Girl in the Shadows (9 page)

He frowned. “No, never,” he said. But he paused.

“What?”

“Why are you asking? Shouldn’t you talk about this with him?”

Honesty was the best policy here. “I don’t want to hurt him.”

He scrubbed his left hand against the back of his neck. “He told me she was the only woman he’d ever loved, and—” He must have seen some glimmer of hope reflected on my face, because he rushed on. “And the only one he’d ever hated.”

“Hated?” I blurted it out. His story about her had always been told in affectionate tones. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” Raleigh said. “Maybe he had every reason, maybe he had none.”

Which left me plenty of worst-case scenarios to imagine until I found her.

ten

After the midway went dark, my sleights over for the evening, I lingered to watch the Cirque’s last show of the day from the back of the big top in a section marked “Standing Room Only.” The show was sold out, something that seemed to have the admin staff already high-fiving each other. Several other midway performers were here too, all flush with the success of our hours of performing.

The finale was nearing when Dez turned up. I was trying to pretend I hadn’t been waiting for him. Hoping too. I shouldn’t have been doing either.

“Hey,” he said. He’d changed into an old black T-shirt gone gray and beat-up jeans, and it was like some sort of curse on me that he managed to look even better than he had earlier.

I gave him a small smile and focused on the performance in progress.

“These two legendary high-wire walkers insist on doing part of their act together these days, and I think we can all bask in our luck that this is the case,” Thurston announced. “My favorite father-and-daughter team.”

Jules and her father, of course. He’d begun with a still and solemn walk across the wire with no aid, simple but riveting. Then he turned back, breezing across the wire, and now Jules stalked out, idly twirling a parasol. They met at the middle of the wire to thunderous applause. There were a dozen or so girls dressed in Jules-esque red tutus in the tent, all cheering.

“You like this circus stuff?” Dez asked.

“Yeah, I do. It’s amazing,” I said.

The entire show had been great. The performers were top-caliber, and Thurston’s costume and styling department kept everything on the classic side. I approved, in the same way I vaguely disapproved of Dad and most magicians’ costuming. Far too many mullets and too much tacky leather; the girls at the theater frequently cackled about starting a makeover service for magicians. No one would ever argue that they didn’t need it.

“You’re right. It is amazing. Like you.”

I ignored the way the words shimmied up my spine and made me want to stretch into them like a cat. There was a slight hint of booze to his scent. He must have had a drink after his last performance.

“Magicians are supposed to be amazing.”

Jules and her father took another bow midwire and then, in a comic bit, bumbled around each other—and took another bow to show the bumbling was for effect only. The audience laughed.

“Who taught you how to get out of a straitjacket?”

I managed not to be too offended that he was asking again how I’d learned magic, like it would have been impossible that I’d taught myself. “No one. Everyone. I learned. Straitjackets were hard, but I managed.”

Dez nudged me with his shoulder. “You learned by yourself how to get out of a straitjacket.”

I shrugged, like it was no big deal, though it had been. “Obviously I had to wait until I was in front of people to do it with the straitjacket really on.”

That had been my most nerve-wracking day, not knowing if my prep would pay off or not.

“Did your family friend leave?” I asked.

“Did I say family friend? More of a family curse,” Dez said. “But yeah, he’s gone. Took all our money with him too.”

“Good.” Thinking about him made me want to shiver. “Not about the money, but the gone part.”

Jules’s father walked to the other end of the wire and stepped off onto the platform. Left in the spotlight, Jules twirled and danced across the wire to conclude the act, as wonderful as she had been earlier. And—also a humorous touch—the crewmen brought out a net and put it below when she finished. She closed her parasol, smiled, and jumped off, spinning down into it with a move she must’ve learned from Remy.

The crowd loved it. They loved that Remy was waiting there to give her a kiss on the cheek too.

The rest of the Garcias ran out, then, as Jules exited, the lights signaling that it was time to shift our attention to them. They gripped ladders that rose to their aerial platforms and swings. The trapeze act would close the show.

