by A. J. Downey
I knew her practice was likely to be hours long, and I was okay with that. As eager as I was to see her and just be in her presence, I wanted to play it chill. I didn’t want to be a source of pressure in her life, I wanted to be her release. So, when I got back to the park, I found a place to park the bike and sat for a while, soaking up what sun was on offer this late in the fall day.
“Hey!”
I looked over at the approaching security guard in the yellow windbreaker and gave him a chin lift. I fished out one of the passes from the inside pocket of my jacket. It was around my neck on the lanyard it’d come on, but I hadn’t wanted it caught by the wind. I held it up where the guy could see it, and he kept coming over.
“Wow, you actually know one of the performers, huh?” He raised his radio to his mouth and depressed the button, saying into the mic, “He’s got a family pass.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Claire Montgomery.”
“No idea who any of them are,” he said.
“Oh, she’s the silk dancer, whatever that is.”
He laughed and clapped and said, “You don’t even know what she does!”
I grinned and shook my head.
“No idea. I thought about YouTubing it, but I didn’t want to spoil the surprise, you know?”
He nodded, “Well, I’m Demone, and when you’re ready to go in, all you do is go to that entrance right there and show your pass to the guards there. Cool?”
“All right man, thanks, and cool.” I flashed the dude a winning smile. He ran a hand over his bald head and gave a nod. “I’m about to go to lunch, yo, but if they give you problems, just have them radio me? A’ight?”
“Will do, thanks, man.”
“A’ight, you have a good time.”
He turned and looked both ways before jogging back across the asphalt driving track that cut through the park.
I stretched and got off the bike, locking my helmet in the saddlebag across from where I’d stashed Claire’s. I drifted at a sedate pace to the entrance Demone had indicated and looped the pass off over my head and handed it to the guard there.
“Huh, we don’t get a lot of these through here for the rehearsals,” he said. He was a tall white guy, older and looked through his eyeglasses in a way that indicated he had bifocals. He noted the number on the pass down and asked my name. I gave him my legal one, because ‘Angel’ wouldn’t be of much use, and he handed me back my pass.
“Keep that on yah, and it’s right through there. I’d fly under the radar of that director, though. He’s in one of his moods today.”
“Thanks for the pro-tip, bro.”
“No problem.”
I went into the darkened ‒ hell, I don’t know what you called it. Foyer? Rotunda? Anyway, I went past darkened concession and souvenir booths, empty of goods and the people to man them, and ducked through one of the archways leading into the main tent. Risers full of theater-like hard-plastic seats had been set up and all of them led down, bowl-shaped, to the round stage in the center. There was a man standing on a platform in front of the stage, a silver-tipped cane in one hand, waving it around as he shouted over the loud music at the performers twirling and dancing, doing short vignettes of their performances as they leapt and danced across the stage.
They looked poised and collected, smiles splitting their faces in rictus grins that even from here looked painted on. Dude wasn’t as old as I pictured. Not by a long shot. He couldn’t be more than mid-forties, tops. His close-cropped dark hair was just beginning to frost with silver at the back as the spotlight splashed across him.
I crept as close as I dared and brought my phone out, just getting a feeling. He bowed his head and raked a hand over his face in frustration, and it reminded me of some of the tweakers we picked up and transported to detox. Something was just off about the dude, and whether it was drugs or crazy remained to be seen.
I started to record from my seat as he bellowed out, “Stop, stop, stop! That’s not it at all, what are you doing, Claire?”
I thought to myself, Aw shit, here we go, and he leapt down from the platform and took the stairs up to the stage two at a time. Claire had frozen in among the people on the stage and he stood beside her and demanded, “Look, watch me!” and he went through a set of steps that looked, to me, just like what she’d done the moment before he started screaming.
“You can all thank Claire for having to do this again! If she would only get it right, we could all go home early, but at this rate we’ll be here all night. Now do it once more. Music! Again, from the top!”
The performers, chests heaving, took their places, and I could see by the set of her shoulders that Claire was getting beaten down. I didn’t say anything, I just kept recording, because I knew the only way to get something to change was by having irrefutable proof of this guy being a royal assbag.
They went through their steps and motions; Claire looked flawless, but again, he stopped the production and singled her out. I could see she was at the end of her rope. She threw up her hands and cried, “I don’t know what you want from me!”
“Please,” a red-headed girl said, another American by the sound of it. “He wants you not to suck. You’ve been dragging us down for weeks.” She was a real Regina George mean girl, that one.
“Oh, please, Gloria. The only person dragging anything down is Milo,” Claire shot back and she’d clearly lost her temper and was at the height of exasperation. Milo stalked across the stage and growled, “What did you say?”
“If you’re not screaming at us, you’re berating us. If we spent half the time actually going through the steps rather than stopping every time you perceive an imperfection that isn’t there, we might actually improve!” she shouted, and I was proud of her.
“You little –” His hand flashed out and Claire’s head rocked back.
I leapt up from my seat and shouted, “Hey!”
All heads were suddenly on a swivel and turning towards me.
“You keep your hands to yourself, asshole!” I was already dialing 9-1-1 as I stood there, trying to resist the urge to pummel that fuckwit.
