by Lisa Fiedler
Right now I can think of a couple . . . soap, for instance, and air freshener. But she seems to want me to agree with her, so I smile.
“The next morning, I treated myself to a front-row ticket, and I was hooked. I thought, ‘Screw Hollywood . . . This is where the real glamour is!’ So I came back the next day, and the next, and when I found out Cornelius’s tightrope walker had skipped out on him, I inquired about the job. Didn’t matter that I didn’t know the first thing about tightrope walking. I figured tiptoeing across a high wire in here had to be better than crawling around on my hands and knees”—she jerks her head toward the perimeter of the grounds—“out there.”
I nod, studying her face. “So you’ve been with the VanDrexels since . . . ?”
“Since 1945,” she says, tapping the cigarette with her index finger, dislodging a flurry of ash. “Okay, your turn. How’d you find your way to the Big Top?”
I open my mouth, fully prepared to tell her a lie—something trite and harmless like I’ve always wanted to travel, or I’m great with animals, but I hear myself telling her a shorthand version of the truth:
“My mother is dying. For all I know, she’s already dead. And my father is a controlling brute who gets more violent every day. If I stayed in that house long enough, he’d probably kill me. So I left to join the circus.”
I realize my eyes are welling up; Sharon’s are too.
It seems I’ve learned another lesson: They call them sob stories for a reason.
But while Sharon looks deeply sad for me, she does not look overly shocked by my confession, so I guess she’s heard this sort of story before. She’s quiet for a long moment, then grinds out her cigarette in the dirt and places a motherly hand on my cheek.
“The thing about running away to join the circus,” she says, her tone somber, “is that it’s a good idea when you believe you’re running toward something. But it can get awfully complicated when you’re running from something.”
I can almost swear I hear Rabelais rumble his agreement.
“The point is, you’ve found us. You’ve found this.” Her hands flutter to encompass the surrounding blur and thrum of the circus. “And if you’ve found it, then it’s meant to be.”
She has no idea how not meant to be this is. I’m not staying; I just have to make it look like I am until I get where I’m going.
Wherever that is.
“And of course,” she adds, smiling softly, “it always helps if the circus is in your blood.”
I spring up abruptly and grab my shovel. “I guess I’ll find out if it’s in mine,” I lie.
“I guess you will,” says Sharon, tapping another cigarette out of the pack—the last one. “Meantime, maybe you should stick close to me.”
I tilt my head. “Why?”
“Because it helps if you have someone to show you the ropes.” Laughing, she crumples the empty cigarette package and tosses it toward the barrel but misses. “And in my case, I mean that literally.” Wrapping her smile around the new cigarette, she lights it and takes a long drag, sucking away half of it in a single puff. “I’m taking you on,” she announces.
“What do you mean?” I ask, waving away the smoke she exhales.
“I’ll be your mentor. Or if you prefer, friend. Point is, we learn from those who know, it’s as simple as that.” She looks me up and down and grins. “Now, other than a long hot shower, what do you need?”
“Everything,” I tell her, only just realizing it myself. “I left in a hurry.”
Her eyes say of course you did. “Lucky for you, we circus folk are generous.”
Then, with a wink, she turns and makes her way back across the yard.
Find someone to show you the ropes. Learn from those who know.
Sharon vanishes into the Big Top tent, just as another round of calliope music swells to a happy, spine-tingling crescendo.
I decide to take it as a good omen.
FIVE
“BENIGNO’S PIZZA!” A GIRL’S voice burbled into Callie’s ear. “This is Shana. How can I help you?”
Callie tapped the screen of Quinn’s phone to put it on speaker. “Hi, do you deliver?”
“Uh-huh, we sure do.”
“I’d like a small pepperoni and mushroom pizza please.”
“You got it. Address?”
“It’s on Sanctuary Way. There isn’t really a street number, because it’s the gar— the carriage house. But you can’t miss it.”
Shana hesitated. “Can I put you on hold for just a bit?”
Callie’s stomach growled. She was beginning to wish she’d taken Mom and Mr. Marston up on their offer to join them for an early dinner.
Shana returned, flustered. “Are you the chicken parm grinder no onions on Palmetto Boulevard?”
“No, I’m the small pepperoni and mushroom on Sanctuary Way.”
“Okay, yeah . . . we’re not sure we can deliver there.”
“Why not?”
“Well, wouldn’t it be, like . . . dangerous?”
“Only if you brought me the chicken parm instead of the pepperoni and mushroom.”
“Oh, okay . . . so now you don’t want the chicken?”
“I never did. I just want the pizza. But it’s starting to feel like you don’t want me to have it.”
“Oh, no, it’s not that at all,” Shana assured her. “It’s just, well . . . because of the lions.”
“Lion,” Callie corrected. “We’ve only got the one. And it’s not like he’ll be sitting on the front porch when the delivery guy gets here. He’s in a locked enclosure.”
“Oh, okay.” Another pause. “Can you hang on one more sec?”
The sec became a “min.” Then two, then three. With an exasperated sigh, Callie flung herself onto the sheet-draped sofa to wait.
“Pepperoni and mushroom? You still there?”