This was what I’d really been hanging around for. I wanted to see Dita’s performance. The way she’d seemed to dread rehearsal had me curious.

I couldn’t help feel a twinge, thinking about how tight these families were. Their situations seemed so simple compared to my own. My missing magic mother and non-abandoning but disapproving father. Then again, all family dynamics probably looked simpler than they were when viewed from afar.

I turned back to watch the Garcias.

Thurston pattered on about the Love Brothers and the Goddesses of Beauty. The older brother, Casanova, a.k.a. Novio, dominated one side. Romeo, a.k.a. Remy, dominated the other. In addition to the two Garcia boys and Aphrodite, a.k.a. Dita, there were two blonde performers, identical twin girls. They launched themselves out into tight spins first, Novio catching each of them on an arm, much to the audience’s delight. The act proceeded with more variations on this. I kept waiting for Dita to leave the platform.

And waiting.

There was a smile visible on her face from down here, but when it stayed and stayed, I suspected she was forcing it. Finally, once the blondes had careened—with grace—down into the net below, Dita grabbed the swing.

She looked like she was born to be there, moving with power through the air. She kept building and building her momentum. I could see Remy shouting some encouragement from the platform, but I couldn’t hear him. And then she released the swing and she hung there for a second, like she was in slow motion, before she tucked into a ball for her somersaults.

Watching the blondes and Remy do this move had taught me enough to know that she was off on her timing.

“Oh no,” I said softly.

“Not good,” Dez murmured in agreement.

She managed one rotation before, rather than grabbing her brother’s hands, she fell awkwardly into the net. The crowd gasped.

Thurston had been an involved announcer for the entire show, but he said nothing about what had just happened. “And now, what you’ve all been waiting for, Remy Garcia will attempt the quadruple somersault, one of the most difficult feats in the world.” Remy waved and bowed from above, taking the swing and drawing all eyes away from the ground and onto him. “During a live performance last season, Remy became the youngest person to achieve the quad. He’s hoping to do one every day this season. And if he does, he’ll set a world record that’s unlikely to ever be broken. So hold your breath . . . Here he goes!”

The audience might have been as disquieted as I was by Dita’s flub, but they moved on fast. Everyone was on their feet, obeying Thurston’s command.

Remy swung through the air with an ease that seemed natural-born but must have taken years of practice. The same ease Dita had, but with a greater power behind it. He sliced through the air, his brother prepared to catch him, and when Remy launched out into his somersaults, the crowd started to count, but he was too fast for them. “One, two—”

Wild applause erupted as he completed the fourth and grabbed Novio’s hands. It was so fast, like a magic trick in plain sight.

I applauded too. At least until I saw Dita, on the floor beside the net. She looked downcast. Jules had her hand on Dita’s arm.

“Can I see your phone?” Dez asked.

I passed it to him. “What for?”

He held up a finger for me to wait and pressed in a number, then held the phone to his ear. “Brandon? Save this as Moira’s number.”

He listened for a second, then, “You’re disgusting.”

He grinned at me and passed it back. “Don’t text me anything you don’t want Brandon to see. We share a phone.”

I practically sputtered. “Why would I . . . What . . . You’re assuming . . .”

“Yes,” he said, leaning closer. I thought he might kiss me again, and I knew how I felt about the possibility when I didn’t move a muscle to shy away. Even though I should have.

But all he did was say, “It was a good kiss. See you later.”

Still vibrating from my encounter with Dez, I wound my way around the big top to the backstage tent the Cirque performers used. I paused only to buy one of the few remaining sticks of cotton candy. Sweet, pink, and sticky. I wasn’t a doctor, but I suspected it might have curative powers.

The space was a jumble of dressing and makeup areas, trunks and costume racks, and a long table with assorted snacks. It was packed with people—some still in costume, some already in street clothes—congratulating each other, a big clump gathered around Remy. I spotted Dita at the edge of that crowd, next to a frowning woman who I decided must be their mother. The woman watched as Dita used a white towelette to wipe away the last traces of the smoky shadow and heavy eyeliner that went with her trapeze costume.

