Beholding Bee (4 page)

A frog bellows on one side and another answers near us. The pond is about the size of four of our hauling trucks pushed together. Around and around we look, checking every tree and every rock. You cannot be too careful. “Stay here,” she says.

Pauline climbs down the bank and wades into the water to test it, one toe at a time. I am frustrated the way I am when somebody cannot decide what to put on a hot dog and I have to stand and wait for about two thousand years. Pauline says I could learn a thing about patience. I tell her I already know plenty.

Already my towel is on a rock and I am jumping up and down. If I am hot and steamy the water will feel even better on my skin.

“How is it?” I can hardly bear the waiting. A fish jumps and ripples rush out to Pauline and touch her before she is waist-deep.

“It is really fine,” she says, diving in. Then she swims on
her back to the middle of the pond. Every so often one of her work boots rises above the surface. We wear them because of all the mud at the bottom and because of snapping turtles. Pauline laughs out loud. “Well, don’t just stand there, Bee.”

Pauline is a wader, but I myself am a jumper. My smile pushes across my cheeks. Ready set go, I rush off the rock, fly through the air, and slip feet-first into the inky depths.

The water yanks the breath out of me and when I find it again, I lie back, my hair swimming behind me, and I look up at the moon, just rising. I flip over and dive down, deep, deep, to where the biggest trout hide, and I am laughing so hard inside myself that I wonder if the fish can hear me.

When I rise to the surface, Pauline swims over and tells me I can climb onto her back. We paddle around pretending we are different animals: frogs, horses, dogs, mountain lions. I am too happy to worry about the diamond on my cheek when we go swimming. That is why I like this so much. I jump off Pauline and paddle from one end of the pond to the other, back and forth, over and over. I breathe deeply and dive to the bottom again and again.

When it is getting late, Pauline has to tell me about a hundred times to get out of the water.

“Bee?”

I dive down so I do not have to hear her telling me to get out.

“Bee?” she is saying when I come up for air, but that is all I hear, because I dive right back down again.

“Bee?” Pauline is saying when I come up, and this time there is mad around her voice.

“What?”

“I said a million times already that it is time to go.”

“Oh, I didn’t hear you.” I smile at the water. And then I dive down once more because I have to thank the trout and the sunfish and the rocks and the mud and the turtles and everything else below the surface of the water. It has been a very wonderful night.

I wrap my towel around and around and sit on the rock and listen to the tree frogs. An owl hoots “who cooks for you, who cooks for you” in the distance.

“What kind?” asks Pauline as she sits down beside me.

“Barred,” I say, screeching “who cooks for you” back to the woods. It is good to know about many things.

Then we check for leeches. Other than snapping turtles, leeches are the only downside I can think of to a swimming hole. Leeches like to suck on your legs and your arms and sometimes your back. They are hard to get off because they change shape from short and stubby to long and thin, quick as a wink, like an accordion. That’s why it is good not to swim alone. I know some folks get all worked up about leeches, about how they suck at the skin between your toes. I want to tell them, worse things could happen than a leech stuck to your belly.

14

The heat soars and we head to Vermont—Barre and Montpelier and then Burlington. We find swimming holes everywhere we go.

One morning a new man is standing next to Ellis before we even open. His eyes are flying over Pauline. Pauline takes one look and grabs my shoulder and pulls me toward the hot dog cart. She starts the grill and throws hot dogs on. I peel an onion.

Before I get the first one chopped, there is Ellis bringing the new man over. He is tall and dark and looks like Cary Grant in a cowboy hat. I pull my hair tight.

They walk up to the cart and watch us for a minute. Ellis keeps his hat pulled low. I feel like a sausage getting looked over. I am pulling my hair so tight over my diamond my head hurts. This is not an easy thing to do when you are chopping onions. It means you chop with one hand. It also means you are slow. Ellis notices things like this, so I hold my hair down with my chin and chop faster.

“This is Arthur,” he tells Pauline. “He needs to learn the ropes. I want you to show him around.”

The new man tips his cowboy hat at Pauline. She smiles and Ellis points to me. “You can run things.”

I stop chopping. “But I can’t do all this by myself—not all the onions and all the hot dogs and all the sauerkraut
and all the popcorn and pink lemonade, not without Pauline.”

