Amour Amour

by Krista Ritchie

  My body swells, and my eyes burn with tears. “Really?”

  “Please don’t cry,” he grimaces.

  I smile instead. “Thank you…so much.”

  “You can stay here until you find a place,” Camila tells me with a wink.

  Maybe I am lucky after all.

  I pick up my phone as it buzzes once more.

  Sis, did you make it? – Tanner

  I can’t fathom opening these floodgates of disapproval. If I tell Tanner, he’ll tell my parents. Lying to them hurts less. I’ve never done it before, but I just want to be the kind of daughter they’re proud of. Not the one they cringe about when someone brings me up. Is your daughter in college?

  No, she dropped out.

  I don’t want to saddle them with judgment from their peers.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” John asks me seriously. He must see me hesitating, staring at the phone like it holds my future. “Once I make the call and get you in, I don’t want you to flake. Last thing I need is to owe some asshole club manager a favor.”

  I let my heart guide me.

  “I’m sure,” I tell him.

  I’m all in.

  I text my brother. Yeah. I landed the role.

  Act Eight

  Only a week into my job and the manager of Phantom has already badgered me twice about amplifying my sex appeal on the aerial hoop, dangling from the ceiling.

  My act, apparently, is too tame for the Vegas nightclub. But if I shake my ass anymore, I might as well walk down the strip to a triple X joint. Honestly, they probably pay better.

  I knot the straps around my long knee-length coat, hiding my costume: a black corset, matching underwear, and fishnet stockings. I wobble in my five-inch silver stilettos as I depart from the club. I try to comb my fingers through my tangled dirty-blonde hair that poofs around my oval face.

  Last time I tried to hang from the hoop, my hair in a bun, the manager cursed me out and called me Virgin Mary. Unfortunately the nickname has stuck around the workplace. But I’d rather not be fired in my first week, especially since John stuck his neck out to help me.

  The upside: I’m in the air ninety-nine percent of the time at Phantom. And one of the girls gave me the address of a gym with circus apparatuses. I’ve signed up for a couple classes. Maybe I can strengthen my skills while I’m here.

  And a plus has been the location. Right in the heart of The Masquerade. I only have an elevator ride down to The Red Death, where I plan to meet up with Camila and drink to surviving my very first week in Vegas.

  Just as I exit the elevator, my phone rings. I read the caller ID: SHAY.

  I’ve been screening his calls more than usual this week. I shelter my anxiety and slip into the nearest hallway bathroom, pressing the phone to my ear. “What’s up?” My eyes flit to a couple girls who fix their makeup by the mirror.

  “You’ve been ignoring me,” he says. “I get why you’re lying to your parents because they’d flip their shit. But you’ve already told me the truth, so what the hell, Thora?” I hear the sound of a bouncy ball being tossed at a wall.

  I picture him lying on the floor, against his bed. Throwing and catching the blue rubber toy. The Cincinnati gym, where we practiced together as teens, had a bouncy ball dispenser in the front, and we both spent way too many quarters for handfuls of them.

  I say under my breath, “I’m just scared you’re going to tell me that I’m making a mistake.”

  He’s silent. Biting his tongue, maybe. “You’re going to miss conditioning tomorrow.”

  “I know.”

  “Have you called the coach?”

  “I sent him an email.” I swallow a lump.

  He exhales heavily. “So how has it been? They don’t make you wear heels, do they?”

  I glance down at the uncomfortable silver stilettos that neither fit my personality nor really my body, my toes aching. “They’re not that bad,” I say optimistically. “I’ll wear them in.”

  He laughs. “Yeah right.”

  I realize how this conversation—and most of them lately—have been circumnavigating around me. Friendships go two ways. “What about you?” I ask.

  “I’m not wearing heels any time soon.”

  I smile. “No, I mean, how are you? Is conditioning going well? Are the freshman looking good?”

  “They’re okay. It’s same-old-same-old, you know—well, I guess you don’t know.” The bouncy ball sounds like it pops hard against the wall.

  “Shay,” I whisper, resting my hip on the sink counter. “Do you ever dream that you’re meant to do something…more?”

