That Time I Joined the Circus

by J. J. Howard

  “I thought you and Eli were going out tonight.”

  “Duh, it’s Friday. But we have hours until then. I want to get a new dress.”

  Bailey wanted to get a new dress for every day ending in y, so this was not a surprise.

  “Sure, I’ll go with,” I heard myself saying. Watching Bailey try on fifty dresses, most of them twice, for her date tonight was not really what I’d had in mind for my afternoon. But since all of my plans had involved me, by myself, at my apartment …

  Plus, Bailey was already pulling me toward the door. “Knew I could count on you.” She smiled. Bailey always wins. The force of her enthusiasm connects with my ambivalence, and we go where she was heading anyway.

  I told Bailey I’d meet her outside in five. I had to stash my books in the art room. Sheldon Prep is so old, and looks so much like an old mansion — probably because it once was one — that it doesn’t have lockers. So my shoulder was breaking from carrying every single book I owned. My algebra II and chem books each weighed about a hundred pounds.

  Sheldon has block schedules: block like cell block. Basically most of my day might as well be taught in a foreign language; I don’t speak math. Four hours a day of math — I’m pretty sure the state is nicer to convicted criminals. But this is private school, so there’s nobody to complain to except my dad.

  Dad got really into the idea of private school when the lead singer for Ribbon Purge told him this really detailed story about how she got beaten up in the bathroom of her public high school and nobody cared, and that’s why — Dad figures — she’s now in a death metal band and has a really big ring through the center of her nose. He even prepaid my tuition right through graduation, using the rest of the money he inherited when my grandmother died. So there was no getting out of this.

  After I ditched the books, I found myself waiting for Bailey again, only this time in the parking lot. Finally I spotted her, walking with a couple of juniors from the lacrosse team. What is it about Bailey that makes her so un-invisible? I wondered, not for the first time. Was it her thick, straight, shiny, strawberry-blond hair? Was it her perfect teeth, long legs, or just the confidence that possession of all these assets had bred in her?

  Suddenly, Morgan Logenstern was standing right in front of me, so close I could see the pores on his nose.

  “Um, Alex?” he began. I started to shake my head no, then realized that Morgan had Mr. Rosso with me last year, so he probably thought my name was Alex.

  “It’s Xandra, actually.” I’m not sure I could have sounded less encouraging, but ol’ Morgan seemed unfazed.

  “Oh, okay. Anyway, I was just wondering if you had a date for the prom yet?”

  Morgan was always one of the smartest people in our class; I guess he’d noticed that just about everybody else in the entire junior class had already paired up.

  “I’m actually going to be out of town that weekend,” I heard myself telling him.

  He sort of nodded and shuffled off. I tried to feel bad for him, but I really just felt bad for me. Now, if by some miracle someone else did ask me to the prom, I couldn’t even go.

  Bailey reappeared in front of me. “What did that guy want?”

  “Just the time,” I told her. It was all too pathetic to even bother repeating.

  Four hours and thirty-three dresses later, I made it back to Plan A: my apartment, The Vampire Diaries on DVR, and Chinese takeout from Lo Pei down the block. It was a good plan. Dad was at Crash Mansion, DJing some kind of party. Usually he was home on Friday nights. On Sunday nights, he had his weekly radio show followed by his regular DJ gig at Crash, Sunday Night Synth.

  I loved my dad’s radio show. When I was younger, I would go into the studio with him, although I could never stay awake until midnight when the show ended. I’d sleep in the corner of the studio on an old blanket he kept there just for me. When I got older, I had my own booth at Crash, where I would sit and do homework by fake candlelight, listening to my dad DJ and turning down the middle-aged eighties music fans who approached me. There weren’t many — the regulars knew who I was, and the bouncers usually scared the rest away, but some guys don’t pick up on your standard social cues. These social cue–impaired guys are still the only ones who ever ask me out.

  Thanks to Gavin, I grew up learning every minute detail about retro-progressive music made between about 1978 and 1990 and everything about synthpop made, well, ever. But Gavin kept up with the current music trends, too, as part of his job as program manager at the station.

