That Time I Joined the Circus

by J. J. Howard

  “Can I hear it while I see it?”

  “Ralph!” Lina yelled, very suddenly and very loudly. A tiny old man I’d never laid eyes on before emerged from the shadows of the ring. “Play the fanfare, will ya?”

  “Course, Miss Lina,” came his soft voice in reply. I looked around surreptitiously then, wondering how many other people lurked unseen in the shadows, awaiting a random shouted command. Freaky.

  I heard the traditional-sounding circus music begin to play, and Lina finally joined her sister in midair. They both started out on the same side, on a little crow’s nest sort of stand — Lina never talked about the act, so I didn’t know the proper terminology, just the little bit Jamie had mentioned that day I’d watched the whole show.

  I watched Lina and Liska build up speed, and their surly brother caught them every time, making it look effortless. They really did look like they were flying. It was hard to tell the two sisters apart up there; if it hadn’t been for Liska’s lighter hair, I couldn’t have done it.

  I watched them cross and soar, and it was breathtaking. The music, however, was not. It was too jarring, too discordant and crash-y to match what the siblings did up there. I just hoped Liska really wanted my advice. Because I actually had some for her.

  I had spent every night over the past week making the playlist for outside the Fortune Trailer. (Since the attraction didn’t have an official name, that’s what I’d been calling it. Then Jamie had shown up with a painted sign — I guess one of the crew guys was really good at painting lettering — and so now the name was official.) Luckily, most of the space on my laptop hard drive was filled with music, so I had a lot to choose from. I had worked hard to choose the perfect music to get people to come up and see the trailer and to want to have their tarot cards read. I thought the challenge was to strike the right balance between familiar and new or unusual music that created the proper atmosphere.

  “So, what do you think?” Liska asked me once she was on the ground. Lina was fiddling with the net behind her, but Eddie had vanished — as usual.

  “I love the double-switch thing you added in the middle.”

  Liska looked gratified that I’d noticed. I had paid very close attention. If there had been a nonobvious way to take notes, I would have done it.

  “But,” I continued, “and this is just an idea, I think you need different music. What you’re using now doesn’t do justice to your act. You need something … well, something newer, for a start. You guys are young, you’re smoking hot. What you’re doing is way more awesome than twenty revolutions on the Hurricane. But everybody lines up to do that because the music pulls them in.”

  “You think we should use Jamie’s music?” Liska asked, sounding more than a little incredulous. Or maybe horrified.

  “Well, first of all, that’s not just Jamie’s music. It’s mostly whatever is top-twenty on iTunes right now. And, no, I think that’s too obvious. But somewhere between Hurricane music and that decrepit old circus dirge …”

  Liska stood perfectly still for a moment. Lina had come up behind her sister and seemed to be holding her breath. I held my breath, too, hoping I hadn’t offended either of them. Finally, Liska smiled. Like, an actual smile. Not a grin, maybe, but it was a start.

  “You may be right.” She nodded.

  And then she shocked me completely.

  “Will you find us something new?”

  It took me a couple of seconds to recover, but I quickly said yes.

  Liska continued to thaw at a pretty rapid rate after that, and soon it was the three of us instead of just me and Lina. She even started helping me with the Fortune Trailer. I was nervous about actually taking people’s money for something I used to do for my friends for entertainment. But I didn’t want to let Louie down. If this experiment failed, I was determined that it would be the best-looking failed attraction on the grounds.

  I was mostly nervous about what to wear. I’d tried on a hundred things, but nothing felt right. I felt like an idiot imposter in everything. Lina found a bunch of stuff she liked at Goodwill, but the clothes smelled musty, so then I felt like a musty idiot imposter. But Lina had promised to take me back to the mall the next day, and she’d promised me a makeover that would make me at least look fortune-tellery.

