The Ladies of the Secret Circus Page 5

  And what did she think? No one ever had the courage to ask her.

  If they had, depending on the day or even the hour, Lara switched camps between the two prevailing theories, causing her to exist in a kind of limbo. Certainly the idea that Todd might be dead was a real possibility, yet a part of her couldn’t be sure. To give up on him felt like a betrayal. It was so tempting to get caught in the Todd Sutton and Peter Beaumont mystery, with its elaborate magical plot involving Wickelow Bend. In that theory, Todd was a victim, not a cad who’d abandoned her. She’d seen stories where loved ones left behind spearheaded these fantastical ideas only to look desperate and foolish when they were proven to be untrue. She couldn’t bear to let herself be embarrassed again. The wedding had been enough.

  Lara was more of a believer in Occam’s razor. Publicly, this was the stance she’d taken, and it put her at odds with Todd’s family, who still held vigils at Wickelow Bend. He’d left her. Pure and simple. But even then, the question became: Where was he? His empty car being found the following morning threw a monkey wrench in this theory. Todd might have left her, but everyone who knew him agreed, he never would have abandoned his car.

  After the wedding, she’d taken on more of the regular overnight shifts at the radio station where, for years, she’d only been doing them on weekends. Providing the soundtrack to her fellow people of the night—emergency room crews, bartenders, security guards—had great appeal to her. A month after the wedding, a notice to 99.7 K-ROCK employees was tucked in her paycheck: The owners had put the radio station up for sale. Something in her stirred as she read the announcement on blue copy paper. It informed 99.7 K-ROCK employees that “While no immediate changes are expected, another owner will have the right to change the station’s format.” That meant that 99.7 K-ROCK could become a country station and they’d all lose their jobs. It felt like a sign.

  Her grandfather Simon Webster, founder of the Kerrigan Falls Express, had left her half of his fortune—which wasn’t so much of a fortune as he’d pretended it was, but it was enough to buy the radio station assets at the $200,000 asking price. Seeing an opportunity, she went to her father to see if he’d be interested in running it with her.

  A week later, she saw that the FOR SALE sign was still up on the 1902 four-bedroom painted-brick Victorian that she and Todd had looked at before the wedding. They’d dreamed of fixing it up together. With its large porch, opulent woodwork, marble fireplace, and French doors, the house was $40,000. It also had ruined floors, drafty windows, and a non-functioning kitchen. She settled on the house for $5,000 less than the asking price the day before she bought the radio station assets.

  She knew that both had been impulsive decisions, but she needed to put distance between herself and that wedding. All these things, these moving parts, night shifts, and broken-down houses, had kept her busy and exhausted and stopped her from thinking. She’d closed on the house in January. And after five months of sanding walls, painting, pulling out nails, replacing drafty windows with historically accurate ones, and replacing the old heating system, the mere mention of Todd didn’t cause her heart to pound like an infected wound anymore.

  Surveying the disaster that was now her dining room floor, Lara thought seriously about hiring a professional. She’d thrown herself into sanding the Georgia pine floors. Of course the house had no air-conditioning, and with summer approaching she was thinking of buying a few window units. Last week’s heat wave had her sleeping in a puddle of sweat.

  Her mother had been hovering over her lately, stopping by the station or her house daily under the guise of helpful remodeling advice, lugging paint chips and rug samples with her.

  The door opened and Lara regretted giving her mother a key when the large Oorang Airedales, Oddjob and Moneypenny, came bounding into the living room, circling the sander and barking as though it were a menacing beast. The dogs were oddly old, yet they seemed like puppies. Lara could swear they’d been alive when she was a child, but Audrey insisted they were just different dogs with the same names. She guessed people did that kind of thing. Quickly, Lara turned off the machine and removed her goggles and respirator to find her mother standing in the hallway holding a painting under one arm and garment bag under the other.

  “What’s that?” Lara folded her arms. As she moved, her jeans, T-shirt, and Chuck Taylors let loose a fine sprinkle of sawdust.

