Anne Tyler - Earthly Possessions

"Back up. Run them down. Make a U-turn."

"Huh?" said Mindy.

"You can't do that," I said to Jake, "it's a one-way street. Sit still and enjoy the parade."

"Parade?" A white-and-gold drum major pranced across our windshield, pronging the air with his silver baton.

Brassy music bleated behind him. "Oh, parade," said Jake.

Mindy started crying. The two of us looked over at her.

"Mindy?" Jake said.

"It's all arranged against me!" she wafted. "Nothing will ever come out like I have dreamed! Well never get to Florida!" She bent her head to the steering wheel, both arms circling it. She cried out loud, like a child. But we could only hear her during pauses in "King of the Road," which was bearing down on us from someplace to the west. "Mindy, what is it?" Jake asked her. "You feel all right?" She shook her head.

"You don't have pains or nothing."

"I have pains all over," she said. Her voice was muffled, hollow as a bell. "I'm only young! I can't do this all by myself!" Jake reached over and cut off the ignition. The car shuddered and died.

"King of the Road" had won, it seemed. It sailed above everything. The band strutted by us, high school kids, skinny little Adam's-appled boys and sweaty girls. But Mindy's head was still on the steering wheel, and Jake was turned in my direction as if he expected something from me. He said, "Charlotte, can't you help me here?" I never know what's needed. I gave him a Kleenex from my purse.

"Well, thanks a lot," he said.

I said, "Or maybe a… do you want me to go get some water?" He looked at Mindy, who only went on crying. I don't know how I could have brought water anyway; the street was packed by now. Cars had drawn up all around us and behind us. People were getting out and sitting on their fenders in their shirtsleeves.

A man came by with a whole fat tree of balloons. "Would you like a balloon?" I asked Mindy.

"Charlotte, for mercy's sake," Jake said. "Can't you do no better than that?"

"Well, I was only… Selinda would have," I said. But that wasn't the truth. Selinda wouldn't have liked a balloon either. The truth was that I was grieving for Jake and Mindy both, and I didn't know who I felt sadder for. I hate a situation where you can't say dearly that one person's right and one is wrong. I was cowardly I chose to watch the parade. A team of Clydesdales clopped past with a beer wagon, and my eyes followed their billowing feet in a long restful journey of their own. The Clydesdales left great beehives of manure. I enjoyed noticing that. There are times when these little details can draw you on like spirals up a mountain, leading you miles.

Next came a flank of majorettes, and a flowered lady who tripped alongside them with a vanity case. "Watch those feet, girls!" she kept calling. "Turd ahead!" The majorettes might have been eyeless under their visored hats, but they sidestepped neatly when necessary. The soldiers were braver and slogged straight through. A little black boy marched beside them, carrying a grownup's crutch like a rifle and swinging one rubbery arm, laughing and rolling his eyes at his friends. I have never in all my life seen anybody more delighted with himself.

"Now, where'd that Kleenex walk off to?" Jake asked me.

"Here's another," I said.

"Mindy? You ought to sit up and take notice, Mindy; they got a big float with a beauty queen on it. Top Touch sausage meat. I've eaten Top Touch before."

Mindy hiccuped but didn't raise her head. Jake looked over at me. "Well, what have I got to do?" lie asked.

"Um…"

"You're supposed to know all this junk, what have I got to do?"

"Oh, it's Founder's Day," I said.

"Huh?" I pointed to a tiny old lady with long blond hair, wearing a miniskirt, carrying a poster. FOUNDER'S DAY it said, above four men's pencil-drawn faces with much-erased mouths. ONE HUNDRED TEARS OF PROGRESS.

"Well, I knew it wasn't no standard holiday," said Jake. "Lord, look at her hairdo. Reckon it's real?"

"It couldn't be. It's a wig. Saran or something," I said.

"Dynel, maybe. That's what my sister's got, Dynel." Mindy sat up, wiping her face with the backs of her hands. Muddy gray tear tracks ran down her cheeks and her mascara had turned her raccoon-eyed. "Mindy!" Jake said. "Want a Lifesaver?

Want some chewing gum?" She shook her head.

"I believe we got some Fritos left."

"I don't want your old Fritos, Jake Simms. I want to lie down and die."

"Oh, now, don't say that. Look, I'm trying my best here. Want me to do a magic trick? I do magic tricks," he told me. "I bet you didn't know that." believe you mentioned it," I said, watching a float of chubby men in fezzes.

"I'm right good, aren't I, Mindy? Tell her." Mindy mumbled something to the steering wheel.

"What' s that, Mindy? Speak up, I can't hear you." Mindy tilted her chin.

"He makes things disappear," she told the windshield.

"Bight," said Jake.

"He makes things vanish into nowhere. He undoes tilings. Houdini is his biggest hero."

"Now at the moment I don't have no equipment," said Jake. "But bearing that in mind, Mindy, you just name any trick your heart desires and I will see what I can do. I mean that. Remember how you like magic?" She didn't answer. He looked over at me. His face was damp from the heat of the car, and his hair was coiled and springy. "She used to like magic a lot," he told me.

"Well, I don't any more!" Mindy said.

"I don't know what's got into her." The fezzes were at long last gone and here came another high school band. Everybody clapped and waved. But then there must have been a hitch of some kind, somewhere up front. They came to a halt, still playing, then finished their tune and fell silent and stood staring straight ahead. You could see the little pulses in their temples. You could see the silver chain linking a musician to his piccolo, giving me a sudden comical picture of the accident that must once have happened to make them think of this precaution. I laughed-the loudest sound on the street. For the clapping had stopped by now. There was some understanding between players and audience; each pretended the other wasn't there. Well finally the parade resumed and so did the clapping, and the audience was filled with admiration all over again as if by appointment. The players marched on. Their legs flashed as steadily and evenly as scissors. I was sorry not to have them to watch any more.

"I would think a drum would be a right good instrument," Jake told me, gazing after them.

"You just like whatever booms and damages," said Mindy.

We looked at her.

"Oh! I was going to do my billfold trick," Jake said, "No, thank you."

"Now, where's my… shoot, my billfold."

"Never mind," said Mindy.

"Lend me your billfold, Charlotte," Jake said.

I pulled it out of my purse and gave it to him, meanwhile watching a floatful of white-wigged men signing a paper that was scorched around the edges.

"Look close, now," Jake said to Mindy. "Maybe you'll figure how I do it, finally. Here we have a empty billfold, see? Observe there ain't no tricks to this, no hidden pockets, secret compartments…" I heard him riffling through it, flicking the plastic windows, snapping up some flap. There was a sudden silence.

"Why," he said. "Why, what have we here. Charlotte? Charlotte, what is this?" I took my eyes away from the parade and looked at what he held out. "It's a traveler's check," I told him.

"A traveler's check! Looky there, Mindy, a hundred-dollar traveler's check!

We're rich! Why didn't you tell me?" he asked. "What kind of sneaky way is that to act?"

"I don't know. I didn't think," I said.

"Didn't think? Carrying around a hundred dollars and didn't think?'

' "Well, I've had it for so long, you see. I mean I had it for just one purpose, I forgot it could be used for anything else,"