“Then you have two options.” My sister looked up at me. “Chemical, and nuclear.”
She laughed and shot, but the twelve didn’t fall.
The jukebox had moved on to Washing Hands, the best of the eighties postpunk evangelical bands. Hungry Hungry Hungry Hungry, Hungry for vinegar…
“If I was a guy, I would be a highly desirable commodity,” I said. “I am well educated. I can be funny. I make good money, when I’m making any money at all. I am no princess, but I am not a frog either.”
Candy leaned earnestly across the table. “I’d fuck you.”
“You’re my sister. You have to say that.”
“No, really.” She shook her head. “Nobody wants to marry me. Do you know I’ve never had a guy ask? Go figure. I haven’t spent a Saturday night alone since I was fifteen years old, but for some reason nobody wants to see me Sunday morning. Well, not past lunchtime, anyway. Hell, even you’ve had a proposal, right?”
I missed my shot badly, nearly ripping the felt, and glared at her.
“What? What did I say? Steve What’s-his-face, with the zits. He proposed to you.”
“Watson. His last name was Watson.”
“Exactly! So what are you doing right? You must be batting about five hundred and I’m zero for my existence. God, I want a beer.”
“No, not until your shift is over.” I stood for a moment leaning on my cue, overcome with the injustice of Life. “I know what a pitcher’s ERA means and why you don’t try to steal third base with two out in an inning. I know how to calculate slugging percentage. How many women can calculate a slugging percentage?”
“It’s a life skill,” Candy said solemnly. “That’s our problem, Toni. I have all the Saturday night skills, and you have all the Sunday morning ones.” She stopped and blinked. “Between us, we make a hell of a woman. We ought to be able to get at least one husband.”
I chalked my cue. “Like a time-share.”
“Exactly! Only it would have to be Carlos.”
“I was imagining someone taller.”
“He’s great in bed. I mean—” Candy blinked and then ran her hand down the length of her cue. “Really great. We do a lot of sex magic. He doesn’t know the tantric stuff exactly, I’ve taught him some of that, but there’s a Mexican equivalent, he says. You wouldn’t regret it.”
I snickered and blushed. “Well, maybe. Is he good with kids?”
“Bound to be. Look at all those brothers and sisters.”
“We could keep him in the kitchen,” I suggested. “In a rabbit hutch.”
“Feed him lettuce through the screen. He wants meat, he’s got to perform in bed.”
“Or change diapers.”
Candy looked at me. “This is a great idea.”
“What about his mother?”
“La Hag? Oh, that’s easy,” Candy said, eyes gleaming. “We’ll keep her in the oven.”
An hour later we had the fight about money. Sisters are like that; you can’t spend too much time with them without fighting about something. Anyway, I stayed with Candy to the beginning of her shift and then went home. On the way in I checked the mail, which I had forgotten to do, and found a letter waiting. It was hand-addressed to “The Beauchamp Household.” The postmark was from New Orleans. Curious, I opened it, and watched as the solution to all my money worries fell out.
It was from a man named Dr. Richard Manzetti, an anthropologist with some connection to Tulane University. Folk magic in America was his field and he had heard of Momma. In fact, he had even published a paper on her. He was in touch with various collectors, both institutional and individual, and had been asked to investigate the possibility of purchasing some of Momma’s memorabilia. “I have been authorized to make offers well into the five-figure range,” the letter said.
Well into the five-figure range.
There was a phone number at the bottom of the letter. I dialed it.
SIX
One day that Little Lost Girl is walking, walking, walking through the city, when she comes across a big crowd that has gathered to watch Pierrot perform. He is grinning and juggling and talking with his audience when suddenly he sees her. “Well well well! Just who we’ve been waiting for!” Quicker than she can blink, he handsprings over to her and lands with his long sharp nose touching her nose, and his long sharp chin touching her chin. He grins his long sharp grin and says, “I’ll bet you a dollar I can bite my eye.”
“I don’t have a dollar.”
“How much have you got?”
