That Time I Joined the Circus (8 page)

Winter Springs, Florida — Monday, October 25

I was sitting on the grass outside the trailer, trying to sew two smaller pieces of fabric together to make a curtain. It smelled like rain, but it was still very warm. Even the ground was warm. All of a sudden, the sky darkened, and I stabbed myself with the needle.

I realized as I sucked the blood from my finger that there
was someone standing over me. He was blocking the light, so his features were indistinct, but I could tell right away that he was handsome. I mean, ridiculous. Square jaw, shiny black hair. Muscles bulging, visible though he wore a white button-up shirt.

“Who the hell are you?” he bellowed at me without preamble.

I always want to react appropriately to rude people. Later, I can always think of the perfect response. But my tragic flaw is that I always, always pause for just a second before I do or say anything. And with that second the moment passes. I spent that crucial second gaping at him instead of speaking, and he moved around me so that I could see his face clearly, by this time half hoping he had a beaky nose or bad skin. No such luck.

“I said, who the hell are you? Are you deaf?” he snarled at me.

“I’d rather be deaf than be like … you are.” Wow. That was the lamest comeback in the history of forever.

“I was told my mother’s replacement was here. But Louie must have gone insane,” he mused aloud, as if I weren’t even sitting there. “He’s run off a seasoned professional, someone he’d made a commitment to, and hired a rude child.”

I got to my feet, struggling a bit with the fabric that wanted to tangle itself around my ankles. “Child?” I snapped. “Look here, buddy. I don’t know who the hell you think
you
are, but let me tell you something: I am not rude, and I am
not a child. You are the one who’s rude, you big, rude …” I sputtered, unable to think of a word horrible enough that I had the guts to utter just then.

“Big, rude what? Nothing to say? Times must be tough if they think people will pay money to get advice from an unpleasant teenager.”

He
looked
young, but he talked like he was forty-five. “Unpleasant! Have you
met
yourself? What have I ever done to you?”

“What have you done? Oh, nothing. Just what your kind always does. You show up — where you’re not wanted, by the way — and take the job of someone born to this life, someone with nowhere else to go. I’ve known your kind before, again and again: a bored young dilettante who just wants to stick it to mommy and daddy, so you run off to join the circus. You’ll stay maybe one season, if Louie’s lucky. And then you’ll go back to your real life. Tell me, what did Daddy do that was so terrible that you just had to run away? Ground you for the weekend? Did he take away your credit card?”

I knew I shouldn’t, even in the moment I knew it. But he’d pushed me pretty far.

“He died!” I heard myself scream, and I watched all the color drain from his handsome face.

And then I burst into tears.

When I got a tentative hold on myself, I looked at the guy again — who still seemed stricken — and then I started crying all over again, feeling like a really bad person for saying
what I’d said about my dad, all to sort of win an argument, really. And then I just cried harder.

It took a couple of seconds for me to realize
where
I was crying — in his arms, the arms of the guy who had just been yelling at me. After I pulled myself together for a second time, I blew my nose on one of the spare pieces of material that he handed me, and I looked at him. I took a step back, and he lowered his arms. All of his anger definitely seemed to be gone, but he still stood tensely; probably he was afraid to say or do anything for fear I would start sobbing again.

He ran a hand through his thick hair, looked away and exhaled, then met my eyes. “I am so sorry. So sorry! Please forgive me. I was just worried … My mother was turned out from here, it seems. And I didn’t know. I don’t actually know where she is, so I was upset, you understand … But that’s no excuse for what I said to you. Please accept my apology.”

I met his eyes. He was one of those people who had a stare that was just a little too intense. And the freaking movie-star looks weren’t helping, either. I was so caught up with the staring, I hadn’t noticed he’d extended his hand. I took it, and his hand closed around mine, very warm. He placed his other hand across my forearm.

“I’m Nicolae,” he told me. “The jerk.” He smiled a little, ruefully. “You are Lexi?” He said his name like
nick-o-lye
, but there was an exotic, foreign lilt to the way he pronounced it, though I didn’t hear it in the rest of his words.

“Yes.” I remembered to breathe. “I guess you heard all about me,” I added a little dryly, wiping my eyes of the last remnants of tears.

“Not all,” he amended softly. “Again, please forgive me. It’s just, growing up in this life, I’ve dealt with so many spoiled brats who come here to run away from something.”

