How It Happened in Peach Hill (2 page)

I felt shivers that first night, in spite of it being August. It was pretty here, and I wondered if this would be the place where our savings would add up high enough to find a nest. We’d abandoned most of our possessions in Carling, so we had only the trunk and a few bundles to carry from the taxicab into our new, furnished rooms at 62 Needle Street.

“Look there,” Mama whispered. “The curtain is quivering at number fifty-nine across the road.”

I slid my tongue out and let my eye droop.

“Put up the sign before you heat the kettle, Annie,” said Mama. “We’ll have customers by nightfall tomorrow.”

It never took long for word of our arrival to flutter around a town like a flock of birds. People might scorn us in public,
but nearly everyone had a reason to seek us out on the quiet. Our rooms were on the ground floor, just off the main square, where people could find us easily. It wasn’t showy; we didn’t want anyone feeling nervous. But we gussied it up enough to suggest that our talents were worth the investment.

We took care setting up the front room, where Mama received company. We were lucky that the rooms provided a red cut-velvet armchair for the customer and a smaller, wooden one for Mama. We hired a polished table to place in between, one that could be enlarged, as needed, when we were hosting what Mama referred to as a calling. We could seat eight as the occasion demanded. By day, an ivory lace curtain dappled the light, almost like in a chapel. The sign in the window, lettered in gold script, announced
MADAME CATERINA, SPIRITUAL ADVISOR
.

Mama’s circulars claimed that we had Gypsy blood, but our tawny skin and black hair were really thanks to her grandmother, a Mexican maid in her grandfather’s house. Saying “Gypsy” meant more to the customers, that was all, making them think that wanderlust and fortune-telling came naturally.

Peach Hill was our eighth town, Mama’s and mine, if you didn’t calculate the hundreds of places we’d stayed three nights each while we worked with Lenny’s Famous Fun Fair. We joined Lenny when I was maybe four or five. When I was about nine, the United States joined the Great War and people had better things to do with their money than spend it on fun. Lenny closed up shop and we were forced to make our own fortune.

We moved a few times in the beginning, but for most of the war we lived in Deacon, where the factory made buttons for uniforms. That place was filled with sad, lonely wives, working on the assembly line and praying that their gleaming buttons would not be blown off the chests of distant husbands.

It was in Deacon where we first began to prosper. All those funerals were not just because of the war, but also because of the great influenza epidemic. There was likely not a family in town, or anywhere else, who did not release a soul or two through that deadly illness. But it was mainly the young men gone to be soldiers who brought us the clientele.

“I beg you! I beg you, on my knees!” a lady would say as soon as I opened the door. “Read my palm, look at the cards, pour out the tea leaves, whatever it takes, just tell me that my Davey (or my Joe, my Marco, my Terence) is still alive.…”

Not hearing from overseas for weeks or months could drive a woman crazy. Mama had to be careful about her wording on those occasions, wanting a return visit whatever the outcome.

“Ooh,” she’d murmur. “I’m seeing a place of great darkness and confusion. Your loved one needs you to be strong and patient.…”

When bad news came, it was no surprise that people hurried back to our parlor. The war had a positive outcome for Mama and me, aside from stomping out the wicked tyrants overseas who threatened peace and liberty. It left thousands of mothers and sweethearts and wives aching to connect with their lost boys now dwelling on the Other Side.

Mama plied her trade, and we learned an important lesson: Heartbreak is very good for business.

The first true test of my new character was Peg, hired on to keep house for us. Peg was maybe twenty-five, taller than Mama, with strong arms and a long nose, and curly hair bouncing off her head. Peg liked to sing while she worked and didn’t mind that our busiest day was Saturday.

“My daddy doesn’t want me to have a beau,” she admitted. “Saturdays last forever without a dance to think about.”

At first I thought Peg was as slow as I pretended to be, the way she shook her head from side to side while Mama gave instructions. Then I realized she just couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Mama tossed in extras so that Peg would have something to gossip about in town.

“Turn the pillowcases inside out on the beds, Peg. Makes the spirits restless and readier to communicate.”

“Yes’m.”