“Eleven cents. I found a dime and a penny in the street this morning.”
“Then I’ll bet you five cents I can bite my eye,” Pierrot says. “What have you got to lose? Eleven cents won’t buy you anything, but if you win, you’ll have sixteen cents. If you find another dime, you’ll have enough money to call your mother from that pay phone on the corner and ask her to pick you up.”
“Okay,” whispers the Little Lost Girl. “Five cents.”
The crowd gasps and then laughs as Pierrot pulls out his left eye, which is made of glass, and pops it in his mouth. Then he stuffs it back into its socket.
The Little Lost Girl slowly opens her grubby palm. Pierrot snatches the dime from her hand and crams it into his ear. From his other ear he pulls out a nickel and hands it to her. “I’ll bet you a nickel I can bite my other eye,” he says.
“No. You’ll just trick me again.”
“How could I bite my other eye? Look, if I win, I’ll take that nickel. But if you win, I’ll give you twenty cents, and you’ll be able to call your mother from that pay phone on the corner.”
The Little Lost Girl looks from the grinning Pierrot to the phone and back again. “Okay,” she whispers.
Pierrot opens his mouth and takes out a set of false teeth, which he gently closes over his other eye. The crowd shrieks with merriment. The Little Lost Girl begins to cry, very quietly.
“There there, poppet, it’s not so bad.” Pierrot plucks the nickel from her hand and pats her on the back. “I’ll give you one more chance. I’ll bet you I can pee in your shoes and make it smell like rosewater. If I win, I get your last penny. But if you win, I will show you your very own house with the white picket fence and the yellow trim around the door and the swing hanging from the big live-oak tree out front.”
Tears are trickling down the Little Lost Girl’s cheeks. “Okay,” she whispers, and she takes off her shoes that she’s been wearing ever so long while she’s been walking, walking, walking through the city.
“You sure now? You are actually asking me to pee in your shoes?”
The little girl nods.
Pierrot picks them up with a flourish and brandishes them at the crowd. “You are actually asking me to pee in your shoes?” The crowd snorts and giggles.
“Yes, I said yes.” She is still crying.
Pierrot turns his back to the audience and stands against a building. His bottom waggles as he makes a great show of unzipping himself. Silence falls in the intersection, and then everyone hears a faint trickling hiss. It goes on and on, and Pierrot leans further and further back from the building, until his sharp chin and his sharp nose are pointing directly at the sky. “AaaaaaaAAAAAaaaahhhhh!” he sighs, and then he pulls up his zipper so hard he does a backflip.
A moment later he returns to the Little Lost Girl, holding her shoes by their edges and making faces of disgust.
“It smells like pee,” the Little Lost Girl says.
“So it does.”
“But why? Why did you make the bet if you knew you were going to lose?”
Pierrot drops the shoes on the pavement with a splash and gestures behind him. “You see that crowd? I bet every person in that crowd one dollar that you would ask me to pee in your shoes.” The crowd cheers and people begin to reach for their wallets, laughing and shaking their heads.
“My shoes. They’re ruined.” The Little Lost Girl looks at Pierrot. “You promised me you would show me my house.”
“So I did, and here it is!” Reaching beside the girl’s head, he draws a photograph out of her ear. It is a picture of her very own house with the white picket fence and the yellow trim and the swing outside, and there is a dim shape you can half see in one window that might be her mother.
“But this isn’t my house,” the Little Lost Girl cries. “This is only a picture!”
Pierrot is making his way through the crowd, collecting his winnings. “Don’t whine, kid. You’re lucky I left you that penny.”
“But—”
He turns sharply and leans down so the tip of his long sharp nose bumps against hers. “What did you expect? Something for nothing? Don’t you see I’m trying to teach you a lesson? Once you lose something, you never get it back. That’s life, see?” And before she can react he plucks the photograph from her hand and tears it into a hundred tiny pieces and throws them into the crowd like confetti.
The Little Lost Girl gasps. The bits of her home scatter in the wind.
