Balancing Acts

by Lynne Sharon Schwartz

  ‘Which one is you? And where’s your wife?’

  ‘She’s taking the picture. Let’s see if I can find me.’ He bent nearer to search. His finger wavered, then rested on the dim image of a young man with a broad chest, thick dark hair, and a wide grinning mouth. A patter of light hollow thumps ran through his chest. So his youth was extant, preserved in plastic coating. How forgetful—he had been lugging that image around in a suitcase for years, a jittery monkey on his back.

  ‘That’s really amazing! You don’t look that different, Max. You had more hair, though. Why do you have your arms up in that weird way?’

  ‘A few of us worked up this little number, sort of a parody of the girls doing ballet on the ropes. Just for laughs, in private.’

  ‘You must have had a lot of fun.’

  ‘Fun! Half the time we were exhausted—getting up so early and rehearsing. Two shows a day sometimes, and then we had to pack it all up and move on. You get to hate the sight of a road. Eight, nine months of the year, traveling. Plus the smells, the animals, always shitting all over the place. Oh, pardon me.’

  ‘Do you have any pictures of the acts—you know, during the show?’

  ‘No, this is all personal stuff. We were small, no fancy programs or publicity shots. Mud show, it was called. But in the back here, I think there may be an old poster. Ah, yes.’ As he opened it the paper, yellowed and blotched, crackled. The words ‘Brandon Brothers’ in red honky-tonk lettering made an arc in the center; above and below were pictures of bespangled women and haughty men in silver, elephants and dancing bears decked out in costume. The border was a chain of flaming hoops. ‘The usual thing,’ he said.

  Alison studied it and turned back to the photos. ‘I’d rather see some of your wife. What was her name?’

  ‘Here’s our trailer. We never really had a chance to fix it up the way they do nowadays. We were always on the move.’

  ‘My father sells trailers. Mobile homes, they’re called now. Out west people buy them because they can’t afford houses any more—the market is so high.’

  Max turned a page and got a thud behind his collarbone. Blots before his eyes. Susie stared straight up at him—thirty-five years vanished and he was there, pointing the lens down at her on the blue shag rug. She sat leaning against an armchair wearing lush velvet slacks, knees drawn up to her chin and arms hugging them, curly head slightly tilted. Her lips were parted—just before he snapped she ran her tongue over them to make them shiny. Her eyes were huge and deliberately seductive—as if he needed to be seduced. Susie playing provocative. After he took the picture he sat down on the rug with her and they played a game, touching fingertips only, till they couldn’t stand it any more. Then her eyes gave up the teasing glance, darkened and shone. In the picture now they looked pained, asking why he hadn’t rescued her. Up in the air, he had never once let her fall.

  ‘Oh, Lord,’ he whispered. She wore a black turtleneck sweater; her face was pale next to it. It was December. She had always hated the cold; they both did. At night she sneaked her icy feet between his to warm them, and he would jump and groan, ‘Jesus, Susie, have a little consideration.’

  ‘Oh, that must be her,’ said Alison. ‘She’s really pretty. What was her name again?’

  His skin felt like a net drawn tight. Blood beat down every pathway, while outside him, as the pages turned, Susie was everywhere, framed by those silly black tabs she used to paste the photos in. She did that soon after they left the circus and opened the bike shop. For a week she sat each evening at the kitchen table with her jar of glue and her shoebox full of photos, patiently organizing and pasting. Her hair was long then, fluffy and restless on her shoulders; her hands strong and bare—she didn’t like rings. She wore big horn-rimmed glasses and one of his plaid flannel shirts over dungarees, and as she worked she sipped from a mug of tea. She was fifty, overwhelmingly sexy at the kitchen table under the strong overhead light. Max laughed at her industriousness.

  ‘Why are you spending so much time on that, Susie?’

  ‘I like to.’

  ‘It’s not as if we were going to pass it on to our grandchildren.’

  She gave him a severe look through the glasses. ‘What is that supposed to mean, Max? Isn’t it enough that it’s for us?’

  ‘Yes, yes. I feel neglected, that’s all.’

  ‘Act your age. I’ll be finished in a little while.’

  ‘I have this terrific idea, Susie.’

