Wonder When You’ll Miss Me (25 page)

She shook her head.

I wrapped a jacket around my waist and walked out into the evening. The midway had been shut down, but light came from lots of the trailers. I made my way up the hill towards the Digestivore.

The night was empty and enormous. Voices bounced from one place to another. I was so wound inside myself that I didn't hear anything at first, and then heard everything at once, all the voices, the creaking, the tree whispers. All the late-night sounds of the circus, which I'd come to know so well. But tonight I was separated. Now that Charlie was here I could feel the shell of Annabelle, the seams where she left off and Faith lived. I had almost forgotten what it was like to be Faith. It fucking hurt.

I crunched across gravel and grass and came around the back of Marco's trailer. His lights were off. I didn't know quite what to do with myself or why I was there. I dug my hands into my pockets and jumped up and down several times. Then I sat on a stump a few feet back and lit the cigarette and smoked it down to its last embers, each breath standing in for the way I felt, so that when I pushed the blue smoke out it took some of me with it. The night pulsed with its uneven sounds and I wondered what I wanted.

At that moment, a light went on in the trailer. I froze, then crept slowly to the window. I saw the edge of a bed with someone curled asleep in it, and the legs of someone else sitting just out of sight with his feet propped on a trunk. Everything about the trailer was different than I'd remem
bered: the floor was a solid color; the bed was in a slightly different place. And then I remembered that Yael had burned the other one down. Or tried to.

I stood there for what seemed like a long time. Then the figure with his feet up moved towards a lamp. When his arm extended, I saw the brass ring tattoo. It was Marco in a gray T-shirt and red polka-dot boxers, with a thick book in his hand. He stretched, turned the lamp off, and the trailer plunged into darkness again. I blinked, willing my eyes to adjust. I could see—or I imagined I could see—a figure move towards the bed and climb in, curling around the other body. Around Charlie.

I backed away from the window and returned to my stump. The world melted into silence, all of it dissolving, the laughter, the voices, the movements of all these people. There, behind Marco's trailer, I felt it as deeply as I ever had: I was alone, all by myself out here in the world. Even Fartlesworth, for all its tolerance, was just a place I was. Alone.

“You've got me,” the fat girl said, appearing suddenly in that way she had.

“No,” I whispered, and watched her until she began to back away. Something in me was ripping slowly. I felt the jagged little tears in the fabric that held me together.

“I'm still here,” she called, farther away now. “Just so you know.”

But I ignored her, staying there in the night until I felt my legs go numb and was forced to revive them by walking back to my own trailer.

 

At Berrybrook, Dr. Ronnynole would say,
Faith, why don't you tell me about what happened. Something happened to make you feel that life was not worth living.

No, I thought. It wasn't just one thing. It was a buildup of things, an accretion of emptiness and humiliation. It was a general sense of worthlessness that corroded me.

But I didn't trust him to understand that.

“I guess I just felt bad,” I'd say. And shrug.

Starling loved me. And that had once been enough. It had been all I had.

But someday I was going to have to pay for this awful thing I'd done. Someday I was going to have to offer up my own blood for that tongue I'd sliced into the dirt.

Why hadn't I told anyone about Homecoming? That was the question
slamming me again and again. Why hadn't I just said something? Then, at least, I'd have less explaining to do.

 

I had to talk to Charlie. I could barely push it away enough to fall asleep. But I managed, finally, tumbling into an uneasy darkness where I had a slow vivid dream.

It was late and I was in the big top looking up. The lights were off, but a gentle haze filtered in through the tent somehow, so that everything glowed a little. Fresh sawdust was down, a show was about to happen, but the whole place was peaceful and empty.

Except for me and the fat girl.

We sat cross-legged in the center ring, facing each other.

Tick tock
, she said.
Tick tock.
And then something hit her face, a drop of something, and she looked up and I followed her gaze. Hanging by his feet from Rapunzel Finelli's rigging, a man in a straitjacket struggled to free himself, and blood rained down from the place where his hands should be.

I scrambled to the edge of the ring, wiping at my face. The whole place was suddenly dark and cold and the emptiness loomed.