  I think my dad worries about me being too much into his deal, though. Besides Eli, and now Bailey, I don’t really have anybody else. Sometimes I like it. Other times, I just want somebody to see me.

  But I can entertain myself. Gavin says I’ve always been good at that. Even when I was really little, I could figure out some way to pass the time on my own. And I still can. I don’t even attempt to actually understand my homework in algebra or chem anymore; I just write something down and hand it in, so I have a lot of time to kill. Even more, since Eli and Bailey started dating, and now the plans I would have had on Friday night and Saturday night are their plans. Weeknights I still get to hang with them usually. Yay for me.

  So the soundtrack in my head right now is full of down-tempo music: weird, sad little songs by The Decemberists and Iron & Wine. I just made an actual playlist out of my mental playlist and loaded it onto my iPod. I plugged in my speakers and listened while I cleaned up the apartment, and Thom Yorke’s “Black Swan” started playing. It takes a long time to make the perfect playlist. I don’t believe in that little Genius button they have on iTunes. That’s cheating.

  After the place was clean and the Chinese leftovers packed away for Gavin, who still wouldn’t be home for hours, I sat on the fire escape and listened, with my headphones in, to the rest of my playlist. I brought my beat-up old tarot deck with me and started doing a spread for myself. The card in the current-situation spot came up the Hanged Man. I didn’t really need a portal to the supernatural to know I was stuck — thanks a lot. I wondered what would happen to change things, or if I’d ever get unstuck.

  The immediate future card was a new one: the Three of Swords. Not a good card, I knew that much. The picture is just what you’d expect from the name: a big red heart pierced through with three sharp swords. But I couldn’t remember if it meant heartbreak or something worse. I thought about looking it up, but I decided to just let my heart-stabbed future remain a mystery. I reshuffled the rest of the cards back into the deck and watched the lights of the city for a long time.

  Tavares, Florida — Saturday, October 9

  I dreamed about elephants, a parade of them, as if the one elephant I’d seen the day before had multiplied like those strings of paper cutout dolls. They kept marching past me, no end in sight. For some reason, in the dream I tried to catch up to each one and hurl myself on its back, but they were moving too fast, their backs were slippery, and I kept falling. Lina, the trapeze girl I’d seen, laughed at me. The long yellow feathers on her hat swayed as she laughed.

  “Wake up, new girl!” I heard a voice say.

  I wasn’t fully awake yet, but on some level I processed that new girl was me.

  “Awake,” I managed to mumble back. I opened one eye and then the other. Doug, the Michael Jackson wannabe, was staring at me.

  “Big day — opening night!” he told me. In my groggy state I closed both eyes again. Was he trying to say it was already night again?

  “Okay, just lie there, but if you don’t get up soon, it’s gonna be the bucket for you.”

  I opened just one eye again. “Bucket?”

  “Bucket. As in cold water. Trust me, it’s better to just get up.”

  “I’m up!” I practically shouted as I catapulted out of the compartment. “No bucket! But I have a question. Is there breakfast first? What day is today?”

  “It’s Saturday. And yes, three squares a day at the cookhouse.”

  “Good. Because I have
n’t eaten since … um, Thursday? Unless you count the granola bar I had yesterday morning. I think.”

  Doug’s eyes widened. “Damn, girl. Miracle you didn’t die last night working so hard on an empty stomach.”

  “Maybe I did die,” I said, looking into the little mirror someone had put up in the “hallway” of the trailer, and sighing before trying to put my hair into a less horrifying ponytail. “That would make this hell, probably.”

  “Come on, it’s not that bad. Everything will look better with some bacon and sausage.”

  “You’re quite the carnivore, Doug. I really respect that.”

  He was already heading out of the trailer. “Nah, I’m just here for the money,” he said. “Not really from circus folk.”

  “I’ll try to remember that,” I said, and followed him out.

  A mess tent had been added to the circus city during the short hours I’d slept, and the kitchen was definitely open. I got in line with Doug and the other members of the crew I’d met last night. It was a lot like a high school cafeteria — at least the ones I’d seen in movies and stuff. The cafeteria at Sheldon did not have trays or milk cartons (but they did have a sashimi bar).

