That Time I Joined the Circus

by J. J. Howard

  “How’re you doing today?” I asked her.

  “Okay.” Again, Bailey sounded kind of down-tempo. Usually she was more of an up-tempo girl. I wondered briefly if Bailey had a soundtrack in her head, too. Probably that was just me. Before I could think better of it, I asked, “Bailey, do you ever hear music in your head? You know, like even when there’s none playing?”

  She looked thoughtful for a second. “Sometimes, I guess. I sort of wish there were music playing all the time — you know, like on The Real World or something.”

  I laughed. “Exactly — that would be great. And if all the boring parts of my life would be edited out. Of course, that would make the Xandra show about as short as your average commercial break.”

  “Stop, loser.” Bailey hit me on the arm. “You are always so self-depreciating, or whatever. I think you are totally interesting.”

  I smiled at her and through sheer force of will didn’t tell her the word she wanted was self-deprecating. I fell in step with Bailey’s long strides.

  “If only life could be like it is on one of those shows,” I said. “Everything’s interesting and dramatic, and every argument is solved by them playing a song over the closing credits.”

  “Yeah, and they get to vent about everything in those confession boxes,” Bailey said with a laugh.

  “But actually, it would kind of suck for there to be cameras around all the time, ready to go when I did something stupid or embarrassing. Like most days.”

  She hit me again — and it hurt a little this time. “Hey, I told you to stop being so mean to my friend! You have to start being nice to yourself, X.”

  “Okay, I’ll work on it,” I grumbled at her, but I smiled, too. “But that would be really cool if …”

  “Ohmygod, I have to go! I have, like, a million things to do before tonight!”

  “What about period six?” I started to ask her, but she was already gone.

  Orlando, Florida — Saturday, October 30

  I sat across from my first paying customers — a couple dressed as pirates in honor of Halloween. The girl pirate was getting the reading, and she seemed a little unimpressed until her final card was the Star.

  “This is a really positive card,” I told her. “It’s usually a sign of —”

  “Ohmygod — I knew it! I’m so going to be in that movie! And then I’m outta here! I am definitely moving to LA now.”

  The boy pirate looked a little crushed, but she didn’t seem to notice. I decided not to confuse her with the actual meaning of the card, and let her go away happy. (At least one of them was.) This was my first lesson in the customers seeing what they wanted to in the cards, and me not trying to stop them.

  The rest of the first night went by in a blur of costumes. It was hard to try to read people’s faces when so many of them were wearing full-face makeup or masks, but I got through it. I had a line of people waiting right away. Luckily, I also started getting some help.

  Nick came to check on me and found more people than I guess he’d expected, and then he stayed. He kept showing up each evening, helping me get set up, and then hanging around to sell the tickets and be my sort-of bouncer. I had only seriously needed his help one time so far — this guy who had been more interested in creeping me out than finding out about his future.

  A couple of days after my debut, Nick was helping me light all the candles. I’d hit play on my iPod. I saved the special playlist for the customers; one of the hundreds I’d made last summer was playing. “Is this Radiohead?” he asked me.

  “Thom Yorke,” I answered, tilting a candle with a tiny wick to the side and trying to get the flame to grow. “He’s the lead singer of Radiohead, though. Writes most of their songs. My dad saw him perform in the early nineties — he was in a band called Headless Chickens. I always loved that name.”

  “Reminds me of a circus geek,” he said.

  I cringed. “Aren’t they supposed to bite the heads off live chickens? Have you ever seen one?”

  “I can’t actually say I have. You’ve seen the protestors just for the animals that perform. There’s no way anybody’s going to bite the heads off animals in today’s circus.”

  “Guess not,” I told him. “This conversation took a strange turn.”

  “Don’t look at me, music encyclopedia girl.” He smiled and handed me his matches. “You’ve got fire now. By the way, in return for my awesome help tonight, I want you to make me a mix.”

  “Sure,” I told him. He kissed me on the nose, and my heart jumped. “Break a leg,” he said, and then went out to get the first customer of the night.

  The lines stayed long all that week. As soon as it got late and the second show in the ring was over, there were mostly teenagers outside on the midway. That’s when I got a pretty good crowd going outside the trailer. I had hung some lanterns out there and put candles in them, and with the music and the darkness, it was kind of clublike. It also didn’t hurt that I now basically had a male model out there, drawing in all the girls.

  One night, I gave readings for what seemed like about a hundred teenage girls, all dressed in what seemed the suburban Florida uniform for fall: a tight little sweater, itty-bitty denim skirt, and big furry boots. I did not understand the boots, because it was still over ninety degrees at eleven o’clock at night, but these girls were all set to tromp through at least a light dusting of snow.

  I did my own share of sweating, trying to figure out each girl, see past the uniform. Tell her something she could maybe use, but not something she didn’t want to hear. I concentrated on the tan, blond girl in front of me, trying to figure out what might be unique about her. Then I turned over her immediate obstacles card: the Death card.

  The girl, whose name was Crystal, saw the card and promptly flipped out. “Really?! I’m gonna die — that’s what that means, right? Oh my God!”