What did you do?
the fat girl hissed. She hadn't moved. Blood dripped down her enormous cheeks, and her face contorted. She held up a stained paper towel.

Look what you did—

I woke with a start. I was in the trailer, in the latest part of night, the earliest part of morning. And this time I was alone.

I climbed down from the bed and made my way through the maze of costumes to the small table by the window, where I looked out at the sloping landscape.

Was this what Wilma had seen all those nights she'd sat here sipping whiskey? Her life rolling away like the grass and the trees.

I
FOUND
Charlie midmorning. Actually, he found me. I'd shoveled Bluebell and Olivia's messes and moved on to the horses. Charlie appeared as I was grooming Dos. I had spent the entire morning alone with animals, and his voice caught me off guard.

“Hey there,” he said.

“Ah,” was the best I could manage. I coughed.

“I thought I'd just come say hello again,” he said. “Heh, heh.”

I focused on giving Dos's coat firm, even strokes. “So, how've you been?” I didn't look directly at him.

“All right.” He stood in front of Uno and reached out to touch her nose, but I stopped him.

“She likes a carrot or something,” I said, giving him half an apple from the snack bucket. “If she doesn't know you, she won't want you touching her face.”

He nodded and thrust the apple towards her.

“Put it flat on your palm, like this.”

He followed my example, flattening his palm and holding the apple out like an offering. Uno took it, greedily devouring the whole thing in just a few bites, and I rubbed her neck. Charlie reached out and scratched her forehead, then cleared his throat. “Good girl,” he murmured tentatively. He cleared his throat again. “You sure are a long way from Gleryton, huh?”

I looked up and met his eyes for the first time. They were big and sad, and I noticed the hollows of his cheeks, the sleeplessness. I turned back to Dos. I felt weirdly private.

“We sure are,” I said softly and had the urge to bury my face in Dos's neck, something I would have done without hesitation if I was alone, but I was self-conscious. I gave her a few pats and moved over to Billy.

“Sorry I didn't recognize you. But you sure have changed.”

“Sure have.” It came out snappier than I'd meant. I looked up and softened my words with a smile. Charlie still looked worried, loaded down. I was abruptly aware of something large looming around us, something in the shadows that he wanted to talk about.

“And yeah, we're a long way from home,” I said. “It has been a long road here, you know?”

He nodded slowly, like I'd said something enormous and meaningful. I felt my muscles tightening, felt myself coil inside, ready to spring away if need be.
Deep breath,
I told myself. This was Charlie, after all,
Charlie.
What on earth was I worried about? I began to brush Billy, who tossed her tail at me and snorted.

“So you ran away, after all.”

I swallowed. “Yeah.”

“Well, you said you were going to.”

“Yeah.”

He was quiet. He'd sat himself on an empty bucket and now he rose and shook his leg as though it had fallen asleep. He brushed his hands back and forth on his jeans, to wipe away whatever he'd planned to confess. “Well, I'm glad you're okay,” he said, and started to leave.

I couldn't stand it. “I was going to find you,” I called after him.

He stopped. “What do you mean?”

“I mean…” I swallowed. I looked at his skinny legs, his hollow chest, anything but those haunted eyes. “I was looking for you. When I left town. I thought you'd know…I found the circus because I thought you'd be with them. Then I heard they'd left you in Macon. I didn't know what I could do.”

I felt tears about to come and did my best to shove them down. He looked at something far away and I snuck a glance at his face. He seemed ten years older than when I'd last seen him.

“Well,” he said finally.

“I'm sorry,” I said.

“Oh, no. It's cool,” he said, but I had the sense that he wasn't even there anymore, that he'd been launched into the sky by something I'd said.

“I figured I wouldn't be much help.”

“Right. Well.” He shook his head and gave a short laugh. “This is a
good place. Glad they took you in. Glad you're okay and everything.” He turned to go.

“Thanks,” I called after him. But softly, and a few moments too late.

 

“See, you don't trust him after all,” the fat girl said when Charlie had ambled away from the makeshift paddock and I had given Billy a good rubdown. “I've told you not to all along and it's even more true now.”

