Not To Be Trusted

Part 6 of the Judy Tomaini Rock Series

Jeanie continued to be with Lizzie Weeks, since she was a minor, she had no control over where and who she lived with.

The legal age was 21 back then and she was pretty much at the mercy of Lizzie.

The food games continued for a while but Lizzie tired of that torture when she found she was not getting to Jeanie any more with it. The isolation continued, for the rest of the time she was with Lizzie. Jeanie couldn't have friends and the threat of death followed her if she dared to go out anywhere. Around this time is when she hired a bodyguard for her. She was getting much more popular with the young men that came to the show. She was very pretty with her natural curly dark hair and gray/blue eyes. Her personality shown through even at that early age and she was loved by all that knew her.

Lizzie was always afraid that someone would steal Jeanie away from her. So she searched for a young man that could carry Jeanie up the stairs and always be close. She could not have much contact with outsiders as her popularity soared she would be mobbed when she left her stage. So while she was performing the bodyguard would walk around the museum and enjoy the acts of the others. Jeanie never liked this man and dreaded the walk home to the hotel and having him carrier her up the stairs.

She would have chills whenever he was around, she wasn't sure why but there was just something she couldn't put her finger on. He was always on his best behavior and never complained about anything. Lizzie on the other hand started to see him through different eyes and they would make a great couple. They started to go out to dinner, the three of them. The more upset Jeanie got she would lay awake at night and pray for him to be gone. He was always the perfect gentleman but knew Jeanie didn't care for him at all. He was very attractive with his wavy black hair and startling blue eyes, but to Jeanie there was just something

about him that was not right.

Lizzie signed up with a tent show and they left the museum and went back to the dirty lots and the living under the stage. This didn't last too long as she had been spoiled by the clean museum and hotel. So after a few months of roughing it back they went. The crowds never seemed to shrink every show was packed. To get them in and out quicker they just shortened the acts. The bad thing was that there would be more shows. Jeanie had the nagging beginnings of shoulder pain, since she used her arms as legs, the chance to rest wouldn't come for many years. She never let on that she was having so much pain. Lizzie would have surely made her go up and down the steps without being carried, as she had done once when Jeanie did complain about her shoulder hurting her. Lizzie told her that she would have to walk up the stairs on her own, to work it out. She still had to tolerate the bodyguard carrying her up and down the stairs. If it was raining or snowing, he would carry her right to the museum.

Jeanie still had this cold feeling when he carried her and even in her later years she never said what his name was. Many times when she passed on stories, she was pretty vague about the time on the road with Lizzie Weeks. She did say that she was so thankful for God in her life. Many times she would pray for death rather than have to spend the time with the Weeks family.

She loved the show itself, it was just having to go home she hated. She felt death was the only way she would ever get away from Lizzie. As Jeanie grew older she had friends in the show and would on occasion go out with them, her bodyguard in tow. Lizzie paid him well to watch over her. He never once said or did anything to make anyone think he was anything but the very nice looking bodyguard of Jeanie Weeks. He slept on the couch in the hotel room and one day he was not there when they got up to go to work. Jeanie had to go down the steps on her own then walk to work and work all day and half the night then walk home and up the stairs. She would collapse in her bed or sometimes just stretch out on the floor too tired to get into her the bed. This was a 7 day a week job 16 to 18 hours a day, depending on the amount of people waiting with a ticket in hand.

A few days after he disappeared the truth came out about the bodyguard, in the form of a police officer, with a photo in hand. This man who remains unnamed was the one who they were looking for. He had escaped from a mental institution and had murdered several people, but that is all I was told. No wonder Jeanie had a cold foreboding feeling when he was around her. She had always just known things before they happened and if she didn't like someone they knew it. They were few and far between though as she liked almost everyone. Her family knew her knack for seeing the future and being able to size up someone. Even when others never suspected there was anything bad about them, just like Mr. Bodyguard.

Jeanie had settled in with Lizzie and her family. It looked like she was going to be there for a long time so she would just make the best of it and play the mind games. She was even allowed to have friends among the other performers. So she spent as much time visiting as she could and in doing so she was earning the trust of Lizzie.

Her husband Gene was a big old hayseed farmer and talked and walked almost in reverse. He was very kind to Jeanie and made up for some of the evil that came from Lizzie. They had a son who was their only child and he was spoiled rotten. That boy had everything that Jeanie didn't have. She was the one that was supporting the whole family. She did get to ride his pony a couple of times as horses were her one love in life. She could sit for hours and just brush them. Later in her life she would fulfill that dream with ponies of her own. She loved to feel them, to smell them, and was never afraid of being stepped on and she never was. She had a gentleness about her that all creatures understood, even the people she came in contact with. She had a glow about her and it was very powerful as if she had been touched by God himself. It was something you could not explain, you had to experience it for yourself. She could never understand why so many people wanted to just share space and conversation with her. But she in a way was like Princess Diana, as she was loved by all that knew her and could feel her strength across the miles. She lived this time in hell as she called it, but said for years after that it had just made her a better person. Soon she would realize there was a big new world out there for her.

© 2003 Judy Tomaini Rock, All Rights Reserved

Published with the permission of Judy Tomaini Rock

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