  ‘Well, you just hang on to it.’

  ‘You’re so strict. Come on, put it away and come to bed. I’m more fun. I’m flesh and blood.’

  ‘I’m aware of that,’ she sighed. ‘That’s why it’s strange you don’t seem to tire out like other people.’ She removed her glasses and took a last gulp of tea before she stood up and came towards him. When he touched her she started to laugh, and said, ‘You twisted my arm.’

  ‘You didn’t even answer me,’ said Alison. ‘What are you thinking?’

  He had forgotten she was there. ‘Don’t ask that! It’s a rude question.’

  ‘All right! You don’t have to snap like that.’ She tossed her head carelessly. ‘I know anyway. You’re thinking about her. I bet you think about her a lot.’

  He moved away from her. His back was stiff from leaning over the album, and stiff words were on his tongue. He held them back: it would be cruel to hurt a child, nothing yet but a mass of possibilities. In anger, he doubted if the possibilities in this one would ever radiate out to reality. She was certainly going about it in the wrong direction: involuted and curled in on herself, smothering the craving flame. He knew all about latent powers, about urging what was inside to beam out and glitter. What she needed was someone to recognize her; unrecognized she didn’t trust her own reality. Recognize and take her on. But it was too taxing. He was in retirement. He sat silent.

  ‘You can tell me about her,’ she said earnestly. ‘I can keep a secret, I swear. Tell me how you met.’

  He would throw her a scrap to make her stop clawing. ‘I had a job there, cleaning up, setting up the acts, and so on. She was the girl who swung on the trapeze, with some big fellow called J. B. Jones. He was a bum.’

  It wasn’t Susie he had wanted at first. He wanted the flying. Brandon said if he could get someone to teach him in his spare time, it was okay with him. Max picked Susie simply because she was the best; her moves appeared effortless. Fluid. ‘You don’t have the right body,’ she said when he asked. ‘Never mind about the body. Just teach me.’ She was surprised by his progress. She gave him all her free time and worked him without mercy, but it didn’t even occur to him. He was a sweeper of dung and she was a star, to the manner born. Her parents had been circus people all their lives, till they were killed in an auto accident. Brandon, an old family friend, had always looked out for her: the orphaned princess. Then one night Max had to go on because J. B. Jones, the bum, was sick, and the next man in line had a torn ligament. They cut the act to a minimum, trusting him with a few simple routines. When they were done she kissed him on the cheek. ‘Max, you were terrific! You caught me!’ He could still hear the delight in her voice, the guardedness in his. ‘Of course I caught you. What did you expect?’ ‘I wasn’t absolutely sure.’ ‘And you went on anyway?’ She smiled, a clever, wry smile. ‘Someone had to take a chance on you.’ Still he didn’t see what she was getting at, until she took hold of his hand and squeezed it. ‘Hey, Max,’ she said in a funny, questioning voice, and flashed the clever smile again. Then he understood. With that look she had him.

  ‘I’ll tell you: she coached me,’ he said to Alison. ‘I don’t remember all the details, but to make a long story short, she coached me, and somehow we got together.’

  ‘Did she like you right away? I mean, did she tell you?’

  ‘Well, naturally she let me know, one way and another.’

  ‘I would never have the nerve to tell someone I liked them. Someone my age, I mean. Unless maybe they told me first.’

&nb
sp; ‘It’s not a question of nerve at all. It’s more being ready to reach out and take what comes your way. If it’s what you want.’

  ‘Are you ready to reach out and take what comes your way?’

  ‘Me! Now?’ He laughed grimly. ‘Certainly not. I’m ready to be finished. Anyhow, things don’t come your way unless you’re ready. It’s kind of a paradox. A paradox is—’

  ‘I know what a paradox is. I looked it up once. But can’t you let me be your friend? I came your way.’

  ‘You are my friend,’ he said, slamming the album shut and drawing back from her. ‘You come over to see me, don’t you?’

  ‘That’s not the same thing and you know it.’

  ‘I feed you, I take you to the movies, I show you pictures. What more do you want?’

  ‘Do you think about me when I’m not here?’

  ‘Well...’ Max said.

