The Road to Bittersweet

by Donna Everhart

  Momma said, “I won’t go any further than this, William. I mean it.”

  Papa repeated his old argument. “I know, Ann, but it’s the dead of winter. If we don’t go with them, we’d have no other choice than what we had before. Traveling show, Hardy’s, or home.”

  She fell silent. What little bit of happiness she might have had after we got here, even with the peculiarities and all, was getting harder and harder to maintain. We went to get supper, and Paulie wanted to know if my headache was better and I said it was. I kept my eyes averted so he wouldn’t ask me nothing else. Clayton sat eating with some workers and other performers. He raised both arms like he was asking, Where y’all been? I shrugged at him and went to get my plate. It was hard keeping my eyes from tracking back to him. I allowed myself a little peek when we left, and to my disappointment, the spot where he’d been eating had been filled by some other worker.

  Having no performance sent all us to bed early. With the show shut down, it was unusually quiet. This should have helped me get to sleep, but instead, I lay on the cot, wide-eyed and alert. I thought about our warm, snug little room at Stampers Creek, our garden, Momma tending her flowers, Papa working at the sawmill, and Seph running about laughing and chasing dandelion seed pods. Joe Calhoun come to mind out of nowhere, and it seemed I couldn’t feature him clearly anymore, like he was fading in my mind the way an old photograph does. I glanced at Laci. She’d changed positions, and now faced me. Best as I could tell, she slept and I huffed, wishing I could.

  I heard a scuffling sound, and then the crack of a stick breaking. Laci sat up, startling me. I watched how she turned her head this way and that, listening. Something kept me from letting her know I was awake. She grabbed the blanket off her cot, wrapped it around herself, and went to the tent flap. She pulled on the tie, and peeked out, looking the way the noise come from, and then she slipped from my view, leaving the tent flap untied. I thought, it’s happening all over again. I heard a whisper, and then a shuffling sound. I slipped off my cot and eased the flap aside ever so little, allowing an opening enough to see without being seen.

  Laci sat by the dying campfire and Clayton was hunkered on his knee beside her. I was torn, part of me wanting to ask him what he was doing here, and the other part of me wanting to see what happened. I couldn’t make out anything except the low rumbling of his voice. He stood and held out his hand, and she put hers in it. He bent down and picked up a lantern and a blanket, and that bothered me. Why did he have those things? I grabbed my blanket and wrapped it around me, and when I looked out, he was leading her away.

  They went a different direction from the other night, towards the woods along the path used by the bigger wagons. I slipped out of the tent. I had on no shoes, and only my shift underneath the blanket. I let them get some distance, and the further we went, the worse I felt, a feeling of guilt growing in me, knowing I should protect Laci. After a few minutes, there was a small clearing and he stopped there. He set the lantern down and lit it. He adjusted the flame before he turned to her, held out his arms. Laci didn’t move. He went towards her and carefully hugged her the way Papa would hug us sometimes, letting her lie her head on his shoulder. I took all this in, while that new icy spot inside me swelled big and solid until I was sure the very core of me had turned white and hard.

  He released her, took the blanket, unrolled it and put it on the ground. I felt like a bizarre intruder in the shadows, like I was the one doing wrong. He pulled Laci down beside him. Everything he did, he’d wait a few minutes before he moved on. And he talked the entire time. I’d have given anything to be able to know what he said to her. They laid side by side. Maybe they was only going to look at stars. I hung onto that while another, more cynical part of me knowed better. A minute later, he leaned over and kissed her, and he kept on until her arms went around him. The scene before me got wavy and distorted. I swiped at my eyes and my hand pressed against my mouth when he moved her shift from her shoulders. Her breasts was exposed, and he touched them. It was too much and yet I couldn’t stop myself from staring. I watched as if I was somewhere else, like it won’t me. I had the thought I couldn’t let him do what he was doing. She didn’t know no better.