I’d messed up at my audition, but it hadn’t been in front of a real crowd of paying customers. Dita must be mortified. So I walked over to her, waited for her to toss the makeup wipe, and extended my genuine sympathy offering. “Cotton candy?”

Dita blinked for a second, then looked at me like I was her savior. “Please.”

She was about to step away to join me when her mother laid a hand on her arm to stop her. “This is your roommate?” she asked.

“Hi,” I said, offering my non-cotton-candy hand to her. “I’m Moira. I’m so grateful to Dita and Remy for taking me in.”

She shook my hand without any of the usual nicety you’d expect from a greeting. “Nancy was involved, I heard.” She squinted at me, then shrugged, releasing my hand. “She’s been good for my kids. Especially my older boy.”

“Sure,” I said. I had no clue what she was talking about.

“Let’s go,” Dita said.

“I’ll walk you,” the older brother in question, Novio, said, appearing beside us. And though Dita had a pinched expression, she allowed it.

Dita took an enormous bite of cotton candy. We had extricated ourselves from the postshow pack, or so I thought. But when I turned to introduce myself to Novio, I saw that Jules and Remy were trailing us too.

“Back off, you guys,” Jules said. “Guessing she doesn’t want to talk about it.”

“We just want to make sure she’s okay,” Remy said.

“I’m right here, so you can talk
to
me not
about
me,” Dita countered.

“I’m still sorry every day,” Novio said quietly.

“I know,” Dita said, around another bite of cotton candy. She swallowed and faced him. “It’s not that. You’re forgiven . . . I know it wasn’t . . . you. It was Granddad.”

I felt more and more like a trespasser in their private business with each step.

“Then what is it?” Jules asked.

Dita hesitated, and finally her eyes met mine before she turned back to Jules and her brothers. “I don’t want to talk about it. I’ll get over it. I promise.” And then to me, “Thanks for the rescue attempt, even if it didn’t work. My family is inescapable.”

There was no real ire in it. She sounded, frankly, like she was okay with that.

“I hear you,” I said. “But at least they’re obnoxious about it.”

Dita laughed, and though Remy said, “Hey!” in protest, I suspect he’d have hugged me for lightening the mood.

We stopped when we reached the Airstream. Dita took out her key, but then stepped back.

“It’s open,” she said. “Did one of you—”

“I definitely locked it,” I said. Dita had given me an extra key that Thurston’s admin had made earlier that morning.

“I haven’t been back here since before our first show today,” Remy said.

Novio shouldered in front of all of us. “Let me check it out.”

He flipped on the light, and we followed him into the little cabin. It looked okay at a glance—or would’ve, if you’d never been here before. But someone had been here. Everything had been moved, and then
almost
put back where it was in the first place, or placed neatly somewhere it shouldn’t have been.

Coffee mugs and dishes were the most apparent evidence; the cupboards were empty, the countertops full. The couch’s throw pillows were all stacked to one side. But nothing broken, no destruction.

“Not again,” Jules said.

“I don’t know anything about this,” Novio put in.

“We know,” Jules and Dita said practically at the same time.

Their ancient history loomed like an elephant in the room for me.

“Can you tell if anything’s missing?” Novio asked.

“Not so far,” Remy said, and Dita nodded agreement.

We went through each small room. All of them had been hit. Or, rather, mussed. When we got to mine and Dita’s, we found that the clothes in the closet were pushed to either side, a gap between them. And my suitcase was open.

I bent to check for the cash I’d tucked away in the bottom. No burglar would leave that, would they? I pulled it out and quickly counted. Every bill of the thousand was still there.

I looked up, the others crowded around. “They didn’t take any of my money. But they obviously went through my suitcase.”

Some of its contents sat neatly beside it on my mattress. The pillowcase had been removed from Dita’s pillow. Glancing at the closet, I saw another distressing, methodical detail: the pocket of a pair of her pants had been turned inside out.

None of them said anything. “Are you going to tell me what this is about?” I prompted. “What did ‘not again’ mean?”