Sleight (24 page)

After I’d clicked send, I knew Sandra Bulock was waiting to fal in love and I couldn’t, in good conscience, let her suffer there alone in the DVD box. That would be cruel. Besides, on the big screen in my head, I had the precious time I’d spent curled in Henry’s arms playing on a loop. That, plus Sandra, plus Phish Food and a huge bag of peanut M&Ms equaled a night of total flannel-jammies-and-wool-socks bliss. It was about damned time…

:25:

Love is the difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.

—Iris Murdoch

This love stuff…I totaly wasn’t prepared for it. Wrapped up tight in my bunk, watching Sandra Bulock fal in love after her heart had been broken, it made me think about what I had going with Henry. It wasn’t like I was a twelve-year-old girl with some dumb crush, not like I’d been with Ash. What little I knew about love, I’d learned from movies and TV shows. Boy likes girl, boy chases girl, boy drops frog down girl’s shirt, girl punches boy and then shares her lunch with him. That was love.

It’s not like I learned it from watching the adults around me.

Sure, Marlene and Ted had put up with each other forever, but only recently did I see that their bond was based on love. And Delia?

She was a terrible example to folow in the relationship department.

The children on TV learn about love from watching their own parents and grandparents. It’s always happy, always perfect. At least it is by the end of the thirty- or sixty-minute episode.

But circus children belong to their own subset of humanity, far removed from the routines of families we see on TV. Even though I knew those families were fake—actors, hired to play their parts—

I’d seen enough kids coming to our shows to know what a “real” family was supposed to look like. Hel, Junie’s mom and dad were pretty normal. Two kids, two parents, a dog. Mattias and Emelie Thomassen seemed to be in love. They looked at each other in that special way; Mattias would smack his wife on the bum when she walked by and Emelie made sure Mattias had enough to eat and drink during his long workouts. They loved one another, and their children. Normal.

But I didn’t ever consider myself to be normal. I wasn’t like Junie and Ash or the kids who came to the shows or the kids on TV. I was just…different.

Growing up without a father, I didn’t know that I should miss having one. I didn’t think twice about the TV fathers who came home to hugs and dinner at night only to sit around a table passing the salt, high-fiving their kids for good grades or winning the track meet. I never contemplated how my life was different from the lives of the children who came to the circus. I never understood why children threw temper tantrums when they couldn’t have cotton candy—I hardly ever ate it because it was always available. And I totaly couldn’t figure out why kids caled their parents “Mommy” and “Daddy” instead of addressing them by their first names. She was Delia. I was Gemma. End of family.

I was unaware that I should’ve felt sad or empty as I watched my mother cycle through men, one poor choice in a flannel shirt after another, including the one guy she got involved with—Frank—

who forgot to mention to my mother that he already sort of had a wife and kids. I felt sorry for my mother the night that Frank hurried away from the big top in the direction of his family’s car, his crying wife, baby in arms, screaming at their older two kids to hurry, assailing my sobbing mother with profanities as Delia, stil in ful costume, chased after Frank. My mother the showgirl, feather boa and fantail, enough sequins to blind an eagle, running through the hot, dusty parking lot after a man who didn’t want her.

By the time Delia had her hands on Frank, puling at his dirty work shirt with the name patch over the left chest pocket, the wife had crammed their kids into the car. I stood not far from my mother, leaning against a muddy truck, focused on the two little boys who had climbed over the back seat and were watching through the car’s dirty rear window as Frank and my mother duked it out. I was only sad because I knew circuses would be ruined for those kids forever. And the circus meant so much more to me than just salted peanuts and clowns, or crazy ladies.

Would those kids ever wonder about me, the little girl on the sidelines, picking muck off some stranger’s tailgate while her mother unraveled in a rainbow of sequins and satin? Would they someday see Vegas dancers and be reminded of that humid night years before when they had witnessed their father’s bad choices turn into a showdown with an emotionaly unstable showgirl?

I didn’t know to feel sad when Frank’s rear tires showered my colapsed, wretched mother with August-dry dirt and grime. I felt pity for her, but not grief. Even as I put my arm around her hunched shoulders and dusted off her pretty costume, I don’t recal feeling much of anything. Just numb.

