Lucía’s malaise permeated her being like the all-encompassing London fog. For two years she carried her blanket of lethargy from one city to another throughout England, and her acts were as lackluster as General Mite’s. By 1884, worried that Lucía’s performances would soon be cancelled, Frank Uffner searched the continent for a rival to Lucía. Since he easily embezzled most of Lucía’s earnings, he didn’t want to replace her, but the falling show profits forced him to look for an alternative little woman to bewitch new audiences.

Miss Emilie “Millie” Edwards*, a sweet-faced girl from Lancaster, England, traipsed ever- so-coyly onto the stage— and into General Mite’s heart. Soon they were inseparable, on and off the stage, and within a matter of months, their sincere love for each other was evident to all. Frank Uffner was beyond himself with self-adulation.

“Ain’t I a genius for signing up another midget?” he asked his wife.

“Not compared to P.T. Barnum*, you ain’t. He’s moving away from little folks and into bigger and more talented show people. Why, he’s even got giant elephants and lions in his shows, while you’re still attached to midgets. Get it through your thick head—they’s a dying breed, Frank.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Let’s see if we can’t get the most out of the romance between General Mite and Millie.”

“The sooner the better, before Mite dumps her like he did Lucía. Anyways, what good is that Mexican midget to us now, Frank? Answer me that.”

“Hate to admit it, but you have a point there about Lucía.”

“Well, then, genius, let’s plan a wedding right quick between Mite and Millie. Get it done, get the press all up in arms about it, and let’s milk all the money we can now, Frank.”

“I’ll do as I see fit, woman!”

By May 1884 the British press was abuzz with every possible detail about the wedding between General Mite and Millie Edwards. Nothing was too small to be left unreported. Readers knew not only the time and place of the civil and church ceremonies; they also knew that Mr. O’Gorman conducted the civil ceremony in his signature thin, reedy voice. They read that General Mite was accompanied by the senior Mr. Flynn and that they were staying at the Denmark Hotel, while his fiancée resided at the Grand Hotel. In no time, fans waited anxiously for a peek of Mite and Millie at both hotels. Readers knew that the 3^rd Dragoon Guards played the Wedding March, and they laughed with the description of the slobbery kiss that Colonel Nepts*, the bridegroom’s best man, had planted on the bride. With all the nitty-gritty reported by the press, the reading public felt as if they’d been honored guests at the wedding and they soon forgot all about Lucía.

After the wedding, the press couldn’t allow a lull in news, so they continued printing speculations about Lucía’s fiery temper, suggesting it had pushed General Mite into Millie’s arms. They compared her long nose to Millie’s pert button nose. They exaggerated the amount of money Lucía earned. Even as late as December 26, 1885, long after Lucía was no longer a star attraction, The Era of London wrote:

A good freak makes more money without opening his mouth than the most accomplished actor. Little Lucía Zárate, the Mexican midget, who is undoubtedly the smallest human ever exhibited, got $2,800 for four weeks in this city, and now she wants $800 a week.

Lucía didn’t care to listen to any of the news that Frank Uffner read aloud. She didn’t care about the earnings that only her father had ever seen. She could not care less about the counterfeit jewelry Frank Uffner bought her with her own proceeds. Lucía slumped next to Zoila, sighing inconsolably over losing Mite. She stood up and searched around the hotel, hoping to catch a glimpse of Mite’s big blue eyes, but he and his bride had left Frank Uffner’s employ for greener pastures. The days and months dragged on and on for Lucía, yet she couldn’t wade out of the murky waters of her broken heart. Not even Zoila’s kind and patient ministrations or buoyant tales could rescue Lucía from her drowning depression.

Zoila understood the depths of heartache, but Lucía’s funk extended beyond losing General Mite. She tried in every way to enliven Lucía, but the girl’s spirit sank willingly, like the sacrificial bodies thrown to the depths of the cenote waters in Mexico. Zoila tried a different approach. She reminded Lucía of all the accomplishments she made during her ten years of touring.

“You should be proud of learning English in record time,” she praised Lucía.

“Not really. Didn’t you hear Mr. Uffner read the paper yesterday? They quoted me as having said: “Me no likee Millie!”

“Everyone who can read knows that it is yellow journalism, gross exaggeration. You speak English well and you should also be proud of how hard you’ve worked. Why, you’ve never missed one show, have you?”

Lucía sneered. “Oh, no, I would never disappoint. I’m just a perfect au-to-ma-ton, like one of the French dolls we saw in New Orleans, aren’t I?”

Lucía sat down and imitated the mechanical movements of the Jaquet-Droz automata that played the organ. She amplified the automata’s breathing and eye movements, following her bulging eyes along an imaginary organ keyboard. Zoila appreciated the sarcasm in Lucía’s comment and she laughed along with Lucía. These theatrics were cathartic, she believed, and encouraged Lucía to continue.

“Why don’t you do an imitation of Mrs. Uffner?” she suggested.

“Whatch you talking about, girl?” Lucía squawked. “They ain’t no money in imitatin common folk. They’s only money in the big top circus nowadays!”

Zoila couldn’t stop laughing at the spot-on imitation of both voice and subject. “Who says you don’t speak English well? You can even imitate Mrs. Uffner’s trashy English!”

“I’m twenty-two years old, Zoila. You’d be surprised at all the things I now know.”

“Well, tell me more about them,” Zoila said. She wanted to encourage Lucía to release her pent-up feelings.

Lucía raised her petite index finger. “First, I know Mr. Uffner’s jewelry is junk,” she said. She threw her three rings onto the floor and stomped on them. “He would do just about anything to bring more audiences to see me. Anything!”

