by Gwenda Bond
I burrowed my face in the pillow, reaching between the mattress and box spring to feel the note from Remy there.
I ruined what we had. Me. He was right to be mad, right to break my heart.
Out in the cabin, familiar music swelled for the opening credits of Midnight. It wasn’t as famous as some of Nan and my standby favorite old movies. The movie’s star, Claudette Colbert, reportedly went a little nuts when she got famous. According to Hollywood legend, she decided that the left side of her face was the good one, and refused to be photographed from the other side. The difference was imaginary.
I dragged myself to my feet and emerged from my room with my blanket wrapped around me. Nan’s eyebrows lifted as she took in my disheveled state and . . . whatever else was noticeable about my bleak situation. She made no comment.
We watched together as Colbert—playing a beautiful lounge singer—arrived in Paris after losing everything in Monte Carlo. I couldn’t help but observe that she didn’t seem as bad off as me. At least she still had a gorgeous evening gown. Colbert bantered with a cute taxi driver, and the chemistry crackled, and yet she left him anyway, landing herself a gig impersonating a baroness for a rich fairy godfather.
Nan passed me a handful of peanut M&M’s as the scene changed to a fancy party at a giant mansion. Colbert shimmied magnificently in the middle of a conga line. She didn’t even stop dancing when the fairy godfather checked in to see how the scam was going, just crossed her fingers that things were going well. I didn’t bother crossing mine.
Nan stiffened beside me, and when I thought through the scene I realized why. I gave the line myself in tandem with the fairy godfather’s response to Colbert: “‘Superstitious?’”
Nan shot me a sideways look and said Colbert’s line back: “‘Don’t forget, every Cinderella has her midnight.’”
Suddenly we were talking about me. About us. About our situation. I was Colbert as a sequined Cinderella. Dressed up as someone I wasn’t, using magic to pretend I was more than I was. Queasiness hit me in a wave. It was true, wasn’t it? Just like everything Remy had said.
Nan looked at me like she saw every thought pass through my brain.
“I can’t stay to the end,” I said, rising, shedding the blanket.
The irony wasn’t lost on me. But it wasn’t anywhere close to midnight. To my midnight. As far as I knew.
“Why not?” she asked.
“I need to go somewhere.” I didn’t specify where, because I had no idea.
“The coin,” she said. “Roman was obsessed with it. You can’t just expect to use it with no consequences.”
I didn’t breathe. “Do you want it back?”
“Nothing is free,” she said. “The problem with success is it can become a form of blindness. You can’t see what you really want anymore.”
“I have what I really want.” Except for Remy. Except for Sam back. “I want our family where we belong. And we are. Higher than we’ve ever been.”
Out the window beside us, the rain had stopped, but the day was grayer.
“I gave you the coin to protect you, but it only protects you from the harm of those objects. It won’t protect you from what you can do to yourself. I understand.” She softened. “More than you know. But someone out there does still want to hurt you. And if they can’t? They might try the ones close to you next.”
I chilled. “I’ll give the coin to Dad, to Mom—”
“There’s no way to protect everyone.” She didn’t have to mention Sam. “And your parents would want it to be in your possession. They would accept nothing less.”
“I could hide it in their costumes.”
“But which one?” she asked. “You are the one who’s a target. The only one who has been except for Sammy. We need to keep it that way.”
“Why won’t you help me find the person doing this?”
“I tried, and I failed. I’m the reason all this is happening.” She lowered her gaze. “The more I’m involved, the more I fear it will escalate. The worse it will be. I shouldn’t have come here.”
Her refusal to come clean almost made sense to me, seeing how guilty she looked. What had really happened all those years ago? “You’re never going to tell me the details of that summer, are you?”
“Not if I don’t have to.” She turned back to the movie.
“That’s what I thought.”
