“I never thought I’d be so happy to see a face in all my days,” he said. “Sonja said you were recovering and didn’t want to be disturbed. We didn’t exactly exchange numbers. And I’ve tried not to look into your windows to check on you because I have several sisters and they inform me that’s…wrong.”
“Thank you, they are correct. Can I come in?” She waggled the container at him. “I can’t possibly take on this much sausage on my own.”
His eyes went wide.
“In my head, that sounded way less suggestive,” she said, pinching her lips together.
He chuckled. “Well, that is a shame. Come on in.”
Brendan’s trailer was just like hers, color-neutral and impersonal, though his looked a little bit more lived in. A laptop and books were spread out on the table and beer bottles sat on the counter. The beige throw pillows on his beige couch were rumpled.
“You didn’t have to make my dinner,” he said. “But I appreciate it.”
“I didn’t make it,” she told him. “The local postmaster brought it over. Wrote the warming instructions on the aluminum foil and everything.”
“The mothering in this place is aggressive,” he said, putting the container on the table with some plates. The sausages were speckled with spices and fried with onions. The smell was enough to make her mouth water. “You want a beer?”
“Oh, I don’t drink, because…” She paused to wiggle her fingers at her temple.
“Because you break into mime?” She glared at him, which made him snort as he turned toward the fridge.
“Your gift, I got it. I think I have a ginger ale or something. What kind of meat is this?” he asked as he took a big bite.
“You know, I didn’t ask.”
Brendan cried, “We’re living amongst the swamp people and you didn’t ask? This could be an alligator, or a bloody opossum.”
“They just say ‘possum’ here,” Cordelia told him.
“I’m less worried about pronouncing it than digesting it,” he said around a mouthful, suddenly exclaiming. “The devil’s breakfast meat!”
“It’s not that spicy!” Cordelia insisted.
“I’m Irish! We don’t use a lot of spices!” he exclaimed, sucking down the rest of his beer.
“Would you rather eat something out of a can or eat something that tastes good, even if we can’t identify it…and it may or may not be seasoned by Satan himself?” Cordelia asked.
Brendan conceded, “Good point. I’m already living in a bloody can, I don’t want canned food, too.”
Cordelia gasped, “You are grumpy when I leave you alone for a few days!”
“Not very good dinner company, I’ll admit. I’m just not used to this,” he said, gesturing around the room with his fork. “I’m used to damp, cramped cottages that smell of old tea, where the roof leaks every time it rains. Everything I touch here feels like it’s coated in plastic.”
“Well, it sort of is,” she said. “And I guess I am. Used to it, that is. I grew up in a trailer. Well, for three-quarters of the year, anyway. Ours certainly wasn’t this fancy. It was an old Airstream my mother bought secondhand in Gibtown. It was pretty worn on the inside, but Bernadette was way more worried about making sure the outside had a nice paint job. You know it’s way more important to look impressive than to make sure you have a comfortable place to sleep.”
He blinked rapidly. “I have so many questions.”
She hesitated for a moment. What with her limited socializing, she hadn’t shared this with very many people, but when she did, people had a tendency to laugh…and judge.
“I grew up in traveling carnivals,” Cordelia said.
“You were a carny?” he exclaimed, nearly letting the boudin drop out of his mouth. He clapped his hand over his mouth. “Sorry, that was charming.”
She giggled. Laughing and judging, she had seen, food spitting—that she hadn’t seen.
“A carny travels with the show, usually setting up tents or running the rides and so forth. I was a showman, the talent,” Cordelia insisted.
He winked at her. “Well, of course, you were, darling.”
“It was a family thing. My great-grandparents literally lost the farm during the Great Depression. My grandmother was only a teenager, and she figured out a way to translate the family talent into survival. She persuaded a passing circus to take her on as a psychic act and basically learned the job on the go. I mean, most psychic acts are just telling people what they want to hear, but having actual psychic talent makes it easier to convince the audience you’re the real thing. Grandma Natalia had a real knack for knowing how to interpret what she saw into advice the audience member wanted. She fed her family in a time when most grown men struggled to do that. And then in the winters, when the roads got too snowy for the caravan to travel, she and her parents retired to Candella, this kind of not-really-gated community for psychics in Florida. Grandma was practically the mayor there. She got the palm readers to agree to communal pricing. She set up a sort of neighborhood watch for the parlor psychics who met with clients in their homes, which could prove dangerous. If there was such a thing as a union for psychics, she would have run it. Bernadette—my mother—and I lived there off and on when I was a kid. Grandma had passed away right before I was born, but people were always telling us some story about her being this badass lady who just happened to have psychic powers.”
“She sounds like a handful,” Brendan said.
“Oh, she was. She didn’t marry until she was almost forty because she wanted to wait until she was sure she could support a husband. My mother was a late in life surprise baby, the ‘miracle.’ Sometimes, I wonder if Grandma felt guilty for that, like her being an older mom had something to do with Bernadette not inheriting the touch—because I get the impression she indulged Bernadette at every turn. It’s no surprise Bernadette felt like she was some sort of royalty. When Grandma realized Bernadette didn’t have the gift but wanted to continue the traveling life, she spent years figuring out the cues and tricks that ‘performing’ psychics use to work their acts. Coded messages, sending an agent into the crowd beforehand to pick up on little bits of information from conversations that she could use later. Bernadette was passable, but she just wasn’t Grandma. Working acts involve a serious level of skill. You can’t just wow the audience with a flashy costume and a bad Transylvanian accent and expect them to eat out of the palm of your hand. You have to connect with them, hold them, convince them that you’re trustworthy. Grandma passed and eventually, Bernadette couldn’t skate on her family reputation anymore. I think that was what really got to her. Not the loss of her mother, but the loss of her status.”
He was staring at her like she was telling some epic Greek tragedy, which she supposed was fair. He seemed to shake off his stupefaction when he realized she wasn’t speaking. “And then you came along and got put into the family business?”
She nodded. “By the time I was maybe two, Bernadette had me on the road. My father, whoever he was, was never in the picture, so she’d leave me with some of the concession workers, sleeping in their booths while she worked. Can’t have a crying baby interrupting the act, you know.