  Except Laci slipped the straps of her shift further down, and wiggled her hips, removing the clothing until she was naked. She lay down again, and while I was trying to figure out how she knowed to do this, he removed his own clothes, and I stared at the thatch of dark hair at the top of his legs and nestled within it, his manhood. He kissed her again and began touching her everywhere, moving his hands from her breasts to between her legs. I seen how she let him get on top of her. He raised up, shifted, and stopped. He did the same thing again, while Laci turned her head left and right. Her face scrunched like he was hurting her. I lowered my head, fighting the urge to yell at them, to shout, scream, to confront them. Demand the answers I thought I deserved.

  I heard Clayton grunt. I looked up, seen him shift again. Laci’s face relaxed, and he began a rhythmic movement of his lower half. Her legs come off the blanket to wrap around him as he moved, and moved, and moved. All this was done in complete silence, except for Clayton who spoke an occasional word. I was certain I heard what he said at one point, as clearly as I seen what they was doing, this act between a man and a woman. His I love you floated on the breeze to my ears. I tried to tell myself it won’t love. I told myself this was the most horrible thing I’d ever seen, no better than two animals in rut. My throat went rigid and fixed as my eyes. How could he do this? I felt misled, duped, and mostly stupid, while pure, raw jealousy squeezed my chest, and become as all-consuming as the blood sickness.

  Chapter 24

  Clayton seemed to find excuses for being around. He showed up regular and I always held on to a slim hope he’d look at me again, see me, and somehow Laci would fade away in his mind the way a shadow does on a cloudy day. He’d first spend time with Papa, who got to talking about crops, our land back home, working for the show, you name it. Papa turned friendly, adding even more hurt and anger to how I already felt.

  A few days after that night, Clayton dropped by and had the nerve to ask, “Hey, Wallis Ann, where you been?”

  “Right here.”

  “Aw, come on. You know what I mean. You ain’t been coming to watch me dive anymore. You don’t talk to me much anymo re.”

  I told him the same thing I’d told Momma lately. “I been too tired.”

  Clayton looked disappointed in that answer, but I was put out enough such that I didn’t really care. Of course I was tired, skulking around after them on their midnight rambles, yet I couldn’t seem to stop myself. It sure was something watching how Laci changed when she was with him, how she seemed like another person altogether. It was the intimacy between them, this tremendous secret they held, which only served to make me feel even more of a trespasser. Observing those nightly encounters give way to a bad feeling. Like at some of them churches where we’d seen snake handlers. Watching them I was certain someone was going to get bit, sooner or later, and my muscles had got all tense, knowing it was only a matter of time till something went wrong. I was told my faith was weak, and needed strengthening, but I never did hold on to no snake.

  Clayton said, “You been acting different. Did I do something wrong?”

  “I’d say.”

  “So I have.What is it? It ain’t fair you won’t even tell me.”

  “It ain’t fair you don’t know your own self.”

  He give me a funny look, and before he got suspicious, I made the excuse I had to go help Momma. I suspected he seen I won’t good company right then. A gloomy summer storm cloud looked more cheery than me. Laci sat on a camp stool with her fiddle, sending out random notes of songs now and then. He got involved talking to Papa, and I got the chance to study on him and Laci. There won’t a hint of what they was doing at night. Only evidence was Clayton give this little secret look towards her when he took his leave. It was so subtle, I wouldn’t a thought a thing abou
t it—if I hadn’t already witnessed the inexplicable. I felt myself getting into a slow boil over that little glance what lasted the rest of the evening.

  It’s what propelled me to sneak behind them. It was getting harder to watch, especially when I went to imagining it was me, and not Laci, Clayton was loving on. Me he held and kissed. Me whose dress he pushed aside, his hand touching the damp, secret place between my legs. Me who give him what Laci was giving him—knowingly, or unknowingly. I wondered what Papa would do if he found out? What he’d do if he found her sneaking off into the woods, letting a man take her clothes off, sometimes even helping him herself? It come to me, Laci was thinking real different about things, more so than we’d ever considered. She was feeling things like any other normal person. And she’d somehow grasped the dealings between a man and a woman as natural as anyone.

