Kinko sits cross-legged on the bed. Queenie sniffs a bedroll that has replaced the infested horse blanket. Sitting on top is a neatly folded red plaid blanket and a pillow in a smooth white case. A square sheet of cardboard lies in the center of the pillow. When I lean over to pick it up, Queenie leaps as though I’ve kicked her.
I look up in surprise. Kinko is staring daggers at me.
“You wasted no time ingratiating yourself, did you?” he says.
COLLECTION OF THE RINGLING CIRCUS MUSEUM, SARASOTA, FLORIDA
The cars are not sequentially numbered, and it takes me a while to find car 48. It is painted a deep burgundy and trimmed with foot-tall gold lettering trumpeting BENZINI BROS MOST SPECTACULAR SHOW ON EARTH. Just beneath that, visible only in relief under the shiny fresh paint, is another name: CHRISTY BROS CIRCUS.
“Jacob!” Marlena’s voice floats from a window. A few seconds later she appears on the platform at the end, swinging out from the handrail so that her skirt swirls around her. “Jacob! Oh, I’m so glad you could make it. Please come in!”
“Thanks,” I say, glancing around. I climb up and follow her down the interior passageway and through the second door.
Stateroom 3 is glorious as well as a misnomer—it constitutes half the car, and contains at least one additional room, which is cordoned off with a thick velvet curtain. The main room is paneled in walnut and outfitted with damask furniture, a dinette, and a Pullman kitchen.
“Please make yourself comfortable,” says Marlena, waving me toward one of the chairs. “August will be along in a minute.”
“Thank you,” I say.
She sits opposite me.
“Oh,” she says leaping up again. “Where are my manners? Would you like a beer?”
“Thank you,” I say. “That would be swell.”
She flutters past me to an icebox.
“Mrs. Rosenbluth, can I ask you something?”
“Oh, please, call me Marlena,” she says, popping the bottle cap. She tips a tall glass and pours beer slowly down its side, avoiding a foam head. “And yes, by all means. Ask away.” She hands me the glass, and then returns to get another.
“How is it that everyone on this train has so much alcohol?”
“We always head to Canada at the beginning of the season,” she says, taking her seat again. “Their laws are much more civilized. Cheers,” she says, holding out her glass.
I touch mine to hers and take a sip. It’s a cold, clean lager. Magnificent. “Don’t the border guards check?”
“We put the booze in with the camels,” she says.
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” I say.
“Camels spit.”
I nearly spurt beer through my nose. She giggles too, and brings a hand demurely to her mouth. Then she sighs and puts her beer down. “Jacob?”
“Yes?”
“August told me about what happened this morning.”
I glance at my bruised arm.
“He feels terrible. He likes you. He really does. It’s just . . . Well, it’s complicated.” She looks into her lap, blushing.
“Hey, it’s nothing,” I say. “It’s fine.”
“Jacob!” shouts August from behind me. “My dear fellow! So glad you could join our little soiree. I see Marlena has set you up with a drinky-poo; has she shown you the dressing room yet?”
“The dressing room?”
“Marlena,” he says, turning and shaking his head sadly. He waggles a finger in reprimand. “
“Oh!” she says, leaping to her feet. “I completely forgot!”
August walks to the velvet curtain and whisks it aside.
“Ta-dah!”
There are three outfits lying side by side on the bed. Two tuxedos, complete with shoes, and a beautiful rose silk dress with beading on its neck and hemline.
Marlena squeals, clapping her hands in delight. She rushes to the bed and grabs the dress, pressing it to her body and twirling.
I turn to August. “These aren’t from the Monday Man—”
“A tux on a wash line? No, Jacob. Being equestrian director has the odd perk. You can clean up in there,” he says, pointing to a polished wooden door. “Marlena and I will change out here. Nothing we haven’t seen before, eh darling?” he says.
She grabs a rose silk shoe by the heel and chucks it at him.
The last thing I see as I shut the bathroom door is a tangle of feet toppling forward onto the bed.
When I come back out, Marlena and August are the picture of dignity, hovering in the background as three white-gloved waiters fuss with a small wheeled table and silver-domed platters.
The neckline of Marlena’s dress barely covers her shoulders, exposing her collarbone and a slim bra strap. She follows my gaze and tucks the strap back under the material, blushing once again.
The dinner is sublime: We start with oyster bisque and follow with prime rib, boiled potatoes, and asparagus in cream. Then comes lobster salad. By the time dessert appears—English plum pudding with brandy sauce—I don’t think I can take another bite. And yet a few minutes later I find myself scraping my plate with my spoon.
“Apparently Jacob doesn’t find dinner up to snuff,” August says in a slow drawl.
I freeze midscrape.
Then he and Marlena dissolve into fits of giggles. I set my spoon down, mortified.
“No, no, my boy, I’m joking—obviously,” he chortles, leaning over to pat my hand. “Eat. Enjoy yourself. Here, have some more,” he says.
“No, I couldn’t possibly.”
“Well, have some more wine then,” he says, refilling my glass without waiting for a response.
August is gracious, charming, and mischievous—so much so that as the evening wears on I begin to think the incident with Rex was just a joke gone awry. His face glows with wine and sentiment as he regales me with the tale of how he wooed Marlena. Of how he recognized her powerful way with horses the very moment she entered his menagerie tent three years before—sensed it from the horses themselves. And how, to the great distress of Uncle Al, he refused to budge until he had swept her off her feet and married her.
“It took some doing,” says August, emptying the remains of one champagne bottle into my glass and then reaching for another. “Marlena’s no pushover, plus she was practically engaged at the time. But this beats being the wife of a stuffy banker, doesn’t it, darling? At any rate, it’s what she was born to do. Not everyone can work with liberty horses. It’s a God-given talent, a sixth sense, if you will. This girl speaks horse, and believe me, they listen.”
Four hours and six bottles into the evening, August and Marlena dance to “Maybe It’s the Moon,” while I lounge in an upholstered chair with my right leg draped over its arm. August twirls Marlena around and then stops with her extended from the end of his straightened arm. He’s weaving, his dark hair tousled. His bow tie trails from either side of his collar and the first few buttons of his shirt are undone. He stares at Marlena with such intensity he looks like a different man.
“What’s the matter?” says Marlena. “Auggie? Are you all right?”
He continues to stare into her face, cocking his head as though evaluating her. The edge of his lip curls. He