I didn’t feel any satisfaction at getting the last word. Outside, I wandered aimlessly around the grounds, where people were packing up. Distracted. I was half hoping to find Remy, half hoping I wouldn’t—especially given that I probably looked like death.
But the Garcia I bumped into was Dita. She was wearing a man’s black shirt, collar unbuttoned. No makeup. She’d been wearing black ever since Chicago, whenever she was out of her costume, in mourning.
“How are you?” I asked.
We didn’t really know each other, no matter what I wished. When I looked at her now, I couldn’t help remembering how she’d sobbed at Sam’s side in the ring, clinging to his unconscious body.
She bit her lip, shook her head.
I said, “That good?”
“You seem . . . not yourself,” she said. “Remy told me.”
My breath caught.
“That you broke up,” she finished.
“He dumped me.” I was curious what else he’d told her.
“He wasn’t happy this morning either.”
Knowing that helped, but it wouldn’t change anything. He’d been so certain. And he’d been right.
That was the real problem.
“About that night when we . . .” I started. She’d been there for Nan’s accusations, but I wasn’t sure what to say that would help without revealing everything.
“Remy showed me the photos on the corkboard.”
“Good,” I said, though I was thrown. The photos had been our shared secret. I didn’t mind her knowing. Not exactly. But it made the distance I’d put between Remy and me gape even wider. “It doesn’t make any kind of sense. I wish Sam could have known about them. He was so practical . . . Maybe he could have fit it all together for us.”
She dragged a hand through her short hair. “Sometimes I think nothing will ever make sense again.”
It was almost like he was still alive, the way the two of us were talking about him. “This is going to be an awkward question,” I said.
We started moving again, away from the trailers by unspoken agreement. We stopped when we reached a tree at the edge of the field where our RVs were parked. There was only one guy over here, sitting on a damp bench reading a worn paperback mystery like the ones on Remy’s nightstand.
“What happened to your grandmother?” I asked. “Everyone talks about Roman, but not much about her.”
Dita stared into the branches of the tree. “She hurt her back and had to stop flying. Then about ten years ago, she took a lot of pills. I was just a kid, but before that . . . I don’t remember her ever laughing. Mom still misses her. Granddad, I don’t know. He mourned her, but I don’t know if he missed her.”
“That’s rough.”
Dita tilted her face down to me. Tears glossed her eyes. I put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry I asked.”
“No.” She brushed her cheek with unusually clumsy fingers. “I feel like an idiot, but in some ways I feel like I had something they didn’t have, that my parents still don’t. Just for a little while, I had it.”
“What do you mean?” I applied a little pressure to her shoulder, in case she needed steadying.
“Sam, you know . . . when he first came up to me, I thought he would be a jerk. Not just because he was a Maroni. Because most guys are. They think because of how I dress I’m just a weirdo or a poser, or assume I’m gay. But he . . . he wasn’t like that. He taught me how to ride. And he thought I was fascinating. He told me that, and he didn’t mean because I was weird. He said it was the way my mind worked. But he didn’t expect me to be able to answer every ques
tion. I don’t know all the answers yet, okay? Whether I just like dressing this way . . . whether I’m into girls and boys, or just into certain people. But I didn’t have to worry about all that. I just knew how I felt about him. I liked Sam right away. That was where it started between us.”
I couldn’t pretend Sam had confided everything to me. But I was sure enough of the main thing to say it. “He cared about you.”
The breeze ruffled her hair as she nodded. “I know he did. We were in love. It happened so fast, but it was real.”
I could see how much it cost her to say the words out loud and admit what she’d lost. Again, I felt a stupid pinch of jealousy at their good fortune. I hadn’t ever been that sure of how Remy felt about me, and I was afraid to ask her opinion on the subject.
The truth hit me in that moment, though: I loved Remy. And I had lost him.
“I’m glad you found each other,” I managed to say, and it was the truth.