  I couldn’t stop thinking of what I’d seen. How did Laci know about that, anyway? Maybe it had come natural to her, like her playing music. Maybe it won’t nothing but instinct, like how critters know what to do from the moment they come into this world. Maybe she’d simply followed his lead, like she’d always done with me if I done something she’d not ever seen. All this thinking about them and what they done was like picking up a hammer and whacking my thumb over and over again, creating so much pain, the entire middle part of me felt torn and tender. If I tried to ask her about it, or tell her how I felt, would she know or even understand what she’d done? That’s what made it worse. As upset and mad as I was, any effort I made to get her to respond would be like a moth beating against a window in a futile attempt to get at the light. It would be senseless because she’d never be able to tell me how, much less why.

  * * *

  Thanksgiving Day come and my mood had descended into something resembling a huge black hole, so deep I couldn’t find my way out. Holidays, usually a happy time at home, had me wanting to leave, even if it meant going back to Uncle Hardy’s. I would rather suffer his stingy ways than have to try so hard at pretending everything was fine. I worked silently around our tents, chopping wood, doing anything. Doing everything.

  Soon I run out of even the made-up things to do, so I meandered over to Trixie’s to help her tend to the animals and Mr. M. As I walked up, she was using a body brush on one of the Friesians.

  She glanced at me over the horse’s back and said, “Boy. You don’t look no better than you did last time you come by.”

  I put my hand on the horse’s shoulder and watched the muscle twitch.

  “What’s the matter?”

  I shrugged and grabbed a currycomb from the pile of grooming tools on the ground nearby and went to work on the other horse.

  “It ain’t got something to do with Clayton, does it?” Trixie offered. She stopped what she was doing long enough to study my reaction to her question. “It does! What’s going on?”

  “Nothing!”

  “Oh come on, Wallis Ann. Your look says it all.”

  I was too embarrassed to tell her everything, so I said, “It’s nothing. I think he likes Laci.”

  “Really?”

  I regretted saying it soon as I did. I didn’t like how she latched on so quick, or the way her voice rose at the hint of gossip. It was too late now.

  “Yeah. I mean, he’s been coming by to see Papa, and I’ve seen him looking at her. I’m probably wrong.”

  “Oh.” She sounded disappointed. “Do you like him or something?”

  “Not really.”

  “Well, you don’t look none too happy.”

  “I worry about Laci is all.”

  Ever skeptical when it come to the topic of Clayton, Trixie said, “Uh-huh.”

  For somebody I hadn’t known long, she sure had me figured out. I got busy with the currycomb and changed the subject. I talked a blue streak about Thanksgiving at Stampers Creek, and asked Trixie all sorts of questions about her family. I stayed until I was done with the horse, only so Trixie would see I truly won’t bothered at all. When I returned to our tent, it was time to wash, put on clean clothes and go eat the special Thanksgiving supper Paulie fixed.

  The cookhouse tent was already filling with workers and performers alike, everyone gathering together for a change instead of eating in shifts, and the packed tent was steamy and warm. Paulie had found a bunch a creasy greens near to one of the creeks, and he’d mixed those in with some collards he’d got from one of the local farms, and that pungent scent mixed in with other odors, human and animal alike. Some of the workers had shot wild turkeys. Paulie had dressed them out, and he even made a corn pone dressing. The food looked almost as good as Momma’s. Paulie served heaping piles of mashed taters, dressing, gravy, greens seasoned with fatback and biscuits. I only picked at the food, while occasionally shooting moody looks at Clayton as he sat at his usual table with Diablo, Mr. Massey, and other workers. Laci ate like her legs was plumb hollow and she couldn’t fill them up. I caught Clayton looking at her so many times I almost threw my plate across the tent at him.

  Momma kept on commenting over my lack of appetite until I sort of growled at her, “I said, I ain’t hungry.”

  She drew back like I’d slapped her, while Papa stopped eating altogether and didn’t look none too happy with my tone.

  “I’m sorry. It’s . . .”

  Momma said, “I know. You’re tired. That’s all you been saying over a week now. You’ve been in this pitiful state long enough. Wallis Ann, what is it, is something else wrong?”

