Circus in a Shot Glass

by Beth Overmyer

  Good thing, because her cakes will kill you.

  Julianna looked up at me, her face all wrinkled and red. “What is cursed?”

  “Nothing. You cry too much. You gotta toughen up if you’re going to survive pre-school. Can I have a fork?”

  The housekeeper grabbed one off the table and held it out toward me before jerking it away. “What do you say, Skip?”

  I sighed and said the magic words, “Hand it over, or I’ll tell Mom.”

  She dropped the fork on the table like it was a poisonous spider. “You know, it never hurt anyone to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’”

  “All right: Please, will you shut up?”

  Julianna gasped and pointed, her lips making a perfect O. “Skip said a bad word!”

  I rolled my eyes. She was way too sensitive. “It’s not a bad word. It’s just not nice. Besides, Mom and Dad never said not to use that word.”

  Julianna wagged her tiny four-year-old finger at me. “Nanny said not to.”

  “Is the nanny your mom?” I said. I regretted it almost as soon as I’d said it. Mom wasn’t around much these days. She’d gotten a part-time job at a law firm and was going to school at night. The housekeeper/nanny was kind of Julianna’s mom now.

  “Here, Julianna,” the housekeeper said, shooting me a dirty look before handing my sister a tiny kid’s fork and a spoon. “Would you like some ice cream?”

  “Yes, please.” She handed her plate over to the housekeeper and rested her chin on the table. “I don’t wanna go to pre-school.”

  I licked the frosting off my fork and sawed into the cake to get at the few parts that seemed semi-moist. “You don’t want to go to pre-school? Try grade school. That’s where the real work starts.”

  Mouth full of cake, my kid sister frowned. “Do you get reflex?”

  “You mean recess.”

  “Oh. Reflex.”

  I let the blunder drop. It was hard enough to understand her as it was. The housekeeper and I were fairly good at it, but Mama and Dad . . . well, them not so much.

  “Do you get re—a break?” she asked as the housekeeper handed over a plate with an extra-large scoop of chocolate ice cream.

  “Give me some of that, too.” I held out my plate, and the woman took it . . .and tossed it into the trash. “Hey!”

  “You may have some ice cream when you can learn to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’”

  She had gone too far with her manners. My hands formed into fists, and I could feel the blood rushing to my face. “I’m going to tell my dad you hit me, and he’ll fire you on the spot.”

  That’s the first time I’d noticed her eyes fill with panic. Oh, she’d talked about her husband walking out on her—I’d overheard her telling a friend on the phone. And she’d mentioned something about three kids in school. This job was what put food in their mouths. Did I care? Well, maybe a little . . . as much as I could care about anything outside of myself at the tender age of ten.

  “Fired? What does that mean?”

  I wasn’t done with my jabbing. “It means she won’t work here anymore. She’ll have to go.”

  Now Julianna cried full force. “Don’t go, Nanny!” My sister, she was ugly when she cried.

  The housekeeper rushed to my sister’s side and grabbed her in a half-hug. “There now, sweetie. I don’t think Skip meant what he said. He’s angry, and we all say things we don’t mean when we’re angry, don’t we?” She gave me a dark sideways look and did not hand me another slice.

  “Don’t go.” Big, fat tears ran down Julianna’s ruddy face and landed on her melting ice cream.

  I started at the brown mess and thought morosely, I would’ve eaten that.

  “Here, why don’t you open one of your presents?” the housekeeper asked. She let go of Julianna for a moment, pulled a bright orange bag out of the small pile and set it down in front of my sister. “This one’s from me.”

  Julianna sniffled for a few moments and shot me a pitiful look as if to ask, “Why did you have to go and ruin my birthday?”, and set aside her cake and ice cream. “Do I gotta wait for Mommy and Daddy?”

  I opened my mouth, but the housekeeper shook her head. All I was going to say was that Dad had to work late. Man, the way this woman was acting, you’d think she was afraid I’d tell the truth.

  “Why don’t you go ahead? You can show your mom and dad later.” She pulled out a clean cloth handkerchief and dabbed at my sister’s nose. “Go on, sweetie.”

