Seven Stories Up (14 page)

We were passing tiny houses now, with low roofs. They looked ancient, made of dark cracked bricks. Some of the houses had hitching posts, and some had window
boxes full of flowers. But the doors were the best. They had colorful pictures painted right onto their screens, landscapes of villages, dotted with red-roofed villas and trees. I stopped and ran my fingers along a screen.

“Why do you think they paint them? They can’t see the picture from inside.”

“No,” said Molly. “But when they’re coming home at the end of the day, they can. It’s like they’re walking into someplace else. I think it’s nice!”

I did too, but just then we turned a corner and arrived under the Ferris wheel. Here was the fair! Off in the distance, on the grandstand, a band was playing waltzy happy music. Up and down the brick streets all around us were brightly striped tents covered with big posters that advertised amazing sights, stupendous acts, and otherworldly creatures, painted in such bright colors it was hard to imagine any of it was real. All except the bearded lady, who didn’t look all
that
amazing to me. We had one of those working at our grocery store in Atlanta. Best of all was a picture of two beautiful Siamese sisters with long golden curls, connected at the back.

Molly stopped and stared at that painting. “It’s good, isn’t it?” she said.

“Good?”

“I mean—it’s good that they have each other. The girl
with four arms and the man with none. The mermaid and the alligator man. And these twins—they must never get lonely. It’s good.”

“I guess,” I said. “I never thought about it like that.”

When we turned and walked deeper into the fair, things got louder, wilder. People shouted from every booth, calling out the great value of their delicious treats or their spangled dancers. An organ grinder’s tune competed with the songs from the bandstand, and kids rode around in circles on metal fire trucks, then stumbled off dizzy.

We watched a man hurl ball after ball at a pyramid of bottles, but try as he might, the bottles never fell. At last the man frowned and quit. The guy operating the game appeared to feel bad. He gave the loser a cigar and a pat on the back. But as the man walked away, I noticed there was a white handprint on the back of his shirt. I whispered to Molly, “What do you think
that
means?”

“I think it means we shouldn’t try to knock over any bottles,” she said.

Before long, we found ourselves in front of a stand where the smell of sugar was overpowering. It had been a while since breakfast.

“Cotton candy!” I said.

“What’s that?” asked Molly.

“Straight sugar! Mom always says if I’m going to rot my teeth out, I might as well eat cotton candy and get it done fast. You have to try it!”

Molly laughed as a woman swirled a mass of whispery pink strands onto a paper cone. “We’ll have one,” she said eagerly to the woman, “to share.” Then, with the candy in hand, she turned back to me and said, “I’d like to try everything!”

“Everything?”

Molly laughed. “I have a lot of catching up to do.”

I grinned. “Lead the way.”

First we made our way to the fried dough counter and bought one of those. Then we headed for the caramel popcorn stand, where we purchased a small paper bag of the treat.

“Hey, I’m going to drop something if I’m not careful,” I said. “How about I sit down over …” I turned around in a circle, looking for a good place to sit. “There!” I motioned with my head to an old tree with a tangled system of roots.

Molly nodded, and then ran off. She bought a hot dog, a lemonade, and a candy apple. One at a time she deposited them with me, until I was surrounded by an amazing junkfest. All of it identical to the fair food back home, in 1987.

I resisted the impulse to start eating until Molly came back, holding something funny. “What’s that?” I asked.

Molly shrugged. “I don’t know what
most
of these things are,” she said. She handed me the item in question, which appeared to be half a lemon with a broken candy cane jammed in it, then reached for the popcorn.

“What do I do with it?” I asked, nibbling at the rind and making a face.

Molly sat down. “Eat it, I suppose.”

“Eat a raw lemon?” I wrinkled my nose.

That was when a high voice piped up from behind the tree. “A lemon stick. Ain’t yous guys never seen a lemon stick?” A small face peered out at us from a long fall of dirty blond hair, and then a body in a stained dress joined the face. The girl looked six. “You suck it, like a straw.”

