Chapter 23
True winter bore down the next day bringing a biting wind and a hard freeze. It was Saturday before Thanksgiving, and typically the show got lots of the locals selling collards, sweet taters, or molasses. I doubted anyone was going to feel like being outside on a day like this. I was suffering another affliction, miserable, my strange inner hurt so different than when Seph died. It was a hurt unlike anything I’d ever known. I kept seeing Clayton’s head bend down to Laci and each repeat of it, made me feel like I’d stepped out into an icy wind without a stitch of clothes on. It made me want to huddle under my cot covers and never come out. I didn’t care nothing about eating, seeing to my chores, talking to Trixie or anybody else I might run into. Especially not Clayton.
I watched in secret as Laci rose from her cot. It had been a long time since I’d paid attention to her body, and now as I stared at her, I resented every difference we had, a sort of intolerable awareness of everything. Her shimmering hair, creamy skin, liquid soft eyes, long legs, slender arms. Her breasts. Every part of her I seen through Clayton’s eyes. It caused a commotion inside me, everything exploding into an internal uproar what made me grit my teeth. She tugged on her old dress, pulling her hair free before sitting down on her cot, patiently waiting for me to do up her dress. I twisted onto my other side and pretended I was asleep. I wished she could understand. I wanted her to know how I felt. I could see for myself in the clear light of day, she won’t any different, and I wondered if any of what I’d seen happened. I questioned whether the smile had been real. Maybe I’d only imagined it.
After a few minutes, I heard rustling, felt a cold draft, and heard Momma speaking. “Wallis Ann didn’t button your dress? Come here, I’ll do it.”
I raised up, peeked through the opening in the flap at Laci’s fixed expression. There won’t anything there to hint at what happened. I lay down again, resuming my study of the canvas wall. My eyes traced the pattern of a water stain in the shape of a lopsided heart. I was still in the cot looking at that crooked heart when Momma come in, a mass of cold air following her. The flap to the tent dropped with a popping sound.
She said, “Are you sick?”
Yes.
“No, ma’am.”
“Get up then, get dressed, and be quick about it, if you want to eat with us.”
“I ain’t hungry, Momma. Not really.”
“Then you must be sick.” She laid a warm hand to my forehead, “Well, you’re not hot. Does your stomach hurt? Are you having your . . . ?”
I shook my head hard, grabbed at her hand, and pressed it to my face.
Surprised, she said, “Wallis Ann? What is it? What’s wrong?”
I almost cried then.
I whispered, “My stomach’s not got a thing to do with it, Momma.”
“Well then, what is it? It’s not like you to be lazing about. Is it your head?”
My heart.
“Yes, ma’am. It’s my head, it hurts bad.”
“I’ll see if I can go find some aspirin. You’re not going to come eat then?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Should I bring you something?”
“No, ma’am.”
“All right then, we’ll be back soon.”
After I was sure they was gone, I got dressed, put on my shoes, and sat down on the cot. It was like being lost in the woods. I didn’t know what to do. If you’re lost, it’s best to stay put and not move, it’ll only make things worse. The longer I sat there, the more fidgety I got. It won’t in my nature to do nothing but twiddle my fingers. I stood, deciding I wouldn’t sit around. I left the tent, and went to the water buckets. I filled all the pitchers in the basins with clean water. I went and got our bedclothes again, even though we’d just washed them, dragged it all out the washtub near the fire, heated the water and boiled them. I scoured everything good, dumped the water, heated some more and did the rinse. I hung the bedclothes over branches to dry. Then I snatched Papa’s undershirt, his dirty coveralls, our underthings, and did the same to them. After that, I looked for something else to do. I found a big pine branch with a broad end and set about sweeping the campsite.
By the time I got all that done, I was sort of hungry, so I put on a pot of fresh coffee. I sipped on it, figuring I’d get on to chopping some more wood, when everyone returned from eating. Momma handed me a ham biscuit from Paulie, wrapped in wax paper and some aspirin too. I took the aspirin and refused the food.
