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Authors: Emilie Richards

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BOOK: A Lie for a Lie
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“It was certainly one of a kind,” Junie said.
“I don’t need a job. Lucy and I will get back to flipping. Right now I just need to prove I’m a nice, normal person who’s also intelligent, efficient, and able to stay out of trouble. And speaking of that . . .”
I launched into a description of last night’s party, which had ended—no surprise—with Grady singing “Remember Me in April,” the hit song which had brought him back into the limelight last year, and the one which some people say fanned the embers of his career back to flame.
“When he’s singing, he seems like the nicest guy in the world. When he’s talking to somebody important, he does, too. But Grady Barber’s got it in for all the little guys in the world. I shudder to think what the next round of the Idyll will be like.”
“The movie where he got his start. What’s it called?”
“Wayfarers of the Ark.”
I could see this wasn’t familiar to Junie, who’d never been much for movies. I explained. “It’s the story of Noah’s ark, only it’s about the members of Noah’s family, how they feel about getting in a boat with all those animals just because Noah tells them to, how they feel about leaving friends and family behind, knowing they’ll drown. Grady played Idan, Noah’s grandson. In the movie there’s a young girl he’s in love with. The two of them try desperately to find a female unicorn as a mate for Idan’s own unicorn. In the end the girl finds a female but can’t get back in time to board the ark. Idan is forced to sail without her.”
“You say this is a children’s movie?” Junie was irate. “This is a message we want children to hear?”
I patted her hand. “We can’t protect them from the Old Testament. It’s everywhere. Anyway, forget the story. What’s most important is that to promote the movie, the producers launched a big talent search to find fresh new talent for Idan and the girl, Dalia. It was a public relations stunt. Anyway, Grady was a senior at the high school here. The talent scouts were visiting small cities and towns, and for some reason Emerald Springs was on their route. Grady tried out, singing an original song he’d written for the audition called ‘Sailing toward a Rainbow.’ They loved him; they loved the song. The rest is history.”
“And success turned him into a monster.”
“I don’t know, maybe he was a monster before he got famous.”
I was tired of thinking about Grady Barber, so I turned the conversation to the shop. We chatted about new fabric she was expecting, a class she was planning, about Teddy’s swimming lessons. Finally Miss Emma ambled out to say that several customers needed Junie’s advice. I glanced at my watch and realized I’d stayed longer than I had planned. I still had a long list to finish before Monday evening, when the second round of the Idyll began. And before then, I fully expected a few frantic calls from Fred. I’d seen him this morning when I popped over to the hotel to replace the bulb in Grady’s bathroom while the great one was off having breakfast. Fred had looked even doughier, a man who wasn’t getting enough sleep or exercise.
I stood to go. “Why don’t you come for dinner after the shop closes?”
“I can’t. Miss Emma and I are going out to see Nora.”
I almost passed over this. After all, my mother has her own life here, and I can’t know all her friends. There are far too many. Then I froze.
“Tell me you don’t mean Sister Nora of the tent show.”
Junie stood, too, and tugged a Feeling Quilty T-shirt over her substantial hips. “Exactly who I mean.”
“You’re calling her Nora. You won’t drop the
Miss
in Miss Emma, but you’re dropping the
Sister
in Sister Nora.”
She waved that away. “Sister is only a title. And Miss Emma is Southern, and she’s been called Miss Emma since she was fifteen. She can’t remember to answer to anything else.”
I didn’t let a discussion of titles and regional customs sidetrack me. “You’ve been there before? To the tent show?”
“It’s quite a wonderful way to spend an evening. Miss Emma is fond of the lion tamer. She once had an affair with the zookeeper at the Atlanta zoo.”
This was a vision I did not want in my head. The Miss Emma I know weighs about sixteen pounds, less than an ounce of which is hair and teeth. One day she’ll die reaching for a bolt of fabric, and hours will pass before anybody notices the subtle difference.
“How many times have you gone?” I stepped closer, because I know my mother too well. “Tell me you’re not going to join up.”
“I think you’d better come along tonight to see what it’s really about. Nora has as deep a concern for the environment as anyone I’ve ever met. She genuinely loves those animals and takes extraordinarily good care of them. And her faith is strong. There’s nothing there to frighten anybody.”