  Julianna ripped out a wad of sunny yellow paper and pulled out—

  “What is it?” Julianna asked, bouncing in her seat.

  “It’s a fashion design book. See,” said the housekeeper, opening the thick purple book, “you punch out the clothes from the back pages, along with this paper doll. You can mix and match outfits, and you can even color a few things with the crayons they put in.”

  “Wow! Thanks, Nanny.”

  Bored, I went to the freezer and pulled out a carton of strawberry ice cream. The housekeeper had gotten me a book as well for my birthday. Something about a detective with a funny name. I’d tried reading it but couldn’t get interested.

  My sister clutched the book to her chest and seemed ready to shoot out of her chair. “Can I play now?”

  Our housekeeper was laughing. “Don’t you want the rest of your gift?”

  I turned and watched Julianna dig into the gift bag. “You don’t have to give us gifts, you know,” I said without thinking.

  She smiled at me, her eyes a-twinkle. “Oh, I know.”

  “What’s this?” Julianna asked, holding a fistful of stiff pink paper in the air.

  The housekeeper took a seat next to Julianna with a slight “Oomph.” “They’re tickets for a children’s play that’s touring in this area.” She must’ve thought Julianna hadn’t gotten the message, because she said, “You know, a play. People dressing up and pretending. Just like on your TV.”

  “You going to the play, too?” Julianna asked.

  “Yes I am, sugar pie.” She smoothed down my sister’s unruly hair and patted her on the head.

  I scrunched up my nose and dug into my ice cream. “Who’s the third ticket for?”

  “For you, of course.”

  At first I resisted the idea of sitting through a play. “Plays aren’t manly,” I told the housekeeper.

  She put one hand on her aproned hip and stared me down. “Skip, just because something doesn’t include blood, guts, or motor oil, doesn’t mean it isn’t manly. Men, a lot of straight men, mind you, enjoy theater. Gene Kelly, for example. Boy, that man could sing and dance.” Then she’d gone off singing something about rain while she finished mopping up the rest of the mess we kids had made in the kitchen.

  When I went to my dad for support, he didn’t care as long as I was out of his thinning hair and he didn’t have to pay for it. He was going over his latest bank statement, frowning and drumming his fingers on his big oak desk. But he wasn’t rid of me so easily.

  “Dad,” I’d said, “it’ll be boring and stupid and—oh, please don’t make me sit through that crap.”

  Dad grunted but didn’t look up from his work. “It’ll be fun.” He didn’t sound convincing.

  I groaned. “No, it won’t.”

  “Skip, if you don’t want to go—” He swore like the sailors I’d heard down by the pier and started rifling through the many papers piled in front of him. “Shoot. Where did I put the last statement? I know I balanced the checkbook not two weeks ago, but things are . . . Shoot!”

  “So I don’t have to go?” No answer. “Dad?”

  Dad stopped his rummaging and swore. “What? You’re still here? Go talk to your mother.”

  When Mom got home from work the next morning, I approached her with care. She smelled funny, like cigarette smoke. As far as I knew, she’d never lit up in her life. “Mom, do I have to go to the theater with Julianna and the housekeeper?”

  Mom flopped down at the dining room table, clutchin
g her head like her brain was going to leak out of her eyes. “Skip, could you please get me some coffee? Black. Just black, please.” She rested her head on the table and groaned. “I think I’m gonna hurl.”

  The housekeeper came in at that moment, saw Mom’s state, and hurried back into the kitchen. When she returned with a cup of steaming joe five minutes later, I was still trying to get my mom to talk to me.

  “Mom? Mom, do I have to go?” I poked her with my finger to see if that would at least get some reaction out of her other than a groan. “Come on.”

  “Skip, honey,” she said at last. “Mama’s tired. Ask me again later, all right.” She looked up at the housekeeper, her eyes bloodshot. “Please, can you take him to school?”

  “It’s summer,” I said, aghast. “School doesn’t start for another week!”

  The housekeeper, she took me by the shoulders and steered me toward the living room. “Come on, Skip; why don’t you let your mother get some rest?”

