Ronnie said she wouldn’t play in the talent show.
Her team needed her, she said. She was the shortstop.
Dad tried to persuade her. He said there’d be other games, that we needed to practice playing in front of an audience. The show could be our first big break.
He promised her new cleats and a new glove if she performed.
He threatened to take away her old ones if she didn’t.
Then he said we were going and that was that.
She told him he could make her go, but he couldn’t make her play.
And I guess he finally believed her, because we never did go to Kingsburg.
“Ronnie?” I waited until she was looking me in the eye. “I know how important the show is. I don’t want to let you down. Please. Give me five minutes.” I would go back. But I wanted Dad to know it was because I decided to, not because he said so and not because Ronnie and Junior had dragged me.
Ronnie’s arms hung at her sides. She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them. “Fine,” she said, so quietly I almost wasn’t sure I’d really heard it.
“But Dad said—”
“It’s fine,” Ronnie said again, interrupting Junior but looking at me. “You’ll come straight back to the arena?” She took off her watch and fastened it around my wrist. “Five minutes?”
“I promise. Five minutes,” I told her. “Cinco minutos.”
Flor
(6:45 P.M.)
Without thinking about where I was going, I wandered slowly back toward Rancho Maldonado. Ms. Alverson saw me and told the customer at her window, “Hang on a minute.”
She poked her head out. “Did you get her back in time? How come you didn’t stay to watch the show?”
I turned, and when she saw my face, she said, “Flor, you wait right there. Lexanne!”
As soon as Lexanne took over at the cash register, Ms. Alverson dashed out of the stand holding another cup of frozen lemonade. Her cure for everything. This one had a cherry on top. She must have known it was serious.
She put a hand on my cheek. It was cold and wet from the lemonade. “What happened? What’s wrong? Here. Have a sip.”
She held out the cup, but Papá had walked up behind me, and he was the one who took it from her.
“Thank you, Maggie,” he said, “for always looking out for Flor.” He put his arm around my shoulders. “Let’s go, mija. It’s time for dinner.”
We could have eaten dinner in the cafeteria tent like most of the other people who lived and worked at the carnival. Or I could have survived just fine on snacks from the Food Pavilion. But from the first day we arrived, Mamá insisted that we eat our dinners together as a family. “If this is our home, we’re going to treat it like one,” she had said.
Papá would close the zoo for an hour, and we would take turns cooking—outside on the camp stove, if the weather was good, and inside the RV if it was not.
Papá and I tried to stick with the routine after Mamá left, but it was hard. We would lose track of time and it would be too late to cook, and after the groceries Mamá left us ran out, we kept forgetting to go out shopping for more.
So I was not sure what Papá had in mind when he said it was time for dinner. All I’d found in the cupboards when I made us breakfast that morning was a half-empty bag of masa harina, a box of spaghetti noodles, a bottle of Tajín, a can of corn, a can of black beans, half a lemon, and two cantaloupes from the fair.
I had decided to dice one of the cantaloupes and sprinkle Tajín on top.
Papá could not have prepared much of a dinner with what was left. But I wasn’t hungry anyway.
We walked behind the petting zoo where the camp chairs were already set up on either side of an upturned crate that Papá had covered with one of our towels. “Siéntate.”
While I sat down, he went to the RV and came back carrying two plates. Lined up on each one were three small tacos topped with corn-and-black-bean salsa.
“Where did all this come from?”
“From the kitchen. Pues, the turkey came from the Drumstick Wagon—I pulled the meat off the bone—but we had everything else in the kitchen.”
“Not tortillas,” I said.
“Masa y agua.”
“But the salsa?”
“Corn and beans, plus some lemon and Tajín. I told you, we had all the ingredients.”
Even though I thought I wasn’t hungry, I took a bite. Mamá would have approved. No matter how good fair food tasted, it did not taste homemade.
Papá sat and folded one of his tacos in his hand. As he lifted it to his mouth, I asked, “Are we going to have to leave the carnival?”
