TAYLOR
The good thing about sleeping over at Millie's house on Saturday night was that it meant that Bessie was allowed to skip church on Sunday. Oversleeping until nearly ten, Bessie darted out of bed and tiptoed quietly out of the house, as to not wake Millie or Judith, so that she could run home and wash up. She regretted not staying to catch up with Millie, but she was anxious to get to the fair while her father wasn't around to tell her she couldn't go.
Heading home as fast as her legs could carry her, through the grass and the dirt roads of the country green on the outskirts of Tulsa, she finally burst into her house and bounded breathlessly up the stairs and into her bedroom. Washing up and pinning her hair back, she chose a lighter dress than the one she wore yesterday. If the heat was going to be anything like it was the day before, she'd appreciate the thinner material.
Once she was pleased with her appearance, Bessie rushed downstairs to the less-than-modern, country-style kitchen. Hastily, she put together a couple of sandwiches made from leftovers of last night's roast pork, a bit a fruit, and a container of her mother's prize-winning lemonade, secured it all in a small basket, and grinned as she rushed outside to retrieve her bicycle. Zac would be so surprised when she told him she'd brought a picnic for the two of them after his act. She hoped that the gesture wasn't too forward.
She rode her bicycle to the fairgrounds as fast as she could, being careful not to tip over the basket as it swayed along. Finally slowing as she reached her destination, her heart raced with nerves. Should she be doing this? Should she be inviting herself to the Hanson brothers' private work area, much less coming to see a boy at all?
As she snuck her bicycle around the back of the long line of booths and stages that housed the various sideshow acts, Bessie was startled at the sights, yet she couldn't keep from slowing down and staring at them. Milling around the "backstage" area, she saw clowns practicing their juggling, miniature adults that could easily be mistaken for children had it not been for their facial hair and breasts, several sets of twins, a group of men and women stretching their bodies in unheard-of ways, a woman with a beard, a man on stilts, and multiple individuals with unique human deformities. Those were the ones who broke her heart. The signs in the front proudly displayed the word "freaks" on them and she knew what that word meant. And people with feelings and beating hearts didn't deserve to be called freaks. She was glad that Zac's and his brothers' act didn't include anything of this nature.
When she became especially drawn to a man who coached his group of tiny dogs to jump through a large hoop, one right after the other, she didn't see the heavy trunk with the open lid that blocked her pathway as she pedaled her bicycle right into it. Upon impact, she nearly sailed over the handlebars as she crashed hard into the ground, conveniently in an area that was void of any grass, and consisted mostly of dirt and twigs, still damp from both the previous night's rain and the morning's dew. Bessie instantly felt the sting on her left knee, as it had hit the ground first, but mostly she felt the humiliation at wrecking her bicycle in front of the large group of people who now stared at her.
Instantly, the trunk she'd crashed into slammed to a close and Taylor stood up from it, his face wound up with concern. "Hey," he said gently as he rushed over to her in his white button-down shirt and his brown trousers held up by a pair of black suspenders. "Are you okay?"
"No," she sniffed, trying her hardest not to cry. "I'm humiliated."
He glanced around as he took her by the arm and helped her up off the ground. "You're in the last place you should be humiliated in," he chuckled.
As he helped her onto her feet, her eyes immediately went to the picnic basket to make sure it was safe. Miraculously, it still hung exactly straight from the handlebar of the fallen bicycle. Looking up at Taylor, his blue eyes twinkled as his face still read concern with a bit of confusion mixed in. In spite of herself, Bessie found herself blushing upon sight of him. He was, indeed, a beautiful man with his broad jaw and his dark blonde hair, and she instantly felt ashamed of herself for thinking so.
Suddenly reminded of her knee as the sting came back to remind her it was there, she shamelessly pulled her dress up just above her knee to check the wound. Above her, Taylor sucked in a breath through his teeth as he saw the same bloodied scrape that she saw. "Ouch," he breathed. "Here, let me help you get something on that. You don't want it to get worse."
He picked her bicycle up off the ground, ignoring the picnic basket that hung from the handle, and she followed him as he wheeled it to a nearby tree that was so large, it provided shade for a large portion of the area behind the fair. Propping the bicycle up against the tree's trunk, Taylor motioned for her to sit on one of the unusually large roots that jutted up from the ground. "Sit there for a minute," he instructed. "Don't let your dress rest on that knee, you don't to get blood on any of that pretty material. I'll bring something to clean it up with."
As Taylor disappeared out of sight, Bessie felt extremely awkward with her one knee bent and exposed. She wanted desperately to lay her dress back over it, but Taylor was right--she didn't want to get any blood on her dress, especially before she saw Zac. That would be embarrassing.