That two people from our twisted, screwed-up, warring families had been able to be happy together was something—even if tragedy had ruined it. Too bad only I could be blamed for what had destroyed the chance of love between Remy and me.
thirty-two
* * *
Two weeks later, I trudged through the August heat to the costumer’s for dry cleaning day. A big event. We had turned over our costumes the day before, after our last show in Nashville, so they could be sent out for one last cleaning under the supervision of the head costumer. She’d checked over everything, reaffixing sequins or spangles where needed, and posted a notice in the mess about pickup time.
With each city we passed through—from Cleveland to Pittsburgh to Louisville to Nashville—the season crept closer to its end. We’d just arrived in Birmingham, and from here we moved on to our final dates in Atlanta. I’d been unable to break out of my dull, heartbroken fugue, except during my performances. I was alive only on the wire these days, or at the side curtain watching Remy perform. When I saw him elsewhere, he ignored me.
As I neared the costume trailer, I spotted his familiar dark head. For a second, I questioned whether he could be waiting for me. But that wasn’t likely. He was hanging out with a group of guys, crew members who wouldn’t have costumes to retrieve. It was undoubtedly a coincidence, and so I tried to stamp down the surge of hope.
But when he spotted me and broke off from the group, hope soared anyway. I reminded myself of the risk in hoping. He was probably just being polite, even though he swung closer so we could go to the trailer together.
“How’ve you been?” he asked.
Or maybe he was here to see me. “The bee’s knees. Whatever that means.”
“Uh-huh.”
He wasn’t buying it. I’d have to do a better job of keeping up appearances.
“You going to tonight’s party?” he asked.
Thurston liked to celebrate, even more so during the second half of the season. I suspected he wanted to distract people, give everyone an excuse to make merry and not dwell on the tragedy we’d experienced in Chicago. Tonight’s was a “season’s almost over” party.
“Thurston figured I’d skip it, so he told me I’m the guest of honor.”
“I heard. Has he done anything to make you . . . suspect he’s involved?”
I stopped. “No.”
That he cared to ask was something. Wasn’t it? Or did this mean he wanted the coin back? I’d played out that possibility again and again. I didn’t know what I’d do if he did.
He said nothing else, but opened the costume trailer’s door and held it for me to go in first. Politeness was better than being ignored—even if the cause was unclear.
The hair hanger exited past us, a blue dry cleaner bag across her arm. I ended up pressed against Remy. So close, but miles apart. I wanted to rest my cheek against his, to whisper how sorry I was in his ear. I wanted to grab hold of him, to never let go again.
I stepped away.
Inside, the costumer was visibly frazzled—this was a much busier day than normal—and peered at us over her cat’s-eye glasses, nodding. “You both have two,” she muttered, whirling to the rack behind her, thumbing through bags.
“Remy,” she said, plucking one zipper bag down and extended it to him without turning. He took it with an eye roll of good humor. “And Julieta.” She pulled mine down, turned and handed it to me. She blink-blink-blinked at me and snapped her fingers. “Wait, I have something for you. Someone left this here. I found it this morning. An admirer?” Her eyebrows lifted over her glasses’ frames as she handed me a small white box. There was no card, but someone had lettered in blocky handwriting: jules maroni.
My stupid heart assumed for a second that it was from Remy, but he crossed his arms, the costume bag hanging over them. “Open it,” he said. “I’m curious.”
“Me too,” the costumer said.
I handed the dry cleaning bags back to her so I could open the lid. When I did, I promptly dropped the box on the floor. I bent to retrieve it.
“I thought it must be a dead rat for a second, the way you reacted,” the costumer said. “Although I can see your point. That’s not your style.”
“What is it?” Remy asked.
The scarf in the box was made of thin red, white, and blue material. While not identical to the green one, the point was clear enough. And if it hadn’t been, there was a note. Short and typed on a sheet of paper:
Best of luck until the end of the season.
No signature.
Remy’s expression went darker than night.
“It is hideous,” I said, pretending that the gift was nothing. “But a present’s a present.”