“Wallis Ann, you need to eat or you’ll get sick.”
She pushed the biscuit in my hand, and got to looking around. “My word, I thought you had a headache? You done all this while we went to eat?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Usually Momma’s acknowledgment was uplifting. Not today. I choked down half the ham biscuit, and took the aspirin.
Papa said, “She’s always been our hard little worker, ain’t that right, Wally Girl?”
I blurted out, “Papa, would you please stop calling me that?”
Surprised, Momma looked to Papa as his chin dropped against his chest.
He looked a bit hurt as he asked, “You don’t like me calling you that? It’s only a little ole name.”
“I’m not five, I’m fourteen. It sounds like the name of a little girl.”
“I see.”
My request had come from out of nowhere. Even I was surprised by it.
I continued, “You call Laci only her given name.”
“Well. That’s true.”
I went into the tent, and lay on the cot again, and much to my annoyance, Laci followed me. The flap was left open and I glanced at Momma and Papa, sipping on the remaining coffee I’d left in the pot, and talking between themselves with a lot of frowning and head shaking, and I overheard Momma saying something about “young woman, like Laci.”
Laci got her fiddle and sat on her cot, facing me, the instrument in her lap. She made no move to play it, she only took the edge of her dress and began to polish the wood.
“Laci.”
Laci’s eyes remained fixed on her task, rubbing the same area of wood.
“Laci, did you go somewhere last night?”
On and on went the rubbing, round and round, over and over. I pictured grabbing it and throwing it across the tent. My jaw clenched at the thought, and my fingers curled into my palms.
My voice sounded strange, more insistent. “Where did you go? Did you see someone? Laci?”
I could have screamed as she tipped her head the other way and made no move to stop polishing her stupid fiddle. I thought about confronting Clayton, only it would be too embarrassing to admit I’d followed them. Maybe it wouldn’t happen again. Maybe Clayton only kissed her out of curiosity. What was done was done, as Momma said, and there won’t nothing I could do about it. I should try to forget, act like nothing was wrong, let bygones be bygones. The decision made me feel better, like I had a choice about how I handled things. I got up and Laci hurried to slip her hand into mine like always. Some part of me inside relaxed, like when you hold something heavy, set it down, and you get to take a deep breath as your muscles go loose and quit burning with the effort.
Same as asking Papa to not call me Wally Girl no more, as if I couldn’t help myself, words spewed from me like water from a spigot. “Laci, you didn’t know what you was doing, right?”
Laci waited, patient and serene.
“Last night, Laci? You and Clayton, you didn’t know, right?”
I moved closer, gazing into her eyes. Pools of green, moist, clear, as a mountain stream. Innocent, blameless, Laci. It won’t doing no good to keep pushing for what won’t there.
When we come out of the tent, Momma said, “Come sit by the fire.”
“I thought me and Laci might walk around some, find some fresh air.”
“It’s awful cold.”
“We’ll be fine, Momma. Walking will keep us warm.”
We headed towards Trixie’s tent, and the cold air surrounded us like a fog. Despite the less-than-pleasant temperatures, a few locals had come, some brung jams, jellies, pies or cakes to sell. I spotted Trixie with Zippity Doo in a small ring, putting him and Mr. M through one of their routines. Mr. M was dressed in a thick little jacket, and he bared his teeth at me in a grin as he climbed off the zebra to sit on Trixie’s shoulder. I dug into the pocket of my dress, and found a peanut to give it to him. He snatched it with his little man hands and crammed it in his mouth, chewing fast, tiny button chocolate eyes blinking quick, before coming over to my shoulder. He turned himself upside down, feet still clinging to my shoulder as he reached into my pocket to poke around looking for more. He sure was the cutest thing I’d ever seen.
He give up and went from my shoulder to Laci’s. She tolerated Mr. M sitting there. He seemed fixated on her hair, and he began a grooming routine, picking out strands and searching them before letting a few drop. Laci sat real still, like she was barely breathing.
Trixie said, “Wallis Ann? You look like something’s eatin’ you up.”
