Made in the U.S.A. (32 page)

Lutie started chewing on a loose piece of skin on her knuckle, letting Mama and Ray wait for a response. Finally, she said, “I’ll ask him.”

Ray opened the door of his pickup, but before he got in, Juan came from the direction of his tent, rolling up the sleeves of his shirt.

“You taking off now?” he asked his father.

“Yeah. I need to get back before our afternoon show.”

“Ray, I forgot all about that laundry you brought home. It’s in the dryer now. Lutie, will you come in and help me fold it?” Then Mama shot the girl a look that said she didn’t have a choice.

As soon as the screen door slammed behind Lutie, Ray got his pipe and tobacco off the pickup dash, lit up, then eased himself up on the Chevy’s fender.

“We wake you up?”

“I been awake since Draco left the tent.”

The dog, hearing her name, came to sit at Juan’s feet, looking earnestly into his face as if following the conversation.

“The girl told us you were leaving soon,” Ray said. “Sounds like she intends to go with you.”

“That’s my plan. Can’t say about theirs. If they want a ride somewhere with me, I’ll take them.”

“You going back to Vegas?”

“Expect so. I like the weather. There’s work. Not a bad place for me.”

“Someone lives in a tent, no family, not many friends, be my guess. Just you and your dog there.”

“That’s about it.”

Ray took a puff of his pipe, then leaned his head back and blew smoke into the clear morning air.

“I’m going to tell you something you don’t know.”

“Okay.”

“I sent Mama and Essie to find you out there, in Vegas, bring you home. I’d heard about your accident, so I figured you’d come back here. Waited over a year for you to show up. But you didn’t. So I asked them to go get you, bring you home.”

“They found me. Living on the street, strung out on crack, cheap wine. Whatever I could get. Lice in my hair, my pants soiled. They didn’t tell you because they didn’t want you to know how I ended up.”

“Ended up? Hell, boy, you haven’t ended up yet, have you?”

“Oh, I’m not messed up anymore, been clean four, five years now. Work when I can, but that’s about it. Seems pretty ‘ended up’ to me.”

“You’re still young.”

“I don’t see much in my future to be excited about.”

“No reason you can’t work with me. I need someone to—”

“What? What do you need, Papa? Sword swallower? Fire eater? You want me to feeding the cats, clean their cages? Or maybe direct traffic, make sure all vehicles in handicapped parking has a sticker?”

“Hell, Juan, you ought to know that I wouldn’t—”

“Here’s what I know. Circus isn’t such a good place for a cripple to work.”

“Someone has to run the circus. It don’t run by itself. I can’t do it forever, and I’m not sure Dub wants to take over for me.”

“Oh, I see. You want me to
run
it. Do the advance work, the billing, ordering. Make sure all contracts are signed and take care . . .” Juan walked a few feet away, stared down the road for several moments, as though he might be considering Raynoldo’s proposal. But then he wheeled, faced his father, and said, “No! See, here’s what you can’t understanding. After you’ve been at the top, it’s damn hard at the bottom.”

“But it doesn’t have to be that way.”

“Sure it does, Papa. My leg is never going to get better. I never going to do high wire again. My life was up there.” Juan gestured at the sky. “And it’s still up there, so far above the crowd I can’t even make out their faces. But I can hear them. . . .

“Look, you were right. See?” He pulled up his pant leg to reveal the place where his kneecap used to be. “If I’d listened to you when you told me to stay here with the family, I’d still have a whole leg.”

“But you wouldn’t have been the star I saw, working that wire, a hundred feet in the air. No net, no fear. Joy.”

“What are you telling me?”

“I went to Vegas, Cirque du Soleil, and I watched you. I knew then you were right to leave here, to try for something bigger. Your dream, I guess you’d call it.

“Why? Because you were the best.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

L
UTIE TAPPED AT
the opened door of the costume shop, waited, then knocked, louder this time. She thought about turning away, going back to the house, and taking off the bandage by herself. In case she looked like a creature in a horror movie, she wondered if she might handle the shock better if she saw it alone.

Then from somewhere in a back room, she heard Mama Sim’s voice and the sound of laughter coming from Essie.

But when she walked in, saw what the large front room of the shop held, she forgot momentarily why she was there.

