The Cirque (3 page)

He led me over to the red-headed girl who’d spoken to me outside. She smiled at me and I wondered if she’d known we were roommates the entire time. She turned to Dmitri with a look of disgust. “Leave it to Dmitri. Already after the fresh meat.”

“I just wanted to introduce your new roommate.” He
grinned.

“Hi again.”

Sasha did not look happy. She looked pointedly from Dmitri then back to me. “Are you sure you’re ready for all this?”

“Yeah. I am.” My voice sounded more
confident than I felt, but regardless, I’d made up my mind. I was staying. “Nice meeting you, Dmitri.”

He flashed me his brilliant white smile. “If you ever want me to show you around – just ask.” He turned to leave, and then glanced back once more. “And I’d steer clear of Gabriel if I were you,” he warned.

As Dmitri walked away, a blond guy in his twenties, wearing pressed khakis and loafers without socks, walked over to us. “Oh,
hells
no…. He’s going to be on her like a fat kid on a cupcake, isn’t he?”

“Ari, meet Tanner – the show’s makeup artist.” Sasha gestured to him. A slow grin was spreading across his face. “You’ll quickly learn he doesn’t have a filter, so I hope for your sake you’re not easily offended.”

“I, um… no. It’s fine.” I still didn’t know what to make of his comment. Male attention wasn’t something I was used to. The selection of straight guys in ballet school was limited, as was my experience with them.

“Oh, honey.” He smushed my face between his hands. “These cheekbones, these pouty lips…. We’re gonna make you a star.” He released my face and I made a point of straightening my jaw. He turned, asking Sasha, “What’s her act?”

She clapped a hand on my shoulder. “She’s slated to be Gabriel’s next victim.” Her eyes were smiling, but her face was serious. I couldn’t even begin to guess at the meaning lacing her words, but Tanner didn’t seem concerned.

“Ah, speak of the devil,” he said.

Gabriel appeared next to me. I stepped back to give him more space.

“Be careful with this one,” Tanner said looking at Gabriel. “She looks like a doll and I really want to make her up.”

It suddenly felt like I was missing a vital piece of information.
Why was the target girl job open?

“He’s kidding,” Sasha threw in, reading my worried look. “You’ll be fine.”

I let out an uneasy laugh. “Should we practice together?” I asked Gabriel.

He shrugged. “If you want to.”

I followed him across the gym. He led me to his target and stopped beside it.

“So how does this work?” I ran my finger along the handle of a knife protruding from the target. “I always thought they were fake knives that popped up from behind the target.”

“Um, no.” He pulled the knives free. “Do you want to see?”

My only experience with his act –
our
act – was comprised of the brief moments during tryouts. Even though I didn’t want to get in front of the target again, I did want to see him perform.

He sensed my hesitation. “You can just watch this time.”

I nodded and walked back from the target with him. He shifted his feet apart and gripped the knife by its blade between his thumb and forefinger. He lifted it overhead and swung his arm down, releasing a breath the same moment it left his fingers. The blade whistled sharply through the air and struck the target dead center – right where I would have stood. My stomach jumped to my throat and stayed there.

Before either of us had a chance to comment on what just happened, I heard my name being called in a Russian accent. Dmitri approached us from his trapeze.

“This doesn’t look like the safest activity,” he said once he was closer. “We could go get you warmed up on the trampoline,” he said, smiling at me again.

Gabriel stiffened next to me. Why were they staring at each other like two hungry pit bulls? I felt like a
trunk of new tutus that everyone was clamoring for. It was bizarre to be the focal point of their attention.

Gabriel turned toward me. “If you’re worried about how to fit in here – hanging around me isn’t the way to do it.”

I was mesmerized by Gabriel’s sky-blue eyes, and the intense vibe he gave off. My entire body hummed to attention when he was near. But his reaction obviously didn’t match mine at all. He was practically handing me over to Dmitri.

Dmitri’s hand on the small of my back guided me away before I had the chance to decide
between them. But a sharp whistle quieted the room and we followed the others into a circle around Del. I found Sasha and went to stand by her, not wanting to pick sides between the guys.

“Welcome back!” Del’s voice boomed. “Our fifteenth season is going to be our best yet. We have some new members of the team to introduce today.”

My cheeks threatened to turn pink in preemptive embarrassment. He introduced the couple from the hand-balancing team – Nikola and Ana, from Croatia. Del turned his head, looking around at the crowd spread around him. “Where’s my little ballerina?”

I knew then they were going to know I didn’t belong here. That I had no business among these people.

“Ah! Ariel.” He’d spotted me.

“Ari,” I managed.

“She’ll be working with Gabriel,” he added, pleased with himself. The scowls on the faces around me at the mention of Gabriel’s name told me he was an outcast. I fought the urge to look for his face in the crowd, and instead became fascinated by the floor in front of my feet.

Del went through some announcements and a few more introductions of the newly hired staff – there were lighting techs and production assistants who were also new. When he started going through the list of tour cities, my ears perked up. We would start with Toronto in two weeks, and then move on to Chicago, Minneapolis, and Fargo before heading out west, where the list of cities grew longer. Anticipation at escaping my former life bubbled up inside me, threatening to overflow. But the other half of me was terrified of the unknown.
What was I getting myself into? Could I really pull off lying to my parents while they were away?
Dmitri and Gabriel’s attention was already flustering me…and oh, and there was that little detail of surviving my act.

In the two weeks that led up to our opening show in Toronto, I gained a little more confidence about my decision. And as it neared time to begin our summer tour, I packed and got my apartment ready for my time away. Luckily when I graduated school a few weeks earlier, I’d talked my parents into letting go of the nanny they’d hired to check on me several times a week while I completed high school in the city. And of course I didn’t breathe a word of all this cirque business to anyone. It sounded strange
even admitting it to myself.