  “I like my life here,” is all he says. “It was going fine until…” He sighs in frustration. “I’m just used to you being around.” I hear the ball bounce on a floorboard. “I have other friends, but you’re the one who annoys me the least.”

  I smile wider. “It’s because I’m your only friend that’s a girl.” And probably because we are best friends in most ways.

  I can feel his smile too. “Be safe, okay?”

  “I will. Be happy, alright?”

  “I am,” he assures me.

  “Okay.” Someone else begins to call me. I check the ID. “My mom is on the other line.”

  “Don’t hang up on her,” Shay tells me quickly. “Your parents have been pestering my parents who’ve been pestering me about you. They just want to know how you’re doing.”

  “What do I say?”

  He sighs again. “Tell her that everything is going great. Your dreams are coming true. Zip-a-dee-doo-dah.”

  I roll my eyes. “Helpful.”

  “You asked,” he reminds me. “Good luck.”

  “Thanks.” I switch calls before I lose her. “Hey, Mom.” The girls in the bathroom readjust their purses and strut out the doors, inadvertently giving me more privacy.

  “Hi, honey. I just wanted to call and see how practice has been.”

  I check my watch. It’s late, especially in Ohio. “Shouldn’t you be in bed?” I ask, confused and concerned.

  “I’ve been up,” she admits, her tone gleeful. “So…has it been everything you hoped it would be?” Her excitement rings over the line. She’s happy for me. For my non-existent success.

  The lie festers in my stomach. You can do this, Thora James. “It’s been…amazing.” My voice turns wistful almost. “I can’t believe I’ll be a part of Amour in five months.”

  Five months. That’s how long they’re giving Elena to train for the show. That’s how long I have to land a role before my parents fly out to Vegas to “see” me perform.

  “We’re so proud of you, Thora,” she says. “Your father has been telling everyone at work.” I sense her face stretching into a blinding smile. My parents are both chemical engineers—so I’m guessing I was the talk of the lab.

  My daughter is in the circus. That big one in Vegas. It’s highly competitive, you know.

  I close my eyes before they well. “Thanks, Mom. I love you both.”

  She repeats the sentiment before we agree to talk more often. Then we hang up.

  I feel awful. Like I need to absolve my sins in a confessional and do charitable deeds. I’ll make things right with them. I just need some time. I do my best to shed my guilt and leave the bathroom.

  Act Nine

  1:18 a.m.

  After I make it to The Red Death, I check my phone for the time, the number illuminating my screen. Back at Ohio State, one in the morning was followed by sleep. Here in Vegas¸ it almost feels like the beginning of the night.

  Just like last time, the female hostess mans the podium. “Are you single?!” she asks over the loud bass, glow stick necklaces stacked beside her in boxes.

  “Yeah, I’m single!” I shout back, and she hands me a blue one. I fasten it around my neck and skirt past the drunken Vegas nightlife, shrouded mostly in darkness. A few elbows and hips bump into me as they dance, intoxicated on something stronger than alcohol.

  By the time I arr
ive at the lit-up bar, a bachelorette party swarms the other end, swamping Camila’s attention. Flagging down the second bartender also proves near impossible. I wait patiently while those around me grow more and more frustrated and just wander off.

  “Oh man, not another bachelorette party,” a guy says as he sidles to the open space beside my stool. He wears black leather pants and nothing else. Lanky with defined, cut muscles. “Hey!” He leans forward and taps the bar. In the red overhead lights, I suddenly make out his face.

  “Timo?” I ask.

  His head whips to me, his dark brown hair falling in his lashes, the sides shorter. His dangling cross earring sways with the abrupt movement. “Thora James,” he says my name into a wide grin. His gray eyes brighten, his smooth face illuminated red, green and blue by three stacked neon necklaces. “I didn’t know you live here.”

  At the blackjack table, I never confessed about my job situation to Timo. Nothing about the audition ever came up, so I’m sure he assumed that I was a girl moseying in and out of Vegas.

  “I do now,” I tell him.

  “I’d toast to it, but you know…” Timo rests his forearms on the bar and leans over. “Bachelorette prejudice!”