  Here at the circus there was a giant pile of trays and a couple of women in aprons serving up what each person asked for. I closed my eyes for a moment and inhaled the scent of bacon, eggs, and biscuits. A hot meal was going to be heaven. And I didn’t even have to feel the least bit guilty. I’d definitely earned my keep last night.

  I sat with the crew at a table in the back. Just like probably every high school cafeteria, there were clearly cliques. I saw the trapeze girl sitting with a blond girl who also looked like a dancer, and a blond guy who looked exactly like her, who I figured had to be her brother. At the same table I saw a woman who had been working with the elephant the night before, and Louie, the ponytailed man who’d taken pity on me yesterday.

  At another table I spotted two clowns; neither one was wearing face makeup, but one wore a shabby old-fashioned suit with a huge tie, and the other wore a striped lime green and yellow suit. I saw Carl, the tent master, sitting with them.

  “So it’s pretty segregated here, huh?” I asked Heather, who had sat down beside me. She was wearing a massive hoodie and cargo pants. Heather seemed to have an easy time fitting in with the guys on the crew. She was one of those girls you would never buy scented bath stuff for. She was making her way through a massive plate of biscuits.

  “You mean how people sit in here?” she asked. “Guess so. Crew people keep with crew, performers with each other. Some performers make their own meals — most of their rigs have pretty decent kitchens. But Carol’s food is so good, most everybody eats here. And it’s not like you can’t talk to anyone else or nothing, just sort of the way we end up sitting. Were you hoping to make it into the show or something? A lot of people come in hoping to perform and end up just … working.”

  “Me — no! I mean, I don’t have any talent. I actually just came here looking for my mother.” The rest of the table was pretty quiet right at that moment, so I raised my voice. “I wonder if anybody worked with my mother here — it would have been six months ago or so. Callie is her name.”

  Blank looks greeted me. Joe, the man who’d been nice to me the night before, spoke from the other end of the table. “She weren’t with the crew. I been here fifteen seasons. Sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” I told him. Well, that was one group down. I really hadn’t pictured my mother in with this crew, but still.

  “Who’s the new girl?” A guy popped up between Heather and me. She swatted at him as he grabbed one of the biscuits off her plate. But then she smiled at him and slid down the bench so that he would fit in between us.

  I looked at him as he sat down and ate his biscuit in two big bites. He was gorgeous: blond, tan, with major arm muscles bulging beneath the sleeves of his white T-shirt. He was easily cuter than the cutest guy at Sheldon.

  “We’re still calling her new girl, actually,” Heather told him. “Waiting to see if she bolts before we name her.”

  “She prob’ly already has a name, Heather. Geesh. Ring crew’s got such rotten manners. I’m Jamie,” he told me, wiping biscuit crumbs off his hand before offering it to me. “I work on the midway — rides, mostly. We are much friendlier. And what’s your name?”

  I stared at him, my mind suddenly a blank. I have this problem talking to cute boys, because I can’t. A few too many seconds went by before I forced myself to answer.

  “I guess I’m Lexi,” I finally managed. “I mean, I used to go by Xandra, because my name’s Alexandra,” I hurried to explain. “Xandra, Lexi — both of them are nicknames. I just … I guess I’m just tired of being Xandra.”

  “What’s so wrong with Xandra?” Jamie asked, stealing another biscuit from Heather.

  “Such a good question,” Heather said, rolling her eyes.

  Jamie laughed at Heather’s comment, but then he smiled at me and winked to soften the blow. Then he stood up and went to the food line. I tried not to watch him go or notice his muscles. When he returned with a plate piled high, Heather had already finished and wandered off. Since Doug and most of the other guys were still at the table drinking coffee, though, I stayed where I was. Jamie took Heather’s spot and set to work on the food, but after a minute or so, he took a little break to smile at me. “So, Lexi, where are you from?”

  “Um, New York. City, I mean.”

