“She’s been like this ever since she moved here,” the first woman said. “But it goes beyond just personality quirks, you know? With that bike, and the clothes she wears. Not to mention all the strays she takes in. It’s like she’s running some kind of weird commune down at the end of that road. It’s embarrassing for all of us.”
“You’d think,” her friend said, “that someone would have told her how ridiculous she looks by now.”
“Don’t you think I’ve tried?” the first woman said with a sigh. “But it’s no use. She’s crazy. It’s that simple.”
I took a deep breath. They weren’t talking about me; of course they weren’t. They were talking about Mira. I thought of her on her bike, pedaling furiously, and my face began to burn again.
“Big Norm Carswell’s just beside himself that his son is living beneath her house. God knows what goes on over there. I don’t even want to think about it.”
“Is he the football player? Or the basketball star who went to State on that scholarship?”
“Neither,” the first woman said. “He’s the youngest, Norm’s namesake. They never knew what to do with him; the boy didn’t play anything. He has long hair and I think he’s into drugs.”
“Oh, that one. He’s actually very nice. He came to my yard sale just last week and bought up all my old sunglasses. Said he collects them.”
“He has many problems,” said the first woman. “But then, so does Mira Sparks. I just know she’ll end up living out her days alone, getting crazier and crazier, and fatter and fatter—” and her friend snorted once, an oh-you’re-terrible laugh—“in that big old drafty house.”
“Oh, my,” her friend said, savoring this. “That’s so sad.”
“Well, it’s her choice.”
I already hated this woman, the way I had learned to hate anyone who talked trash behind someone’s back. I was used to the flat-out mean, straight-to-your-face insult, no messing around or mixing of messages. Somehow, there was more dignity in that.
I turned back to the mailboxes, still feeling sorry for Mira, and tucked our mail in my back pocket. Then I heard something behind me. When I turned around, I saw the Big-Headed Baby for the first time.
I recognized her instantly: there was no way not to. She was about two years old, wearing a frilly pink dress and white sandals. Her hair was blond and wispy, and there was a pink elastic ribbon with a bow stretched across her head, which just made it look bigger, if that was possible. She had true-blue eyes and looked up at me, open-mouthed, clutching her skirt in her hand.
Man, I thought. Mira had been right: it was quite a cranium, somewhat egg-shaped, the skin on her scalp pale and almost translucent. The rest of her body seemed toylike in comparison.
She stood there and stared at me, the way kids will when they haven’t learned it’s rude yet. Then she lifted one hand, touching a chubby finger to her lips in the exact place where my piercing was. She held it there, still watching intently, for a few seconds. I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
And then, just as quickly as she’d appeared, she turned and toddled back around the corner, her tiny footsteps barely audible on the tile floor.
I was still standing there when the women walked past—the baby clinging to the hand of the taller one—and out the door, the bell clanking behind them. They were talking about someone else now, about husbands and divorces and real estate. They didn’t see me.
I watched them go, two middle-aged women in shorts and sandals. The one with the baby had curled blond hair and was wearing a sweater patterned with sailboats. They stopped outside, still talking, and smiled and waved at a little old woman with a walker coming up the steps. The baby ran down the front walk, arms outstretched, toward the white picket fence and the roses growing across it.
It didn’t matter how old you were. There were Caroline Daweses everywhere.
I stood at the window of the post office, watching them get into their cars and drive away. Then I walked back to Mira’s.
“So,” she said with a smile, flipping through the mail. “What’s the word on the street?”
I heard that woman’s voice in my head, so snide, and felt that same dry spot in my throat, the same flush across my skin.
“Nothing,” I said.
And she nodded, believing me, before turning back to the TV.
It was so much easier with wrestling. There was a balance: you had your good guys, like Rex Runyon, and your bad guys, like the Bruiser Brothers. The bad guys sometimes pulled ahead, but there was always a good guy in the wings, ready to run out and clock someone with a chair or throw them over the side or slap them into a figure four, all in the name of what was right.
As I watched, I realized that Mira probably did know it was all faked; she had to. But there was something satisfying about watching the Bruiser Brothers reduced to limping off the mat, heads in their hands, paying for what they’d done. It restored your faith. And it was enough to push aside your skepticism and just believe, if only for a little while, that good always wins out in the end.
“The thing is,” Morgan said, scooping out another measure of coffee and dumping it into a filter, “Mira has always been different.”
We were at work, before opening, and I’d told her what had happened at the post office. She’d just sighed and nodded, as if she wasn’t really surprised.
“I mean,” she went on, “ever since she came here, people have been talking. Mira’s an artist and this is a small town. It’s practically natural.”