Speaking of Zac, Bessie scoured the area for him. It seemed he was nowhere to be found, and neither was Isaac, for that matter. Her heart sank with disappointment, especially since it was getting so close to their show time. Surely he should be around, right?
Taylor returned within a minute or two with a white cloth that smelled strong of witch hazel and she shook her head as he squatted down in front of her. "No," she said, her eyes wide. "I can smell that and I know what it is. It stings and I don't like it."
"You have to disinfect it, you fell in the dirt. It'll only sting for a second."
He was right and she hated it. Then her eyes widened in horror as his hand came for her knee. Quickly, as if it were a reflex, she slapped it away and turned her body away from him. "What are you doing?!"
He looked back at her, taken aback at first, and then annoyed. "If I give this to you, will you put it on your own leg?"
She stared back at him in thought for a moment. Once again, he was right. If it was left up to her, her leg might fall off due to infection. Swallowing hard, she turned her body back toward him and closed her legs so tightly, the tension hurt her body. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I didn't mean to overreact. Thank you for helping me."
"You're welcome," he said quietly as he began to gently dab the stinging cloth on her knee. "Wow. That's one doozy of a scrape you got there. What are you, uh, what brings you here, anyway?"
Bessie couldn't respond. The more she thought about it, the more embarrassed she was. She should have looked at this bicycle crash as an omen. She shouldn't be here. Girls didn't ask boys to do things. She was being too forward for sure.
_____________________________________________________________________
"Hey," Taylor said in regards to Bessie's silent response to his question. He moved his head so that he could see into her face as her eyes looked at the ground. "Cat got your tongue?"
Finally, she looked at him, her hazel eyes filled with worry. "I was hoping to wish Zac good luck on the act today. Um, and you and Isaac, too, of course."
A small smirk crossed Taylor's face as he went back to concentrating on her knee. "That's nice of you. Thank you. I'll be sure to let him know. Both of them."
"Where is he, anyway?" She asked meekly.
His smirk turned into a scoff as he rolled his eyes at her. "He's off in some field somewhere, pi--" Then he looked up into her eyes and recalled his conversation with Zac last night, followed by the painstaking hours it took to teach him to make real flowers appear from his wand. "Um, he's off practicing. For the act."
She narrowed her eyes in confusion. "In a field?"
"Well, you know...you gotta get solitude wherever you can find it sometimes."
"Oh," she replied, nodding with understanding. Taylor let out a quiet breath of relief, wanting to pat himself on the back for his quick wit. There was no way he could tell her that Zac was out picking flowers just for her. He didn't want to be the one to ruin his surprise.
Then Bessie spoke again, this time catching Taylor off guard. "So, is this--um, is this the gypsy camp?"
His head darted up at her, perhaps a little more quickly than he realized. "What?"
"Is this where you live?"
He had to laugh at the absurdity of the question. He couldn't help himself. "No. This is the fair, Bessie. Come on."
"Oh," she said, her face falling and her cheeks turning red. "I didn't know."
Feeling guilty for laughing at her, he removed the now-bloodied cloth from her knee to let the air have at it for a minute. He let out a breath and ran a hand through his hair to sweep it out of his eyes. "Forgive me for being direct, but I'm under the impression that you don't know a lot about...well, about a lot."
"I try to," she admitted. "My daddy never let me do a whole lot growing up. I've gone to school, worked on our farm, and gone to church. I have to get permission if I want to go somewhere and I'm not allowed to go anywhere alone. It got worse after Millie went to the university because he would only really allow me to go anywhere if I went with her. And that wasn't often."
"You came here alone," he pointed out.
"That's because I spent the night with Millie last night and snuck out before she woke up. My parents are at church, so they think I'm still at Millie's."
Taylor smiled, amused, as he refolded the cloth and went back to work on her knee. "What a rebel you are."
"I'm not trying to be a rebel," she said earnestly, as she shook her head for emphasis. "But my daddy doesn't seem to understand that I'm a woman now. I might be a young one, but I'm still a woman. He doesn't see that, he still treats me like a child. I don't want to be a rebel and I don't want to disobey. But I just want to be free."
Taylor's heart went out to the girl. Looking at public figures like Judge Harlow and their families, it was easy for someone on the outside to make their assumptions. It was easy to assume their lives were easy and privileged and that they had the run of the town. But in a matter of minutes, he was getting a crash course on the reality of being a judge's daughter--and it made him appreciate his own life a whole lot more.
"The gypsy camp we live on is a couple of miles from here, close to the river," he said, finally answering her question. "We, uh, we live in our traveling carnival trailer. And we're hoping to make enough money to fix our car so we can start finding more carnival and circus work outside of town."