  “ No. ”

  Momma shared a glance with Papa before she resumed eating while Laci stared at my plate. I give a sidelong glance at her empty one, and figured she was wanting me to give her the food I’d not touched. I did something spiteful then. I understood it was, and still, I did it. I heard Papa say, “Wallis Ann?” but I didn’t stop. I took my mostly full plate up to Paulie and handed it to him.

  He looked from it to me, to it again. “You done? Seems like a waste a good food. You ain’t hardly tetched it. Don’t you want to give it to Laci?”

  “No. I don’t.”

  I spun on my heels and left the cookhouse tent. I didn’t look at Momma, Papa or nobody. I drifted around the mostly silent carnival, feeling sorry for myself. The only noises come from the occasional huffing sort of noise from some of the animals who’d been watered and fed earlier. I considered the possibility of telling Momma and Papa, for no other reason than I couldn’t hardly stand the thought of Clayton and Laci being together anymore. I wanted to stop it. I wanted someone else to hurt like I was, and though I had no idea how I’d even begin, it got stuck in my head to tell, tell, tell. What mouthful of food or two I’d taken churned in my stomach as I thought about what I was about to do.

  At our tents I sat by the fire waiting for everyone. The sound of footsteps come soon enough. My hands got cold and sweaty, and I swallowed over and over. I nervously brushed a hand over my hair, thinking I couldn’t do it. I was losing my nerve. Two figures come into view. Momma and Papa was alone. They made their way by the fire and went to warming their fingers.

  “Where’s Laci?”

  Momma sighed, leaned down to poke at a log, as Papa tossed another one on. My heart fluttered like it might falter or quit altogether. I was sure they was put out with me for leaving the cookhouse tent like I’d done.The flare of the fire lit everything around us with a deep orange glow, while their shadows stretched into black, skinny giants behind them. My insides tightened. There was only one person Laci could be with, and knowing this solidified my decision.

  My tone too sharp, I said, “Is she with Clayton?”

  Momma sounded exasperated. “What in God’s name has got into you, Wallis Ann? Yes, she is. If you hadn’t left so quick, you’d have been there when he stopped by the table and said he’d wanted to take you both for a walk.”

  When them floodwaters tossed us out of our truck, we’d had no control of where we’d end up or how we’d get there. That was how I felt right then. Like I had no control, only this time over
my words.

  My voice dropped low, and when they come out of me, it sounded hateful, forced. “He’d rather be alone with her anyway.”

  Momma stared at me with an odd look. “What do you mean by that, Wallis Ann?”

  Now that I’d started it, the words wouldn’t stop.

  I choked on them like I was being forced to take a vile dose of medicine. “You don’t know what all’s been going on. You and Papa got no idea, and if either of you did, you wouldn’t have never let Laci go with him.”

  Momma shot a look at Papa, who was in the process of lifting a log off the woodpile nearby.

  He dropped it onto the embers, the force of the log landing caused a heap of tiny devil snow to shoot up into the air and fall in a shimmering rain around us. How fitting, I thought, it’s like being in hell.

  He put his hands on his hips. “Wallis Ann? What are you talking about?”

  “Clayton and Laci. They been sneaking out at night. They been . . . doing things.”

  Papa took a step backwards like I’d hit him. He stared at me for a split second, then he looked to Momma, who’d put one hand over her mouth in shock. Papa’s mouth thinned out, his lips set in a severe line, and his eyes turned so dark, like a blackness or something evil took a hold of him and stared out at us.

  His voice was low and terrible. “What do you mean doing things? What sorts a things?”

  My knees trembled first and from there, that shaking took over my entire self. Papa’s big fists clenched, then unclenched, and he looked like he might tear someone apart, limb by limb and wouldn’t think twice about it. I went to panting, my breath coming in panicked little gusts like I’d been running, and I could feel tears starting to come. I hated crying. I despised how my voice sounded as I tried to explain, and I couldn’t seem to form sentences.

  “I. They. Clayton and Laci. They was. Together. Naked.”

  Momma said, “What? Laci? Wallis Ann! Are you telling us a story?”

  I spun around to face her. “Momma! Why would I make that sort a thing up?”