“9-1-1, what is your emergency?”
“Yeah, I’d like to report an assault. Ridgeview Park, inside the Night Circus tent…”
I got through the call with dispatch and waved at Claire to come down, away from that maniac. She was holding the side of her face, which was turning bright red, and I snapped pictures of the handprint left behind before it could fade. She hugged herself into my side and I put my arm around her. The production looked like it was split into two camps, Claire’s supporters and a smaller knot of people that looked like they were either afraid, or clearly on Milo’s side.
The police arrived and I felt my frustration grow. They were Blue Templars, another cop MC, but one with bad blood with my crew. It was mostly because we knew those fuckers were dirty. Not only were they dirty, they liked to provoke violence, race-bait, and generally were everything about cops that was giving cops a bad name, and this was no exception.
“Seriously, Martinez? Your girl got mouthy. I’m not hooking this guy up for what should be a complaint to upper management. They should handle this shit in-house.”
“Think the brass is going to agree with your assessment?” I demanded.
Schwartz rolled his eyes at me, but in the end, Milo got hooked up and taken for a ride. It wasn’t Schwartz’s call anyway. It was the prosecutor’s office's. Schwartz and his lazy-ass partner just didn’t want to do the paperwork. I was betting they’d fuck it up intentionally, somehow. I was tipped off to that fact when I had to remind them to Mirandize the piece of pond scum.
“You’re fired,” he’d said to Claire. She’d held out just fine right up until he uttered those words, then her eyes glassed over and she fought not to cry, and I nearly went to jail for punching the motherfucker out, myself.
I’d already sent the video clip out to the rest of the club with a briefly-texted explanation of what was going on, so there wa
s no getting rid of the video. That was probably the smartest thing I’d done.
“Can we just go home?” Claire asked tightly. I nodded, and led her out of the circus tent amid the rest of the production crew milling around talking in low whispers and tones.
“Don’t cry, mi alma. This isn’t over yet.”
We emerged under a twilit sky and had got no more than twenty paces out from the place when a voice called out, “Kotyonok!”
Aleksi jogged out from the tent and held out Claire’s gym bag to her. He touched the side of her face and said something in Russian. Claire gave him a weak smile and took the bag, giving him a startled look at the weight. He winked at her and jogged back toward the circus tent.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she said, shaking her head. “I just want to go before I completely lose it.”
We got as far as the bike when her tears started to fall like rain and wouldn’t let up. My heart broke for her all over again, but I had a steel resolve. I would see this through. Nobody deserves to be treated like that, and Milo and the Night Circus had broken all kinds of labor laws. I’d see they paid for it, too.
I would need a lawyer’s advice. Good thing I knew two of the best, who I knew for a fact were as connected as you could get. I was like a-thousand-percent sure they knew a labor attorney worth their salt, somewhere in this city.
12
Claire…
I couldn’t help but cry it out, but Aleksi’s gift was giving me hope, bolstering my spirits. My bag was stuffed to the gills. The metallic click of the connectors was a dead giveaway. He’d brought me my things and had smuggled a set of silks out as well. I couldn’t practice without them, and lucky for me, I knew of a place. Fired or not, I had to keep my skills up.
I was honestly weeping more from my incandescent rage than out of mourning.
Milo had gone too far, and I was prepared to wage an all-out war with the company running the Night Circus now. There would be a reckoning and I would fight. He couldn’t be allowed to do this to anyone else, and now that I wasn’t there, he most assuredly would move on to another performer.
Angel held me in the parking lot and let me cry it out for a minute or two before he held me at half an arm’s length, looked me square in the eyes and said, “Get it together, they’re coming out.” I took a few deep breaths and locked it down, and he murmured, “That’s my girl.”
He got our helmets out of the saddlebags he’d stashed them in and handed me mine. I put it on and he got on the bike, I got on behind him, and he pulled forward over the painted line and steered us out of the parking lot and down the drive leading out of the park.
I held on and let the wind carry some of the tension away and cool the side of my face, which still throbbed from where Milo had struck it, though the sting had diminished by quite a bit.
Angel took us home and parked the bike out in the lot rather than the garage. He turned around on his seat and gathered my hands in his and asked, “What do you want to do?”
I sat still, searching his face as the engine of his motorcycle ticked beneath us intermittently as it cooled. I swallowed hard and said, “I want to fight, but I’m scared.”
“Scared why?”
“I’ve been blown off so many times when it comes to Milo and I feel like this won’t be any different.”
“It better be or you’ve got some pretty solid grounds to sue, I would think.”
“I just don’t know, I have a paper trail, though.”
“Do you?”
“Yeah, emails with the head office.”
He nodded. “Let’s get you cleaned up. We’re going out for dinner.”
“We are?” I asked, taken aback. That was a rather abrupt pronouncement.
“We are,” he said, getting up and holding out a hand to me. I took it and walked with him back to the house. He drew a hot bath the moment we were inside and pulled me over to it, lifting my shirt over my head. I mean, I could undress myself, but it was just so nice to be taken care of. The emotional roller-coaster was taking its toll. I should be starving by now, but I wasn’t the slightest bit hungry.
