28

Sarah Agnes

Bilis squeezes my hand. “It’s going to be all right, luv,” he says in his dreamy British accent. “You don’t need him. You’re going to be all right, Sarry.”

I hold his little hand tightly. I’m not crying so much because Henri is leaving, for good this time, but because I feel like he’s taking little Sarah Agnes Hanfland with him. Not that I blame him for taking her innocence or anything like that. Fourteen or not, I knew what I was doing when I climbed into that truck that morning and left Bakersville forever. It was my choice and mine alone. Looking back, it was certainly more my idea than his. But somehow this seems so . . . final. Like that girl I knew will never be back. It’s been a year. A year, where has the time gone?

Henri is making the rounds, kissing the girls. He lays a big, wet one on Minnie’s mouth. He shakes hands with the men. Even Jacko pumps his hand, punches his shoulder. Henri’s always been a likable guy. No one can argue with that; what fourteen-year-old wouldn’t have fallen in love with him, in that beret he used to wear? But he’s not trustworthy. Not with your money. Not with facts. Certainly not with your heart. I learned that pretty fast. I caught him making business with enough girls over the last year to finally cut him off from business with me. And now Rudebaker’s is headed to Ohio, and Henri has decided to stay put in Tennessee. Some widow he met at our last stop, old enough to be his mother, has hired him as a handyman. Room and board included. I have a feeling he’ll be all kinds of handy around her house.

It was Bilis who made me realize I was getting off easy here. No big breakup or blowup. No having to move from one truck to another. Jacko’s already said I can drive the tent truck and stay put, living in the back. Just wish Hank the best, Bilis told me, and he’ll be out of your hair and drawers for good. Bilis made me laugh when he said that because he rarely cracks off-color jokes. He’s the gentleman of Rudebaker’s for sure, even if he does call the coochie show. He’s a rare man, my Bilis. I learned that pretty quickly. He’s the one who protected me and looked after me for the last year. Not Henri. Bilis.

I wish I could give back to Bilis just half of what he’s given me. A hundred times I’ve wished I could feel more for him than I do. It doesn’t seem right that I’d leave my whole life and any security I had for the likes of a loser like Henri, but I can’t love the finest man I’ve ever met. The feelings aren’t there. And it’s not because he’s a dwarf. That doesn’t bother me a bit. But I just can’t do it. I can’t love Bilis the way he wants me to love him. The way he deserves to be loved. Which makes me way sadder than Henri’s leaving me for an old widow woman.

Henri offers his hand to Bilis, and Bilis accepts it, shakes it, but he’s still holding onto me. Then Henri is standing in front of me.

“Mon chéri,” he coos. It’s the first time I’ve heard the French accent in a while. He’s been trying out an Italian one. I wonder which he used on the widow.

I smile because I’m not the kind of girl who’s going to go through life carrying grudges. They get too heavy. That’s what Bilis says. I let go of Bilis’s hand, and I hug Henri, but I don’t let him kiss me on the lips. I turn my head so all he gets is my cheek. “Good luck, Hank,” I tell him.

He steps back, winks, and makes a motion like he’s pulling a trigger on a pistol. “You too, kiddo.”

I turn away from him first and walk off to climb behind the wheel of the big tent truck, excited to move on to the next town.