My Faire Lady

by Laura Wettersten

  “Over my dead body. Here.” Ramón shoves a container of a brownish-gold substance at me and I curl my lip up at it. “My homemade dijon. You will not assault my smoked ham with mayonnaise.”

  Ramón gives me a death glare when I remove the lid of the container and poke my finger in the dijon to taste it. I smile brightly. “It’s good.”

  “I know it’s good, that’s why I told you to use it. Now make your sandwich and get out.”

  I slather it on my sandwich and sit back on the stool, happily eating while Ramón works.

  “I told you to leave.”

  I smile brighter. “I like watching you.”

  Ramón grunts in response then turns, grabbing another bun. He slaps a few pieces of ham on it, gives the other side a nice layer of dijon, squishes it together and hands it to me. “Will is down by the menagerie practicing. Go eat your sandwich with him. He’s hungry.”

  “How do you know he’s hungry?” I ask. I take the sandwich and wrap it in one of the wax paper liners we put under turkey legs so the grease won’t soak through the paper plates.

  “Because he wanted a sandwich and I told him to go away. Like I told you.” Ramón picks up another raw turkey leg and points it at me. “Now go. Before I get angry.”

  “Are you sure this isn’t angry?”

  “ROWENA.”

  “I’m leaving, I’m leaving.”

  I’m done with my sandwich by the time I reach the menagerie, except for a small part of my bun, which I throw to the goats. The sun is glaring down, strong and hot, and the rest of the animals are smart enough to stay away from me and keep their places in the shade of the barn on the other side of the pen.

  Will is in the center of the menagerie ring. He’s got one whip uncurled and dangling from around his neck, and another rolled tightly around his shoulder. When he sees me, he comes right over.

  I hand him the sandwich. “Ramón said you’d be hungry.”

  “Ramón kicked me out. How did you manage to get a sandwich?”

  “He likes my particular brand of pestering, I can tell,” I say, smirking. Will digs into the sandwich, stopping only to compliment the dijon. When he’s finished, he thanks me again and rolls the wax paper into a ball that he slips in his pocket.

  Then, without warning, he shrugs out of the whip on his shoulder and tosses it to me.

  I catch it with a gasp. It’s heavier than I imagined, and I file that little tidbit of information away for later, if Christian makes another wisecrack about Will’s strength.

  Will doesn’t say anything, so I find the handle of the whip and let the other end drop, and it coils at my feet like a snake. The handle is about three times as thick as the end, and there’s leather stitching on both sides of it, creating tight seams like a baseball glove. It’s taken someone ages to get it that perfect.

  “Feels good in your hand, right?”

  I jerk my head up, surprised to see Will’s been watching me. “It does. Makes me feel like a lion tamer.”

  “That’s my next act.”

  “Ha,” I say, but I’m distracted, still running my fingers over the stitching. “Did you make this yourself?”

  “Yes. I mean, I wove it. I didn’t make the leather. Davis made that at The Bone Needle. Well, and the cow made it before that. So I can’t take all the credit.”

  “The cow is a very important ingredient, I’d say.” With a sly look in Will’s direction, I raise my hand, bringing the handle of the whip over my head, and try to crack it like I’ve seen so many actors do in the movies. The result is not like the movies. In the slightest. The end of the whip barely moves, and the rest of it flops lazily, hardly coming up higher than my shoulders.

  I turn to Will and I feel the pout on my lips. He coughs to hide a laugh.

  “It’s all about momentum. And . . .”—he looks at me apologetically—“strength, too. It’s going to take some muscle to get the whip above your head.”

  I look down at my arms, which are thin and kind of scrawny. I’m still having some trouble lifting big trays of food at the tavern, even though after just one week, it’s better than it used to be. Kyle used to tease me about my arms, since his were always so thick and built from his lacrosse playing. He used to ask me to flex, and then pull up the skin on my biceps to make me look bigger, like Popeye on spinach.

  “What are you talking about? I’m huge!” I flex with one arm and use the other hand to pull up my skin, just like Kyle used to do to me. Will finds this hopelessly amusing.

