The Jodi Picoult Collection Read online

  “He was hit by a train?” I say, stunned.

  “You lived through a plane crash,” my mother points out.

  “Barnum carved up the beast and gave pieces to different museums. He sold the heart, even. To Cornell University, for forty dollars. Can you imagine?”

  “We’d better be going,” my mother says.

  “Oh, all the money is there,” Elkezer says. “You can count it if you like.”

  “I’m sure that isn’t necessary. Thank you.”

  “No, thank you.” We leave him standing on the third floor, lightly touching the photo of Jumbo.

  As we close the heavy door of the museum behind us, my mother rips open the envelope. “We’re rich again, Rebecca,” she sings. “Rich!”

  We get into our car and pull out of the parking lot. The fender scrapes like a rake against the pavement. We pass little boys playing handball and a fat woman with skin the color of molasses. We pass a deal going down on a street corner: a man in a leather cap unfolding a small wrinkled square of paper. In spite of this I can still picture the heavy dance of a motorcade, the oompah of a tuba, the slow-foot sashay of those elephants down Main Street.

  31 JANE

  We celebrate Rebecca’s birthday at the geographical center of North America. Right outside of Towner, North Dakota, I give her a Hostess cupcake with a candle stuck in it, and I sing “Happy Birthday.” Rebecca blushes. “Thanks, Mom. You didn’t have to.”

  “Oh, I’ve got a present too,” I say, and I pull an envelope out of my back pocket. We both recognize the envelope—the scruffy manila one that held the money under the MG’s seat. Inside, on motel stationery, I’ve written an IOU.

  Rebecca reads it out loud. “IOU anything you want (within reasonable limits) on a shopping spree.” She laughs, and looks around. We’ve pulled over at a road sign that announces this geographical center, and with the exception of a superhighway beside us, there is nothing as far as the eye can see. “I guess I’ll have to wait till we hit civilization again to go shopping,” she says.

  “No! That’s the point. Today’s driving is going to be wholly devoted to finding a suitable place to buy clothes. God knows we need them.” The old shirt of Oliver’s I’ve been wearing is covered with engine grease and food stains. My underwear can stand by itself. And Rebecca doesn’t look much better; the poor kid didn’t even take a decent bra along. “So how does it feel to be fifteen?” I say.

  “Not much different than it felt to be fourteen.” She hops into her side of the car: she has this down to a science by now. Me, I still have to crawl over the door, and I usually jam my foot on the handle.

  “Okay,” Rebecca says, settling herself with her feet swung over the passenger door. “Where to?”

  Towner, I suppose. It’s the place that Joley had directed us towards, although I have discovered that even a filling station and maybe three wooden houses can be classified as a “place” in North Dakota.

  Rebecca guides me down a dirt road. We drive for a mile without seeing any signs of life, much less commerce. Finally a dilapidated barn that leans decidedly to the right looms into view. On it is a hex sign, two lovebirds in all the primary colors. “Eloise’s?” Rebecca says.

  “This can’t be a store. This doesn’t even qualify as a home.” But there are several cars parked outside, cars so old and faded I have the sense I have arrived in a 1950s movie set. Tentatively, I pull over and climb out of the car.

  The barn doors are propped open by long poles burning citronella candles. Inside are rows of barrels with flip-up tops. They are labeled: FLOUR, SUGAR, BROWN SUGAR, SALT, RICE. There is a strong sheet of smell that hits you when you cross the threshold, like molasses being burned. In a pen to one side of the barn is a tremendous sow collapsed on its side, most likely from its own weight, and ten spotted pigs jockeying for a better position at her teats. Next to the pigpen is a long, planed board propped on makeshift trestles, and on the board is a cash register—the silver kind where the buttons pop into the window: 50¢, $1, No charge.

  “May I help you?” a woman says. She has been bent into the pigpen so neither Rebecca nor I noticed her. Rebecca is deeper into the barn, exploring darker corners, so that leaves me to answer. “Well, actually,” I say, “we’re looking to get some new clothing.”

  The woman claps her hands together. She has stiff red spitcurls and a triple chin. She cannot be more than four and a half feet tall. When she walks, her shoes squeak as if her socks are wet. “You have come to the right place,” she says. “We have a little bit of everything.”

  “So I see.”

  “My motto is, buy one only of each item. It helps the customer make up his mind more quickly.”

  I am wary of buying something at Eloise’s. True, she has one of everything, but not necessarily things you would ever want.

  “Mom,” Rebecca says, sweeping towards us. She is holding a sequined evening gown. “What do you think? Pretty sexy, huh?”

  It has spaghetti straps and too much lycra. “Wait till you’re seventeen,” I tell her. She groans and disappears behind a bolt of calico.

  “Excuse me,” I call to the woman who is leading me on this serpentine journey. “Miss?”

  “Call me Eloise. Everyone else does.”

  Rebecca, who is still holding onto the sequined black evening gown (where do you wear that in a place like Towner?), has culled a pile of clothing. “You finding what you want, dear?” Eloise calls. Then she turns to me. “Are you two together?”

  “Very much so,” I say, and I walk over to Rebecca’s pile.

  Rebecca peeks at the tag on a pair of red walking shorts. “Check out the prices, Mom.” She holds up the shorts. “Do you have these in a three?”

  “What we have in stock is on the sales floor. I’d be happy to move these items to a dressing room for you.” She waddles around a corner, led by a sixth sense, I imagine, since the clothes are piled over her head. “You’re in room number six,” she calls to Rebecca. I peer around the corner at the fitting rooms. Cow stalls.

  “Mom.” I walk over to where Rebecca stands, eyes shining. “This—” she holds out a pair of designer jeans, “—this is only three dollars,” she says. “This bathing suit is made by La Blanca, and it’s only one-fifty.”

  I finger the white price tags. The numbers are written in crayon. “Maybe we’ll come here to do all our shopping from now on.”

  I begin to leaf through the racks myself. At these prices, what have I got to lose? Eloise is a prudent businesswoman. She orders her stock in one of each size. So the bottom line is, if a pair of striped Liz Claiborne trousers come in, you can expect to find one of each size: 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14 and 16. If you happen to be a ten, and another ten has gotten here before you, you are out of luck. This is what happens in several cases for items that catch my eye; I’m an eight and I guess in North Dakota that’s a popular size. Those, and the sixteens, seem to be selling the best. Rebecca has her pick of the racks, still sporting a preadolescent figure.

  Eloise crosses in front of me holding out a cute yellow jumper. “I saw her face and I thought of this. You said size three, dear?”

  “What she really needs is a bra and some underwear. Do you stock that as well?”

  Eloise leads me to another row of barrels, marked by size. I reach into the bin marked Four and pull out a handful of panties in pink, fuschia, black lace, and white with green flowers. “Wonderful,” I say, taking all but the black lace. As I am looping them over my wrist for safekeeping, Eloise returns with a neatly packaged bra. I take these over to Rebecca. “You might as well put on some underwear,” I tell her. “Since we’re going to buy it anyway.”

  “Ma . . .” she says, hanging her head over the swing door of the stall. “You know.”

  “Oh.” I rummage in my bag for anther maxi-pad. There are no garbage pails to be seen. I lean close to Rebecca. “Just bury it under the hay or something.”

  Rebecca puts on a fashion show for me and Eloise. We are sitting