  Nick had been as good as his word and brought me some of his mom’s stuff a couple of days ago. I replaced the rickety card table I had been set to use with the small round table made of dark, glossy wood that Nick brought. It had very ornately carved legs. He also brought me a pretty real-looking crystal ball. I must’ve looked a little panicked at that one, because he was quick to assure me that it was just window dressing (in other words, no hundred-year curse on my head if I broke it). He also brought me some old, occult-looking books, a few delicate, intricately beaded scarves to decorate with, and some wooden candleholders. And finally, he presented me with a ring.

  “This was my grandmother’s,” he told me.

  “Your mother wouldn’t want you to —”

  “It was my paternal grandmother’s,” he added with a wicked grin. “My mother hated her. She would stomp this under her heel before she wore it. Anyway, my grandmother was Romanian. Well, in point of fact, she was Romany — a gypsy. And a fortune teller.”

  “Is your mom —”

  “Yes to the second — no to the first. My mother is Czech, like the Vranas — Louie and Lina and Eliska — and Eddie. If it makes you feel any better that you’re not following in the footsteps of an actual gypsy fortune teller,” he teased. He’d straddled the tiny little art deco chair he’d brought, and he seemed to take up all the room in the trailer.

  I fidgeted with the candleholders.

  “I’m really glad you found your mom,” I told him. Lina had filled me in on the story. Nick’s mom had been staying with an old friend in Miami. She’d had a blowup with Louie — apparently they both had pretty bad tempers, and Nick’s mom had gotten sick of him and of the circus. She had left her son a message that she had been fired, then gone off the grid. It kind of sounded like she’d used Nick to get some revenge on Louie, probably knowing he’d show up and go ballistic, which I had gotten to witness firsthand.

  “Yeah, me too. She’s my mother, and I love her. But she drives me crazy.” He shook his head. “Come here,” he told me, holding up the ring. I stood over him as he straddled the chair, and he reached up and took my hand. When he touched me I felt that same charge I’d felt the first time. He slipped the ring on my finger and then raised my hand and kissed the back of it.

  I expected him to laugh after that, since he was obviously kidding with me. But he just kept looking into my eyes. I broke eye contact first, confused, and looked down at the ring on my finger. It was a huge, milky-crystal orb overlaid with intricate brass filigree. He reached up and twirled a lock of my hair around his fingers, then let it go. I forgot to breathe.

  “You could be a gypsy with that dark hair. But not with those eyes of yours.” His voice was low, and I took a step closer to him. I wasn’t even sure how it happened.

  My iPod was playing on my little speakers as always. I can’t exist without music. A slow song by Damien Jurado was playing, and as Nick stood up, for a moment we stood very close, and didn’t speak. Neither of us moved for a long moment. This time he broke away first, telling me he had to go, he’d see me soon, and then he was gone.

  Like I said: stupid.

  Somewhere Below 14th Street — Wednesday, September 29

  I have an actual list of worst days ever. There was one right after my mom left — one in particular, because there were a lot of bad days back then. But this one day, Gavin listened to the song “Found Out About You” by the Gin Blossoms on repeat. Part of the tragedy is Gavin Ryan listening to the Gin Blossoms. I mean, it’s a pretty good song (until you hear it on repeat for twenty-four hours). But it’s really not his scene at all, is one thing. For another, he listened to it on repeat for twenty-four hours. The song itself was sort of perfect for his situa
tion. But when it’s your mom, who you love (or who you used to love) who’s the lying, betraying [fill in whatever you want here — I hate her now]… Anyway, it wasn’t so awesome at the time. To this day, if I even hear a song that I think might be the Gin Blossoms, I run.

  Today is now on this list of days, and it’s moving up with a bullet. For a start, I went shopping. With Barbie — I mean, Bailey. I didn’t plan to — it just sort of happened. I got sucked into the gravitational pull that is Bailey.

  We got out early on every other Wednesday for the teachers to have meetings or whatever, and Bailey grabbed me after fifth period, and somehow I was roped into shopping. It’s not that I don’t like to shop. I appreciate the consumer marketplace. I mostly like books and CDs, old jewelry, and when planning to ask for a birthday/Christmas/I-will-clean-the-apartment-for-a-month present, something shiny at the Apple Store.