I didn't answer her. I didn't have anything to say. I tried to tune her out, but the fat girl did her best to make some point without saying anything that made sense.

“At first, I thought his problems would touch you,” she said. “Then they didn't. Now, I have a feeling that he thinks he's left them far behind, but he hasn't and he may never. Now everything matters and he doesn't know how he's going to get through the end of this day and into the next. And if he falls…he's going to fall hard.”

Shut up,
I thought, but didn't say it. I wanted her to stop talking. To stop talking, to stop eating, to stop plundering what was inside me, but I didn't say any of that either.

“He could take you down with him, Faith.”

I turned sharply at that. “It's Annabelle,” I said. “Annabelle.”

“No it's not,” she said, her voice like a knife. “It's Faith fucking Duckle.”

I wanted to walk away, but everything erupted. It was all I could do not to scream. “
He
could take me down?! I don't trust
him
?” I said. “Look who's talking! Do you think he could possibly drag me down any goddamn farther than you?!”

There were pink spots high on her cheeks. “What are you saying?”

“You know what I'm saying.”

“Oh, I don't think so. I think you need to spell this out for me.”

That was fine with me. I spat it. “It was you! You are responsible for all of this: for why I can't go home, for why I'm pretending to be someone else. You are responsible for everything bad, do you know that?
Everything.
You think I don't know what you did? I know! I remember.”

She was silent. Her brown eyes were big and bottomless. I swallowed. My hands were shaking.

“Think about that, Faith,” she said softly. “Think about what happened and what you remember. What you really remember. Don't be afraid of what you're capable of. It got you this far.”

I watched her leave. Anger pulsed inside of me, but there was something else too. Fear. I felt it at the back of my neck like a cool wind.

 

I was in costume waiting to go on when I heard the news: Germania Loudon would be singing during the show.

“Why?” I asked Rod. He smiled and the dim light flashed over his pink gums.

“She's always wanted to,” he said. “She's been asking for it forever, but Elaine would never let her. Something mysterious went down last week—I don't know what—and now she's singing. Sam's in a sweat about it, so stay out of his way. He's taking it out on everyone.”

I nodded. Sam didn't even look at me these days and I'd stopped worrying about the conversation I'd tried to have with Wilma on his behalf. Everyone seemed to ignore him, and I'd come to think of myself as part of everyone.
When in Rome,
I figured, and ignored him too.

Rod stepped aside to let the Thomasettes pass. One of them had the hiccups. “Goddammit, you stop that, Marie,” her sister said.

“Besides, we're moving out tonight,” Rod said. “So it doesn't really matter.”

I knew he meant that Elaine would be onto worrying about making our nut at the next venue in the next town. Still, I felt surrounded by confusion and change. I thought about how the midway must look right now, packed with people milling about. What was Charlie doing, I wondered.

The clowns were leaving the ring and I leaned against Bluebell's leg. Jim turned and gave me the thumbs-up and I did it back to him. Bluebell shifted and put her trunk on my shoulder, but I stood and pushed it away. She had developed a habit of pulling off my wig at the last moment—she'd done it several times by now—and then carrying it around the ring with her, a candy-pink pom-pom. “Be good, Blue,” I whispered, and patted my hair with one hand and my warning with the other.

Behind me someone whistled and then stopped. “See you after the show,” Rod said, and just before he turned to join his brothers and sister, whose silhouettes were unmistakable against the tent, he leaned in and kissed me on the cheek.

I raised my hand to my face and watched him go, wondering if what I thought had just happened had actually just happened. Some clowns came around the side of the big top in their little car, and then there was a terrible sound, a swelling shriek, and the enormous wail of the audience:

Rapunzel Finelli had fallen to the unforgiving sawdust floor.

Jim rushed forward, leaving me with Olivia and Bluebell.
“Oh my God! Oh my God!”
It was my voice and the others around me. Through the canvas I saw Jim and Benny hoist Rapunzel to a standing position, her head lolling to the side.

“Somebody get Elaine,” I heard from behind me. And then Sam said, “There's only one thing to do and we need to do it quick.”

