That Time I Joined the Circus (12 page)

Orchard Street and Avenue A — Friday, October 1

I woke up in Eli’s small bed, curled away from him, facing the wall, the wall I’d decorated long ago with a poster for the movie
The Brain That Wouldn’t Die
. The woman with no body, bandages wrapped around her head and neck, and what looks like jumper cables attached to the sides of her neck, she was staring at me, and I felt stupid. And wrong, and bad … I looked at my watch. 5:34
A.M
.

Eli was still sleeping, lying on his stomach, snoring quietly. It was freezing cold in his room. I sat up carefully; for some reason it was incredibly important not to wake him up — I didn’t question the strength of this conviction, just followed it. I found my phone in the pocket of my skirt near the foot of the bed. I clicked the center button and was not all that surprised to see a blue box and nine missed calls. But I’d expected only my dad’s number. Instead the most recent was an unknown 212 number. I switched to voice mail, my
hand shaking, my stomach tightening. Who had called? Somehow, I knew, knew it was bad.

I heard a strange voice say something about an accident. My sharp intake of breath woke up Eli. He looked angry right away — Eli wasn’t one of those people who took a long time to wake up.

“You need to get out of here. You need to get out of here
now
,” he said, first thing, and his voice was that of a cold stranger.

He didn’t need to tell me twice. I had to listen to the rest of the message, find out what it meant, and I had to do all of that somewhere else. I grabbed my skirt, my bag, opened the window, and stepped onto the freezing fire escape. Eli actually looked shocked, though I was following his directive; I was getting out
now
.

I stepped out, still in bare feet and without my skirt, and even went down the round metal stairs like that. I stood in the alley for one second, pulling on my skirt and boots, and then I just ran.

Boynton Beach, Florida — Sunday, November 14

It’s really, really stupid, but sometimes I used to imagine something bad happening to me, and I’d imagine who would be upset about it. In tenth grade, when I had a crush on Miles Carson, I imagined that if I collapsed in bio class from some horrible disease (one that made you lose consciousness, but you still looked pretty, like a movie disease) that he might suddenly realize that he actually cared about me. He would run his fingers through his wavy, light brown hair and clench his jaw as he paced back and forth in the waiting room of the hospital. My dad would pat him on the back, and they would endure the waiting manfully together, until I was freed from my temporary bout of movie disease and we could go on a romantic date, maybe on his motorcycle, which would not mess up my hair.

After having such a stupid fantasy, of course, I would remind myself that not only had Miles called me Melissa once when he ran into me in the hall, but also that I knew exactly who would be in the waiting room if I ever actually did end up in the hospital, and that Eli and Dad were enough for me.

And then something horrible really did happen, and it was
really
horrible, worse than I’d ever imagined. Dad wasn’t there, and Eli wasn’t there, and I was completely and utterly alone.

The stupid girl who had those daydreams was so far gone, I couldn’t even understand her. But in some ways, I still felt like her. I didn’t want to be alone. I had friends now — Lina and Liska, who, along with Louie, were almost like family. But Nick was gone now, and even though my rational brain knew that it was stupid to want him here, it didn’t change how I felt.

I was supposed to run the Fortune Trailer tonight … without Nick. At Nick’s urging, Louie had loaned me one of the guys from the ring crew in case I needed backup. Nick wasn’t happy with the selection — there was nobody available who really knew how to work the crowd, just setup guys. Nick told me that most problems are solved before the mark even comes inside. It was sort of cool how he called the customers
marks
— made me feel like a con man — well, con girl.

He said he hated to leave, but he had to get back to work. He was pretty vague about what work was, and I was too depressed to pester him about it.

Lina tried to make me feel better, telling me that Nick couldn’t be my doorman forever. She told me that the little bit of money I was bringing in was nothing compared to what he would make in a night if
he
were the attraction. Didn’t really make me feel better, actually.

The mysterious Nicolae Tarus was on everyone’s mind while at Louie’s Sunday dinner. Most everybody ate together in the cookhouse during setup and between gigs, and everybody ate a big lunch together on show days. But Sunday afternoon was family dinner at Louie’s, a tradition his late wife had started. Ever since Lina had taken me in, I had been included.

We were all sitting around the table eating Liska’s chicken casserole, and Louie was on a roll.

“Yes, it was good to have him back, though now he is gone again. His mother, though, her I do not miss!” He shook his head.

“Yeah, she likes to yell almost as much as you do.” Lina snuck a look at her dad over the top of her iced-tea cup. Liska gave the most unladylike snort, the only ungraceful thing I’d ever seen — well, heard — her do.

“What do you mean?” Louie asked, sounding offended. “I am nothing like Reveka Tarus! She is hothead, and she has bad manners!”

“You have very nice manners, Daddy,” Lina told him in a soothing voice. “But you do like to yell.”

“Well, only when I have to. That woman, she yells to hear herself. I am glad she’s gone. Lexi here is much
more calm to have around, and she does just fine in the same job.”

“I did just fine with
help
,” I pointed out glumly. “Without Nick, who knows? Guess we’re gonna find out.”

“You’ll do fine.” Louie patted my hand, getting a little chicken gravy on it, which I wiped off surreptitiously under the table. I smiled bravely at him and hoped he was right.

I was determined to make a go of it on my own, or without Nick, at any rate. The crowds ended up smaller without him, and now I had a feel for the whole thing, so the first night passed uneventfully. Clay, the boy from the ring crew helping me, was skinny and blond, but he had a handsome face. He looked a little like an Abercrombie & Fitch boy who hadn’t quite done enough reps at the gym yet, so he pulled in some female customers.