“I do?”
“Yep. You got this little pinched area between your eyebrows.”
“I got a headache.”
“Must be a good’un.”
I cleared my throat. “Trixie?”
“Yeah?”
I leaned in and lowered my voice. “Trixie, how well you know Clayton?”
Trixie let out a little laugh and stage-whispered, “Well enough, I reckon.Why the whispering?”
Maintaining a lower tone, I said, “I wonder what sort of girls he likes?”
Trixie give me a measuring sort of look.
She asked, “Is that why you look like a dog been kicked?”
“Do I look that a way?”
“Kind of. I can’t say what sort a girl he likes. I ain’t ever seen him with one.”
“You ain’t?”
“Nope. Only y’all, ever since you showed up. Why? You likin’ him?”
I didn’t know Trixie well enough to know if I could trust her.
“Me? Not me.”
“Then Laci here?”
“No, no. I was only curious. I mean, he seems nice enough and all.”
Trixie maintained a dubious expression, like she’d figured things out despite my denials. I watched Mr. M work his way around Laci’s head, threading through her hair, piece by piece.
I changed the subject. “How did y’all come by Mr. M?”
Trixie watched him working on Laci too, and said, “We got this little rascal from another show. They was right mean to him. Actually, I sort a took him. Snuck him outta his cage one night, kept him quiet with bananas and oranges. Poor thing, he was about half starved.”
“I can’t believe anyone could do such meanness to that little critter.”
She said, “Me neither, but they can, and they do. Wanna help me with those big guys there?”
“Sure.”
I helped her brush down the Friesians, which I loved doing. Laci followed us, Mr. M still riding her shoulder. I offered her a brush to work on the horses, but she didn’t seem to want to be near them. She stood about fifteen feet away. I didn’t understand how she’d do something for Clayton and not me. I kept trying to get her to pet one a them big black horses and she never would. After an hour or so, I told Trixie we had to go.
She said, “Thanks for your help,” and she leaned in close and said, “Hey, want me to talk to Clayton?”
“What? No!”
Trixie snickered. “Whew! Calm down. I won’t.”
“Okay, please don’t. I was only curious.”
I coaxed Mr. M back to Trixie’s shoulder, and as we went to leave, I turned to wave. Trixie was still watching us, that slight knowing smile making me wish I’d not asked about Clayton. I led us through the tents in a roundabout way so we was less likely to bump into him, although it was hard when it seemed there was always folks popping out of nowhere. Diablo grinned at us from afar, and turned back to the two people waiting for him to shoot a ten-foot flame from his mouth, an astonishing stunt. He had scars on his ears and cheeks from past accidents.
When we got back, Papa was telling Momma we won’t going to perform that night. Nobody was. Mr. Cooper had come by and said the crowds was too small and it won’t worth it.
Papa said, “I can’t see how making a little money over no money is a good decision. I also heard some of the show folks is wanting to head down to Florida.”
Momma said, “I won’t go any further than this, William. I mean it.”
Papa repeated his old argument. “I know, Ann, but it’s the dead of winter. If we don’t go with them, we’d have no other choice than what we had before. Traveling show, Hardy’s, or home.”
She fell silent. What little bit of happiness she might have had after we got here, even with the peculiarities and all, was getting harder and harder to maintain. We went to get supper, and Paulie wanted to know if my headache was better and I said it was. I kept my eyes averted so he wouldn’t ask me nothing else. Clayton sat eating with some workers and other performers. He raised both arms like he was asking, Where y’all been? I shrugged at him and went to get my plate. It was hard keeping my eyes from tracking back to him. I allowed myself a little peek when we left, and to my disappointment, the spot where he’d been eating had been filled by some other worker.
Having no performance sent all us to bed early. With the show shut down, it was unusually quiet. This should have helped me get to sleep, but instead, I lay on the cot, wide-eyed and alert. I thought about our warm, snug little room at Stampers Creek, our garden, Momma tending her flowers, Papa working at the sawmill, and Seph running about laughing and chasing dandelion seed pods. Joe Calhoun come to mind out of nowhere, and it seemed I couldn’t feature him clearly anymore, like he was fading in my mind the way an old photograph does. I glanced at Laci. She’d changed positions, and now faced me. Best as I could tell, she slept and I huffed, wishing I could.