  Bailey, though, she likes clothes and shoes, in a seemingly infinite and endless variety and supply. It’s not that I wear sackcloth, but I guess I tend to go for something made of denim on the bottom and a T-shirt on top unless I have to look a little nicer, and then it’s a plain black shirt. And I have one really simple black dress that looks pretty good on me, and it has worked for every single dress-up situation in my life so far. Bailey is a different story — a different genre. So we had already been to five stores, and I had read almost an entire book on my phone waiting for her.

  But the worst was yet to come. Shopping, apparently, was not all Bailey had in mind. Nope. Old Bails was after some girlie-type bonding. She felt bad that she had been absent all summer. And that she had taken Eli with her. A recognizable theme was beginning to develop with these two: guilt over leaving poor little Xandra Ryan, the most tragic person in the universe.

  “I should have just insisted that my parents let me bring two people,” Bailey said, not for the first time, as we looked at the menus at a café. We were at an outside table, and the lady next to us had a little dog in a stroller, and she was feeding him French fries. Bailey had just told me that her parents had only let her bring one friend, Eli, but now she felt horrible about it.

  “Bailey, Eli is your boyfriend. Of course you wanted to spend the summer with him. I completely understand — you should have zero guilt about this. Besides, it’s not like I had this tragic summer or something.”

  “I know, I know, but I just feel really bad. There were some totally hot guys up there I could have fixed you up with, like that.” Bailey snapped her fingers. A waiter standing nearby thought the finger-snap was for him and he hightailed it over to our table. “Miss?”

  Bailey laughed at him. “Well, since you’re here, I’ll take another Pellegrino. X, you want another … was it a Coke?”

  “Sure.” I smiled at the waiter. Bailey knew it was a Coke. I always ordered Coke. Sometimes she just … I don’t know. Maybe it was just that she actually drank Pellegrino.

  “Anyway, what was I saying — oh, yeah. So many hot guys in the Hamptons this year. A lot of them were older, but that’s not really a problem, is it?”

  I literally had nothing to say to that. I hate saying fake things, but I heard myself saying, “I guess not,” almost like a reflex, and then I hated myself more for saying it. Like I had ever dated an older guy.

  “I know, right? So that would have been cool. It would have been really awesome if all four of us could have hung out.”

  “All four of who?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking.

  Bailey made a waving motion in the air between us. “Oh, you know, you would have met somebody there, like, for sure, and there are so many great things for couples to do there.”

  Curiouser and curiouser. Bailey’s sudden interest in fixing me up was not only new, it was puzzling. Was she trying to assuage her own guilt — or Eli’s?

  “Anyway, you totally should have come,” Bailey said, somehow skipping over and past the whole I-hadn’t-been-invited issue. “Eli and I got really close there. Like I said, so many totally romantic spots. We stayed at this really old hotel, it’s sort of like a B&B, except they totally leave you alone, if you know what I mean. No waking you up to take a walking tour or have breakfast with the owner or whatever. I mean, that’s the worst, you know? So we slept really late there — well, we stayed in until really late.” Bailey giggled, but didn’t blush. But I got the idea.

  I had a physical need to change the subject at that point, so I decided to just stand up. “I gotta pee,” I told her. Bailey looked a little puzzled at my abrupt — and infantile — announcement, but she nodded, and I escaped.

  I took a long time in the tiny bathroom, washed my hands twice, fixed my hair. But it was a one-holer, and somebody had already knocked twice, so I knew I had to give it up and go back. When I returned to the table, Bailey was playing with her empty bottle of fancy water.

  “Sorry,” I told her. “Too much Coke. Was your salad not good?” I asked, gesturing to her almost untouched plate.

  “No, it’s okay.” Bailey frowned distractedly. “Listen, Xandra, I just wanted us to spend some time together.” She was looking at me intently; usually Bailey was kind of distracted. “I really am sorry about this summer. Eli and I are … Well, I just should have either brought you along, or not taken him for so long … Just, please forgive me?”

