Piece of My Heart

by Layce Gardner

  Mickey grabbed Cindy and whispered in her ear. She mimed pitching the dime with a low arc. Finally, Cindy nodded and planted her feet. She squinted one eye and lined up her first throw. She tossed. The dime spun through the air and clinked into an ashtray.

  “Well, I’ll be! We’ve got ourselves a winner,” the carnie said. He handed Cindy the ashtray.

  “I don’t know what I’ll do with it, but I won it!” Cindy said, jumping up and down.

  “Ashtrays make a great murder weapons,” Mickey said. “Now you’ve still got nine more dimes, so let’s get on it.” Mickey whispered further instructions into Cindy’s ear.

  Jenna watched amazed as Cindy won a candy dish, a wine goblet, another ashtray, a small glass bowl, and a big glass whale.

  Cindy was baffled as to what to do with the glass whale.

  “Put one of those air ferns in its blow hole,” Mickey said. She handed the orca to Jenna, who already had her arms full with the other glassware, not to mention all the stuffed animals Mickey had won.

  “You have to stop winning. I can’t hold anymore,” Jenna said. “What are we going to do with all this?”

  “We’re going to rent a kid,” Mickey said. She whistled at a dirty, raggedy child who was walking by. The kid came over and looked up at her. “Yeah?”

  Jenna had thought the urchin was a boy, but as it turned out she was a young girl of ten or eleven.

  “Wanna make twenty bucks?” Mickey asked. She pulled out her wallet and extracted the twenty-dollar bill, waving it in the kid’s face.

  “Sure,” the kid said. Her eyes never left the twenty.

  “What’s your name?” Mickey asked.

  “They call me Half Pint. H.P. for short.”

  “You work here?”

  “How can you tell?” H.P. said.

  “You got the look.”

  “How about you tell me what I gotta do to get that the cash?”

  Evidently carnie urchins were on a schedule. Mickey nodded at Jenna’s full arms. “I need a wagon to haul this stuff, and then I want you to pull it. Think you can do that?”

  “Sure, I can do that. They rent wagons up front to haul the kids around,” H.P. said.

  “Good. We’ll wait here. Hurry,” Mickey said. H.P. scurried off. Mickey looked over at Jenna. “Problem solved.”

  H.P. returned in record time, almost wiping out a lady in a stroller. She quickly loaded up the stuff into wagon and held out her hand to Mickey.

  “No money until you’re done hauling,” Mickey said.

  H.P. squinted her eyes at Mickey.

  “I won’t cheat you,” Mickey said. “Now, let’s hit the cranes and get some jewelry.” She pointed at the big tent that housed the cranes.

  They stepped inside the big tent. There were dozens of plexiglass boxes as tall as Mickey. Piles of cheap jewelry were in the bottom of the boxes. There was a claw-like arm that the player controlled with a toggle stick. The player was supposed to move the claw arm around, use it to pick up a bracelet, necklace, whatever, and put the trinket in a little box in the corner. If they did that, the jewelry was theirs. The challenge was in keeping hold of the trinket long enough to get it in the little box.

  There were groans all around as people lost.

  “These things are definitely rigged,” Jenna said. She threw the empty cotton candy stick into a nearby trash barrel and that was when she saw Brooklyn Danger. She was drinking a lemonade and looking around. She seemed to be trying to find someone.

  Brooklyn’s gaze passed over Jenna, stopped, and did a double take. She broke into a huge grin and waved.

  Jenna panicked. She waved back weakly. She hoped Brooklyn wasn’t going to come over. She didn’t want to make a fool of herself drooling over Brooklyn. She tried to melt into the crowd, but that was hard to do when you’re standing with a kid and a wagon full of loot.

  Brooklyn strode over. “Hi Jenna. Fancy meeting you here.”

  Jenna avoided Brooklyn’s direct gaze. “Um, yeah. We’re doing an outing with my dating crew. It’s work. I’m working.”

  “Dating crew?”

  Mickey came over and sized Brooklyn up and down. She seemed to approve. She picked up the conversation that Jenna had started but seemed unable to finish.

  “Jenna here runs…a…what should we call it?” Mickey asked. Now, she was stuck.

  “She teaches seminars on how to better yourself and find a girlfriend,” Cindy piped up.