“And never lean the broom against a bed, or the person who sleeps there will soon die.”

“Yes’m. I mean, No, ma’am.”

“And Peg?”

“Yes’m?”

“Call me ‘madame,’ Peg. Not ‘yes’m.’ I’m a clairvoyant, not a butcher’s wife.”

“Yes’m.”

“If someone knocks, Peg, tell her I’m with a client and make an appointment for the next day.”

“But ma’am, that would be a fib.”

“My clients are not all among the living, Peg. To receive news from the Other Side, I must keep in contact with the spirits every day.”

“Oh,” said Peg.

“Precisely,” said Mama. “So it is not a fib to tell people at the door that I am otherwise engaged, even if you cannot see my customer.”

“Yes’m.”

We soon had the opportunity to test the system. A day or two later, Peg answered a knock while Mama and I were tidying the front room.

“Madame is engaged with the dead,” we heard her say. “If you come tomorrow, Mrs. Romero, she can see you at eleven o’clock.”

“Well done, Peg,” said Mama, sending her off with a smile before turning to me. “Annie, you heard the name. Why are you dawdling? Go.”

I hurried to the window and caught a glimpse of a green jacket as Mrs. Romero rounded the corner. I snatched my hat and my notebook and slipped out the door to follow her.

It wasn’t my first time out. I’d practiced in Hawley and I’d
already circled Peach Hill a few times, observing where women gathered and gossip flowed. I’d pinpointed the best places for eavesdropping: the benches in the square, the front table in Bing’s Café, and wandering around Carlaw’s, the greengrocer’s. Women seemed to loiter there long beyond buying potatoes and peas. I wrote in a code I’d made up, so no one else could decipher it. After each excursion, I unscrambled my code and catalogued whatever I’d heard, no matter if they were clients yet or not.

The smallest details make the biggest impact in the darkened room of a fortune-teller.

But when I followed Mrs. Romero, it was the first time I’d plunged into the heart of the town with an active mission. I let my tongue flop out between my lips, I shuddered, and I hobbled onto Main Street. What did it matter how I behaved? I didn’t know anyone here and we probably wouldn’t be staying long enough to change that.

On a Thursday after lunch, I guessed that shopping for supper would be Mrs. Romero’s quest. Sure enough, inside Carlaw’s, I saw the green jacket next to an ivory-colored
sweater. I crept closer and kept my head down. The two ladies stood over the bins of onions and potatoes. I raised one melon after another to my nose, smelling each for ripeness and listening as hard as I could.

“—just don’t know what to do,” Mrs. Romero was saying. “My Rosie is the biggest flirt I ever saw and going straight to hell if she keeps it up. That Joe Mackie had his hands all over her out on the porch last night!”

The other woman’s voice was softer, harder to hear.

“No surprise … pretty face … full figure …”

“Full figure? Jane, she’s got breasts the size of cabbages, make no mistake! She takes after my Frank’s mother, God rest her soul, who had her underthings specially constructed in Boston.”

A clerk appeared, to weigh Mrs. Romero’s potatoes. The ladies hadn’t seen me. I put down the melon and went outside to scribble some notes. My little notebook had a slim gold pen attached in a snug leather loop. I’d hammered a hole through the spine and hung the book around my neck on a length of blue ribbon.

When the ladies came out, I leered up at them, jiggling my eyeball as best I could.

“Well, whatever next?” The cream-sweatered lady was Jane Ford, already in my file. “I heard there was an idiot come to town. She belongs to the new fortune-teller on Needle Street.”

“Poor witless thing,” said Mrs. Romero.

“All the troubles in the world can’t match that, eh, Aggie?”

“One look at this child and I’m happy to have my Rosie,” said Mrs. Romero. “Hussy or not.”

People will say anything in front of an idiot.

I watched through the window while the butcher wrapped sausages for Mrs. Romero. She came out of the cobbler’s carrying a brown paper package and went into the post office. She came out of the post office chatting with a woman who wore a burgundy hat. On the open street, I couldn’t hear anything more.

I followed Mrs. Romero all the way to her home on Daly Avenue. One glance at the porch showed a pair of blue-painted rockers flanking a big pot of crimson geraniums. I passed by only once, noting the chintz curtains and the Model T in the driveway. I had plenty for Mama now.