“Relax, soak, I’m going to go upstairs and pick you out some clothes.”
“Okay,” I murmured. He helped me into the bath and turned on the jets and I did as he suggested. I let the heat do its work, relaxing my muscles, and I simply soaked. He came back down a little while later and sat down at the head of the tub, his hand lightly tipping my chin as far as I could go. His lips descended onto mine and he kissed me tenderly.
“I’m tagging myself in on this one, mi alma.”
“You can’t save me from this; we’re even and if you save me now, I’ll owe you,” I murmured. It was meant to be a joke, but his gaze was somber as he searched my face.
“You save me every moment of every day you’re still breathing, Claire. I’ve only just found you again, and this shit…” He trailed off and swallowed hard. “I’m scared I’m going to lose you again if it continues.”
I shook my head and reached up, laying my palm against his cheek. He turned his head and caressed my palm with a delicate kiss.
“I’m never leaving you again,” I said. “I don’t make the same mistake twice if I can help it. I let him get to me once. It’s my turn to get to him.”
“That’s my girl,” he breathed and we kissed again.
I couldn’t get enough of kissing him. I couldn’t get enough of the feel of him against me, inside me, and around me. I’d never believed in love at first sight, but now I had to. The depth of emotion I felt when it came to Angel was so beyond lust there wasn’t any other word for it.
I loved him.
I knelt up out of the water and pulled myself to him. He made a slight surprised noise of protest against my mouth as I plastered my body to the front of his, getting his shirt wet, but then his stiffened posture eased and he laughed against my mouth. The sound sent a frisson of wanting down my spine and I suddenly just wanted to stay here, alone with him, making love all night.
“Can’t we just stay here?” I whispered.
“No can do, mi alma, I already texted we were coming.”
I groaned and asked, “So, where are we going?”
“The 10-13. It’s a cop bar and grill out in Old Town a couple of streets over from Bayside Park.”
“The one your President and Vice President run?”
“That’s right, just don’t let them hear you call them that.” He grinned and I smiled, too. He’d explained they preferred the rankings they’d been used to as cops and firefighters, so it was ‘Chief’ and ‘Deputy Chief.’ He looked me over and said, “The food we had last night came from there.”
I sighed, and said, “Well in that case, sign me up. That food was amazing.”
I finished washing up and he went with me upstairs to change his wet shirt and to watch me get dressed. He’d chosen pretty well for me, laying out selections from my meager wardrobe across the bed.
Most of my clothing was either athletic, or natural fibers that rolled or folded down small. I’d pretty much lived out of a suitcase, carry-on and a gym bag for the last three years. I needed to travel light.
I put on the olive green Cheema pants and slipped the simple black ladies’ fitted tee over my head, pulling it down. I sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled on the athletic socks he’d put out and he brought over my Doc Marten’s. I smiled and murmured my thanks, putting them on and lacing them tight.
“You need some jeans,” he said, “or some leather pants; those would be good, too.” He bit his bottom lip to try and contain his smile at that last thought and I felt my eyebrows go up.
“Most of my circus family are a bunch of naturalist, holistic, borderline-hippies who are full-time vegan, card-carrying members of PETA. Showing up in leather pants could ruin a lot of relationships for me.”
He laughed and said, “Good point. You’d be screwed either way. You in leather pants would also ruin those relation
ships, in that I’d never let you out of the house again.”
I laughed and stood up, and he held out my leather jacket to me with raised eyebrows. I rolled my eyes. I didn’t typically wear it to work, and to be honest, on the rare occasion I did, no one had ever made any kind of deal over it.
“Fine, you got me,” I declared.
He laughed and I put it on, lifting my hair out of the collar. I shook my head and said, “Just give me a few minutes to do something with my hair.” I went downstairs feeling cool and confident in what I was wearing and took myself over in front of the bathroom mirror. I French braided my hair tight to my scalp and tied the end with the thin black hair elastic around my wrist. As a last touch, I put on some of the natural lip balm from my jacket pocket, the smell of natural peppermint, herbal and sweet, tickling my nose, with just a hint of beeswax underneath.
I dusted a stray eyelash off my cheek and gave myself a last going-over, and nodded. I looked good, despite feeling a little wrecked, still, sometimes looking good was half the battle. I went out to the living room where Angel stood in his jacket and leather motorcycle club vest, scrolling through his phone. He gave a nod and put it in his pocket.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah, actually. Better than. Looks like most of the club is coming out to meet you.”
“Really?” I asked, taken aback.
“Yeah, really. Come on.” He handed me my helmet and we went out. He locked up behind us and I followed him down the dock, to the parking lot where his bike waited.
The thrum of the engine and the rush of pavement beneath the tires was soothing to my soul as we made our way through the city. We found ourselves on a one-way street and he followed it through traffic for quite a ways. Of course, it didn’t help that we hit every red light the city had to offer.
Eventually, he thumbed on the turn signal, slowed his roll, and turned into an alleyway by a building whose old-fashioned shingle hanging above the door read The Cormorant.