  Here we go again. Usually, I can talk like a perfectly normal person. I mean, sometimes I use a few too many big words, but that’s just because I have more books than friends. But I can use, you know, complete sentences. Unless there’s a boy involved.

  “New York City.” Jamie whistled like he was impressed, and also like he hadn’t noticed he was talking to a moron. “I’ve never been. Always wanted to go. So, big-city girl, huh? What are you doing here?”

  “I … well … I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

  Jamie nodded. “Sounds about right. That’s a lot of people here, anyhow. Outsiders — people from the real world. Sometimes people come for a job thinking it’s glamorous, or they’re writing an article or a book. But mostly they’re just running.”

  “So your family worked in the circus?” I asked him. “Did you travel around when you were, like, little?”

  “Yep. Fourth generation. It’s not so bad. For one, I didn’t have to go to school.”

  I tried not to show my surprise on my face. In spite of my cell-block schedule this year, I’d never, not once, considered not finishing school. What would a person do without even a high school degree? I guess he would kind of have to keep doing what he was doing now.

  Jamie didn’t seem to be worried about his lack of education; he was fully focused on consuming mass quantities of breakfast. He kept making small talk around the chewing, asking me about New York and why I’d joined the ring crew. I told him that I had begged Louie for any job. I looked around the table, startled to find Doug and the rest of the guys had disappeared.

  “Oh!” I said, mostly to myself, but Jamie was close enough to hear.

  “Whatsit?” he asked, his mouth full of sausage and gravy.

  “The rest of the crew just left — and I don’t know where they went. Or where I’m supposed to go.” I was embarrassed to have stopped paying attention. I did not want to have to bother Louie again.

  But Jamie promptly did that for me. “Yo! Louie!” he yelled, and everyone at Louie’s table turned to stare at me. I felt my cheeks go red. “What you got on tap for Lexi today?”

  “I’m sure he just wants me to go find Joe and do whatever he says,” I whispered to Jamie, trying not to move my mouth too much.

  “Nah, that was load-in day. You’re not big enough to be crew,” Jamie told me in his normal — loud — voice.

  “Novelties wagon tonight,” Louie said to Jamie. He didn’t seem to notice that I’d introduced myself to him with a different name. It probably didn’t matter what I
called myself, as long as I showed up to work. “Angela went back to California after the last stop. Tell Heather to get her started.”

  “That won’t take all day,” Jamie told him, taking a huge swig of coffee.

  “Then she can watch the rehearsal today,” Louie said, a hint of something that looked almost like a smile creeping in. “She won’t get another chance to see the circus, eh? Lina, you will show her a good seat, yes?” He turned to his daughter, the pretty but frosty trapeze girl from the night before. She smiled at him but gave me a dark look.

  “Great,” I said under my breath. “Thank you!” I said much louder to Louie. “And thank you, too,” I said, turning to Jamie.

  He was already gathering up his tray. “No sweat, new girl. Enjoy the circus.”

  I looked over at Lina, who was still looking at me. I couldn’t read her expression, but I knew it wasn’t excitement about babysitting me.

  “Great,” I muttered again. I would rather have rejoined the ring crew. But at least my stomach was full.

  I sat uncomfortably until Lina finished her tiny breakfast, then followed her out. I followed her into the big tent and sat where she pointed.

  The ring was empty and silent when I took my seat. I waited for the show to start.

  13 Broome Street — Friday, May 21

  There are a lot of reasons why everyone in the known universe has a boyfriend except for me. I can list the top five on command, just in case anyone’s ever interested. No one ever has been, but that’s no reason not to be prepared.

  Number five: I blame my parents. They were ridiculously all over each other in a lovey-dovey, make-you-want-to-barf way. I’m talking goo-goo eyes and hand-holding. That is, until one day my mom up and left and I learned really quickly not to even mention her name. So that’s one reason to actively choose to be single.

  Four: Everyone at my school, I’m pretty sure, paired up in the eighth grade. Occasionally they’d switch partners, as though there were some secret game of musical chairs being played somewhere in the back hallway. But there was never any warning, and no one was ever single for more than a few minutes. Got to keep butts in those seats.