Ellis raises the brim of his hat and I imagine the snakes under there. I think they are black as oil. “Did you hear me? I said get to work. Or does that thing on your face affect your hearing, too?” He looks at Pauline. “You know, I think it’s about time she stood in the look-see booth and started earning her keep.”

Pauline shudders from the terrible things Ellis says. Already the trembling in my legs has begun. Pauline puts down her spatula and steps closer to me.

“Bee’s too little to have folks gawking like that.” I feel Pauline shiver through her apron. “She wouldn’t earn you any money if she cried all the time she was standing in your look-see booth.”

Ellis chews on this for a moment and then grins at Pauline. “Okay, but I won’t wait forever.” He reaches out to touch my diamond, drooling over when I am grown, but I turn away and wrap myself like a vine all around Pauline and bury my face in her apple blossom hair.

“I didn’t say you could show Arthur around tomorrow,” he growls. “I want you to show him around
NOW
.” He points at me. “And stop holding your hair like that. Folks like to look. For such a little girl, you sure can draw a crowd.” This time he laughs. Pauline sucks in her breath.

Arthur sweeps his eyes over my face and stops at my diamond. An overstuffed lady with two girls in pink headbands walks up wanting something to eat. I step toward Pauline, but already Ellis is pulling off her apron and throwing it on the counter. Then he is leading her away.

All day I have to fry hot dogs while Pauline shows Arthur around. I burn my fingers over and over because I am not paying attention to hot dogs. I am holding my hair over my cheek and watching what Pauline is doing.

She stops at each game—the Hoop-La and the Penny Pitch and the Museum of Mystery, where Eldora does her divining. Then Pauline shows Arthur the merry-go-round. I see them meeting up with Silas Meany the Man Without a Stomach who sucks his breath in so far it looks like he was born without a belly and Theodore the Cripple whose leg is twisted and thin as a pencil from polio and Fat Man Sam who tells everybody he is twice the size he was when he finished school. He can’t squish himself into the Ferris wheel seats anymore. I see Pauline showing Arthur all about how Ellis wants everyone to keep their eyes on the ground at all times because wallets go flying and he wants them scooped up before anybody notices they are gone. I watch Pauline explaining how to start and stop all the rides and how to hook the safety belts on. Arthur is nodding and asking her questions. I notice she is smiling a lot.

For a moment I think maybe I see the lady in the orange flappy hat limping toward me. But the sun is beating hard and I rub at my eyes and when I look back, there is nothing there but a boy who is dragging a little girl up to the hot dog cart.

He points at me. I know what they are up to. I pull my hair over my face like a curtain and turn away. I give them nothing to look at.

15

At noon I have an awful crick in my neck and my fingers are sticky from selling so many honey buns.

I do everything with one hand so I can keep my hair tight over my cheek. Finally I smear some of the honey from a honey bun on my face and press my hair in it. When it dries I feel like spikes of glass are stuck on my skin.

At about three, I look over and see Pauline pull the ponytail out of her hair so her curls fly down her shoulders, and Arthur is watching the whole thing.

When I turn off the grill at nine, Pauline comes over and tells me Arthur wants to take her to the all-night diner and do I think that would be all right?

“Oh good, I’m starving.” I rip off my apron.

“No, Bee. You sweep up, then go to bed. We have to get up early because Ellis wants to open by ten. The radio says we’re going to get rain for the rest of the weekend.”

“But I do not want to be alone. I can’t fall asleep without you.”

“Oh, Bee. Yes, you can.”

“No, I can’t. You know I can’t.”

Pauline turns to Arthur, standing right beside her. “Wait a minute, okay?” She puts her arm around my shoulders and walks me about five steps so Arthur cannot hear. She bends down and whispers in my ear, “Bee, I haven’t ever had a
boyfriend. Not here working for Ellis. I really want to go. I won’t be late. You’ll be okay. All right?”

She waits for me to answer.

I don’t. I stare at my work boots. I look at the Beech-Nut foils and the dirty popcorn all over the ground. By the time I look up, Pauline is already walking away.