It would be safe to say that I’d learned self-preservation before I learned to walk. Perhaps it was because of the blistering fights I’d seen Delia and her “flavor-of-the-month” engage in with frightening regularity, only for them to make up and make nice for a few days.

Perhaps it was because of the shades. Either way, I’ve never trusted calm; there has always been the hint of a gathering storm just around the corner.

And it was just a matter of time before Delia would implode and disappear into herself. When I was with the circus, with Auntie Marlene and Uncle Ted and Uncle Irwin, I was shielded from the

“Delia Show,” protected from her reruns of madness. I was fed and bathed and played with. Auntie cooed at me and untangled the knots from my long red hair, told me stories of knights in shining armor and the strong women who would leave the knights behind to run their own lives.

When the stuff with the shades started, Marlene told me about her favorite girl superhero, Joan of Arc, how Joan had heard the voice of God and saved France from the oppression of England, how special she was because she heard voices and saw visions.

(She also told me about how Joan was burned at the stake after being duped by a group of religious and political fanatics who were threatened by her gifts, but that was when I was a little older, when we talked about the importance of keeping the shades a “family” secret.) If there was a powerful woman to be found in the history books, Marlene would share her stories of triumph over evil and the restorative powers of soul-surrendering love. Omnia vincit amor.

Love conquers al. From Virgil, to Marlene, to me.

Aunt Marlene, with the help of my dear uncles, taught me to not be afraid of the shades. They protected me and let me hide my face in their shoulders or pant legs, rubbed my hair, and shushed in my ear when it got to be too much.

But when Delia and I were left alone in our dump of an apartment, when she was at her worst, days would pass when I would make my own meals of cereal and toast. I had to ignore the shades on my own. I had to learn to be brave, al by myself. I learned to scavenge around the fridge and the cupboards for food, sometimes knocking on the neighbor’s door for a cup of milk or a banana. When we’d manage to get to the food bank, I would ration our box and save the good stuff for last. At three, I learned to wash my own hair as I couldn’t rely on Delia to pul herself out of bed to do it for me. I taught myself to read watching Sesame Street, the weak signals of public TV fighting to make it through the bent antennae to dance and sing their way across the screen. I had Grover and food-bank food and the books Auntie bought me. I didn’t need anything, or anyone, else.

After this final showdown in the circus parking lot, Delia disappeared for an extended stay at a psychiatric hospital and I moved in ful time with the Cinzios. The circus people became my parents, my siblings, my aunts and uncles and cousins. My family was huge, unique, artistic, talented, demanding, prone to pissing matches and misunderstandings, but consistent and unrelenting with their love and forgiveness. The adults in my life respected me and in turn taught me the art of respect. They were magical people, high wire and trapeze people, souls who endangered themselves on a regular basis by cozying up to big cats and Asian elephants. Even though Marlene and Ted didn’t always get along, they loved each other. They cared about what happened to each other, what happened to the third spoke in their marriage, my dear Uncle Irwin.

These adults instructed me in the code under which we lived and they welcomed me into their family, no questions asked. That is how I grew into my understanding of love, of what it meant to give and receive such love.

But I was caught off guard, unprepared to deal with what I was now experiencing with Henry. The searing, white-hot heat of my feelings for this magnificent person was different, almost primal. I didn’t expect to be sucked under by such a ferocious wave of raw emotion. It scared me a little, like when the water rushes back into the sea and the sand disappears under my feet. I knew that within the sealed framework that was my heart, Henry would be my undoing, my last and only love until I exhaled my dying breath. I just hoped that when I finaly did die, at the hands of Lucian or some other unseen entity, that Henry’s face would be the last I would see, that his lips would be the last I would taste, before moving onto the in-between.

:26:

Trust dies but mistrust blossoms.

—Sophocles

I should’ve been doing weekend chores, but Marlene gave me the day off, told me to study instead. By lunchtime, I’d had enough and decided to take a breather rather than face eating with only the Periodic Table of the Elements to keep me company. Henry hadn’t emailed back, despite me checking my inbox every hour on the hour. A change of venue to listen to Junie ramble on for a while was in order, out of the stuffy, stale trailer.

As I wandered into the eating area, Junie squealed and skipped toward me. A handful of performers clapped, their way of saying,

“Helo, we’re glad you survived.” My face warmed, causing my itchy wound to tingle in the open air.