“It can’t be that simple,” I said. “Where’s the part where she tries to convince you to give up all your worldly goods—to her—and go live in a circus trailer?”
“Nora believes she speaks with God. That’s why she’s going to build a biosphere on her new acreage. God’s told her this is where it has to go. But she hasn’t asked me or anybody else for a cent to make it happen. She says God will provide the funds.”
“Biosphere? Here in Emerald Springs?”
Junie didn’t seem to think that was strange. “What better place, precious. You and I are here to help, aren’t we?”
 
 
In the heyday of circuses, running away to join one was considered romantic, adventurous. High-spirited teenagers and wives in need of more excitement than plucking chickens and pickling beets probably thought the circus and the life it promised were visions from God. Those who loved the runaways and wanted them to stay home probably thought the circus was an enticement of the devil.
As I parked my minivan on Horseshoe Bend Road, I wondered which side of that coin Sister Nora’s Inspirational Tent Show would come down on. Even though it was seven o’clock, and the sun was moving steadily toward the horizon, I felt more like I was in hell than heaven. I’d had a full day working on preparations for the Idyll, including a closed-door meeting with the doleful manager of the Emerald Springs Hotel who, after less than twenty-four hours of Grady’s presence, had come far too close to blubbering. I wanted an evening at home with my husband, daughters, and an electric fan. But I know my mother. In those olden, golden days Junie would never have settled for chickens and beets. I wanted to make sure that when and if Sister Nora leaves Emerald Springs, she didn’t take my happy-go-lucky mother with her.
As I jumped down to open the sliding door, Lucy got down from the passenger seat. I had called her in a panic, and she had agreed to come, although she’d pointed out that after a night of arranging olives and tossing out perfectly lovely lilies, this was a bit much.
I found Junie and Miss Emma happily ensconced in the rear captain’s chairs, playing with the air vents. Sometimes my mother is easily pleased.
“You’re sure you want to do this tonight?” I asked them, gesturing toward the sinking sun. “It’s not cooling off. And it’s going to be even hotter inside that tent. We could go home and rent a movie.
Trapeze
?
The Greatest Show on Earth
?”
Junie, who never misses a chance to go anywhere in costume, was wearing baggy pants and a polka-dotted shirt with an orange-striped bow tie. A very, very large bow tie. Feeling Quilty was probably missing an entire bolt of orange-striped fabric. I’d picked her up a little early, and there hadn’t been time for greasepaint or a bulbous red nose, which had not been a miscalculation on my part.
“Saturday night is the full show,” she said as she hopped down. “I can’t wait to see it.”
I wondered if I should have brought my girls. But the Price Girls had scheduled an emergency rehearsal, and Teddy would have asked for the theological implications in every act. I’d thought I’d better check out the tent show in person first, particularly if there were picketers—who luckily appeared to be home cooling their heels tonight. The show was old news now, and the media had gone away.
I held out a hand to Miss Emma, who was surprisingly nimble, if slow. She wore faded jeans and a babydoll eyelet blouse that showed every crevice and liver spot. There were other cars parked up and down the road, but not as many as I remembered from my first visit. The thrill had probably worn off, and caution had set in. Not only were there wild beasts in the tent show, there was a message, and it wasn’t being served up with air-conditioning.
We walked down the roadside, slapping at the occasional mosquito. Miss Emma whistled “Entrance of the Gladiators,” which is the classic circus theme song. I’d done some homework that afternoon, trying to find out whatever I could about Nora and the others.
I shared my sudden wealth. “Circuses originally came from England. Did you know that? When they started they were small, the original dog-and-pony shows, and they weren’t able to travel very far because they had to build seats and rings everywhere they went. Once they went under the big top, they could travel faster and farther. Eventually they were transported by rail, long, long trains. Some of the shows took up as much as thirty acres once they set up.”
“You’ve been reading again,” Lucy said. “I’ve warned you about that, Ag.”
“Yes, well . . .” I sneaked in the rest of it. “Some historians believe the circus was really important for changing attitudes and broadening horizons. Women were stars and highly valued in their acts. People of different races and cultures were visible in places they’d never been seen before.”
