Wonder When You’ll Miss Me (27 page)

But Charlie led me past all the trailers and the animal trucks and the big top. He led me out of the fence, away from the fairgrounds, away from the circus. We walked along a treed road until we came to a path and could wander off into the woods, and that's what we did.

We didn't say much as we moved through the forest. He didn't ask me any more about what I'd done. He just let me be and we walked quietly until the light was coming from behind us and then we turned around and walked back.

The circus was right where we'd left it, busy and run down, and full of stories and allegiances. I walked through the gate after Charlie and when I did, I had a weird sense of coming home.

 

I left Charlie to grab a jacket from my trailer before Rapunzel's memorial service. Wilma was curled up asleep when I came in. I stood and watched her for a few moments. Her cheeks were flushed and her dark hair splayed across the pale pillow. She looked peaceful and vulnerable and much younger than usual.

I cleared my throat, but that had no effect, so I sat on the edge of the bed, ducking my head a little, and gave her shoulder a gentle shake. She blinked in confusion and reached for her glasses. “It's time for the service,” I said. She nodded. Her eyes were red from crying.

We entered the big top together. Almost everyone was already sitting in the first two rows around the ring. We settled in near the clowns. When I looked to the right, I saw Rod and his brothers staring straight ahead.

It was quiet except for the sounds of chairs scraping wood or the creak of the bleachers themselves and some whispering. Then Elaine took the center ring and began to speak in a loud gravelly voice. “We have gathered today to remember one of our own, the lovely and talented Rapunzel Finelli.”

She looked up. “I first met Rapunzel many years ago, when Mitch and I were just dating. She'd come off a season with Ringling and was thrilled to join us on the Press and Duncan show, was always telling us stories about how much better things were. She was incredibly generous to me—it was only my second season with a show, and she really took me under her wing.
And then later—” Elaine's voice broke. She stopped and put her head in her hand. There were sniffles to my left and right. Someone blew his nose.

Elaine began talking again but I couldn't focus. I saw the empty seats and heard the roar of the show, the sound of Rapunzel Finelli's body hitting the ground. I saw Jim shaking himself all over to remove what he'd just had to do: to carry a broken woman away. I saw Bluebell tossing her tail and swinging her trunk.

“Last year, when Mitch died, Rapunzel was more than just a shoulder to lean on,” Elaine said. “And I was never able to thank her enough for that. She was one of the best hair hangers in the business and we were lucky to be graced by her.” Elaine turned to Steve, the tiger trainer. His groom, Creole Kevin, sat stiffly by his side. “I am so sorry for our loss, Steve. Our prayers are with you.”

Steve nodded. I turned to Wilma, who was studying her hands. “Were they dating?” I whispered. “Steve and Rapunzel?”

She blinked at me. “They're married,” she said.

Mina and Victor took the ring, stopping to hug Elaine as she left, and spoke, looking up while they did. Then Mr. Genersh rolled his wheelchair out and talked about his wife's fall. Everyone was crying by now, or at least a little teary, the Genershes, Jim, everyone I could see.

Except Charlie. I spotted him next to Marco, dry eyed and wistful. I stared at him and tried to get his attention but he didn't look my way. When the service ended, Wilma hugged me, firm and quick, then moved off into the crowd.

I headed for Charlie, but the fat girl tapped me on the shoulder. I ignored her. We were surrounded by people. But then she was in front of me and I stopped. She pointed and I followed her back up the bleachers. We sat.

“You are driving me crazy,” I said.

“
I'm
…I'm driving
you
crazy?! You listen to me,” she said. “You wouldn't even be here if it weren't for me.”

“Right,” I said. “You've made that very clear. And you know what? You know what? I don't care. I. Don't. Care.”

“Oh, you don't.”

“No.”
I sighed. “I want you to leave me alone.”

“Well, wouldn't that be convenient,” she said. “Wouldn't that be easy. Then you could just drift along in your little dream world, right? And where would that get you?”

“I don't care,” I said. “I'm serious. I don't.”