  “Yeah, like that,” Mickey said.

  “Well, it’s a little more complicated than that,” Jenna said. “I make my clients the best that they can be.”

  “Like the army,” Brooklyn said.

  “No. Nothing like the army,” Jenna said.

  Cindy spoke again. “She helps us find ourselves and then find dates.”

  Jenna nodded. “Yeah. Like that.”

  “Oh, so is the carnival a prime dating spot?” Brooklyn asked.

  “Well, it’s a practice thing,” Jenna said. “And you never know who you’ll find here.”

  “Very true,” Brooklyn said, staring intently at Jenna. “I found you.”

  There was a long, silent moment as Jenna made the mistake of looking directly into Brooklyn’s eyes. She got lost. Words left her head. All that was left was need—an insatiable need—to kiss Brooklyn’s lips.

  “Hey, are you gonna get going soon?” H.P. said, breaking the spell. She was holding the wagon’s handle, and looking bored.

  “Just keep your pants on,” Mickey said. “Jenna is busy falling in love.”

  Brooklyn didn’t blush. “Is she your kid?” Brooklyn asked.

  “No. I’ve never seen her before in my life.”

  “She’s a rent-a-kid. We need someone to haul all our booty,” Mickey said, doing a Price is Right hand gesture to indicate the merchandise.

  “Whoa, that’s a lot of stuff,” Brooklyn said.

  “Sure is. And we ain’t done. Come on. The midway closes at midnight,” Mickey said.

  “We’re staying until midnight?” Cindy asked.

  “Hell, yeah. We paid to get in here and we wanna get our money’s worth,” Mickey said. She stuck out her hand to Brooklyn. “I’m Mickey, by the way. This here is Cindy. She’s really good with balls.” She chuckled. “The juggling kind.”

  “Do you work here?” Brooklyn asked Cindy.

  “No,” she replied. Cindy suddenly turned shy and stared at the toes of her shoes.

  “But she could if she wanted to. Naomi said you were real good at juggling the silverware when you all went for that dinner date,” Mickey said.

  Cindy blushed even redder. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  A woman hollered over at Brooklyn. She was holding two orders of cheese curds and had mustard smeared on her cheek.

  “I better go, my sister has ADD,” Brooklyn said. “You all are coming to the seminar on how to install new parts into a toilet, right?”

  “Hell, yeah,” Mickey said. “I already know how, but seeing a bunch of women leaning over a toilet tank is prime ass-watching.”

  “There is that,” Brooklyn said with a chuckle.

  “But I don’t think Agnes is going to let me,” Mickey said.

  “Is Agnes your girlfriend?” Brooklyn asked.

  “No, she’s our host personality. She’s the one with the Social Security card and the bank account so she gets to be in charge. Naomi and me show up when we can—as the situation dictates, shall we say.”

  Brooklyn looked confused, but wisely didn’t say anything.

  “Are we going or what?” H. P. asked. “Or you all going to chitchat the night away?”

  “Shut your piehole, kid,” Mickey said. “Adults are talking here, okay?”

  Jenna added, “Well, we better get going. It was nice running into you again, Brooklyn.”

  “See you next Saturday,” Brooklyn said.

  Jenna watched her walk away. More precisely, Jenna watched Brooklyn’s butt walk away. Brooklyn looked back o
ver her shoulder and grinned. Omigod, Jenna had been caught staring at her butt. She blushed and turned back to Mickey.

  “Looks like your dating thing is working,” Mickey said. “That woman has it bad for you.”

  “I’m more concerned with finding you all dates,” Jenna said in the most professional voice she could muster.

  Still, she looked forward to Saturday if only to see Brooklyn bend over a toilet. She mentally chastised herself. There was a lot more to a woman than her T and A. However, right now she couldn’t think of what that was.

  “Let’s go find Liz-Melody and Dale,” Jenna said.

  “Yeah, my corns are killing me,” H.P. said.

  “You don’t have corns,” Mickey said. “I call bullshit.”

  “Look, I’m just bored standing here.”

  “All right already. Maybe we can stop by the Guess Your Weight booth,” Mickey said. “Those guys always underbid. I’m solid and they don’t take that into account.”

