“But you knew the sword-swallower, and the magician, and the fire guy.”
“Yeah, I did,” she said, chuckling softly. “I sure did.”
“Hey, kid, did your mama put a bowl on your head to cut your hair or did you cut it yourself?”
Jason swung around and saw Tojo the Clown sitting in his dunking booth, targeting him. “Is he talking to me, Mom?”
“I’m afraid so,” she said. “His gaff is to insult people until they get so mad they want to pay money to dunk him.”
“Can I?”
“Hey, kid, you can’t dunk me. You’d have to let go of Mommy’s hand first.”
Jason dropped her hand as if it had burned him. “I bet I can.”
Carny recognized the agent taking the money and passing out baseballs to be thrown at the plate that would dunk Tojo. “Jello? Is that you?”
The old man chuckled. “Carny?” Laughing, he stretched his arms wide, and she hugged him. “Your folks said you’d be coming today. How are you, kid?”
“Great. Jello, this is my son, Jason.”
“So are you gonna stand there scratching yourself, kid, or are you gonna make a fool out of yourself with that baseball?” the clown shouted.
Jason eyed the dunking booth. “Mom, I’ve gotta dunk him.”
Carny laughed. “You sure do. Look out, Tojo,” she shouted to the clown. “He’s pretty good.”
“Is that you, Carny?” the clown shouted back. “What swamp did they drag you out of?”
Undaunted by the standard insults she’d heard all her life, she paid Jello for the privilege of drowning the clown, got her three balls, and gave them to Jason. Knowing they were weighted and rarely hit the plate, she said, “Aim high, Jase. These aren’t regular balls.”
Jason threw the ball with all his might and missed.
“You haven’t lost your spark, have you, Carny? Letting your kid take your shots for you?”
“Try again, Jason,” she said. “Aim higher this time.”
“Hey, Carny, we could use you back in the carnival. They need another dancing girl.”
Jason shot and missed again. “You do this one, Mom. Please, we’ve gotta dunk him.”
“Carny, you still haven’t caught a husband you can keep?”
She set her chin. “Better hold your breath, Tojo.” Taking the ball, she mentally eyed the plate and tried to concentrate.
“You’re gonna need a dozen more to get me down, Carny.”
“Just one will be fine, Tojo!” she shouted.
With one rip of her arm, she threw the ball, hit the plate, and sent the clown into the water beneath him. Jason jumped up and down, whooping. “You did it, Mom! You did it!”
“Somebody had to.” Dusting off her hands, she took Jason’s hand again and pulled him away. “See you later, Jello.”
“Later, Carny,” the old man said, chuckling.
“You can’t do it twice,” Tojo sputtered, climbing back onto his swing. “I’ll bet you can’t come back here and do it again.”
“I can be conned,” Carny said under her breath, “but it takes a lot more than some wet clown shouting insults at me.”
Jason looked up at her, confused.
She sighed. It took someone as slick as Logan Brisco, someone who deserved an Oscar for his work, someone who didn’t stop until he’d conned everybody in his way. Someone a world smarter than Tojo the Clown, though he didn’t have any more scruples.
They came closer to the booth where her father was substituting, and she heard his laughter over the crowd. The sound made her chest tighten. It wasn’t his usual laugh — it was his con laugh. The one that drew people in, set them up to be taken.
“There’s your grandfather,” she said.
Jason tugged her hand. “Let’s go talk to him!”
“Not yet,” she said, holding back. “Wait until that customer leaves.”
They watched while the young man laid down more of his money for a few more rings to toss, missed, and then looked longingly at the stuffed animal he’d been trying to win for his date. “I’m out of money,” he said. “You wouldn’t take a check, would you?”
Her father seemed to consider that for a moment. “Well, we don’t normally, but … well, okay. In this case …”
Anxiously, the man wrote his check, tore it out, then handed it to Carny’s father. “Twenty-five dollars’ worth, huh? You’re pretty serious about this, aren’t you?”