  Audrey held both out. “Your dress for the gala and Cecile’s painting.” She looked around the room and couldn’t hide her horror. “You should really hire someone to do this.”

  Lara wasn’t going to admit she’d had the same thought. Shooing her mother away with a glove, Lara turned to pet the dogs. “I’m learning a lot from doing it myself.”

  “Learning? At least get Caren to help you learn.” Her voice trailed down the hall and back again.

  “She’s got her own sawdust pile at the coffeehouse.”

  “Oh yes, I heard she’s jumped into small-business ownership, too.” Audrey had been against Lara purchasing both this house and the radio station, instead wanting her to move home permanently. Audrey turned the frame around to reveal the painting of Cecile Cabot, standing atop a white steed that circled the Parisian circus. “I thought it would look perfect in your dining room.”

  “But you love that painting.” Lara’s eye went immediately to the choker around Cecile’s neck. While it was a very generous gift from her mother, she actually didn’t care for the painting, fearing it would always remind her of that day.

  “I do love it,” said Audrey, holding it up to the light.

  Lara stepped carefully to avoid the sawdust and leaned on the doorway to the dining room, ushering the dogs away from the dust.

  Audrey handed Lara the garment bag and began walking around the room with the painting, placing it on each wall, looking for the desired effect.

  Lara sighed. “You’re bestowing a pity painting on me.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Audrey was a slight woman, shorter and finer-boned than Lara with a blond bob that never varied in length, as though it was tended at night while she slept. Audrey had obviously come from the stable because she was walking around the room in a pair of beige riding pants and tall field boots that curved at the knee. “I’m doing some redecorating at the farm. You’ve gotten me in the mood to change things up a bit, so I thought it made sense for you to have it.” She put her hands on her hips. “I’m empty-nesting.”

  Lara raised her eyebrow in doubt.

  Her mother sighed, defeated. She pointed to the frame. “This painting—this woman—this is your legacy. Who we are. Anyway, I’m passing it down to you. There are some heirlooms that are yours. They’re more sentimental than anything, but they need to be passed to the next generation.”

  “Oh please, Mother,” said Lara. “This isn’t about heirlooms. You’re decorating. You’ve been itching to decorate this house since I bought it.”

  “A bit.” Audrey gave her a sheepish smile.

  “The frame is too much, though,” said Lara, protesting.

  “It does have a Versailles-meets-Vegas feel to it, doesn’t it? Take it to Gaston Boucher and change it. Make sure he keeps it for you, though, it’s probably worth more than the painting.” Audrey leaned it against the wall.

  Gaston Boucher, owner of the most successful art gallery and framing shop in Kerrigan Falls, was a name that was peppered in all of Audrey’s recent conversations. Lara suspected they’d begun dating.

  “She was brave. And you are, too.” She turned Lara’s chin with her hand and gazed into her eyes. “We owe this woman a great deal,” said Audrey. “She needs to be with you now. She’s been in my hallway long enough.”

  Crouching down to get a better look at the painting, Lara lifted the frame from the floor. The colors looked different in this room than they had in the dimly lit hall at Cabot Farms. “If I’m brave, Mother, I learned it from you. Thank you.” Running her hands over the frame, Lara thought how her mother had held her tog
ether all these months. While she often rolled her eyes at Audrey’s fussing, her mother had created a safe world for her when everything had fallen to pieces. “I couldn’t have done any of this without you.”

  Audrey blushed and tugged at her shirt, taking deep breaths like she was about to cry. “Oh, come on now.” Changing the subject, Audrey began unzipping the bag that held what Lara assumed to be a gown.

  “You said this is for the gala, right?” As her mother held the hanger, Lara slid the garment bag down, allowing a wash of midnight-blue chiffon to reveal itself. With a strapless bodice, the dress was like something out of vintage Barbie. Cascading down from the fitted waist was a full skirt with multiple tulle layers arranged like ombré waterfalls in different lengths and saturations of peacock. “You must have spent a fortune on this.”

  “I did,” said Audrey. “Don’t get dust on it. I suppose you’ll want to alter it?”