"Wow," she said breathlessly. "It must be so nice to make your own rules. And to see all those different places. I've never been outside of Tulsa. Well, only once or twice when we went to Oklahoma City. But that's it. Mama and Daddy did all the fancy traveling when I was a small girl."
Taylor cleared his throat uncomfortably as he continued to concentrate on her knee, only realizing that he only lingered now to stall conversation. Finally, he told her the truth. "We live on next to nothing with little, if anything, to spare, but we get by. We don't starve and we don't freeze. We work for every penny, we don't beg."
"But you pickpocket," she replied quietly. "And you steal."
Taylor's heart pounded. "Pickpocket?"
"I saw you," she said, leaning forward, her voice lowering to a whisper. "Yesterday, when you pulled that man onstage. I saw you pickpocket him, I saw you take something from his pocket and put it into yours. It was real hard to see, but I saw it. I didn't tell anybody, though. And I won't. Honest. You can trust me."
He swallowed hard and he looked up into her eyes, the innocence and the sincerity piercing his heart, winning him over in one shot. He understood everything Zac saw in her now. "I do trust you," Taylor said. "Anyway, pickpocketing still isn't begging. And believe me, it can be like work. Sometimes you just have to take what you need and then convince yourself that it's okay because you'll pay them back, even though you know you can't. But times are hard. Not only do we strive to survive, we strive for our sanity."
"The economy's looking better, you know. Why not just...find other work? You're smart, you could--well, I bet you could sell real estate. I bet with that act you put on, you'd know how to sell anything."
Taylor couldn't help but chuckle at the girl. She was sweet. Real sweet. But he wasn't sure she was understanding him. "And work for someone else? Never. My brothers and I don't have much, but we're free. And we're happy. And I couldn't be paid enough to sacrifice my freedom."
Bessie looked into his eyes for a second, pondering what he'd said, and then her face fell. "I'm not sure Zac's happy."
Taylor was confused. Zac was happy, he knew he was. At least...well, at least he used to be... "Not happy? Did he say something to you last night?"
She sighed and shook her head. "He made me give the trick flowers back last night. At first it hurt my feelings and I thought he was being rude. And then I was being rude by keeping them away from him and then he got upset and said he couldn't afford to buy more and--and, well, I don't think he wanted to tell me that. And then--and then on the way to Millie's, Judith told me about where you guys live..."
"Oh," Taylor said softly. "I see..."
"But I don't care about that!" She said, shaking her head rapidly. "I don't. I don't want him to feel ashamed of anything because he has nothing to be ashamed of."
He didn't want to admit it, but Taylor was starting to feel emotional. Emotional in a way a man wasn't supposed to feel. This girl had a heart of gold and his younger brother was an extremely lucky man. "I, uh, I agree," he said, finally.
"How did you guys end up living in the gypsy camp?"
Taylor chuckled to stave off the emotions. "Shouldn't you be asking Zac all these questions?"
"He isn't here. And I'm asking you."
He sighed and he smiled, once again obliging her. "Because talking pictures killed vaudeville."
"I remember when you sang at my house at my thirteenth birthday party. You sounded real nice, I enjoyed it."
"Thank you."
"Why don't you sing anymore?"
Taking a deep breath, Taylor closed his mouth. It was a subject he didn't like to be reminded of. He didn't like to be reminded of how singing didn't hold the joy it held just a short time ago. Except that, just like everything else she'd asked him, he felt compelled to answer her anyway. "We used to live with our parents on our family farm before we made it big in vaudeville. They raised us proper, made sure we were educated. We went to school--Isaac even went to college. At night, during the summer, we used to sing. As a family. It was beautiful. Ma was the only woman, so she sang soprano and she had such a beautiful voice. Then one week our uncle came to visit and he heard us sing and told us all about vaudeville and how we'd hit it big, easy. We could make all the money in the world, he said. So we talked about it and we decided to go for it and, boy, he wasn't kidding. Life was so grand then. We'd go all kinds of places and make all kinds of money, sending Ma and Pa at least half of what we made to help them out. It was much better money than what they made selling the crops. Then the stock market crashed. And the talking picture was invented. And it all seemed to happen at the same time, or so that's how it felt, and then the next thing we know, the farm suffered a drought and our parents couldn't pull money from any of the crops and the bank was ready to take the house. A few months later, in the winter, we were up in New York City and found out that they both died of influenza. Got it from one of the bankers that came to the house. We, uh, we couldn't be there. We couldn't help them. When we finally came home to have their funeral, we had to have them cremated--and we ran a risk going inside the house, but we went anyway and we found out that--um, we found out that they never used a dime of the money we sent them. They kept it in coffee cans, stashed all over the house. That was, uh, that was three years ago." Taylor paused a moment to let out a breath before he continued. "Anyway, so we couldn't afford to keep paying on the house, so the bank eventually took it. We took what we had left and paid off the travel trailer and here we are. We sing now and then, once in awhile, when things start to drag a little in our act, but really, we don't sing much anymore. It's not as special as it used to be."