  Mickey was solid. Jenna wondered which personality went to the gym.

  They wandered down the Midway but couldn’t find Alice-Liz-Melody anywhere. H.P. made a suggestion. “So what kind of stuff does this Alice like to do?”

  “Gamble,” Jenna said.

  “I know where that’s happening. Follow me,” H.P. said.

  “All right, lead on,” Mickey said.

  They weaved into first one row of tents and then another until they came to a larger tent full of cafeteria-style tables and a stove and fridge. It must be the place where the carnies ate, Jenna reasoned. As her eyes adjusted to the light she saw Alice-Liz-Melody playing poker with five hard-looking men at one of the tables. One man had a nasty scar running the length of his face.

  Alice-Liz-Melody had a pile of money sitting in front of her and none of the carnies looked too happy about it.

  Dale was standing behind Alice-Liz-Melody and was watching the game so intently she didn’t see them come in.

  Mickey sauntered over to the table. “Well, hot damn, look at you,” she said.

  “I’m just having a run of luck,” Alice-Liz-Melody said. “After all, Alice won a bordello.” She gestured to the pile of coins and bills on the table in front of her. “This is chump change.”

  “I’ll sell you the teacup ride for what you’ve got sitting there,” Scarface said.

  “Really?” Alice-Liz-Melody’s eyes lit up.

  Dale smiled apologetically at Jenna. “I tried to keep her away but she insisted. It’s been an interesting evening.”

  “I think maybe we better call it quits,” Jenna said.

  “One more hand,” Alice-Liz-Melody said.

  “Yeah, let’s go big this time,” Scarface said.

  “Do you have any money left?” Alice-Liz-Melody asked.

  “No, but I’m putting the teacup ride up as collateral.”

  “Works for me,” Alice-Liz-Melody said.

  “What exactly are you going to do with a carnival ride if you win?” Jenna asked.

  “Sell it,” Alice-Liz-Melody said. “Unless I fall in love with a bounty hunter and decide to keep it.”

  Cindy looked anxious. She was bouncing from foot to foot. H. P. slunk around the table looking at everyone’s cards until a large man with hands the size of rump roasts tried to cuff her. H.P. easily slipped out of his reach.

  Jenna sat down at an empty table. Dale sat beside her. “Did you have cotton candy?”

  “Why?”

  “Because you still have some on your chin.”

  Jenna rubbed at her chin. “Oh, this is awful.”

  “It’s not a big deal.”

  “It is too. Brooklyn, the woman from Home Depot, is here. She came over and talked to me. And the whole time I had cotton candy on my chin.” She tried to spit-clean her chin.

  “Maybe she didn’t notice.”

  “You noticed it in a dimly lit tent. I’m sure under the bright midway lights, Brooklyn could see it just fine.”

  “Well…it could’ve been worse,” Dale said.

  “This whole night has been a wreck. Nobody’s coming away with a date.”

  “You should try to look at the bright side of things,” Dale scolded.

  “Okay,” Jenna said. “The bright side is we have enough glassware and stuffed poop to start our own business.”

  Cindy sat down next to Jenna and kindly patted her knee. “Here’s a bright side. I haven’t been out of my house except for work in two years. These last few weeks have definitely perked up my world. And I have you to thank for that.”

  “You’re nice for saying that,” Jenna replied.

  “See? Things are going well after all,” Dale said.

  “Famous last words,” Jenna said.

  “Royal flush!” Alice-Liz-Melody called out. She slapped her cards down on the table. “Looks like that li’l teacup ride is all mine.”

  “You’re a cheat,” Scarface growled.

  “And you’re a sore loser,” Alice-Liz-Melody said.

  He lunged at Alice-Liz-Melody. She fell back in her chair with a thud and the force of the fall sent the extra deck of cards she had secreted in the folds of her dress flying up into the air. It rained down aces and face cards.

  “I knew she was a cheat,” Scarface said. He stomped his big boot on an ace of hearts and ground it into the dirt.

  Alice-Liz-Melody scrambled to her feet. “Wait, I can explain... RUN!”

  Mickey flipped the card table onto its side, knocking two of the other players over and sending cards and poker chips everywhere.

  Jenna sat frozen in a state of shock. Were they about to be beaten up by carnie folk? Had the entirety of her life boiled down to this one succinct moment?