“Well, in point of fact, I guess that includes me, too. But I didn’t actually have anywhere else to go …” I trailed off, not sure why I was starting to be in such a confiding mood all of a sudden with the guy who’d just been insulting me. I used picking up the fabric pieces as an excuse to get my bearings. He bent to help me, and our hands brushed again, and I noticed that he seemed electrically charged. But maybe I was just imagining things in my weirdly overemotional state.

“Obviously your situation is … quite different from what I assumed. I should not have assumed. I was angry, and you got in the way.”

I stopped myself from pointing out that I had actually been sitting in a quiet corner of a field, sewing, out of the way of everybody in pretty much the entire universe.

“Do you need some help with these?” He gestured with his armful of fabric.

“I’ll take them,” I told him, leaning forward to catch the pile. “Thanks,” I mumbled. I felt a bit weird thanking him after the tirade of a few moments before.

I turned away to take the armload into the trailer
and was surprised when he followed. He looked around inside.

“You will need some things,” he observed. “To make this work. I’ll bring them tomorrow.”

With that, he was gone. I stood in the middle of the trailer and held the armful of fabric in midair for a few seconds, trying to figure out what had just happened. I realized as I stood there that if this guy had a problem with circus newcomers, he would
not
have approved of my mother.

And what had dear old Mom been running away from? Oh yeah — me.

13 Broome Street — Tuesday, September 28

Lots of times, I will imagine that there’s a fire and I have to figure out what to take with me. If the fire were right now, at Sheldon Prep, that would be an easy answer — the entire contents of my backpack and a song in my heart (assuming the fire is like a total conflagration and not just enough to make everything moist and smell like smoke). I pictured Dad’s sad face and my faux-sympathy for his private school plans, now gone up in literal smoke.

I sniffed the air surreptitiously from my usual seat in the extreme back of my AP Gov classroom. Not even a hint of smoke. I was situated very deliberately behind Georgie Latimer, who was a linebacker, or some kind of backer, in football — one of those big dudes, anyway. Nestled safely behind Georgie, I had managed the first three weeks of school without Mr. Ness even noticing me. I figured I was probably good for the rest of the semester.

So I went back to planning what I would take if there were a fire at our apartment. First, obviously, my laptop — with all my music. Second, both iPods, and my Bose headphones, if for some reason they weren’t actually in my ears at the time. One of the best inventions of the modern age has to be really amazing headphones. If it hadn’t been for headphones, for example, I would probably be hearing Mr. Ness lecturing about something truly horrible, like supply-side economics, instead of what I was actually hearing: a really nice early nineties independent scene playlist, with a little Built to Spill, some Pavement, a dash of Promise Ring.

Argh! Suddenly Georgie Latimer was out of his seat and on the move — that was a first. I hurried to yank the headphones off of my ears, fiddling with my notebook for a diversion. In my failed attempt to be cool, I knocked my notebook off my desk. Mr. Ness gave me a brief look before continuing his lecture. Unfortunately, now he knew I was back here. I could only hope he would forget. At least it was only a one-semester course.

I started putting my notebook back together — it was the only one I used, and I mostly used it for nonschool stuff, like playlists and shopping lists. But there was an envelope in it that I hadn’t seen before. In fact, I don’t think I’d ever seen any envelopes of any kind in with my notebooks. Gavin was not really the type to buy office supplies, and we paid almost all our bills online. I mean, we got mail, of course, but I tossed most of it before even going upstairs. This wasn’t a
reused envelope; it was a new white one with only one letter written on it:
X
. It didn’t take me too many seconds to figure out, even though one letter isn’t much of a handwriting sample. It was from Eli.

I looked around like a spy or something, even though neither Eli nor Bailey had this class with me. And in the next second I called myself an idiot, because why should it matter who might see me open an envelope that I found in my own notebook, with my own name on it? I ripped it open and pulled out the single sheet of notebook paper inside. It was folded three ways, like it was some sort of official legal document —
so
Eli. But he had only written three sentences on it, in pencil. It said:

Today? How long had this thing been in here? Not long, probably — I dropped it at least once a day, although usually I was more careful in my government class hidey-hole. Luckily Eli had picked a meeting place where I could go and hang without feeling stupid. Although why had he slipped me this note, rather than just asking me?

I went straight home after school. Nothing unusual there. It’s not like I didn’t do anything after school ever — I mean,
no one’s getting out of having at least a couple of extracurriculars for their college applications, right? But I didn’t have anything going on right then — yearbook hadn’t started meeting yet, and neither had literary magazine. So it was back to the Bowery for me every day at three o’clock. I almost always walked the fourteen blocks home, unless there was a downpour or something.