When I finish sweeping around the hot dog cart and go into the hauling truck, I sit on my mattress for a long time. I think long and hard on why Pauline did not want me to go with her. I hear Fat Man Sam and Eldora and everyone climb into Ellis’s truck and go out. They are singing “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” and they will be yelling it when they get back and Eldora will make Fat Man Sam put his bedroll outside.

I am afraid to fall asleep until Pauline comes back. I listen to the Ferris wheel creaking as it rocks in the wind and to dogs barking in the distance. Finally, around midnight, I hear Pauline outside the truck giggling. Arthur says, “Good night, Lady Light.” I roll my eyes in the dark.

Pauline climbs the ladder and then comes over by me. I pretend I am asleep, and I sigh a lot so she knows I am very unhappy.

“Bee?”

I make a few soft snores.

“Bee, don’t be mad. I haven’t had a boyfriend before.”

I want to tell her how she does not need a boyfriend, how all she needs is me, how all we need is a place to live far away from Ellis and now Arthur. But if I say anything, she will know I am awake.

Pretty soon Pauline climbs onto her own mattress and rolls over and then she is sleeping for real and it is very hot
and I am awake for a long, long time. Finally, when I can’t make myself fall asleep, I take my bedroll outside and lie down under the stars. I try and play the ha-ha game by myself, but it does not work. I look up at the Big Dipper and think about things for a long time. I tell it how Pauline and I need a home right away.

Then I wait for the old lady in the orange flappy hat.

16

The next morning I am being licked on my face. I think for sure I am being kissed by an angel. I am not.

“Stop that,” I say, wiping goo off my diamond, getting up off the wet ground, and looking in the soft eyes of the little matted dog. He tilts his head and watches me. His fur is caked with mud.

“I don’t have any more hot dogs. I left them all for you last night. Did you eat them all?”

He tilts his head to the other side. One of his ears sticks straight up. The other bends like it is doing a front flip.

“Well, whose fault is that, anyway?” I fold up my bedroll. I look him in the face.

“Woof!”

“Shush up,” I say, standing. “You’ll wake everybody up.”

But the dog does not shush. He flops on the ground and rolls over, wiggling his paws in the air, wagging the place where a tail ought to be, if only he had one. He wiggles all over like he is happy to see me. I know it is because of the hot dogs.

“I do not have any more. I gave them to you. Remember?”

He rolls all the way over and back up on his feet and when he is doing this he is kicking up dirt all over me and in my hair.

“Stop that!” I say, trying to get the dirt out of my eyes and off my face, and when I do he runs around me in a circle and then comes right back to sit down.

“Ellis is going to hear you. He doesn’t let any dogs in our traveling show. You do not want to be in hot water with Ellis, believe me.”

The little dog rolls over, wiggles his paws in the air, jumps up, wags his stump of a tail, and while he is doing all this he kicks up even more dirt in my face.

“Get out of here. I do not have any more hot dogs. I am sorry I gave you any in the first place. Now get.”

The little dog sits and tips his head to one side, and then the other. He keeps trying to wag his tail, but since he doesn’t have one, he wiggles most of his body instead.

You can’t help but giggle. No one is up yet, not even Pauline. The dog lies down and watches me. I scrunch my nose. “You sure do smell awful.” This only makes him wag his tail harder.

“Don’t you know this is no place for a dog?” He sits up and watches me. I look at his belly. It is very thin.

“Roll over.”

He gets down on his belly, and then rolls over like he knows all about behaving. He sits up and then we both just look at each other. He tilts his head again like he is trying to figure me out. I pull my hair across my cheek. He notices a stick a few feet away. He looks at it and then back at me, at the stick and then back at me. I know he is trying to decide.

Then he leaps for the stick. He is so small and the stick is so big he cannot get his mouth around it. He goes at it over and over, wrestling with it, until finally he sinks his
teeth in and drags it over to me. He sits right in front of me, his head tilted again like he doesn’t understand why I am not throwing the stick.

“It’s all wet. I’m not touching that.”

The dog raises his flopped ear. Now they are muddy flags sticking straight up. He wags his stumpy tail. His whole body is wiggling faster, faster, faster. “Woof!” he says, like I am slow or something, like I do not know what he wants and he has to explain the whole thing very carefully to me.