  Dale grabbed Jenna’s arm and tugged her to where Cindy held up the back of the tent. Mickey leapt over the tables in a scramble to get there. Alice-Liz-Melody took the red wagon with all the stuff in it and kicked it straight toward the men. Mickey quickly grabbed one of the crystal ashtrays and hurled it at Scarface. It hit him in the stomach and he went down in a crumpled heap. It was enough to stop the men just long enough for the women to scramble under the tent and race away.

  H. P. followed them. She pointed to her right and yelled, “Here, over here, you can get out the service entrance. Go, go, go!”

  Mickey stopped and stuffed two twenties into H.P.’s hand. “Thanks, kiddo.”

  The group ran until they reached the parking lot. Breathing heavily, the women leaned up against Jenna’s car. When it was apparent nobody was chasing them, Jenna wheezed, “Okay, that was bad.”

  “I thought it was exciting,” Cindy said. She’d taken her juggling balls out of her pockets and was juggling fast, the balls whizzing above her head. Jenna didn’t have the strength to tell her to stop.

  “Alice, are you always a cardsharp?” Dale asked.

  “No sense playing if you don’t plan on winning,” Alice-Liz-Melody said. She straightened her dress and bent down to tie her unlaced boot.

  Mickey fist-pumped the air. “Now that’s what I call a date—a date with danger. What d’ya say we all go for a drink? On Liz? She’s the one with all the cash.” She winked at Alice-Liz-Melody.

  Alice-Liz-Melody pulled a neat stack of twenties from inside her coat and began to count it.

  “How much is there?” Dale asked.

  “Oh, about five hundred dollars.”

  “Wow, you should teach me how to play cards so I can cheat and get a bunch of money and almost killed by carnie folks,” Jenna said.

  “I’d be delighted,” Alice-Liz-Melody said.

  Jenna groaned. She wasn’t cut out for this. It was like being the Girl Scout leader of a bunch of juvenile delinquents.

  “Can you teach me, too?” Cindy asked.

  “No one is teaching anyone anything anymore,” Jenna said firmly.

  “Wanna bet?” Dale muttered.

  Chapter Eight

  “I don’t know if I can do this,” Jenna said. She and Dale sat in her Honda Acc
ord in front of Home Depot. Jenna had still not recovered from the carnival fiasco.

  “You’ve got to let go of the past. No one was injured and everyone had a good time. At least the girls are excited about life again. In fact, Cindy and Liz-Melody told me that finding a date was secondary to having fun because they love the activities we come up with.”

  “I’m glad you said ‘we’ because I can’t do this on my own. I mean, what if they never find dates?” Jenna asked.

  “They will. You said yourself that for every pot there is a lid. We just have to find those lids. Now, come on. We should do a preliminary scout. You know, check out the potential dangers of this seminar,” Dale said. She opened the car door.

  Jenna still gripped the steering wheel. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

  “You said that already. Now let’s get to it. Besides you’ll get to see Brooklyn again and she’ll be leaning over toilets.” Dale waggled her eyebrows playfully. “What can be better than that?”

  “Leaning over things that aren’t toilets?”

  Dale walked around the car, opened the driver’s door, and attempted to disengage Jenna’s white knuckled fingers from the steering wheel.

  Normally, this would have been embarrassing enough—having your best friend drag you from the car—but it was compounded by the fact that Brooklyn had seen them and walked over. “What’s up? You got DIY jitters?” she asked.

  Jenna let go of the steering wheel and got out of the car. She smiled too big and tried to act casual. “Of course not. I am and have always been an avid learner.” She didn’t meet Brooklyn’s eyes until she realized that she was staring at Brooklyn’s breasts. Then she quickly looked away.

  “You like my shirt?” Brooklyn asked. It was a ridiculous question. Brooklyn wore a black T-shirt with nothing written on it.

  Jenna gulped. “Black is my favorite color.”

  “I see. For a second there I thought you were staring at my boobs,” Brooklyn said.

  “Nope,” Jenna said. “Not me.”

  “For the record, I was staring at your boobs,” Brooklyn said.

  Dale laughed. Jenna shot her a ‘you’re-not-helping’ look.