“Well, you will, you ungrateful bitch,” she said. “And if you think I'm just going to prance off into the sunset after all I've done for you, you've got another think coming.”

“Oh, come on,” I said, but I had never seen her quite this angry. Her whole body swelled. I tried to take some of it back by reaching out to touch her, but she jerked her hand away. “How soon they forget,” she said, and disappeared.

I was way up in the nosebleed seats. I looked down and saw tiny groups of people clustered together on the sawdust floor talking and hugging. I rose to leave.

“I'm not leaving you,” she said from somewhere behind me.

“Okay already,” I said, and made my way down.

 

Later I found Charlie and we lay on the ground looking at the sky and passing a cigarette back and forth. We were quiet for a while and then I asked Charlie what I'd wanted to ask him for so long.

“Do you know why Starling wanted to die?”

He took a long drag and twirled the cigarette between his fingers. He exhaled in one long rush of filmy gray. It was quiet except for us and the occasional laugh from the trailers. There was a little wind and you could hear the tent creak every once in a while. He was silent so long that I thought he hadn't heard me.

“Why did you want to die?” he said finally.

I thought about that and hunted for the real answer, my mind clean and organized. I took the cigarette from his twirling fingers and twirled it in my own, watching the smoke zig and zag, clouding the stars.

“Because there was no more light,” I said, and turned to see if he understood. “You know?”

He shook his head, stretched, and leaned back on his hands. I handed him the cigarette and he freed one arm to take it and rolled over on his side, facing me. “Not exactly,” he said. “But I'm sure she did.”

“But she knew how much you loved her,” I said. Something deep down and raw crossed his face quickly and was gone. “She knew that.”

He flopped onto his back and shrugged. “If there's no light, can you feel that?” he said. “And if you can't feel it, then how can you be sure?”

I considered that for a long time. I thought about the voice telling her over and over to end it all. And I thought about that darkness, its impenetrable density, and how Starling had let light in for me.

I closed my eyes and still I saw light. I was grateful for it. I told Charlie that.

He nodded. “Me too,” he said.

I thought about the fat girl then, but I didn't say anything. I didn't even know what I would have said, just that I knew she was watching from somewhere.

“Do you know why Native Americans prefer round structures?” Charlie asked. His hands were tucked under his head now and he stared at the sky above us.

“What?” I sat up on one elbow. “What did you say?”

“Do you know why Indians prefer round structures, round buildings?”

“Why?”

“There are no shadows in a round room. No corners for the spirits to hide in.”

I waited for something more, but it didn't come. He just watched the sky and then closed his eyes and was quiet long enough that I thought he'd fallen asleep.

“Live a round life,” he said finally, softly, eyes closed. “Live a round life and you have no place to hide from yourself and nothing to run from.”

His voice was hopeful and I thought about that. A round life. “I have corners,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. “I know.” He opened his eyes and sighed. Then he sat up, so he was looking down at me. “Listen, there's something you need to know.”

“What?”

Charlie didn't answer. I sat up so that I faced him. He pulled his knees close and rested his chin on them. I saw the dark circles under his eyes.

He gave a long low whistle and smiled nervously. “I didn't realize this was going to be so hard.”

“What is it?” I said, my voice barely a whisper. My heart had begun to pound.

“I suppose you know about what happened back in Georgia?”

“You mean with Yael and the fire?”

He was staring at his lap. He gave a short laugh and plucked a few blades of grass. “There are no secrets on a back lot,” he said, opening his fingers so that the grass tumbled out. “Yeah.”

“Well, only some of it.” I was confused now. “I mean I heard a little bit.”

“Well, we're clean now, you should know that. I should have told you right off. I meant to. I came to see you that day, to do it, but then I didn't.” He paused. “I don't know…I couldn't. But. Well, after today…I mean, you have taken care of yourself. You seem to be in with people. So I figured maybe you could tell them, okay? That neither of us is using and we haven't in months.”

I blinked. “Using what?”

He looked up. His face was more fragile than I'd noticed before. It felt like the first time he'd looked me in the eye since Gleryton.