Racks and racks of hanging garments stretched from wall to wall, and as she inched her way up and down the rows, she couldn’t keep her hands from touching clothes she’d only dreamed of wearing. Body-hugging leotards in brilliant reds, royal blues, forest greens, designed with starbursts of rhinestones that reflected light, glistening like jewels; kimonos of sateen in black and silver with ribbons in colors of sunset orange and turquoise; bell-bottomed jumpsuits of bright yellow spandex splashed with sequins and amethyst; velvet ball gowns with swirls of sunstone, the fabric so soft and enticing that Lutie rubbed it against her face.

She discovered sparkling costumes for flamenco dancers, fairy-tale characters, angels, Gypsies, flappers, queens and their courts—all decorated with gleaming crystal drops, delicate lace, and beads of red and green, strands of fringe, tiny gemstones glimmering like diamonds and rubies.

On the back wall, she found shelves that reached from floor to ceiling, some crowded with shawls, boas, sashes, masks, wigs, gloves, scarves, and exotic fans. Others held crowns, nurses’ caps, berets, cloches, top hats, sailors’ caps, and safari hats.

After she made sure she was alone in the costume room, she put on a black-and-gold butterfly mask edged in red fake fur, a mask that hid the bandage on her face. Then she added a shoulder-length black wig and topped it with a green jeweled headdress adorned with the midnight blue plumage of a peacock’s feathers. Finally, she draped a black boa around her neck, pulled on a pair of gold silk fingerless gloves, and at a full-length mirror struck the pose of a model.

“Very nice,” Mama Sim said. “Absolutely lovely.”

Startled to find Mama Sim standing behind her, and embarrassed to be discovered in costume, Lutie began removing the outfit she was wearing, putting everything back where she’d found it. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled.

“For what? Trying on a few things? Goodness, child, nothing wrong in that.”

“Did you make all this? The clothes, the hats . . .”

“Essie and me work on the costumes pretty much the year round. We have two women who help us from the first of the year until the circus goes out in March. That’s crunch time. But stuff like the fans, wigs, the masks, and gloves, we buy.”

“I’ve only seen clothes like these in the movies.”

“Did you get a chance to look at everything?”

“When I came in, and heard you somewhere in the back, I started nosing through these. Guess I lost track of the time.”

“Aw, I’ve been known to play dress-up out here when I’m alone. I’d hate for anyone to see this bag of bones in a sexy leotard, though I practically lived in them for nearly thirty years.”

“I’ll bet you like making costumes like this.” Lutie pulled out a fringed flapper dress.

“I have fun with Essie, but performers having their costumes fitted can be a pain in the butt. ‘Can you take it in about two inches?’” Mama said in a falsetto voice. “‘I don’t like this neckline.’ ‘Why is this so long?’ They drive us nuts.”

Lutie smiled. “Sounds exciting to me.”

Suddenly, Mama Sim pressed her hands against Lutie’s cheeks. “Your teeth! Oh, honey, your teeth. They’re beautiful! Dr. Slice outdid himself.”

“Yeah, I wasn’t so sure about going to a dentist named Slice, but you were right. He’s good.”

“Come on, darlin’. Let’s go get that bandage off. See what you look like now.”

“Is this why you asked me to wait to see my face? So Dr. Slice could finish up first?”

“Well, that . . . and because Essie planned a little surprise for you.”

“Really?”

“Let’s go back and let her work some of her magic.”

Mama Sim led the girl into one of the back rooms, where Essie was bent over a sewing machine.

“Look who’s here,” Mama said.

“I heard you two talking,” Essie said. “Lutie, let me see those teeth.”

When Lutie smiled, Essie squealed and clapped her hands. “You’re beautiful! Now let’s make you even more beautiful. You ready?”

“I guess. I couldn’t go to sleep last night for thinking about this.”

“You worried?”

“Some. I’m afraid of what I’m going to look like.”

“Here,” Essie said as she turned a barber’s chair away from the mirror.

“You’re still not going to let me look?”

“Not until I’m finished.”

“Okay.”

When Essie gently peeled away the bandage, Lutie looked for some reaction, but Essie’s expression didn’t change.

“Close your eyes.”

Lutie did as she was told, but with reluctance. Even though she couldn’t see herself in the mirror, she wanted to feel more a participant in this event. With her eyes closed, she felt shut out of the action.