  Lara smiled. “No. It’s perfect. Thank you.”

  Audrey ignored her and turned, the mother-daughter moment broken. “And that painting will look great with the rug I just bought you. Eggplant and gold tones, ornate. Perfect for this room. You also need wooden shutters.” Audrey scanned the room. “And a silver tea set.”

  Oddjob came and sat at Lara’s feet. She could feel the dog lean slowly into her.

  “You can also take him anytime you want. He misses you.”

  As if to answer, Oddjob let out a sigh and stretched out on the floor in front of Lara like the Sphinx. Oddjob was hers, while Miss Moneypenny was her mother’s dog. Hugo, the ringleader, a tiny Welsh terrier, was nowhere to be found today.

  Audrey retrieved the sunglasses that hung on the neck of her T-shirt and headed toward the door. Oddjob and Moneypenny scrambled up, their paws and claws scraping against the floor in a mad rush not to be left behind by the woman who fed them.

  “I’ll come here around six tomorrow to pick you up for the circus.”

  Lara frowned. “I don’t think I’m going this year.”

  “Nonsense,” said Audrey. “The Rivolis will be hurt if you don’t go.”

  Her mother pushed through the door and down the steps, walking around to the driver’s-side door. When she opened the back door, the dogs leapt into the backseat, Oddjob putting his paws up on the front-seat cup holder so he could get a good view of the windshield. After shutting the door, Audrey slid into the driver’s seat and lowered the passenger’s window. “Six tomorrow for the circus. No excuses.”

  Lara saluted her.

  Audrey slid her glasses down her nose. “And Lara.”

  Lara leaned down to see her mother’s face.

  “Him not coming back was always a possibility; you knew that. I’m glad to see you’re getting on with your life.”

  Lara looked down at her dusty sneakers. She couldn’t help shake the feeling that she wasn’t getting the full truth from Audrey. They’d never lied to each other, but Audrey was definitely holding something back.

  “And get a floor man in, will you?” Without another word, the door shut and the black Sierra Grande with the CABOT FARMS logo pulled out.

  When she got back into the house, Lara stood and looked down at the painting before picking it up. The frame was small but heavy in her hands. She estimated it had to be fifteen pounds of gold or wood. The painting depicted a petite blond woman wearing a muted-aqua leotard with brown gemstones, standing on the back of a white horse. Her arms were held high in perfect balance. The horse was adorned with a matching costume of aqua feathers and looked to be in full stride. While a young Cecile’s features were clear, it was as though the artist had placed the painting out in the rain; there was a noticeable dripping effect on the oil. At first glance, it was the dual subjects of horse and rider that caught the eye, yet great care had also been taken by the painter to capture the audience’s faces in the front row. Dressed in their finest clothing, several patrons in the back rows were holding champagne flutes, their faces illuminated by the stage lighting. Midpoint in the audience, one man in particular had clearly drawn features, a shock of red hair and beard, as he pointed to the spectacle that was unfolding in front of him. The woman next to him held her head in her hands, presumably to avoid observing any fall.

  While not a realistic style of painting, it wasn’t exactly modernist, either. Lara had noticed how textured it was, with the heavy brushstrokes still visible. The painting lacked the smooth, baked finishes of the artwork Lara had seen at museums in New York, Washington, and even Paris and Rome during her visits there while in college.

  Lara knew the story well. Cecile Cabot had left France in September 1926 with her infant daughter, Margot. Not much was known about Margot’s father; Cecile indicated that he’d died of influenza and was a man of no real consequence. She sailed across the ocean, departing the port of Le Havre on the SS de Grasse, arriving in New York Harbor five days later. With little money, Cecile heard about work at the glass factory outside of Kerrigan Falls, landing a job on the assembly line making Zoltan’s mustard jars. She’d been working on the assembly line for six months when she applied for a job as a seamstress for Daphne Lund, wife of the factory owner, Bertrand Lund. Cecile drew some sketches of dresses for Mrs. Lund and proved an inventive seamstress, bringing Parisian flair to Daphne’s spring wardrobe. The Great Depression didn’t seem to hit the Lund family as hard as other entrepreneurs, so Cecile was kept on, designing mostly evening dresses for Mrs. Lund, traveling with her to New York searching for silks and taffetas and sewing beading into bodices. Within the year, she’d proven herself invaluable.

