The Traveling Death and Resurrection Show - Ariel Gore [51]
Lonely hollow man. I remember the way he stood on that night in Yellow Springs, snow falling in his hair, hopeful-excited, auditioning for The Death & Resurrection Show he knew was his destiny. He says, “I only betrayed to Judy your secret. I did not help her with any evidence or photography. We have all spoken about this, and we do not believe she obtained any blood sample. We feel this to be a lie. Magdelena has also made a mistake. That night after our beautiful performance in Lincoln City, do you remember? That night we shared drinks with Judy and believed the interviews to be over, yet she did ask Magdelena to share a cigarette in your room. Now Magdelena can remember, she believes, she is almost certain, she knows now, that at some moment she may have excused herself to the toilet to make a pee. Perhaps in this moment Judy made a photograph of your hand.”
It’s getting cold out here. My Sesame Street T-shirt and red sheet a joke against the night chill, but I feel weirdly calm. I say, “Barbaro, I loved you that night in Yellow Springs when you stood out in the snow, and I would never love anyone so stupid as to think an L.A. Times reporter could keep a secret. So, if you’re not stupid, that only leaves two possibilities: You’re either lying or you’re a real asshole.” I look up for the moon, but all I can see is Magdelena’s pale face in the sky. I’m an asshole, too, I know, but I don’t say that.
Barbaro speaks softly. “I have come to ask you to return to our troupe. We need you, Frankka. I cannot know if you will choose to do so. In any case, I have also brought you your share of the ticket sales from Sacramento and San Francisco. Some refunds had to be given to those who only came to see you, but your share is still one thousand dollars.”
“Even though I bailed?”
“We all decided it was fair that I should bring you the money.”
“A bribe?”
Barbaro shakes his head. “We have made an error, Frankka.”
I don’t ask how the shows went. I’ve often thought that my part, although central, could easily be written out. Magdelena’s flight alone could carry the show. Who’d know the difference? But those people in Sacramento and San Francisco had come for blood. I say, “I don’t know how you found me, Barbaro, or why you came all this way, but you’ve made your confession, right? Now go back. I was having a nice dinner.”
“Yes. I will go.”
Back inside the cabin, no one mentions Barbaro’s arrival or departure. We eat halved apricots as the conversation wanes. “Another glass of wine?”
“You look cold,” Dorothy says, offering me her new hand-knit sweater. I slip it over my head.
Chapter 19
GRIEF
After my Nana died, days felt like trying to push bricks through tunnels.
When the black telephone in the kitchen rang, I answered in a mumble.
I hardly recognized my maternal grandmother’s voice on the other end. She’d called to tell me that I could come live with her and Grandpa Joe in their pristine blue tract house outside Denver. “You’re always welcome here,” she said.
I stood there, phone in hand, silent. How many years had I waited to hear those words? How many times had I fantasized that the weeks I’d spent with them the summer after first grade stretched into a lifetime? How many nights had I stayed awake, envisioning myself as one of those clean-cut suburban kids playing in the park at the end of their cul-de-sac?
For that two-week trip to Colorado, I’d packed only my cleanest corduroys and prettiest flowered blouses, but Grandma Jeanie picked through my Mighty Mouse suitcase and shook her head. “Let’s go to the shopping center and find something you can wear to church, dear.”
At JC Penney, she bought me a brand-new pink dress with scratchy lace around the collar, white tights, black patent leather Mary Janes. She paid with a credit card.
In the morning, I sat through their Protestant mass, which wasn’t called a mass, wiggled my toes in my new shoes, bowed my head like it all made sense.
At home in the blue tract house, I watched golf on television with Grandpa Joe. A giant crystal bowl