Ellis laughed a nervous laugh.
We kissed again and again and again until my lips hurt, and all I wanted was for them to hurt more.
It’s been an hour since then and I can see in the mirror that my lips are still too red from all the kissing.
JULY 5, 1934
Even the letters of the words I’m trying to write feel thrilling—the curves of the e’s and the t’s that spell out the speck of a beauty mark under his eye, the imperfect curve of his collarbone (once broken on one side, before we knew him), the way his smile between kisses is a half smile and half unhappy wish for more.
We piece together the story between kisses.
He says how I never showed the slightest sign of feeling that way for him. “Everything you want is always written all over you,” he said, his head was on my shoulder. “I looked for it so many times, but it wasn’t there. I didn’t know you could keep secrets like that, Cathy.”
I’ve never been accused of being stoic.
“I honestly didn’t think the thought of me like that had ever crossed your mind,” he went on.
“It has crossed my mind,” I said, kissing one corner of his lips, then the other.
Since then, several times yesterday and today, we’ve found ourselves moving toward the same shadowy places to hide from the heat and from Mama.
Mama sleeps in a chair every night, down in the parlor. Since Sheepie, worry keeps her staring out the windows, until she nods off, exhausted. But some night soon, she’ll make it back to her bed. And that’s when I’ll take my chance to make the long walk into town with my money in my pocket.
JULY 6, 1934
Yesterday we did our chores and circled around each other, and when he went into the bunkhouse at lunch, biting my nails, I followed him. He was waiting around the doorway for me.
He took a wet cloth and rubbed the dust off my lips. He put Vaseline under my nose where it was raw.
I told him I love him over and over, whispering it in his ear, and each time he held me tighter, and each time the words felt better on my lips.
I reached into my pocket and gave him a perfect, round white pebble I’d found earlier in the day. (Gifts are hard to come by in Canaan.) He reached under his bed, where he brushed some dirt aside and lifted two of the roughhewn planks from the floor.
“I made a hiding place,” he explained. He pulled out a small wooden box and opened it, laying the pebble inside. I could see the box contained two quarters and a broken pocket watch, the only thing he’d arrived in Canaan with.
“This is where I keep my treasures,” he joked. “Including my vast savings. Or what’s left of them. And now all my favorite pebbles.”
“Who are you hiding it from?” I asked, amused.
Ellis stared into the box. “Old habit, I guess, from before I came here. I just like to know it’s all tucked away where only I can find it,” he said. “It makes me feel safe.”
I felt guilty, seeing the mostly empty box. He didn’t have much to save.
I keep my plans from Ellis. Every time we’re together, I unravel myself for him, show him almost everything about me. But the Electric, I keep to myself. I can’t stand the thought, now, of how he would look at me if he knew.
JULY 7, 1934
Last night, Mama slept in her room. I watched her go to bed, and my heart began to pound.
Around eleven I tiptoed into Beezie’s room and got her out of bed, dressed her, and bundled her down the stairs in my arms. Thankfully she was too groggy to ask questions. I snuck past the bunkhouse with her on my back.
The Ragbag Fair was, if possible, more crowded than last time. A wooden trailer I’d never noticed stood to our left as we entered, painted with promises of what lay inside: a mermaid, a wolf man, a woman with the world’s longest fingernails. Crowds were making their way up the stairs. The piglet races were on; we could hear the announcer above the crowd, and the carousel spun brightly as we walked past it.
“Why are we here, Cathy?” Beezie whispered into my ear, her arms tight around my neck.
“We’re here because we need to be,” I said nervously.
All through Professor Spero’s talk, the mood was different than that first night. The buzz of excitement was gone. The mood was heavier, people more urgent and more desperate. When the time came, I took Beezie’s hand and we went to stand in line.
Inside, the tent fell short of my expectations. An assistant stood just inside, taking the “donations.” The main attraction was just a table at the center of the room and the electric ball at the center of the table. Professor Spero sat behind it, speaking to people as they sat down, then taking their hands gently in his and laying their fingers on the ball for the amount of time they’d paid for. When it was our turn, I guided Beezie into the chair. The professor smiled wearily. I had a hollow, nervous feeling as he reached for Beezie’s hands.
Despite the fact that I don’t pray anymore, I prayed.
And I watched Beezie take my chance at living forever.
“Do you feel better?” I asked a few minutes later, when we’d emerged into the open air.
To my relief, Beezie nodded, her chubby cheeks pink with excitement (her cheeks are never pink anymore, so I take it as a good sign). “I think so,” she said breathlessly. “I feel a lot better. Almost completely better.”
I only happened to look up when she did, following her eyes to see Ellis standing under the big clock, watching us.
We were halfway home. Ellis hadn’t said a word, and I was too prideful to ask him, until the words burst out of me.
“What’s wrong?”
He gave me a look like the answer was obvious, which it was, and tightened one hand around Beezie’s ankle, the other around her wrists that crisscrossed in front of his neck.
“I can’t read your eyebrows,” I said.
He stopped walking for a minute, opened his mouth a few times to say something, then started walking again. “You can’t expect me to be happy about spending my money on something so . . .” His eyes darted to mine, then away. Like saying it took a lot of effort.
“So what?”
He didn’t answer.
“I’ll pay you back.”
This brought him to a full stop.
“First, you can’t, and second, I don’t want the money, Cathy. I’d give you more than that if I could, everything I have. It’s the waste. I saved that money for a year! How could you throw it away on something so . . . flimsy? Something for idiots?”
I felt the ice in my feet again. I felt right and wrong all at the same time.
“Beezie says it worked,” I said. “It’s going to help her lungs.”
“That’s the most nonsensical thing I ever heard.”
“It’s scientific.” I felt my cheeks heating with humiliation.
“It’s pretend.”
“You don’t know anything about anything, Ellis. You’ve never even read a whole book.”
He stopped for a moment, and his face hardened. “Well I do have common sense.”