Sleight (2 page)

I didn’t mind the silence, the cautious glances and sympathetic half smiles. I preferred being left on my own. And Junie hadn’t changed.

She was stil the wacky, energetic nutbal who took it upon herself to make me giggle at least once a day.

My mother’s lack of participation in my life was something I’d grown used to through the years of her hospitalizations, so even though her absence was now, like, forever, I wasn’t as sad as I thought I should be. And that made me feel realy guilty. She hadn’t shown up as a shade—yet—but there were those days when I expected to walk around a corner or come out of the bathroom and see her standing there. I kept an eye out, just in case.

When Ted and Marlene took me out to dinner our last night in Oregon, the restaurant was nicer than our usual hangouts.

Overlooking the Wilamette River. Candles on the tables. Staff wearing bowties, towels draped over their forearms. Ted in a jacket and tie, his salt-and-pepper hair slicked back and his bushy moustache gone, Marlene’s fluffy bottle-blonde hair curled and sprayed to the point of being a fire hazard, her long red nails lethal weapons. Ted ordered a huge steak, Marlene the lobster. Crème brûlée and sparkling wine for dessert. I knew then that something was up. Something big.

The Cinzio Traveling Players Company was leaving the road.

“For how long?”

“Four months, maybe longer, through the summer,” Ted said, sawing through the medium-rare slab of cow on his plate.

“Where?”

“Eaglefern, Washington.” We were due to land there the folowing day. Guess it would be for longer than our usual one-week, in-and-out stopover.

“I thought we were doing Atlanta and New Orleans this spring.” I was realy looking forward to going back to New Orleans. I loved that city.

“Not this year, Gems,” he said. He stabbed at his baked potato.

Four months was an eternity for someone who’d slept in forty-eight states by her fifteenth birthday. But my guardians had saved the best news for last.

“And, Gemma, your uncles and I, wel, we think it would be good for you to go to…wel, public school, just until the end of the year,” Aunt Marlene said. She gulped her wine after dropping that little bomb. The kids in the company had always been home-schooled by awesome tutors, a few of them retired university professors. Our tutors were so good, three of us had taken the SAT as freshman and scored in the top 20 percent in the country.

Me included.

Public school? This sucked.

“Why? Why are we stopping for so long?”

“We’re evolving. Cirque du Soleil has done it, planting themselves for longer stints in venues close to major cities. You know what they say, Gemma. Evolve or die,” Ted said. “Besides, we’ve had an offer from an investor, an old friend, Lucian Dmitri—

Dmitri Holdings is his company. That’s what I’ve been doing these last few weeks. His money wil breathe new life into the show, give us the resources to realy strengthen the acts.”

“Lucian is the one who taught Uncle Ted to be such a master magician. Isn’t that interesting, Gems?” Marlene, trying to make me care.

While they explained the details of the residential agreement that night in the restaurant (Marlene tried to sweeten things by promising lots of retail therapy, lost on me as I wasn’t much for shopping), I waited for them to finish, nodding my head and smiling when necessary. Then I presented them with my own news: early acceptance emails from two different universities, one in California, another in New York. I’d folded the letters into my purse, saving them as a sort-of surprise, knowing that they might not be too excited about my school choices. Marlene wanted me to go to Washington State University, her alma mater, but I didn’t have any interest in living in the middle of wheat fields and cow poop.

In hindsight, teling them at a different time might have been better, but it seemed the perfect strategy to suck a little of the wind out of Ted’s sails. I wanted them to know that while I would play along like a good girl with this stupid new life, it didn’t much matter in the bigger picture. I only had seven months until dorm check-in, anyway. Then I’d be off on my own real-life, big-girl adventure.

Ted waited to make the company-wide announcement until we’d already landed in Eaglefern. Most of the adults, I later learned, were already in on it. They just weren’t teling the kids for fear of a rebelion. The reactions varied, as anticipated: elation from the animal wranglers and trainers and the wire/trapeze artists who grappled with il-tempered creatures and faulty riggings that came with frequent location changes, and groans from (most of) the under-eighteen crowd who loved the excitement of discovering new turf and new faces every other week. No groans from adorable, trapeze-flying, daredevil Junie, though. What a surprise.

