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There will be a November for you, Evie thought as they waved good-bye to the circus. We’ll make sure of it.
While Ling waited for Jericho to buy their train tickets, she thought about the dream and fought the uneasy feeling in her gut. She had spoken to spirits in dreams plenty of times. What she’d seen last night had been indeterminate. Had that been Mabel’s ghost? Was she issuing an invitation, or a warning? And if Mabel Rose was no longer at rest, what did that mean?
Alma wasn’t happy about Ling and Jericho leaving for Gideon. She stood on the train platform in the early morning light. There was still a bit of sleep crusted in the inner corners of her eyes where she hadn’t managed to get all of the previous night’s makeup off. “Can’t you at least stay on till Detroit? You don’t even know anything about this town.”
“Jericho and I had exactly the same dream, Alma. And Henry was there, too. I can’t explain it, but I know we have to go,” Ling said. “It’s a sign.”
“What if it’s a bad sign?” Alma asked.
“That’s the trouble with signs,” Ling said. “You don’t know till you get there.”
While Ling said her good-byes to Alma, Lupe lay on the backseat of the Ford with Jericho. “I can’t believe you’re leaving me,” she said, wrapping her arms around his waist.
“Just for a little while,” Jericho said. He stroked her hair away from her face.
“You’re gonna find you some other girl out there. I just know it,” Lupe said.
“Not one who can play drums like you can.” Jericho kissed Lupe on her perfect mouth. He thought about Evie less and less. “You are my ranita.”
Lupe burst out laughing. “Do you mean mi reina?”
“Does that mean ‘my queen’?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what I meant. What was the other thing I said?”
“You called me your little frog.”
“You’re that, too.”
“And you are mi amado,” Lupe purred into Jericho’s ear and kissed his neck.
“What is that?”
“My love.” She sat up and buttoned her blouse. “Gideon, Kansas, eh? I’m pretty sure the only thing to date there are cows.”
“I won’t ask the word for that.”
They held each other for another minute. “You be careful. I’m scared of those ghosts, Jericho.”
He kissed the top of her head. Me, too, he thought.
Jericho waved to Ling as he headed toward the platform.
“I guess this is it,” Ling said. She and Alma hugged, and Ling breathed in Alma’s scent, trying to memorize it. Ling could hear the chugging of the train and see puffs of black smoke coming around the bend.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said. About us being something new. Something we don’t know the name for yet,” Alma said.
Ling prepared herself for bad news. “And?”
“I was thinking, I like new.”
Ling let sail one of her biggest smiles.
“So do good, all right?” Alma said.
“All right.”