“Like this?” I asked. I put my mouth on the top of the broken candy cane and drew a long gulp. My mouth shot through with a zing of cold mint and tart lemon. “Yow!” I grinned.

“Yer welcome,” said the girl, her hands behind her back, eyeing our feast.

Molly, the candy apple stuck to her front teeth, looked the girl up and down. “Would you like something?” she asked the kid.

A smile split the girl’s face. “Would I ever!” she shouted, squatting down and grabbing for the fried dough. “Thanks, lady!”

I laughed. “She called you
lady
.”

In about two seconds, the dough was gone.

“Oh!” said Molly, setting down her apple. “Would you like another?”

The girl’s eyes widened. “My sister would too, I bet! She’s Olivia. I’m Annika. We’re twins. Livi!”

From behind the tree another girl, identical to the first, popped out. “Yup?” They were like two really filthy elves.

“All right,” said Molly. “Just wait. I’ll be back before you can say ‘Jack Robinson.’ ”

“Jack Robinson,” I said. But the elves didn’t laugh at my joke. They were too busy eating.

The girls gobbled up everything but my lemon stick, which I sucked slowly. By the time Molly returned, more dirty kids had joined us in the nest of tree roots. I wondered where their parents were. They looked awfully little to be alone.

“I suppose we’ll need some more!” said Molly. She left again.

But while she was gone, a police officer strolled up. I could feel his shadow over me, even before I turned
around. He wasn’t the same guy from Woolworth’s, of course, but it still made me nervous. His nose glistened in the summer sun as he squinted down at us.

“What’ve we got here, kids?” he asked. “What’ve you all been up to, hey?”

For no reason, my heart began to race. I wished Molly would hurry back.

“Nuffin,” said Annika. “We ain’t doin’
nuffin
wrong. These ladies just bought us lunch.”

“They
did
, did they?” The policeman crossed his arms over his chest. “And where have you been getting all this money from, miss?” he asked me.

“I—umm.” I looked up at his blue uniform, with all those shiny buttons, and though I knew we hadn’t done anything wrong, I felt instantly flushed. Pictures flashed through my head of the smashing, crashing lamp disaster, and then of the girls’ home. I gulped. “Umm. My friend has an allowan—”

Just then Molly returned with a plate of hot dogs in each hand. I scrambled to my feet and ran over to her. “Hey, Molly, I think it’s time we left, don’t you? We’re … umm, meeting your mom at the Ferris wheel, remember?” I tried to wink so that the policeman wouldn’t see me.

At first Molly was baffled. She looked at the policeman, and then at me. “But—but I wanted to try the cotton—”

I took the cone of cotton candy from the boy who’d buried his face in the sticky pink cloud. “Here you go,” I said with a cheery fake smile, grabbing her hand. Hot dogs fell to the ground and rolled from their buns. I ignored them.

“All right, all right,” said Molly as she let me push her. “Goodbye, everyone, goodbye!” She waved to all the other kids as we walked away. They scurried to pick up the hot dogs.

The policeman watched us walk away. Each time I turned to look back over my shoulder, he was still there, staring at me.
I willed myself to face forward as we made our way to the Ferris wheel, bought our tickets, and climbed into the hot metal bucket.

Once we were up in the sky, with the fair spread out below us, I lost sight of him, and everything melted away. It was just me and Molly, our legs dangling over the booths and the water. It was like any Ferris wheel, every Ferris wheel. It was like the Georgia State Fair, with Mom. We rocked back and forth, and the bucket rocked with us.

“Look.” Molly pointed at Annika and Olivia off in
the distance, beneath their tree. We rode up and down and around and around.

After the Ferris wheel, we wandered for a bit. A lot of the fair was just beer tents and grown-ups dancing, which didn’t interest us. As the church bells above us rang out, we realized it was time to meet Frank. Of course,
that
was when we passed a small tent that made us stop and stare. Sitting in front of the tent flap was a table covered in tiny glass bottles and a sign that read:

As we stood there, a man stepped from inside the tent. “May I help you?” he asked.