  “I know. You’re a giant. But even giants need some help with a whip at first.” Will pushes up the short sleeves of his shirt. It occurs to me that this is only the third time I’ve seen him without a billowy peasant shirt and a leather vest, but he looks equally at home in that as he does in a T-shirt and jeans, which is probably why I didn’t notice his street clothes at first. His T-shirt is green and it’s got a sketch in blue and white of two robots holding hands. There are hearts over their heads and it says under their feet ROBOT LOVE. There’s a brownish-black stain on one of the robot’s faces, and I don’t know if it’s leather oil or chocolate, but both seem like equal possibilities.

  Will shoves his sleeves farther up and removes the whip that’s dangling around his neck. “So really, whip cracking is all about momentum. Physics,” he adds with a grin. “You’re breaking the sound barrier each time that whip cracks, and it takes a certain speed, a certain curvature, a certain motion . . .”

  Will talks as he demonstrates, making sure he’s far enough away from me that I’m not in any danger as the whip sails through the air. Even without the fire, with only basic, straightforward moves, it’s impressive. The end of the whip never touches the ground, but creates beautiful shapes as it floats—curves and loops and infinity symbols. He seems to create a song, too, the faster cracks making higher sounds than the slower ones, building a staccato melody as he moves. But as intriguing as the whip is, what’s even more intriguing is the arm at the end of the whip, guiding it.

  Christian definitely had no idea what he was talking about when he was acting so jealous this morning. Will would have absolutely no trouble with a sword. His arm is flexed, and deep lines of muscle in impressive peaks and valleys glide under his skin as he works the whip through the air.

  I stare. Dumbly. I can’t help myself. Even this morning, seeing him sleeping without a shirt . . . heck, even at the whip show, I never suspected his arms would be like that when flexed.

  “So it’s basically perpetual motion,” Will’s saying, and I snap my gaze away from his lifted arm to his face. Luckily, he’s not watching me at all but concentrating on the movement of the whip. “I mean, what you’ve got to do is get the motion right and just keep it going.”

  I nod as if what he’s saying isn’t all just Greek to me, and raise my own arm to give it a try. After watching the motion he’s making for a few more seconds, I give it a try myself. It’s sort of like a helicopter with one propeller. I whirl it around and around in a circle.

  “What?” I ask when I hear Will snicker. He’s let his whip fall to the ground and is motioning for me to stop. I do, and thank goodness, because the helicopter motion alone is winding me.

  “It’s not a lasso,” he says, still laughing to himself about my lack of skill.

  I scowl at him. “I was doing what you were doing.”

  “It’s really cute that you think so,” he says, and I deepen my scowl. This only makes Will crack up more. “Here, let me show you.”

  Will moves behind me and places his arm on top of mine, lacing his fingers in the gaps that mine have created around the whip handle. He raises our arms together, and as he does, I have to sort of lean back into him so I won’t lose my balance. His body is blazing hot against me, competing well with the noonday sun, and I can tell through the thin material of my tank top that his chest is just as muscled as his arms. Will pulls our arms back and then snaps them quickly forward, and the whip sails over our heads through the air. At the last sec
ond, he pulls our arms back, and a satisfying “crack” echoes around us like a gunshot.

  “Sorry,” he whispers to me. “I should have said it’s not just about perpetual movement, but quick movements, too. You can’t get a crack if you don’t have a good snap.”

  Even though the whip has dropped to the ground, he’s still close to me, his arm over mine, his chest flush with my back. It’s like Christian in the stables, but . . . it’s not at all like Christian, either. Because Christian was using grooming his horse as a way to touch me, and I was using it as a way to touch him. And now, here, with Will, it’s different.

  At least, I think it’s different. Arm muscles aside, and never mind my peeping at his bare chest this morning in his tent, it’s different. Will’s just a friend. Just a guy teaching me how to crack a whip. A guy who I happen to think is really funny, and has great arms, and smells really good; a guy whose tent I slept in, whose sweatshirt I’d worn all night, who I defended to an incredibly sexy knight that morning at the risk of losing my chance at a fairemance.

