Among the Wonderful by Stacy Carlson Page A

everyone.
    “It’s a good strategy, actually. I’ve noticed some people think I’m a visitor, like them. I should really carry a handbag and wear a hat.”
    “I see.”
    “But after a few seconds they usually talk among themselves and seem to decide I am not an innocent, though very tall, bystander.”
    “They realize that you must be … what you really are.”
    “Yes.”
    “I am Samuel Beebe.”
    He lifted his cap to reveal a high, square forehead. Someone had cut his curly fawn-colored hair into a triangular shape, with two ledges of curls at his ears that narrowed to a rounded apex on his crown. His eyebrows were perfectly straight lines and his eyes brown and round. It was the kind of face that would ask a worried question and then relieve you of answering with a foolish grin.
    “Ana Swift.”
    “Mr. Forsythe told us about the apartments on the fifth floor. Are there many? We’re not allowed to go up there. They told us to expect new people, whole groups of people. Employees. Performers. But Mr. Barnum has been out of touch, at least with Mr. Forsythe. Everybody’s worried about the new employees getting lost … before they even find their way here. Lost in the city before they even —”
    “Surely Barnum has provided for them.”
    “Did he provide for you?”
    “I suppose he did, yes.”
    “Then he probably has. He most possibly has. He generally does.” Beebe’s sentences crowded one another before trailing away. He gazed up at me, still with a querying expression.
    “Where did
you
come from?” I deflected the conversation from returning to the subject of me.
    “Oh, not far. I’m from Bethel Parish, Connecticut. This is better for me. A better type of feeling. Much more exciting, of course. In my experience. Which is much different from yours, if I may venture to guess.”
    “You may.”
    Beebe layered his words and phrases so recklessly I was tempted to retreat from him altogether, despite his pleasing features and somewhat winning manner. Strategies of avoidance and repetition usually annoyed me, but I was certain this Beebe was not conscious of any strategy.
    “The performance begins thirty-five minutes from now, Miss Swift. I must prepare.” Again he gestured, this time toward the theater. “In there. May I venture … do you take meals in the Aerial Garden and Perpetual Fair?”
    “Is that the roof?”
    “The same.”
    “I do.”
    “Well, then.”
    I didn’t see how this concluded our conversation, but Beebe ducked and bowed away, finally giving me a little wave as he disappeared through the theater doors. I enjoyed his exit but did not return his wave.
    I continued through galleries, past pockets of visitors looking at the things they had paid to examine, myself included. I observed a tinge of pleasure as I replayed those moments when Beebe had cocked his head and squinted up at me, as if the sun shone brightly to my back. I enjoyed the sensation as long as I could before I scorned my hunger for it. Why did Beebe’s display attract, not repel, me? I wondered if the fact that I, certainly one of God’s more jaded creatures, had warmed to his innocence was one of the world’s more wicked jokes or one of its greatest gifts.
    I found my half-built booth adorned only with two carpenters nailing up its sides. The booth had not yet been painted. No façade provided color or interest, and only my name was sketched in pencil onto the wooden frame. I quite liked it this way. I passed my hand along the empty front counter. I would need a new set of lithograph portraits and anew True Life History to sell. This was a good location, near the balcony so I could at least see the sky and receive the breeze. I surveyed the view: Glass cabinets lined the opposite wall, a mummy lay in the center of the gallery, two stuffed gazelles stood in the corner, poised as if they would leap through the balcony doors and out over Broadway.
    The problem of my True Life History had bothered me since my