Other Voices, Other Rooms

He set the bottle of sherry on the hall-tree in the chamber, and, hidden by a curtain, peered into the parlor; neither Amy nor Randolph had heard him come down the stairs: she was sitting on the pianola stool, studiously working an ivory fan, tiresomely tapping her foot, and Randolph, bored to limpness, was staring at the archway where Joel was scheduled presently to present himself. He was gone now, and ru

A whirl of ferris-wheel lights revolved in the distance; rockets rose, burst, fell over Noon City like showering rainbows; gawky kids and their elders, all beautiful in their Sunday summer finest, traipsed back and forth with reflections of the carnival starring their eyes; a young Negro watched sadly from the isolation of the jail, and a rhinestone colored girl, red-silk stockings flashing; on her legs, swished by shouting lewdly up at him. On the porch of the cracked ancient house old people recalled traveling-shows in other years, and little boys, going behind hedges to pee, lingered to laugh and pinch each other. Ice-cream cones slipped from grimy fingers, crackerjack spilt and so did tears, but nobody was unhappy, nobody thought of chores beyond the moment.

Hiya, Idabel-Watcha say, Idabel? but not a soul spoke to him, he was no part of them, they did not know him; only R. V. Lacey remembered. "Look, babylove!" she said, when they appeared in the door of her Princely Place, and those assembled there, beribboned sassy-faced town-tarts and rednecked farmboys with cow-dumb eyes, paused in their jukebox shuffling; one girl advanced to tickle him under the chin. "Where'd you find this, Idabel? He's cute."

"Mind your own business, punk," Idabel said, seating herself at the counter.

Miss Roberta Lacey wagged her finger. "Idabel Thompkins, I warned you time and again, none of that gangster talk in my establishment. Furthermore, I have many times put into words the fact that you are not to set foot inside my place, acting as you do like Baby Face Floyd, and dressing as you do in no proper way befitting a young lady: now skidaddle, and take that filthy hound with you."

"Please, Miss Roberta," said Joel, "Idabel's awful hungry."

"Then she oughta be home learning to fix a man his vittels (laughter); besides which this here's a grown-folks cafй (applause). Romeo, remind me to put up a sign to that effect. Whatismore, Idabel, your daddy has been round here inquirin as to your whereabouts, and it is my serious opinion he means to burn up that saucy little butt of yours (laughter)."

Idabel leveled a slant-eyed look at the proprietress, then, as though this seemed to her the most expressive retort, she spit on the floor, shoved her hands in her pockets and swaggered out. Joel started to follow, but R. V. Lacey clamped a hand on his shoulder. "Babylove," she said, toying with the long black hair extending from her chin-wart, "Angelboy, you're keeping kinda peculiar company. Idabel's daddy said she's done broke her pretty sweet little sister's nose, and knocked out most her teeth." Gri

Idabel told him what he could do with those old Roberta goobers, but she relented, to be sure, and devoured the sack solo. She let him take her arm, and they descended on the gala beehive acre where the traveling-show buzzed. The merry-go-round, a sorry battered toy, turned to a jingling sound of bells, and colored folks, who were not allowed to ride, stood clustered at a distance getting more fun from its magical whirl than those astride saddles. Idabel shelled out 35ў at the dart-throw game, all in order to win a pair of dark glasses like the ones Joel had broken, and what a ruckus she raised when the strawhat man tried to palm off a walking cane! You bet she got those specs, but, being too large for her, they kept sliding down her nose. At the 10ў Tent they saw a four-legged chicken (stuffed), and the two-headed baby floating in a glass tank like a green octopus: Idabel studied it a long while, and when she turned away her eyes were moist: "Poor little baby," she said, "poor little thing." The Duck Boy cheered her up; he sure was a comedy all right, quack-quack-quacking, making dopey faces and flapping his hands, the fingers of which were webbed together; at one point he opened his shirt to reveal a white feathery chest. Joel preferred Miss Wisteria, a darling little girl, he thought, and so did Idabel; they did not quite believe she was a midget, though Miss Wisteria herself claimed to be twenty-five years old, and just back from a grand tour of Europe where she'd appeared before all the crowned heads: her own sweet little gold head sported a twinkling crown; she wore elegant silver slippers (it was a marvel the way she could walk on her toes); her dress was a drape of purple silk tied about the middle with a yellow silk sash. She hopped and skipped and giggled and sang a song and said a poem, and when she came off the platform, Idabel, more excited than Joel had ever seen her, rushed up and asked, please, wouldn't she have some sodapop with them. "Charmed," said Miss Wisteria, twisting her gold sausage curls, "charmed." Idabel humbled herself; she bought cokes, found them a place to sit, and made Henry keep his distance, for Miss Wisteria confessed to a fear of animals. "Frankly," she lisped, "I do not think God intended them." Except for rouged kewpie-doll lips, her baby-plump face was pale, enameled; her hands flitted about so that they seemed to have a separate life of their own, and she glanced at them now and again as if they deeply puzzled her; they were smaller than a child's these hands, but thin, mature, and the fingernails were painted. "Well, this is surely a treat," she said. "Now lots of show-people are just plain put-ons, but I don't hold with any put-on, I like to bring my art to the people… lots of whom don't see how come I jog around with an outfit like this… look, they say to me, there you were out in Hollywood pulling down a thousand dollars a week as Shirley Temple's stand-in… but I say to them: the road to happiness isn't always a highway." Draining her coke, she took out a lipstick and reshaped her kewpie-bow; then a queer thing happened: Idabel, borrowing the lipstick, painted an awkward clownish line across her mouth, and Miss Wisteria, clapping her little hands, shrieked with a kind of sassy pleasure. Idabel met this merriment with a dumb adoring smile. Joel could not understand what had taken her. Unless it was that the midget had cast a spell. But as she continued to fawn over tiny yellow-haired Miss Wisteria it came to him that Idabel was in love. No, she would not consider leaving, there was a world of time. "Charmed," said Miss Wisteria to a suggestion they ride the ferris-wheel, "charmed."