“How in the hell are we going to explain this?” Barnum asked the sky. Joe wondered the same thing.
6
We’r e supposed to stay in my room,” Jessica Logue told Lucy Pickett and Hailey Bond. “My dad says we need to stay out of those old buildings out back. He says they’re unsafe for us to play in.”
Lucy and Hailey protested. One of the things the girls loved was exploring the old outbuildings in the thick trees behind the house. It was spooky back there, and dark.
“Can’t we play hide-and-seek?” Lucy asked.
“That’s what my dad said,” Jessica shrugged. “He said he’s afraid the buildings might collapse when we’re playing in them and he says he doesn’t have enough insurance if we get hurt.”
“Oooh,” Hailey said, widening her eyes. “Maybe the roofs will fall in and crush us. And there will be blood and guts all over, like those gophers that get squished on the highway . . .”
“Stop it, Hailey,” Jessica said. Hailey, who was dark-haired with big brown eyes, liked to talk about gore. She also liked scaring people. Lucy and Jessica had made her promise to stop hiding in the worst places out back and refusing to answer their calls. Several times, Lucy and Jessica were on the verge of panic when Hailey would suddenly jump out from a pile of lumber or from behind the door of an ancient shed and shout, “Now you die!” “There’s stuff we can do in here,” Jessica said, trying to make the best of it.
Yes there is, Lucy thought. Jessica had the best collection of cool old clothes she had ever seen. Both Lucy and Jessica loved to play dress-up in the old clothes, and loved applying makeup from an old makeup case Jessica’s mom had given her. Hailey sighed, but went along. Hailey, like Lucy’s older sister, Sheridan, seemed to think that the girl things Lucy and Jessica liked were boring. She would rather play hide-and-seek in the woods and scare the other girls. Just like something Sheridan would do.
The box of old clothes was wonderful, and the three girls plowed through it. There were formal ball gowns, high-heeled shoes, tiaras ( Jessica’s mom had once won the Miss Sunflower beauty contest as a girl in South Dakota), boas, bathrobes, and some men’s clothes.
Hailey unfolded a dark green set of surgeon’s scrubs with the name Logue stenciled over the breast pocket. “Are these your dad’s?” she asked.
“My uncle is a doctor,” Jessica said. “They used to be his.” “Is he still a doctor?”
“I think so,” Jessica said.
“Hey, this one’s pretty!” Lucy squealed, pulling a long, maroon velvet gown from the box. She felt the material and liked the lushness of it. And she liked the white fur trim of the collar. “This would look good on me with those shoes,” she said, pointing at a pair of spike heels.
“I want to go outside,” Hailey said, pouting. “Do you think you could ask your dad?”
“He’s not home yet,” Jessica said, fishing a small black hat with a net out of the bundle and putting it on. “I’ll ask him when he gets home, though.”
The three girls stood shoulder-to-shoulder at the mirror over Jessica’s dresser, their faces inches from the glass while they applied their makeup. They were dressed up; Hailey in the surgeon’s scrubs, Jessica in a white satin dress with fake pearls, Lucy in the velvet dress and spike heels and the Miss Sunflower sash hung across her chest.
Despite their giggling, they could hear an argument coming from downstairs, from the living room at the foot of the stairs.
“What are they fighting about?” Hailey whispered, leaning into mirror to apply the blush to her cheeks.
Jessica shrugged, “I don’t know.”
“Are you going to ask your dad if we can go outside?” “When we’re done. Lucy, you look beautiful.”
Lucy kissed at herself in the mirror, and the other girls laughed. Her lips were bright red with lipstick, and her eyelids were covered in blue shadow.
“Will your mom get mad if I wear her Miss Sunflower banner?” “I don’t think so. And it’s called a sash.”
Lucy was disconcerted by the loud voices from downstairs. It wasn’t like her parents never had an argument— they certainly did. There were times at dinner when she knew there had been a disagreement, by the silence, the lack of small talk, or the extra helping of politeness when one of them asked for the salt. But she hardly even heard them raise their voices to each other, even behind closed doors. Their arguments, whenever they occurred, happened someplace else or when no one else was home. Hearing the voices from downstairs, she thought it was better to argue away from the children.
They stood at Jessica’s upstairs window, looking, Lucy thought, like pretty hot young women. They had applied perfume—overdone it, actually— and the smell was overpowering. They were watching as two dark, late-model sedans pulled up the driveway and stopped near the front porch. “Who are those people?” Hailey asked, as both cars stopped and the driver-side doors opened. Two older women emerged from their separate vehicles. Each woman was tall, angular, and wearing a print dress that was out-of-date as well as out of season, Lucy thought. The women looked similar but different. Like sisters, maybe.
“I think their name is Overcast,” Jessica said. “Something like that.” “Are they sisters?” Lucy asked.
“Yes.”
“So they’re not married to anyone?” “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“Look how they pretend the other one isn’t there,” Hailey said. “Isn’t that weird?”
Lucy had noticed. The two women had emerged from their cars, shut the doors, and proceeded to the front door without even acknowledging each other. They were now out of sight below, under the roof of the portico. “Overstreet,” Jessica said. “Now I remember their names. They own a ranch or something.”
“Both of them?” Lucy asked. “Without husbands?”
“I think so,” Jessica said. “I met them a couple of times but I don’t like them.”
