A Corner of the Universe Read online

  “Oh, there they are!” Cookie cries suddenly.

  “Who?” asks Angel.

  “The sideshow people.”

  I see that the next few trailers are like commercials for the sideshow. Each one announces one of the sideshow attractions — Man of a Thousand Tattoos; Mongo the Ape Man; John-Jane, Half Man—Half Woman; Pretzel Woman; Mr. Geek — but these people must be inside their trailers. All we get to see are their advertisements.

  Cookie is rising to her feet, shaking her head slowly. “My, my. I have to get me to that sideshow,” she says as she makes her way back to the kitchen.

  I stare at the next trailers that snake down our street, but I don’t pay much attention to them. I am thinking of Mongo and John-Jane and Pretzel Woman. I have to admit that I am fascinated by their pictures, the ones on the sides of their trailers. But a tiny part of me feels uncomfortable. If I were unusual looking or had a strange talent, would I want to spend my life being gawked at by everyone who has paid his quarter to see the show? Probably not. And yet … I am awfully curious, especially about John-Jane. I decide finally that I am 85 percent curious and only 15 percent uncomfortable.

  And when the parade ends I am buzzy with excitement. I try to remember how much money I have upstairs. I think I have forty-five cents in the dish on top of my desk, and nearly five dollars inside the left leg of the jeans in my third bureau drawer. Perfect. I am ready for midway games and cotton candy and shows of any sort.

  “Well, Hattie,” said Dad. “What do you say? Shall we go to the carnival on Monday night?”

  “Monday night? The first night?” I exclaim. “Oh, yes!”

  That evening after supper Dad and I walk along Grant all the way to the other side of town and watch Fred Carmel and his workers setting up the carnival. I am amazed at how quickly they work. The empty field is already transformed. Rides are being erected, tents and booths and concession stands have sprung up.

  “The grand opening is Monday night,” says a girl about my age as she steps out of a trailer.

  “We’ll be there,” Dad replies.

  The carnival is the biggest event Millerton has seen in years. It turns out that absolutely everyone in our house is going to attend the grand opening. Mom can’t decide whether to serve Monday night dinner half an hour early in order to give people extra time at the carnival, or half an hour late in order to give people time to get ready for it first. In the end, she decides not to change the time.

  The six of us sit at the dining room table chattering away about the things we will see and do at Fred Carmel’s and how late we might stay up. Mom actually says to me, “Don’t eat too much dinner tonight, Hattie. Save room for cotton candy.”

  “And for the food from many nations,” I add. Then I ask, “Can we take Adam to the carnival with us?” I am pretty sure he won’t be going with Nana and Papa. A carnival would be beneath them, just as the circus was beneath them.

  “Oh, honey,” says Mom. “Let’s go by ourselves, the three of us. I don’t really feel like calling Nana right now.”

  “I’ll call her,” I say.

  Mom sighs. “Hattie, leave it alone.”

  “All right.” I am not going to make a scene in front of everyone. But I know what’s going on. Mom doesn’t want Nana to know that we are as excited as the rest of the Millerton commoners who are rushing off to the opening night of bearded ladies, midway games, cheap prizes, and glitzy lights.

  Well. I am not going to let this spoil my evening.

  The moment dinner is over, Miss Hagerty zips out to the front porch. About two minutes later the brown Chrysler pulls up, Miss Hagerty’s friends side by side in the front seat. They wave out the windows. Both are wearing straw hats decorated with artificial flowers.

  “Yoo-hoo!” they cry.

  “Hellooo!” Miss Hagerty replies. “We’ll be right there.” She turns and calls through the front door, “Frank!” and Mr. Penny appears.

  He and Miss Hagerty hurry down our walk together and ease themselves into the car. When I was little I used to think that Mr. Penny and Miss Hagerty were dating and that one day they would get married and I would be the flower girl in their wedding. Now I am pretty sure that neither one of them is meant to get married. That’s just the way it is for some people.

