It turned out that my mother knew about the theater coming down. She just hadn’t mentioned it to us. I told her about the hole and the Porta Potties, and then about the job. I told her that there was a neighbor kid I could ride to and from the festival with so it would be safe and she wouldn’t even have to worry about that or about dropping me off and picking me up.
I hadn’t actually run any of that past Leo, but I’d ask him as soon as I got to work for the evening shift.
“Maybe next year,” she said. “Twelve is young to have a job.”
“I’m the same age as the other kids,” I said. “And this is the last year that they’ll have the old theater. Next year it won’t be the same.”
She thought for a minute, and then nodded. “All right.”
13.
That night I rode my bike over to the festival and I didn’t forget my sandals. I was in England.
I’d thought Gary was dumb for saying that, but toward the end of the shift it actually felt like we were.
On the Greenshow stage, performers danced and sang and hit tambourines that had green and purple ribbons tied to them. The women had garlands in their hair. The crowd clapped along.
Leo used his accent and the lights twinkled everywhere and my skirt swished around my ankles. The tarts smelled delicious. There were a million stars, and people and music and laughing. Flags waved in the air. The trees were old, the way they were at my house, and I didn’t mind so much when the wind came through and they started talking.
Maybe it didn’t feel like England. I’d never been. But it felt different. Good.
At the end of the shift, a trumpet sounded to tell people it was time to go in to the play, and the spell was broken.
After we counted out the money (I sold fifteen programs, Leo sold fifty-six), I asked him if we could ride our bikes home together. “My mom worries,” I said.
We cut through the festival’s administration building to get to the bike racks on the other side. “They’re making a new display over here,” Leo said, gesturing to the west wing of the building. “It’s called the Costume Hall, and it’s going to have one costume on display for every year the festival has been operating.”
“They’re doing a lot of new things,” I said.
“Yeah,” Leo said. “The idea is that all the improvements will mean more ticket sales. I think they got the idea for the Costume Hall from this.” He pointed to the wing of the administration building that led off to the east.
“The Portrait Hall,” I said.
“Right.”
Leo walked into the Portrait Hall so I followed him. I’d been in the Portrait Hall before. It had a painting of an actor from a play for each year of the festival.
“There she is,” he said, stopping in front of one of the portraits.
I knew without looking at the plaque under the frame who he meant. Lisette Chamberlain. I’d noticed her ever since I was small. Even in the Portrait Hall, full of beautiful and interesting-looking people wearing fancy costumes, Lisette stood out. Not only was she the most gorgeous actor of all, she wore a jeweled crown in her red hair and she was looking off-camera at someone, and you couldn’t tell if she loved or hated the person she saw. All you knew was that she was looking at them significantly. Her dress was deep purple velvet, with black brocade. And she was resting her cheek on her hand, so that you noticed her beautiful fingers and her slender wrist and her jewelry, a golden bracelet woven like a chain, a ring with three white stones.
“You know about her, right?” Leo asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Go on,” Leo said. “What do you know?”
I tried to remember everything my mom and grandparents had told me. “Lisette was born here in Iron Creek and she worked at the festival. First in the Greenshow, then she became an actor in the plays. She went to Hollywood and was on a soap opera and then in some movies but every summer she’d come back and do a one-night performance at Summerlost, which always sold out almost a full year in advance. Then she died here in Iron Creek in the hotel on Main Street.”
“Right,” Leo said. He seemed to be studying me. He folded his arms across his chest and tipped his head to one side. He had long eyelashes for a boy. For anyone. “I think I can work with you.”
“That’s good,” I said, “because you are.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“What do you mean?”
“So one time my family went to Washington, DC,” he said. “And when we were there, we went on a lot of tours.”
“That sounds boring,” I said.
“It was awesome. You could do tours that specialized in different famous people and the places they’d lived or worked. I want to do a tour like that about Lisette. It’s the twentieth anniversary of her death this summer. All the old people who came to the festival when she was alive haven’t forgotten her. We could make a ton of money.”