This is the room where my great-aunt used to live, and where Captain Mann lives now,” whispered Circa. “Only that’s not really his name. He got here last week, and he won’t much talk to anybody. Lily says they think it’s dementia. And you can’t tell another soul this, but—”

  Nattie leaned in close.

  “He escaped in the van the other week,” said Circa.

  “No way,” Nattie said. “Where’d he go?”

  “Don’t know,” said Circa. “Lily said he just up and came back when the gas got low.”

  Circa stepped up and knocked softly. “Hello in there, Captain,” she said. “It’s me, Circa, again. I’ve got my friend Nattie here with me. Our other friend Miles couldn’t make it today, but I wanted to tell you that he sure has been wondering about you a lot this week.”

  Circa and Nattie stood with their ears pressed to the purple door.

  “Sad,” said Nattie. “I wish there was something we could do for him.”

  Circa thought about what Miles had said yesterday and suddenly got an idea.

  “You know, you and my friend Miles have a lot in common, Captain,” she said.

  There wasn’t a peep from the other side.

  “Anyway, I thought maybe you’d like to at least see a picture of him,” said Circa, unrolling one of Miles’s posters and gently sliding it through the gap underneath the door. It wasn’t as good as a Shopt story, but at least it was something.

  “Let’s wait a minute,” said Circa. “Maybe he’ll let us in.”

  While they waited, Nattie gazed through the kaleidoscope of windows in the ceiling of the atrium.

  “You know, I’ve been thinking,” Nattie whispered. “There hasn’t been a full moon yet this month. And you know how weird things happen during a full moon. Who knows?” she said. “Maybe Miles will get his memory back then.”

  Circa shushed Nattie when she heard some slow shuffling followed by what sounded like a piece of paper being picked up.

  “Um. Anyway…” Circa spoke softly to the door again, her heart beating fast. “There’s going to be a big surprise in the lobby here one of these days soon, and you sure don’t want to miss it. It’s a big wall full of pictures, and if you have a photo you want on there, I can scan it and fix it up real good for you.”

  Circa pressed her hand to the door. “I’m in charge of it,” she said. “It’s called the Memory Wall.”

  Still there was no response.

  “Come on, Nat,” Circa said. “We’ll come back another time.”

  Just then there came another sound. Circa and Nattie stood still. There was more shuffling, which moved farther away and then back to the door again. Circa held her breath as she saw something being pushed out from under the door. The photo, she thought. He’s sending out his photo. Circa felt a thrill inside at getting through to the mysterious Captain Mann. As soon as the facedown piece of paper made it all the way out, Circa picked it up and flipped it over as quick as she could to marvel at the photo. However, to her dismay, it was not a photo at all. Instead, it was a sketch of a chicken on a bicycle drawn for Great-Aunt Ruby by none other than Circa, age eight. Circa wondered, could this be Captain Mann’s subtle way of telling her to take a hike? It sure did feel like that.

  The girls walked the short remainder of the circle path to the front of the atrium. Circa tried to shake
off the disappointment. “So a full moon, huh?” she said with a doubtful grin.

  “Stranger things have happened,” said Nattie. “Remember the platypus.”

  Nattie dragged her hand across an azalea bush. “And hey, speaking of platypus,” she said. “What were you talking about the other day with all that miracle stuff?”

  Circa floundered for an answer.

  “It was nothing. Just me being—” she began as they returned to the lobby, where Nattie made a beeline for the player piano, which was slow-tinkling a familiar hymn. Circa smiled inside. She’d been saved by “Amazing Grace.”

  “Are there any pictures for me to pick up today, Lily?” she asked.

  “No, ma’am,” sighed Lily. “Still no pictures.”

  “Okay,” said Circa. “I’ll check back next time.”

  As the front door was shutting on the girls, Circa spotted a twisted cluster of wires poking out of a freshly cut hole at the bottom of the big empty wall. Underneath the holes, there was a plastic electrical outlet cover sitting on the floor next to some tools. It gave her a little jolt of excitement to think that maybe someone had begun making preparations for the Memory Wall. For some fancy lights, maybe? she thought as the door came to a close.

  Circa and Nattie rounded the front corner of the building to pick up Miles in the garden, where the sight of an empty park bench made them both panic a little. They’d just begun to look around when they heard a scuffle in the bushes. The girls dashed over to the area just beyond the iris garden, where Miles and Stanley were on the ground, wrestling around in a total dust ball. Miles had scrawny Stanley pinned hard, while Stanley flopped and flailed and cussed.

  Nattie covered her face with her hands.

  “Lily!” yelled Circa.

  Lily was outside in a flash, pulling the boys apart and fussing all the while.

  “Mercy! What is wrong with you two?” she said, almost tipping over onto the ground herself, when Miles caught and steadied her.

  “Sorry, Miss Lily,” he said, taking his place by Circa and Nattie on the sidewalk.

  Stanley peeled himself off the ground and stood up all wobbly and spitty. “All I did was flick my cig—my gum, in his direction,” he said. “And then the psycho totally flipped out.”

  Lily’s mouth squenched up tiny. She wasn’t buying it.

  “Don’t be crying to me, you ol’ so-and-so,” she said as she straightened her nurse jacket. “You get what you get. Circa, you all go on now.”

  Miles pressed his sleeve to his face to stop the blood from dripping off his lip.

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Circa.

  Miles dusted himself off as best he could, and the three of them headed for home, and fast. Lily walked back to the entrance with Stanley stumbling slow behind her. As soon as Lily disappeared inside, Stanley turned back to holler a bunch of junk that moved Nattie to cover her ears with her hands. Then he said one last thing that made Circa wish she had done the same.

  “Hey!” he yelled so loud the whole block could hear. “Did Lily tell you about the wall fountain they’re putting in the lobby? It’s going to be sweet.”

