Blaze

by Coop Kirby

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  From author Coop Kirby comes BLAZE and POET, standalone young adult romance books in The Last American Circus Duet - about second chances, small towns, big loves, and the consequences of elemental power, that will spark magic in the hearts of teen readers.

  Published by PulpBoom: Bingeworthy Books. Genre books to-go, in a single serving.

  Weaver

  I bet you’d like Tish.

  Tish, the dish.

  “I prefer Tish,” she reminds me until I stop calling her Mama. To celebrate the day I kick the habit - roughly age three - we visit a Sotheby’s Auction where my mom purchases an original Dr. Seuss with the last of my academic stipend to hang in the pied de terre where we’re evading eviction a decade later.

  No joke, whenever we open our front door, Tish shreds and then stomps on another neon notice from the super, the board, the bank, the city, the county - and most days we sneak up the back stairs.

  Entering our flat via fire escape may be next, which is my preferred route anyway. I love heights.

  I dropped out of school somewhere in the middle of it. Seventh grade, maybe. I’m not sure Tish noticed this, or much else about me after my educational trust ran dry. And by then, her brief brush with fortune was long gone.

  I bet you’d like Tish. She used to model, she dated wildly dangerous men, and she survived marriage to my father. “It’s hard to keep a man who is a legend,” she’d reply whenever I inquired why they broke up.

  My dad is a Silicon Alley tycoon everybody loves to hate, who we never mention. People say we look exactly alike. I don’t see it. At. All.

  I bet you’d like Tish, because she’s not your mom.

  “Take the stairs,” Tish breezes by me, a bee on a mission. She mixes herself number three of this afternoon’s martinis, noting my carpetbagger status with casual cool. “You out all night again, J?”

  Honestly? Tish doesn’t consider whether I stay here nights or not her business. Again - I am not officially even fourteen, and this co-op is soon not to be in our possession.

  “I’m gonna find a roof.” I trace an arc in the air with my finger, above my head. “To put over this.”

  Tish’s emotional siege against the power of fillers is at last over, and her wrinkles are winning. Imagine what a toll that takes on a woman whose existence is proof that appearances are everything.

  “Okay then, J.” The lilt in her voice and tilt of her hip remind me she’d rather be drunk than my mom. Tish whizzes past me again - this time with a juicy air kiss that snaps, crackles, and pops. This is how I’ll remember her when, two weeks from now, I receive a call from the NYPD explaining Tish jumped from the roof of our building on the Lower East Side, wearing just her favorite fur and Prada platforms.

  I look around the place I grew-up, where I became J.

  I will remember playing endlessly with boxes of Barbies and their accoutrements for hours under the baby grand piano Tish sold to pay her tab at the corner liquor mart.

  I will think fondly of the painting worth seven figures which used to hang above our marble fireplace instead of the Ivy League degree I was meant to earn.

  I will not miss the marathon of my mom’s martinis and poor choices.

  I will not miss Tish.

  It’s harder than you’d think to runaway and join the circus, there just aren’t that many of them around. I’ve waited outside the door of every Cirque show in New York, raising myself on a steady diet of playbill promises and death-defying elemental acts.

  In my dreams I tame lions with a mad mix of tai chi and hypnosis, I swim with mermaids underwater and never come up for air. In reality, I have zero circus skills.

  Just a t-shirt that says: “BREAK THE SYSTEM,” an irresponsible number of YouTuber beauty palettes, a terrible DIY shag cut - and the attitude to match.

  I’m parked on a bench in Penn Station, surrounded by signs but none of them are mine. Scrolling through my phone, I hit up my favorite hashtag #lastamericancircus - which my Google research leads me to believe is literally true.

  Only the Wild Big Top troupe still roams free-range through America’s heartland, geotagging veins of Midwestern railroad track. Even Barnum is shuttered, fire codes and exotic animal restrictions all but eliminated the greatest show on earth outside of Broadway and Vegas venues.

  The #lastamericancircus feed paints a portrait of performers I don’t know, but I swear I recognize the kids:

  Poet. She’s got miles of insane ink, covering her curves for days.

  Blaze. A flow artist, who basically makes me want to play with fire.

  Ford. The big cat tamer, small-town jock with the hugest of hearts.

  Brick. Lifter of heavy things. Wears the hell out of a tank top.

  I’ve thought about DM’ing the group of four so many times, tapping the same message before erasing it, that I do so now by heart with my eyes closed:

  What’s up, I’m J. On walkabout, sans adult supervision. U need new crew?

  Today I hit send for the first time. And wait.

  According to Poet’s Instagram page, she’s not on the road with the Wild Big Top right now, but she responds first:

  Hey J! Always! U in NYC?

  My heart leaps, my fingers moving faster than my thoughts.

  Yup. U?

  LOL I wish. Can u get to Atlantic City?

  Absolutely. Y?

  My girl Blaze is there.

  K.