Bessie and Taylor were silent until he heard her quiet sniffles. He looked up in time to see her quickly wipe a tear from her cheek. "I'm so sorry," she whispered. "I didn't mean to make you talk about it."
Taylor cleared his throat once more. "It's--uh, it's okay. I think Zac takes it the hardest. We have to remind ourselves that we couldn't help that they got sick."
"I think they would have been proud of you," she offered quietly. "You're nice. And Zac's nice. And I don't know much about Isaac, but I bet he's nice, too. And so what if you don't have money? You're content and you do what makes you happy. Right? Your act makes you happy?"
An appreciative smile crept across Taylor's face as he looked up at her and he nodded. "Yeah. It does."
"Then that's all that matters, right?"
"I think I've underestimated you, little lady."
"I wasn't trying to--"
"Just stop while you're ahead."
"I can see why Millie likes you."
He glanced up at Bessie as he pulled the handkerchief out of his back pocket and shook it out. "Yeah?"
"You're kind and you're gentle. And you're easy to talk to."
Taylor blushed and he snickered as he wrapped his handkerchief around her knee. "Believe me, that's not why she likes me."
"Isn't it?"
"It's, uh, it's not like that with Millie."
"You don't talk?" She asked curiously.
"We--we talk, sure. Just--not like this..."
"How did you meet Millie, anyway?"
"Much like Zac met you, I guess. Except I pulled her onstage and pulled a coin out of her ear. Next thing I know, she came behind the stage after our act and--" He paused and turned his concentration to tying the handkerchief in place, afraid he was getting too comfortable in his speech.
"And then what?" She pressed.
"And then...you know, we started going out, I guess."
"Just like that?"
"Sure."
"It's that easy?"
"What's that easy?"
"To go out with a boy."
He eyed her curiously, finally feeling like he had her figured out. "You've never been on a date before, have you? Is that what all that commotion last night was about?"
Her eyes fell into her lap. "Boys don't talk to me."
"What does that mean, boys don't talk to you?"
"They don't talk to me," she said, looking back at him. "They've never talked to me. Not like they talk to Judith or Millie. No boy has ever said anything to me outside of asking to borrow a pencil or to say excuse me for being in the way as they walked past. Judith and Millie, they've been to all these dances and proms and moving pictures with boys, but not me. Nobody ever asked me and Mama always said it wasn't proper for a lady to go to a party alone."
"I find that hard to believe."
"It's true."
"Well, Zac talked to you."
"He's the first one."
Taylor shifted his weight as he continued to crouch in front of her, her knee long since mended. He interlaced his fingers in front of him as his arms rested on his knees. "Bessie--you ever took into consideration that maybe you're not the problem?"
Bessie furrowed her brow in confusion. "What do you mean?"
"Maybe boys aren't talking to you because you're not coming across the right ones."
Her eyes darted around and her shoulders slumped in thought. "I never thought about it that way..."
"Think about it," he said, winking at her. "Maybe Zac talked to you because he's the right one."
A shy smile then crept across her face and she began to blush. This caused Taylor to smile. "Taylor, do you think--do you think it would be too forward of me to ask Zac if he wanted to have a picnic?"
Taylor's smile grew bigger, touched by her sentiment, and he was suddenly happy for his younger brother. "No. No, I think he'd really like that."
Bessie's shy smile turned into a beam of joy as she bit her lip, her hazel eyes sparkling with delight.
At that, Taylor stood up and held his hand out to her to help her off of the overgrown tree root. "For now, though, I think it's time for you to head back out front. Keep your bicycle with you, we can't watch it while we're onstage. And then when we're finished, you can come back and go on your picnic with Zac. Okay?"
She smiled and she nodded and she took hold of the handlebars of her bicycle. "Thank you so much for being so sweet. And for fixing my knee. And for your advice. I appreciate it."
"Yeah, no problem," he said, waving her off. "Glad I could help. And, uh, thanks for the talk. You're real easy to talk to, too."
"Okay, then," she said, grinning. "Well, see you after the show, then. Not for long, I hope."
As she rode away carefully, Taylor smiled after her and shook his head, shoving his hands in his pockets. And then he thought about Millie. 'You don't talk?' Bessie had said. He and Millie just liked to have fun, keeping deep conversation at bay. But maybe he ought to try talking to her. Maybe, in a way, Bessie had helped him, too. He wasn't sure yet.
The only thing he was sure of: Zac sure was a lucky man. Taylor just hoped he knew it.