  “Ro?”

  My name brings me back to the present, and I almost laugh at my own absurdity. This is Will. Of course I’m fixating on all this because it’s all just so odd and my brain is having trouble computing.

  “Sorry,” I say, twisting my neck so I can see his face. He’s really close like this, and I feel a little lost as I look at him. “I think I get it. Thank you.”

  “Want to try again?”

  His arm flexes over mine, his hand spreads over my fingers. It makes me feel like if he moves again, or gets any closer, I could jump out of my skin. Just the anticipation of it is enough to make me feel prickly, like the chills you get when someone else is braiding your hair.

  And I can’t deal with that. Not right now. It’s too much, too weird. I step out of his grasp. “Mind if I try it by myself?”

  The brightness in Will’s eyes dulls a bit, but he nods and steps away so I have enough space. I manage to make the whip give a feeble crack, and I’m proud of it regardless. I hand it back to him, avoiding his gaze the best I can, and mumble some excuse about needing to paint.

  “Of course,” I hear him say as I turn to go. “But you should try again. Sometime soon.”

  I yell over my shoulder that I will, and I have no idea if I sound sincere or not. I have no idea if I am.

  A bottle of nail polish hits my air mattress and bounces into my lap, right on top of my sketchpad. I pick it up and glance at Suze, who’s doing her best to look innocent. She falls woefully short.

  “Do something more useful. Paint your toes instead. They’re looking rough.”

  “Gee, thanks.” I look down at my toes. The rainbow paint job I did the day I interviewed for this job is mostly gone, chipped off by a week of wandering around a Renaissance Faire in my flip-flops. “Bring any nail polish remover?” I ask, relenting.

  She tosses a bottle of that to me, as well as a cotton pad, and I set to work removing the rainbow. When I’m done I look at the bottle of polish Suze threw at me.

  It’s bright green. Kermit the Frog green. So long, rainbow, I guess, and that kind of makes me sad. I wonder if Will will continue to use my nickname if I have monochromatic toes.

  I unscrew the cap and start with my big toe. “Hey, Suze? Can I ask you a weird question?”

  “I live for weird questions.”

  Weird or not, I’m not sure she’s prepared for this. “What do you think of Will Fuller?”

  “Indy?” Suze lifts up her hand and blows on her fingers, trying to get them to dry. “He’s all right. Pretty eyes. Strange sense of humor, though.”

  “Yeah,” I agree, even though I actually like Will’s sense of humor. But then, people always think I’m odd when I laugh at certain things, like the tense part of the movie or an uncomfortable silence.

  “Besides, I’d say what really matters is what you think of Will Fuller,” Suze says. She gives me a look that says that I am not going to get out of the impending conversation—no way, no how. “And what do you think of him? Does Christian have competition? Will there be a showdown with whips versus swords? ’Cause I’m not gonna lie. That would be hot.”

  “No, no. Nothing like that.” I finish up one foot and move on to the other. “It’s just . . . he was teaching me how to crack a whip today—”

  “Mmmm, yeah. Really hot.”

  “Suze! Let me finish. Anyways, he had his arm on mine and he was all close to me and . . . I don’t know. It’s not like I like him that way. He’s just a friend.”

  “You sure about that?” Suze asks, and I can’t raise my eyes to meet hers.

  “Yeah. Of course.” I paint my smallest toe and put the cap back on the bottle. “It was just a weird moment or something. I don’t know.”

  Suze hums. “And how are things going with Christian?”

  “He hasn’t even kissed me yet,” I say, sighing. “Or asked me to the Revel. Then this morning he saw me leaving Will’s tent and got all pissy.”

  Suze cackles. “Christian doesn’t like to lose.”

  Christian doesn’t like to lose. That’s true, on the jousting field or off. But I’m not sure that means anything good for me. Grant seemed to think it did, but maybe he’s reading too much into it. Maybe I am, too.

  “What do I do, Suze?”

  “Well, if you’re telling the truth and you don’t like Will, then there’s not much you can do, right? Keep flirting with Christian. Come on. He’s tried to kiss you twice, right? He likes you.” Suze gathers her hair into three sections and starts to braid. “Unless you want to go for Davis or something.”