  ‘You certainly don’t think about me like...you know...’ She dropped her head and put the tips of two smudged fingers between her teeth.

  He rose. The unpleasant tightness was still in his back. His left eyelid began to twitch. ‘Let me try to...enlighten you,’ he said carefully. ‘Whatever it is you seek in me is not available, for the simple reason that it does not exist. It may never have existed—I don’t know myself any more. But’—and he shook his finger at her—‘you are operating under a delusion. You have placed your eggs in the wrong basket.’

  She stood up too, her body loose and dangling like a garment on a wire hanger. ‘See!’ She stamped her foot. ‘Now you’re talking that way again! You throw words at people like they throw knives at girls in a—in a side show. You’re a real case, Max.’

  ‘I can’t recall soliciting your opinion of me. No wonder you have trouble finding friends.’

  ‘I have trouble!’ she shouted. ‘You can’t be friends with anyone because you’re still back with—I bet you think about her all the time, don’t you? Only you’re not dead yet. You know what Joan of Arc said? That living is not simply not being stone—’

  ‘I don’t give a flying fuck what Joan of Arc said!’ Max roared. He grabbed the album from the couch and held it like a shield against his chest. ‘Go home, will you? I’ve never invited you here, have I? So go home to your own parents!’

  ‘All right, I will!’ She hoisted up her knapsack. A clump of chewed pencils fell out and rolled along the carpet.

  ‘Oh, shit!’ cried Max. ‘You’re a messy kid.’ He spun around and fled into the bathroom, slamming the door shut. What madness had he sunk to, howling back and forth with a child?

  For maybe ten minutes he sat on the closed lid of the toilet, waiting for a slice across his chest. Now, with his secrets all bared by her, his life fingered like a raw wound—now would be a good time to go. Strike, heart. He was ready and willing. But nothing. Never suited your convenience. This child was gratuitous. This extra time, borrowed time, also gratuitous. He had never requested any loan. Thank you very much, but no, thanks. Then a timid knock on the bathroom door.

  ‘Max? Are you okay?’

  Not gone yet!

  ‘Max? I’m sorry. I was leaving, but you’ve been in there so long. Max?’

  Good. Let her think he dropped dead.

  The familiar dull bang of her knapsack hitting the carpet. She was knocking louder, pounding. ‘Max? Max! Say something! Should I call Lettie?’

  That roused him. He opened the door and raised his arm, ready with the fierceness he had used on roughnecks trying to crash the gate. But her face, bleached by terror, stopped him. The arm lost its impulse; he breathed in and patted her shoulder awkwardly. ‘Alison, you’re a little girl. You see what I am. Go find some other girls who are precocious like you—there must be a few around. Go play, or write books, or do whatever smart girls do.’

  ‘Are you sick again, like in the store?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘All right, I’m going. I’m sorry. I only wanted to talk to you.’

  The sharpness of her face had vanished, and her eyes had softened from their lucid green to a murky hazel. She was someone else, someone younger come out of hiding and wholly unarmed in the face of all the world’s dangers. Somebody ought to rescue this fragile one from the crude character who guarded her like a dragon. It was tempting. But not him.

  ‘Why don’t you take an apple, a cookie, or something before you go?’

  ‘Thanks. But you know, an apple is no substitute for anything.’ Recovered and swaggering again, she got an apple from his refrigerator and dug her teeth in loudly. ‘Okay, Max. See you in school tomorrow?’

  ‘Right.’

  At the door, not done yet, not looking at his face. ‘Can I come back sometime?’ Desperate, behind eyes once more cool and green.

  ‘Yes.’

  CHAPTER 6

  HIGHET’S ON BROAD STREET was newly decorated to look old-fashioned, with polished wood floors and heavy oak tables on carved legs. Behind the deep counter up front, rows of tall gleaming glasses were reflected in overhead mirrors, and on the walls hung old posters of ladies in flowered hats and long dresses. The lettering on the cardboard placards describing their ice cream offerings was done in elaborate curlicues. Alison pulled the newspaper clipping from her pocket and spread it out between them on the table. It was their usual corner table, near the window.

