No Promises in the Wind (11 page)

She looked down at the long flapping shoes of her clown costume for a few moments; then she turned to me and smiled.

“If I were a girl your age, I'd be very proud to know you cared for me, Josh.”

“But you don't like it that I—that I care for you now, do you?”

She leaned forward and clasped her hands around her knees. Her face was very sober, and there was a slight frown between her eyes.

“You know, Josh, there are women who become very vain when a younger man tells them what you've told me. I'm not vain—I think I'm grateful. It's right to be grateful for every bit of honest affection that comes one's way, isn't it?”

“I was afraid you'd think I was a fool,” I muttered.

“Then you don't know me very well. I think of you as a sensitive, talented boy—a bit on the stubborn side, but never a fool.”

She leaned toward me. I think she started to kiss my cheek, but she changed her mind and offered me her hand instead. Then she laid her left hand over mine and made the handshake a little caress.

I didn't want to leave her, but I knew I must. When I got to my feet, I stood looking down at her for a minute, and she smiled at me. It was a smile, I realized, such as she so often gave to Joey.

“Good-night, dear Josh,” she said. “Good-night and thank you.”

 

 

The
next morning at breakfast Emily turned to Edward C. “I think we must all drag ourselves out of the blues for Christmas, Edward C. The carnival will be closed Christmas Eve so why don't you and the boys come over to my place for cocoa and molasses cookies. Would you like that?”

I suppose our faces showed our delight. “It's an honor, Josh,” Edward C. told me later. “Emily keeps so much to herself. I can't remember a time when she has invited any of us to her home. It's obvious that you and Joey and I are special to her.”

We began immediately to think of a gift which we might take to her on Christmas Eve. Joey thought a box of candy would be right; I wanted to buy something more feminine, more personal. There were pretty bottles of perfume at one of the concessions. I very much wanted to buy perfume for Emily.

But Edward C. was sternly practical. “She needs money so much, Josh, with that family of growing boys. I think we should find a bright box and fill it with dimes, ten dimes from each of us. Joey can polish them till they're shiny, and we'll get one of the ladies to tie a ribbon around the box for us. Emily will appreciate it, boys; believe me, I know she'll appreciate it at this time more than she would either candy or perfume.”

And so we followed his advice, and the small box of silver did look like a very nice gift. It was not what I really wanted to give Emily, but I had to admit that Edward C. was probably wise in his suggestion. Emily would have very little occasion to wear perfume. I hoped, though, that a day might come when I could buy her something lovely, something right for a beautiful woman.

The three of us, well scrubbed and brushed, went over to Emily's boxcar home early the evening before Christmas. She met us at the door, and for the first time I saw her dressed like a woman with no hint of the clown about her. She wore a cotton dress, the colors of which were faded, probably from many washings, but a lovely dress for all that, with a full skirt that swayed gracefully when she walked. But it was her earrings that made Emily look like a queen—large, bright hoops that were much the same red-gold color as her hair. They swung against her cheeks, catching the light and looking very gay and splendid.

Edward C. and Joey found words more easily than I did. They told her how beautiful she looked, how nice it was to see her in a dress instead of a clown's costume, how beautiful her earrings were. She smiled and stooped to kiss each of them on the forehead; then she looked at me as if she were waiting for what I had to say. “You look very nice, Emily,” I told her, and she said, “Thank you, Josh,” and kissed me too.

Then suddenly the evening was no longer wonderful for me. We stepped inside, and there at the table with her youngest boy on his lap and the other two beside him sat Pete Harris, short and fat and glistening a little, but looking relaxed and pleased.

“Hello—hello, gentlemen,” he called out in his raspy voice. “How are you, Edward C? Brought your boys with you, eh? Just look at young sport here. You're gettin' fat, boy; you're gettin' some meat on you.” He poked Joey in the stomach and then held out his hand to me. “How're you doin', Paderewski?” he asked.

