The Cirque (10 page)

“It’s beautiful.” I nodded toward the painting.

Rather than acknowledge my compliment, he just stood there, quietly watching me. I couldn’t help connect the painting of the angel with our act – with me. Not only was it good, but there was something familiar about his work. Then I recognized his style and knew he’d also painted the target board we used during the show, the one with angel wings.

In a rare moment of vulnerability, his eyes softened and searched mine. It was like I could see straight into him, through everything he’d been trying to keep hidden. He opened his mouth to say something then stopped himself. I wondered how he would explain the painting, but he stayed quiet.

He slowly brought his hand up toward my neck. I barely breathed while his fingers grazed softly across my throat. He reached for a stray lock of hair and tucked it behind my ear. His fingertips were warm and left a tingling trail along my skin.

It was like he studied me for details he wanted to memorize and paint later. In the dimly lit, intimate confines of the trailer, it felt like too much. I felt an indescribable attraction to him as we stood
there, just inches apart, with our eyes locked together.

“Here’s your shirt,” I said stupidly, thrusting it at him.

He took it and tossed it on his bed without breaking eye contact with me.

I was self-conscious just standing there. “What?”

“Nothing.” He dropped his head, looking unsure.

Why hadn’t I seen that Dmitri was the one not to be trusted and Gabriel was…? I wished for the chance to do things over again – things that wouldn’t make me feel so disappointed in myself.

Gabriel was still standing quietly watching me and suddenly I had no clue what I was doing here. “I guess I’ll see you tonight,” I said finally, and turned to leave.

He stayed silent.

Even if he might be dangerous, I couldn’t seem to keep myself away from him. Deep down I knew I was falling for him. Hard. And that was very stupid.

The next morning Del called a meeting, so we all gathered in the open gymnasium, waiting for him to arrive. While we stood around, people competed to one up each other with who could stretch farther, or do more pushups. I kept my eyes away from Dmitri’s little group though I could hear them laughing and carrying on from where I stood.

Del had gathered us to introduce two new members of the team. They’ been part of the New York auditions but hadn’t been able to join us until now due to other obligations. He motioned for a small girl who stood next to him to step forward. He introduced her as Hope. She looked to be close to my age, or maybe a little older. She was extremely thin,
ballerina
thin. Del said that she was a contortionist, the first we’d had at the show apparently, and she came to us from the bigger and more well-known Cirque du Soleil.

Del patted the back of a guy standing on his other side. His name was Shane and he was introduced as a dancer. Shane had sandy blond hair, a medium build and a friendly open expression on his face.

After the meeting, people began to disperse. Sasha nudged me. “Let’s go meet the new guy.”

I followed her over to where he was stretching alone on a mat. I remembered being intimidated my first day around all the established performers. He smiled at us with perfect, white teeth.

“Hi, I’m Sasha and this is Ari,” she said.

He stood and shook our hands. “Shane. Nice to meet you.”

“So, you’re dancer?” I asked.

“Yeah, mostly contemporary. I do choreography too. Del’s not sure what to do with me just yet though.”

I nodded. I knew the feeling.

Sasha jumped in. “Ari’s a dancer too – you guys should work together on something to show Del.”

“You’re a dancer?” Shane’s broad smile was back.

“Ballet. But I
love
contemporary dance.” I smiled back. I felt good to be in the company of another dancer. I hadn’t realized I’d missed that connection. We made a plan to meet up later.

Sasha and I took a walk around the showgrounds, enjoying the late morning sunshine. At the end of the lot, I noticed a big RV, much more upscale than the trailers given to the performers. I asked Sasha who it belonged to.

“Del and Marta,” she said.

I hadn’t realized Del and Marta were a couple and something about that seemed odd. Maybe it was because she was about six inches taller than Del…. But hey, whatever. Marta was a former Vegas showgirl with an Eastern European accent I’d yet to identify. When we got closer to the trailer, we heard voices arguing inside. The trailer door swung open and Gabriel stormed down the steps and took off past us.

“What was that about?” I looked to Sasha.

“Apparently last night there was a scuffle between Gabriel and Dmitri,” she said. We reached the end of the lane and turned to circle back through the trailers. I looked at Sasha, waiting for her to continue. “Gabriel overheard him talking about you to his friends and…may have threatened Dmitri with a knife.”

It didn’t surprise me that Dmitri was trash-talking me to his friends, what confused me was Gabriel’s reaction. He kept coming to my rescue, yet held himself back from developing any type of real connection with me.

“I hope he’s not in too much trouble with Del,” I said.

“Nah, Del likes him. He just doesn’t tolerate anyone messing around like that.”

“What do you know about Gabriel’s background?”

“He showed up here about a year ago with a bunch of knives and Del couldn’t say ‘no.’” She smiled.

“It’s just that I know practically nothing about him,” I pressed
further.

“That’s for him to tell you. He didn’t have the privileged upbringing you did and he keeps his distance from everyone.”

I wondered if there were more to it, like maybe he couldn’t let anyone know his real identity because he was on the run. I wondered what his family life had been like and how much Sasha knew that she wasn’t telling.

“Do you think the rumors about him are true?”

“Depends on what you heard,” she said, being coy.

I waited a few seconds before continuing. I had to make sure my voice wouldn’t crack. “I heard he was wanted for murder,” I said, my voice low.

“Where’d you hear that?” she asked too quickly.

“Dmitri.”

“Just forget about everything
he
told you.” Sasha left me out by the picnic table wondering why she hadn’t denied it was true. After a few minutes of staring blankly down at the dirt, I took a deep breath and made my weekly phone call to my parents.