The good thing about sleeping over at Millie's house on Saturday night was that it meant that Bessie was allowed to skip church on Sunday. Oversleeping until nearly ten, Bessie darted out of bed and tiptoed quietly out of the house, as to not wake Millie or Judith, so that she could run home and wash up. She regretted not staying to catch up with Millie, but she was anxious to get to the fair while her father wasn't around to tell her she couldn't go.
Heading home as fast as her legs could carry her, through the grass and the dirt roads of the country green on the outskirts of Tulsa, she finally burst into her house and bounded breathlessly up the stairs and into her bedroom. Washing up and pinning her hair back, she chose a lighter dress than the one she wore yesterday. If the heat was going to be anything like it was the day before, she'd appreciate the thinner material.
Once she was pleased with her appearance, Bessie rushed downstairs to the less-than-modern, country-style kitchen. Hastily, she put together a couple of sandwiches made from leftovers of last night's roast pork, a bit a fruit, and a container of her mother's prize-winning lemonade, secured it all in a small basket, and grinned as she rushed outside to retrieve her bicycle. Zac would be so surprised when she told him she'd brought a picnic for the two of them after his act. She hoped that the gesture wasn't too forward.
She rode her bicycle to the fairgrounds as fast as she could, being careful not to tip over the basket as it swayed along. Finally slowing as she reached her destination, her heart raced with nerves. Should she be doing this? Should she be inviting herself to the Hanson brothers' private work area, much less coming to see a boy at all?
As she snuck her bicycle around the back of the long line of booths and stages that housed the various sideshow acts, Bessie was startled at the sights, yet she couldn't keep from slowing down and staring at them. Milling around the "backstage" area, she saw clowns practicing their juggling, miniature adults that could easily be mistaken for children had it not been for their facial hair and breasts, several sets of twins, a group of men and women stretching their bodies in unheard-of ways, a woman with a beard, a man on stilts, and multiple individuals with unique human deformities. Those were the ones who broke her heart. The signs in the front proudly displayed the word "freaks" on them and she knew what that word meant. And people with feelings and beating hearts didn't deserve to be called freaks. She was glad that Zac's and his brothers' act didn't include anything of this nature.
When she became especially drawn to a man who coached his group of tiny dogs to jump through a large hoop, one right after the other, she didn't see the heavy trunk with the open lid that blocked her pathway as she pedaled her bicycle right into it. Upon impact, she nearly sailed over the handlebars as she crashed hard into the ground, conveniently in an area that was void of any grass, and consisted mostly of dirt and twigs, still damp from both the previous night's rain and the morning's dew. Bessie instantly felt the sting on her left knee, as it had hit the ground first, but mostly she felt the humiliation at wrecking her bicycle in front of the large group of people who now stared at her.
Instantly, the trunk she'd crashed into slammed to a close and Taylor stood up from it, his face wound up with concern. "Hey," he said gently as he rushed over to her in his white button-down shirt and his brown trousers held up by a pair of black suspenders. "Are you okay?"
"No," she sniffed, trying her hardest not to cry. "I'm humiliated."
He glanced around as he took her by the arm and helped her up off the ground. "You're in the last place you should be humiliated in," he chuckled.
As he helped her onto her feet, her eyes immediately went to the picnic basket to make sure it was safe. Miraculously, it still hung exactly straight from the handlebar of the fallen bicycle. Looking up at Taylor, his blue eyes twinkled as his face still read concern with a bit of confusion mixed in. In spite of herself, Bessie found herself blushing upon sight of him. He was, indeed, a beautiful man with his broad jaw and his dark blonde hair, and she instantly felt ashamed of herself for thinking so.
Suddenly reminded of her knee as the sting came back to remind her it was there, she shamelessly pulled her dress up just above her knee to check the wound. Above her, Taylor sucked in a breath through his teeth as he saw the same bloodied scrape that she saw. "Ouch," he breathed. "Here, let me help you get something on that. You don't want it to get worse."
He picked her bicycle up off the ground, ignoring the picnic basket that hung from the handle, and she followed him as he wheeled it to a nearby tree that was so large, it provided shade for a large portion of the area behind the fair. Propping the bicycle up against the tree's trunk, Taylor motioned for her to sit on one of the unusually large roots that jutted up from the ground. "Sit there for a minute," he instructed. "Don't let your dress rest on that knee, you don't to get blood on any of that pretty material. I'll bring something to clean it up with."
As Taylor disappeared out of sight, Bessie felt extremely awkward with her one knee bent and exposed. She wanted desperately to lay her dress back over it, but Taylor was right--she didn't want to get any blood on her dress, especially before she saw Zac. That would be embarrassing.
