She took my palm and stretched it out in front of her. She talked for a while, giving me vague predictions. Then she gave me a long look and said, “You need to stand up for yourself. Do not let others control your fate.”
I always wondered about that later, if she really saw that. It proved to be good advice. I wish I’d heeded it.
She walked me out after my reading, her hand tucked into my arm.
“Well, what do we have here?” Frankie boomed. “The little monkey has a girlfriend.”
Her hand tightened on my arm and then she smiled. “I’m taking a break.”
Frankie caught her arm as she tried to walk by, and Tommy and his friend James blocked her. I wanted to tell them to leave her alone, but my voice was a frog hung in my throat.
“Hang on,” Frankie said. “I got a dollar. I want my fortune told. Matter of fact–” He leered at her. “What will a ten get me?”
To my horror, he grabbed her waist and pulled her against him. She struggled free and snarled something in a foreign language. Then she spat on his shoe. Frankie backhanded her, then dragged her into the tent. I turned to run and James tripped me. I went sprawling into the dust and my mouth filled with blood. James hauled me up and I heard a click as he opened the switchblade he always carried. He pressed it against my back.
“One move and I’ll slice your spinal cord,” he said. “Snitches end up in ditches.”
It only lasted a few minutes, but it seemed like an eternity. They brutalized that girl. I heard her struggle at first, then nothing. That nothing terrified me. I was crying, blood and snot choking me. People walked right on by and nobody seemed to notice something was wrong. Something was horrible.
The newspaper said her father found her, naked and beaten in that tent. It was two days before she could give the police a description. I was relieved when the police pulled up in front of our house.
“Don’t you say a word!” Tommy hissed. “Or I swear on my life, I’ll end you.”
I wish I could say that I spoke up, told the police everything, but I didn’t. I thought her description would be enough, and the DNA. But I misjudged small-town politics. Frankie, Tommy, and James spun some story about the girl being a prostitute and soliciting them for money. They said she grew angry when they didn’t have enough and threatened to cry rape if they didn’t bring her money. They said another gypsy had beat her to make the story look real. The judge closed his briefcase and let them go.
We walked outside together. I have never felt so sick. Ashamed. Tommy and his friends stood beside me in their fresh suits and ties, looking like altar boys.
An old gypsy woman approached. She muttered something, then made a sign in the air with her gnarled finger. Frankie stepped toward her and James caught his arm. The girl sobbed against her father, her beautiful face still swollen and discolored. She whispered something to the old woman and pointed at me. The old woman’s eyes narrowed and she made another sign.
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