“My sister is here! I’m so glad to see your beautiful smile!” Junie hooked her arm in mine and dragged me to the counter so we could grab some eats. “Last night was so cool, Gems. There was a bunch of kids from school in the audience, and you know what a showoff I am,” she said. “It was so awesome.”

“I figured you guys must’ve done wel. I heard the crazy applause, and, what, like, two encores?” It was true. The last guests didn’t leave the grounds until after 11.

“It was so good. Al the cues went smoothly, no wobbles. Even Ash was on fire.”

“Wow. That good, huh? The brooding trapezist was happy performing for his latest batch of groupies?”

“Yeah,” Junie smiled, “it helped that Summer Day and her minion Ivy were front and center.”

“No way…I knew she’d fal for him,” I said. The stripe of jealousy in my comment caught me off guard. I had no right to feel jealous over Ash’s interest in Summer. Ash always had a string of adoring female fans, something I’d often resented when I’d wanted his attentions focused solely on me. I guess I could be happy for him, if that’s what he wanted. I had bigger, better fish to fry. I felt a tiny bit smug.

“Yeah, she even tried to get backstage afterwards but security wouldn’t let her through. Summer was not pleased. It was totaly funny,” Junie said. We carried our plates to an empty table.

“What? Someone said no to Summer? Horrors!” I flattened my hand against my heart.

“Yeah, I know. But she got her way…she’s sorta here. With Ash. Like, now.”

“Summer is here? On the grounds?”

Junie gave me a sheepish look. “Yeah…they’re, like, hanging out.”

“Wow.” So much for feeling smug.

“When they wouldn’t let her backstage last night, Ash told her to come back today and he’d give her the tour.” Junie took a bite of her yogurt. “So she did.”

“Did she bring Ivy with?”

“No. She’s solo…I think she thinks it’s like a date or something.

She actualy looked kinda pretty when I saw her come in.”

“Huh.” Ash had a girl here, for a private tour of our circus. I was…I didn’t even know what I was. Shocked? Jealous?

Murderous?

I picked at the crust of my toast, not realy eating anything, not sure how to feel about Summer Day being on my turf. It made me uncomfortable, yeah, but Henry had been hanging out here with me, and I know that pissed Ash off. Seemed I was getting a dose of my own medicine.

Al of a sudden, an explosion of trumpets erupted from the direction of the menagerie. “Gertrude!” I flew from the table and out of the tent, Junie close behind me. Ted and one of the wranglers came bolting from the big top—they certainly must’ve heard her.

Everyone did. Normaly mild-mannered Gertrude was very unhappy about something. Just as I approached their tent, the ground under my feet rumbled. She was bucking.

“Junie, stay out here,” I put my hand up in front of her as I pushed the flap aside.

Ted was right behind me. “What the hel is going on?” We backed against the inside of the tent, watching Gertrude flail her trunk and throw wads of hay over the bars. Jiminy was cowering in the corner, rocking side to side, trunk curled over the top of his head, eyes wide with fear.

“Gertrude, sssshhhh, it’s okay, big girl,” I said, inching toward the bars.

“Gemma, stay back,” Ted said.

“I got it, Ted. She just needs to see that it’s me.” I took another step closer.

“I don’t know what got into her.” Ash. He was in the corner of the tent. Hiding behind him was Summer Day. She was staring straight at me, her eyes cold.

“What in the hel are you doing in here, especialy with her?” I said, turning my eyes back to Gertrude. “Get out of here. You guys have obviously done something to piss her off. Did you touch her?

Did you try to touch Jiminy?”

“We—I—we were just giving Jiminy some carrots and Gert freaked out. She slapped Summer with her trunk, and then started trumpeting, like, super loud. She went balistic.”

“Ted, help Ash and his friend out of here,” I said, my voice monotone, moving my body closer to Gertrude, hand outstretched, in an attempt to calm her down. Gertrude turned forty-five degrees, her head and trunk facing the corner where Ash and Summer were crouched, and she let out an ear-splitting below. She reared again, the impact of her weight vibrating the metal of her enclosure when she landed, and picked up an entire bale of hay in her trunk, launching it against the bars. Jiminy snorted from his corner.