  ‘The circus is coming to New York in May. That’s only about six weeks away,’ she told Lettie. ‘Look, it says “Order Tickets Now.” I want to take you and Max.’

  ‘Take us to the circus? What a sweet idea! But it’s much too expensive. Let us take you. I’ll speak to Max about it.’

  ‘No, my mind is made up. You can still speak to him, though. To convince him to go.’

  Lettie smiled. ‘If your mind is made up, I’m sure you can convince him yourself, next time you’re there.’

  ‘Well, I don’t like to be too pesty. One time he got mad and locked himself in the bathroom.’

  ‘Oh, but that was weeks ago. You’ve seen him lots of times since. He just has his moods.’ She paused a moment. ‘But all right, I’ll ask him, if you like. Here comes our ice cream.’

  ‘Enjoy it, ladies.’ It was their favorite waitress, the friendly one with a long orange braid down her back and a face full of freckles. Lettie dug her spoon into the peach sundae.

  ‘What I would really like him to do,’ Alison said, ‘is explain everything to me. All the tricks of the trade. How all the acts work, and how you go about getting a job, and everything.’

  ‘Aren’t you a little young to be thinking of a job?’

  ‘Not really. Not if I were living, oh, forty or fifty years ago. How old were you when you started to work?’

  ‘Fifteen. But times were different then. I needed the money to live. When my father died I had five younger brothers and sisters. If I had had a choice I would have stayed in school.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  Lettie laid down the spoon and looked off into the distance. In her flowered dress with the ruffled collar she resembled the posters on the walls. Her eyes were amused. ‘I was a—a dancer in a nightclub. You know, like a few years ago they had go-go dancers?’

  Alison stared. ‘A go-go girl?’ They burst out laughing together. ‘That’s so neat! I’ve never known anyone who did that. All my mother ever did was work as a receptionist in an advertising agency. Then after she got married and moved up here, that was it.’ She stirred her soda, crushing the ice cream. ‘Unfortunately I’m not the go-go girl type. But I could do other things. Did you know that most serious artists began their careers at a very young age? That girl we saw in The Exorcist, Linda Blair? She was only fifteen. Also the girl in Bugsy Malone—remember you said that type was called a vamp? Fourteen.’

  ‘On, yes. She was a cute little girl. I was kind of like that.’

  ‘I bet.’ She laughed. ‘Max thinks I ought to finish school first. Even go to college. He’s so particular, he won’t even let me come over during school hours. Isn’t that odd, f
or someone who led such an unconventional life?’

  ‘He’s probably right,’ said Lettie. ‘I really shouldn’t be doing this with you. The movies and all. Don’t mention it to him, for heaven’s sake. I hate to lie, but you know he’d get angry, and it’s not good for his heart.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of telling him,’ she replied. ‘I have a private life too, after all.’ She leaned towards Lettie. ‘Personally, I don’t think he gives a damn about his heart. In school he makes a big thing about how strong he is. We’re doing complicated stuff now, and he practically encourages us to fall on top of him, just to show off.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ Lettie groaned. ‘He wants to be finished off, that’s the truth.’ She pushed the dish of ice cream away.

  ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.’

  Lettie waved her hand. ‘I know it anyway. If it bothers me it’s my own fault. Nobody told me to get involved.’

  ‘You reach out and take what comes your way, right?’

  She threw her head back and laughed, and then patted Alison’s hand. ‘You certainly do have a way of expressing yourself...How would you like to see The Towering Inferno over at the shopping center? I missed it the first time around. I love Fred Astaire, even when he’s not dancing.’

  ‘I have no money on me. I spent my whole allowance on books.’

  ‘Oh, forget the money.’

  ‘But you always pay.’

  ‘Social Security,’ she said, signaling the red-haired waitress for the check. ‘Let the government pay.’

  ‘Well, I’ll definitely buy the circus tickets. Do we have time for a quick stop in Bamberger’s? So I can go up the down escalator a couple of times?’

  ‘Sure, why not? I’ll see what free samples of perfume they’re giving away. But make it a quick one this time. I want to get a good seat.’

  ‘Alison, hold it. Before you disappear into your room...’ Wanda called.

  She turned at the bottom of the stairs, hugging the four oranges to her stomach. ‘What?’