She was dead. I could see it. She was dead, dead, dead.

They walked her towards the bleachers. Benny made her hand wave to the crowd. The audience was silently hysterical and then the band started up, a rousing beat, and the lights changed and in came that little car again, packed to the gills with distraction. The clowns tumbled out one by one and the audience seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief. Everything was okay, everything would be okay.

I stood there shaking, holding on to Bluebell and willing Olivia to stand still. Soon Jim came and patted me on the back.

“Holy Christ. Holy Christ.” He muttered to himself, shaking his arms and legs and head. He closed his eyes and opened them, then turned to me and said gently: “Show goes on, luv. You okay? You ready?”

I nodded but couldn't stop trembling. The clowns tumbled and honked their horns. They juggled and jostled and ran around the ring making the audience howl with laughter. Somewhere, Rapunzel Finelli lay still.

Jim gave the nod and Bluebell and I followed him and Olivia into the ring. The ringmaster blew his whistle and hollered his familiar intro, but
stylings of Professor Pachyderm
sounded hollow and strange. I smiled until I thought my face might crack, and then it was over. I stumbled outside and left Bluebell to Jim. I made my way over to a tree behind the tent and sat breathing in the dark, waiting for the moment to pass and the awfulness of it all to disappear.

 

Much later, swirling red and blue lights crept silently towards the big top. There was no need to hurry, their intended passenger wasn't going anywhere. I stopped being able to breathe and stayed in the shadows opening and closing my mouth like a fish. The fat girl was right there by my side.

“You hadn't thought this far, had you, Faith?”

I couldn't get enough air to be angry at which name she'd used. “What do you know?” I gasped. She sat cross-legged beside me with a package of spring rolls in waxy paper.

“Do you see where we are?” She swept a spring roll across the scene. I saw a policeman talking to Hugo Genersh and scooted farther into the shadows.

“You got me here,” I said slowly. “In some ways I'm grateful, but…”

“But what?”

“I know,” I said. “I know what happened that day.” I waited for movement, something, but she just watched me, eyes narrow.

“You did it,” I said. “It wasn't me, it was you.”

Her soft mouth trembled a little. She looked away and was quiet for a while before she shook her head and spoke. “You,” she said quietly. “You are so messed up.”

I waited for more but that was it. She lumbered to her feet, brushing imaginary dirt off her leotard, and walked away from the lights and the madness.

I watched her go until I couldn't make anything out anymore, and then I turned back to see the ambulance depart, lights off, moving stealthily in the cover of night.

I was so tired. Everything existed only in the immediate, in the present tense: our movement from town to town, the simple procession of days, my responsibilities, everything. Nothing survived from before.

Except Charlie. Except the fat girl. Except Faith.

She was in me, clacking around, banging up against the taut walls of Annabelle and wondering when she'd be allowed to breathe again.

You are so messed up.

The fat girl's words rattled in my head, marbles on a marble floor, around and around. All I could think was: I just want to sleep. But I remembered what that used to mean to me—I had wanted to die. That seemed like another world, a lifetime away, and in a sense it was.

And in a sense it wasn't.

Starling, whispering in the night:
My brother has never known who he is. He wants to save me, but that's not enough. He's never made sense of all the options there are. I think that's what's going to do him in: all the choices.

What were my choices? Had I made the wrong choices?

You are so messed up.

That day, that last day. Walking through the halls, people jostling one another, lockers slamming, the bell ringing and its echo carrying for whole moments after it stopped. Pushing through the double doors, outside hit by a burst of cold air, and there he was. There he was on the rock where he always sat, his smug sitting smoking self letting us admire him if
that's what we wanted. Expecting it. Expecting to be admired, when at his core was a dark bubbling thing that told him to hold my arms while they came at me, over and over.
Just hold her arms.
A black viscous thing that had let him talk to me as though nothing had happened.

Walking towards him, his face so sharp against the gray stone of the building, against the red brick of the low wall, against the dull noise of everything else.

And the warm heavy cleaver, the pleasantly warm weight of the cleaver in my hand.