Rain Village - Carolyn Turgeon [71]
“Tessa!” a voice called, and I looked over to see Lollie approaching the car. I was suddenly terrified: She’s going to ask me to leave now, I thought. I remembered what she’d said to Geraldo, and my heart stopped. Just for a day or two.
She wore working clothes that were smeared with dirt. “You’re up! We were loading the rigging; you can never trust these guys to do it right. Are you feeling better?”
I nodded and stared at her, afraid to speak.
“Well, we can settle in, then. You’re coming with us to the next place, no?”
“Yes,” I said, relieved. Yes.
I went back into the little room. Soon I could feel the train wheeze to a start, then lurch into a steady, chugging rhythm. I sat on my little bed and stared out the window at the fading lot and the branches that seemed to reach out toward the train and try to grab us. It was mesmerizing: the forests and fields, the little towns and cities, all of them blurring past on the outside, lit by the moon or streetlamps, while I sat snug on the bed, alone in the dark.
I heard a tapping on the door, and Lollie walked in. “Why don’t you turn a light on in here?” She laughed.
“I like it this way,” I said. “Looking out the window. It feels safe.”
She smiled, then came over and sat on the bed next to me. For a few minutes we sat in silence, staring out the window at the rushing branches, the looming trees. The train chugged and rumbled under us.
I knew I had to say something, stake my claim. “Lollie,” I said finally, “how can I be part of the circus? I want to stay here, to perform.”
“Perform?”
“Mary taught me a lot. I can do the trapeze and some rope stuff. I can twirl and do tricks, hang from my knees and ankles.”
She didn’t seem convinced. “Well, you know,” she said, after a long pause, “that may take time. Normally people don’t just start performing unless they were born to it. But there are plenty of ways to join the circus: cleaning the horses, selling candy, helping the roustabouts . . . though you might be a bit young for that, a bit small.”
The town outside seemed to whoosh by. The streetlamps blurred together and made me blink.
“But Mary did,” I said. “She joined the circus. From outside.”
“That’s true,” she said. “But not at first. She had to practice and learn, and she did menial work before she got up there in the ring.” She paused and pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. “So you learned the trapeze, did you? From her?”
I nodded. I was dying to tell her about the space we’d made between the shelves, the magic of that trapeze gliding back and forth under the wooden ceiling beams, but I kept silent.
“Well, why don’t you show us what you can do, then? After we set up tomorrow, before the show? In the meantime, we can maybe talk to Mr. Velasquez about keeping you on for a bit, helping out. It’s a lot of hard work, though, Tessa, and we’re constantly moving.”
“Yes,” I said. “But I don’t mind, I wouldn’t mind at all. I have nowhere else to go.”
She laughed and leaned into me. “Maybe you’re more of a circus girl than I thought.”
That night I barely slept, between the clanging and bumping and the nervousness that took hold in my gut. I knew that Lollie was humoring me, but I was determined to show her that I was good enough to perform—and determined to make myself as indispensable as possible. I stared out the window at the fleeting towns and countryside. As soon as the train screeched to a halt early the next morning, somewhere in the middle of Oklahoma, I leapt out of bed, ready to work.
Oklahoma seemed like another world. Oakley and Kansas City were the only places I knew, and on the new lot the landscape seemed scrubbed dry, reddish in spots. The world seemed wider, sadder, but within minutes we put our stamp upon it, and then it was transformed.
We