day, when she is having lunch in a restaurant, a man at the next table isn’t the least bit put off by her fake wedding ring or by the annoyed looks she gives him. He keeps smiling at her, an oddly conspiratorial smile, and in her agitation Sylvie is pouring a mixture of hot mustard and water down worm holes fourteen years ago while knocking over her Coke right now.
The man is there in a second, offering his napkin and introducing himself. Dr. John Wilcox.
Sylvie is trapped by him blocking her way. Trapped by his man’s body, his adoring eyes and all his questions. She gives her name and is surprised to find herself admitting that the ring isn’t really a wedding band. One part of her mind is rinsing the burning worms in a jar of water, and the other part is telling Dr. John Wilcox that she works in the travel business. Considering the miles under her belt, this isn’t entirely a lie.
“I’ve got to leave,” she keeps saying, but weakly. She feels melted to her chair. Between her little legs there’s a soft ache, and she can’t tear her eyes from his mouth. He has a beautiful mouth, a rosebud, a cherub’s mouth. He has blond, curly hair. Seven years in show business and how many men has she watched watching her? Enough to know that ones like him aren’t a dime a dozen.
Suddenly he is quiet. He lifts her hand from the table and holds it for a few minutes, turning it around, studying it. When can he see her again? He can’t, she answers, she isn’t what he thinks she is. No, not in love with anyone else, but not free … not what he thinks. Pressing her purse against her little legs to keep them still, she stands up and walks away.
A few hours later she is on stage. As usual she’s deep into a memory spell while still managing to deliver her lines and to glance around at the audience and to see and register everything and take it into herself as if through lead-lined holes that circumvent veins, arteries and organs.
“When Bill feels the call of nature, what do I do? Step into the ladies’ or the men’s?” She waits for the laugh, gets it, waits for the laugh to die, goes on. Fifteen years ago her mother is vilifying a woman named Velma Hodge. “Fat, wall-eyed sow,” her mother says. Coincidentally there’s a woman in the audience who could be Velma’s twin. In this woman’s face is the blend of repulsion and attraction that is in every face, and in the smoky air between Sylvie and the faces is the exchange of her watching them watching her.
Everything is going back and forth, in and out like breath.
And then she spots blond, curly hair, and it’s as if a hypnotist snapped his fingers. Her mother’s voice clears out of her head. All Sylvie hears is her own voice giving its spiel. “I tried to put a girl’s pair of stockings on Bill, but he started kicking up such a fuss that I couldn’t pull them up.” She feels a mystifying desertion, a snapping of links.
Backstage she sits on a crate as the shock lifts and an old agony presses down. “I can help you,” says a voice. It’s him. Dr. John Wilcox. The worm memory resumes. She is squashing the life out of the worms, using the cut-off end of an old broomstick.
Dr. John Wilcox kneels and takes her right hand in his. He says she will leave this place tonight. She will stay in his house. She never has to work in a side show again. He will consult with surgeons about an operation, he will take her anywhere in the world for an operation. He loves her. The minute he saw her he knew, and he only loves her more now. He wants to marry her.
It is a miracle too big to question. What Sylvie questions are the particulars. Don’t worry, he says. Never worry again. Her contract he will buy out. Her friends she can visit. So while he goes to talk to Mr. Bean, she goes to tell Merry Mary the news. “Holy moly,” is all Mary can say. “Holy moly.”
John has a housekeeper and a cook, both late-middle-aged women, polite and unruffled by Sylvie showing
The man is there in a second, offering his napkin and introducing himself. Dr. John Wilcox.
Sylvie is trapped by him blocking her way. Trapped by his man’s body, his adoring eyes and all his questions. She gives her name and is surprised to find herself admitting that the ring isn’t really a wedding band. One part of her mind is rinsing the burning worms in a jar of water, and the other part is telling Dr. John Wilcox that she works in the travel business. Considering the miles under her belt, this isn’t entirely a lie.
“I’ve got to leave,” she keeps saying, but weakly. She feels melted to her chair. Between her little legs there’s a soft ache, and she can’t tear her eyes from his mouth. He has a beautiful mouth, a rosebud, a cherub’s mouth. He has blond, curly hair. Seven years in show business and how many men has she watched watching her? Enough to know that ones like him aren’t a dime a dozen.
Suddenly he is quiet. He lifts her hand from the table and holds it for a few minutes, turning it around, studying it. When can he see her again? He can’t, she answers, she isn’t what he thinks she is. No, not in love with anyone else, but not free … not what he thinks. Pressing her purse against her little legs to keep them still, she stands up and walks away.
A few hours later she is on stage. As usual she’s deep into a memory spell while still managing to deliver her lines and to glance around at the audience and to see and register everything and take it into herself as if through lead-lined holes that circumvent veins, arteries and organs.
“When Bill feels the call of nature, what do I do? Step into the ladies’ or the men’s?” She waits for the laugh, gets it, waits for the laugh to die, goes on. Fifteen years ago her mother is vilifying a woman named Velma Hodge. “Fat, wall-eyed sow,” her mother says. Coincidentally there’s a woman in the audience who could be Velma’s twin. In this woman’s face is the blend of repulsion and attraction that is in every face, and in the smoky air between Sylvie and the faces is the exchange of her watching them watching her.
Everything is going back and forth, in and out like breath.
And then she spots blond, curly hair, and it’s as if a hypnotist snapped his fingers. Her mother’s voice clears out of her head. All Sylvie hears is her own voice giving its spiel. “I tried to put a girl’s pair of stockings on Bill, but he started kicking up such a fuss that I couldn’t pull them up.” She feels a mystifying desertion, a snapping of links.
Backstage she sits on a crate as the shock lifts and an old agony presses down. “I can help you,” says a voice. It’s him. Dr. John Wilcox. The worm memory resumes. She is squashing the life out of the worms, using the cut-off end of an old broomstick.
Dr. John Wilcox kneels and takes her right hand in his. He says she will leave this place tonight. She will stay in his house. She never has to work in a side show again. He will consult with surgeons about an operation, he will take her anywhere in the world for an operation. He loves her. The minute he saw her he knew, and he only loves her more now. He wants to marry her.
It is a miracle too big to question. What Sylvie questions are the particulars. Don’t worry, he says. Never worry again. Her contract he will buy out. Her friends she can visit. So while he goes to talk to Mr. Bean, she goes to tell Merry Mary the news. “Holy moly,” is all Mary can say. “Holy moly.”
John has a housekeeper and a cook, both late-middle-aged women, polite and unruffled by Sylvie showing
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