Speaking of Zac, Bessie scoured the area for him. It seemed he was nowhere to be found, and neither was Isaac, for that matter. Her heart sank with disappointment, especially since it was getting so close to their show time. Surely he should be around, right?
Taylor returned within a minute or two with a white cloth that smelled strong of witch hazel and she shook her head as he squatted down in front of her. "No," she said, her eyes wide. "I can smell that and I know what it is. It stings and I don't like it."
"You have to disinfect it, you fell in the dirt. It'll only sting for a second."
He was right and she hated it. Then her eyes widened in horror as his hand came for her knee. Quickly, as if it were a reflex, she slapped it away and turned her body away from him. "What are you doing?!"
He looked back at her, taken aback at first, and then annoyed. "If I give this to you, will you put it on your own leg?"
She stared back at him in thought for a moment. Once again, he was right. If it was left up to her, her leg might fall off due to infection. Swallowing hard, she turned her body back toward him and closed her legs so tightly, the tension hurt her body. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I didn't mean to overreact. Thank you for helping me."
"You're welcome," he said quietly as he began to gently dab the stinging cloth on her knee. "Wow. That's one doozy of a scrape you got there. What are you, uh, what brings you here, anyway?"
Bessie couldn't respond. The more she thought about it, the more embarrassed she was. She should have looked at this bicycle crash as an omen. She shouldn't be here. Girls didn't ask boys to do things. She was being too forward for sure.
_____________________________________________________________________
"Hey," Taylor said in regards to Bessie's silent response to his question. He moved his head so that he could see into her face as her eyes looked at the ground. "Cat got your tongue?"
Finally, she looked at him, her hazel eyes filled with worry. "I was hoping to wish Zac good luck on the act today. Um, and you and Isaac, too, of course."
A small smirk crossed Taylor's face as he went back to concentrating on her knee. "That's nice of you. Thank you. I'll be sure to let him know. Both of them."
"Where is he, anyway?" She asked meekly.
His smirk turned into a scoff as he rolled his eyes at her. "He's off in some field somewhere, pi--" Then he looked up into her eyes and recalled his conversation with Zac last night, followed by the painstaking hours it took to teach him to make real flowers appear from his wand. "Um, he's off practicing. For the act."
She narrowed her eyes in confusion. "In a field?"
"Well, you know...you gotta get solitude wherever you can find it sometimes."
"Oh," she replied, nodding with understanding. Taylor let out a quiet breath of relief, wanting to pat himself on the back for his quick wit. There was no way he could tell her that Zac was out picking flowers just for her. He didn't want to be the one to ruin his surprise.
Then Bessie spoke again, this time catching Taylor off guard. "So, is this--um, is this the gypsy camp?"
His head darted up at her, perhaps a little more quickly than he realized. "What?"
"Is this where you live?"
He had to laugh at the absurdity of the question. He couldn't help himself. "No. This is the fair, Bessie. Come on."
"Oh," she said, her face falling and her cheeks turning red. "I didn't know."
Feeling guilty for laughing at her, he removed the now-bloodied cloth from her knee to let the air have at it for a minute. He let out a breath and ran a hand through his hair to sweep it out of his eyes. "Forgive me for being direct, but I'm under the impression that you don't know a lot about...well, about a lot."
"I try to," she admitted. "My daddy never let me do a whole lot growing up. I've gone to school, worked on our farm, and gone to church. I have to get permission if I want to go somewhere and I'm not allowed to go anywhere alone. It got worse after Millie went to the university because he would only really allow me to go anywhere if I went with her. And that wasn't often."
"You came here alone," he pointed out.
"That's because I spent the night with Millie last night and snuck out before she woke up. My parents are at church, so they think I'm still at Millie's."
Taylor smiled, amused, as he refolded the cloth and went back to work on her knee. "What a rebel you are."
"I'm not trying to be a rebel," she said earnestly, as she shook her head for emphasis. "But my daddy doesn't seem to understand that I'm a woman now. I might be a young one, but I'm still a woman. He doesn't see that, he still treats me like a child. I don't want to be a rebel and I don't want to disobey. But I just want to be free."
Taylor's heart went out to the girl. Looking at public figures like Judge Harlow and their families, it was easy for someone on the outside to make their assumptions. It was easy to assume their lives were easy and privileged and that they had the run of the town. But in a matter of minutes, he was getting a crash course on the reality of being a judge's daughter--and it made him appreciate his own life a whole lot more.
"The gypsy camp we live on is a couple of miles from here, close to the river," he said, finally answering her question. "We, uh, we live in our traveling carnival trailer. And we're hoping to make enough money to fix our car so we can start finding more carnival and circus work outside of town."
