That Time I Joined the Circus (9 page)

Orlando, Florida — Saturday, October 30

“He comes and goes,” Lina said, answering the question I had tried not to let on I was asking. “His mom used to be here, so he would come check on her. And of course he used to work here, too.”

I tried to sound nonchalant, moving my right foot and presenting Lina with my left; she was painting my toenails a dark metallic blue.

“What did he do here?”

“Um, everything. His family’s all performers way back. Mostly acrobats and wire work and stuff. His mother used to fly when she was young. I know he did a bunch of acts when he was a kid. But he also ran a midway show for a while. Like a strongman, with the big hammer? We don’t have it anymore. It takes somebody really strong to make any money at it. And somebody who really knows how to reel in the townies.”

I smiled. “So how long has he been gone? From Europa, I mean.”

“Girl of a thousand questions today, aren’t we?” Lina wagged her eyebrows at me. “This sudden curiosity about Nick wouldn’t have anything to do with him being freakishly hot, would it?”

I blushed. “I told you, he was super rude to me. I was just curious, that’s all. No big deal.”

“Nope, clearly you don’t care at all.” Lina rolled her eyes. I was paying close attention, but even though she’d called him freakishly hot, there was no weirdness in her like there’d been with Jamie. Jamie, who I was definitely putting behind me, no matter how many shirtless smiles he gave me.

And Lina was right about me, of course. I did seem to be almost obsessed already, and I’d only spoken to Nick twice. I was definitely the stupidest person in the world. Nick Tarus was clearly older than me, a hundred times prettier than me, and on top of that, any niceness he displayed toward me was definitely the result of my making him feel like a monster.

“I should probably warn you about Nick,” Lina went on. She seemed very serious for a moment, then I heard her tinkling laugh. “But then, you knew about Jamie, and that didn’t stop you.”

I grabbed the pillow from under my knee and threw it at her.

“Don’t worry about it,” she managed between laughs. “Jamie has that effect on everybody. I don’t think there’s ever been anybody who resisted him for long.” Lina seemed
normal about Jamie now — maybe I had imagined the weirdness before?

“You?” I dared to ask.

“Present company excluded,” she confirmed, with exaggerated smugness.

I shook my head. “Well, I am done with boys. I’ve said it before, but I really, really mean it this time.”

“Good thing Nick is more like a
man
, then.” Lina threw the pillow back at my head.

“You suck!” I hopped up to avoid her and destroyed three toes’ worth of metallic blue.

I tried to sound casual as I asked the next question, like the answer didn’t matter to me. “So how old is he, anyway?”

“He’s my age,” she answered. “I mean, I think he’s a couple months older than me, but he’s probably still nineteen. He inherited some money from his dad when he died a few years back, and then Nick went to Miami. I know he bought some real estate and stuff. He’s got this club — his cousin’s name is on it and everything, since Nick’s underage. But it’s Nick who owns the building.” Lina handed me the nail polish remover and threw a bag of cotton balls at my head. “Actually, I said I should warn you about Nick, but he’s really a good guy. I mean, he’s solid, you know. Always taking care of his mom, and his cousins — everybody, really. He’s beautiful, so I’m guessing he’s got, or you know, had a lot of girls, but …”

“Yeah, I’ll bet,” I told her, trying to make her stop theorizing about Nick and girls.

Liska saved me by walking in then and asking Lina if she was ready for practice. She smiled vaguely at me, but looked irritated that Lina wasn’t ready.

I looked from one sister to the other as they hashed out what time they’d agreed on for practice. It was hard to believe that they were sisters. I knew they were very close — I’d seen as much during the weeks I had been here. They had to be, to work together so high off the ground. These sisters
had
to trust each other. But their personalities were so different. Liska was so quiet and seemed almost cold, where Lina was warm and cheerful.

I was left alone with Liska while Lina went to change. Liska sat down and picked up one of the magazines Lina left strewn all over. Liska seemed a little frostier than usual toward me. I realized suddenly that I’d been taking Lina away from her pretty often in the last week or so. I felt bad that I’d been sucking up Lina’s time and attention gratefully, not thinking about anything or anybody else.