The first night without Nick turned into the second, and the third. On Wednesday, Louie let me open my attraction late so that I could watch the early show to see the Flying Vranas use the song I’d chosen, one by The Pierces. The ethereal-sounding song made their act seem very cool, kind of Cirque du Soleil. I was excited they had used my idea. Walking out of the tent that night, I felt a slight chill in the air — the first time I hadn’t been hot since coming to Florida. I felt pretty good right at that moment, like I was part of things here. And I was saving money — slowly, granted, but I was. I could get my GED, and then I could go to college, get back on track. Though suddenly the thought of leaving
made me incredibly sad. I hadn’t wanted to come here, and now I didn’t want to leave. Life was weird.

I had no idea at that moment how weird it was about to get.

I woke up at some point in the middle of the night. It sounded like someone was scratching at my window. I lay very still for a moment and waited for it to stop, hoping it would, but it just got louder, and then I heard, “Lex-i. It’s me.”

Who was “me”? I was pretty sure I didn’t know anybody in this place who would either scratch on my window in the middle of the night or classify themselves as my “me.”

I gave up the whole ignoring tactic, sat up, and shoved my feet into the flip-flops that were my new footwear staple. I looked down and decided my Arcade Fire T-shirt and pajama shorts were presentable enough for the middle of the night. I tried to look out the window, but the glass was pebbled and all I could tell was that my visitor seemed in fact to have a head. I tried to sneak out of the trailer quietly so I wouldn’t wake up Lina.

Gracefully tripping out of the trailer and launching myself off the tiny steps were my next moves. And then I was in Nick Tarus’s arms, my face inches from his.

“Hi,” I said stupidly.

“Hi,” he said, laughing. “Miss me?”

“A little,” I managed, too breathless to be any wittier. “I thought you had to go back to work.”

“I did go back to work. And now I’m back here to check on you. I kept having visions of you being chased out of town by an angry crowd.”

As happy as I was to see him, my face fell — I could feel it. “You didn’t think I could do it?”

Nick put me down beside him but kept his arms around my waist. “I
was
worried about you. But I also have faith in you. They’re not mutually exclusive, you know.”

For the first time since that day we’d met, it sounded a little, just then, like he was talking down to me.

“You’re not here to stay, are you? Or to check on me. You’re here to say good-bye, aren’t you?” I had a tiny bit of trouble getting the words out, but I pushed through. Standing there with his hands still on my waist, his eyes looking into mine, I knew I was right, even though I didn’t want to be.

He sighed, and I felt it travel through me, too. He lowered his eyes away from mine.

“I’m no good for you,” he murmured.

“You are not that much older than me.”

“It’s not just about my age — or yours.”

“You know how old I am?” I asked, distracted.

“I stole your wallet,” he told me, pulling me a bit closer to him. “For a few minutes, anyway. Though it took longer to figure out your age than I thought — I was looking for a driver’s license. Finally found some kind of ID card.”

“I don’t know how to drive,” I admitted. “New York City girl — it costs a fortune to keep a car in New York.”

“You should learn,” he told me. “Now that you live out here in the middle of nowhere.”

“But you’re not going to teach me.” I steered the conversation back toward the iceberg I knew was inevitable and just up ahead.

He shook his head. “I told you, it’s not a good idea. For a lot of reasons. But I didn’t want to just disappear without saying good-bye, not after …”

“It’s not your fault, what happened to my dad,” I told him, guessing what he was not saying.

“I know,” he told me, reaching up and tucking a lock of my hair behind my ear. “I guess I have this problem staying away from you. You know” — he smiled a little — “I was ready to hate you when I first heard about you.”

“I kind of got that from you yelling at me. But” — I looked up at him — “you still might …” My voice dropped to a whisper. “Hate me, I mean … It’s a fine line …”

I saw the muscle in the side of his jaw tighten at that, and he stepped closer to me. “I couldn’t hate you,” he told me. “But I know what you are saying, Lexi. We should not … I will not …” He stepped away from me and started walking.

“Wait!” I didn’t think, just called after him and started following.

He stopped. “I’m not leaving you right now — I’m just clearing my head. Come on.” He grabbed my hand and led me toward the eerily quiet midway, where the abandoned rides lay waiting for tomorrow’s crowd. He stepped up onto
the carousel, and then picked me up with his hands on my waist. He sat me down in one of the small seats designed for parents riding with really little kids, then sat beside me, but not too close.

I was quiet for a moment, just watching him. I hated even such a small distance between us, but I felt frozen, afraid to move any closer. From the first time I saw him, basically right after we had stopped fighting, I had been pulled into his orbit, felt like I belonged there. But maybe he didn’t feel the same way. He cared about me, felt sorry for me probably, but that was all.

I felt Nick take hold of my hand, and I found the guts to slide closer to him so that we were squashed together in the seat. My heart was racing and I think I forgot to breathe.

“Lex …” His voice was low in my ear. “You know I have to go. Aren’t you kind of playing with fire here?”

“Yeah, well, I’m actually taking the advice of someone who does that for a living,” I told him, turning my face to his. He let go of my hand and raised his to my face, tracing the line of my jaw with his finger. He leaned in closer and kissed me. We sat together on the silent ride for a long time. We didn’t talk about his leaving anymore, but I felt the words hovering in the air between us. It didn’t matter how close I sat next to him now. In the morning, I knew he would be gone.