The Traveling Man

by Jane Harvey-Berrick

  I could definitely see why he preferred not to eat before a performance.

  He finished with a flourish, cartwheeling off the bike, which brought a round of applause from the adults and whoops and cheers from the kids.

  I hoped that none of them tried to copy him at home, or there would be an epidemic of broken bones in the neighborhood.

  Then he flopped down on the grass and let the kids jump all over him. I bet some of the moms would have liked to jump all over him, as well.

  “Oh my God!” gasped one mom, her hands fanning her face. “Does he do kids’ parties?”

  “Forget that!” said her friend. “I want him for my party!”

  I watched him playing with the kids, listening to each of them, making everyone feel special. I realized with a pang, but no sense of shock, that I was in danger of falling for him again—and there was no safety net for love.

  There should be, because I’d fallen so far before and I was afraid that my life would fly apart again if I let it, leaving me broken.

  I remembered Zachary’s words from all those years ago, warning me that loving Kes would never be easy. He’d been so right, and the words were as true today as they were then. But I couldn’t stop. Even now, it was too late. I was hurtling head first over the cliff, with no guarantee that Kes would be there to catch me at the end.

  I saw him watching me, a slight frown on his face. I had to look away.

  After that, the kids started getting sleepy, which meant they were becoming fractious, so the moms carted them off home with thanks to Jennifer, and lots of invitations for Kes to perform for them in future. He declined them all politely, explaining that he’d be touring again soon.

  I was disappointed to hear that, but not surprised. That was what he did, that was his life. And seeing him perform today, it was obvious that he loved it.

  I cleaned up outside while Jennifer fed Kes, and he seemed happy to inhale whatever was left over. He must have been starving after the performance he put on. I walked over to join them, carrying a coffee for each of us.

  Jen had managed to take one sip before Dylan appeared in his pajamas, carrying a storybook.

  “I want Kes to read me a bedtime story,” he said.

  Kes immediately tensed and his expression darkened with shame. I hated that look on his face.

  “Maybe Kes could tell you a story instead, about when he lived in the carnival,” I said gently. “Did you know he had a pet monkey?”

  Dylan’s eyes glowed. “I don’t know anyone who has a pet monkey! Eric Sutton has two dogs, but that’s not as cool as having a monkey!”

  Kes’s eyes flicked to mine, but I could see that he’d already shut down. Even so, he followed Dylan to his bedroom, and we could hear the soft murmur of voices.

  “That was a little awkward,” Jennifer said with huge understatement. “Nice save on your part.”

  I sighed. “I used to do that all the time when we were kids. I just sort of went onto autopilot.”

  Jennifer stared at me thoughtfully, but whatever she wanted to say was lost, because Kes strode out of the house. I could almost see the swirling black anger that followed him. Jen raised her eyebrows and muttered, “I’ll leave you two alone.”

  Kes paced up and down in the backyard, his expression fierce, his eyes stormy.

  “How fucking pathetic,” he sneered. “The kid is five years old! Five fucking years old and he reads better than I do. I can’t even read a fucking kiddy book!”

  I left him to pace, hoping that letting the rage pour out of him would help, but instead it seemed to stoke the fires.

  “Kes, it’s fine,” I said at last. “Dylan had a wonderful, magical day. You made that happen.”

  “I couldn’t read him a fucking story! What part of that do you not understand!” he roared.

  “Don’t shout at me!”

  His eyes tightened, but at least he stopped ranting.

  “You can learn,” I said quietly. “You’re smart ... no, listen to me,” I insisted as he began to interrupt. “You’ve just never had the chance, never given yourself the chance. I can teach you.”

  “Like you teach your third graders,” he sneered.

  “Yes, like that.”

  He scowled at me.

  “Kes,” I sighed, “what you did today, what you do with the stunt bikes, only a few people in the world can do that. Yes, you have problems reading, but I can give you techniques to overcome it.”

  He growled, a low, feral sound.