Lina appeared back in the room and announced she was ready.

“So will you?” I heard Liska saying, and she was looking expectantly at me. I realized she’d been talking to me.

“Sure — of course.” I had no idea what I’d just promised her, but I followed her, and Lina grabbed my arm and fell into step beside me.

I tried to murmur very quietly without moving my lips or alerting Liska to the fact that I hadn’t really been listening to her, “WhatdidIjustsayyesto?”

“Wha-huh-what, mushmouth?” Lina responded in her loudest voice.

“Never mind.” I gave up and figured I’d just see when I got there.

When we got to the ring in its present location — I was getting surprisingly used to picking up and moving every week — their brother, Eddie, was there waiting for them, looking annoyed. He didn’t acknowledge my existence, and neither Lina nor her sister introduced me, so I just followed his lead. I watched Liska shed her cardigan sweater, put some chalk or something on her hands, and climb up the long ladder. When she was halfway up and mostly out of earshot, I asked Lina if I was supposed to do something.

Lina gave me a funny look. “What would you do? Liska just wants an opinion on our new trick. She’s kind of a perfectionist.”

“Why does she want my opinion?” I was incredulous.

Lina turned her head thoughtfully to the side for a moment, while she put the same stuff her sister had used on her hands. “I think she’s been watching you set up your fortune-telling act, and she’s impressed with you. She’s seen how you’ve been paying attention to every tiny little detail — like how you made me take you to fourteen stores looking for fabric and stuff? That’s the kind of opinion she wants.”

Lina started climbing up the rope ladder, but I stopped her. “Wait! What music plays while you guys do this? I can’t remember what it was.”

“Just ‘The Three-Ring Fanfare.’ It repeats for most of the ring stuff.”

“It
repeats
?” That seemed kind of lame.

“Just how it’s done, I guess.” She started back up.

“Can I hear it while I see it?”

“Ralph!” Lina yelled, very suddenly and very loudly. A tiny old man I’d never laid eyes on before emerged from the shadows of the ring. “Play the fanfare, will ya?”

“Course, Miss Lina,” came his soft voice in reply. I looked around surreptitiously then, wondering how many other people lurked unseen in the shadows, awaiting a random shouted command. Freaky.

I heard the traditional-sounding circus music begin to play, and Lina finally joined her sister in midair. They both started out on the same side, on a little crow’s nest sort of stand — Lina never talked about the act, so I didn’t know the proper terminology, just the little bit Jamie had mentioned that day I’d watched the whole show.

I watched Lina and Liska build up speed, and their surly brother caught them every time, making it look effortless. They really did look like they were flying. It was hard to tell the two sisters apart up there; if it hadn’t been for Liska’s lighter hair, I couldn’t have done it.

I watched them cross and soar, and it was breathtaking. The music, however, was not. It was too jarring, too
discordant and crash-y to match what the siblings did up there. I just hoped Liska really wanted my advice. Because I actually had some for her.

I had spent every night over the past week making the playlist for outside the Fortune Trailer. (Since the attraction didn’t have an official name, that’s what I’d been calling it. Then Jamie had shown up with a painted sign — I guess one of the crew guys was really good at painting lettering — and so now the name was official.) Luckily, most of the space on my laptop hard drive was filled with music, so I had a lot to choose from. I had worked hard to choose the perfect music to get people to come up and see the trailer and to want to have their tarot cards read. I thought the challenge was to strike the right balance between familiar and new or unusual music that created the proper atmosphere.

“So, what do you think?” Liska asked me once she was on the ground. Lina was fiddling with the net behind her, but Eddie had vanished — as usual.

“I love the double-switch thing you added in the middle.”

Liska looked gratified that I’d noticed. I had paid very close attention. If there had been a nonobvious way to take notes, I would have done it.

“But,” I continued, “and this is just an idea, I think you need different music. What you’re using now doesn’t do justice to your act. You need something … well, something newer, for a start. You guys are young, you’re smoking hot. What you’re doing is way more awesome than twenty
revolutions on the Hurricane. But everybody lines up to do that because the music pulls them in.”

“You think we should use Jamie’s music?” Liska asked, sounding more than a little incredulous. Or maybe horrified.

