Wonder When You’ll Miss Me (28 page)

The fat girl stood by the foot of my bed staring at me. She looked sad and furious. I turned over and faced the wall.

Charlie hadn't really seen me, I knew now. He'd been looking elsewhere.

And then I slept. In my sleep, I walked to my old house, walked up the driveway and onto the porch, paused to touch the stone wall of the place, then tried the front door.

It was locked.

S
UMMER
came. The crowds were bigger, the nut was good, and Elaine was in a generous mood, smiling at anyone who passed her. Rod had stopped coming by since the day he'd wanted me to stay and talk to him and I had chosen to go find Charlie instead. Ever since then, he'd hung back, kept to himself, hadn't sought me out.

And even though part of me wanted nothing more in the whole world than to go find him and take his hands and look into his eyes and figure this whole thing out together, I hadn't. I'd left him alone. I don't know whether I was more afraid that he liked me or that he didn't. But I didn't know what to do about either of those things, so, like the brave soul that I was, I avoided him.

The fat girl and I were all angles with each other. We were on speaking terms, but just barely. She didn't understand why I wanted to be left alone. Why I wanted to pretend I had no past.

But, of course, if I had no past, then there was no fat girl. And she didn't like that one bit. Gleryton was close. One day the Fartlesworth Circus would pull into town and if I wasn't with the show, where would I be? I just wasn't quite able to let myself think about it, and it was all the fat girl had on her mind.

 

In West Virginia, we learned there might be a hole in the schedule, and everyone started talking about driving to the Delaware shore. Even though it was a few hours away, the beach seemed worth the trip, and the
excitement was contagious. I heard Stanley and the other cooks talking about it in the pie car. I heard the canvas crew talking about it. Even Wilma, who'd been strange and dreamy since reuniting with Jim, seemed to buzz with energy at the idea of lying on a sandy beach.

“Do you tan?” she asked me.

I was sitting at the table of our trailer with my morning coffee. I nodded.

“I don't,” she said. “But I have a wonderful hat. Look.”

I turned and she posed in a gigantic straw sombrero. I gave her the thumbs-up sign, but in reality all the talk made me homesick for something I'd lost long ago.

I hadn't been to the ocean since the summer before my dad died, when we'd rented a cottage right on the shore. My mother spent the whole vacation lying on a towel in the sand reading thick paperbacks, her body carefully lathered and lotioned. My dad ran into the waves with me, swimming out far enough that my feet couldn't touch the sandy floor. We bodysurfed, letting the waves break just over our heads and carry us in. We tried racing this way, riding them over and over until my lips were blue with cold even though the day and the water were so warm.

And then we ran up for lunch, me and my dad, our appetites enormous from all the activity, and, still in our wet sandy suits, we made huge sandwiches with every crazy thing we could find: peanut butter and tomato and hot sauce and sprouts and carrot slices and potato chips. Monster sandwiches, we called them: each one a towering monster of disgusting combinations, a joke just between us. And we sat out on the deck overlooking the sea and ate them, comparing notes on the strange incompatible mixture of flavors. It was my father's favorite ritual, these crazy sandwiches, and it drove my mother insane.

“Disgusting,”
she muttered under her breath, her mouth pressed in a thin angry line. She'd never approved of such ruckus, such extremes. It bothered her in some deep and exhausting way.

So it was our secret, our ritual, to do when we'd played hard and she still slept in the sun, on the sand. To enjoy before she caught us and was annoyed.

“You don't have to go.”

Wilma's voice yanked me back to the morning. “Huh?” I said.

“If it's going to make you so moody, you don't have to go. Jim and I will go without you.”

“No.” I tucked it all away. “No, I think it will be fun.”

 

Later that morning, I was sitting out in the open air with Bluebell and Olivia. Jim had gone into town to run errands, and I was taking a break from my duties and spending it tossing peanuts and watching the bulls try to catch them. Olivia swatted the nuts down, then flung her trunk out to retrieve them. Bluebell sometimes caught one or two, but only when Olivia batted a nut in her direction.

Someone approached from behind. I must have heard footsteps, but they didn't register, so when I was tapped on the shoulder I jumped, sending peanuts tumbling to the ground.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” I said. My heart was pounding. The bulls began to scoop the nuts and I turned to find a startled, very toothy Rod. “You scared the hell out of me.”