  “Did you learn how to patronize when you became a teacher, or does it come naturally?”

  I looked at him sadly. “Thank you for a lovely time, Kes. You really made Dylan’s day. Drive safely.”

  I brushed past him, but he gripped my arm tightly.

  “Is that it?”

  “I’m not in the mood to be your emotional punching bag, oddly enough.”

  He released my arm, and his hand dropped to his side.

  “Sorcha does all my contracts,” he said quietly.

  “What?” I asked, confused by the left-turn in the conversation.

  “I can’t read my contracts,” he confessed. “I’ve no idea what’s in them. Sorcha tells me, but…”

  He didn’t finish the sentence, and I stared at him, deciding if I wanted to take the bait. Who was I kidding? I’d never been able to say no to Kes.

  “Are you asking me to go through your contracts with you?”

  He nodded jerkily, refusing to meet my eyes. I knew how much he hated asking for help, so I didn’t push him.

  I sighed. “Okay, I’ll take a look.”

  Kes was silent.

  I watched him a little longer, hoping he might actually thank me, but of course he didn’t.

  “Does Sorcha know that you’re here with me today?”

  Kes’s eyes glittered with vindictive delight. “Oh yeah, she knows. I made sure of that.”

  My heart wilted at the glee I saw on his face. This wasn’t about Kes wanting to see me or wanting to be with me after all. Instead, it was just a giant screw you to his ex-girlfriend, ex-manager, ex-whatever. But I wouldn’t retract my offer to help him. It just about killed Kes to admit he needed help at all. I wouldn’t make him beg.

  You don’t do that to people you love, do you?

  And that was the truth: I’d never stopped loving him, but I was beginning to wish that I could.

  Kes left shortly after, but the mood was still subdued even though he’d gone.

  “That looked like a painful conversation,” Jennifer said.

  “Yes, you could say that.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  I shrugged. “Help him with his contracts.”

  “That’s not what I mean,” she said. “What are you going to do about you and Kes?”

  “There is no me and Kes. There’s me, and there’s Kes and Sorcha. It sounds like they have a pretty complicated relationship. I’m not sure I want to get in the middle of that.”

  “You can lie to yourself all you want,” Jennifer said quietly. “But it’s obvious that what you two had is still very much alive. I don’t think it’s as one-sided as you make out. And let’s face it, Sorcha lied and cheated to get him. I’m sensing that Kes isn’t a very forgiving person.”

  “Exactly why I don’t want to get between them. If he decides to leave her, then it has to be because it’s the right thing to do for him, not because he and I … because … ah, hell, I don’t know, Jen. I don’t know what I’m doing. I feel like I ought to just text him and say thanks for today and that I’m heading back to Boston.”

  “Is that what you want to do?” she asked.

  “No, but it would be the sensible thing.”

  “I agree, but what’s sensible about love?”

  I didn’t even try to argue with that.

  I thought back to my four years with Gregg and realized that the whole relationship had been a Band-Aid to my broken heart. I felt slightly guilty that I’d used him to t
ry and be normal, but the way things had finished between us, I was finding it pretty damn hard.

  I didn’t text Kes that night, and I didn’t hear from him either. I wondered if once he went home to Sorcha’s loving arms that he’d change his mind about wanting me to help him.

  I was wrong about that, too.

  When I woke up the next day, there was a text from Kes.

  * Contacts today? *

  I assumed he meant ‘contracts’, so I simply texted back,

  * Where? When? *

  While I was brushing my teeth, he replied.

  * Hear 4 *

  “Yes, sir,” I said, snapping a sarcastic salute to the mirror.

  Well, if I was jumping whenever he called, it was my own damn fault.

  Jennifer restrained herself from saying anything, which I thought was valiant of her. If the positions had been reversed, I would have told her she was making a huge mistake.

  But somehow, it still felt like he was ‘my Kes’, and I’d help him if I could.