He gave the mark enough rings to win every animal hanging from the ceiling — if only the game wasn’t rigged. He tossed all of them, but hit only one on a winning peg.
The young man’s date looked crestfallen, and the athletic boy seemed humiliated as they started to walk away. “Look,” Carny’s father said, holding up a hand to stop them. “Everybody has a bad day now and then.” Taking down a stuffed dog, he tossed it into the man’s hands. “And as for the check — don’t worry about it.” He tore it up and let the pieces fall to the floor at his feet.
“Thanks, sir,” the young man said. “I appreciate it.”
“Yeah, well, you were probably going to stop payment on it tomorrow, anyway, weren’t you?”
With a laugh that said he’d been caught, the man shrugged, handed the dog to his girlfriend, and strolled awsay.
As Carny and Jason stepped up to the booth, she saw her father pull the real check out of his sleeve and chuckle as he put it in the cash box. The one he’d torn up had been fake.
“Hi, Pop,” she said.
He looked up. “Carny! I thought you were probably here by now!” He ran out the door of the booth and embraced her. “Have you grown taller?”
“No, Pop, I don’t think so.”
“Well, you sure haven’t put on any weight. Where’s the boy?”
“Right here,” she said.
“No!” Her father looked down at Jason and shook his head. “That can’t be him. This boy’s at least ten years old. My grandson couldn’t be more than four.”
Jason frowned, unsure whether to be flattered or insulted. “I’m eight. My birthday was yesterday.”
“Eight! That can’t be.”
Carny tried not to laugh. “It is, Pop.”
“Well, I think maybe we’d better take him over to the age booth and let Morris see if he can guess his age. He’s bound to win something. He’s big enough to play linebacker for Notre Dame!”
Slowly, Jason began to smile. “I am?”
“Well, practically. Within another year or two, you’ll be a number-one draft choice.” Taking Jason’s hand, he said, “Come with me. I’ll show you. If Morris guesses your age, I’ll swallow that sword of Scratch’s.”
Smiling reluctantly, Carny followed them and watched Jason win another stuffed animal for fooling Morris about his age.
Carny tried not to leave Jason’s side that day, not because she wanted to ride everything in sight, but because she didn’t want to give her parents the opportunity to be alone with him. By the time night had fallen and they’d ridden the roller coaster, Jason was feeling a little woozy, and his feet dragged as he walked.
“Where are we gonna sleep tonight, Mom?”
“With Grandma and Grandpa. It’ll be a tight fit, but —”
“In the trailer? That’ll be cool.” But his voice didn’t have its usual fervor. No wonder — he was exhausted, and Carny had to admit that she was as well.
Still, the thoughts that had rustled beneath the surface all day kept flitting through her mind. She hadn’t come here to ride the rides and rekindle old memories. She had come home to nurse her wounds. To wrestle with the fact that she, who’d thought she was immune, had been conned.
It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been warned. Logan had laid his bet at the very beginning. Winner take all. And he had won.
Jason was asleep within five minutes of lying down, and Carny found herself sitting at the table that had served as her dining table, her desk, her dollhouse, her ironing board, and a million other things as she was gro
wing up. Her father sipped a beer he’d gotten before the carnival had closed down, while her mother nursed the customary hot toddy she had every night before bed.
“So tell us how plans for the park are shaping up,” her father said, not bothering to keep his voice low for Jason’s sake.
“I told you, Pop. It’s not going to happen.”
“But you didn’t say why.”
She leaned back in her chair and wished she had never brought up the subject of Logan with her parents. It had never been easy for her to discuss feelings with them. Her father was a stick-to-the-facts kind of guy. His main interest was the bottom line. And the bottom line usually had to do with how much money it could make him.
“He was a grifter, Pop. It was all a scam.”
“Hmm.” Her father tossed back the last of his beer and set the glass in the same wet ring he’d taken it from. “Too bad. It was a terrific idea. So where’d he go?”
“If I knew that, I’d go get everybody’s money back.”