“Pues…”
“Well, what? Why aren’t you trying harder? Why aren’t you trying at all?”
He put the taco down. “Maybe I’m not a very good businessman, and I’m sorry for that. But I am trying, mija. Your mamá is too.”
“She isn’t trying. She left. She gave up.”
Papá shook his head. “We are both trying to do the best with what we have, like always. Pero if keeping the zoo open means we can’t treat people, or the animals, fairly? If it means holding you back? Then it is time to leave. But wherever we go, we have what we need. We have more than you think.”
I understood what he meant about being kind. Rancho Maldonado wouldn’t be the same if Papá didn’t have a generous heart, as frustrating as it was sometimes. But I still thought everything we needed was here. At the carnival.
Miranda
(6:55 P.M.)
Dad and Mr. Barsetti were both outside leaning against the wall when an usher led me to the entrance of our dressing room at the main-stage theater. I still wasn’t in the mood to sing or to dance. Not even to smile. But I knew I had to keep my promise to Ronnie.
“I was beginning to think you had a case of stage fright, young lady,” Mr. Barsetti said.
Dad unfolded his arms and whipped off his hat. “And I told you Miranda never gets stage fright. I knew she’d be here. She’s main-stage material.”
Dad set his hands on my shoulders and leaned down until we were almost nose-to-nose. His eyebrows were storm clouds, and I braced myself for a torrent. But what fell was less than a drizzle. His hands slid off my shoulders. “Go inside. Get ready.”
The dressing room—at least the one the opening act was assigned—was not much bigger than the inside of Wicked Wanda. It had a green vinyl chair where you could sit and put on makeup, and a mirror with little white lights all around it. Two of the bulbs were burned out, though. It had its own bathroom and a garment rack just for our costumes. Mine was the only one still hanging, ironed smooth and freshly BeDazzled. I took the vest off the hanger. “You added some rhinestones.”
Mom had been sitting on a scarred leather sofa, sewing a new button onto Junior’s shirt. She dropped it when she heard me, hurdled over our boots, and wrapped her arms around my neck. “You’re here! You’re all right.” She kissed both of my cheeks, then stepped back to look at me. “Mija, you don’t have to go out there if you don’t want to. You don’t have to do this.”
The problem was, I didn’t know anymore what I wanted to do or didn’t want to do. I wriggled away from Mom. “I’m going to go wash my face.”
I bumped into Junior on the way to the bathroom. He rubbed his knuckles on my head. “Glad you made it, sis.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled. I stepped around him into the bathroom and turned on the faucet. It wasn’t until I looked at myself in the mirror and saw my hair, plastered to my forehead on top and snarled around my shoulders at the bottom, that I remembered Flor still had my hat.
“Figures.” The hat used to remind me of how far we’d come. But maybe I hadn’t made it very far after all, and maybe I wouldn’t make it any further, at least without my dad and his plan.
I cupped my hands and let them fill up with water. Then I splashed it all over my face.
Ronnie knocked.
“Come out, okay? We need to get you ready.”
Her m
akeup bag was unzipped on the countertop in front of the vanity mirror. She patted the green vinyl chair. “Sit down.”
“But Dad said—”
“Don’t worry about Dad. He wants people to be able to see you up there. Close your eyes.” While she dusted blue eye shadow across my lids, Mom picked up the comb and started detangling my hair, humming a song—“El Rey,” I thought—while she worked through the knots. Junior was on the couch with his guitar, warming up his fingers.
Dad came in just as Ronnie was dabbing peachy-pink gloss on my lips. When our eyes met in the mirror, I thought he’d tell me to go back to the bathroom and wash it all off again, but he just handed me a paper cup of tea.
I sniffed. No lemon.
Dad backed away and sat next to Junior on the couch. He cleared his throat. “Escuchen.”
Junior put down his guitar, and Ronnie snapped her makeup compact shut. Mom let go of a piece of my hair that she was about to wind around the barrel of a curling iron. We listened.