“Whoever left that is not for you,” the costumer added. She thrust my bag at me, went back to the hanging rack, and rifled for the costumes of the next people coming in.
I carried out my bag and the box with Remy next to me.
“I knew it wasn’t over,” he said.
“Me too.” I had to ask, but I hated to. “Did you . . . tell anyone?”
“No.”
“I didn’t mean . . . I wouldn’t blame you. And so it’s not over. What can I do? Nothing.”
“Jules,” he said.
I hesitated, trying to determine if there was concern in his voice, whether he might still feel something.
“You’re not invulnerable. You can always do something. You can act like you know that.”
“I’m—”
“Sorry, but still ignoring everything you say,” he finished for me. “Got it. Trust me.”
I dressed up for that night’s party, more than I had been lately, when I was offstage anyhow. The dress was short and striped, a simple cut, high in the front and dipping low in the back. Nan’s fashion advice stuck: better to leave a few things to the imagination.
It was harder to slip out of a mess-tent party early these days. People were nice to me now. I danced with three acrobats in a row, followed by one of the lighting guys. I was getting ready to snag a glass of champagne and leave to mope over my encounter with Remy and mull over the creepy gift when fingers tapped my shoulder as a salsa started.
There it was again. My stupid heart, hoping. But it wasn’t Remy. Of all people, it was Novio standing there, with his hand out saying, “May I?”
I was downright shocked.
“No hard feelings,” he said, starting to turn away, but I jarred into action.
“I’d”—he wouldn’t buy love to, and I couldn’t sell it—“be happy to dance with you.”
“Really?” he asked.
“Of course,” I said. “Water, bridge, things under it.”
Maybe I could pry a few details about Remy’s current emotional state out of him. Discover whether I should turn my hope into hopelessness.
The best thing about this type of salsa was that it required little touching. He barely had my hands. Our fingertips pressed together. Impossible not to wish he was Remy, that Remy and I were dancing together again. I couldn’t help compar
ing his every step to Remy’s, the way I had his looks the first time I’d seen him, before I saw Remy with his mask off.
Novio was sharper edged than Remy, though they were obviously brothers. They had the same brow, similar shoulders. But while Novio’s eyes might be brown, they weren’t warm like Remy’s.
“Do I have something on my face?” he asked.
“Um, no, of course not,” I said. Then, as our arms brought us closer in rhythm with the song, “Why’d you ask me to dance?”
“You’re the star. Why wouldn’t I want to dance with you?”
I didn’t bother to answer that. Swallowing, I said, “How’s Dita?”
“Heartbroken. You?”
The same.
He raised his arm, twirled me beneath.
“You’re an excellent dancer,” I said, deflecting the question.
He nodded agreement. I considered faking an ankle twist. I scanned the room for a savior, and he smirked at me.
“I don’t bite, Julieta Maroni,” he said. “You seem to like the rest of us well enough, especially my baby brother. Why can’t we get along?”
“We do . . . we can.” What did he mean?
“Is your grandmother here?”
“She doesn’t like parties,” I lied.
“Probably for the best. The older generation has the biggest difficulty moving on.” I almost wept in relief to see Dita approaching. Maybe she intended to cut in and dance with me, but I whirled so Novio faced her.
“Looks like Dita needs a partner,” I said, and waved as I backed away.
Dita closed her hand around her brother’s saying, “This will be . . . new,” and I cut through the crowd. Heading outside while trying to keep an un-freaked-out smile in place.
I pulled the phone out of my bra. Another handy tip from Nan. It was a good place to stash things. I started a text to Remy. I did it all the time—some were serious, some chatty. But I always hit Save, never Send. This time, I typed out: Novio just danced with me. You’re missing everything unnatural by refusing to talk to me.
Lowering my hands, I inhaled the night air. The familiar masculine scent hit me as Remy leaned over my shoulder to look at my phone.