It was dinnertime in Italy and my mom was expecting company any minute, so we didn’t talk for long. But she still managed to sneak in a few questions about how
Sleeping Beauty
was shaping up and questioned me about my extensions and jumps and if they were getting any higher. It was becoming more and more difficult to lie to her as with each day that passed I felt the ballet side of me slipping away. Luckily, she was distracted and never seemed to notice anything was off with me, which was both a relief and kind of sad. If she discovered I’d been cut from the ballet company and was slumming it as a target girl and living in a trailer, I knew I’d lose what I had left of her respect.

I knew why she pushed me – she was a failed ballerina turned amateur artist. She relied on my dad for everything and I couldn’t help but wonder that if she had something of her own, maybe she wouldn’t be trapped in their loveless marriage. She wanted better for me. She wanted me to have choices she didn’t – and she saw ballet as her missed ticket to a better life…. I figured that’s why she steered me in that direction.

She believed I had succeeded where she had not. Though my mom gave it a good go, she was all wrong for ballet. She was too impulsive, her legs too short, her body more squat than it should be. I was made to be a dancer, my mother had told me from the time I was small. I was lean, with both strength and grace. My hair looked perfect pulled tight in a bun, showing off my long neck, and fine bone structure. But I was missing an important element my mom refused to see – the heart for it.

I changed into a leotard and wrap skirt and grabbed my pointe shoes then went to the gym to find Shane. He was there waiting for me with a smile on his face. We started with introductions to each other’s dancing abilities. I performed some basic positions, demi-plié and grand-plié and then showed him some more challenging moves I knew, pirouettes, adage and split jumps. It had been awhile since I performed en pointe and my toes screamed in protest, but my body remembered everything.

Shane changed the music from classical to something deep and soulful and showed me his moves. His legs were long and really flexible. When he leaped off the ground and extended them, it was amazing. His dancing was freeform and flowing, much less structured than ballet. His body went where he wanted it to. His posture was erect and perfect, and he turned his feet out, pointing his toes. No detail was overlooked, from the position and placement of his wrists, to his hands and neck. It was beautiful to watch him. I knew why Del had hired him without any act in mind just yet.

Shane was also accustomed to partner work and we tried a few lifts together. He had me stand with my feet shoulder
width apart and he ducked down and picked me up with the back of his neck, so I was balanced across his shoulders. He lifted me easily and spun me around.

Then I saw Gabriel watching us from the doorway. His eyes looked dark. “Set me down.” I tapped
Shane’s shoulder.

Shane leaned over so I could place my feet on the floor and
he dislodged me from his neck. “That’s probably enough for today,” he said. He turned off the music. “So, you wanna work together?”

“Yeah, do you?”

“Definitely. I’ll work on choreographing a routine for us. It’ll take me a couple of days though,” he said.

“That works. I’ll see you later, okay?”

Without waiting for his response, I jogged out after Gabriel and found him in his training room.

“Hey.” I stepped inside the doorway.

“Hi.” He didn’t look up from examining his knives on the table. He picked up the ax and thumbed the blade.

I didn’t know where we stood. We had shared some type of moment in his trailer, but I wasn’t sure if he was still mad at me for how I’d played things with Dmitri. Or how he felt about me working with Shane. “What happened with Del earlier?” I asked.

He shrugged, ignoring my question. “So, you’ve already moved on? Done with the Russian, and now you’ve latched onto the new guy?” He threw a knife angrily at the target and I shuddered involuntarily. The handle vibrated back and forth until he went and pulled it free.

“What are you mad about? That I was dancing?”

“That didn’t look like dancing when I walked in.” I remembered how I’d been balanced with Shane’s head between my legs, though there had been nothing sexual about it.

“Just let me practice, Ari,” Gabriel said, dismissing me, sounding defeated.

“You want to practice? Let’s practice!” I walked over and stood rigidly in front of the target.

“You don’t have to do this.” His eyes looked troubled and his veins bulged against his arms. Even though I trusted him, I wondered if it were a good idea to practice when he was angry.

“Just do it, Gabriel.”

He flung the first blade and stuck loudly next to my thigh. I winced away from it. He lifted his arm to release the next blade and the moment it left his fingertips, I moved involuntarily, flinching away from the blade headed toward me. It grazed my left arm and without looking down to see if I’d been hit or if it was just the air whooshing past me, I ran from the room.

I ran for my trailer, refusing to cry in front of him. I sat down on my bed and with fumbling fingers, began untying the ribbons of my dance shoes. Gabriel came in and rushed to me. He took my arm in his hands, turned it over, inspecting me with a pained expression.

“It’s fine,” I said, pulling back from him.

Relief washed over him when he saw I was perfectly intact. He sat on the floor in front of me and released a breath he’d been holding.

With a sadness in his eyes that I didn’t understand
he watched me untie the ribbons. The intensity of the moment in his training room was gone. But it was replaced by something even more unsettling. One look from Gabriel could send my heart galloping.

He picked up the jar sitting on the floor at my feet. “Tiger Balm?” he read. He opened the jar, and sniffed it.

I glanced at him and presumed he was looking inside for bits of tiger. “Don’t worry, no tigers were harmed in the making,” I said without looking up from the ribbons of my shoes.

He smirked and sat down next to me on the narrow twin bed. He seemed out of place sitting on my pink comforter. “What’s it for?”

“Aches and pains. Pulled muscles from dancing, that type of thing. I mostly use it on my feet.” I pulled my feet up to sit cross-legged and left the shoes on.

He motioned for me to go ahead. “Don’t let me stop you.”

“I don’t let people see my feet.”