“Isn’t this awesome, Gems? REAL school, for, like, four months! We can go to our first real parties, a real dance, meet some cool people, maybe some new guys…mmm…,” she said, dreamy-eyed. Easy words for a girl who can befriend a tree. “Trust me, Gems, it’s gonna be sweet.”

Marlene did her best to be encouraging. “Ah, Gemma, think of the friends you’l make! And what about joining the track and field team? I know how much you like to run, and I’m sure any coach would be glad to have you. Besides, formal graduation is in June—

that’s just four months away. How much damage can be done in a few measly months?”

Throughout my days as a circus kid, I’d stood three stories above the ground to hold riggings in place during set-up, no net yet strung, only the strong arms and luck of a technician to catch me should I misstep and plummet toward sawdust. I’d hand-fed massive, chop-licking lions and napped alongside baby elephants.

I’d handled blades sharp enough to cut through to the bone and swung tethered to a trapeze artist high in the big top. I could see dead people, for Pete’s sake, floating around grocery stores and public parks and libraries. Lions didn’t scare me. High wires were child’s play. The shades? Meh, what’s a few dead people between friends?

But public school was one of those mysteries that blanketed me in a foreign, uneasy sensation. I think they cal it terror.

Al I had to do was claw my way through the next four months.

Yeah, that was all I had to do.

:3:

I prithee send me back my heart,

Since I cannot have thine;

For if from yours you will not part,

Why, then, shouldst thou have mine?

—Sir John Suckling

The box from New Horizons Welness Sanctuary had been sitting in my end of the fifth wheel for weeks, unopened. At night, I could hear the box beckoning me, whispers of my mother’s diseased brain taunting me to cut through the tape and have a walk through what was left of her existence. To drown her out, I’d begun sleeping with my iPod on its loudest setting, luling me to sleep with The Dead Weather and 30 Seconds to Mars, the occasional Ozzy and Marilyn Manson thrown in there to make it louder, angrier.

Then I’d sleep like a baby.

Marlene tried to cheer me up, get me excited about starting school, by offering to take me shopping. Numbness was the emotion du jour, so walking through a crowded mal to try on jeans and bras was nothing more than a series of movements to keep the peace. On autopilot, my arm hooked through Marlene’s so we wouldn’t lose one another in the crowd, me faking smiles when something fit, thanking her graciously when she handed over a stack of hundreds to a stunned cashier at the Apple store. The one perk to Dmitri Holdings taking over Cinzio? Cash.

I had avoided the communal dining thing since the cal had come in from the mental hospital. Delia’s shrink, Dr. Talbot, was forever branded into my memory as the man who kiled Christmas. “We have some unfortunate news, Gemma.” Yeah, you could say that.

He made the Grinch look like, wel, Santa.

While she understood, Junie missed me at the dinner table, her acquired sister and confidante. But she left me alone. Lately, I’d spent most of my non-study time in the company of Gertrude and Jiminy. My elephants never left me wanting for anything after my time with them. A few apples and a gentle rub to the forehead was al they asked.

I slipped into the meal tent and grabbed some food: chicken breast and steamed asparagus for me, three apples in the left front pocket and two leftover bran muffins in the right (thanks to Chef Jean-Pierre) for the pachys. I did what I could to avoid being noticed, although the shade who lives in the tent looked up at me as I passed through with my plate. He’d been with us for a long time, as long as I could remember, minding his own business, always sitting in the same spot in the southwest corner no matter where we set up the tent, in Kentucky or Idaho. He was perpetualy whittling, the same piece of wood, always the same look on his face. At the time of his death, he couldn’t have been much older than Ted, but his hair was al grey, not like Ted’s that got the monthly chop-and-dye treatment from Marlene. The whittler didn’t often make eye contact with me but when he did, his face looked sad. I’l bet he was waiting for someone.

After a good trunk nuzzle and replenishing of hay, I sat and contemplated eating my dinner. Seemed the early spring horseflies were more interested in it than I was, so I scooted the plate onto another hay bale and let them go at it.

“Hey…” Ash’s voice startled me.

“Hey.”

“You don’t feel like hanging out?” he said, nodding toward the dining tent.

“Nah. Too noisy.”

“Yeah, they’re pretty excited in there. So many new clothes and toys in one day. I think Junie’s head is going to explode.” Ash stood in the opened tent-flap doorway and lit a Marlboro Red. “Want one?”

I shook my head no.

“So, how’s it going, Gems? Ya know…you doin’ okay?”

