chapter

25

Daddy used to say one of the big rewards in life was looking back at a job well done, and you had to have done it to know. Cleaning out a stall in a barn was not glamorous, definitely not cushy, but in Eloise’s frame of mind on a snowy Tuesday morning, the work had a good old feeling to it, stirring something deep inside that left her better than she would have been.

Being solitary was part of it, by herself in a place by itself, raking, lifting, and pitching, her thoughts free to relay through her mind and no sound in that barn-tainted air but the rustle of the straw and the soft chime of the pitchfork tines.

The memories were part of it, memories this place brought back from not so long ago. They were Mandy’s, but Eloise had permission, so she let them return and drank them in: the quiet nicker of the horses, the steam on their breath, and the thumping of their hooves; the continuous, brown-eyed stare of the llamas; the cooing and head bobbing of the doves; the smell of tractor exhaust and diesel and the black smear of grease on her gloves.

Permission, yes, permission was part of it. Wow.Never mind whether Mr. Collins had the power or right to change the rules, he just did it, and ever since yesterday’s session warm little fires began to glow inside her, thawing things out, waking things up. What had she thought that night when he first came to see her perform, that he was some kind of window to somewhere she’d been? Though she hadn’t a clue whatever gave her such a notion, her first day under his tutelage made her all the more a believer.

Mr. Collins started with conventional stuff right there in the breakfast nook, going through palmings, flourishes, loads, and steals, just talking, teasing, loosening up over coffee until he had an idea what she could do and she had time to get comfortable. He never said that was his plan, but it probably was, and it worked. After an hour of gentle guidance and good laughs, she was sure he wouldn’t bite her and she wouldn’t have to die of embarrassment.

When she was ready, they moved into the makeshift restaurant in his dining room, three tables with tablecloths and dishes set out as if someone were sitting there eating or having coffee. He took a seat at one table and became her audience.

Before she could start she had to know—and she was afraid to ask, “Do I … do we need to talk about how I do the tricks?”

To her surprise, he didn’t care to know. Apart from proper technical execution, he said, the “how” didn’t matter. What mattered was the “magic,” what her audience experienced. If all they brought away from her performance were question marks, she’d shortchanged them. It was never to be a case of “I can do something you can’t” but rather “I’m glad to be with you so we can have a grand time together.”

“It’s not about you or your ego, it’s about them,” he told her. “To categorize it, you’re after three things: rapt attention, laughter, and astonishment, and all three of these have one big thing in common: they’re human. They’re about unique moments and feelings. They create memories, and that’s what good showmanship is all about.”

And that was his guiding principle as she did her show and he commented.

“I love the wonder in your eyes,” he said. “Never lose that. You might do the same trick a thousand times, but if you never lose the wonder, you’ll always pull them into the experience and they’ll feel it with you.”

“Oops, watch your body position; you just lost this table over here. There! Play in that arc right there! Now we can all see you.”

She faltered the first few minutes, but he cured that by giving her attention, laughter, and astonishment, as if he’d never seen her act before. Maybe he was role-playing for teaching purposes, but she bought it and drank in everything he told her.

“Hold the cards up about chest height so I can see them over all these heads in front of me. That’s beautiful. See? Now I can enjoy your facial expressions at the same time.”

“Give those silver dollars names, at least in your mind. That’s what makes Burt so effective—he’s a living thing, like a pet, like a goofy sidekick. When he has a name and a mind, people feel for him so they love to see him win—which is a mark of your genius, by the way. So complete the story: the dollars are mischievous so they get lost, but then they still love you so they come back. Keep it subtle, but humanize them; give them feelings.”

They worked so carefully and talked about so many things it took them close to three hours to work through the first ten minutes of her act.

But what a finish! “Eloise, you can do this. You have the instinct for it, the magic inside you. You’ve made me real proud.”

You’ve made me real proud.Words from Daddy, Mandy’s fondest memory, and hers today. She finished the last stall on that side of the barn, then skipped and pranced to the other side, throwing in a stag leap that wasn’t very good but was okay, she was wearing work clothes and dancing on straw. She sang music for the move “Raindrops keep fallin’ on my head …” But not so much that her eyes would get red because crying wasn’t for her today, and she had no complaints. She had belief in herself and memories she didn’t have to worry about.

She started the first stall, raking and pitching, raking and pitching, and it must have been her mood, because songs kept coming to her. “Do, do, do, lookin’ out my back door!”

Nearly finished with stall one. “She’s just a hawwwwwng keetonk woman!” Daddy would have frowned on that one, so she found another, “I’ll Be There,” by the Jackson 5—come to think of it, little Michael may have become a solo act; she’d heard his name mentioned here and there.

And whatever happened to Elvis? Boy, he’d be really old by now. “Well, since ma babay lef’ me! I foun’ a noo plaze to dwell …” The pitchfork made a great mike stand and she still knew the moves.

Oops. She wasn’t getting work done. Back to it.

Ed Sullivan. She could do a great impression of him—she didn’t bother moving like him because he hardly moved at all and she’d get no work done. “Right heeyer, on our really big shoo! The Bee-uls! Less hear it, less hear it!”

Flip Wilson. “The devil made me buy this dress! I said, ‘Devil, cut it owwwt!’”

Dean Martin. “Everybody … loves somebody … sometime… .”

Laugh-In.“Sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me!”

Scrape. Swish. Clunk.

Right when she was having fun. She stopped to listen, stifling her breath. Somebody was in the next stall, raking and pitching straw, same as yesterday.

Come on, now, I didn’t ask for this. I was having a good time here.

But now the sound stopped.

Her heart was racing. She didn’t want to know, but then again she did. She went to the stall door and peered out into the barn.

There was a pile of straw outside the next stall that hadn’t been there before, and now she heard a quiet, almost sneaky kind of padding in the straw next door.

“Hello?”

Just like yesterday, no one answered.

“Is anybody there? Please?”

No answer.

“Pretty please, with peanut butter on top?”

Okay. Time to look.

She held her pitchfork in front of her, tines raised as if she’d ever impale anybody, hands clasping the handle tightly but trembling anyway. The fact that she was scared made her angry, which gave her the gumption to step out of her own stall and look in the other. “Just talk to me.” Her voice was high and quivery. “I won’t hurt you. And if you’re not there, then you don’t have to say anything because you’re not there and it’s all my problem, okay?”

Somebody’d been working in the stall. Half of it was cleaned out, the straw and debris in a heap just outside the stall door. She stopped short of going in. Somebody could be waiting just around the corner of the doorway and jump her if she stuck a toe in there. Better to stay outside and listen, just listen and see if anything moved. She kept the pitchfork straight out in front of her, standing motionless until she felt silly. At last she decided, Well, okay, I looked. If I stop here I won’t hurt anybody, including me, and that’s the big deal in all this, not to hurt myself or anybody else. After that, I just need to not act weird.