  The message bubble hangs, dots pulsing, as I await further details which never materialize. Before I can talk myself out of it, I join the Amtrak ticket queue, debating whether I should leave word with Tish, or my father. I picture my parents, drowning in their respective pools of vodka and cryptocurrency - without so much as a life preserver to toss their kid, too craven to save themselves. When I reach the ticket window, my voice sounds almost brave.

  “AC, one-way.”

  It hit me hour three of the train ride from Manhattan that my current mission may be more risky than I thought. I played it safe, sitting across from a mom with a passel of kids who eye me with open curiosity, taking turns guessing whether I’m a boy or a girl. I don’t mind being the conversation-starter in a dialogue my parents never had with me. I do resent the hell out of their mom - who I silently dub Judgypants, on account of the increasingly dirty looks she shoots me.

  The Jersey boardwalk scene is dead, which is fine by me. Sand glitters under the sun, luring me to the winter waves crashing in a froth of green. Settling onto the beach, I’m disturbed to discover the shiny objects in the dunes are trash, bottles and cans and plastic discarded by tourists too tired to care. I pick up the litter around me, and my phone buzzes - delivering the message I’ve been waiting for my whole life, from Blaze:

  J - find me at Costco. PS my hair’s pink.

  I know it’s absurdly reckless to trust four total strangers based on their social profiles. Yet, I consider how weird it is for them to do the same with me. That said, what choice do I have? I stare at the shoreline, breathing deep the salt speckling the air, and renewing the vow I made myself when I decided to bail on Tish.

  I will be better than the life my parents gave me.

  I reply to Blaze:

  OK.

  Navigating public transit is not talent, but instinct as a native New Yorker. It takes less than an hour for me to arrive at the big box warehouse by bus, where I kick it at the entrance and scan the throngs of customers for Blaze. At least she suggested a public place, though I can’t help but think this is either the first chapter of a cautionary tale or the chance of a lifetime depending on which way the wind blows. I open my DMs to the group chat and type:

  I’m here.

  This time, Ford messages me back right away:

  Cool cool cool. There in 30.

  I wander across the street to a sunny spot in front of a nail place, wishing I had co
in to splurge on a mani/pedi. I content myself with a free cup of water from Go-Nuts 4 Do-Nuts and absorb the strong vibe off the window-washers perched above the parking lot.

  There are three guys, trading turns off a blunt the size of a hot dog. I’m guessing none of them get grilled on their gender, based on how shamelessly they perform their masculinity by the book.

  They cat-call women who pass by with an easy vulgarity that’s baffling to me. “Bitch, back that ass right over to my dick!”

  It isn’t until one of the dude-bros steps backwards, choking back a barrel-chested weed cough that I realize none of them is secured by a rope. In slo-mo, he teeters and totters, then tumbles into a tangle of scaffolding about twenty feet off the pavement.

  “Oh shit!”

  “Goddamn it!”

  While his buddies blink back their stoned shock, I realize half-way up I’ve decided to climb and rescue the asshat. I balance expertly inside the precarious labyrinth of metal, following it like a web as it leads to their fallen comrade - nursing an askew left ankle and bawling like a baby.

  “You got this, yo!” I hear from the small crowd gathering below us. The welcome reassurance from an unknown cheerleader propels me forward, nearly within reach of my target. Stoner boy continues to lose his chill, shaking the narrow beam I’m traversing with my arms outstretched - weaving ever closer, emboldened with each step. There is a peace I feel in this space, like I’m discovering a foreign country where I finally feel at home.

  “Take my hand!” I anchor my weight securely, wedging my body between the building and the scaffolding, locking his gaze and watching the doubt register in his eyes. I think, Trust me. Don’t believe what you think you see. Gender is over.

  The window washer’s hand closes around mine, and I link my fingers with his. Below us a clanging rattle signals the approach of a new addition to the rescue party, but I don’t dare turn around. My heart soars at the introduction, though: “I’m Ford. How can I help?”

  Together, me and Ford work to lower the stoner to safety. I clock Blaze’s freshly pink mane and recognize her voice as she continues to hurl kudos my way. I pause before descending the final five feet, taking in the only moment I’ve felt truly amazing in my entire life.

  Still possessed by I don’t know what, I dismount Batman-style with a flourish - met by applause I could definitely get used to. The next thing I know, I’m in Blaze’s arms - maybe she recognizes me from IG, or somehow she just knows who I am the way I know her crew without having met them.

  In any case, what the girl says next determines my destiny in ways I’ve never dreamed of:

  “Welcome home, Weaver.”

  About Coop Kirby

  Coop Kirby is the independent author of the new intersectional YA romance duet, The Last American Circus, out in Winter and Spring 2020.⁣⁣ This summer Coop will debut her Middle-Grade mystery series, starring a gender-fluid sleuth, Dru - the iGen gumshoe.⁣⁣

  Formerly Coop wrote and produced film and television credited as Summer Lopez, represented by William Morris Endeavor. She lives in the Sierra Nevada with her son, Bear.

  Coop Kirby owns PulpBoom: Bingeworthy Books, an indie imprint, releasing genre audiobooks to-go. She also writes an edgy romantic comedy series and a twisted thriller saga under the pen name, Syd West, for readers 18+

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