Jesse bought popcorn and watched folks ride the pleasure wheel and the roundabout. He blew two bits throwing baseballs, trying to win a vase for Mama but walking away with only a Chinese finger trap. A barker spieled him into laying down a nickel to see a flicker projected onto the wall of a tent, ghostly footage of a parade in New York City. In another tent—GENTLEMEN ONLY—two sleepy girls danced the hoochie-coochie in peekaboo harem getups for most of the male parishioners of the First Baptist Church.

Too shy himself to stare openly at the dancers, Jesse pretended to look at the ground, sneakily raising his eyes to watch without lifting his head. He was starting to enjoy the show when a coworker of his, Wade Finney, sidled up with his tongue hanging out.

“The redhead’ll suck your pecker for three bucks,” he whispered like someone who knew something.

“That so?” Jesse said.

The notion of sticking his pecker anywhere Wade’s had been held no appeal. He waited until the fool was absorbed in the show again and slipped back out onto the midway. Claudine was standing outside her booth.

“You want me to tell your fortune, Monsieur?” she called to him, playing up her French accent.

Her eyes were rimmed with kohl, her lips painted red. Wild black hair spilled down her back, and silver stars decorated the blue robe she wore, stars that glittered under the torches like the real thing. Right then and there Jesse’s map was redrawn. All roads would lead to her forever after.

He sat across from her in her candlelit stall. Sweet smoke curled out of a brass incense burner shaped like a dragon. Claudine gestured at the deck of tarot cards and the crystal ball on the table between them.

“What is your question?” she said.

“Are you really a gypsy?” Jesse said.

“Among other things.”

“We got an old woman around here who about drowned when she was a girl. She can tell your future by looking in a teacup.”

“There are many ways to lift the veil.”

Jesse pointed at the crystal ball. “You can see the future in that?”

“Those with the gift of prophecy can,” Claudine said.

Jesse leaned forward to peer into the ball. “It’s true,” he said. “I see it clear as day: You and me are gonna fall madly in love.”

Claudine told him later that she tried to call a roustabout to bounce him for his sass but couldn’t get her mouth to work right.

“You’d already laid me low,” she said.

A mariachi band approaches the booth where Jesse, Johona, and Edgar are sitting. A man wearing a sombrero and strumming a guitar asks if they’d like to hear anything special. Johona makes a request.

“What’s this?” Jesse says when the band starts to play.

“‘Paloma Negra,’” Johona says. “My dad always asks for it.”

“What’s it about?”