The Cirque (13 page)

“You mean join the show?”

I nodded.

He smiled a lopsided grin at the memory. “That’s an easy one. Del found me performing on the Santa Monica Pier. I had twenty bucks in my pocket, so of course I said yes when he offered me the job.”

It wasn’t exactly how Sasha had described it. Maybe she really didn’t know any more about Gabriel’s background than I did. “Okay, question number two. Were you jealous of me with Dmitri?” I looked over at him from the corner of my eye.

His eyes hardened as he thought about Dmitri. “He didn’t deserve you,” he said, not directly answering my question. “If you were mine, I wouldn’t treat you like that.”
Mine
. That word on his lips made my pulse spike. His honesty always surprised me. He held so much back, but at other times freely admitted his feelings to me.

“Have you ever wanted to meet your birth parents?” I asked my last question.

“Yeah. I tracked my dad down when was I thirteen. My mom died in a car accident when I was a baby. They were only eighteen and he couldn’t handle a baby on his own so he put me up for adoption. He had this whole other family when I met him.” He ran his hands through his hair as he remembered back. “It was really awkward. I don’t think he knew what to do with me. He just kept saying that I looked like my mom and I think it creeped them out.”

I was sorry I’d asked that question. I let my own curiosity push me forward, without even thinking it might be a hard topic for him. He would never meet his mother and his own father had rejected him.

“That’s three,” he said. “My turn?”

I nodded.

“Are you done with Dmitri?”

“Yes, definitely.”

He nodded, pleased with my answer. He thought about his next question for a minute. “Did you want to kiss me the other day?” he asked with a smirk on his lips.

I looked down shyly. Why was he asking me that, of all things? And which day exactly was he referring to? There had been many times I’d wanted to kiss him. “I don’t know. I guess I thought about it.” I swallowed hard.

He brought his hand up to my jaw carefully while he watched my eyes. His thumb caressed the side of my face, and he slid his fingers down my neck and behind my hair. I knew he could feel the way my pulse jumped beneath his fingers and I blushed at his attention. A sense of wonder and curiosity reflected back at me in his eyes.

“And what else did you…think about?” he asked, continuing to send shivers down my back with the way his fingertips brushed my hair back from my neck.

I didn’t want to tell him that I thought about how his lips were perfect and his eyes tortured me and I longed to feel his body pressed against mine. “Is that your third question?” I asked, instead.

“Yeah.” His voice was low and so close to my ear I could feel his breath heating my skin.

“I – I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” he asked. “This is your game. You said we had to answer the questions honestly.” I wet my lips with my tongue and looked at his mouth. I had the urge to lean in and kiss him but didn’t know how he’d react. “I’m waiting,” he reminded me.

I swallowed and looked away from his perfect face to clear my head. The pressure in the room changed and suddenly the air was too thick, too full of him, his scent, his confidence and it pressed down on me, making me lightheaded. I couldn’t sit there a second longer while he casually used my admission to tease me. It wasn’t fair how he always turned me into the vulnerable one, making me admit how I was feeling about him while he sat back and studied me.

“I…this game was stupid. I’m sorry.”

When he didn’t say anything, I stood up and I walked to the door. Hesitating for just a second, I pulled it open then jogged down the steps of this trailer. I hoped he would come out after me, or at least call my name and make me stop, but he didn’t. I slowed down and walked back to my trailer, disappointed and alone.
Why did I have to ruin everything?

Our string of performances over the weekend went well, but left most of us drained from the travel and hectic schedule. By Sunday, I regretted agreeing to play Tanner’s girlfriend. I changed out of my costume from the afternoon show and stood in front of the mirror. What did you wear the first time you met your fake boyfriend’s parents? I stepped into jeans and a sweater and frowned at my appearance. Frowned at what I’d agreed to do – I couldn’t do this today. I was already lying to my own parents. Adding lies to Tanner’s parents on top of that just seemed wrong.

As I finished changing, I heard a knock at the door. I pulled it open to find Tanner standing outside in a pressed polo shirt, smiling from ear to ear. He looked me over. My hair and makeup were still done from the show.

“Momma’s gonna be so proud!” He beamed.

“Tanner, come inside for a minute. I think we need to talk.”

He glanced at his watch, frowning just a fraction. “Alright.”

Once he was inside, I pulled out the desk chair and offered it to him. He sat, facing me, waiting.

I swallowed down the lump in my throat. “I’m not going with you today.”

His eyebrows pulled together. “You’re not?”

I shook my head. “You shouldn’t be lying to them in the first place – which I know I’m in no place to comment on, since I’ve lied to mine too. They don’t even know I’m here.”

He raised his eyebrows, agreeing.

“But if I go there with you today, you’d be digging yourself in deeper, stacking another lie on top of the others, and eventually you won’t be able to unbury yourself from them.”

Tanner was more quiet than normal, but I pushed on.

“At least with my lies, I know they’ll come to an end. This is one summer of freedom for me. Once my parents are back, all this is over and I’ll come clean.” I paused, waiting to see if he’d respond, but he didn’t. “I’m just delaying the inevitable, but you’re building a mountain of lies. And if I have this much guilt over my lie, I can’t imagine how it must feel for you to hide so much of who you are.”

I’d never seen Tanner this quiet. He sat with his head down, a look of concentration on his face, picking at his nails. After a minute, he stood and left, shutting the door softly behind him without saying a word.

***

 
I needed to find Sasha.

She wasn’t hard to locate; she was on her usual mat in the gym, bent gracefully at the waist in a deep stretch.

“Hey.”