"Wow," she said breathlessly. "It must be so nice to make your own rules. And to see all those different places. I've never been outside of Tulsa. Well, only once or twice when we went to Oklahoma City. But that's it. Mama and Daddy did all the fancy traveling when I was a small girl."
Taylor cleared his throat uncomfortably as he continued to concentrate on her knee, only realizing that he only lingered now to stall conversation. Finally, he told her the truth. "We live on next to nothing with little, if anything, to spare, but we get by. We don't starve and we don't freeze. We work for every penny, we don't beg."
"But you pickpocket," she replied quietly. "And you steal."
Taylor's heart pounded. "Pickpocket?"
"I saw you," she said, leaning forward, her voice lowering to a whisper. "Yesterday, when you pulled that man onstage. I saw you pickpocket him, I saw you take something from his pocket and put it into yours. It was real hard to see, but I saw it. I didn't tell anybody, though. And I won't. Honest. You can trust me."
He swallowed hard and he looked up into her eyes, the innocence and the sincerity piercing his heart, winning him over in one shot. He understood everything Zac saw in her now. "I do trust you," Taylor said. "Anyway, pickpocketing still isn't begging. And believe me, it can be like work. Sometimes you just have to take what you need and then convince yourself that it's okay because you'll pay them back, even though you know you can't. But times are hard. Not only do we strive to survive, we strive for our sanity."
"The economy's looking better, you know. Why not just...find other work? You're smart, you could--well, I bet you could sell real estate. I bet with that act you put on, you'd know how to sell anything."
Taylor couldn't help but chuckle at the girl. She was sweet. Real sweet. But he wasn't sure she was understanding him. "And work for someone else? Never. My brothers and I don't have much, but we're free. And we're happy. And I couldn't be paid enough to sacrifice my freedom."
Bessie looked into his eyes for a second, pondering what he'd said, and then her face fell. "I'm not sure Zac's happy."
Taylor was confused. Zac was happy, he knew he was. At least...well, at least he used to be... "Not happy? Did he say something to you last night?"
She sighed and shook her head. "He made me give the trick flowers back last night. At first it hurt my feelings and I thought he was being rude. And then I was being rude by keeping them away from him and then he got upset and said he couldn't afford to buy more and--and, well, I don't think he wanted to tell me that. And then--and then on the way to Millie's, Judith told me about where you guys live..."
"Oh," Taylor said softly. "I see..."
"But I don't care about that!" She said, shaking her head rapidly. "I don't. I don't want him to feel ashamed of anything because he has nothing to be ashamed of."
He didn't want to admit it, but Taylor was starting to feel emotional. Emotional in a way a man wasn't supposed to feel. This girl had a heart of gold and his younger brother was an extremely lucky man. "I, uh, I agree," he said, finally.
"How did you guys end up living in the gypsy camp?"
Taylor chuckled to stave off the emotions. "Shouldn't you be asking Zac all these questions?"
"He isn't here. And I'm asking you."
He sighed and he smiled, once again obliging her. "Because talking pictures killed vaudeville."
"I remember when you sang at my house at my thirteenth birthday party. You sounded real nice, I enjoyed it."
"Thank you."
"Why don't you sing anymore?"
Taking a deep breath, Taylor closed his mouth. It was a subject he didn't like to be reminded of. He didn't like to be reminded of how singing didn't hold the joy it held just a short time ago. Except that, just like everything else she'd asked him, he felt compelled to answer her anyway. "We used to live with our parents on our family farm before we made it big in vaudeville. They raised us proper, made sure we were educated. We went to school--Isaac even went to college. At night, during the summer, we used to sing. As a family. It was beautiful. Ma was the only woman, so she sang soprano and she had such a beautiful voice. Then one week our uncle came to visit and he heard us sing and told us all about vaudeville and how we'd hit it big, easy. We could make all the money in the world, he said. So we talked about it and we decided to go for it and, boy, he wasn't kidding. Life was so grand then. We'd go all kinds of places and make all kinds of money, sending Ma and Pa at least half of what we made to help them out. It was much better money than what they made selling the crops. Then the stock market crashed. And the talking picture was invented. And it all seemed to happen at the same time, or so that's how it felt, and then the next thing we know, the farm suffered a drought and our parents couldn't pull money from any of the crops and the bank was ready to take the house. A few months later, in the winter, we were up in New York City and found out that they both died of influenza. Got it from one of the bankers that came to the house. We, uh, we couldn't be there. We couldn't help them. When we finally came home to have their funeral, we had to have them cremated--and we ran a risk going inside the house, but we went anyway and we found out that--um, we found out that they never used a dime of the money we sent them. They kept it in coffee cans, stashed all over the house. That was, uh, that was three years ago." Taylor paused a moment to let out a breath before he continued. "Anyway, so we couldn't afford to keep paying on the house, so the bank eventually took it. We took what we had left and paid off the travel trailer and here we are. We sing now and then, once in awhile, when things start to drag a little in our act, but really, we don't sing much anymore. It's not as special as it used to be."