“Now,” he said. “It’s too late to rehearse all the songs.”
This was it. Now it was coming. The lecture, the warnings, the what-were-you-thinkings. Well, I didn’t need to hear it from Dad—I’d already been repeating it to myself, over and over, since I left the lemonade stand. If I had just listened to him earlier that afternoon, trusted that he knew what was best, we would have had all day to practice. Instead, I’d almost cost us the whole show, everything we had worked for. All because I trusted the wrong person. Myself.
But Dad surprised me again. He didn’t lecture or scold. He didn’t even raise his voice.
“It’s too late to rehearse,” he continued. “But that’s all right. You have been rehearsing for months. For years. And you’re ready.” He took the old notebook out of his pocket. The set list. He flipped it open. Flipped and flipped.
To a blank page.
“What should we start with?”
None of us said a word. It seemed like a trick. I bit my thumbnail.
“Well? The three of you have been out there every day. You know what the audience responds to. I want to hear what you have to say. I should have asked a long time ago.” He looked from Ronnie to me to Junior. All of us looked away.
Dad picked up Junior’s guitar and lifted the strap over his neck. He plucked the strings, quietly and lazily. “Verónica?”
She sat on the arm of my makeup chair and put her chin in her hand to think.
“Well, we’ve been playing ‘Mi Ranchito’ so long we hardly ever mess it up anymore. It’s slow and easy.” She plucked a cotton ball out of her makeup bag and tossed it at Junior when she said “slow.”
“I guess,” Junior said, flicking the cotton ball back at her. “I mean, if Verónica needs to start with something easy.”
“Miranda?” Dad asked. “What do you think?” They all looked at me.
Ronnie was right. We’d been playing that song for years. Except it might have been too slow. Too easy. We only had three songs, after all. The first one needed to pull everyone out of their seats and onto their feet. That’s what I thought. But I wasn’t sure I could trust my own thoughts anymore, not when so much was at stake.
“She’s right. We hardly ever mess up ‘Mi Ranchito,’” I agreed. “We could start with that one.”
Dad set the guitar on his lap to write “Mi Ranchito” on the first line of the notebook page. He looked up. “And Junior? The second song?”
Junior crossed one leg over the other and then back again. “What about ‘My Girl’? They always eat it up when Randy sings ‘My Girl.’ They all sing along.”
Mom started humming like she was trying to prove Junior’s point.
“See?” he said.
They’d sing along, I thought, but they’d never know who we were. It was a fun song, but it wasn’t our song.
“Any objections?” Dad asked. I opened my mouth to say something, but when I saw Ronnie nod her head, I closed my mouth and nodded my head too. If both of them thought it was a good idea, it probably was. What did I know?
Dad wrote it down and started playing again.
“Well, Miranda? Have you thought about the big finale?” He didn’t look up from the guitar strings.
I didn’t even have to think about it. “‘El Rey,’” I said. “Like always.”
Flor
(7:15 P.M.)
After dinner, I went out walking on the midway, then sat down to think behind the candy apple stand. Its green and white lights splashed bursts of color on the grass. I still had Randy’s ball cap. It was sitting on one of my knees, almost like it was staring at me.
Accusing me.
I kicked it off. “She still had time to get back there if she wanted to, you know.”
Probably. If she didn’t get lost on the way. Or stuck in a crowd.
I didn’t know why I cared. Or why I was defending myself to a hat.
I had done everything I could to save the zoo, and then everything I could to save the show.
The thing of it was, I did know why I cared. I cared because now the zoo and the show were in trouble, and I was out of ideas for saving anything.
It was darker. The sun was almost gone, just a warm orange glow like the wild poppies we sped past on the highway.
There was a sign taped to the booth where they had been selling cantaloupe milk shakes all day: SOLD OUT. In a few more hours, after the big main-stage show, the booths would close. The last of our customers would wobble to the exits with sunburned noses and blisters on their toes from walking around all day. The lights would blink out. When morning came, we would pack up all the rides, all the food stands, all the prizes, and all the fun and make our way to the next stop: San Joaquin County. Sixth grade.
