The Universe is a Very Big Place (7 page)

"How long?" Sam asked as Lanie flopped into his recliner.

"Not that long. Just until she’s done with menopause."

"Menopause?" Sam’s voice trembled. "Doesn’t that take years? Why can’t she get her own place?"

"Apparently the carnival didn’t provide a very good retirement package. But she did offer to give you free Tarot Card readings for life."

Sam’s eyes narrowed as Lanie flipped through the channels. "Can she predict if I will be found guilty in an upcoming murder trial?"

"Sam!"

They watched as Lanie sat in the living room, one hand on the remote control, the other fanning herself. "Oh, Lordy," she grunted. "Why the hell did you pick Arizona to settle in? Arizona is too fuckin’ hot. I’m old. I might die."

"Only if we’re lucky," Sam said.

Four

1984

Lanie stepped outside of the motel room, a steaming mug of coffee cupped between her hands. She took a sip, letting the drink sit in her mouth for a moment before swallowing. It was decaf but it was still pretty damned good.

Lanie inhaled deeply, breathing in the crisp, fall air. Autumn was the very best time of year to be a fortune teller. Even atheists and agnostics came around to have their cards read or their palms glanced over, come Halloween. Good thing, too. Her wig was fraying and she’d need a new one. Maybe something long and sleek this time. Something Cher.

"Morning, gorgeous," said Ernie, closing the door behind him. He was wearing jeans with holes in the knees and his knockoff Members Only jacket purchased at the Asian district in St. Paul. "Let’s get some pancakes before the girls wake up. I got something to show you."

Lanie followed leisurely behind her husband as he hustled to the Motel diner: The Blue Moose Café.

"Where we going to anyway?" she said as Ernie opened the door for her. The restaurant inside looked very much like any other restaurant Lanie had seen during her years on the road. Red booths and speckled tables, waitresses in outdated hairstyles, and a jukebox near the entrance that serenaded its guests with Johnny Cash. A few of the roadies whose names Lanie couldn’t remember nodded at them as they made their way towards the rear of the place.

"Flagstaff, Arizona, baby." Ernie said as he scooted into the booth. "Home of the Chipotle tribe. The greatest Indian warriors in all the country. More scalping per square foot there than anywhere else in America."

Lanie narrowed her eyes and leaned across the booth. "Let’s make a deal, Ernie. You save the shit for the customers and so will I."
 

Ernie grinned and snapped his fingers at a nearby waitress.

"So what do you want to show me?" Lanie asked after ordering her hotcakes with extra syrup and bacon. Ernie raised his eyebrows but kept his mouth shut and Lanie was tempted to kick him under the booth. He never gave up his dramatics, even when they were alone. Finally, he reached into his coat pocket and produced a bloated, white tube sock that clattered and clanged when he threw it on the table.

"Ta da! Once again the World’s Most Virile Man has come through for the woman he loves. Check this out." Ernest picked up the end of the tube sock and dumped the contents. Ten cent pieces scattered across the booth, some rolling into Lanie’s lap.

"You’re pilfering from the dime toss, Ernest?" Lanie couldn’t believe it. Ernie could be called a lot of things, but she had never thought of him as a crook. A crock but not a crook.

"What? It’s not like I’m stealing from the church bowl. These people don’t care what happens to their dimes once they toss them into the plates. The only thing they care about is whether or not they win the giant teddy bear. Why do you have to be so negative?" Ernie scooped up the dimes with his right hand and pushed them into his lap. The waitress returned with their breakfasts and gave Lanie a look that said she knew she was going to be paid in change and it wasn’t making her happy. Lanie returned the look with a helpless shrug.

"But what about Don? He okay with this?" Don was the owner of the show and had already threatened to give Ernie a booth at the far end of the midway––the worst possible place to have a booth––if he didn’t cut out his crap. This was Ernest’s fourth booth in the last six months.

"Pfft. I keep the books. It all balances out." Ernie took a bite and considered. "They expect us to take a cut. We’re carnies, Lanie. That’s what we do."

Lanie straightened up and looked at her husband. She was a gypsy. A witch. A prophetess. She was
not
a carnie. She finished her breakfast in silence and threw a five dollar bill on the table. "That will pay for mine," she said, rising with the dignity of a queen.

She left her husband staring, and a few of the roadies gossiping.

Lanie walked across the parking lot, weaving in and out of the parked trucks bearing the slogan "The Bob Cat Carnival Show." She waved hello to Maria, the Mexican woman in charge of one of the cotton candy stands who was pregnant with her seventh kid and couldn't find the daddies of the first six. Lanie took out her key and opened the door to room 133, the nicest room in the Blue Moose Motel.

Spring and Chloe were propped up on their elbows, watching The Smurfs on their shared double bed. Lanie huffed, wishing they would take advantage of the free HBO. She worked hard to give them nice things and they never appreciated it. "Time to go," Lanie said, turning off the television. "Take a spitz bath and put on your clothes. We can drive through the McDonald's and pick up Egg McMuffins on the way out of town."

Chloe jumped up and ran to her brown grocery store bag, digging for her favorite jeans. Spring quietly sat there, glaring accusingly at her mother. "But we just got here last night," she said. "I’m not going. I’m tired."

