The Ringmaster's Wife by Kristy Cambron Page A

gradually succumbed to the heat. “Even our roses lose their luster in this heat.”
    Mable stuck her index finger in her copy of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall to hold her place. She looked over the top of the binding to the withered roses, then to where her friend lay stretched out on the chaise.
    Sally was staring up at the filigree ceiling vaults, with her hair pulled back in wavy tendrils that spilled about the high collar of the marvelous buttercup-yellow dress she wore. It was indeed hot, but not so much as to justify the drama Sally was making of it. Especially when she wasn’t the one wearing a woolen uniform skirt in the mid-July heat.
    The thought made Mable grin. Her friend certainly was suited for the stage.
    “But we can’t really complain, can we? It’s a full house tonight.” Mable winked at her. “We’re poised to see some greenbacks, dearie. And if your gentlemen callers keep sending roses backstage, you can’t claim the evening as a total loss.”
    “Don’t be pert.” Sally tossed a velvet bolster pillow at her. It bounced off the top of Mable’s chair and fell down, sliding across the floor. “You’re a cashier who’s not interested in greenbacks. Who ever heard of such a thing?”
    “I’m not a cashier anymore. I’m a management candidate now, remember? And maybe I’m not interested because there are more important things in life than money.”
    With that, she turned back to her book.
    “Like what?”
    Mable breathed in deep, letting out a sigh of mock exasperation. “Freedom, for one. And beautiful experiences. Like sitting in an elegant room at the Marlborough-Blenheim Hotel on the iron pier, talking with a friend. How many people would love to be in our shoes right this very moment?”
    Sally attempted a laugh, though the action drove her into a near coughing fit.
    “You talk of freedom? But money can buy that too,” she said, wiping a hand at moisture the coughing had brought to the corner of her eyes.
    Mable sighed and looked around, feeling the weight of Sally’s growing bitterness against what she viewed as the confines of their downtrodden lot.
    The backstage area was immaculate, as was everything in the Queen Anne–style castle of a hotel. The sheer size and opulence of their surroundings just couldn’t make Mable feel anything less than grateful, even if she merely worked at the hotel instead of being a guest in it. Life hadn’t issued her the same trials that her friend had been through, but still, being around the grandeur, she couldn’t allow her thoughts to dip to the level of resentment that Sally had developed over the past few years.
    “Money can buy just about anything, can’t it? Except love, of course. The one thing it can never lay claim to,” Sally breathed out on a sort of tragic whisper. “You seem to be the only one not plagued by the want of it.”
    “Of love?”
    Mable held the book in her hands, but lost interest and gazed off into the distance, soon curling the binding under her palms. The other side of the room faded into a crowd of revelers, with the great White City behind them. And she saw in the foreground the same thing she always did: an impeccably dressed man with serious eyes, a hard-won smile, and an aura of mystery all around him. A man whose presence dwarfed any bowler-hatted suitors who had waltzed her way in the years since.
    It was the vision of what might have been from many years before that still pricked her heart, asking, What if?
    “I’m not immune to it, Sal,” Mable whispered back, overcome with the vision that had already begun to fizzle across the room. She shook her head, willing the picture of the circus king to fade and leave her in peace. “But I’m also not going to wait around for it. I intend to live a full life with or without it.”
    Sally sat up with a rustle of crepe and lace. She braced her hands on the row of nail heads lining the edge of the chaise, staring back at Mable with a somber look painted on her