“Do you think he’s trying it in another town?” her mother asked.
A sick feeling came over her. “I hope not. But I guess he probably is. Unless he’s just lying low for a while, waiting until everything blows over. He’s smart. He probably left the country. He made enough to live on for a while.”
“He must be good. I wish you’d introduced him to us.”
Something about her father’s attitude brought back all her old bitterness about their lifestyle. “Why, Pop? So you could get in on the action? Trust me. He would have conned you too.”
“I doubt it,” Dooley said, chuckling. “You can’t con a man who doesn’t want to be conned.”
Carny leaned forward on the table, facing off with her father. “That’s a lie and you know it.”
“Carny!” Lila admonished. “Don’t call your daddy a liar!”
Carny chuckled, but there was no mirth in the sound. “All these years, you tried to tell me you weren’t doing anything to people that they didn’t want done. But it isn’t true. You both rip people off all day every day, and you have no qualms about it. It’s not true that your victims want to be conned. They don’t deserve it, Mama! People shouldn’t be punished for trusting!”
Her parents just stared at her. Finally, her mother said, “What’s going on with you, child? You didn’t come here just for a visit, did you?”
She sighed, and wished she could unload all her heartache on them. But they’d never cared about them before. “I just needed to retrace my steps.”
Her mother took her hand, a rare, affectionate gesture that took Carny by surprise. “Honey, this isn’t your home anymore. You’ve grown so far away from it, you don’t even recognize it now. And it seems to me you have nothing but contempt for it.”
Carny sniffed and wiped her eyes. “It’s funny. No matter how far you go, you’ve still got one foot tangled up in your roots, like it or not. And that’s the foot that’ll always trip you up.”
“Did you give him money, Carny?” her father asked. “Is that why this Logan character bothers you so?”
She breathed a laugh and wiped her eyes. “No, Pop. I didn’t give him money. I did know better than that.”
But she couldn’t tell her father that what she’d given him was more personal than money.
“Then it shouldn’t matter what he took from everybody else. They probably deserved it.”
For a moment, she stared at her father, the man to whom she’d been so loyal all her life. “Pop, I’ve defended you for years and told myself that you did have a conscience. That you weren’t just out for yourself. I’ve even fooled myself into believing you did it for me. To feed your family. To survive. And I let myself think that about Logan Brisco too. But you know what, Pop? We can con ourselves better than anybody. All the alibis and excuses and justifications … they’re nothing but scams we turn on ourselves.”
“You don’t believe that, Carny.” Her father got up and went to the small refrigerator.
“Yes, I do, Pop. The truth is that nobody deserves to have their pride trampled, or their trust destroyed, or their innocence mocked. Nobody deserves to wake up one day and find out that they’ve been nothing but a sick pawn in a greedy power game!”
“I’m not buying that he didn’t con you too,” Dooley said. “He stung you somehow, so you came home to take it out on us.”
Lila touched his arm to calm him. “It’s all right. That’s what parents are for.”
Carny wanted to laugh, but it wasn’t funny. Instead, the tears fell faster. “I didn’t come home to take anything out on you. I came because I needed a time-out. But I’m so tired of all the lies, Pop. Aren’t you tired of them?”
“I told you we’re trying to retire, Carny. We’re doing the best we can. We always have.”
But that was just another lie.
Wearily, she got up and covered Jason on the little sofa bed she had slept on as a child. Wiping her face, she said, “I’m gonna go say good night to Ruth. I’ll be back in a little while.”
“We’ll have your pallet ready,” her mother said quietly, sounding relieved that this uncomfortable conversation was over. Lila had never liked for Carny to make a scene, unless it had been rehearsed.
Outside the trailer, Carny reached into her purse for her phone. She had turned it off in the plane today, as she always did, and after landing she’d decided not to turn it back on. Dreading what she would find, she pushed the power button. Eight messages came up. Three from her in-laws and Joey … and one from Logan.
She stopped between trailers and listened to her voice mail.