  Wow. I was beginning to feel like I had really underestimated Bailey. Even Eli, who had been my best friend forever, hadn’t realized that when the two of them left for two months, they took my social life with them. It was pretty insightful and thoughtful of her to notice. It was too late to fix my summer, but still.

  “Bailey, I am totally fine. I mean it. And thank you for, um, feeling bad. It’s … nice of you.”

  “We’re friends.” Bailey smiled at me then. “Next time, you are coming, whether you want to or not. I will kidnap you,” she said, grinning. “But … I did get you a present from there. I know we’ve been back forever, and I should have given this to you sooner, but you looked so sad, so I felt weird … Anyway, I thought you might like these.” She handed me a fancy brown shopping bag with the top folded over, a hole punched through and tied with a bow. The bag had BEACH BAG written neatly in black Sharpie marker.

  “What is this?”

  “Just open it,” Bailey said. “You’re gonna laugh.”

  I opened the bag and I did have to laugh. It was one of those grab bags of remainder books they sell at little used bookstores. This one was full of slim Regency romances.

  “Nice!” I told her. “I love these things. And I go through them so fast. These are really great, Bailey.” I smiled at the title of one, The Errant Earl. “Thank you!” We hugged across the small table.

  “You are so welcome. As soon as I saw that bookstore, I completely thought of you. That was the best day, too! That night, there was this party — I forgot to tell you about it. It was at Jason Ingram’s. It went on for the entire weekend …”

  Bailey gave me some more details about that weekend, and many others, but these details have been redacted from my brain. After the waiter brought our change back, we stood up at the same time, walked the few steps to the sidewalk, and Bailey hugged me good-bye. She was headed to meet Eli, I knew. I looked down at the bag in my hands. At least I had a used copy of The Romantic Rogue to keep me company.

  Orlando, Florida — Saturday, October 30

  “I wish I could have afforded to get some new cards. These are a disaster.” I placed my old cards on the new table, next to the crystal ball.

  “No, those are perfect,” Lina said. “No one will pay if they see you using brand-new cards.”

  I blew an annoying stray lock of my hair out of my face for the hundredth time. “Well, that’s a good thing, ’cause I am down to dust on the start-up money.”

  I looked around the mostly done room. Lina had taken me to the mall while the crew moved us to our current spot in Orlando. Hanging out with Lina definitely had its privileges. This time around, I’d spent load-in day shopping instead of s
hoveling.

  We had bought purple and deep red silky material to hang in the entryway. Jamie had found a love seat somewhere. He didn’t say much when he brought it. I had been a smidge frosty to him since Lina had seemed so weird about him. It was a nice cover for me, anyway — I had no idea how to relate to him after kissing him.

  The seat was pretty old and pretty ugly, but I’d used a huge purple sheet to cover it and found a couple of embroidered pillows. So there was a little waiting area, and then the customers could come in to the reading room. The table Nick had brought was the centerpiece, draped with one of the scarves that had been his mom’s. Add the crystal ball, my gargoyle lights, and some of the nicer half-price Halloween decorations Lina and I had found at Target, and the look was complete. I had run out of money before remembering candles, but Lina showed up with dozens of them, the tall white ones in jars like they use in churches. I didn’t ask where they came from, just said thank you.

  “Perfect,” Lina said. She and I sat in the waiting area, in front of the love seat, and surveyed the finished product. We had lit the candles, and though it was still daytime, it was pretty dark inside. I had to admit, it looked good. I couldn’t help smiling; I felt sort of proud of myself for putting it all together on such a teeny budget.

  “Not too bad,” I agreed.

  “Are you kidding?” she asked. “Louie is so impressed, he wants to adopt you,” she joked.

  “I had a lot of help,” I told her. “Most of it from you. Lina, I really don’t know how to thank —”

  “You don’t need to,” Lina cut me off, as she always did. “So, are you ready for tonight?”

  Opening night. My stomach fell down near my toes. The setting-up was really more my area, I was afraid. I was much more likely to sign up to work backstage than to audition for a role. But all this was for nothing if I couldn’t bring in customers and play my part.