  No sooner has the Chrysler disappeared from view than a snappy little red convertible car, top down, roars to a stop at the end of our walk. A grinning young guy who looks exactly like Frankie Avalon the singing star gets out of the car without bothering to open the door; just jumps over the side and lands neatly in the street. I stare at him with my mouth open as he walks around to the passenger door and leans against the car, arms folded. I have never seen him before, but I just know he has arrived to pick up Angel Valentine. Sure enough, a few moments later Angel breezes onto the porch, trailing the scent of roses behind her.

  “See you later, Hattie,” she says. “Have fun tonight.”

  Frankie Avalon greets Angel with a brush of his lips across her cheek, then holds the car door open for her. A few minutes later they are zooming toward the carnival.

  This is one of those moments when I love our porch. Sometimes sitting on it is better than going to the movies.

  Mom and Dad and I walked to the carnival. I am so excited that I do not mind holding hands with them even though we are in public. I step along, my right hand in Mom’s, my left in Dad’s, listening to their quiet voices crisscross above my head. I have forgotten all about Mom and Nana and Nana’s airs. But I have not forgotten about Adam. I still wish he could come with us.

  I hear Fred Carmel’s before I see it, hear music and laughter and a quiet roar of voices. And as we cross a field of parked cars, I see that practically every inch of the carnival is outlined in lights. It looks like Nassau Street in December when store windows and wreaths and lampposts and trees are ablaze for Christmas.

  I stand on tiptoe for a better view, and see a moving circle of light, a Ferris wheel. An alley of lights is the midway, another is the sideshow. There is a lit-up bumper car ride, a lit-up Whirl-About, and the snaking lights of a small roller coaster.

  Mom and Dad are as excited as I am. “Come on!” says Mom, and she pulls my hand and the three of us run the rest of the way through the parking lot to the entrance. And then … we don’t know where to start. Food? Rides? Games? The sideshow? So for a while we just walk around.

  Then, all of a sudden, Dad’s camera is in front of his face. “Okay, ladies,” he says to Mom and me. “Stand over there and wave.”

  We stand in front of the fun house and wave obediently at Dad.

  “Now let me film you getting on the Ferris wheel,” he says.

  Our carnival evening has begun. When we get off of the Ferris wheel we go through the fun house. Then we buy cotton candy. Then I spend four dollars playing six different games before I win a small pink teddy bear.

  We stand in line to buy tickets to the sideshow and who should take our money but the girl Dad and I met on Saturday night.

  “She works here,” I whisper incredulously to Dad.

  I am still 85 percent fascinated by the thought of the sideshow attractions, and only 15 percent uncomfortable. By the time we are halfway through them, however, I decide I am 15 percent uncomfortable, 45 percent fascinated, and 40 percent disappointed. I think that some of the people are not quite what they were advertised to be. For instance, the woman with the horrifyingly embarrassing name of Pig Lady, billed as the fattest lady in the world, doesn’t look any fatter to me than Mrs. Finch who owns the Garden Theater. John-Jane, the Half Man–Half Woman, looks to me like an entire man who just let his hair grow longer on one side of his head than the other, and who stuffed one side of his shirt with wadded-up hand towels, the way Betsy and I do when we want to see how we will look when we get bosoms. (We stuff both sides of our shirts, of course.) And Pretzel Woman is not actually able to tie herself in knots, although the fact that she can put both her legs around the back of her neck is impr
essive.

  It is after ten o’clock when Mom looks at her watch and says, “I hate to say this, but we should think about heading home. It’s pretty late.”

  “Could we have one more ride on the Ferris wheel?” I ask.

  Mom and Dad look at each other. “Why not?” says Mom.

  So we take one more ride, watching the carnival fall away from us, then rise to meet us, over and over. When we finally alight, tired and happy and just a little dizzy, I see the girl again, the one who took our tickets at the sideshow.

  “I hope you enjoyed your ride,” she calls after us. “Come again!”

  When I turn around, she waves to me.

  I wave back.

  You never know when you’re going to find a new friend. It can happen when you’re least expecting it. Betsy and I became friends in kindergarten because Miss Kushel changed the seating arrangement in our room and Betsy and I wound up next to each other.