I heard a scuffling sound, and then the crack of a stick breaking. Laci sat up, startling me. I watched how she turned her head this way and that, listening. Something kept me from letting her know I was awake. She grabbed the blanket off her cot, wrapped it around herself, and went to the tent flap. She pulled on the tie, and peeked out, looking the way the noise come from, and then she slipped from my view, leaving the tent flap untied. I thought, it’s happening all over again. I heard a whisper, and then a shuffling sound. I slipped off my cot and eased the flap aside ever so little, allowing an opening enough to see without being seen.
Laci sat by the dying campfire and Clayton was hunkered on his knee beside her. I was torn, part of me wanting to ask him what he was doing here, and the other part of me wanting to see what happened. I couldn’t make out anything except the low rumbling of his voice. He stood and held out his hand, and she put hers in it. He bent down and picked up a lantern and a blanket, and that bothered me. Why did he have those things? I grabbed my blanket and wrapped it around me, and when I looked out, he was leading her away.
They went a different direction from the other night, towards the woods along the path used by the bigger wagons. I slipped out of the tent. I had on no shoes, and only my shift underneath the blanket. I let them get some distance, and the further we went, the worse I felt, a feeling of guilt growing in me, knowing I should protect Laci. After a few minutes, there was a small clearing and he stopped there. He set the lantern down and lit it. He adjusted the flame before he turned to her, held out his arms. Laci didn’t move. He went towards her and carefully hugged her the way Papa would hug us sometimes, letting her lie her head on his shoulder. I took all this in, while that new icy spot inside me swelled big and solid until I was sure the very core of me had turned white and hard.
He released her, took the blanket, unrolled it and put it on the ground. I felt like a bizarre intruder in the shadows, like I was the one doing wrong. He pulled Laci down beside him. Everything he did, he’d wait a few minutes before he moved on. And he talked the entire time. I’d have given anything to be able to know what he said to her. They laid side by side. Maybe they was only going to look at stars. I hung onto that while another, more cynical part of me knowed better. A minute later, he leaned over and kissed her, and he kept on until her arms went around him. The scene before me got wavy and distorted. I swiped at my eyes and my hand pressed against my mouth when he moved her shift from her shoulders. Her breasts was exposed, and he touched them. It was too much and yet I couldn’t stop myself from staring. I watched as if I was somewhere else, like it won’t me. I had the thought I couldn’t let him do what he was doing. She didn’t know no better.
Except Laci slipped the straps of her shift further down, and wiggled her hips, removing the clothing until she was naked. She lay down again, and while I was trying to figure out how she knowed to do this, he removed his own clothes, and I stared at the thatch of dark hair at the top of his legs and nestled within it, his manhood. He kissed her again and began touching her everywhere, moving his hands from her breasts to between her legs. I seen how she let him get on top of her. He raised up, shifted, and stopped. He did the same thing again, while Laci turned her head left and right. Her face scrunched like he was hurting her. I lowered my head, fighting the urge to yell at them, to shout, scream, to confront them. Demand the answers I thought I deserved.
I heard Clayton grunt. I looked up, seen him shift again. Laci’s face relaxed, and he began a rhythmic movement of his lower half. Her legs come off the blanket to wrap around him as he moved, and moved, and moved. All this was done in complete silence, except for Clayton who spoke an occasional word. I was certain I heard what he said at one point, as clearly as I seen what they was doing, this act between a man and a woman. His I love you floated on the breeze to my ears. I tried to tell myself it won’t love. I told myself this was the most horrible thing I’d ever seen, no better than two animals in rut. My throat went rigid and fixed as my eyes. How could he do this? I felt misled, duped, and mostly stupid, while pure, raw jealousy squeezed my chest, and become as all-consuming as the blood sickness.