Once (Gypsy Fairy Tale) Read Free Page A

tight as a drum.”
    “Why is that?” I asked.
    “Well because everyone knows that they steal everything that isn’t chained down,” she said in a huff of arrogant righteousness. “You just mark my words and do as I say.”
    Alec gave me a conspiratorial wink before he gave her one of his all American smiles, “Now you don’t really believe that, do you?”
    “I most certainly do,” she said as she followed him out the door. “You know they’re all thieves and beggars.”
    As soon as the door closed behind her, the other customers began laughing and the entire mood of the shop shifted. Obviously I was not the only one that pretended to like Mrs. Allen.
    By afternoon, fewer and fewer people were offering condolences and it was easier to slip into my old routine. The conversation instead turned again to the carnival setting up camp across the street at the fairgrounds.
    It would seem that one of them, I picture the man that led the parade, was spotted downtown at the courthouse trying to get a permit of some sort.
    When the door opened again and another customer walked in, the feed store fell silent. I stood on my tiptoes to see who was causing such a reaction.
    In walked a group of skimpily clad girls speaking words I didn’t understand. I came around from behind the counter, feeling like I had to get to them first for some reason.
    “Can I help you?” I asked.
    A thin, black haired girl with brilliant green eyes stepped forward. She looked around the room slowly before settling those eyes on me.
    “Sorry to be bothering you Miss,” she said with the beautiful lilt in her voice. “May I please place one of these in your window?”
    I looked down at the sheet of paper that she handed me. It was a vaudeville type poster advertising their “Carnival of Wonders” that would be performing in just over a week.
    “Are you sure about the dates?” I asked, not wanting to admit that all of us knew that they had just applied for their permits.
    The other girls in the group snickered and talked again with words I didn’t understand, but the black haired girl just looked at me and smiled as if she didn’t hear them.
    “I am very sure of the date,” she explained in that beautiful accent. “I am never wrong about these things.”
    I didn’t ask any more questions. I was too self-conscious with the flashy girls and my regular customers all watching me.
    “Sure, that would be fine,” I said.
    She took the poster back from me and gave me one more infectious smile before turning so that she could tape the poster to my door.
    Everyone in the store turned to watch her and the other girls. I was embarrassed for them in the way that the men stared at their tanned legs and bare midriffs. Those girls could’ve been twelve or twenty, but it just didn’t seem right to stare at them like that.
    I was thankful when the black haired girl was finished with the poster.
    “Thank you,” she said as she spun around. “I hope all of you will come to the show.”
    She met my eyes one last time before she opened the door and led her group back outside.
    The feed store burst back in the conversation as soon as the door closed behind them. I stepped over to the door and watched them move down the sidewalk in a loud, colorful, boisterous group, and I envied their freedom.
     
    * * * *
     
    The afternoon had taken on that hazy almost evening glow when I stepped out of the store under the weight of a fifty pound bag of chicken feed. I really hated my life at that moment and regretted sending Alec home at four. I should’ve known old Mrs. Kennedy would be calling with her usual order and requested delivery.
    If she wasn’t one of my grandmother’s oldest friends, and half senile on top of that, I would’ve told her to come get it herself, instead, there I was, dirty and exhausted, driving to the other end of the county to deliver chicken feed.
    Damn that old woman and her stupid chickens...
    I dropped the feed into the bed of the