“Sorry.” Rod's hand shot up to cover his mouth, then fluttered down to rest awkwardly on his hip. He was wearing a new pair of shorts, a new blue T-shirt—I could still see the creases. He smiled at me with a full set of teeth, but his expression was less one of joy than of pain, or great humiliation.

“Wow,” I said. And it was surprising. With teeth, Rod looked more like Hugo, rugged and handsome, his features evened out and normalized by the addition of what had been missing. “When did you go get teeth? They look so great. Did they hurt?”

At this, his expression relaxed somewhat, though his smile still had a stressed-out quality, as though if his mouth were eyes, they'd be weeping from trying not to blink.

“Do you like them?” I said. “Do they feel strange?”

Rod's hand shot up and fluttered down again. His tongue ran itself along the surface of his new teeth and then he looked at the ground and began kicking it with his left sneaker. “Yeah,” he said to his feet.

I took a deep breath. I was nervous. Part of me wanted to tell him I'd missed him. “How've you been?” I said.

He sighed and both hands came up to gesture in air circles, but he was still staring at the ground. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other. I didn't know what I was supposed to do, but I knew I'd said the wrong thing.

Just then Bluebell let loose a huge steamy load, which tumbled to the ground with a plop. I was grateful for something to do. I walked a few feet, patted Bluebell on the belly, then picked up my shovel.

“Aw Christ,” Rod said, but it was more under his breath than to me. “Annabelle?”

“What is up with you?” I didn't stop filling the wheelbarrow. I knew what was up. All the things I'd been afraid of. And now, in a secret part of my stomach, I knew which one was right.

“I thought it would be different.”

“What would be?”

“I thought you might…I thought I would…I thought everything would…” he trailed off in silence and I stopped scooping, put my shovel down, and improvised.

“Whatever you want to tell me,” I said, “maybe it should wait. Or maybe you don't need to. It's okay. Or it will be. Everything works itself out, you know? Everything works itself out and what will be will be and you shouldn't worry about it.” I was reaching now, I could feel it, but I didn't know what else to do. Instinctively I felt that if he finished any one of his sentences, I might take off running.

“Your new teeth look really terrific. You look terrific. I need to wheel this stuff down to the gully before it makes me pass out. Okay?”

He nodded, one slow, shameful jerk of the neck. Then he slowly raised his head and met my gaze. I was unprepared for what I saw then, for the seriousness, the intensity of what I saw, of what he wanted, and felt.

Me. He wanted me.

I swallowed and left him there, wheeling the poo away as fast as I could. All the time mouthing it:
Oh shit, oh man, oh shit.
Those words a mantra for the near hysteria bubbling up in me.

I stopped at the gully and emptied the wheelbarrow and stood there. I tried to imagine kissing Rod, but it just made me giggle nervously. If Hugo Genersh was a spotlight, swinging his beam from one place to the next, then Rod was a lantern, still and even and low.

Still, I liked him very much. I liked his quiet company, and the way he would appear by my side and look right at me. The way he included me in things, all the while making me feel like I was just some girl. A real girl, nothing freaky, nothing gross. My heart began to thump a little faster.
Oh shit. Oh man.
I wiped my brow with the sleeve of my T-shirt. It was hot. I got a whiff of my own smell and grimaced. What was Rod thinking?

Then I saw the fat girl approaching, a bucket of strawberries swinging from her wrist. She raked berries between her teeth and tossed their green tails behind her as she walked.

“Hey there,” she said. “How are you?”

I blinked. “How am I?”

“Thought I'd ask,” she said, biting into the red fruit. She had pink juice dribbling down her chins. I pointed at it, then poked around in my pocket for a tissue, but there wasn't one. She wiped it off with the back of a grubby blue sleeve.

“I'm fine,” I said.

“Don't kiss him,” she said. “If you want my advice, that is. I mean I wouldn't.”

I rolled my eyes. “Thanks.”

“Things happen, is all I'm saying. And feeling sorry for someone is never a good reason to touch them.”

“I don't feel sorry for him,” I said. What I felt, right then, was intruded upon.

