Wonder Show (12 page)

Brotherly Love

Joseph Lucasie was a strange boy. Even though his skin and hair were utterly white, aside from his dark glasses and his sun umbrella, he was strange. In the five days since her arrival, Portia had never seen him speak to anyone except Violet, not even his parents, and she frequently caught him glaring at her for no apparent reason.

“I don’t think your brother likes me,” Portia told Violet. They were wearing lost-and-found sunglasses, sitting in lost-and-found lawn chairs in front of their trailer, trying to keep from falling through the worn-out fabric. The heat was like a blanket. Violet fanned herself with a movie magazine.

“He doesn’t like anyone,” Violet said. “Only me. Lucky, lucky me.”

“Doesn’t he have any friends?”

“There aren’t any kids around except the ones who come for the circus, and they’re not going to make friends with someone like Joseph. They might talk to me, but he always shows up and scares them off. It might not be so bad if he made an effort, but he just stands there and stares and doesn’t say anything. It spooks people. I’ve tried to tell him. People are going to think he’s touched in the head or something.”

Portia blushed. That was exactly what she’d thought.

“Anyway,” Violet said, “he’ll have to learn to fend for himself sometime. I’m not here to spend my life being his only friend. I’ve got better things to do.”

“Like what?” Maybe she could give Portia a few ideas.

“Anything. Everything. I want to be an actress. I want to learn to fly a plane. I want to take a train from one coast to the other and see the whole country.”

“I’ll bet you’ve seen a lot more of the country than I have,” Portia said.

“We mostly go in circles around the middle,” Violet said. “I want to see it all at once. And not from a broken-down truck hauling a broken-down trailer. I want to see it whiz past me like a shooting star. Then I’ll know I’m really moving. And I want to see it on my own.”

“Why do you have to stay in the middle?”

Violet adjusted her sunglasses. “The big shows have the rest of it staked out, and we’re not allowed to get too deep into their territory. They’ve got better acts than we do, too. Elephants and big cats, plus the best freaks in the business. It’s really not fair.” She sighed deeply. “It was better when the Wonder Show was a ten-in-one.”

“A what?”

“A sideshow with ten acts. Ten freaks inside the tent, that’s a ten-in-one. Then Edwina the Lobster Girl ran off with Rafael the Rubber-Skinned Man, and The Human Torso went with another show, and The Human Skeleton died.”

“How’d he die?”

“Food poisoning. Bad meat or something.” Violet sounded almost on the verge of laughter. “Anyway, now Mosco’s only got a six-in-one. He’s still got some good acts, but competition’s stiff, and The Human Torso was really something special. He rolled cigarettes with just his lips, and he did it faster than most men do with their hands. Good and tight, too. Mosco sold ’em as souvenirs.”

Portia shifted carefully in her chair. “Wouldn’t you miss your family? If you left?”

“I don’t know,” Violet said vacantly. “I’ve never had a chance to be away from them.”

Portia tried to imagine it for her then, pictured Violet riding in a train all alone, flying past the towns she’d been through with the caravan. Maybe she’d see the carnival on the road somewhere along the tracks. Maybe Joseph would look out the truck window at the same time Violet looked out the train, and they would see each other for an instant. Portia wasn’t sure she liked Joseph, but it was rather sad to think of him having to watch his only friend hurtling away from him on a speeding train.

As if she’d summoned him with her mind, Joseph came around the trailer and called for Violet. It was the first time Portia had heard his voice—it was surprisingly high and sweet. It didn’t match his scowl when he saw Portia sitting there.

“What are you talking about?” Joseph demanded.

“None of your business,” Violet replied. “It’s girl talk.”

“You’re supposed to be helping me with my multiplication tables.”

“Fine. What’s five times six?”

Joseph crossed his arms. “Not in front of her.”

Violet rolled her eyes, but Portia said, “That’s all right. I told Jackal I would help him paint the stage.” She stood up and said, “Here, Joseph, you can have my seat.”

“What do you say, Joseph?” Violet prodded.

“You know I can’t sit out here,” he snapped.

It took all of Portia’s self-control not to snap back.
He’s just a kid,
she told herself. “I didn’t know,” she said.

