Circus Girl

What I want the most right now is to be a girl working for a Depression-era traveling show.

I only have two dresses, my good dress and my everyday dress. My everyday dress is soft, threadbare cotton with a tiny flower print on it. My good dress is a sensible black, stiff and uncomfortable. My shoes are cracked leather with holes in the toes. I don't wear stockings. My hair is light brown and so fine that it never stays tied back. I squint a lot, because of the dust, and also the sun.

My job is to sell tickets during the day, and to feed the animals early in the morning and then again at night. I am in love with the horse trainer, who is a dashing eighteen with dark hair and a mustache, but he only has eyes for the show girls in their tatty sequined costumes.

I never get tired of the tents, the brightness of their colours, the fine grain of their silk. The sight of them every morning still comes as a joyful shock, their jewel tones brilliant against the dull, gritty sky.

My heart is dim, but not without hope. In fact, I am an agent of hope and wonder and mystery to the people living in the towns we pass through. I am the embodiment of freedom. I never sleep in the same place two weeks running. My life is everything they fear, and everything they most secretly desire.