  “That’s not what it means,” I told her. “I mean, it can actually be a really positive card. It can mean just the end of something —”

  “Oh my God! The end of my life!” Crystal yelled. “Ashley! Get in here! Now!”

  A girl who could have been Crystal’s twin, at least as far as hair and clothes, ducked inside, Nick right behind her.

  Crystal started crying, and Ashley glared at me. “I’m going to die!” Crystal sobbed. “This girl told me — she p-p-pulled this card, and it said … it said … Death!” She turned and saw Nick standing there and threw herself into his arms, sobbing, while Ashley continued to glare.

  Nick patted her back and told her it was going to be okay, she wasn’t going to die. I opened my mouth to finish explaining about the card, but Nick just shook his head at me. He led Crystal away, the angry Ashley in her wake.

  A couple of minutes later, after I read for a cute little ninth-grade couple who held hands the whole time, Nick returned.

  He threw himself into the seat opposite me. “God, that girl could cry.” He pulled his now damp shirt away from his chest and made a face of disgust. “I thought she’d never stop. And then when she finally did, the other one started. I got them some Cokes and took them over to the Tower — told the guys to let them ride as many times as they wanted. Say, Lexi” — he leaned forward, raising his eyebrows at me — “you think we could maybe take the Death card out of rotation, hmm? I don’t love the idea of being cried on for an hour every time you pull it.”

  “I didn’t tell her she was going to die,” I started to protest, but he put his hand up.

  “I know what you’re going to say — it can be a positive card, new beginnings and all. But maybe this crowd just isn’t quite up to making that distinction?”

  I shuffled the deck until I found the offending card, then I leaned forward and slipped it into the front pocket of his button-down shirt, patted the pocket, and smiled at him. He shook his head, stood up, and walked back toward his post, muttering something under his breath that I couldn’t make out.

  I got my cards and table ready for the next customer. Taking t
he Death card out was just more of what I had already been doing: cheating a little. I had pinched up the corner of my old friend the Lovers card, and I’d been reaching for it whenever it looked like it would really be appreciated. I mean, the card is about relationships, and we all have those.

  I got a chance to advise one girl who kept hinting about a friendship — with a guy — that she wanted to turn into more. “Things will never be the same,” I told her. “So just think really carefully before you leap.”

  “Is that in my cards?” the little blond girl asked. (I wondered if I should tell her to skip the Hurricane — she was exactly Jamie’s type.)

  I smiled, probably a little ruefully. “No, it’s in my life,” I told her. “And I wish it weren’t. But everyone’s different, every relationship. Either way, it won’t hurt to consider things an extra time or two, right?”

  She smiled back. “It’s not like he sees me that way, anyway. So I’ve got plenty of time to think.”

  The next girl had her boyfriend in tow, this really beefy, loud guy, who was for some reason wearing a leather jacket in blatant disregard for the heat.

  I turned over the Fool card and started to explain the meaning, but he started talking over me right away. “She’s the fool,” he said. “No doubt about it.”

  I tried to ignore him, but it wasn’t easy. Basically it seemed like he was trying to get her to leave her family and move to Boston with him, and he tried to twist every card and interpretation to fit that end, even though from her face, the girl didn’t want to do anything but stay right down here in the land of sunshine and furry boots.

  “Hey, girlie,” he finally said to me when I tried to tell his girlfriend that the Six of Cups meant happiness gained from family. “You obviously don’t know anything. What are you, sixteen?” He was yelling by this point. “Who are you to tell us what to do? So why don’t you shut up and give us our money back? How about that interpetation?” He said the last word wrong, without the r, and even though this jerk had just made every fear I’d had about this job come true, I still found it funny. Just as my very badly timed laughter was bubbling up, my bouncer appeared.

  “Excuse me,” Nick said from behind Jerky. “I think it’s time for you to leave.”

  He smoothly reached around with a ten-dollar bill and put it in the front pocket of Jerky’s jacket, which, now that I really looked, was made of cheap-looking vinyl. Jerky tried to grab Nick’s hand, but Nick was faster and grabbed his instead, and from the looks of things was pretty much crushing it. I tried not to smile, reminding myself about karma.

  Nick led the now loudly protesting Jerky out of the trailer, and his girlfriend turned around to mouth I’m sorry to me.

  “Break up with him,” I told her, taking momentary advantage of my de facto status as a fortune teller with a hot bouncer.

  She smiled sadly, and I knew right away that she wouldn’t. Why do people stay with jerks?

  Nick put his head back in the tent. “You okay?”

  I sighed. “I’m good,” I told him. “Thank you — really. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been here, though. But you can send in the next one.”

  Nick shook his head. “Louie ought to know better.” He sounded angry. “As soon as I realized he planned to leave you alone, I knew I couldn’t go yet.”

  With that, he went back out to manage the line. And I was left in a daze. He’d stayed for me? He was leaving the circus? Why did everyone have to leave? And why hadn’t I seen this coming? He didn’t work here. He had no attachment to me beyond a little speck of guilt that was now certainly assuaged.

  Some freaking fortune teller.

