Paper Dolls (7 page)

I squeeze my eyes closed, which I know is the most childish thing I could do at this moment, but I need to shut him out. I would desperately like to go to a finishing school, but not with Mr. Baldcott paying for it. He speaks as though I am part of the fixtures of the circus—something he can own.

“In any case,” he continues, “I’m not looking for
voluptuous
. My tastes do not run that way. Besides, you are the granddaughter of the great Mr. Fiveash. And on that fateful day he kicks the bucket, the circus will pass onto your shoulders. You'll be needing support and direction. You'll need a husband's guidance."

"Excuse me?" My eyelids fly open.

"Sweet Jessamine, I'm asking you to marry me." He plunges his hand into his trouser pocket and fishes out a ring with a large, gaudy diamond.

I raise my palms to him. "Mr. Baldcott, please, put that away."

"It isn't attractive to protest too much, you know. It's attractive to a point but after that, it just becomes tedious. I have already discussed this with your cousin Henry, and I was led to believe that you were rather flattered about a proposal from me."

Every one of my muscles tenses. "Henry cannot and should not speak for me, and I am
not
flattered. I am not interested in marriage."

"I see." He nods his head as though considering his next move. He deposits the ring back in his pocket.

"And if all you want is to marry into the circus, are you forgetting my mother?” I glance over at her. She still sits with her hands in her lap, watching.

He shrugs his eyebrows. "She's a delightful woman of course... but how shall I put this delicately...? I am a man of means, with a view to marriage and starting a family. Your mother is past the bloom of youth and she's hardly able to bear children...."

"My mother is thirty-two. And it is not certain that she cannot bear children. How old are you, Mr. Baldcott?"

"Thirty-nine. Prime of life, for a man."

I try not to stare at the shiny bare patch on his forehead or the rotund waistline that threatens to pop the buttons of his waistcoat.

"If you'll excuse me, I need some air." I gather my skirts and rush from the hall. Men stand outside on the steps, puffing on cigars and loosening their collars. A few turn to look at me in mild surprise. I struggle to contain my upset. A lady’s emotions should never be on public display.

“Jessamine,” my mother calls from the hall entrance. She wheels her chair out to the deck.

“I felt a little faint. Just taking in some air,” I tell her.

She asks a couple of the burlier men to help her down the stairs. Her cheeks tinge with shame as they lift her in the wheelchair and place her on the ground. The wheels squeak and grind as she catches up to me.

“I’m bored in there,” she says. Her skin is luminous under the lights, her gray-blue eyes matching her silvery dress. She doesn’t notice my distress.

“We’ll soon be on our way out of here and on the train. Just one more night.”

She breathes out a deep sigh. “The nights are
so
long. I need something to get me through. Would you mind picking me up something in town?”

I turn my head beyond the bright lights of the grand hall to the darkness of the streets of New Orleans. “What do you need?”

She digs around in her purse and thrusts some notes at me. “A bottle or two of absinthe? Oh, and some sugar cubes."

My mother, always fond of wine, had begun taking on the New Orleans habit of sipping absinthe that had been dripped through a cube of sugar.

"You want me to go out there into the streets?" It shouldn't have surprised me.

“It’s not far. Not for someone with young, strong legs.”

“Very well, I’ll go. At least I’ll be getting away from Mr. Baldcott.”

“Why would you want to get away from him?” Her pale forehead creases. “He seems quite charming. I see him about quite a bit of late. I know he’s an important investor.”

I wrinkle my nose. “Don’t you know? Henry and Audette have been plotting for me and Mr. Baldcott to get together.”

Her eyes widen. “How does Mr. Baldcott feel about that?”

I chew my lip. "He just asked me to marry him."

Her eyes register shock as she leans forward. “What did you say in reply?”

I want her to soothe me, to be indignant about Mr. Baldcott’s bold proposal. I want her to call Mr. Balcott awful names and for her to laugh at the idea of him and me ever being together. But her interest in the matter is fixed solely on my reply to Mr. Baldcott.

I wave a hand in the air. “What do you imagine I said? I told him no, of course."

"You did what?"

"I said it nicely. I minded my manners."

Gripping the armrests of the wheelchair, she struggles to rise. Reaching a slim white arm out, she slaps me hard across the face.

My cheek pains. I’m too shocked to speak or move. She slumps back in her chair, spent.

"You... could have a decent life with Mr. Baldcott,” she accuses. “You could ensure the future of the circus. I could only dream of being fortunate enough to be proposed to by a man such as that. If the circus folds, if the old man abandons it, where will we all go?"

Blood charges to my head before I can stop it. "Perhaps you could go find yourself one of those men you’re always entertaining.”

Anger stitches itself into the planes of her face. I know if she could stand and knock me to the ground right now, she would.

I sprint into the night. I don’t know which way to go. I have barely left the circus grounds since we arrived here. The low roar of the ocean echoes the turmoil in my head, and I’m drawn to it.

Lights shine on the wet surfaces of the docks. Shipments of fruit sit unloaded in the ships—the heaviness of over-ripe oranges and bananas sickening the air until I can scarcely breathe. Creole women walk with white men, their arms interlinked, laughing in high, tinkling tones.

My chest feels like it will explode.

Two men approach me from a ship. “Want to come spend some time with us, maybe?” one of them says.

I run along the docks. The ocean pushes relentlessly against the hulls of the ship. I cannot swim but want to jump into its waters.

Hands come down on my shoulders.

I turn sharply. Madame Celia stands behind me, darkness pooling in the crevices of her face. "Where are you off to, child?"

The men stop, placing their hands up as though to guard themselves from Madame Celia. They retreat to the ship.

“You’ve been following me,” I tell her. “I see you in the circus and around the grounds.”

“I wanted a chance to speak with you again.”

