Now two guys—they looked like college types, in clothes that cost a lot but were made to look like they didn’t—halted their conversation and started watching the quarter spin. They exchanged a look and kept watching, two more friends, two more human beings touching her life as she touched theirs. What a feeling.
The little girl was looking up at her daddy. Oh-oh, got to get her back!
Eloise bent low, her nose just above the table, and mutely beckoned to the coin. It advanced a few inches and stopped. She beckoned again. It backed up.
Come on, now, she mimed in clownish gestures, don’t be a wuss!
The quarter wavered, inched forward, backed up, came forward again … slowly …
She placed her index finger against the edge of the table, beckoned and cajoled, and finally … the quarter spun onto her fingertip. She lifted it slowly aloft, spinning and balancing on her finger.
Now, that got a response! Mommy and Daddy, the little girl, the college guys, and now the guys playing chess all watched in disbelief and delight.
Oh, brother. Where do I go from here? Call it quits before I get in trouble?
They were applauding now, and she had the little girl back.
Top it, top it, top it!
She mimed for the daddy to hold up his finger. He laughed, a little nervous about it, but he stuck up his index finger. She steadied his hand with her free hand and brought the quarter down.
It was like lighting a candle. The quarter passed from her finger to his and he held it there, astonished, looking at the quarter from different sides, watching it spin all by itself.
“Hey, check it out!” somebody said.
“What? How’s he doing that?” said a lady at a table close by.
“ She’sdoing it!” said the man sitting with her.
The little girl was enraptured. She reached for the quarter as if it were something truly magical, then shied away. Eloise mimed an open palm, and the girl’s mother reached and helped. The child held out an open palm. The father brought his finger down, and the quarter hopped into the little girl’s palm. Kerplop! It lay flat, happy, harmless, and hers.
Eloise closed the little girl’s hand around the quarter and pointed, miming, It’s yours!
There was a circle of laughter and applause from the four nearest tables, enough to make some of the computer tappers look up. A few heads turned from the front of the place.
Oh-oh.Now Mr. Calhoun was watching. So was Abby. Would they be mad or amazed? They weren’t smiling yet.
Well, she’d better be sure they were amazed—and that she had the crowd. It felt a little nutty, something between a ray of hope and a flying leap, but she stood and pulled Burt the Tennis Ball from her coat pocket.
The folks she had were all hers, watching every move she made, expecting something.
She perched Burt on the tip of her finger and gave him a spin. He spun there, never slowing.
How about the little girl? Was she ready? Was she trusting? Eloise mimed for her to point her finger upward.
The little sweetie looked at her daddy. “Go ahead,” he said, and she pointed her finger in the air.
Eloise approached slowly, all smiles and adventure, and brought Burt in for a gentle landing on her fingertip.
This child was going to handle the rest of her life just fine: she held her finger still and let Burt spin while the friends sitting closest, joined by friends a few tables out, applauded and cheered.
And oh, the triumph in her eyes!
Eloise brought her own right hand close and the little girl let Burt hop back onto Eloise’s finger. Eloise raised her right hand and let Burt roll down her arm, over her shoulders, down her left arm, and then—ta-da!—he spun on the finger of her left hand as she held him high.
Applause and even a few whoops.
Now the clatter and chatter were dropping off table by table, talker by tapper, sipper by muncher, as the circle of quiet attention rippled outward. Folks were leaning, looking around heads and bodies, curious.
Mr. Calhoun was watching; she could feel it.
She let Burt roll back to her right arm and out onto her right index finger again. More applause, but it was time to move on. She let him roll across to her left hand one more time and then, after bringing both left and right hands together and letting Burt twirl on both fingers, she jerked her hands apart and let him fall.
He bounced on the floor, and bounced on the floor, and bounced on the floor as she watched, following him with big nods of her head.
But he wouldn’t stop bouncing, and folks were catching on, laughing, marveling. Her look-away deadpan would have made Jack Benny proud, and it got laughs.
Enough of this bouncing.She reached on a bounce to catch Burt—he curved sideways and she missed. She grabbed at him again and he zipped from her grasp. She chased him, groping and grabbing while he bounced between the tables, and finally netted him in her hat. Well, there!She was in charge again. She put her hat down on her table with Burt under it and began her next trick, materializing playing cards in her empty hand.
The folks watched her produce a card, then two, then a full hand of them, and they applauded politely, but their eyes were straying and she noticed. They were looking at her table and laughing.
Burt! He was trying to get out from under her hat, wiggling it around, making it crawl blindly around the table and bump into things. The hat was heading for the table edge!
She dove for it, but too late. The hat hung over the edge and Burt dropped free, bouncing—Wow! What a bounce!—into a high arc over the room and dropping toward an older patron’s cup of coffee—a patron who wasn’t paying much attention, by the way. The crowd followed the arc of the ball with a unanimous “Whoooooaa!”
Burt was dropping right on target when the old guy looked up just in time to see the ball plop into Eloise’s hand, inches above catastrophe.
Whoops! Hollers!
And broad, mock relief from the Hobett. She wiped her brow, plopped her hat back on, then tossed the ball over her shoulder, intending to bounce it off a kick of her heel.
She did it. The ball went flying, arced over the heads of the patrons …
And bounced off Mr. Calhoun’s head.
Everybody in the place, as one, saw it happen, and everybody howled.
The Hobett stood there horrified, hand over gaping mouth, while Burt came bouncing back and cowered behind her feet, peeking out, quivering with fear. Now the folks were shouting, some shrieking with laughter. Amazement, astonishment, and wonder filled the room. She had the crowd.
But … did she have Mr. Calhoun? He was glaring at her, and whether he was acting or serious, he still pointed at the door. “Out!”
Play it.She doffed her hat and bowed repeatedly, backing toward the door.
Burt just sat where he was, undecided.
The Hobett made it to the door, but missed Burt and started looking around for him.
Mr. Calhoun advanced on the tennis ball, about to pick it up.
The Hobett whistled, and Burt scurried to her, struck her big-booted toe, and bounced high over her head. As he came down, she doffed her hat just in time for him to land on her head and replaced the hat just in time to keep him there.
One final bow to a wildly applauding crowd, and she was out the door.
Eloise could still hear the cheers and applause from McCaffee’s as she hurried down the sidewalk, emotions in a blender. I blew it, I did great, they love me, he hates me, it was unprofessional, it was inspired… . Oh, dear God, can’t I do anything right?
“Hello? Oh, miss! Could you hold on a minute?”
Should she stop? Was it a cop?
Her shoulders were sagging as she turned to face the music.
It was Abby Calhoun, hurrying toward her, smiling, eyes sparkling. “I never caught your name.”
Well, Abby was smiling. Maybe it was safe to tell her. “Eloise Kramer.”