“What else?”

“Two, I know my father is using my money to buy more and more land in Mexico to convert himself into the new patrón in town.”

Zoila didn’t comment on Señor Zárate. It was one thing for a daughter to acknowledge her parent’s weaknesses, but Zoila knew it would be insensitive to add her very negative observation of Señor Zárate’s many fatal flaws.

“Three, I know my mother misses me, but she’s afraid that if I go back to Mexico, our money well will surely dry up and then my family’s future will be bleak.” Lucía sighed. “So, I’ll probably never go back home.”

Zoila shook her head vigorously. “Oh no, please don’t say that. I want us both to go back to Mexico soon. I want you to witness the vanilla orchids and—”

“Four,” Lucía interrupted, clearly holding back her tears, “four, I was not in love with Francis, but I did love the idea of being in love.” She let out a sob. “I’m just so tired of this life.”

The sliver of silver lining in Lucía’s cloud of pessimism disappeared and she reverted to her depressed state. She folded her hands in her lap, done counting the life lessons she’d learned; she was preparing herself for a lonesome life on the endless road of low-class show business. She heard Zoila ask her more questions, felt Zoila sturdy hands massaging her shoulders, and even smelled the cured vanilla beans Zoila removed from her chest and placed in Lucía’s hands. Lucía appreciated such a spontaneous and stirring gesture, but her mind clouded over with sadness and resignation. All she managed to whisper to Zoila was, “Thank you, madrina.”

Zoila would not let Lucía drown in sorrow. Even in her disconsolate state, Lucía still called Zoila madrina, godmother, a sacred title Zoila would always cherish. For ten years she’d served as Lucía’s protector and caregiver and she knew that Lucía needed absolute seclusion in the sunshine of her family back in Mexico. She needed an organic old-world cure, an antidote for the poison of the hurried, harried life she’d been forced to live. Since 1876 she’d performed like the sun in the iciest of atmospheres, and her energy was now obviously diminishing.

Zoila saw Lucía for who she was: a delicate hand-crafted being who could not endure the rigors of the all-consuming power-driven show-business machine. Events such as the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, with its modern monorail and its 14,000 horsepower Corliss engine running all the machinery exhibits, attested to the way of the future. Neither Lucía nor a small-time promoter like Frank Uffner were a match for the big top impresarios such as P.T. Barnum. Lucía’s 20-inch frame and quivering, squeaky voice couldn’t compete for audiences magnetized by the sight of a 15,000 pound elephant, or the sound of a roaring lion jumping through fire in the ring of a massive circus.

In the same way Zoila had recognized she needed to escape the wrath of the vanilla traders back in Papantla, she realized her time in the seedy world of freak shows was up. Frank Uffner had never paid her the full amount of money owed to her for her services to Lucía, she’d never parlayed her language skills into a more lucrative job in New York or London, and, most significantly, she had not protected Lucía from the harm inflicted on her by living the life of a freak working for the profit of others.

By accepting her own failure, Zoila no longer felt Felipe’s pulsating guidance. All she heard was the urgent tick-tock of her father’s gold watch telling her it was time to flee. Accept your losses, grab your remaining chips, and leave Lucía at the poker table, her father would have said. Every man for himself: that would be his advice. He would thump his knuckles on her forehead and call her a fool; she should abandon the Lucía sinking ship. But Zoila couldn’t leave Lucía behind. She could not leave Lucía trapped in England in the clutches of two unreasonable and opportunistic men who continued to fight over her like junkyard dogs snarling over a tiny morsel of meat.

Zoila stepped out into the pea-soup fog of London, determined to buy forged travel documents for Lucía. Señor Zárate had reluctantly agreed to keep an eye on his daughter for a few hours while Zoila was away. She walked the disorienting side streets of London’s seediest neighborhoods, rehashing her plan over and over so she was ready to persuade the bureaucratic Englishmen she was sure to encounter. She would pretend to be a mother returning with her sickly child back to Mexico. Only in Mexico could Lucía recuperate.

Zoila beamed at the cleverness of her scheme, certain that it would work out. Once she purchased passages for mother and child on a ship bound for the Canary Islands, a ship that would then continue south to Veracruz, Zoila felt emboldened by her own daring. She whistled happily as she continued to accumulate the paperwork she would need to travel abroad. She recalled that Antonietta Gonzalez and her clever brother Enrico had been able to escape their captivity in Italy and had spent their rest of their lives whistling jubilant tunes along the shores of Lake Bolsena. She was certain that the coincidence of a port stop in Tenerife, the ancestral home of Antonietta Gonzalez and her clan, was an omen of the good fortune sure to come to her and Lucía.

But after meeting with several shifty document sellers, Zoila ceased her lively trills. She bumped into one dead end after another trying to locate the crooks who would sell her believable forged, travel documents. Her outing took hours longer than she’d thought.

Frank Uffner had also seen the writing on the wall. He had his wife pack only one suitcase, and told her to get ready to bolt at a minute’s notice. When the hotel manager banged on their door demanding payment, followed by the theatre manager also demanding payment for the rental of the stage, Frank Uffner calmly accompanied them to the front desk, assuring them that he’d left his cash in the hotel’s safe. Señor Zárate understood the English words “cash” and “safe” and he immediately followed Frank Uffner to the hotel’s reception. As soon as Lucía was alone, Mrs. Uffner grabbed her, threw her into the now-weathered market basket and caught the first train to the port of Liverpool. Her wily husband, Mrs. Uffner knew, would find his way to Liverpool in record time.