"Stay away from me. Grandfather says you're a witch. He says some people are so jealous of other's good fortunes that they make up the most outrageous lies about them.”

Her eyes grow sad. "I only speak of what I see."

“Well, what you see isn’t true. Those stupid cards are just cards. Pictures and nothing more.”

“It is little to do with the cards. It is me. Since I was small, I have seen things. I saw the horrors that were coming. I just didn’t know when or who would bring them. Now I know. I see a tree, and the tree is spreading its roots all over our world, strangling it.”

I shake my head wordlessly, my throat caught up and dry.

“I see it in your eyes, Cherie. You speak of lies, but you have witnessed a small part of what I am telling you. I know that you know something. And perhaps you are the only one in this world who can stop your grandfather. You are the only one close enough to him. You must not allow him to collect the item he seeks. If you cannot stop him, then you must destroy this thing. Wipe it clean from the earth!”

I tear away from her, the heels of my new shoes echoing in hollow staccato on the pavement.

I lean my head back and watch gray clouds swarm and roll across the sky. A deep rumble sounds. A thunderstorm is coming. Beyond everything, I can hear the last notes of a piano recital, like the last stop in a funeral march.

I detest the long stretches between destinations. They are like death, snatching away parcels of your life. My fifteenth birthday is mere months away. The train takes me further towards adulthood, racing towards that bitter day. Grandfather barely speaks to me these days—and refuses to speak more of that conversation in his tent.

The memory of a morning at Orlando five years ago slips into my mind. The sky is the color of my dress—a powdery blue. I am ten. Heat rises from the pavement—making transparent wavering lines in the air. We are not here to work. The Ringling Brothers circus is in town and the Fiveash circus cannot compete with them. No, it is one of the rare times we are simply visitors. An ice cream is put in one of my hands and my father holds my other hand. I think I cannot get any happier. Then grandfather says he has a surprise for the family. He takes us to see the foundations of an enormous house not far from Orlando. We drive across a bridge to an island. The island is mostly just dirt and coconut plantations. A few houses have been built, but not many. Grandfather pulls up the car beside the sprawling foundations of a new house.

“This will be our home,” he says proudly. “When we are not travelling with the circus, this is where we’ll live.”

Mother, daddy and I step from the car in wonder. Miss Kitty follows, clucking in astonishment. I dash forward and almost fall into a deep, long hole.

“Hold on there, it’s not ready for a swim yet,” grandfather chuckles.

I turn back to grandfather with my mouth hanging open. The hole runs half the length of the house—it seems far too big to be a private swimming pool. My gaze travels to the shining lake beyond the pool.

“It doesn’t look like much now,” says grandfather. “But when everything is finished and the lawns and gardens are in, it will look a treat.”

Grandfather is wrong. It already looks like paradise to me. Daddy picks mother up and spins her around.

“And a special garden for you,” he says to me, pointing towards the garden beds surrounding an ornate gazebo. “And together we’ll plant all your grandmother’s favorite flowers.”

Grandfather is the happiest I’ve seen him since before grandma died. I can hardly believe we are going to have a house—a real house.

My parents excitedly pore over the house plans with grandfather, making changes here and there, which grandfather doesn’t mind. They speak of adding a nursery to the left wing of the house. Father pokes me in the ribs and asks what I would think of having a sibling or two. The idea is surprising at first, but then I nod. I could instruct and teach a baby. Daddy says he wants to leave the circus and become a gardener. My mother crosses her arms and says she’s not ready to throw in her act as Lady Lark. She doesn’t want babies or for daddy to be a gardener. Miss Kitty purses her mouth and says she’s being ridiculous—that mother has to give up the thrill of highwire act. Miss Kitty doesn’t approve of the circus. It’s always difficult to believe that she and mother are family.

The wide marble tiles inside the house are cool under my bare feet. Workmen install cupboards in the kitchen and plumbing in the powder room. I wander through into a great hall—glossy black and white checked tiles underfoot. I dance one of the waltzes Miss Kitty taught me, twirling and curtseying.

Exhausted, I throw myself down and stretch out on the floor. I imagine a baby crawling across the floor towards me and daddy tending the garden just outside the glass doors.

The dream stays with me all the way to our next circus show at St. Louis. All the way until Mister Magnifico threw his knife at the Wheel of Death. The day daddy died. The day everything turned black.

The house on the island seems not so much a memory but a scene from another life. A life that was not mine. I don’t know what happened to the house. Grandfather never spoke of it again.

Brown-skinned people clothed in traditional dress stand at the station staring openly at the carriages, pointing at the carriages that hold the animals. I wonder if any circus trains have ever been here before or if the people have even seen an elephant or a lion. The lettering on the station’s sign says Creel.

The train seems to stall here. Grandfather strides from the train and along the platform.I ache to run out there to him but he has requested to be alone on this trip. Then I notice men here and there barely concealing guns as they watch grandfather. I want to warn him, but he nods at one of the men as though he knows they are there. Grandfather has a conversation with someone and quickly takes an object from them and hides it under his jacket. I realize that the men with guns are guarding grandfather as he steps back onto the train.

The train rumbles off again as I walk the narrow corridor past Henry and Audette’s compartment. Henry wears no shirt, just trousers and suspenders and his black magician’s cape. He chews a pencil, then makes marks on some kind of map. Audette stands behind him with her hands underneath his suspenders. She makes a long lick along his neck up to his ear. I shudder.

Henry sees me and smiles with all his teeth. Audette sees me too, but she doesn’t stop licking Henry. She sticks her tongue inside Henry’s ear. He moves a newspaper across his map, concealing it from my view “What’s up, cousin?”

“Nothing. Just stretching my legs.”

“Go stretch them someplace else.” Audette speaks with her mouth against Henry’s temple.