Earthly Possessions - Anne Tyler [52]
“Now, where’d that Kleenex walk off to?” Jake asked me.
“Here’s another,” I said.
“Mindy? You ought to sit up and take notice, Mindy; they got a big float with a beauty queen on it. Top Touch sausage meat. I’ve eaten Top Touch before.”
Mindy hiccuped but didn’t raise her head. Jake looked over at me. “Well, what have I got to do?” he asked.
“Um …”
“You’re supposed to know all this junk, what have I got to do?”
“Oh, it’s Founder’s Day,” I said. “Huh?”
I pointed to a tiny old lady with long blond hair, wearing a miniskirt, carrying a poster. FOUNDER’S DAY 1876–1976, it said, above four men’s pencil-drawn faces with much-erased mouths. ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PROGRESS.
“Well, I knew it wasn’t no standard holiday,” said Jake. “Lord, look at her hairdo. Reckon it’s real?”
“It couldn’t be. It’s a wig. Saran or something,” I said.
“Dynel, maybe. That’s what my sister’s got, Dynel.”
Mindy sat up, wiping her face with the backs of her hands. Muddy gray tear tracks ran down her cheeks and her mascara had turned her raccoon-eyed. “Mindy!” Jake said. “Want a Lifesaver? Want some chewing gum?”
She shook her head.
“I believe we got some Fritos left.”
“I don’t want your old Fritos, Jake Simms. I want to lie down and die.”
“Oh, now, don’t say that. Look, I’m trying my best here. Want me to do a magic trick? I do magic tricks,” he told me. “I bet you didn’t know that.”
“I believe you mentioned it,” I said, watching a float of chubby men in fezzes.
“I’m right good, aren’t I, Mindy? Tell her.”
Mindy mumbled something to the steering wheel.
“What’s that, Mindy? Speak up, I can’t hear you.” Mindy tilted her chin. “He makes things disappear,” she told the windshield.
“Right,” said Jake.
“He makes things vanish into nowhere. He undoes things. Houdini is his biggest hero.”
“Now at the moment I don’t have no equipment,” said Jake. “But bearing that in mind, Mindy, you just name any trick your heart desires and I will see what I can do. I mean that. Remember how you like magic?”
She didn’t answer. He looked over at me. His face was damp from the heat of the car, and his hair was coiled and springy. “She used to like magic a lot,” he told me.
“Well, I don’t any more!” Mindy said.
“I don’t know what’s got into her.”
The fezzes were at long last gone and here came another high school band. Everybody clapped and waved. But then there must have been a hitch of some kind, somewhere up front. They came to a halt, still playing, then finished their tune and fell silent and stood staring straight ahead. You could see the little pulses in their temples. You could see the silver chain linking a musician to his piccolo, giving me a sudden comical picture of the accident that must once have happened to make them think of this precaution. I laughed—the loudest sound on the street. For the clapping had stopped by now. There was some understanding between players and audience: each pretended the other wasn’t there. Till finally the parade resumed and so did the clapping, and the audience was filled with admiration all over again as if by appointment. The players marched on. Their legs flashed as steadily and evenly as scissors. I was sorry not to have them to watch any more.
“I would think a drum would be a right good instrument,” Jake told me, gazing after them.
“You just like whatever booms and damages,” said Mindy.
We looked at her.
“Oh! I was going to do my billfold trick,” Jake said.
“No, thank you.”
“Now, where’s my … shoot, my billfold.”
“Never mind,” said Mindy.
“Lend me your billfold, Charlotte,” Jake said.
I pulled it out of my purse and gave it to him, meanwhile watching a floatful of white-wigged men signing a paper that was scorched around the edges. “Look close, now,” Jake said to Mindy. “Maybe you’ll figure how I do it, finally. Here we have a empty billfold,