  Orchard Street and Avenue A — Friday, October 1

  I woke up in Eli’s small bed, curled away from him, facing the wall, the wall I’d decorated long ago with a poster for the movie The Brain That Wouldn’t Die. The woman with no body, bandages wrapped around her head and neck, and what looks like jumper cables attached to the sides of her neck, she was staring at me, and I felt stupid. And wrong, and bad … I looked at my watch. 5:34 A.M.

  Eli was still sleeping, lying on his stomach, snoring quietly. It was freezing cold in his room. I sat up carefully; for some reason it was incredibly important not to wake him up — I didn’t question the strength of this conviction, just followed it. I found my phone in the pocket of my skirt near the foot of the bed. I clicked the center button and was not all that surprised to see a blue box and nine missed calls. But I’d expected only my dad’s number. Instead the most recent was an unknown 212 number. I switched to voice mail, my hand shaking, my stomach tightening. Who had called? Somehow, I knew, knew it was bad.

  I heard a strange voice say something about an accident. My sharp intake of breath woke up Eli. He looked angry right away — Eli wasn’t one of those people who took a long time to wake up.

  “You need to get out of here. You need to get out of here now,” he said, first thing, and his voice was that of a cold stranger.

  He didn’t need to tell me twice. I had to listen to the rest of the message, find out what it meant, and I had to do all of that somewhere else. I grabbed my skirt, my bag, opened the window, and stepped onto the freezing fire escape. Eli actually looked shocked, though I was following his directive; I was getting out now.

  I stepped out, still in bare feet and without my skirt, and even went down the round metal stairs like that. I stood in the alley for one second, pulling on my skirt and boots, and then I just ran.

  Boynton Beach, Florida — Sunday, November 14

  It’s really, really stupid, but sometimes I used to imagine something bad happening to me, and I’d imagine who would be upset about it. In tenth grade, when I had a crush on Miles Carson, I imagined that if I collapsed in bio class from some horrible disease (one that made you lose consciousness, but you still looked pretty, like a movie disease) that he might suddenly realize that he actually cared about me. He would run his fingers through his wavy, light brown hair and clench his jaw as he paced back and forth in the waiting room of the hospital. My dad would pat him on the back, and they would endure the waiting manfully together, until I was freed from my temporary bout of movie disease and we could go on a romantic date, maybe on his motorcycle, which would not mess up my hair.

  After having such a stupid fantasy, of course, I would remind myself that not only had Miles called me Melissa once when he ran into me in the hall, but also that I knew exactly who would be in the waiting room if I ever actually did end up in the hospital, and that Eli and Dad were enough for me.

  And then something horrible really did happen, and it was really horrible, worse than I’d ever imagined. Dad wasn’t there, and Eli wasn’t there, and I was completely and utterly alone.

  The stupid girl who had those daydreams was so far gone, I couldn’t even understand her. But in some ways, I still felt like her. I didn’t want to be alone. I had friends now — Lina and Liska, who, along with Louie, were almost like family. But Nick was gone now, and even though my rational brain knew that it was stupid to want him here, it didn’t change how I felt.

  I was supposed to run the Fortune Trailer tonight … without Nick. At Nick’s urging, Louie had loaned me one of the guys from the ring crew in case I needed backup. Nick wasn’t happy with the selection — there was nobody available who really knew how to work the crowd, just setup guys. Nick told me that most problems are solved before the mark even comes inside. It was sort of cool how he called the customers marks — made me feel like a con man — well, con girl.

  He said he hated to leave, but he had to get back to work. He was pretty vague about what work was, and I was too depressed to pester him about it.

  Lina tried to make me feel better, telling me that Nick couldn’t be my doorman forever. She told me that the little bit of money I was bringing in was nothing compared to what he would make in a night if he were the attraction. Didn’t really make me feel better, actually.

  The mysterious Nicolae Tarus was
on everyone’s mind while at Louie’s Sunday dinner. Most everybody ate together in the cookhouse during setup and between gigs, and everybody ate a big lunch together on show days. But Sunday afternoon was family dinner at Louie’s, a tradition his late wife had started. Ever since Lina had taken me in, I had been included.

  We were all sitting around the table eating Liska’s chicken casserole, and Louie was on a roll.

  “Yes, it was good to have him back, though now he is gone again. His mother, though, her I do not miss!” He shook his head.

  “Yeah, she likes to yell almost as much as you do.” Lina snuck a look at her dad over the top of her iced-tea cup. Liska gave the most unladylike snort, the only ungraceful thing I’d ever seen — well, heard — her do.

  “What do you mean?” Louie asked, sounding offended. “I am nothing like Reveka Tarus! She is hothead, and she has bad manners!”

  “You have very nice manners, Daddy,” Lina told him in a soothing voice. “But you do like to yell.”

  “Well, only when I have to. That woman, she yells to hear herself. I am glad she’s gone. Lexi here is much more calm to have around, and she does just fine in the same job.”

  “I did just fine with help,” I pointed out glumly. “Without Nick, who knows? Guess we’re gonna find out.”

  “You’ll do fine.” Louie patted my hand, getting a little chicken gravy on it, which I wiped off surreptitiously under the table. I smiled bravely at him and hoped he was right.