No, the lion ate me. “Yep, still here.”
“The driver says he’ll bring your order as far as the main entrance, but he won’t come inside, so you’ll have to meet him at the gate. He’s going to get out of the car, leave the pizza on the ground, then get back into his car, then you can open the gate and get it.”
Callie rolled her eyes, doubting the pizza would be worth the effort.
“Your total is $16.86. Thirty-five minutes.”
Callie ended the call and stepped into her sneakers; she’d kill the half-hour pizza gap with a leisurely walk—anything to keep from diving back into that jewelry box filled with handwritten notes from the grandmother she’d never see or speak to again.
She’d managed to distract herself all afternoon, unpacking while Mr. Marston took Mom to get reacquainted with her animals. Callie spent hours organizing her clothes in the closet and antique dresser, knowing full well that Mr. Marston’s pending remodel would likely negate the chore. She could picture the dresser (which she actually kind of liked) being unceremoniously tossed in favor of something new and expensive.
She headed down the stairs, let the door bang closed behind her, and set out on the crumbling path toward the gate.
Why had Gram written on those scraps? What did they mean?
Following what she hoped was the correct path to the entrance, Callie caught the salty bite of seawater in the air and wondered how far they were from the beach. It was one thing about Florida she thought she might actually enjoy.
For years, VanDrexel’s Family Circus had made their “winter home” in Sarasota, where Quinn would spend their seasonal break bunking in an RV on-site to be close to the animals. Callie, however, rarely spent more than a day or two there. Instead, she would travel with her grandmother, the two of them teaching tightrope classes to children at summer camp or appearing as guest performers in circuses across the country and around the world.
Once she and Gram had taken advantage of a booking
in Maine to spend a weekend at a drafty old cabin on a sparkling lake that Victoria had visited as a little girl, and once they’d gone to Italy, to enjoy Un Piccolo Circo Familiare, a small but highly respected show run by the dashing Marcello Ricci, a trapeze aerialist who’d been a visiting performer at VanDrexel’s seventeen years before. He and Quinn—both in their late thirties at the time—had embarked on a whirlwind romance, and as Marcello had described it the time he’d happily recounted the story to Callie, “Ecco fatto, aspettiamo una bambina!”
The bambina, of course, was her.
Callie had only met her father in person a handful of times; he’d come to the States for her fifth and tenth birthdays, and when she was thirteen she and Gram had visited his circus in Italy. There she’d had the thrill of performing with him in the century-old piccolo circo he’d inherited from his family. Callie was quick to pick up the trapeze skills he so eagerly taught her, and their father-daughter act had delighted their European audiences. Marcello had been beside himself with pride, and for the first time Callie truly understood that the circus was indeed in her blood—on both sides of the DNA helix. She only hoped that when Marcello received her letter, begging him to let her come tour as a tightrope walker in his Circo Familiare, he would understand too.
Callie arrived at the front entrance at the exact same moment a battered Volvo convertible came screaming up to the gate, shrieking to a brutal stop. In the driver’s seat was a girl with a blond haystack of a ponytail and retro sunglasses.
“Pepperoni and mushroom, right?”
Callie nodded and pressed the code Mr. Marston had given her into the keypad—Grover and Agnes’s wedding anniversary. The ornate iron gates slowly began to part. At the same time, the driver’s door flew open wide, and a girl hopped out, completely violating the agreed-upon safety precautions.
Callie blinked, confused. “I thought you were going to wait until—are you Shana?”
“Please! All that stuff about not having the balls to enter the grounds—that was Brody, the delivery guy. Total fucking bonehead, and major chicken shit. He acts like this place is Jurassic Park or something. Everybody around here does. So I volunteered, making me what you might call the ‘substitute cuisine-transfer personnel.’”
Callie watched as the girl reached back into the car to snatch the pizza box.
“I’m Jenna, by the way. Officially, I’m a waitress, but since I’m the only Benigno’s employee whose brain has fully evolved, I frequently step in to do the things my IQ-deficient coworkers can’t handle. Basic math, for example . . . folding napkins. And delivering delicious pizza products to the poor shunned folks who live on dangerous wild animal reserves.”
“Can I have my pizza please?” Callie asked, slightly dazed. “And it’s exotic.”
Jenna cocked her head. “I’d hardly categorize pepperoni as exotic.”
“Not the pizza. The animals. You said wild. They’re actually exotic.”
“There’s a difference?”
“Yes.” Callie frowned. “No. Actually, I don’t know. It’s just how my mother always described them.”
“Hmm. So maybe the animals prefer ‘exotic’ to ‘wild.’ But really, how would we know? Have they ever objected to being classified as wild?”
“Can I just have my pizza?” Callie repeated.
“Only if you let me come inside.”
“What?” Callie was caught off guard. “Why?”
“Are you kidding? I’ve been dying to get a look at this place since it opened. I love that all these abused animals are being rescued from those skeezy circuses.”
“They weren’t abused!” Callie spat. Well, not all of them.
Jenna gave her a challenging look. “Were they kept in cages?”
Callie rolled her eyes. “No, they all lived in luxury condos.”