Bessie and Taylor were silent until he heard her quiet sniffles. He looked up in time to see her quickly wipe a tear from her cheek. "I'm so sorry," she whispered. "I didn't mean to make you talk about it."
Taylor cleared his throat once more. "It's--uh, it's okay. I think Zac takes it the hardest. We have to remind ourselves that we couldn't help that they got sick."
"I think they would have been proud of you," she offered quietly. "You're nice. And Zac's nice. And I don't know much about Isaac, but I bet he's nice, too. And so what if you don't have money? You're content and you do what makes you happy. Right? Your act makes you happy?"
An appreciative smile crept across Taylor's face as he looked up at her and he nodded. "Yeah. It does."
"Then that's all that matters, right?"
"I think I've underestimated you, little lady."
"I wasn't trying to--"
"Just stop while you're ahead."
"I can see why Millie likes you."
He glanced up at Bessie as he pulled the handkerchief out of his back pocket and shook it out. "Yeah?"
"You're kind and you're gentle. And you're easy to talk to."
Taylor blushed and he snickered as he wrapped his handkerchief around her knee. "Believe me, that's not why she likes me."
"Isn't it?"
"It's, uh, it's not like that with Millie."
"You don't talk?" She asked curiously.
"We--we talk, sure. Just--not like this..."
"How did you meet Millie, anyway?"
"Much like Zac met you, I guess. Except I pulled her onstage and pulled a coin out of her ear. Next thing I know, she came behind the stage after our act and--" He paused and turned his concentration to tying the handkerchief in place, afraid he was getting too comfortable in his speech.
"And then what?" She pressed.
"And then...you know, we started going out, I guess."
"Just like that?"
"Sure."
"It's that easy?"
"What's that easy?"
"To go out with a boy."
He eyed her curiously, finally feeling like he had her figured out. "You've never been on a date before, have you? Is that what all that commotion last night was about?"
Her eyes fell into her lap. "Boys don't talk to me."
"What does that mean, boys don't talk to you?"
"They don't talk to me," she said, looking back at him. "They've never talked to me. Not like they talk to Judith or Millie. No boy has ever said anything to me outside of asking to borrow a pencil or to say excuse me for being in the way as they walked past. Judith and Millie, they've been to all these dances and proms and moving pictures with boys, but not me. Nobody ever asked me and Mama always said it wasn't proper for a lady to go to a party alone."
"I find that hard to believe."
"It's true."
"Well, Zac talked to you."
"He's the first one."
Taylor shifted his weight as he continued to crouch in front of her, her knee long since mended. He interlaced his fingers in front of him as his arms rested on his knees. "Bessie--you ever took into consideration that maybe you're not the problem?"
Bessie furrowed her brow in confusion. "What do you mean?"
"Maybe boys aren't talking to you because you're not coming across the right ones."
Her eyes darted around and her shoulders slumped in thought. "I never thought about it that way..."
"Think about it," he said, winking at her. "Maybe Zac talked to you because he's the right one."
A shy smile then crept across her face and she began to blush. This caused Taylor to smile. "Taylor, do you think--do you think it would be too forward of me to ask Zac if he wanted to have a picnic?"
Taylor's smile grew bigger, touched by her sentiment, and he was suddenly happy for his younger brother. "No. No, I think he'd really like that."
Bessie's shy smile turned into a beam of joy as she bit her lip, her hazel eyes sparkling with delight.
At that, Taylor stood up and held his hand out to her to help her off of the overgrown tree root. "For now, though, I think it's time for you to head back out front. Keep your bicycle with you, we can't watch it while we're onstage. And then when we're finished, you can come back and go on your picnic with Zac. Okay?"
She smiled and she nodded and she took hold of the handlebars of her bicycle. "Thank you so much for being so sweet. And for fixing my knee. And for your advice. I appreciate it."
"Yeah, no problem," he said, waving her off. "Glad I could help. And, uh, thanks for the talk. You're real easy to talk to, too."
"Okay, then," she said, grinning. "Well, see you after the show, then. Not for long, I hope."
As she rode away carefully, Taylor smiled after her and shook his head, shoving his hands in his pockets. And then he thought about Millie. 'You don't talk?' Bessie had said. He and Millie just liked to have fun, keeping deep conversation at bay. But maybe he ought to try talking to her. Maybe, in a way, Bessie had helped him, too. He wasn't sure yet.
The only thing he was sure of: Zac sure was a lucky man. Taylor just hoped he knew it.