  Camila flips him off from the other side, her cheeks flushed from being hurried.

  Timo shakes his head. “Next time, I’m wearing a bride-to-be sash if that’s all it takes to get service.”

  “TAT! TAT! TAT!”

  My pulse pitches. I crane my neck over my shoulder and notice the cluster of people, huddling together in the center of the room. Nikolai bets people every Saturday night then. Maybe because Amour isn’t scheduled for Sundays, so he won’t have to wake early for work. Wild and responsible.

  It’s crazy to think that just behind the wall of people, he stands there, poised and confident—ready to provide an “experience” for some other girl.

  Timo lets out a long groan. “I’m missing it.” He hunches over, keeping his forearms on the sticky bar, and he turns his head to me. “So what do you do in Vegas?”

  “I just started working at Phantom.”

  His brows jump in surprise. “Phantom.” He inspects my long coat and stilettos. “Are you one of the jello shot girls? Not that I’m judging.”

  “No jello shots.” I highly doubt the manager would allow the Virgin Mary to lie on the bar and let men and women suck shots off my bare stomach, covered in pungent alcohol and wet dollar bills. “I do an aerial hoop act for a few hours and then they swap me out with another girl.”

  His dazzling smile extends even wider. “A club acrobat. I always wanted to try it out, but my parents would never allow it. Too much entertainment, not enough art.”

  I can’t see his parents stopping him from doing anything. He’s underage in a Vegas club, drinking. They seem really relaxed to me, but then again, I don’t really know him or the Kotovas. “You’re eighteen,” I remind him. “You can do what you want, can’t you?” It’s a stupid question. I understand, so well, the pressure to please a parent.

  “I’m twenty-one, Thora James.” He gives me a look, and his lips twitch up in a smirk. “And it’s not just my parents. Nikolai would have me by the balls.”

  “Timo!”

  I freeze at the sound of his deep voice.

  “Speak of the devil!” Timo yells, whipping around and setting his elbows on the bar. “Please tell me you know some trick into breaking the bachelorette hypnosis on all the bartenders.”

  My joints stiffen as Nikolai scoots closer, not noticing my lingering presence. I keep my eyes planted on the racks of liquor instead of confronting him. But I sense his towering frame behind me.

  I thought there was a slim possibility that he’d be here tonight. The scariest part: I think I hoped for it. My belly flutters with nerves. I don’t want him to think I stuck around Vegas for him. That’d be weird. And beyond awkward.

  Nikolai slides even closer to the bar, and his arm actually grazes my shoulder. He’s not fazed by the touch, nor does he acknowledge the brief contact. I’m frozen solid to this place.

  Nikolai raises his hand and flags down a female bartender. She immediately zips over to him.

  “What the fuck?” Timo curses, annoyed and amazed at how easily his brother could summon the girl.

  “I’ll take a Jack and Fizz.” Nikolai turns to his brother, his back facing me. His height is not only impressive and intimidating but it shrinks me to a little tiny thing. I might as well disappear from sight. “What do you want?”

  “A Manhattan.” Just as the bartender goes to leave, Timo adds, “Wait!” He leans over the bar to look down towards me. “Thora, what do you want?”

  Boom.

  My cover is blown.

  While Nikolai’s sweltering gaze bears down on me, full of what-the-fuck confusion, I peek at the drink specials. “Tequila sunrise,” I manage to say clearly.

  The bartender swivels to her liquor bottles and juices, concocting our drinks. Every tendon snaps as I slowly turn to meet Nikolai’s piercing grays, steel that drills right through me. His glow necklace turns his white button-down into a deadly red hue.

  I open my mouth to say something, but I’m not sure what to say. I end up swallowing air.

  “You stayed,” he speaks first, his voice lower than before. He seems more than just indifferent, but I can’t place his sentiments. Good or bad. He inspects my outfit with a once-over, his eyes descending in a hot wave. “What for?”

  He asked me a question for once. A personal question. I wonder if I’ve just become worthy of a backstory.

  “I stayed for job opportunities.” I notice his jaw muscles tensing, and my frown deepens, maybe even into a scowl.