“He can’t be in the sun.” Violet swatted Joseph with her magazine. “This is what I have to deal with. I’m telling you, the minute I get the chance, I am gone.”

The change in Joseph was instantaneous. He dropped to his knees and his umbrella tipped, exposing one ear to the sun. “I’m sorry!” he said. “I’m sorry I was rude, Violet, I’m sorry!” He looked as though he might actually cry, even though Portia was still standing there. She knew something about not letting yourself cry in front of certain people, what it took to keep your chin steady and your eyes clear.

“God, Joseph,” Violet said, “you’re so dramatic. Just forget it, okay? I’m not going anywhere. Now, what’s five times six?”

Portia could hear their voices carrying on the wind as she walked away, Violet’s gruff and Joseph’s sweet, like instruments harmonizing. They were family, parts of the same orchestra. But when she looked back at them over her shoulder, she saw how different they were, too. Violet’s black hair and dark skin made Joseph look even more like a ghost. Portia looked down at her own arms, brown from working in the sun, and she saw them as if they belonged to someone else. They were regular arms. Strong, young, normal arms, the kind that Marie might have had in another life.

But here, in this place, normal meant nothing. No one paid money to see normal, no one made a living from it. Portia had seen the freaks making a fuss over Joseph, the only young one among them, telling him how special he was while Violet stood by the pie car, the sun shining on her golden skin.

Violet could have things that Joseph and their parents could not have. The world outside would welcome her, but only if she left her family behind. And from what Portia could tell, Violet was perfectly willing to pay that price.

She wondered what Max had been thinking the day he drove away on the road of dust. Was he watching the land fly past and the horizon at the end of the sky, coming to meet him? Was he glancing in that rearview mirror every now and then, or was he looking straight ahead and thinking about a whole new life?

It shouldn’t be so easy to leave a place,
Portia thought. But then she realized that if it weren’t so easy, she’d still be at Mister’s. Caroline tapped at the edge of her memory, and Sophia, and Quintillia, and all the others. The ones who left, and the ones who were left behind, everyone in motion like startled birds, trying to find a place to land.

Girl on the Inside

Ladies and gentlemen, friends and neighbors,” Portia called.

“Louder! Drop your voice!”

She made her voice deep and bellowed, “Ladies and gentlemen—”

“Louder!”

“LADIES—”

Jackal trotted back from where he’d been standing. “It seems I’ve made a cardinal error.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I neglected to check your qualifications before I gave you the job.”

“But I know all the lines. I’ve learned everything you told me to say.”

Jackal nodded. “That is true, and for that, I commend you. However, no one gives a whit what you’re saying if they. Can’t. Hear. You.”

Portia imagined waking up one morning and finding herself alone on the lot, abandoned by the Wonder Show. “I can do it. Go back over there and let me try again.” She pushed at Jackal’s shoulder, but he stood solid as a closed door and gazed thoughtfully into the air.

“No,” he said. “It won’t work. Your voice simply isn’t strong enough.”

Portia crossed her arms and pinched the insides of her elbows to keep herself from crying. Or shouting. She felt she might do either at any moment. “Jackal, please.”

He tilted his head and smiled wickedly. “Why, darling, I do believe your heart has leaped onto your sleeve. Have you grown so attached to me already?”

“Forget it,” she said, and turned to walk away.

“Now, now,” Jackal said. “I’m only teasing.”

“It’s not funny,” she mumbled. But she turned back, and Jackal bowed in exaggerated apology.

“I am
deeply
sorry,” he said.

“I can see that. Get up. Come on.”

He hopped back to standing and said, “Apology is good for the soul. I try to apologize at least once a day.”

“Have you ever tried not doing anything you’d have to apologize for?”

“Absolutely not. Now, about your little vocal problem . . .”

“What about a microphone?”

Jackal shook his head vehemently. “No, no, and no. It distorts the voice, and it is a scientific fact that speaking through an audio device makes you fifty percent less trustworthy in the eyes of your fellow man. You must speak directly to the ears of your audience, nothing between you.”

“Nothing except a bunch of stories that are barely true.”