“Well, first of all, that’s not just Jamie’s music. It’s mostly whatever is top-twenty on iTunes right now. And, no, I think that’s too obvious. But somewhere between Hurricane music and that decrepit old circus dirge …”

Liska stood perfectly still for a moment. Lina had come up behind her sister and seemed to be holding her breath. I held my breath, too, hoping I hadn’t offended either of them. Finally, Liska smiled. Like, an actual smile. Not a grin, maybe, but it was a start.

“You may be right.” She nodded.

And then she shocked me completely.

“Will you find us something new?”

It took me a couple of seconds to recover, but I quickly said yes.

Liska continued to thaw at a pretty rapid rate after that, and soon it was the three of us instead of just me and Lina. She even started helping me with the Fortune Trailer. I was nervous about actually taking people’s money for something I used to do for my friends for entertainment. But I didn’t want to let Louie down. If this experiment failed, I was determined that it would be the best-looking failed attraction on the grounds.

I was mostly nervous about what to wear. I’d tried on a
hundred things, but nothing felt right. I felt like an idiot imposter in everything. Lina found a bunch of stuff she liked at Goodwill, but the clothes smelled musty, so then I felt like a musty idiot imposter. But Lina had promised to take me back to the mall the next day, and she’d promised me a makeover that would make me at least
look
fortune-tellery.

Nick had been as good as his word and brought me some of his mom’s stuff a couple of days ago. I replaced the rickety card table I had been set to use with the small round table made of dark, glossy wood that Nick brought. It had very ornately carved legs. He also brought me a pretty real-looking crystal ball. I must’ve looked a little panicked at that one, because he was quick to assure me that it was just window dressing (in other words, no hundred-year curse on my head if I broke it). He also brought me some old, occult-looking books, a few delicate, intricately beaded scarves to decorate with, and some wooden candleholders. And finally, he presented me with a ring.

“This was my grandmother’s,” he told me.

“Your mother wouldn’t want you to —”

“It was my
paternal
grandmother’s,” he added with a wicked grin. “My mother hated her. She would stomp this under her heel before she wore it. Anyway, my grandmother was Romanian. Well, in point of fact, she was Romany — a gypsy. And a fortune teller.”

“Is your mom —”

“Yes to the second — no to the first. My mother is Czech, like the Vranas — Louie and Lina and Eliska — and
Eddie. If it makes you feel any better that you’re not following in the footsteps of an actual
gypsy
fortune teller,” he teased. He’d straddled the tiny little art deco chair he’d brought, and he seemed to take up all the room in the trailer.

I fidgeted with the candleholders.

“I’m really glad you found your mom,” I told him. Lina had filled me in on the story. Nick’s mom had been staying with an old friend in Miami. She’d had a blowup with Louie — apparently they both had pretty bad tempers, and Nick’s mom had gotten sick of him and of the circus. She had left her son a message that she had been fired, then gone off the grid. It kind of sounded like she’d used Nick to get some revenge on Louie, probably knowing he’d show up and go ballistic, which I had gotten to witness firsthand.

“Yeah, me too. She’s my mother, and I love her. But she drives me crazy.” He shook his head. “Come here,” he told me, holding up the ring. I stood over him as he straddled the chair, and he reached up and took my hand. When he touched me I felt that same charge I’d felt the first time. He slipped the ring on my finger and then raised my hand and kissed the back of it.

I expected him to laugh after that, since he was obviously kidding with me. But he just kept looking into my eyes. I broke eye contact first, confused, and looked down at the ring on my finger. It was a huge, milky-crystal orb overlaid with intricate brass filigree. He reached up and twirled a lock of my hair around his fingers, then let it go. I forgot to breathe.

“You could be a gypsy with that dark hair. But not with those eyes of yours.” His voice was low, and I took a step closer to him. I wasn’t even sure how it happened.

My iPod was playing on my little speakers as always. I can’t exist without music. A slow song by Damien Jurado was playing, and as Nick stood up, for a moment we stood very close, and didn’t speak. Neither of us moved for a long moment. This time he broke away first, telling me he had to go, he’d see me soon, and then he was gone.