“There you are.” Mikey was still carrying around the pink gorilla. Only, he was holding it behind him now like he was giving it a piggyback ride. “Your dad’s looking for you.”
“I found him.”
“So you know about the pig?”
“She’s gone.”
He dropped the gorilla and sat down next to me.
“Too bad you never got to try out that skateboard act. I was thinking, if Barsetti bought some big stuffed-animal pigs for prizes, I could carry around one of those and send people to the games and your show.” He blew out through his lips. “But, Flor?” He hesitated. “Betabel was a mean pig.”
I elbowed him. Softly, though. “She isn’t mean. She just… was not where she belonged. She’s going to a pig farm.”
“Do you think she’ll like it there?”
“Hope so.”
“Maybe she’ll make pig friends. If she isn’t mean to them too.”
I elbowed him again. Not as softly as the first time. “Don’t you have somewhere to be? Aren’t you supposed to be helping your brother?”
He ripped a clump of clover out of the ground and threw it. Little bits of dirt sprayed out behind so it looked like a tiny green comet.
“Nah. Some lady’s about to break a record over at the Hoop Shoot. I can’t get anyone to leave. Johnny’s booth’ll win next week, though. I can feel it.” He patted the gorilla’s head. “How’d your little plan work out? Where’s Randy? Did you get her to eat the deep-fried pickles?”
Just about any way you looked at it—from upside down on the corkscrew coaster, or head-on in the bumper cars—my plan had not worked out very well. “She ate the pickles and she loved them. She’s over at the main stage now. Or she should be.”
“Without her lucky hat?” He pointed at the ball cap, still lying on the grass. “Ah.” He nodded knowingly. “Did you steal it? Was that your plan? Sabotage?”
“I did not steal her hat.”
I picked it up again. It was red with OUTLAWS embroidered on the front in swoopy white letters. The very front edge of the brim was worn thin from her pulling it down so much. Black plastic peeked through red threads.
It did not look very lucky, is what I’m saying.
But Randy hadn’t sai
d it was lucky. She’d said it reminded her of home and of how far she had come.
I had never played on a team before. Not baseball, not soccer, not anything. I used to think I would never belong.
But I belonged at Barsetti & Son, and that was sort of like a team. And teammates rooted for one another, looked out for one another.
I twirled the cap on my finger. Maybe I had come a long way too. Even if I had to leave the carnival, I would know I had friends here. I had more than I thought.
“Mikey, I need to borrow the gorilla.”
Miranda
(7:35 P.M.—SHOWTIME)
I tapped out the beat with the toe of my boot.
Then with my hand against the side of my leg. Bom, bom, bom, bom. Junior’s bass line was slow and easy.
I opened my eyes and sang.
There was a ripple of applause, like rain spattering on the windshield, as the audience recognized the song.
Their clapping should’ve been louder, though. I tried not to worry.
I pulled the microphone from its stand. I marched to one side of the stage, then over to the other. It wasn’t the kind of song you tossed your hat to, really. Instead, when the notes were loud and lonesome, I touched the brim, bent my head back, and sang to the sky.
Another spatter of applause.
I looked over my shoulder at Ronnie. She mouthed slowly: Keep going.
I felt like the little girl at the livestock auction, waiting for someone to stand up, to raise their hand for me.
The grandstand wasn’t full yet. Up there, people were still climbing to their seats, not paying us any attention at all.
I tried to ignore them because the crowd standing just below us was bigger than any we’d ever played for at the Family Side Stage.
Any we’d ever played for anywhere.
But they were not dancing.
Flor
(7:40 P.M.)
I’m sorry, baby. You know I’d let you in any other night, but Barsetti is in there, and if he sees I let you in without a wristband…” She looked at the line backed up behind me and smiled nervously.
Flor and Miranda Steal the Show Page 12