“Barely true is still true enough,” he said. “Now be quiet so I can think.”

Quiet was not much of a possibility on the lot. There was always a symphony of sounds, even between shows: voices everywhere, truck motors and the hum of the generators, hammers pounding tent stakes, horses, elephants, tigers grunting in the heat, circus mothers calling circus children, the bell from the pie car pinging faintly in the wind, music from dozens of radios, layering into one another, clustering like leaves on a branch. A steady combination of noises that equaled quiet, the ever-present purr in the background.

And right now it was the sound of Jackal deciding Portia’s future.

She waited.

Jackal paced.

She waited some more.

“Good girl,” he said finally. “I think I’ve got it.”

“And?”

“We’ll switch places,” he said. “You’ll be the inside talker and I’ll do the bally. It’s perfect, actually—I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. I bring them in, you lead them through, and I meet you at the other end for the blowoff.”

“But what do I have to do?”

“The rubes will adore having a girl in there with them, a soft voice, making them comfortable.” Jackal was hopping around like a boy on Christmas morning. “Oh, the contrast! Between you and the ones on stage! We’ll have Mrs. Collington make you a new dress. A white one. Oh, I’m breathless with the perfection of it! I think I need to sit down.”

“Jackal, what will I say?”

“Just what I taught you. Same sad stories, only now you’ll be standing right in front of the freaks.”

“I wish you wouldn’t call them that.”

Jackal smirked. “What should I call them? The talent? The artists?”

“They’re people.”

“Darling, we’re all people. That is not the point. There are three parts of the Wonder Show: the human marvels, the freaks, and the talkers. We all know who we are in the show, and who we are when the show is over.” He jabbed a finger at the bally line. “This is the show, and this show has freaks. You see?”

“Yes, I see.”

Jackal shook his head. “No, you don’t. Not yet. But you will.” He leaned in and tapped the tip of her nose. “Once you’re inside.”

Resisting the urge to slap his hand away, Portia smiled sweetly and did not move. In her time with Jackal—indeed, in her time with the entire show—she had learned that it was better to conceal her thoughts until the right moment. She was a guest here, a temporary passenger, and she could not leave too large a mark. Mister had surely sent someone to fetch her by now. She could not risk offending those who were willing to help her hide.

Even if they didn’t know, or want to know, whom she was hiding from.

Just a little more time,
she thought as she made her way to the pie car.
I’ll find Max, I know it. I just need a little more time.

Fortunetelling

In Portia’s dream, she had sisters, and their parents were missionaries who took them to live in a warm place. There was a monastery nearby. It was a country made of hills.

There was a family who had sons, and it was decided somehow that the boy called Everett was intended for Portia’s older sister. But when he came, he didn’t want her. He wanted Portia.

She knew she would have to leave her family in order to make things right. It was the first dream Portia could remember in such a long time that she asked Doula about it.

Doula shrugged her left shoulder, which meant she had an idea but didn’t want to say. A right-shoulder shrug meant she really had nothing to tell. Portia knew the code only because Jackal got mad at Doula one day after he asked her for the winning horses and all she told him was to quit gambling. Like a child having a tantrum, he told Portia the only one of Doula’s secrets he knew. This was the first time it had proven useful.

“Doula,” Portia said. “Please.”

“Maybe . . .”

The world paused under her feet.

“Maybe you know is time for you to go.”

“But I don’t want to go,” Portia said unevenly. “I just got here.”

Doula tapped her glass, and Portia poured more vodka from the bottle on the table. “Why should you get to choose? The rest of us, we go where someone else tells us. We follow circus, circus follows route card, route card is made by some big man in New York City. We don’t choose.” She tossed her head, and her earrings sang. “You will learn if you stay here. You will see.”

“Can you tell me anything else? About my dream? What it means?”

Doula emptied her glass with one practiced flip of the hand, set it back on the table, and leaned back in her chair. “You think you are the first orphan to dream about family? It means you miss them. It means you are looking.”

“I’m not an orphan,” Portia said. (She hoped it was true.)

Doula shrugged both shoulders. Portia didn’t know what that meant.