  Adam came crashing into my life without warning, and somehow understood about porches and feeling alien, and trusted me with his secret.

  But Leila may have been my most unexpected friend of all. She wasn’t already in my life — wasn’t in my kindergarten room, wasn’t an unknown relative. She was just a girl traveling with a carnival that happened to come to town.

  The night Mom and Dad and I go to the opening of Fred Carmel’s I come home exhausted but I can’t fall asleep. I lie in bed and think about Pig Lady and John-Jane and Pretzel Woman, and then I find myself remembering the girl with the dark brown eyes who took our tickets and hoped we enjoyed our ride and told us to come again.

  I am still thinking about her the next morning when I begin my walk into town. I don’t get any farther than the movie theater when I see the first of the Fred Carmel signs and in a flash I have turned around and am heading back through Millerton to the carnival grounds.

  The carnival in the daytime is lots of fun but not as magical as it is at night when it is all lit up and anything, anything at all, might happen. I walk through the midway, then by the food stands, jingling the change that is in my pocket, and feeling the sun strong on my shoulders.

  I can’t help it. After fifteen minutes I am standing at the entrance to the sideshow again, reading all those signs, looking at the faces of John-Jane and Pig-Lady.

  From nearby I hear a woman say, “Let’s go to the freak show now!” and she grabs the hand of a man and joins the line of people waiting to buy tickets. I peer into the ticket booth, and there’s the girl again. She is busily making change. I have enough money in my pocket for a ticket, but I decide not to buy one. I am thinking of Adam on the day I ushered him home in his pajama bottoms, and of the look on his face when Nancy called him a big freak. Instead, I buy a hot dog and go home.

  But the next day when it is time for my walk I head straight for Fred Carmel’s again. This time I avoid the sideshow. I have one dollar in my pocket and maybe I will win another prize. I am eighty cents through the dollar, and in the middle of a nerve-racking ringtoss game, when I see the girl. She ducks behind the counter and whispers something to the man who has been taking all my ringtoss money. He hands her a roll of dimes, and she thanks him. She is about to leave when she notices me tossing the rings. She waves shyly at me, and I wave back. Then she runs off.

  On Thursday I make a beeline for the carnival as soon as my chores are done. As I run by Nana and Papa’s house I consider stopping in and asking Adam to go to the carnival with me, but I have not been in charge of Adam all by myself, except for walking him home, and I’m not sure I’m ready for that. Besides, what if Nana says no to the idea and then Adam has a fit? I decide to wait.

  This time when I reach Fred Carmel’s I run around looking for the girl. I find her sitting in the ticket booth for the Ferris wheel. When she sees me she grins and calls, “Wait a minute, okay?”

  “Okay,” I call back, and I feel my heart quicken.

  Six people are in line. When the girl has sold each of them a ticket she has a conversation with the man running the Ferris wheel, then takes off the apron she has been wearing, tosses it in the ticket booth, and hurries to my side.

  “Hey,” she says.

  “Hi,” I reply.

  She nods back toward the Ferris wheel. “Do you want to ride?”

  I shake my head. “I hardly have any money left.”

  “I see you here every day.”

  “This is the first carnival that’s ever come to Millerton,” I say. “I mean, that I can remember.”

  We are standing there, the two of us. We are both dressed in shorts and shirts and sandals. It is an extraordinarily hot day, and I can feel sweat forming at my temples, running down my face beside my braids. The girl, whose mass of dark hair falls almost to her waist, is fanning herself with a Fred Carmel poster.

  “Do you work here?” I ask.

  “My whole family does.” She gestures over her shoulder. “My dad runs the Ferris wheel. My mom is with the sideshow.”

  “Really?” I say. What I am thinking is, Does she run it or is she in it? I don’t know whether to be interested or horrified. I do not really want to find out that, for instance, her mother is John-Jane. On the other hand, if her mother is John-Jane, I might learn what lies beneath the half-and-half hair and the half-and-half clothing.

  “Yeah,” says the girl. “She’s Pretzel Woman.” She does not seem the least bit embarrassed by this.