I wandered back to the square and found a place to sit near the statue of a soldier on a horse, as close as I dared to a group of kids my age. I knew it would take time, but I intended to learn the name of every child I encountered in Peach Hill. I was watching for who liked whom, who was mean, and who might be my friend if I weren’t my mama’s partner.

The prettiest girls were Sally Carlaw, from the greengrocer’s family, and Delia, the policeman’s daughter, who didn’t have a mother. Those two were the honey that drew the bees. They had a gang of boys with shadowed upper lips and froggy voices who buzzed around them, showing off: Howie; Frankie Romero, who I guessed was our new client’s son; and somebody called Pitts. The not-as-pretty girls seemed to have more fun than the popular ones, making up songs and practicing the shimmy or the Charleston right there in the square. There were younger kids too, eating candy or kicking a ball around.

Oh, and one odd person lurking behind the statue. A girl, but wearing boy’s overalls. She was not exactly hiding, but not joining in, either. I could read the signs; she was spying, like me. She saw me looking and turned her back.

“Hey, Sammy! Sammy Sloane!”

“Sammy’s home!”

A boy I hadn’t seen before strolled into the park and leaned against a tree. I might as well say it; he was the most wonderful boy I ever saw. He didn’t wear a cap like the others. His black hair flopped and blew around his handsome face like, well, like shiny black hair. I quickly learned that he’d been away at his uncle’s farm for the summer and come back in time for the new school term.

I forgot myself and stared with both eyes, admiring his face, his shoulders, his laughing voice. Someone sat on the other end of my bench. It was the peculiar girl, inspecting me.

“Ha,” she said. “What’s your game?”

I jerked my eyeball into motion and produced a tremor so severe that I fell off the bench by accident. I jumped to my feet with hot cheeks. The girl was gone in a flash, but the rest of them were looking at me.

“Hey, Teddy!” called the older boy named Howie. “See the idiot over there?”

I froze. I heard a ripple of choked-back laughter.

“Uh-huh,” said the little one named Teddy. He was in overalls, his hair bristling like hay.

“I dare you to touch her. That’s all you gotta do. Touch her and run for your life.”

“What do I get?” said Teddy.

Even in my agitation, I had to admire his practicality.

“You get to tell us if she’s got skin like a lizard,” said Howie.

“No, thanks,” said Teddy.

“I’ll give you a penny.” Delia stood up and opened a pink coin purse. “I double dare you. She’s the ugliest thing I ever saw and you’d be a brave big fella to go anywhere near.” She held out a coin to the little boy, who now was tempted, I could see.

I felt sick and sweaty all over. My eye was tired and my tongue was dry. I backed away as Teddy tiptoed forward.

“Aw, leave her alone. What’s she done to bother you?” It was my new hero, Sammy Sloane, but too late. Teddy darted forward with his fingers outstretched. I turned and ran, pursued by hooting and jeers.

“Hey! Moron!”

I felt a sharp bite on the back of my arm and then another on my neck.

“Got her! Did you see that?”

“Good shot, Frankie! Like hitting a giant squirrel!”

They were throwing stones at me! I clapped my hand to the stinging spot above my collar and felt a sticky dribble of blood. I kept running, jagged sobs escaping like steam from a locomotive.

Peg found me crying in the kitchen.

“I’m ugly! I’m so ugly!”

“Ah, now,” said Peg. “There, there.” She washed the scratches and patted my back till I settled down. I might have been her baby sister.

“Peg loves Annie,” she began, slowly as always when
talking to me. “Peg knows better than the lunks in the square. You’d be quite pretty if you wore a cute hat that shaded your eyes, never mind there’s a vacancy between your ears. Not quite so pretty as your mama, but near enough. Try closing your mouth, if you can. And wash your hair once in a while, for pity’s sake!”

She had me lean over the side of the sink while she gave my head a scrubbing. Is this what normal mothers do? I wondered. She doused my hair with freshly squeezed lemon juice before the final rinse.

“Annie loves Peg,” I said, playing my part.