Emily stood beside his chair smiling and looking happy. “Pete surprised us with roast chickens and pralines; now we can have a
real
Christmas party, Joey. The boys could hardly wait until you got here.”

Joey was beaming. He handed her the box of dimes. “This is for you, Emily, from Edward C. and Josh and me,” he said.

Emily opened the package, her eyes shining at first and then filling with tears. She held the box of dimes over for Pete Harris to see. He nodded approvingly. “That's a real fine present, boys,” he said. Then he looked up at Emily. “You couldn't ask for a nicer one, could you, hon?”

He called her “hon.” He spoke to my beautiful Emily as if she belonged to him, and in the next moment she was saying that the dimes from us and the earrings from Pete were making this the happiest Christmas she had known in a long time.

And so Pete Harris had given her the earrings that made her look like a queen, and I, who wanted to give her something lovely and feminine, had been persuaded to share in a gift of dimes that would probably be used to buy grits and oatmeal for her boys.

I think Edward C. saw the look of disappointment on my face, for he hurried to make an explanation to Emily. “You know, my dear, Josh wanted to buy you perfume. And you're so lovely tonight that I'm sorry I dissuaded him. You should have had gifts that were more personal—gifts that would have allowed us to tell you how pretty you are.”

She put her arm around the little man's shoulders, but she looked at me when she spoke. “No, Edward C., you three couldn't have given me a finer gift than the box of dimes. And every time I use some of them for food or medicine, I'll say, ”This is my gift of white gloves from Joey; this is a lace handkerchief from Edward C.—and this is another drop of French perfume from our French musician, from Josh!' ”

Her words helped a little. Not much, but a little. It would have been better if Pete Harris had kept quiet. But he didn't. He said, “You were on the right track, Edward C. Emily needs those dimes. This ain't a year for lace handkerchiefs and perfume. Right, hon?”

But it was a year for earrings from Pete Harris.

It was a long, unhappy evening. There was food and laughter. There was a moment when Pete Harris disappeared, and returned a few minutes later wearing a mask and white beard, bringing small toys to Emily's children and a last-minute gift for Joey—a pocketknife, obviously an old one with Pete Harris's initials carved in the bone handle, but a gift which nonetheless brought considerable joy to Joey. Later all of us went across to the carnival grounds and gathered around my piano. While I played the old carols, the others sang, and the music under the quiet sky was beautiful. Emily and her boys with Edward C. sang some of the carols in the Cajun tongue, and they sounded sweet and strange, a little mysterious. It should have been a beautiful evening, but it wasn't for me. I was glad when I could get away and be alone.

In the days that followed, I was edgy and unhappy. Joey noticed it and stayed away from me most of the time, spending many hours by himself practicing on Howie's banjo. One day on the grounds a small group of people gathered around him as he sang and accompanied himself on the banjo. They liked the picture, I think, of the slender boy singing and strumming out a simple run of chords; they liked it so much that Harris allowed Joey to roam around the carnival grounds with his banjo. He picked up a little store of nickels and dimes in that way, but he didn't talk to me about it. I had been sharp with him on too many occasions lately. He left me to myself.

I felt angry with everyone those days, with Joey for no reason, with Edward C. because I had an idea that he understood too well the secret I tried to guard, with Pete Harris for presuming to love Emily. Most of all I was angry with Emily. She had been tender and kind, and then she had betrayed me by allowing an old man to call her endearing names, to give her the kind of gift I wanted to give her. I felt ashamed of my feelings, but they were beyond the control of reason.

The dancer named Florrie, who told me that her name was actually Florinda, took to stopping at my piano oftener when nobody else was around. She was not attractive; her eyes were watery-looking, and her mouth was loose and gave her a vacant, stupid look. Sometimes she seemed to like me, although she was angry when I addressed her as “Ma'am,” but whether she liked me or not was of no consequence to me. My only reason for a mild friendliness toward her was that both Edward C. and Pete Harris warned me against her. Something negative in me made me pretend to like her better than I did.