  I cannot think of anything to say except, “My name is Hattie. What’s yours?” And then I cringe because that sounds like something a talking doll might say.

  But the girl just smiles and replies, “Leila Cahn.” I guess when your mother is Pretzel Woman you can’t be too judgmental about people. Briefly, I wish Nancy’s mother were Pretzel Woman.

  “So … do you …” I feel engulfed by awkwardness, which is the way I feel every time I have to give a talk in class, every time I am faced with a room full of Nana and Papa’s company, every time I step into the ballroom of the Present Day Club for a party or a cotillion. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say. What happens to my words? “Do you, um … ?”

  Leila smiles at me again. “I know it’s weird,” she says.

  “What?”

  “To be a carnival kid.”

  “Why is it weird?” I know absolutely nothing about being a carnival kid.

  “Well, I mean, to begin with, my mom is Pretzel Woman.”

  I look at Leila, and we begin to laugh.

  “I guess you live around here,” says Leila.

  “Yes,” I reply. We are standing under a huge leafy tree, but even so, we are sweating and Leila is fanning herself.

  “Wait,” says Leila. “Stay right here.” She runs off. A few minutes later she returns with two large paper cups full of lemonade and ice. She hands me one.

  “Thanks!” I say. “How much is it?” I’m not sure how much change is left in my pocket.

  “It’s free,” Leila replies. “I got it from my uncle Fred.”

  “Uncle Fred? Fred Carmel?” I say. Leila nods. “Your uncle is Fred Carmel?” Leila nods again. “Wow.” I’m impressed. Also, I have found my words. “So, what’s it like to be a carnival kid?”

  Leila tells me the most fascinating things. She and her family spend their lives traveling. In summertime the carnival goes from town to town in the northern states. In wintertime the carnival goes from town to town in the south and west, wherever the weather is warm enough. At the height of winter they usually spend a couple of months in Florida. Leila is twelve years old. She has a nine-year-old brother named Lamar. Leila and Lamar go to correspondence school, which Leila has to explain to me.

  “We get our lessons in the mail,” she says. “My parents help us with our assignments, and then we mail them back. We can work anytime we want, even in the summer, if we feel like it, and so I’m already starting eighth-grade assignments, and Lamar, he’s starting fifth-grade.”

  “And you work here too? At the carnival?” I ask.
br />   “We don’t have to, but we like to. I think Lamar’s helping my aunt Jacky at the Balloon Bust today.”

  “Is Aunt Jacky your uncle Fred’s wife?”

  “No. Uncle Fred is Mom’s brother. Aunt Jacky is Dad’s sister.” Leila pauses. “This is a family business,” she adds.

  I have finished my lemonade and am swishing my straw around in the bits of ice that are left. “How long are you going to be in Millerton?” I ask.

  Leila shrugs. “I’m not sure. I think until the middle of July, or maybe a little later.”

  Oh. I am disappointed. I was hoping Leila would say she was going to be here for months and months. Even though that would not make any sense. I look at my watch. “Uh-oh. I’d better go. I want to get home in time for lunch.”

  Leila’s face falls.

  “What?” I say.

  “Nothing … well, it’s just … are you going to come back?”

  “Not today. But I can come tomorrow.”

  “Okay!”

  On the walk home I think about Leila. A carnival kid. Who goes to correspondence school. And who doesn’t seem to mind that I am shy. But then, Leila doesn’t have a chance to make many friends, I realize. Maybe she’s as surprised that I wanted to talk to her as I am that she wanted to talk to me.

  On Friday I head for the carnival first thing in the morning. I find Leila near the front entrance, and I have the feeling she’s waiting for me.

  “Come on,” she says, reaching for my hand. “Today I’m giving you the grand tour.”

  Well. Leila’s grand tour is like going backstage at a theater. She introduces me to all her aunts and uncles and cousins. Also to Lamar and her mother and father. She takes me behind the counters of the games in the midway and of the concession stands for the food from many nations. I cannot believe it when I shake the hand of Pretzel Woman. Or when Leila and I go on some of the rides for free. Or when I see the trailer the Cahns live in.