“I mean it has all kinds of connotations. And it feels different for the one
kissing
for charity, than for the one
getting kissed.
”

“I don't plan to kiss Rod for charity.”

“I knew you wouldn't,” she said. “After all, you know what that feels like, to be the one getting touched because someone feels sorry for you. Pretty awful when you realize it, right?”

She gave me a slow, pitying smile and I was Faith again in that instant. My whole body went hot. I swallowed. It burned where Tony Giobambera's hand had traced my cheek. He had felt sorry for me. After what he did.

“You're such a bitch,” I said. “I don't want to talk about this anymore.”

She narrowed her eyes. With a perfect, knowing smile she let it go. “Sure, honey,” she said. “Whatever you want.”

I covered my ears, and then grabbed my wheelbarrow, threw the shovel in with a clang, and started back for the animals as fast as I could go, her words like little ice cubes melting down my back. I didn't look, just hoped she wouldn't follow, and was grateful, when I returned to Bluebell and Olivia, to find the three of us alone.

 

But I couldn't shake the feeling that I was careening towards change and there was nothing I could do. For the rest of the afternoon I had a knot under my ribs worrying that Rod would come back and try to talk to me again. That he would try and tell me how he felt or what he wanted and I would have to respond one way or another. But he didn't.

And then in the twilight, by the show tent, I saw Rod walk by with his
brother James and both were laughing and Rod tossed his head back and I felt my stomach flip over. In a good way.

I swallowed and tried to ignore it, to shove it away, but I knew it was there, this flutter. This way that Rod suddenly seemed different, was different. This way that I was.

I unfolded Olivia's glittery anklets and lay them across the lawn chair. I retrieved Bluebell's ruffled neckpiece and watched the performers making their way towards us, towards the tent. How could I ignore what I'd seen in his eyes? Wasn't that sort of what I'd wanted all along?

I had a show to put on, a routine to perform. I had responsibilities and they would not go away, even if my world was turning over. Benny waved as he walked by leading Uno and Dos in full dress. I waved back. His five little dogs trailed faithfully behind. I climbed up the stepladder and threw Bluebell's neckpiece over her shoulders, so that its ties hung down to where I could reach them from the ground. I climbed down and walked under her head, keeping one hand on her rough skin. It was so thick, and yet Jim had told me that she could feel the tiniest mosquito bite her.

“Blue, we're alike, you and me,” I said, and tied the strings in a bow. “Because I'm not as tough as I should be either.”

 

I woke to the same day there always was. I made coffee. I dressed and greeted the animals. I brushed Billy and Uno and Dos until they shone. And again I waited for Rod to show up and turn everything upside down, but he didn't.

“No day at the beach,” Benny said, when I was oiling the horses' tack. “Did you hear? Elaine got the Shriners to sponsor another show, so no more hole. No hole, no beach.”

He looked glum. “That's too bad,” I said, though I was secretly relieved.

“Tell me about it. Those goddamn Shriner shows are always packed with animal freaks.”

I nodded. Benny and Jim talked about the animal rights protesters a lot. I'd seen them a few times, standing with signs about mistreated elephants and stuff. But mostly the cops we hired kept them outside the gates where they couldn't bother anyone. At the last Shriner show, three motley, livid women dressed as bandaged elephants waved identical pictures of a scalded elephant. Jim did burn Bluebell's and Olivia's hair off with a blowtorch, I knew, and I didn't see why that was really necessary, what was
wrong with their hair. Still, the elephants didn't seem to object very much. When they objected to something, there was no mistaking it.

“Why would I mistreat this creature?” Jim was always saying while he stroked one of the bulls. “She's my bread and butter!”

More disconcerting to me than the protesters were the stories I'd heard associated with them. A woman had been killed by one of Steve's tigers in Sarasota when she'd tried to “liberate” the cat by crawling in its cage. At another show, a guy had been mauled trying to pet a trained bear. He'd had to climb over fences and past warning signs to do it. Then he tried to sue the show. The general consensus seemed to be that they were crazy.

“Well, I bet there'll be a good turnout,” I said. Benny snorted.

“When are we going to Virginia?” I said, but Benny wasn't listening anymore. He was watching Sam approach and muttering under his breath.