Rain Village - Carolyn Turgeon [62]
They don’t want me, I thought. Of course they don’t. I repeated it to myself, then forced myself to turn away, toward the tent and the midway. The lot was darker now, and trash littered the ground. The circus folk were packing up, tearing down the makeshift kitchens, putting away their tin plates and silverware, and disappearing into the train cars and tents. The Ferris wheel hung over the lot like a giant moon.
I looked around. Ana stood a few train cars down, staring at me, and for a moment relief swept through me. I hesitated, then ran toward her.
“Are you okay?” she asked, as I approached. Her freckle-covered face was friendly, but less so than before. “Why didn’t they let you in?”
“Lollie doesn’t believe me, I guess, about Mary,” I said. “Marionetta. That I knew her. She didn’t give me a chance to tell her everything. I mean, I could tell you anything about Marionetta.”
“Really?” She looked dazzled. I wished Lollie could be a tenth as easy to win over.
“Sure,” I said. “She was my friend.”
“Did you hear the story of how she came here?” she asked, smiling. “How Juan Galindo tracked her down and found her covered in ice?”
It was as if she’d called forth Mary, right in front of me. I hadn’t heard anyone tell that story besides Mary, and I could practically hear Mary’s rasping voice. My bravado disappeared instantly. All of a sudden tears welled up in me; I hadn’t been prepared for them, and for a second I believed I would faint. I could not understand the sweep of emotion coming over me. I was on edge, anyway.
“Yes,” I managed to get out. I could feel my face swelling up with grief and longing.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “Where are you going, anyway?”
“I don’t know,” I said, and then the tears came, splattering down my face, into my hair, down my shirt, over and under the fabric.
“Don’t cry,” she said, tentatively putting out her hand to touch me. “I’m sure Lollie will talk to you tomorrow. It’s Geraldo, you know. He makes her crazy. That’s what my parents say, that he makes her crazy from love. Why don’t you just go back in the morning?”
“Yes,” I said. I gulped in a breath of air. “I’ll do that.”
“You could probably go sleep in one of the midway tents,” she said. “They’ll let anyone stay there, my mom says.”
“Thank you,” I whispered. And I stumbled away, letting the tears come, not caring that the circus folk continued with their business and didn’t pay me any mind at all.
I was as invisible there as I was in Oakley, I thought. I realized, with the certainty of stone against skin, that Mary had been the one person who could see me, the one person who would ever see me, or care. All my dreams about the circus had been a lie, I thought; and without them, I was empty.
I wandered off the lot, through the now-deserted big top, past the midway tents and the small crowds still hovering around them.
“Hey, girl!” I heard, and looked up to see the fortune-teller smiling at me.
I waved to her, turning my face quickly so she wouldn’t see my red, puffed-up face, my swollen eyes and soaked shirt.
“Wait!” she called.
I ran then, covered in tears, my mouth tasting of salt and wet and heartbreak. The night seemed to pull me into itself, and I just ran and ran, off the lot, out of the field, and toward the railway line I had slept next to the night before.
“Mary!” I screamed, stopping and staring at the night sky, the thousands of stars. “I hate you!”
I let my heart open up to the night and thought of her lying next to me, wrapping my hand inside hers, her corkscrew curls streaming over my shoulder and her voice rasping into the cold air. I thought of her talking of Lollie and the circus, making me feel there would be a place for me there. I thought of her walking straight into the river, all the while knowing that I would be the one left behind.
“I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!” The words wouldn’t stop coming. “You left me all alone!”
I was shocked at the strength of my feeling, the anger that raged out