  Shoulders slumped, I sank onto the new leather couch. This could not be happening to me. Theater would run into my TV time and ruin my reputation and my social life. The nanny was the worst, and I knew I would never forgive her for making me sit through that boring, girly nonsense. “I don’t want to see a stupid play.”

  The woman sighed and plopped down next to me. “You don’t have it easy, do you, son?”

  I shrugged her hand away. “I’m not your son.”

  She chuckled. “No, you aren’t. But let me tell you something: I see potential in you, Skip; potential to do great things. You just need to get out more, experience life, try new things.”

  I shrugged again, but my curiosity was piqued. “Like what?”

  “Well, you could give the play a try, for starters. And if you hate it,” she said when I shot her glare, “I promise I’ll never make you sit through another production again.”

  “I’m not going to like it.”

  “Fine, but first you’ll try it, right?” She gave me a gentle nudge with her elbow. “Right?”

  I sighed, grabbed the remote, and switched on the TV. “All right, all right. But only if we can get burgers afterward.” I gave her a pointed stare. “Right?”

  “Deal.”

  So that is how I came to see my first ever real life, honest-to-goodness stage production. And I loved it. Every second. It wasn’t just about the words they said, or the costumes they wore—though, Julianna was stuck on those for as long as her attention span held out. A play is so much more. It’s feeling and pretending—escaping your real life and becoming something and someone else. Something bigger. Someone greater. Sure, there are villainous roles, but even those are important. In real life? Well, villains just are bad people who ruin things for good people. And the good guys in real life never get the girl, never get the good looks or the sweet job. It’s so . . . ordinary. It’s pointless. Theater, that has structure. That has purpose.

  But it wasn’t until the curtain call when all the actors came out one-by-one to take a bow that I began to get pumped. Everyone in the audience clapped and cheered, but when the leads came out for their bows, people jumped to their feet and whistled as well. That is when I knew I wanted to become an actor when I grew up.

  On the drive to the burger restaurant, I couldn’t stop myself from jabbering away. There was so much to learn, and since the housekeeper had bought the tickets, surely she’d know a thing or two about theater.

  “Is that the only job in theater, actors? I saw in the program something about directors. Do all plays have them? Ooh, I bet they do. But acting sounds the funnest. What does it—”

  “Slow down, Skip,” she said between chuckles. “You haven’t paused long enough for me to answer your questions.”

  Julianna yawned in her booster seat. “I’m hungry.”

  “We’re almost there, sugar pie.”

  I watched the road for a few minutes, trying to sort out my questions, trying to figure out what I wanted to ask first. “What does it take to be an actor?” was the one I settled on as we parked the car.

  She was quiet for a moment, and I thought maybe she hadn’t heard me, so I asked again. “Oh, I heard you, hon. Hmm. That question’s a tough one, Skip. A good one, though. Lemme think on it for a minute or so.”

  We got out of the car, and as she unbuckled Julianna, I began having all sorts of ideas. I imagined myself in the lead male role of not just the play we’d seen that day, but every other play under the stars. My name would be printed in dozens of programs, and I would get up in front of hundreds of people, who would become my fans. Maybe I’d even become a movie star.

  The housekeeper interrupted my thoughts with, “Well, I think acting takes a lot of hard work and dedication.” We walked into the restaurant and inched up toward the counter, all of us staring at the lit-up menu.

  “Would I have to go to college?” I hated school, and having to go to it again after I finished regular school sounded like a major bummer.

  “Hmm. Not necessarily. My uncle, he didn’t. Do you both know what you want to order to eat?”

  After we’d ordered and collected our food, we sat down in a tight booth—the housekeeper had to pull up a free chair, otherwise her over-large chest rested on the table—and I continued asking more questions. “Does your uncle make a lot of money?” I chomped into my cheeseburger, ketchup and mayo squishing out of the bun and onto my fingers.

  “My uncle? Julianna, sweetie, don’t suck on your fingers; you’ll push your teeth around.”

  I bounced in my seat with impatience. “Your uncle. The one who’s an actor.”

  She smiled and helped open Julianna’s barbeque sauce packet for her fries. “Money isn’t everything, Skip.”