As Essie patted a flesh-tone concealer over the scar, Lutie said, “That’s an odd sensation. That place feels numb.”

“Yeah, it will for a while, then the feeling will return.”

Essie took her time blending the foundation for Lutie’s face. She dabbed a bit on, stood back to take in the color, then blended in a bit of pale yellow, which helped to correct a slightly bluish cast. Finally satisfied, she looked to Mama Sim for approval. Smiling, Mama gave Essie a nod.

To give Lutie some badly needed color, Essie brushed her cheeks with a soft coral blush, her eyelids with light brown to accentuate the green in her hazel eyes. She used a thin pencil of eyeliner on Lutie’s top and bottom lids and dark brown mascara on the eyelashes. For the last step, she drew the outline of the girl’s lips in dark rose, then filled in her inner lips with a pale pink lip gloss.

Pleased with the results of the makeup, Essie turned her attention to Lutie’s hair. She trimmed it, shaped it to fall softly around the girl’s face, then back-combed it a bit to add some height.

When she was finished, she opened one of the drawers at the makeup counter, where she’d hidden her surprise: a hat she’d made for Lutie. Beaded with aurora borealis rhinestones in a rainbow of colors, the hat also had a thin veil of elegant gold threads.

As soon as Essie finished fitting the hat on Lutie’s head, she turned the chair so Lutie could see herself in the mirror.

At first, Lutie was speechless. Then she got up and leaned closer to the mirror, slowly turning her head from side to side.

Mama Sim said, “What do you think?”

“Well, I don’t look much like Paris Hilton, but I guess I shouldn’t have expected too much.”

Dub and Juan were walking out of the welding shop when Dub saw Lutie disappear into the ring barn.

“Hey, there goes your girl.”

“Lutie? No.”

“She just went into the ring barn.”

“Why the hell would she going in there?”

“Don’t know, but I’ve seen her come out of there twice in the last couple of days.”

“Believe I go seeing what she’s up to,” Juan said. “See you later.”

As Dub started for his trailer, Juan walked down to the ring barn, but when he got there, he hesitated outside the closed door, wondering if he was doing the right thing. Finally, his decision made, he opened the door as quietly as he could, then made sure it didn’t slam behind him. Once inside, he tiptoed as best he could, to stand behind a canvas draped near the entrance. When he peeked out, his eyes scanned the length of the enormous enclosure until he finally spotted Lutie on the balance beam.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

L
UTIE HAD JUST
left the ring barn when she heard the crunch of gravel behind her, someone or something running, drawing closer to her with each footfall. When she turned, Fate jumped at her, roaring and clawing the air, an animal closing in on his prey. As he pounced, he wrinkled his nose and hissed.

“What are you supposed to be?” she asked. “I’m guessing a lion.”

This was not the stunned, terrified response Fate had hoped for. “No, Lutie,” he whined. “Can’t you tell the difference between a lion and a tiger?” When she turned and continued walking, he got in front of her, skipping backward toward the road. “Where you been?”

“Costume shop.”

“Why?”

“Mama Sim asked me to.”

“Why?” He was clearly in a playful mood this morning—little brother pestering big sister.

“Essie took my bandage off.”

“Why didn’t she take it off at the house?”

“Fate, would you stop with the questions? You’re getting on my nerves.”

“You look really good. I can’t even see your scar. But you have lipstick on your teeth. Here.” Fate stopped skipping and made a move toward Lutie, pretending he was going to rub off the lipstick.

“Stop!” Lutie swatted his shoulder.

“Know where I’m going?” he asked.

“Probably.”

“Where?”

“Fishing with Johnny.”

Fate picked up a handful of small flat stones and began trying to skip them across the ground.

Lutie hadn’t thought much about the change in her brother until now, but in her recollection of the past week, she realized he was different. He hadn’t been slinking off to be alone with his books of facts or playing Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit by himself. He hadn’t expressed any new fear of global warming, either. And then it hit her. He no longer reminded her of a forlorn, eccentric old man. No, he looked and acted like an eleven-year-old boy. He was, for the time being, a kid again.

“Did you know Raynoldo left this morning?” Fate asked. “He went to catch up with his circus.”

“I know,” Lutie said. “I saw him before he left. And I talked to Juan. Found out he’s heading back to Vegas in a couple of days. He’ll give us a lift.”