Jane Smiley - Some Luck

Rosanna put on her most comfortable dress — the one with the short sleeves, and the little jacket in case it got chilly at night — her most comfortable shoes, and a simple hat she borrowed from Granny Mary, though that was a mistake: with that hat on, she looked like her mother, only not as good-natured. But as she got into the car, she put away the vanities of the world (which was easy enough as soon as she turned around and saw Lillian, sitting with books on her lap between Lois, a very plain girl, and Henry, beaming). Dan Crest had had a lovely length of sky-blue piqué that Rosanna had pieced out into a dress with a little jacket and then embroidered across the bodice. Lillian’s hair was to her waist now, and her braids were very shiny and neat. Rosanna decided that maybe Lois wasn’t so plain in and of herself, just in comparison to Lillian. She said, “Are you all right, Lois? I like your dress. It’s very pretty.” She smiled. Lois smiled.

Since it was only fifty miles, and the road led straight there, cutting diagonally across sections, which was rare in Iowa, Walter was soon wondering why they didn’t do this more often. Dan Crest did, the Fredericks did, even his folks had been more than once; some people in their church went every year. Rosanna said, “We’ve got children and business at home, Walter.”

“So does everyone. Maybe we’re just old stick-in-the-muds. We hardly even go to the movies.”

“Most movies are sinful.”

“Well, let’s try some more out for ourselves. Know thine enemy.”

Rosanna made a face, but it was true that she stayed home much more than her mother, who visited someone or other once or twice a week. When her mother told her, just the other week, that she and her father had gone into Usherton and seen a Bette Davis movie called Of Human Bondage , Rosanna had been a little taken aback. Now she said, “You were talking to Mama.”

“They see a few movies.”

“I thought that one sounded horrid.”

“But we didn’t even see It Happened One Night .”

Rosanna said, “You know it would terrify me to leave Lillian and Henry with Frankie, my goodness, and Joey. No telling—”

“Minnie would come over.”

“I’ll just bet.” Rosanna knew perfectly well that Minnie had eyes for Frankie — it was embarrassing to look at her. Well, she was a plain one, too, though good in every way, and she would make some farmer a wonderful wife someday.

JOE WAS AMAZED to discover that you didn’t have to stay with your ewe every minute. He had more or less expected to camp there, beside her stall, and stare at her for two days, but the 4-H had its own area, and everyone took turns — there was a schedule, and Joe’s turn was to be later that afternoon, right before supper, and again in the morning. Of course, you had to come and feed and groom your entry, but the 4-H knew that in this crowd a little peace and quiet off to one side, with not so many people coming and going, was actually less irritating to the animals. Emily was a quiet one, easygoing. Joe put her in her pen, which was clean, and gave her some hay; while he was doing this, Frankie came into the area and looked around for him. Frankie had already seen the midway, and was eager to get over there. He held out his hand and said, “I told Mama I would give you a dollar, but that won’t be enough.” There were two dollars in his hand. “Just don’t pester me, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Don’t follow me around, and don’t call out to me and don’t — oh, I don’t know — whatever you see, don’t tell Mama.”

Joe said, “Do I ever?”

“You don’t dare.”

Joe shrugged.

“Anyway, here.” He thrust the money into Joe’s pocket and turned away. Joe actually did want to follow him, but he made himself wait, watching Emily, while Frankie loped out of the area and disappeared into the crowd.

“That your ewe?”

Joe looked around. The girl was blonde. She was smiling, and she had a nice sweater on, cream-colored.

“I have a Southdown, too. Yours is nice. I like the way her hind legs are set. She’s well proportioned.”

“Thanks,” said Joe, almost as an afterthought. “She won the class at our county fair.” He dug his fingernail into the fence rail. “ ’Course, there were only four in the class.” He cleared his throat. He knew he was supposed to ask something, then remembered. “Where’s yours?”

The girl pointed to a pen across the aisle. “Her name is Poker.”

“Mine’s name is Emily.”

“That’s funny. My name is Emily.”

Joe felt himself turn red.

“The reason is that my mother had a dog named Emily when she was a girl, and then a horse named Emily, and then me. She says there’s no reason not to use a good name as many times as you can.”

Joe said, “Your mother sounds like fun.”

“She is.”

Joe fingered the dollar bills in his pocket and said, “Want to get a root beer?”

Emily nodded. She said, “I bet you’re going to win, with that ewe.”

IT WAS a cold night, cold enough for a coat, but Frank hadn’t brought one. The good thing about it was that he was out on the midway by himself — Papa and Mama had taken Joe and the others back to the room they’d gotten at a boardinghouse, and the Fredericks had left hours ago to have supper with some cousins in Norwalk. There would be hell to pay in the morning — or even in a couple of hours, when Frank tried to sneak into the room without waking anyone up. He had run off just at the very moment when Mama put her hands over her shoulders and shivered, just before she said, “Ah! Well, I guess—” The end of that was going to be leaving the fair, and, sure enough, Frank had watched them from behind the funnel-cake frying stand. They gathered up the family, looked around in vain for him, then gave up and left. If it weren’t so cold, it would have taken longer, so that was something to be thankful for.

You couldn’t say that the midway was deserted, but in Iowa in August, you expected it to be seventy-five, so you expected to run from ride to ride and be refreshed as each one spun you around, like the Tilt-A-Whirl, or up and down, but it was freezing at the top of the Ferris wheel, with the wind from the west, so Frank was finished with the rides. In an hour, the exhibits would close, too, and Frank had already seen most of them — the pumpkin that was as big as a hog, the rearing horse carved out of butter, the man with the beard he wrapped around his waist, the man-woman—“How Can You Tell? You Can’t!”—and the woman with the fingernails “A Foot Long!” He had watched Joe come third in the ewes and Minnie come second in the 4-H pies (to a mixed apple-blackberry that looked pretty good). He had won Lillian a teddy bear playing Skee-Ball, and impressed Papa (and the man in the booth) by shooting ten duck-targets in a row, until the man said he would pay Frank a dollar to go away, and he did, and Walter laughed for five minutes and said he was going to frame the dollar. They had eaten all kinds of things that made Mama blanch — not only funnel cakes, but candy cotton and hot dogs, and caramel corn and taffy. He had also had plenty of watermelon, and in no order — candy first, meat second, fruit after that. Mama kept her mouth shut, except to say, “Well, pray the Lord you don’t get sick.” He wasn’t hungry, that was for sure.

The girls were just inside the Hall of Machines, huddling together, getting out of the breeze and, Frank saw at the last minute, sharing a cigarette. When they noticed him, Frank smiled. He always smiled at girls. He was taller than both of them, and he guessed that they thought he was pretty old, because they looked at him not like he was a kid. He walked past them, toward the John Deere tractor with some kind of cultivator hitched to it. Deeres were always green, but under the electric lights, this tractor was eye-poppingly green. Frank put his hands in his pockets and stood back from a couple of farmers in overalls who were inspecting it. One said, “I like a Case, myself.” Frank did not want to hear this perennial discussion, so he stepped back, and right on the foot of one of the girls. She gave a little scream.