  On a rare outing at the house with the children, Cecile had saved the Lunds’ youngest son from a runaway horse, chasing down the creature on her own horse and grabbing the boy by the belt just as the animal fled into a low patch of trees that would have surely decapitated the child. The couple had already lost two children, so Mrs. Lund was so grateful that Bertrand Lund rewarded Cecile for the heroic deed by giving her a job running his rather elaborate stables. Bertrand Lund hadn’t known his seamstress was such a keen horsewoman. Later, she purchased fifty acres from Lund and built a modest farmhouse, raising her daughter, Margot, alongside the Lund children.

  In 1938, using the money she’d saved, Cecile left the employ of the Lund family and began a traveling equestrian show with her Chevrolet pickup truck and a trailer full of old horses. The horses had been a final gift from her employer and were either aging or misfits that Mr. Lund was planning on retiring or shooting. She let the word get out that she was looking to employ clowns and, later, trapeze artists, naming her enterprise Le Cirque Margot, after her daughter.

  In those days, weeks before a circus arrived in towns like Charlottesville, Roanoke, Gainesville, Pensacola, Mobile, and Gaffney, posters went up using young Margot as the draw. The circus did two shows in a town—the afternoon matinee and the evening performance—before they broke down the tents and seats. Trailers doubling as ticket booths pulled up at the entrance of the “big top.” A ticket cost 75 cents; reserved seats were $1.25.

  Thirteen when the circus was founded, Margot Cabot was becoming an expert horsewoman herself. Early posters in 1940 showed a teenage Margot Cabot hanging upside down on a white stallion, her right leg appearing to be the only thing connecting her to the animal’s back. The second wave of posters for the 1941 season featured Margot wearing a red leotard with a head of plumes, standing astride a white horse with the red lettering that would become the company’s logo: LE CIRQUE MARGOT.

  The real Margot, however, made the circus look tame by comparison. A wild teenager who smoked and drank gin, Margot Cabot was also a great beauty. But the circus’s namesake never seemed to take to her birthright. At the age of seventeen, Margot left the circus—a turn of events that would have been funny since few people run away from the circus. She’d fallen in love with a driver on the demolition derby circuit, and nothing Cecile could say would stop her.

  In the fall of 1944, after about a year on the road, things with the
man she’d run off with seemed to go south. Abruptly, Margot returned to Kerrigan Falls and within the year had married Simon Webster, the founder of the Kerrigan Falls Express newspaper.

  While she settled down, Margot still wasn’t “right,” often not leaving her room for days—including not eating or bathing. The logistics of these episodes were difficult for a man trying to run a daily newspaper. Simon hired nurses to coax her to eat and twice a week to throw her into the bathtub. Then, as quickly as they began, the episodes would cease and Margot would be demurely seated at the breakfast table in her silk robe, buttering her toast and sipping coffee—having returned from wherever it was her mind had gone.

  She’d also come and go at the circus in those days, Cecile dreading her arrival because she was unreliable, demanding her show be included but not practicing it enough for it to be safe. On a horse, Margot was an artist. While Cecile could ride, she couldn’t hold a candle to Margot. It was as though the horse weren’t even there—as though she were interacting with a chair, not a living, pulsing creature with a mind of its own.

  After five years of marriage, Margot gave birth to a daughter, Audrey, in the fall of 1950. Margot’s eccentric and impulsive nature began to get wilder and she began to exhibit odd signs, claiming to see the devil in the field. One day, Simon found her standing in the apple groves, watching the first winter snowfall in her thin nightgown and bare feet, Audrey dangling loosely in her arms, chanting a spell and saying that he had asked to see the baby. Her husband had had it by then. It was one thing to endanger herself but another to harm their young daughter. Simon called an institution to take Margot, but within a day, she’d developed a fever, dying three days later.