The first was from J.R. “Carny, what’s with the decision to take off without sayin’ goodbye? Call us when you can and let us know when you’ll be back.”
She heard the beep, and Joey’s voice came up. “Carny, you didn’t send the picture. I still need it. If Logan hasn’t broken a law yet, I can’t just go after him. But if I can get the picture to the FBI, they might have something on him. Call me.”
She sighed. She’d run off without thinking about that stupid picture. But now it would have to wait — it was on her camera at home.
Finally came Logan’s voice. “Hey, Carny. Listen, I know I said I’d be in church today, but I got a call this morning and I had to go to Dallas. Call me and I’ll tell you about it. I was thinking that maybe spilling my guts isn’t the right approach just yet.”
She couldn’t stand it. Fighting the urge to throw her phone, she deleted the rest of the message and turned the phone off. So he was still at it, wheeling and dealing, with no mention of his supposed change of heart and his newfound commitment to God. Had he forgotten, or was it even true? Had he only told her what she wanted to hear?
His profession of love was a lie too, just another game.
Fuming, Carny trekked across the fairgrounds to where Ruth’s motor home was parked. The lights were still on; Ruth was probably on her computer.
She knocked softly, and heard Ruth say, “Come in.”
As she stepped through the double doors, specially designed for Ruth’s massive frame, Carny felt a truer sense of home. But the trailer didn’t look quite the same. Ruth had upgraded with the latest computer equipment. Several recent-model computers were lined up on a long built-in desk against the wall — the same desk where Carny had gotten her education, where she’d spent so many hours as a child, where she’d found someone to confide in, where she’d felt most accepted and welcomed. She wondered if that little girl she’d seen sitting on the steps of the Duck Shoot was one of Ruth’s students now. She hoped so. The child probably needed someone like Ruth in her life.
“Hey, baby,” Ruth said from the love seat that her huge body filled. “I was hoping you’d stop by. Are you ready to tell me what’s bothering you now?”
Carny smiled and wiped the fresh tears under her eyes. “What makes you think anything’s bothering me?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Those tears mean something. Besides, you wouldn’t have
brought your baby here if you hadn’t really needed to come home.”
Carny dropped opposite her onto Ruth’s couch and pulled her knees up.
“Your heart is broken, girl,” Ruth said. “I can see it. Don’t forget, I’m the one whose lap you used to sit on, when you were shorter than a yardstick, crying and not knowing why. But I always knew.”
“You did, didn’t you, Ruth?”
Ruth chuckled, the sweet sound warming Carny’s heart. “Don’t blame your folks, child. They do the best they can.”
“So they say,” she whispered. “But the truth is, they should have never had a child.”
“Probably not. But I’m awful glad they did.”
Getting up, Carny went to sit on the arm of the love seat and hugged the woman who seemed to grow bigger each year. “I always wished you were my mother,” she said.
Ruth laughed. “Imagine me as a mother. Wouldn’t that be a hoot?”
“No,” Carny said seriously. “Not at all. You were probably the only one I really missed when I left the carnival.”
“And I missed you like crazy too,” Ruth said, “but I was awfully glad for you. I had big hopes for your happiness. You haven’t let me down, have you?”
“No,” she said. “I’ve been happy. Really happy. It’s just lately …”
“You fell in love with him, didn’t you, baby?”
Carny’s shoulders slumped. Wearily, she went back to the couch. Resting her elbows on her thighs, she stared at the floor. “Yes, I did. It’s got to be one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done. Besides marrying Abe.”
“I didn’t blame you for marrying Abe,” Ruth told her. “He was your escape. You were nothing but a child then, but you’re grown now. To fall in love with a flimflam man, when you’d found such happiness there with decent folk … I don’t know, Carny. It doesn’t sound like you.”
“Of course it doesn’t,” Carny said. “Ruth, I’ve thought and thought about this. Did I fall in love with him because he’s so much like Pop? Would my subconscious deliberately seek out someone who led the very lifestyle I hated?”
Shadow in Serenity Page 24
