The Mulberry Tree

“It’s, uh, this way, sir,” he said, trying to keep up with Jimmie and his entourage.

“Lillian, he liked you!” Sue Ellen said.

“No, he didn’t,” Lillian Bailey answered, clutching the four blue ribbons she’d won. “He was just being polite.”

“Are you kidding? How many judges kiss the cheeks of the winners?”

“Why would he—” Lillian began, but she couldn’t continue, because the fourth time that James Manville had kissed her cheek, he’d whispered, “Meet me by the Ferris wheel at three,” and Lillian had nodded.

“I have to go,” Lillian said, then ran toward the main arena, where she knew her mother and sister would be. Dolores was planning to sing today, right after the first car race. The race he was in, Lillian thought, and a thrill shot through her.

Her mother and sister had been assigned a small area at the back of the arena. It was open at the front, canvas on three sides. A piece of plywood was set across saw-horses at the back, and Dolores sat in front of a mirror, applying mascara. She had on her smallest cowgirl outfit, the one with all the fringe.

“There you are,” Freida Bailey said when she saw her second daughter. “Don’t just stand there, make yourself useful. See what you can do with your sister’s hair.”

Lillian picked up the hairbrush and began to stroke her sister’s hair.

“Would you mind!” Dolores snapped. “I’m going to get mascara all over myself if you keep jerking me around like that.”

“Sorry,” Lillian said, then drew in her breath. How was she going to tell them that James Manville—the James Manville—had asked her to meet him? Would they grab her and squeal in delight, as Dolores and their mother did when Dolores won a singing contest? “I won,” Lillian said.

Freida was looking in the big trunk that they carried from show to show. “I can’t find your little pistol,” she said.

“It’s in there somewhere,” Dolores said. “Keep looking.”

“I won,” Lillian said louder, then caught the brush in her sister’s hair. Dolores yelped in pain.

“Really, Lillian!” Freida said. “It’s wonderful that you won another blue ribbon, but then your jams always win, don’t they? Couldn’t you make yourself useful and help? Your sister is going onst

age in ten minutes, and it’s rumored that James Manville is going to be in the audience. He’s not married, and he’s rich.”

At that statement Freida and her eldest daughter looked at each other and laughed.

And suddenly, Lillian couldn’t stand being there. “Oh, no!” she said. “I forgot. I have to—” For the life of her, she couldn’t think of a quick lie. Instead, she just turned and ran out of the arena, and when she heard her mother call, she kept on running. She had hours before she was to meet “him,” and she wanted time alone to savor the anticipation.

“I can’t believe this,” Matt said. “You were seventeen years old, and Manville was how old?”

“Twenty-six,” Bailey said.

“And I guess you did meet him at the Ferris wheel?”

“Oh, yes,” Bailey said, and closed her eyes in memory. When she blocked out all that had happened since then and thought only of that one wonderful day, it was the sweetest memory of her life. “Yes, I met him, and I had a glorious day. Jimmie was like a kid. It was as though he’d never been a child. We went on rides, and he took me to see his race car. At that time he was known as much for his daredevil racing as for the money he’d made. They opened the speedway just for him, and he took me for a couple of laps around the track. He even let me steer.”

“He let you know that he liked you,” Matt said softly.

“Yes,” Bailey said. “He made me laugh, and he did like me, old-fashioned liked me. He liked what I said and did. He liked the look of me, and considering that I was fat and had a nose the size of—”

Matt put a fingertip over her lips. “Manville saw what you really are. He saw inside you, and he approved.”

“Yes,” Bailey said. “Sometimes I’ve thought that approval may be the strongest aphrodisiac in the world.”

“It is when you’ve had little of it in your life,” Matt said softly. He was holding her hand and caressing it.

“Right,” she said. “But it wasn’t one-sided. I also felt something needy inside him. If I’d been older, I would have been cynical. I would’ve thought he was a dirty old man out for the virginity of a young girl. But I’d been hit on by an older man before, and it felt creepy. Jimmie made me feel wonderful. And in spite of our age difference, I didn’t feel we were different.” Bailey looked away for a moment. “Maybe it was because when I met him I was an old woman, or at least that’s the way I saw myself, and he was a man who seemed to have missed out on being a child.”

“How long did you spend with him that day?” Matt asked.

“Hours. All afternoon and into the evening.”