The walk was uneventful and gave me a chance to listen to the rest of the playlist I had started in AP Gov. I realized it needed more up-tempo songs. It was pretty much a suicide mix. This realization reminded me of the uncomfortable dinner with Gavin last week. I had to snap out of this funk, or Gavin was gonna institute weekly dinners/serious conversations with me.

When I got home, I threw my bag on the kitchen table and stomped down the hall to my room. I put my Nano on its speakers and hit play, then sat down on my bed and was pulling off my tights when I heard Eli yelp, “Xandra!”

“What the — Eli! You scared me!”

Eli had cheated — he had crawled inside my room instead of staying on the fire escape, and he was sitting on my window seat. Hence his unprecedented view of my, er, tights-removal situation, and my almost-coronary.

“God, Eli! How did you get home so much faster than me? Did you, like, run?”

Eli shook his head, though he had been kind of shaking his head in a dazed way since I’d noticed him. But the shaking got a bit more vigorous, and in another couple of seconds
he regained his verbal faculties. “Yes — I mean, no — I didn’t run or walk. Bailey’s mom picked her up and they gave me a ride on their way.”

“My apartment was on their way? Sounds kind of unlikely.”

“What do you even mean? Bailey’s mom and dad are just regular people, like our parents — like our families.”

I gave him a look, kicking the rest of my tights off. “Eli, on your way out, take a look at my apartment. Then, when you go home, look at yours. Step three, when you go home with Bailey tomorrow or whatever, open your eyes. Then maybe get back to me on that whole
regular
theory.”

“You’re so critical of Bailey’s family because they have money. What’s up with that?”

“Eli, I’m critical of pretty much everything. You used to be, too, not that long ago.”

He just looked at me for a second without talking, Neko Case filling up the silence. “You mean before Bailey,” he said finally.

“Shoot, this song’s way too new.” I got up and walked over to my tiny desk, picking up my laptop, meaning to fix the playlist and hopefully change the subject.

“God, X. You are so concerned with classifying everything, making sure every song is in its perfect little playlist slot. But when it comes to actually
talking
…”

I whirled around. “So talk, Eli. Seriously, speak. I mean, you must actually have something to say to me for a change. I’m not really sure why you had to hide a note in my stuff
today and make, like, an
appointment
to talk to me, but whatever. Go ahead — what’s this interesting thing you have to tell me?”

“Ask you,” he said, very quietly. “It was something I wanted to ask you. And I didn’t hide that note today. I put it in there yesterday. You didn’t come home until after I had to be home myself. I waited.”

I sat down then, across from where he sat on the window seat, in my little desk chair. “Oh — I’m sorry. I wondered how long the note had been in there. But, Eli, we just … We used to talk
all the time
, is the thing …” I stopped, feeling stupid tears pricking my eyes, feeling stupid period.

“I know, X. And that’s kind of what I wanted to ask you. I mean, I know things have been different, that we don’t see each other as much. This summer —”

“You were gone.”

“I was with Bailey, yeah. I remember. That’s not what I wanted. I mean …” Eli stopped, standing up and starting to pace. This was my best friend for almost my whole life, in my room,
pacing
, like he was working up the nerve to talk to me.

“Eli, whatever it is, say it. I’m a big girl. I can take it.”

Eli stopped his pacing and stood in front of me, looking at me but not speaking. Just as it was about to get mega-weird, and I was just going to have to say something to make it stop, he opened his mouth to speak.

“It’s nothing — forget it. I thought you might be mad at
me about this summer. About going away. I felt like I owed you an apology or something.”

“Oh-kay,” I began slowly. “No, you don’t owe me anything — I’m not upset or mad or anything like that.”
Liar!

“Oh, well, good. I just wanted to make sure. Cool. Well, I’ll see you at school.”

With that, he was gone, halfway down the fire escape before I could make fun of his whole “cool” situation. Not only had he taken to pacing in front of me, he was talking to me like I was a total stranger. Better and better.

It wasn’t until about a half an hour later, as I stared without comprehension at the pages of my math textbook, that I remembered the note. I picked it up and read it again, just to be sure. Yep, there it was:
I have sort of an interesting question for you.
Whatever that question had been, Eli hadn’t asked it.