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Oh, heavens! What had I started with a few kisses? Did she expect me to ask her father for her hand?
I backed away. “Um, tell Apollo I’ll meet him by the gate.” I groped for the stable door. “Well, I’d better hurry,” I muttered. The disappointment in her eyes filled me with guilt. I bolted for the shadows of the barn, where I harnessed Old Sukie to the buggy and silently begged that Phoebe wouldn’t linger outside. To my relief, my prayers were answered.
All the way into town I berated myself. I should speak to her honestly. I had obviously given her false hopes. It would be cruel to let her go on thinking I had serious intentions. I had let this go on too long. What if she ran to her father with tales? Her father had a furious temper. What if he decided his daughter had been compromised? Would he make me marry her? My mouth dried, and I tried to think of other things.
Redbrick row houses lined Main Street. They’d been there for a hundred years. Down side streets were the newer houses, with wood sides and large front porches, some with turrets, as if they were gingerbread castles. I had never lived in a town, gone to a regular schoolhouse, and attended the same little church each Sunday. Before we came to Faeryland, when I was seven, my life had been spent in boardinghouses, trains, and stage coaches.
Outside the post office two young ladies dawdled. One of them held a bicycle at her side and wore a sensible long, dark skirt and dusty boots. The other wore frills and carried a parasol. I tipped my cap as I passed them, but they cut me dead. My heart fell, although I could have predicted that would happen. It was useless to search for a sweetheart in Smithville. They all knew where I came from. I lived with the freaks and was a common charlatan, and probably degenerate into the bargain.
Dust floated in the sunlight that slanted through the post office windows, and a smell of ancient sealing wax permeated the air. The sound of my boots on the wooden floor caused the postmaster to raise his head. He grunted a neutral greeting and proceeded to stack parcels on the counter. Sadly, none was from Burke and White, Booksellers.
When I came back out with the packages, two young men had joined the girls. Although I hardly came close to them, the young men reached for the arms of the girls as if to move them out of harm’s way. A worm of anger squiggled in my gut. They didn’t even know me. I called out a cheery “Good afternoon.” I would make them work hard to ignore me. The bicycle girl nodded, and her girlfriend elbowed her. The boys scowled. One of them spit casually in my direction, his eyes bright with anger. I wished I had left well enough alone.
My heart thumped as I tossed the packages under a tarp in the buggy and crossed the street to the dry-goods store. My back prickled with the sense of the boys behind me. I wished I had brought the mail in with me, but I didn’t want them to know I was worried. I did worry, however, all the time I waited for the salesman’s attention. When I emerged with my mother’s wool, the young people were gone, replaced by an elderly lady in black, who then entered the butcher’s shop, and a spotted dog sniffing in the gutter. My packages lay undisturbed.
On my way out of town a colorful poster on the fence outside the blacksmith’s shop caught my eye. I pulled over to look at it. MARVEL BROTHERS CIRCUS, the large yellow and red type proclaimed. The performers depicted were strong and beautiful men and women, not a freak among them. The acts listed included acrobats, tightrope walkers, and equestrians—all acts that depended on talent rather than unusual looks. Was that where I belonged? Yearning welled up within me. The circus’s advance men were ambitious in their advertising, for the show was to set up in a town more than fifteen miles north of my home. It was too far to drop by casually for a look. I stifled my disappointment and snapped the reins.
On the ride home I pondered love. There was someone for everyone, I knew. Whether you were short, tall, wide, or thin, someone somewhere would appreciate your qualities and inspire your love in return. I hadn’t met a fat lady yet who didn’t have a string of admirers, and my parents had found each other, hadn’t they? Who was the girl for me and where would I find her? Perhaps the girl who gave me this ring in my dream, I thought, and smiled fondly at it. I laughed. I would have to go pretty far to find her. Beyond this world, I should think. I wouldn’t mind trying, however, I decided.
“I rather like the term prodigies,” whispered Jolly Dolly, mopping her brow with a voluminous handkerchief. “Much more dignified than freaks, don’t you think, Abel?” She was referring to the text of the new advertisement Colonel Kingston had sent to the newspapers.
Onstage Albert Sunderland, the four-legged man, kicked a soccer ball around. I’d heard a rumor that limbs were not all Albert had extra of. Once, when I was younger, Archie Crum had called to a heckler who mocked Albert’s skills, “Come up here and say that. He’s twice the man you are.” It took me a year to figure out why Albert had laughed.
Albert wove and dodged as the ball spun an intricate pattern from foot to foot, and his arms executed circles in the air to maintain his balance. It was an odd sight no matter how often one saw it, for no two legs were of exactly the same length; indeed, one of the central pair hung nine inches above the ground, and it took considerable skill to give that foot its fair share of kicks. He looked like a dancing spider.
“The giants prefer the term anomaly—’something that deviates from the general rule or the usual type,’” I said.
“My, the child swallowed a dictionary at birth,” exclaimed Baby Betty in her little voice. The droopy flesh of her arm swayed as she fanned herself.
Dolly sniffed, and her ample bosom jiggled. “There is no talent implied in
that term. Anomaly’s just a fancy way to say freak. We are much more than that. Did you know that prodigy also means ‘a marvelous thing’?”
Her sister, Betty, grunted. “I am not a thing.”
“But quite marvelous,” I said, not wanting them to fight.
Betty favored me with a brilliant smile. “Always the gentleman,” she said, and giggled, an earthquake that resulted in a tidal wave of flesh.
“With the face of an angel,” said Dolly.
“And the body of a devil,” Betty crooned, and poked me gently in the chest with a sausagelike finger.
Albert Sunderland exited stage left to thunderous applause, and the sisters quieted. They never failed to enjoy their introduction.
“And now, for your delight and amusement,” proclaimed Colonel Kingston, “those wonders of pulchritudinous plumpness, those beauties of remarkable adiposity, those portly pretties and roly-poly riot of laughs—the sisters known as Jolly Dolly and Baby Betty. Ladies and gentlemen, One Ton of Fun!”
“I hope the boards hold up,” Betty muttered in her baby voice. She said this every performance, almost like a prayer. No matter how many times she’d been reassured, she remained deathly afraid of falling through.
The sisters launched themselves, wheezing, onto the stage, and I couldn’t help but smile. From behind, in their bathing suits made of bloomers and frilly short skirts, they looked like two hippos at a fancy dress party, but I would never tell them. In their minds the humor was to be found in their clever repartee, not in their vast size, even though most of their act concerned jokes about their weight. Even if they had been thin, they would be funny—but in show business you have to grab the attention of the audience first. I didn’t need to move scenery until the next curtain, so I stayed to watch even though I knew their jokes by heart.
After the show the performers gathered around the perimeter of the grand ballroom next door to the theater. The public was invited to walk a lap and converse briefly with the entertainers. I circulated among our guests and sold photographic souvenirs and a charming memoir written by Gladys Dibble, the Pixie Queen.
My father took advantage of these occasions to spin dreadful tall tales. Hopping from one hand to the other, he told gullible folk, “If you think I am remarkable, you should have seen my father—he didn’t have a head. It was quite amazing how he got about, and how he became enamored of my mother I shall never know—perhaps it was the glossy feel of her scales ….” He lied, of course. My grandparents were perfectly normal. As I moved through the crowd, I listened for his cheerful tenor so I might eavesdrop.
I also liked to watch the young ladies.
“She will break your heart, Abel,” Mama warned if she saw me glance at an ankle, “and her daddy will break your nose.”