  “Davis is kind of hilarious.”

  Suze shakes her head at me, disgusted. “He thinks it’s funny to light his farts on fire.”

  “Noted.”

  We chat on as I wait for my nails to dry, then give them another coat. Suze begins to twist my hair into a configuration that will last all day tomorrow, even through a hectic tavern shift. We gab about everything. She also updates me on the gossip around the faire. Apparently Magda and Ramón hooked up again last night, though they’re both denying it, which could explain Ramón’s particularly sour mood today. Richard was seen leaving the campfire with one of the cuter squires, and a couple of the acrobats decided to toilet paper Jeff’s trailer, and of course they were so stealthy Jeff slept soundly through the whole thing.

  Suze pulls back on my hair so that I’m looking up into her face. “So how was your day, other than working up some major tension with the whip cracker?”

  I stick my tongue out at her and she pushes my head back down, continuing my updo. “Hmmm, well. It was kind of awesome. I bugged Ramón for a while.”

  “Oh, I bet he loved that.”

  “He let me have a sandwich, with his homemade dijon.”

  I feel Suze shaking her head behind me. “How did you get on his good side?”

  I snort. “I sat with Robbie and painted for a while, which was fun. She’s really good, and it’s nice having another artist around. Then it was the whipping lesson. After that I stopped in at The Bone Needle and finally got my sandals.”

  At that, Suze completely drops my hair and goes in search of the new sandals, which she deems adorable, considering they’re historically accurate. They do have the look of a ballet slipper instead of a gladiator sandal, so I am grateful, and Davis hardly charged me anything for them.

  Suze resumes fixing my hair, and I resume my recount of the day.

  “As I was coming back here before dinner, your mom pulled me into her shop to show me some of the fabric she got, and . . . we had a conversation.”

  “That doesn’t sound good. What exactly did my mother say to you?”

  I shrug off Suze’s concern, cursing myself for even mentioning Lindy at all when I could have easily left out that bit of my day. The whole conversation upset me so much (way more than the awkward moment with Will) that I hadn’t even meant to bring it up.

  “Rowena,” Suze says, and it’s e
xactly the stern voice her mother used on me that afternoon.

  I sigh, and Suze tugs tighter on my hair. I yelp and confess before she tugs on it again. “She asked me what I want to do with my life.”

  “Yeah? So?”

  “So . . . ,” I say, exasperated. “So I don’t have a clue. I mean, my parents want me to go to college and major in something respectable, so I guess that’s what I’ll do.”

  “Well, to hell with your parents,” Suze says. “What do you want to do?”

  “You sound just like your mother.”

  “My mother is seldom wrong.” Suze wrinkles her nose. “Please don’t tell her I said that.”

  In spite of the confusion inside me, I laugh at that, but sober quickly. This conversation is remarkably similar to the one I had with Suze’s mom hours ago, when Lindy had asked me what I would do with my life if I didn’t have any restrictions. I started to think about my art, and about how much just silly face painting means to me, and how quickly time seems to pass when I slip into that other world and just paint, like this morning with Robbie.

  “What do you want to do?” I ask Suze after a moment.

  Suze begins to braid. “It’s so geeky . . .”

  I smile. I can’t imagine Suze doing anything geeky. She could make pocket protectors cool. “Spill.”

  “I want to major in history. Renaissance history.” She sighs at herself. “I know. Like I haven’t spent enough time on the Renaissance already.”

  “I think that’s awesome,” I tell her, and I can feel her relief at my approval. Which makes me wonder if she’s faced some disapproval about it at one point in her life. “What did your parents think?” I ask cautiously.

  Suze laughs, but it’s not genuine. “Well, they just about exploded. They couldn’t get why I didn’t want to be a lifer forever like them.”

  “But now they do?”

  Suze is quiet for a moment, and then, “I don’t know if they get it, but they’re okay with it. They realize that I’m different from them, even if I’m their daughter. And they’re proud that I got into Amherst. They’re just proud in general, you know?”