She glanced up, not interrupting her stretch. “Why aren’t you with Tanner?”

I slid down onto the mat at her feet. I laid flat on my back and drew slow, deliberate breaths.

“What happened?” She straightened up and looked at me.

“I did something really bad.”

“What’d you do? You didn’t cut Dmitri’s trapeze rope, did you?” She smiled.

I shook my head. “I wish.”

“Just tell me.”

“I ditched out on Tanner…and…I kind of gave him a lecture about lying to his parents.”

She chuckled. “That’s rich – coming from you.”

“Yeah. I know. I’m not sure, but I think he’s mad at me.”

“Well no wonder…. First it wasn’t your place. And second, it’s pretty hypocritical.” She abandoned her stretches and turned to face me. “But I doubt he’s mad. Tanner adores you.”

I rolled over onto my stomach, wanting to hide my face.

“It’ll turn out fine.” She patted my back.

After a few minutes, I began to believe her. I sat up and watched her stretch, mimicking her moves on my half of the mat.

“So what’s with you and Gabriel?”

I shrugged. “Who knows.”

“Well if this is more of a temporary thing for you, and you’re planning to take off after this summer, just don’t hurt him, Ari.”

The idea of that seemed insane. I didn’t think he could be hurt. “He’s impossible to figure out.”

“He’s not
that
hard to figure out. He likes you.”

Against my will, my lips turned up in a smile. “How can you tell he likes me? He pretends I don’t exist.”

“He’s sensitive to people leaving, walking away, especially people he feels a connection to. That’s how I can tell. If he didn’t like you, he wouldn’t act like that toward you.”

“So you’re saying if he didn’t like me, he’d have no problem hanging out with me?”

“Exactly.”

“That makes no sense.”

“It does for an orphan.”

I flinched at that word. It felt wrong. I didn’t like it used to describe Gabriel.

***

As dusk fell and the big top filled up, my stomach danced with nerves. I knew Tanner was back since there was a steady line of freshly made up people coming from his station. It was time to face him. I’d put it off too long.

The new contortionist, Hope, sat in the makeup chair as Tanner dusted a big powder brush across her nose.

When I walked up, instead of the usual warm greeting I got from Tanner, like a wink or hug, he didn’t even glance up from Hope’s face. “You need a touch up?”

“I wanted to talk to you.”

“Hope, you’re through,” Tanner said, turning the chair away from the mirror. She stepped down and left us.

I sat in the chair and he spun me toward the mirror. I looked back at his reflection.

“How did everything go with your parents today?”

“Fine.”

Okay, so one word answers were all I was going to get. I touched his arm. “I’m sorry I ditched out on you earlier. I was actually trying to help.” He looked down at the floor with a crease in his brow.

“Tanner, say something.”

He took a deep breath and released it.

“Okay.” But he didn’t say anything else.

“Okay?” I asked, hopeful.

“Yeah, okay. Let’s just drop it.”

“Do you hate me?”

“You know I don’t hate you.” He tugged my hair, playfully.

Marta walked up and placed her hand on Tanner’s shoulder. “The show’s sold out tonight, but I can seat your parents stage left, in the handicap seating.”

He nodded and thanked Marta, then met my eyes.

I gave him a strange look, cocking my head.

“Shutty,” he warned.

I pressed my lips together.

“I figure I can begin by telling them I’m a makeup artist.”

I smiled at his reflection.

“And if that goes well, then we’ll see.”

 Gabriel and I sat backstage waiting for the show to start. I was reminded of the last time I was with him and the moment we shared in his trailer – the one that I ruined by suggesting the game and then running away. Leaving him like Sasha said not to do. Gabriel’s demeanor didn’t provide any comfort. He sat beside me, reading, and at the intermission began to warm up at his target. We hadn’t even talked since that game of three questions that went terribly wrong – he practically confirmed I’d wanted to kiss him…and more. I was dying to know what he was thinking.

I watched him stretch in front of his target and then inspect his blades as he prepared for the show. My stomach tensed, watching him with the knives. I wanted to start up a conversation, but I had no idea what to say to the boy I ran away from after admitting I wanted to kiss him. Was I in fourth grade?

He threw a knife, nailing the target with a thud. That snapped my attention back to him. He turned to see if I’d been watching and smiled when he caught my eyes. “So, about the other night….” His face held a look of playfulness, signaling that there were no hard feelings. Of course, I still didn’t understand what he was thinking.

“Yeah…about that…. I was just…tired….”

He cocked his head, watching me.

“So that’s why I, um, left,” I finished.

“Uh huh. I was wondering.” He smiled. “Are you feeling…tired tonight?”

The music changed, signaling intermission was over. Del appeared and ushered us out from behind the curtain.

 After the show, Tanner brought his parents backstage to meet everyone and see where he worked. He led them to the dressing room, where a few half-dressed performers lingered. Sasha, Gabriel, Shane and I all gathered in a display of support around his makeup station.

After the introductions, I asked, “Did you guys enjoy the show?”

“We did. We were quite surprised,” his mother said. “But also very proud of our son for being involved in this,” she added.

I smiled at them. I knew that Tanner hadn’t yet told them anything else.

“Your act was quite something,” his dad said to Gabriel and me. “Are you sure that’s safe?”

“Um, hopefully.” It was the best answer I had.

Tanner’s dad shifted uncomfortably. “Tanner said you performed two shows today. You must be worn out. We don’t want to keep you.”

“Yeah, I’m exhausted,” I agreed.

“Tired again?” Gabriel shook his head, giving me a playful look. “That’s too bad.”