The Fire Artist (6 page)

I walk through the doors of the training facility. The air-conditioning grinds louder as I pass through. It’s heat sensitive, so the AC’s working harder, sensing the rise in temperature. I head for the old bullpen, where I practice.

Nava is thrilled with my precision and my stunningly beautiful flames.

“Beauty is always rewarded,” Nava says after my flames soar higher than they ever have, curling into lush tails, like a peacock’s fan spread open.

“That seems like some sort of wise old adage that is supposed to mean something but really doesn’t,” I say, teasing her, feeling light and fun again now that I’m back in control.

“What? You don’t like my adages? How about
You will obtain your goal if you maintain the course
?”

“Now you’re just a fortune cookie, Nava. I thought you didn’t even like Chinese food.”

She puts a hand on her heart in mock indignation. “Not
like Chinese food? All my people love Chinese food. Of course I love it.”

“Do they have Chinese food in Israel?”

“No. We had to go pluck all our food straight from the fields. We had to yank carrots from the ground and shoot arrows into rabbits if we wanted to eat.”

“Oh, ha-ha.”

“Well, you asked a silly question, so you got a silly answer,” she says as we continue to work through my moves out in the bullpen. “But yeah, of course we had convenience stores and Chinese restaurants in Tel Aviv. But I hear it’s all changed since then.”

“You mean since the Middle East became the M.E.?”

Nava nods. “Since the treaty, yes. I mean, there are still convenience stores and Chinese food. But everything else changed and for the better, of course. When I talk to my cousins who are still there, they tell me how wonderful it is to walk the streets and not fear getting shot or bombed.”

“Do you ever want to go back?”

“I’m a Florida girl now. Florida’s been good to me. Besides, Florida will be good to you too, Aria.”

“Yuck. I can’t stand Florida,” I say, but unlike Nava I’ve never even been anyplace else.

“I hope you might like Miami,” she says in this coy, flirty voice. And I turn to her, my eyes wide.

“What do you mean, Nava?”

Her voice has a playful glint to it. “Just that Miami, if it works out, might be a nice place for you to spend a few months.”

I spin toward her, my veins filling with hope. “Am I going to Miami? Do the M.E. Leagues want me?”

She holds up her slender hands and laughs. “I don’t know. But what I do know is this: I took a phone call this afternoon from a certain scout from the M.E. Leagues who’s had his eye on our team and a few of our artists in particular.”

“And?” I feel like I may rocket to the moon with excitement, that I might very well learn I have wings and can fly.

“And it’s a good thing your control is better because he’ll be here on Friday.”

I give Nava a massive hug, grinning. She pats my back, and I can tell she’s smiling too, and I’m so deliriously happy that a tear slides down my cheek.

Nava pulls back, mistaking it as worry. “You’ll be fine. Don’t worry. You’re ready.”

I nod, collecting myself. I so rarely let emotions show. I return to my usual stoicism. “Does my dad know yet?”

Nava shakes her head. “I’ll call him later and tell him. I wanted you to know first.”

I have a secret. Sure, it has an expiration date in a few hours. But it feels so good.

I turn back to the concrete wall, thinking of my dad, of all the ways he’s hurt me. I throw a massive fireball that spins on its path to the concrete. For the briefest of seconds, I swear my fire has the faint outlines of a pair of eyes. Then it hits the wall and disappears. Maybe I imagined it.

Elise and I walk through the weight room on the way in from the field. The room is filled with grunts and the clangs of iron bars going up and down, as well as with glares from the ballplayers. The shortstop is the only one who doesn’t stare us down. Instead, he manages the tiniest of smiles, and it makes his blue eyes crinkle in a cute and kind of sexy way. I’m not even sure what his name is, but I’m glad he’s on the team.

Elise cups her hands over my ear. “Listen. I heard from some of my friends in the M.E. Leagues. The scout wants something big. Something special.”

“Like what? Like the legendary fire twin?” I suggest, though I’m joking because the fire twin is a trick that hasn’t been seen in several years.

“Well, if you could do that, then yes. If you want to get out of town, you need to wow him.”

“So what should I do that’s epic? The spinning-wheel trick? The starlight? I don’t know if I have time to develop a new trick.”

“Can you combine two? Like marry the arc that you do with starlight?”

“I don’t know. I mean, yeah. But is that enough?” I ask, and my voice sounds like a squeak, tripping on my own desperation.

“Talk to Nava. I’ll make some calls. We’ll come up with something. Maybe ask Xavi?”

I scoff. “Yeah, he knows all the right tricks. But what about you?”

Elise laughs drily, a quick laugh. “You know I don’t stand a chance with a scout. Plus, my parents want me in the Lookouts, not the Leagues.”

“I know,” I say. I’ve known this for years. Her parents always saw the Wonder team as a feeding ground for the Lookouts. But Elise and I are more than a team. I can’t survive without her. Elise is a year older than I am, but we’ve been best friends for years, and nearly inseparable throughout high school. The good thing is, since she’s going to college in Miami, we can still meet up for renewals if I’m recruited.