  I borrowed Jennifer’s car and arrived at the fair on time. But then it took me an age to find a parking spot and work my way through the crowds.

  When I finally knocked on Kes’s door, I was 20 minutes late. He wrenched the door open and scowled at me.

  “Where have you been?”

  I was hot and sweaty and very pissed off.

  “Fighting my way to a parking spot, fighting my way through the crowds, because I couldn’t wait for such a warm and gentle greeting!”

  A surprised look flashed across his face and then he grinned at me, which made his dimple pop.

  Darn it, why did he have to go and bring out the big guns when I was still annoyed with him?

  “You look hot,” he said.

  I raised my eyebrow, and he winked at me. “You want a beer or a soda or something? I think there are some in the fridge.”

  “Just ice water, please.”

  He stood back and let me inside. The place looked as if it had been ransacked. Drawers had been upended, doors were hanging open, and a huge pile of paper had been heaped onto the fold-down table.

  “Oh my God! What happened?”

  Kes shrugged. “I was looking for contracts.”

  “Of course you were.”

  I cast a jaundiced eye over the mess and dumped my bag on the floor. I shouldn’t have bothered wearing something cute—Kes only wanted me for my brains, not my body. How very disappointing.

  “I’ve got another show at 6PM,” Kes said, his expression relieved now he’d dumped all the work on me. “Do you think you’ll be finished by then?”

  I stared at him in disbelief. “Um, no! Have you seen how much paper there is here? Let alone what Sorcha might have stored on the laptop.”

  His face fell, and it was obvious that he hadn’t thought of that.

  “Do you know the password?”

  Kes gave a small smile. “Kestrel.”

  Of course—the woman was more obsessed than me.

  “I’ll just have to hope she’s organized,” I said at last.

  Kes strolled into the kitchen to get me a glass of water, and watched for ten minutes as I stacked paper together. Then he started twitching and looking impatient.

  “Okay, we need some ground rules here,” I said. “First, I’m doing you a favor, mister, and don’t you forget it. Second, I’m not an accountant, so I’ll do my best, but I suspect you’ll need professional help once I’ve got it in some sort of order. Third, stop staring at me, you’re freaking me out!”

  He laughed and held out his hands.

  “Fine, go ahead. No staring.”

  I frowned, but he just grinned at me.

  “You’re still staring.”

  He winked, completely unabashed.

  “What do you normally do when you’ve got some downtime?” I asked.

  “Play on the X-Box with Tucker or Zef, work out, go for a run, or if Sorcha’s around, we fu—”

  He stopped suddenly and I cringed. “By the love of all that’s holy, please don’t finish that sentence.”

  He had the grace to look abashed, but only slightly.

  “Fine, go for a run, or go do your workout. I’ll be here for hours … possibly days,” I mumbled to myself.

  In the end, he opted for a run, and I got stuck into the paperwork, resentful that I was spending my vacation like this. Balancing my checking account and trying to ignore my credit card statement was usually as financially minded as I got.

  The first thing I did was to make sure that I had every piece of paper in front of me. I checked all the drawers and cabinets, and even had a quick look in the bedrooms. I could tell which rooms belonged to Zef and Tucker, or the twin pits of depravity as I would call them from now on. Kes’s room was much more tidy, and I knew it was his because the shirt that he’d been wearing at Dylan’s impromptu party was lying on the end of his bed.

  I couldn’t find any more documents, so I stacked everything together and began to go through it piece by piece.

  I laid out four piles in front of me: anything to do with money including bills, credit card receipts, invoices and bank statements; anything to do with public appearances and contracts; fan mail (of which there was a ton, and nobody seemed to have done anything about it); and miscellaneous.

  Looking at his private documents left me with an uneasy feeling—even more so when his bank statements told me that Kes was loaded.

  But then I found something that really made me sit up. After some hesitation, I placed the piece of paper on the miscellaneous pile. It was a certificate from Guinness World Records saying that Kes’s motorcycle stunt in Sydney was the longest jump ever in its category. I’d read about the record in the ‘Hawkins’ Daredevil’s program before I knew that was Kes, but seeing the certificate made it real. I wondered what else I was going to find.

