Three girls came out of Mier’s Dry Goods and squinted in the brightness. They waved at the man in the truck. All three of the girls were eighteen years old. Rose and Evelyn had been born in Hawley; Francine hadn’t been but her father had, so it was practically the same thing. They had gone to school together, from the first grade to the last, had graduated together the month before, and knew practically every intimate detail about each other. They didn’t have a lot in common, except Hawley, but their differences were complementary and they had been friends most of their lives.
“There goes Eula May to see her sister in Kansas City again,” Rose said, looking at the woman sitting placidly on the bench at the depot. “I swear. Her sister’s been at death’s door as long as I can remember. Mr. Gardner’s gonna go broke buying train tickets.”
The other two girls didn’t comment. When they reached the drugstore and started in, Francine suddenly pointed and yelped, “Look!” Evelyn and Rose stopped and looked through the fly-specked glass of the drugstore window at the poster propped there that morning by Louis Ortiz. The poster duplicated in silk screen the painting on the lead circus wagon. At the bottom, hand-written, were the dates the show would be in Hawley.
Evelyn Bradley shivered at the burning eyes which followed her everywhere she moved. Evelyn was slim and tanned; her Buster Brown haircut framed her oval face with auburn. Her eyes were hazel and smiling, but there was a seriousness to her face. Now, however, the goosebumps brought on by the poster were a curiously enjoyable sensation.
“Wouldn’t you just know it!” Francine Latham snarled prettily. The braces on her teeth created a faint sibilance when she spoke. Dr. Latham was a widower and did not quite know how to cope with a grown daughter. Because her father liked it, Francine still wore her dark hair like a little girl, tied back with a bow and hanging almost to her waist.
“Wouldn’t you just know it! A talking picture and a freak show, both at the same time. I don’t know how I’ll ever make up my mind which one to see,” she said fretfully.
“Go see one tonight and the other tomorrow night,” Rose Willet said with maddening logic. Rose was plump, pink, and pretty. She wore her light hair short and rippled with finger waves, a style much too old for her. She twirled her parasol, making the lace stand up, and wished Evelyn and Francine took their social positions more seriously. As the daughters of the doctor and a well-to-do farmer, they were suitable associates for the judge’s youngest girl, but Francine was a mouse and Evelyn was likely to run into the street and start playing baseball with a bunch of little boys. And look at them, both of them as brown as field hands. Rose shifted the parasol to block a ray of sunlight striking her properly pale arm.
“I can’t,” Francine whined. “I’ve only got a dollar.” She looked back at the poster, changing the subject quickly. “Haverstock’s Traveling Curiosus and Wonder Show. What is a ‘curiosus’ anyway?”
“I don’t know,” Rose snorted. “Look what they call old beady eyes, ‘Curator of the Lost Secrets of the Ancients.’ Brother, they really think we’re hicks,” she grumbled. “‘Angel the Magic Boy! Mermaids! Invisible Women!’ Brother!”
“A dollar’s enough, Francine,” Evelyn said with a slight smile, knowing full well the cause of Francine’s dilemma. “The picture’s a quarter and the freak show’s fifty cents. That’s only seventy-five.”
“Well…” Francine looked at her Mary Jane shoes and fiddled with the tie on her sailor blouse.
“Don’t tell me Billy’s broke again,” Rose said with indignation, pursing her lips, trying to make them look bee-stung.
Francine looked up defiantly. “Well, you always go dutch with Flarold.”
“But I don’t have to pay his way,” Rose explained with a sigh.
“I don’t always have to pay for Billy, either!”
“Ha!” Rose snorted rudely and pushed into the drugstore.
Bowen’s Drugs & Sundries dozed with the rest of the town that warm Friday afternoon. The ceiling fans rotated lazily, moving the air, stirring the sweet odors of chocolate and vanilla ice cream from the soda fountain with the pleasantly pungent odors of camphor and wormwood from the prescription counter. The girls sat at the soda fountain on stools covered in red leather. Phineas Bowen, Sr., waved and smiled at them from behind the prescription counter.
Sonny Redwine, who had just graduated with the three girls, put down the magazine he’d been reading and wiped the already spotless marble counter. Sonny’s father and uncle owned the Redwine Funeral Home and he’d been offered a job there for the summer, but he’d decided without having to deliberate overly much that he preferred Mr. Bowen’s offer to jerk sodas until it was time to go away to college in the fall. He enjoyed his work and was proud of the gleaming fountain with the rows of syrup pumps and the two water nozzles, one for carbonated and one for plain, that rose in the center like the heads of graceful, long-necked birds. And he got to see his friends often—practically everyone came in at least once a week.
He grinned at the girls. “Hello, ladies. What’ll it be?”
“A cherry phosphate,” Rose said.
Francine echoed her.
“Make it three,” Evelyn smiled.
Sonny made the drinks with a flourish, well aware of the girls’ eyes on him. He was getting very good, if he did say so himself. He hadn’t spilled anything in almost a week.
Francine sat thoughtfully on the stool, twisting lazily from side to side. “I think we’ll go to the Majestic,” she said. “That way I’ll have money for popcorn. Besides, it’s Ronald Coleman.”
Mr. Bowen went behind the soda fountain and mixed himself a Bromo Seltzer, pouring the sudsy liquid from one glass to another and back again. “Hello, Rose, Francine, Evie,” he greeted them. “What are you girls up to this afternoon? Did you see the poster in the window?”
“Yes,” Evelyn laughed. “That poster’s what’s causing all the trouble.”
“Oh?” Mr. Bowen raised his eyebrows.
“We’re trying to help Francine make up her mind whether to go to the talkie or the carnival,” Rose said with a sly grin.
Mr. Bowen smiled indulgently. “Yes, I can see where this will take careful consideration.” He drank the Bromo Seltzer quickly, made a face and shuddered.
Sonny put the pink drinks before them and wiped the counter with more industry than necessary as Mr. Bowen returned to his prescriptions.
“I’ve already made up my mind,” Francine said and lifted the top of the straw container. “I just told you I’d decided to go see the movie.”
Sonny stopped wiping the counter directly in front of Evelyn. He cleared his throat twice, changed his expression four times, and said, “Evie…” His voice cracked. He cast a wary glance at Rose and Francine.
“Yes, Sonny?”
“Uh… will you go with me to the picture show tonight?” he blurted.
Rose and Francine looked at each other and smothered giggles. Evelyn glanced at them with an annoyed frown and Sonny turned red.
“Of course, Sonny. I’d be happy to,” Evelyn said and smiled at him.
Sonny grinned in relief, nodded at her, and frantically wiped the counter. He looked up at Rose and Francine, who were still grinning. “And it won’t be Dutch,” he said airily. “It’s my treat.” He grinned at Rose and Evelyn and went to the other end of the counter. Evelyn bent over her cherry phosphate to hide her smile. Rose and Francine gaped at Sonny’s back.
The drugstore door slammed open, hitting the wire rack of magazines, making it ring tinnily. Phineas Bowen, Jr., age twelve, charged in. Mr. Bowen looked up and frowned. Finney’s hair was sun bleached, his body brown as chocolate. He wore only a pair of old corduroy knickers, frayed and dusty. His bare feet slapped on the white tile floor. His eyes sparkled and danced with suppressed energy. One end of a yard-long piece of sewing thread was tied to his finger; the other end to the leg of a large metallic-green June bug. It droned loudly in a tight circle around Finney’s head. He stepped beneath the revolving ceiling fan and let the cool air rush over him. The moving air grounded the June bug on his hair.