Jenna snorted out a little laugh. “Good one, pepperoni and mushroom.” She flipped the box open and helped herself to a slice. “I’m all about the sarcastic wit. So, you’re telling me these animals weren’t starved and beaten?”
“Ours weren’t. Never. My mother wouldn’t have allowed it. She always used to say, ‘Cages are a necessity. Cruelty isn’t.’”
Jenna considered this, taking a bite of the pizza. “So what happened to her?”
“Who?” Callie was having difficulty keeping up. Perhaps it was because she was close to dying of starvation. “What happened to who?”
“Your mother.” Jenna popped a piece of pepperoni into her mouth. “She’s gone, right?”
“Yes, she’s gone.”
“So what happened to her?”
“She went to dinner with her boss.”
“Oh. So she’s alive.”
“Last I heard. Why would you think she wasn’t?”
“I dunno, just the way you said, ‘My mother always used to say.’ Sounded very postmortem.”
“I meant she used to say it when she was working with the animals in our circus,” Callie clarified with an exasperated breath.
“Ah. Gotcha.”
Callie reached for the pizza box, but Jenna jerked it out of reach. “First, clarify what you mean when you say ‘your’ circus?”
“I don’t have to clarify anything to you.”
“You do if you want your pizza.”
Callie felt her cheeks beginning to burn. She hadn’t planned on sharing her life story with this pizza person, but that’s certainly where this seemed to be going. She might as well get it over with so she could eat. “My mother and I were both born into VanDrexel’s Family Circus, which was founded by my grandfather’s ancestors but got sold to a big entertainment company way back in the sixties. Then the animals retired, so she left, and now we’re here.” Callie held out her hand for the pizza box.
“You were born into the circus?” Jenna echoed, gnashing into her pizza and gulping it down. “That’s really . . . well, to be honest, I’m not sure if that’s extremely cool or hella freaky. But you do get big points for transparency.”
“Gee thanks. Your turn. Why do you want to come inside so badly?”
Jenna took another bite of pizza, shrugged, and swallowed. “Because, the opening of this Sanctuary was a big fuckin’ deal around here and I like to stay informed.”
Snatching the pizza box, Callie dropped two ten-dollar bills into Jenna’s hand and turned to head back through the gate.
And without being invited to, Jenna followed.
For some reason Callie didn’t stop her.
* * *
• • •
They had just reached the carriage house when Brad’s Range Rover glided up behind them.
“I’m guessing these are the parents?” said Jenna, eyeing the terrific-looking couple climbing out of the vehicle.
“One of them is.”
“Who’s the other one?”
“Oh, y’know . . . just some billionaire.”
“Well, hello there,” said Quinn, her smile bobbing back and forth curiously between Callie and their unexpected guest. “Calliope—who’s your friend?”
“Cuisine-transfer personnel,” Callie muttered, throwing open the door to the stairway.
“Jenna Demming,” said Jenna, stepping forward to shake Quinn’s hand, then Brad’s. “I delivered the pizza.” Then she turned to Callie. “Your name is Calliope?”
“Her grandmother named her,” said Quinn. “She always said a name should be a kind of enchantment. Didn’t work out so well for me, though; my full name is Quinn Emily Sharon VanDrexel.”
“Yikes,” said Jenna. “Sorry to hear that.”
“Callie fared far better. She got her name because the sound of the calliope was one of the first things my mother fell in love with at the circus.”
“That is so cool!” Jenna said. “I’m named after some great-aunt in Tuscaloosa. Nothing particularly e
nchanting about that. Although family lore does suggest that she was a bit of a slut in her day, so I guess that’s something.”
Quinn looked momentarily taken aback, and Callie smirked. You were the one who wanted me to make friends.
“You live here in Lake St. Julian, Jenna?” asked Brad, unloading plastic grocery sacks from the back of the SUV.
“Yep. And let me just say right up front, I don’t hate y’all anywhere near as much as the rest of the people in this town do.”
Brad laughed. “Well, thanks, that’s nice to hear. I think.”
Taking two of the bags from him, Jenna followed Callie and Quinn up the stairs.
* * *
• • •
While Callie ate pizza on the couch, Quinn and Brad unloaded the groceries and fielded Jenna’s questions about the Sanctuary, starting with why visitors weren’t allowed on the grounds.
Halfway through Quinn’s slightly preachy “these animals spent years performing in front of crowds” speech, Jenna interrupted. “Your reasoning is sound, but is there any chance you’d rethink that policy? I’m not suggesting you start selling souvenir rain ponchos or serving up corn dogs on sticks or anything like that, but what about inviting the neighbors in for an informational tour? I’m sure one day wouldn’t compromise the natural habitat angle.”
Abruptly, Brad straightened up from where he’d been bent over the refrigerator’s crisper drawer (which, incredibly, still functioned). “Y’know, that’s actually not a bad idea. I’ve been operating this place for a year now and I never thought of that. The pizza girl’s been here half an hour and already she’s got a better handle on PR than I do.”
“Guess it’s a good thing you inherited your money,” Callie mumbled under her breath.
“An open house could go a long way toward generating goodwill,” said Quinn thoughtfully. “It’s something to consider.”