As I boarded the huge tour bus for the nine-hour drive to Toronto, I started to believe I could actually pull off this summer of freedom. If I continued the weekly phone calls to my parents while they were away,
maybe this would work. They’d never suspect me of stepping out of line. In fact, my mom had actually been encouraging a level of independence recently, even asked me if I was seeing anyone. I doubted my old dance instructor would call my mother…. One, because he despised her, and two since I was no longer a student there – I’d been an employee when they let me go.

The Aerial Mystique show traveled toward Toronto with a fleet of thirty-two vehicles – twenty-five RVs, five semis, and two tour buses. I felt like a celebrity, only our bus was pretty old and the drive was pretty boring. Sasha and Tanner sat with me in a booth. We urged Gabriel to join us so we could play cards, but he preferred to listen to music, read, or just stare blankly out the window.

Gabriel was like no other guy I’d been around before. With his tattoos and bad-boy image, the way his hair looked like he’d fought with his clothes, and the fact he didn’t give a rat’s ass what anyone thought of him was intimidating and sexy all at the same time.

The more I tried not to think about him, the more I found myself focusing on him. I stole a glance in his direction. His eyes were closed, his head tipped back against the window and he had his earbuds in. I didn’t know if he was asleep, or just trying to ignore me, but the effect was the same. It was clear I barely made his radar, yet I was always tuned in to where he was, what he was doing. With his eyes still closed, he stretched his legs out across the aisle, forcing his feet over toward mine, blocking me in my seat. I rolled my eyes and turned to Sasha, hoping a conversation would distract me.

I learned how Sasha came to be in a traveling circus. She had what she called wanderlust – the inclination to travel. She was twenty-two, which surprised me. She seemed closer to my age. She filled me in on the background of some of the performers. She said a lot of them were running from something in their lives. Trixie, a belly dancer, had left an abusive husband behind in Kansas City. Others had skipped town to avoid debt collectors or old criminal charges. The idea of selling everything you owned and having no address appealed to people with baggage, she said. I was most curious about Gabriel, but she conveniently left him out.

“We’re just a bunch of gypsies. And now you’re one of us.” She patted the top of my hand and smiled, though it didn’t reach her eyes.

***

 
When we arrived in Toronto all the semis were parked and unloaded, the big top was pulled taut toward the sky and Sasha and I moved into our trailer. I thought about my spacious apartment as I took in the two twin beds, two dressers…. There wasn’t much room for anything else. I couldn’t imagine living in the tiny trailer for three whole months, but I pushed that from my mind. I was here to explore, to try something entirely different. And so far, this was as different from ballet school as I could get.

The following day we were to have a dress rehearsal. I headed to the cafeteria for breakfast with Sasha, where I learned we were encouraged to actually
eat
breakfast. But old habits die hard and I opted for my usual breakfast of plain non-fat yogurt though I was tempted to take a banana. The only person pickier than me seemed to be Gabriel. I’d yet to actually see him eat any food. He sat off by himself, and picked at a bagel with long, graceful fingers, as if he were lost in his thoughts. He downed cups of coffee and flipped through a tattered book. Not that I spent much time noticing, but if he were going to be throwing sharp weapons at me I preferred to have him properly fueled and alert.

After breakfast, still dressed in the pair of shorts and the tank top I’d slept in, I ventured into the gym. It was alive with energy. Performers
were perfecting their acts, trying new moves and pushing themselves farther. I sank down to the floor in the corner of the room to watch. Hearing the trainers call out instructions to the flyers on the trapeze reminded me of my own trainers in ballet school. My days were starting to feel empty without the structure of dance and the endless practices. Yes. Watching the performers sparked a wanting in me.

When I looked up I saw Gabriel walking past the open doors of the gym. I hurried out after him. “Hey,” I called to his back.

He turned.

I hurried to catch up to where he stood, jogging the last few paces while he watched me. “Are we practicing today?”

He shrugged, looked me over. I suddenly felt exposed in my tank top and tiny pink shorts. “Do you really want to practice with me? I can tell you’re not a fan of our act.”

“Yes, I really want to practice.”

He rubbed the back of his neck, thinking over my request. “Alright. I’m free now if that works.”

“That’s fine.”

He turned to lead the way, then stopped suddenly and turned to me. “Don’t you need to change first?”

I looked down at myself, then back up at him.
His eyes lingered on my legs, slowly working his way up my body and ending with his eyes on mine. I hoped he was distracted by my appearance, but on the other hand, I needed his complete focused attention on the knives. “No, I’m good.”

“Suit yourself.” He led the way.

I followed him deeper into the theatrical tent that held all of our non-performance spaces – gym, cafeteria, the dressing rooms and various training rooms.

He led me into a small room that was sparsely furnished except for a table where his knives were lined up a neat row, a cork target board on the far wall and a punching bag hanging from the ceiling.

Not ready to stand in front of the target, I wandered over to inspect his knives. I picked one up and brought my finger to the edge of the blade. Gabriel was suddenly beside me, pulling my hand back. “Don’t. You’ll cut yourself.” He circled one hand around my wrist and with the other, removed the knife from my hand. He set it back down on the table.

Having him so close captured all my attention. I
turned to face him and looked up into his amazing blue eyes, only inches from mine. He looked down at me and bit his lip, confusion etched into his features, like he was doing long division in his head. But as our eyes stayed locked together, his face softened just slightly and his lips parted, drawing in a shaky breath. He brushed the hair away from my face with the back of his hand, ever so softly before letting his hand drop again.