Florinda teased me about my sober appearance. “Don't you ever smile about nothin', big fellow?” she asked one night. “Was there some law up north that kept big fellows like you from ever gettin' a smile on their mouths?”

“There's nothing much to smile about, Florinda,” I answered.

“You come out with me some night after workin' hours and I'll take you places where there's plenty of smiles. You got money in your pocket now. You can afford to treat yourself and me to some nice smile places.”

“I have to save my money,” I answered shortly. “I've been hungry because I didn't have money. I don't believe in spending it in smile places.”

Florinda moved her shoulders in a gesture that repelled me. “I know what's eatin' you, big fellow. It's the clown. I've seen you lookin' calf-eyed at her. Well, listen, kid—she's Pete Harris's woman. Don't get no big ideas. That clown belongs to Pete. So you just better be a good boy and keep your eyes off her.”

I was icy toward Florinda after that, but she had her revenge for her words haunted me. “She's Pete Harris's woman. That clown belongs to Pete.” They were the words of a cheap, venomous woman, I knew, but I remembered the earrings. I remembered that Pete Harris had called Emily “hon.”

For many nights I no longer waited for Emily to come past and say good-night. Deliberately I left my post early sometimes, and though I paid for my rebuff to Emily with hours of sleeplessness and regret, the stubborn Grondowski part of me would settle for no other behavior. At breakfast when Emily joined us, I was far on the other side of Joey and Edward C., so far away that I could only nod to her. I even talked to the Blegans in order to seem too preoccupied for a morning conversation with her. And the Blegans repaid me with more gossip: Had I heard that Pete Harris was soon to marry his clown? Oh, what a fool Pete Harris was to take on three redheaded brats for the privilege of marrying a redheaded clown! This from the Blegans.

One night I waited for her. She was alone, the children having been put to bed earlier by Edward C. She came up to the piano as she had in the weeks before Christmas. “Good-night, Josh,” she said quietly and started to walk on without saying anything more.

I jumped up from the piano bench and went to her side. “May I walk home with you?” I asked.

She was very grave. “Yes, of course,” she answered. “I haven't talked with you for a long time.”

When we reached her doorsteps, she sat down and faced me. “Well, Josh?” she said finally.

“How can you do it, Emily?” I asked desperately.

“Do what?” she asked.

“You know very well. How can you marry Pete Harris? How can you do a thing like that?”

She was silent for a long time. Then she reached over and took my hand. I felt myself go weak while my hand rested in hers.

“Josh, once many years ago I loved someone who didn't even know that I existed. I loved him so much—and I hated the girl he loved, a girl older and more sophisticated than I was. I suffered in those awful weeks before they were married, but the days and months smoothed things out for me. To tell you the truth, I have almost forgotten what he was like or why I loved him. But I know my love was sharp and hurtful while it lasted. I feel sorry for the little Emily I was then and for the agony she went through.”

“Yes. What are you trying to tell me?”

“I don't know.” She drew a long breath. “I'm not sure what I want to tell you. I'm just saying what's in my mind at the moment.”

“This is in my mind, Emily. People are saying that you're Pete Harris's woman. Is that right?”

“There's a hate-quality about that statement that makes me suspect it came from Florinda or the BIegans—or both.” She took her hands away from mine and clasped them in her lap. “No, I am not Pete Harris's ‘woman' in the sense they say it. But I am going to marry Pete. And you must listen to me, Josh. I have to tell you a few things.”

She looked out into the night as she spoke, and at first her voice sounded colder than I'd ever heard it, but after a minute it warmed and she was Emily again.

“Pete is a good man. He's not handsome or well-educated or polished. He's not rich—he's never likely to be rich because he cares too much for everyone who has too little. Pete's not what is called a catch, but he's loyal and kind and decent. He knew my husband and me here in Baton Rouge several years ago; when Carl was dying, Pete was like an older brother to him; when my boys and I were left terribly poor, he created a job for me here in the carnival, a job for which I had no training. He has looked after us and protected us—isn't that enough? Does he need any higher credentials?”