“Like in sideshows? Freak shows?” Lucy said. “This was a good thing?”
“Well, not by our standards, of course, but for some people the sideshows were a way to earn a decent living instead of living off charity. And the circus was a place where they could be accepted as part of a community.”
“Are we going to sing a hymn before we even get through the gates?”
I swatted her with the notebook I’d pulled from my purse to fan myself. “I couldn’t find much about Nelson- Zimboni, though.”
“I bet you didn’t look on the Internet, did you?”
The computer and I—all right, the entire technological universe—do not see eye to eye. Sometimes late at night when everybody else is asleep, I can hear Ed’s laughing maniacally from the study.
“I like my information to come from reliable sources,” I said airily.
Miss Emma stopped whistling. “They didn’t have sideshows. I can tell you that much. No hoochie-coochie dancers, either. Not Nelson-Zimboni. Class acts, all the way. I saw them, you know, when they were still all one circus. Watching Caprice Zimboni on a tightrope was like watching Pavlova dance
Swan Lake
.”
I’d never heard Miss Emma put more than five words together in under a minute. “What else do you remember?”
“Caprice Zimboni, she was slender, tall, dark haired. She was ice, but Nora Nelson was fire. Nora was all pale skin and golden hair, womanly, not thin like Caprice. She rode a white stallion, bareback, too, and when he was racing around the ring so fast he was nothing more than a blur, she’d stand up and hold out her arms and twirl and leap and do flips, and she never faltered. They’d leap through hoops of fire together, her and that horse of hers. I remember there wasn’t a sound under that tent when she performed, just the beating of hooves, the hiss of flames.”
“Wow.” I was impressed by the speech, Miss Emma’s memory, and the information.
Lucy was impressed, too. “Now that’s an act I’d like to see.”
“I remember when they split up, the Nelsons going one way, the Zimbonis another. Nobody ever said why, either. I guess times were hard for circuses. No call for a medium-sized one. Too small for Madison Square Garden and too big for all those little Madison Counties stretching across America. I guess it was just easier to split up then to try and expand. Too many big circuses ahead of them.”
I wanted to know more, but why? I had an overactive imagination and enough curiosity to kill every big cat in Nora’s show. And for what reason? I was thinking the way I used to think when I was trying to find a murderer. I reminded myself that curiosity had proved to be bad for my health.
We reached the open gate into the farm. On either side there were clowns in rainbow wigs making balloon animals to greet us. They clapped as Junie passed inside, and she obligingly squeaked a vintage bicycle horn one offered her. I was given what looked like a balloon dachshund to tote around with me. At least it didn’t weigh anything.
“We’re early.” I’d been afraid we might have to park half a mile away, and at the speed Miss Emma walked, I had worried we’d miss the show.
“We could see the animals. They’re in a separate tent,” Junie said.
I wasn’t sure that was a great idea. Junie believes a number of things about which the rest of us are skeptical. One, she thinks she’s psychic, which couldn’t be further from the truth. Two, she believes that when she talks to animals, they know exactly what she’s saying, and she understands their responses telepathically. She’s been known to converse for long periods with our family cat, Moonpie, and once she insisted I change our brand of cat food because Moonpie had seen a television commercial for one he liked better. Oddly enough, Moonpie’s appetite improved greatly after that, but I refuse to consider that proof.
Right now, I didn’t want to risk learning that Leo the Lion was ready for a short stroll around the grounds and all Junie had to do was turn the key to make it so.
“Let’s not,” Lucy said, before I could. “It’ll be hot and putrid. Let’s walk up to the house and see if they’ve made any progress fixing it up.”
There were lots of people milling around. Some were clearly part of the show, and the rest were townspeople like us, gawking and pointing. If Nora’s mission was to save the world, she’d picked a strange place to do it. I didn’t see any sign of religious fervor in the vicinity. I saw people moving the way swamp dwellers probably do. Slowly, with great effort, their bodies glistening from sweat, their shoulders hunched against the humidity.
BOOK: A Lie for a Lie
10.89Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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