“Want my advice?” Pierrot’s face is suddenly weary, with no trace of a smile. “Hold on to that penny.”
The Little Lost Girl turns away. She does not say goodbye to Pierrot and she does not pick up her soiled shoes, but starts walking again, barefoot now, looking for her own house with the white fence and the yellow trim and the swing hanging down from the live-oak tree outside. And if she hasn’t found it, she’s walking still.
Cash is cold. That’s what Mr. Copper said. That’s what I tried to remember. I did not think he would disapprove of me selling Momma’s fetishes to Dr. Manzetti. But as for the other Riders…In the days after I called Professor Manzetti, I tried not to look at them. I did not dare close the chifforobe doors, not after the Widow had opened them, but I did my best never to look inside. For all that, I could still feel the Preacher’s hard gaze on my back when I was sitting at the kitchen table, or the Widow’s pinched and malevolent stare. Worst of all was Pierrot’s leer. I could not say whether he approved or disapproved of what I meant to do. But I knew that I amused him, and that was no good feeling.
Richard Manzetti said he couldn’t come the following week to view Momma’s memorabilia as he had a conference to attend. I vetoed the week after that, so as not to look too desperate to sell. Finally the appointment was set for May 1. For the first time in months I felt able to relax.
“You want to sell your mother’s things?” Daddy asked when I told him about Dr. Manzetti’s offer.
“You bet. We can split the money three ways.”
“I don’t want any of it.”
“Daddy. Be reasonable.” He didn’t answer. “Daddy, I really need it. I’m out of a job and I have a child on the way. This is a miracle. This is like maternity leave from God. After the baby is three months old, or maybe six, I can put it in daycare and go back to work.”
“Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out.”
“Daddy! Are you superstitious, is that it? Are you worried the Riders will be mad?”
“If the Riders don’t like it, they will not need my help to deal with you,” he said drily.
“Hunh.”
We were quiet for a spell.
“Your momma always did like easy money too,” my father remarked.
Your parents always know how to poke your bruises.
Still, things were looking up. Morning sickness was past and I had an appetite again. If Daddy disapproved of the idea of selling Momma’s papers and fetishes, at least he had not forbidden it. For me, the cash would be a godsend. While money was still flowing out of my bank account instead of in, the rate had slowed since I started living on the cheap, and the prospect of a fat check from Professor Manzetti made things more bearable. I even began to think that it wouldn’t be so hard to get a job, which I would do sometime after the baby was born.
Actually it was becoming very hard to think of life after the baby was born. Every parent I talked to said, “You can’t imagine what your life will be like!” So I gave up trying. September 20 loomed like a wall on the horizon and I could not think of anything beyond it (other than wondering under what possible circumstances Bill Jr. would be in my garden, playing with my baby. And why would I be smiling about it? Unless I had poisoned his drink a few minutes earlier, that is).
Not everything was perfect. Carlos was still stalling Candy about marriage, leaving her trapped between her desire never to see his weedy face again and her increasingly desperate sense that there would be hell to pay from the Widow if she didn’t do as she had been told.
I worried about the Riders too. Being mounted twice was like being murdered twice. When the gods came into my head, they had obliterated me. Blotted me out. Just thinking about it terrified me, made my heart race and my head begin to pound.
And worse yet, what if I were doomed to be every bit as crazy as Momma? Crazier, maybe. Now that the Riders had come crashing into my life, I didn’t think I had the strength to hold them in check even as well as she had. If it hadn’t been for Momma’s demons, I was sure I could be a good mother. Well, decent. Well, better than mine, anyway.
All my life I had worked so hard to control things. The Riders destroyed that. They did what they wanted and I couldn’t stop them. I prayed every night there would be no more possessions. I prayed and I rocked in my bed, holding a pillow to my tummy where my little baby swam, journeying. I was so afraid I might turn into a mother like my mother was.
Then there were the footsteps.