We leave the weight room, stares following us.

“Go Mud Dogs,” Elise shouts, pumping a fist as the door swings shut. Then a shrug. “They already hate us.”

“Not all of them.”

“Well, the nonhaters are nice. Especially the shortstop.”

“He’s definitely a babe.”

“You should go for it.”

“Ha,” I say because I don’t do that. I don’t “go for it” when it comes to boys. Going for it could lead to getting it, and then where would I be? Stuck with someone who’d want to know me, who I’d want to tell all my secrets to. I don’t want to share my secrets because I don’t trust anyone but Elise. So I don’t get too close to boys. They belong in photos on my phone.

Not closer. Never closer.

My father holds his index finger to his lips when I walk inside that night. He tips his forehead to the chair. My mom is sleeping.

“She just fell asleep,” he whispers, his voice like a pillow when he talks of her. He says this as if it’s some wondrous mystery that my mother is sleeping. My mother is the queen of sleeping. Yet everything about her somehow enchants him. He
tends to her, brushes her hair, runs the bath for her. Sometimes it seems as if he’d do anything for her. To keep her. The coddling, the kid gloves he wears with her are such a contrast to how he is with me.

“Okay,” I say in a whatever kind of tone and head to the kitchen for a glass of water.

He rises from the couch and follows me, padding quietly.

“Aren’t you excited for the scout?”

I shrug as I run the tap and drink some water. I am excited, but I will never let on in front of him.

“This is what we’ve been working for, Aria. This is what all our hard work has been leading to.”

I tense, holding my hands behind my back. I clutch my fingers, linking them together, as if that will keep my hands safe.

“Are you ready for Friday?”

“Totally.” I won’t let him know the scout wants a big trick. If I tell him that, he’ll burn me again, as if his matches might elicit something new and magnificent from my hands.

“You need to be amazing on Friday. And I know you can be. You can. And then we can get air-conditioning, and we can get a new chair …”

He looks at my mom sadly, but with so much regret and love in his eyes that he seems like a different person. His voice slips and he covers his eyes. If he were a real father, I’d comfort him. I’d tell him I want Mom to be okay too. But I don’t want to get her a new chair. I want to get her a new life, and I want him out of mine. I soften, but not for him. For Mom, for Jana, for Xavi.
The Leagues are my path to their freedom. “It’s okay, Daddy. I’ll be great. I promise.”

He hugs me, and I pretend to stumble on an unseen pebble so he can’t hold on. I step away from him, doing my best to appear flustered by my clumsiness.

I lie awake as I walk myself through each trick, each move, and the amount of fire I must trigger—from the tiniest flicks for starlight to the all-encompassing flames of the fireworks finale. Maybe Elise is right. Maybe I can combine them somehow. Big and small? Power and precision?

Jana is asleep in the bed next to mine. She didn’t want to go pool hopping tonight. Said she was too tired.

I get up, walk to her bed, and kneel near her sleeping body. She’s deep in slumber, and her face looks so soft. I wonder if she’s dreaming of dolphins or friends or buried treasure. Or maybe another time and another place. Or another life, as I do.

I take her hand in mine. It’s cold. I tense, but when I place my other hand on her chest, I’m reassured with her breathing. So why is her hand so cold? It’s broiling outside even at this hour. It’s the middle of the night and the sky is still weeping muggy heat. But her hand is icy, like it was this morning when she reached for my phone.

Could Jana be an ice artist?

I flash back to what I’ve read about the rare breed of water artists who don’t just weave waves and command streams. They are a strain who create not only water but ice. It’d be a great party trick to make those swan ice sculptures you see at brunches. But the talent is much more than a party trick. It’s an uncommon gift among only a handful of water artists. The power to freeze your own water.

I shake Jana, wake her up.

“Wha?” she mutters in a muffled voice. Her eyes flutter open, then close again.

“Jana,” I say in a firm whisper. “Jana.”

She shifts. “What?”

“Jana, why are your hands so cold?”

“Huh?”

She flips to her other side, trying to pull herself back into dreams.

“Jana, is Dad doing something to your hands?” Dipping them in ice? Trying to freeze her?

“No,” she says, and shifts back to the other side. “No,” she adds.

“Okay,” I say, and slip back to my bed, under my own covers. But when I peer over at Jana she’s not asleep anymore. She’s staring up at the ceiling.

Xavier wakes me at five thirty and tells me we are going to ride together. Xavier hates mornings. If he’s awake at this hour, it means he wants to talk. I change into work-out clothes, and
pull on fingerless bike gloves so my palms won’t dig into the handlebars.

We ride hard through the blue light of the fading moon. The headlight on my bike glares on the concrete, and I pedal faster, keeping pace with my brother, who must have worked out during the four years he spent locked up. He’s in shape like a whip, lean and taut. His hands wrap around the slim handlebars of his old road bike.

Those
X
marks on his hands stare at me as we speed through the dawn, along the frontage road, underneath the freeway, far past the edges of Wonder.