“Fine. Everything’s fabulous,” I said.

“You nervous about going to Eaglefern?”

“Doesn’t matter how I feel about it. It’s happening, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I suppose. But it doesn’t have to be al bad,” Ash said.

“Maybe it’s going to be good for us to meet new people and stuff.

Be normal for once.”

“I like being abnormal.” I picked a piece of hay from my bale and set to puling it into shreds, my fingernail puncturing the yelow shaft.

Ash snuffed out the butt on the sole of his shoe and flicked it into a muck bucket. Then he plopped down next to me, his arm around my shoulders.

“You thinking about your mom?”

“No.”

“Then what’s going on? Junie and me, we’re worried about you.

We know you’re going through a rough time, but you never talk to us anymore. You’re…different.” He moved his finger to my chin and turned my face so I could look at nothing else but the hazel brown of his eyes. The scent of nicotine was heady on his fingertips.

I could feel the pressure of tears building, but crying would solve nothing. People would stil leave, they’d stil die, decisions would be made without my consent. What would be the use in crying?

I turned away. “I am different, Ash. I’m an orphan. For real.”

“You’l never be an orphan. The Cinzios would never let that happen. Hel, my parents would adopt you before that would happen. And you’l be eighteen in a few months, anyway.” His left hand moved to rest atop my right. “If it’s school you’re worried about, you won’t eat alone. Junie and I wil be there, too. Three Amigos and al that shit. Yeah?” He held up his pinky finger. “I, Ash Thomassen, hereby solemnly pinky-promise to Gemma Flannery that she won’t wander the hals or eat lunch alone, unless, of course, she chooses to.”

I wrapped my pinky around his and gave the automated smile designed to make the people around me feel like maybe I wasn’t going to jump off the nearest cliff, that there was hope lying dormant under the despair. But he made it sound too easy. Ash was adorable, dangerous, charming…and manipulative. A legend in his own mind.

“And think of al the smokin’ hot babes just waiting for us to conquer,” he added, flexing and kissing one of his biceps. And thus the truth according to Ash was revealed: our imminent enrolment at Eaglefern High School wasn’t about advanced learning opportunities but rather about finding fresh meat.

“Junie’s open to the possibilities. Maybe you should be, too. A little Mr. Right action, yeah?” He elbowed me and wiggled his eyebrows. “I mean, even my folks are saying that it wil be good for us to meet new kids.”

I nudged him with my shoulder. “I don’t need to meet new kids.

And I sure as hel don’t need to meet Mr. Right.” What made Ash and I so far apart in our outlooks was that he wanted the attention from other people; he wanted the throngs of teenage girls to swoon at his bravery, the sultry eyes, washboard abs, and that mussed brown hair. And swoon they would. Hel, I’d done my fair share of dreaming about Ash over the years. He was cute, funny, even crazy sometimes, but in a hilarious prankster, stomachache-from-laughing way. I guess with a job as life-and-death as the trapeze, every day was a big day for Ash.

But I couldn’t have cared less if anyone at EHS, male or female, paid attention to me. Ever. The less attention, the better.

Ash dropped his arm from its protective wrap around me and stood, his left hand out. “Come on. They fired up the ice cream machine tonight in honor of the special occasion. Chocolate almond fudge and strawberry cheesecake, your faaaaavs,” he sang. “I’l scoop you a cone myself.” Ash reached down and puled me to my feet.

His hand was soft, the skin-on-skin contact flushing my cheeks.

We left Gertrude and her baby behind and walked back toward the meal tent. I knew this moment, however fleeting, would mean far more to me than to Ash come tomorrow. Somehow, I was okay with that, as he held my hand for the thirty-plus paces without release, without making some stupid Ash joke, without giving off the slightest hint of regret. For the first time in weeks, I smiled.

:4:

In pursuit of education, share not the magnificence of your ideas. He is your enemy, your target. To engage in seasons of camaraderie will make you one of them: weak.

—Cailum Tridin, La Una (The One)

In a traveling circus, there’s no such thing as private quarters. I shared mine with Irwin and usualy Marlene, depending on if she and Ted were getting along. He snored too loud and smoked too much to keep bunkmates, even those of the wifely sort. And with the new residential arrangement, our ranks had sweled from around fifty to sixty performers and crew to over a hundred. Space had become a valuable commodity.