Alice Hoffman - The Museum of Extraordinary Things

“Do you think I have a heart to break?” she said quite seriously.

“I know you do,” I responded without hesitation. “Surely, you must worry over Mr. Morris?”

Maureen came to sit beside me. I had never understood why people on the street smirked and stared with disgust when they saw her. Birds were many colored and they were still considered beautiful, why shouldn’t the same be true of Maureen? Her scars and splotches seemed another part of her, a feature no more or less important than her red hair or hazel eyes. Sometimes I imagined the burns on her face and throat had been formed from handfuls of light thrown upon her, and that same glorious light radiated back from her soul.

“Mr. Morris is a man who knows how to take care of himself.” Maureen seemed convinced this was true, but I still cried a little over his fate.

“I wish he had taken me with him,” I said.

Maureen took my hand in hers. Looking back on this, I suppose she felt bad not to be truthful with me, but she had spent her life protecting me and was not about to tell me any secret my father might wring out of me.

I was not wearing gloves, and my first impulse was to pull my hand away and hide my abnormality, but she held fast. “I think I failed you,” she said to me in a mournful tone.

I assured her she hadn’t. She alone had cared for me for as long as I could remember. It was Maureen who taught me to walk. It was she who sat at my bedside when I had childhood fevers, holding a cold cloth to my forehead, spooning chamomile tea between my lips when I was too ill to drink from a cup. She encouraged me to teach myself to read, though my father said I was too clumsy to learn to write my letters, due to my defect. Maureen could not write either, but I later taught her to read well enough so that she could decipher recipes and letters, which she said was a great gift. I told her everything, every nightmare and fear. Or at least I had. It was only lately that I had begun keeping my thoughts and deeds private. It pained me to conceal anything from Maureen—she had always been so good to me. As we sat together I gathered up my courage and confessed my secret life at Dreamland. I told her that I went along the avenue to watch the couples dance, losing myself in the crowds. I admitted that I called myself Jane if anyone questioned me, and that when I walked through the gates beneath the statute of Creation I felt I had become someone brand new.

I expected Maureen to laugh, for she was a rebel and abhorred rules and regulations. She often groused and complained about my father when we were alone, making jokes about his stern manner and his attention to detail, especially when it came to his clothes. In fact he was a dandy and preferred cashmere and silk. Maureen could imitate him perfectly, mimicking his accent and his harsh way of speaking. She could give such a good impression of the cold, chalky glare of his anger it seemed she was possessed by his spirit. I thought she might give a performance now, copying the way he bowed formally when he greeted an audience. Instead, she was angry. She told me in no uncertain terms I was never to sneak out to Dreamland again.

“You don’t know the sort of trouble you can get into. You take a step too far, and you’ll find there’s no coming back. Promise me you’ll stop sneaking around.”

I was surprised by the worry in Maureen’s expression. We could hear my father in the museum, making the last announcements before he closed the doors for the day. There were very few people in attendance. The crowds were already waning, and evening shows had been canceled. We knew autumn not from the change of color in the foliage but by the empty streets and the thinning crowds, who would not return until the following season.

“All right,” I agreed. “I’ll stop.”

Maureen did not appear convinced. “I’ll be the one keeping a watch on you now.” She studied me carefully, lifting my chin so she could stare into my eyes. “Have you had your monthly bleeding?”

I admitted I had.

“I thought as much! And you never said a word.” She was clearly disappointed to find I hadn’t confided in her. “Then you’re a woman and must act like one.” Our heads were close together, but she lowered her voice further due to the intimate nature of our discussion. “When you leave here against the Professor’s wishes, you’d better do so with no thought of returning. We’re not like other people, Cora. They would never understand us.”

As evening fell I sat alone in my room, gazing out my window, thinking over Maureen’s advice. I saw Malia the Butterfly Girl making her way down Surf Avenue, her mother’s arm drawn protectively around her. They passed by the tintype photo gallery on the corner, where an individual could be photographed against cardboard cutouts of the seashore. Malia had left behind her orange costume. Her face was no longer decorated with makeup. The kohl eyeliner and rouge painted into the pattern of a monarch’s wing had been washed off at the pump in our yard, and her face was pretty and plump. She wore a plaid cloak that hid the fact that she’d been born without arms. From my vantage point, both mother and daughter looked ordinary as they disappeared into the crowd.

I could not have been more envious.

One night the door to my bedroom opened. There was my father. He’d been at a tavern, and he carried the smell of rum, which reminded me of formaldehyde. It was not a pleasant odor, and afterward I could never drink rum, even when it was disguised as buttered toddy in the holiday season. I had been reading by candlelight, and I quickly hid the volume under my quilt when I heard his footfall upon the stairs. I couldn’t trick my father however. He reached beneath the bedcovers and brought forth the book. Fortunately it wasn’t Poe or Brontë but the tragedies of Shakespeare, great literature of which my father approved. That is not to say he wasn’t angry with me. He told me he had been walking down the street and had seen a light in my room. He’d run the rest of the way. He quickly snuffed out the flame of the candle between his fingers. When he told me I must never burn a candle while in bed, I thought and hoped his speed in coming home was because he feared for my safety. But that wasn’t his worry. He scolded me terribly, telling me I would burn down the museum if I weren’t careful. I could destroy everything just by being a selfish, thoughtless girl. I needed to pull my weight, to work harder, otherwise the museum would not survive the onslaught of newer, more modern entertainments. He took my wrists in his hands as he berated me. I couldn’t help but think of the trick for which he was most famous. In my thoughts I gave thanks to Maureen for her warning to stay at home. I was grateful it was not a bundle of clothes my father had discovered in my bed. As it was, there were bruises on my wrists the next morning.

I stopped going to Dreamland. It was the end of the season anyway, and the crowds at the hotels and the parks were beginning to disappear, leaving behind the local residents to get through the dreary autumn and the winter, isolated from the rest of the world. But at night I still dreamed I was walking along Surf Avenue. I walked through the gate of that wondrous park my father feared would make us poor, and once I did the whole world was before me, strung with a thousand lights. In my dreams I took off my black shawl and my gloves. I stood in the center of the ballroom and listened to music. There was no one to tell me everything I did was wrong. When I woke from these dreams I lay in bed in the dark. I told myself only foolish girls cried. Sometimes I crept downstairs, hoping to catch the night-blooming cactus in our parlor in flower. I thought I would then believe in miracles and find some sort of faith. I sat in the dark in an overstuffed chair, but nothing marvelous happened. There was nothing but sticks before me.