  Now I knew the name he went by, I decided to Google him. But getting into his laptop wasn’t straightforward. I tried ‘Kestrel’, ‘Kes’, ‘Kestrel Hawkins’ and even ‘Kestrel Donohue’ without any luck. Frustrated, I wracked my brain, and finally tried ‘K35tr3l’. Bingo! It occurred to me that the combination of alphas and numerics, while more difficult to hack, would make it really tricky for Kes. Or maybe I was being paranoid.

  Then I decided that being paranoid didn’t mean everyone—ie. Sorcha—wasn’t out to get him. She’d lied to him once; who was to say she would do it again? I changed his password to ‘Mr. Alb3rt’.

  When I saw that Kes’s name brought up over 500,000 Google hits, I began to realize how far his fame had spread.

  A warm feeling filled me: despite his problems, and his very apparent learning disability, Kes had done really well for himself. He’d always shone so brightly, and now he was a star. I was proud of him, if that wasn’t too patronizing. I scowled at the thought; he’d accused me of that last night. I was slightly afraid he was right.

  While I was online, I tracked down the names of four Financial Advisory firms who were used to dealing with performers, spoke to three of them, and made an appointment for Kes with one that had offices on the west coast as well as in Minnesota. Looking through the pile of papers, it was obvious that he needed more help than I could give him.

  But I had an uneasy feeling, too. The money in Kes’s bank account, while substantial, didn’t seem to be as much as it should be, given his intense touring schedule. And it was also hard to see which offers had been accepted and which had been turned down, and the reasons for that. I needed to talk to Kes.

  He came in from his run, hot and sweaty and very distracting. I thought I should get a medal when I managed to focus on my work, and not his glistening body.

  “How’s it going?” he asked.

  “Hmm.”

  “Is that a good hmm, or a bad hmm?”

  “Not sure yet.”

  He smiled and leaned down to squeeze my shoulders. “Okay. I’ll go get ready for the show.”

  I nodded, still slightly distracted by the spicy
scent coming from his body, but managed to keep my mind on the paperwork. Just about.

  But when Tucker and Zef strolled into the trailer, the atmosphere cooled by several degrees.

  “Hello again, sweet cheeks,” Tucker said, his eyes flicking to the piles of paper. “What are you doing?”

  “Riding a unicycle,” I replied.

  “Huh?”

  I looked up at him, irritated. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

  “It looks like you’re sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong,” Zef said, his voice threatening.

  Kes came out of his bedroom, his face serious.

  “Back off, Zef. I asked Aimee to come here.”

  Zef and Tucker exchanged a look, but immediately stepped back, eventually going into their rooms to prepare for the show.

  I’d really liked to have gone and watched them—the show, I mean, not watch them getting changed, although I’d make an exception in Kes’s case—in fact, I’d rather do anything than be stuck in a trailer with a scavenger hunt in paper.

  An hour later, the three of them trooped back, trailing clouds of testosterone and all in better moods.

  “I take it the show went well?” I asked, stretching my aching back.

  “As always,” Tucker said with a wink. “And I have a couple of phone numbers of ladies who might get lucky tonight.”

  “What? Get lucky when you don’t call them?” I said.

  Tucker just laughed, taking my bitchy comment in good humor, which kind of surprised me.

  “Oh sweet cheeks, no woman has ever been left unsatisfied by me. I can prove it if you want.”

  Kes frowned. “Aimee’s off limits.”

  Tucker grinned at him. “You don’t say? Wow, I’d never have guessed that. Why don’t you just piss on her to mark your territory?”

  “Yuk! That is totally disgusting. There’ll be no pissing on anyone!” I yelped.

  Kes gave Tucker a push, and then there was a lot of macho posturing which meant thumping into furniture.