  “Yeah, I know. But does he make a lot?”

  The woman shrugged. “He makes a living. Are you thinking of getting into theater?” She picked up a plastic fork and speared a French fry with it. One of the tines broke, and she had to throw the utensil out. “Shoot.” She was forced to eat the fries with her hands like normal people.

  I took a long swig of pop and avoided eye contact. I’d gone from thinking I’d hate the play to wanting to be in one and was a little embarrassed. But the nanny was my one source of information now, so I’d have to use it. Still, I approached things with stealth and nonchalance. “I don’t know if I want to be an actor. Maybe.” I went back to eating.

  “I want to be a princess ballerina,” Julianna said. Sauce was all over her face, and the housekeeper had to take a napkin and help her wipe it all off. “And I want to be an animal doctor, and a cowgirl, and a clown . . .”

  “You can’t be all those things,” I told her.

  Julianna frowned. “Says who?”

  “You can be whatever you want to be, kiddos. Just remember to write me when you make it big, okay, Skip?”

  I scarfed down the rest of my food. My course was set. I knew my destination. Now, to figure out how to get there . . .

  Chapter Five

  Scotch

  2014

  It is early morning when I pour Ringmaster a cup of Earl Grey tea straight from the microwave in the break/storage room. The air is heavy, laden with a dampness like it’s going to rain and rain hard, though there doesn’t seem to be a cloud in the sky. I rub the sleep from my eyes and stifle a yawn. “You don’t look like you slept a wink.” I don’t want to nag or upset him, but he’s in early; I haven’t even gotten to my first dusting yet.

  “Kid,” he says after taking a shaky sip from his chipped blue mug, “can you spot me some money?” Ringmaster doesn’t look up from his beverage, like he’s guilty of something more heinous than wearing a yellowing wife-beater and gray sweatpants that omit a noxious odor. “Money? Scotch, can you loan me some?”

  I blink, and my first thought is out of my mouth: “I don’t have any money. You never pay me.”

  He slams his mug down on the counter, spilling the hot liquid everywhere including his hand. Ringmaster screams obscenities at me as I
drag him toward the faucet and run cold water over the burn. He is all desperation, blubbering a mile a minute. “You have money. I know you have money. You gotta help me, Scotch. The shop, it’s going to close if I don’t pay up.”

  “I don’t have any money,” I say again my voice cracking. The Antique Boutique closing? Where will I go? What will I do?

  “If you could lend me a few thousand, I’ll get you all the alcohol you want. I am up to my ears in booze, kid; you’ll never be sober again. Just help me.” He is weeping big tears as he grabs my blouse by the front. “Please.” His breath reeks of cigarette smoke.

  What can I do? I don’t have a cent to my name—I don’t think. Or do I? No, that’s not possible. I’m starting to panic, and my head is throbbing so hard I rip free and hurl into the waste bin.

  My employer swears as I rinse my mouth out with the mouthwash I keep in back, spitting into our small work sink. “Are you remembering again?” Sympathy and desperation compete in his voice as he hands me a few crumpled paper towels and steps into the outer room. He never can handle it when I puke. He makes a face of disgust, if not concern. “You need to see a doctor.”

  “How can I when we don’t have any money?” I say in monotone.

  His face darkens to a raw hamburger-red, and he spits at me. “You ungrateful cow! You’re being selfish.” He stomps across my clean linoleum floor and slams the shop door behind him.

  When I finish cleaning up, I go into the shop, and the open/closed sign is still swaying. What makes him think I’ve got money? “I’m poorer than dirt,” I say to the door, grabbing the sign so it stops making that ridiculous wave. Then I flip it to open and unlock the door for the public.

  How are we supposed to make a living if I can’t sell anything? We need customers, but Ringmaster says we don’t want them. What am I missing?

  Grinding my teeth, I clean up the mess he made of the tea, which is a cool puddle on the floor. The whole time the ceramic fire-eaters stare at me, their eyes glowing. “The shop is closing,” I tell them. They cannot pity me, of course, and that is somewhat of a comfort. I cannot take pity right now.