Not heavy ones, not menacing. Light steps, indistinct. The sort of sounds a barefoot child might make. At first I heard them only as I was slipping into sleep, a footfall or two, maybe a light tread on the stair, and then I was dreaming. Finally I decided to stay up and listen for them.
Daddy was out of town, on the road in Louisiana. I was lying in my bed just after midnight listening for phantom footsteps when I felt the baby move for the first time. It was the strangest feeling, a tiny bump, so faint. A few minutes later I felt it again: bump. Light as a cricket brushing against my leg. Light as a moth trapped in my cupped hands. Filled with wonder, I put my fingers ever so gently on my belly. And at that very moment I heard the clear sound of a barefoot child running down the flight of stairs from my parents’ floor to the kitchen.
I stayed awake all night with my pillow in my arms. Small noises crept upstairs from down below. The squeak of a kitchen cupboard opening. An hour later, a brief hiss of water from the kitchen tap. I knew it was the Little Lost Girl. Momma used to say you could hear her, late at night, and now I had.
Scared and yet happy, filled with a sense of portent, I drowsed, not daring to fall asleep. And somehow in my drowsing the tiny kicks inside me and the little noises downstairs ran together in my mind, so ever after I remembered them together. Those faint sounds. Those hidden children.
For the first time in my life I was examining every man I saw as a potential mate, and I have to admit my body returned an immediate Yes! when I opened the door and saw Richard Manzetti for the first time. He was a small, dark, intense man in his mid-thirties with a lean face, neatly trimmed beard, and very careful eyes. After a couple of brisk pleasantries he went to examine the chifforobe. He stayed there a long time. Finally he turned around. “Ms. Beauchamp, I want you to think very carefully about this decision. The investor who asked me to come here is prepared to offer you thirty thousand dollars for this collection. I would not blame you if you took it. But I would be disappointed.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Right now there are gods in that cabinet. By the time they get to the trunk of my car, they will be just puppets. That is a loss.”
“If you think that, Dr. Manzetti, then you have never lived with a god.”
“Maybe.” His black hair was rather coarse. His eyes were very dark brown, almost black, with lots of tiny wrinkles around them. “Maybe you’re right. And after all, they swapped Christ for thirty pieces of silver.”
“I know you,” I said suddenly. “You’re the Preacher. You th
ink you’re here on your own, but actually it’s the Preacher trying to get to me. I should have known they wouldn’t go quietly.”
Professor Manzetti looked at me for a long time. “I am not aware of being anyone’s instrument,” he said carefully.
“On my eighth birthday the Preacher gave me a whipping for caring too much about my presents,” I said. “Daddy had to be out of town the whole week and wasn’t there to stop him. Momma had worked for two hours to bake me a cake, and afterwards there was a scribble-card from Candy and a new bicycle and a pretty yellow sundress. Momma had painted me the most beautiful card, six wild ponies running together. But the Preacher got her just as I was blowing out the candles. Threw the cake in the garbage to teach me a lesson. Ripped up the card. ‘Vanity, vanity.’ That’s what he said.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t you dare lecture me about gods,” I said. “Don’t you ever dare.”
“Okay.”
“If you wouldn’t trade a god for thirty pieces of silver, then you’re a damn fool, Dr. Manzetti. I would like to see you one time when your head started to ache and you went dizzy and Sugar murdered you with the smell of peaches. I’d like to see just how much you’d like it. I’d like to see how you would feel three hours later when you woke up and found you had whored yourself to the gas station attendant. That really happened, you know. Me and Candy in the car for twenty minutes and Momma in the bathroom with the gas jockey. We were driving back from somewhere, maybe San Antone, and she was so ashamed when Sugar left her head. Did you write a paper about this, Dr. Manzetti? Do you know this story? How about the part where I wouldn’t stop crying so she made me get out of the car on the side of the highway and then drove off saying that was what I deserved? Drove on out of sight. Came back for me forty minutes later. Did you write that up? Is that the holiness you are searching for? Or are the Little Lost Girl stories the only ones you care about?”