  “Quit it!” snapped Nattie over her shoulder. “Circ, you know he’s just making all that up.”

  Circa thought about that electrical outlet, and hoped to goodness Stanley was making all that up. She instantly developed a sickening lump in her throat, and considered running back and asking Nurse Lily about it all. Unfortunately, right then, a policeman stepped out of the station across the street. It was Sergeant Simms, and he was peering across curiously.

  “He must have heard the hollering,” said Miles. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  “Oh me,” said a flustered Nattie. “Oh me.”

  Circa agreed they should probably get bloody Miles out of there before Stanley could twist it all up and get him arrested as the violent stranger who lost it on an angelic local kid, but she still felt torn about whether to go back to Maple Grove for answers or to go home straightaway for Miles. Until she suddenly remembered the words Dad had said to her so often…Sometimes doing the right thing prickles a little.

  It had been a fairly quiet Saturday of playing canasta and charades for Sophie, Patton, and Puff. That is, until Maximus showed up and started the great war by knocking the Fluffington family estate all wonky. Shortly thence came the meow heard round the world.

  Miles didn’t seem like he much wanted to talk about the fight on the way home, which left Circa struggling to fill in the blanks for herself. True, practically everyone in Wingate wanted to pound Stanley, and true, Stanley deserved a good pounding. But even if Stanley had flicked something at him, was that enough reason for Miles to flatten him? To get so bloodied over some Stanley junk?

  “Mom!” Circa called out when they approached the house. Mom appeared almost instantly at the studio door.

  “You need to help Miles,” said Circa. “He’s hurt.”

  She wondered how Mom was going to try to back out of the tough task of patching Miles up. To Circa’s surprise, she didn’t.

  “Oh me, come on in here,” Mom said, looking at his torn clothes. “What in the world happened?” Mom dabbed at him the way Dad did for her when she’d cut her arm on her lighting equipment.

  “Stanley Betts,” said Circa, and that was explanation enough for Mom.

  “Hey, Circ, I’ve got to go home,” said Nattie after Mom had escorted Miles inside. “I promised I’d help with Durret tonight.”

  Nattie seemed a bit shaken, probably from the blood and the spit and the five TV channels’ worth of cussing, Circa thought, because she sure felt the same way. Only now that the crisis had calmed, Circa couldn’t quite decide how she felt. Usually, she instantly hated to see anyone bleed, but in a weird way, she felt kind of relieved to have seen the red of Miles’s blood. That if he was really Shopt, somehow he was still just as human as them.

  “You know what that boy makes me think of?” said Nattie, pulling Circa from her tangle of thoughts.

  “What?” said Circa.

  “He reminds me of a mushroom,” said Nattie. “You know, like when you flip it over and it’s got those things that look like the pages of a book hidden underneath there?”

  “Yeah?” said Circa.

  “Well, it’s like he’s got some sort of hidden story himself,” Nattie said.

  Circa fought back the sudden urge to spill her own version of Miles’s hidden story. She nodded her agreement and turned to go inside.

  “We need to find out when the full moon’s going to happen,” Nattie called back over her shoulder.

  “Yeah, whatever, Nat,” said Circa.

  That evening at the table, Mom, Circa, and Miles shared a meal of fried chicken and macaroni and cheese, seasoned with conversation that was mostly a tap dance around the uglier details of the afternoon’s ruckus. Miles ate while balancing a baggie of ice on his sore knuckles. Circa was itching to hear the whole story of what had happened, but she couldn’t risk Miles spilling it and souring Mom completely on Maple Grove. If that happened, she might not let them even go back.

  All through dinner, though, Circa’s mind kept wandering back to that electrical outlet and to Stanley’s cruel words. By dessert time, she’d decided she absolutely must plead her case for the Memory Wall. It had, after all, been days since they’d discussed it, and Mom did seem to be handling things a little better.

  “Mom, you really need to go up there to Maple Grove sometime,” Circa said boldly. “I think you would like the people. And you could see where their wall was…is going to be.”

  Without a peep, Mom stood to clear the dishes from the table. Circa felt her cheeks go hot and pressed on. Miles scraped up one last bite from his plate and shoveled it in.

  “And plus you would love Nurse Lily,” Circa said. “She’s really sweet and great at taking care of everybody. Even at handling Stan
ley.”

  Mom began filling the sink with soap and water. “Circa,” she said.

  “And she’s so excited about the wall,” Circa interrupted.

  Mom stopped still without turning around. She turned off the water and sighed. “Circa,” she said. “I thought we had an understanding on this.”

  Circa felt miffed and desperate. “And you could take a relaxing walk by the little fish pond and smell the flowers,” she continued, as if Mom hadn’t spoken. “Without even really talking to anybody too much if you don’t feel like it.”

  Circa poked Miles in the leg. “Say something,” she mouthed.

  “Um, yeah,” said Miles, his mouth half full. “And you can tell Stanley not to flick cigarettes at us.”

  Circa poked him harder. “Not like that,” she whispered.

  Mom grabbed a sponge and began wiping a plate. She wasn’t taking the bait. “I think we’re all finished here,” she said. “No need for you guys to help clean up.”

  “Great. Just whatever,” said Circa, rolling her eyes at Miles, who shrugged and nodded her toward the studio.

  “Me and Miles are going in there,” she said, feeling her blood go hotter and hotter.

  Mom packed up the remaining food as Circa and Miles headed to the studio.

  “Nice,” said Miles as the door closed behind them. “You poke a hole in my leg for talking about the fight, when you’re the one who even brought the place up.”

  Circa took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just wanted to give her a reason to want to go up there, not something that would make her hate the place. After what you said, I’m lucky she didn’t ban us from going there forever.”