He took a deep breath. “Smack,” he said, after a minute. “Heroin. I'd gotten into it again in Gleryton, but I'm clean now. We're clean. New leaves all around, you know. No more stealing, no more lies. I'm a new man and so is Marco.”

“Oh,” I said. It was the only thing in my head. I stared at the tattoos on his hands, at the one that said
PRINCE
and the one that said
FLAME
.

“Was that why Yael burned down Marco's trailer?”

Charlie's face sprang into a tight, unhappy smile. “You know,” he said. “I didn't really think about how hard it was going to be to come back here. It's the only place I've ever wanted to be, but somehow I forgot completely what it was like, you know? I mean how people talk and all the bullshit—” He was ripping out clumps of grass now, tossing them in a pile beside him.

He stopped himself, and sighed. “Sorry,” he said, not looking at me. “I'm not mad at you, it's just—nothing is ever as easy as it should be, you know? I mean even the simplest things end up so complicated.”

He seemed to deflate then. He pulled his knees to his chest again. He looked scared. I thought of the first time I'd visited Fartlesworth, of Charlie's electric, infectious joy in the big top. How grown-up I'd thought he was then. And how at Clark's I'd believed he was the only person in the world who could see me. How I'd listened to his every word, tried to smoke like him, to move like him. How I'd thought he had all the answers.

And then I remembered him nodding off by the Dumpster.

When I looked at him now, I saw what was left: a haggard, skinny shell of a guy. A broken kid not that much older than me.

 

“I told you,” the fat girl said.

“You told me what?” I walked slowly towards the costume trailer, my head aching with so many things. I was calm. The world had turned over
and I was still standing and each day was going to follow the next. It was as simple as that.

“I told you all along you couldn't trust him and now you understand how I was trying to protect you.”

I didn't answer her. I didn't look at her.

“He's a loser. He always has been.”

When I reached the trailer I stopped. “Go away and leave me alone,” I said, and she turned and left.

I paused at the door and listened to the laughter coming from within. I thought about walking farther. Just walking and walking and never stopping. Instead I went in.

Wilma was sitting at the table with Grouper, a bottle of whiskey between them. Jim leaned against a stack of trunks, giggling. “Hi,” I said, and they all stopped as though they hadn't noticed me come in.

A look passed from Wilma to Grouper to Jim and back to Grouper. “What?” I said. “Do you want me to go?”

“No,” Grouper said, as Wilma nodded.

Jim smiled and reached for the whiskey. “Here, luv,” he said. “I believe my ace groom deserves a drink!”

I took the bottle and sipped from it. The taste was fire but the warmth was nice.

“Can we trust her?” Grouper asked Wilma, who gave me an assessing look, then winked at me.

“Sure.”

Jim made a grand sweeping gesture with his glass. “The distinguished Mr. Grouper, here, begs the hand of a certain lady.”

I must have looked confused because Wilma laughed and used her elbow to turn Grouper towards me. “Grouper's going to ask Gerry to marry him!” she said. “And it's about damn time!”

“I was going to do it after she sang,” Grouper confessed, all drunken smile. “But then she didn't sing. And after today…” He ran his hand through his thinning hair. “I don't want to wait, really.” Then he fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a ring box and shook it as if to make some point. “I think I'm ready.”

At this Jim and Wilma cracked up. It was all a little much for me; my mood of equanimity had ruptured into sleepiness and confusion. I hadn't even known Grouper was dating Gerry.

I must have said it aloud, because that made Wilma and Jim laugh even harder.

“Twelve years,” Grouper said softly. “I haven't always been true, I admit it. But off and on it's been twelve years.”

“Drink to that!” Jim said. And the bottle was passed around again.

 

Later, after I'd had enough whiskey to make me tipsy, Grouper stumbled home, and Jim and Wilma stumbled off to Jim's trailer. I lay awake in the dark and listened to my thoughts running this way and that, smashing into each other. Charlie with a needle in his arm. Starling listening to God. Me on the pay phone next to one of those guys. Who had no corners? I wondered.