Fortunata wasn’t what I’d expected at all. I’d pictured an old Gypsy-looking lady with big earrings and loads of black eyeliner, not a young man in a neat gray suit. He was clean-shaven, with soft brown hair and kind eyes. The air around him was quieter somehow. He gave
a shy smile from beneath the brim of a squashed hat. In his hand he held a large white flower, faded and dying, the petals spotted with tan and brown.

Molly looked at the flower. “What is it?” she asked as she neared his table. “What do you have there?”

“Just magic,” said the man. He gave the flower a soft shake.

“
Real
magic?” Molly asked.

I watched Molly watch the man. He looked nice enough, but
Prophesies and Predictions
? It was like something from an episode of the
Twilight Zone
or
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
. Too much like a story to be real.

“Wait,” he said. “Patience.” In front of our eyes, he opened a bottle of silvery blue dust and sprinkled a pinch of it onto the flower. He closed his eyes and shook the blossom, and when he stopped, it didn’t look so dead.

I blinked, rubbed my eyes, and stared again. Was it possible the brown spots and streaks were vanishing? They were! Right in front of my eyes. The flower in front of me now was perfect, pristine, white, and fresh, as though it had just been plucked. A few petals had fallen to the tabletop, but even those now gleamed.

“No way! How’d you do that?” I asked, looking from the man to the flower and back again. “What’s the trick?”

The man’s eyes were soft. “A trick is only a game you haven’t figured out the rules to,” he said in his calm voice.

“You want us to believe you have
real
magic, in bottles?” I said. “For sale?”

The man shrugged. “I don’t
have
magic. Magic just is.”

“What do you mean?” asked Molly.

“Magic is what people call it when the universe corrects itself and they happen to be watching. Sometimes
this
”—he held up the bottle—“can help.”

“I don’t understand,” said Molly.

“Now and then,” said the man, “a thing needs to happen so badly the universe decides to rearrange itself. People like to call such events evolutions or miracles, depending on who they are and what they profess to believe. But it’s all the same. I prefer to call it magic.”

“So if I wish for something, it could actually happen?” asked Molly.

“Why not?” said the man. “If you’re wishing hard enough, and it’s something you genuinely need, why wouldn’t the universe set things to rights?” He winked and added, “It only takes faith. But for only one shiny half dollar, I can help your faith along.”

“This is a scam,” I said, tugging at Molly’s sleeve. “Let’s go.”

She shook me off. “Does it only work on flowers?” she asked. “Or can it help other things?”

“A true wish can do anything,” said the man. “If you need it, in your heart.”

“Please,” said Molly. “Speak plainly. We’re in a hurry. I only want to know—can that dust make people better? Can it make
me
better?”

The man looked her straight in the eyes. “Better than what?
Better
depends on how bad things are.”

I don’t know why, but I got the chills when he said that. The man seemed nice enough, but there was something about his calm tone that made me nervous. “Let’s go,” I said. “We’ll miss Frank. Please?”

Molly set down a big half dollar on the purple cloth and took the bottle. “Thank you, Fortunata,” she said.

“Oh, you can call me Seymour,” he said pleasantly.

Molly waved over her shoulder as we ran, but I reached up and grabbed her hand midwave and pulled her along with me faster. Through the brick streets and past the music and the booths, until we were back near the market and the smell of fish.

“Slow down.” Molly laughed. “Frank will wait.”

But I didn’t feel like slowing down. Something about all the wishing talk had made me nervous. For the first
time, I only wanted to be back, safe, in the hotel. Still holding hands, panting slightly, we pushed right through the market, past buckets of flowers and men in bloodstained butcher aprons. When we shot out on the other side, there was Frank’s shiny black taxi. He leaned against his door, smoking a cigarette.