  Timo slings his arm around my shoulder. “Thora, here, works at Phantom.”

  Nikolai is incredibly rigid, and his eyes flash hot. “Doing what?”

  “I’m a club acrobat,” I say. “I need money for an apartment, and I’m…taking some classes at a gym. So…”

  “Formal training,” he says, understanding what I mean. “It’ll take much more than that to land a job in this industry, Thora. It may be months before there’s even another opening. I hope that I didn’t give you the inclination that a few classes is all you need.”

  I shake my head, about to tell him no, but Timo holds up his hands in shock. “Wait—you two know each other beyond a nipple piercing?”

  My neck heats, but I stand tall, not shrinking.

  Nikolai shoots his little brother a disapproving glare and growls out a few words in Russian.

  Timo gapes and touches his bare chest “I have tact.”

  I help clarify, “I was auditioning for a role in Amour.”

  “Oh,” Timo says with a nod, his smile returning. “Small world.”

  This trains Nikolai’s attention back on his brother, the origin of why he even sauntered over here. He starts speaking in Russian, and I can’t piece apart anything except the aggravated tone. Timo’s lively features morph into mild irritation.

  His reply comes out even more hostile.

  The bartender appears and slides our drinks over. I collect the one with orange juice, fishing out a few bills. The other two drinks, a cocktail with dark liquid (plus a cherry) and a glass with soda and whiskey, go unnoticed by the Kotovas.

  When Nikolai steps closer to Timo, his finger pointed at the exit, I pick up a new name: Katya.

  A girl’s name, clearly. I wonder if she’s his friends-with-benefits. A chill creeps up my spine, and I tell myself that it’s simply the guilt of eavesdropping.

  Timo glowers, his chest falling in a heavy, annoyed breath. Clearly upset, he spouts off a string of Russian words while he walks backwards. Then he flips Nikolai off. With two hands. And he storms away without his drink or another glance.

  Nikolai rakes his fingers through his hair. He roughly snatches his Jack and Fizz, chugging half of it in one gulp. He must feel my loitering gaze because he says, “I told him to go home.” He grips the edge of the bar. “What did
you leave behind, Thora?”

  “What do you mean?” I take a very small sip of my drink that’s more tequila than orange juice. It burns my throat.

  His eyes are suddenly dead-set on me again. “What are you giving up by being here?”

  I chose not to look at it that way. It’s easier seeing the things I gain than the things I lose. Cold washes over me again. “Parents, my little brother,” I start listing things off, “my friends and…” I pause, knowing this last one will not be waiting for me when I return like the others. “…a gymnastics scholarship.”

  He downs the rest of his drink and motions to the bartender for another. “And why the circus?” He no longer faces me. No longer peels back my layers with his intrusive gaze. He’s glaring from the gathering dancers to the racks of liquor bottles. A look that I’m glad I don’t meet head-on.

  Why the circus? I’ve never had to share this story with anyone other than my bedroom mirror. “When I was fourteen, my mom took me to the circus…I fell in love with it.” I pause to form a better explanation, of how I sat in that velvet-lined seat and longed to share the performer’s experience. To be the girl flying in the air, to captivate an audience and enchant them. To be superhumanly strong.

  To be something more. Awe. And power. And grace.

  The words stick to the back of my throat.

  “What show?” he asks.

  “Aerial Ethereal’s Nova Vega.” It was one of the most popular touring circus shows, going on a twenty-year run, and now it’s found a permanent home in Montreal. As Nikolai stays silent, I wonder… “Were you…in it?”

  The bartender passes him another drink, and he nods to her in thanks. To me, he says, “When I was twelve, I assisted the Russian swing in Nova Vega for a year.”

  So I didn’t watch him perform exactly, but still…small world, as Timo said. I guess the industry is tiny.

  He swishes his drink, in contemplation maybe. “You’re one of many, myshka. I hear that same story countless times. Girls say how they wanted to be ballerinas after seeing Swan Lake in Moscow, boys dying to win gold medals in hockey after watching a game up close.”

  One in a million. I know I’m part of the many. It’s a thought I’ve been given by too many people. “Are your reasons for being an acrobat unique?” I ask.