Lanie resisted the urge to roar. She wasn’t going to get into this with the girl again. Instead, she grabbed Spring by the elbow and pulled her up onto the floor. "You’d think you’d be excited to see all these new places. Most little girls don’t get to sleep in a different room every night. You two are the luckiest little girls in the entire Universe. Right, Chloe?" Chloe nodded and lay on the bed, wriggling into her jeans. She had been making the rounds through the concession stands lately and Lanie hoped she would not need new pants any time soon. "Now hurry up. We have to hit Flagstaff before the snow."

"I hate the snow,” Spring mumbled. "When I grow up I’m living in a house where I sleep in the same bed every night and there is never, ever any snow."

"Be boring then,” Lanie said. “And see if I care."

2005

Sam was frazzled. "What do you mean you lost your keys again? Didn’t you put them in the key cup I made for you?"

Lanie watched the scene from the dining room table as she sipped her coffee. Spring scrambled around the living room, pulling cushions from the couch and flinging them in random directions behind her. Sam followed, dusting off each cushion and placing it back into the sofa.

"No, Sam. I didn’t put them in the key cup. I don’t even know where the key cup is!"

"You lost the key cup?" Sam ducked to avoid one errant sofa pillow but was hit by another. Spring shot him a look and walked towards the center of the living room. She spun three times, her hair flailing out around her, a pale yellow fan of silk. Lanie missed being that young, when her hair had shone with moonbeams. Too many years of wigs and Ms. Clairol had zapped all of the luster from her own locks. But then Sam said something and the wistfulness was gone. The best thing about being old was that she no longer had to put up with men’s crap. Lanie raised her cup to the Universe and slammed it back onto the table with the word KEYS defiantly pointed in Sam’s direction.

Sam twitched and Lanie hoped she was about to witness his nervous breakdown. But Spring, in a moment of inspiration, patted the front of her pants and laughed. "I found them! I forgot I stuck them in my jeans!"
 

Sam wiped his brow in relief and Lanie grumbled, her entertainment over for the night.

"Mom, we’re going to a movie," Spring said, kissing Lanie on the cheek. Sam looked as though he might follow suit but Lanie gave him the evil eye and he pretended to tie his shoes instead.

"Okay, you kids have fun."

As they made their way out the door they argued over which movie to see––Spring wanting an adventure flick while Sam hoped for a romantic comedy. When they disappeared from the driveway, Lanie sighed in relief. She took a final swig of coffee and looked at the ugly mug before tossing it into the garbage can. Sam must have taken a ceramics class taught by monkeys. "Alone at last." Lanie wriggled out of her dress and let it fall onto the floor.

Oh sweet freedom! If only Spring and Sam weren’t such fuddy-duddies, with their books and their Nationalistic Public Radio, she could walk around naked anytime she wanted. She was going to hate living here, she could tell. This place lacked the freedom that Chloe’s house offered. Chloe didn’t care if Lanie covered herself in peanut butter and belly danced topless as long as it didn’t interrupt her stories.

Lanie pulled off her bra and kicked off her underwear, aiming them in the direction of Sam’s bookcase. Her bra draped itself over a copy of Animal Farm and her panties ended up someplace in the Civil War section. Liberated at last, she strutted around the house inspecting her surroundings. Though she had been to Spring’s home many times, this would be the first time she was staying.

The house was clean. Too clean. That was all Sam. She hadn’t raised Spring that way. Germs were a good thing. They helped the body build immunity against things like the Asian Bird Flu and the plague. It was not only the cleanliness that bothered her. It was the knickknacks. Everywhere. Crammed into every available cubby hole and shelf. Sam was a collector. Of crap. He was also a labeler apparently. Every section of the shelving was neatly titled. She read one:
Bobbleheads of the Great Nihilist Writers.
She leaned in to inspect them. Oh, Bejeezus! The Nietzsche bobble gave Lanie the creeps.

Lanie trotted down the hall to her new bedroom and recovered her fanny pack. She sucked in, fastening it around her waist, annoyed that the little plastic end parts hardly met anymore. From it she produced a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. She almost lit one up but remembered Sam’s stupid rule about smoking inside. She curled her lip as she recalled his last scolding, him standing there wagging his finger at her like she was a bad dog that made a no-no on the carpet. She took her smokes and her lighter out to the back patio. It smelled like Sam––cabbage and desperation. Lanie removed the patchouli air spray from her pack, pumped three times, and sniffed the air. Better.
 

She didn’t like Sam. Didn’t like his walk. Didn’t like his talk. Hated his smell. Come to think of it, there was nothing she liked about the man. His bald, lumpy head with its protruding moles resembled a potato. And he was skinny. God, that man was skinny. How could anyone who ate as much as Sam be that skinny? And he was only thirty-two. At least that’s what he claimed. As soon as Lanie learned how to use the internet she would look him up, find out his true age, and tell Spring so she could have a real reason to leave him.

Lanie tapped the ash from the cigarette and watched a bead of sweat glissade its way from her shoulder to her wrist in a slow rolling motion, skirting its way around the hairs that she had only recently acquired. Damned getting older. She was growing hair everywhere, except for the places she needed it, like her head. And the hairs that she already had were grayer than an Oregon morning. The sweat bubble slid across her index finger and plopped onto the cement with a satisfying splat. Though the sun was setting it was still so hot that the sweat bubble sizzled when it hit the ground and dissolved within a few seconds. She was proud of that bead. Well-earned.
 
She looked around, disappointed that no one was there to witness it.