Everything You Came to See

by Elizabeth Schulte Martin

  CHAPTER 23

  THE CIRCUS KIDS SLEPT, AND Caleb sketched.

  He’d started to think of those dark lines in Beckmann’s paintings not as lines but as shadows. It was this quality of Adrienne’s, the quality of light and shadow that she carried with her, that he loved, and it was why she would have been a perfect subject for a Beckmann painting. So he had photographed her and Richard in candlelight, and that was the photograph he drew from now.

  The sketching, this time, was a means to an end. It helped him focus on what needed to be done. He wasn’t going to spend another moment thinking he was not a real artist. He was a real artist, and his art was the circus, putting together the pieces, making it whole and beautiful. What could you call that but art?

  When he finished his sketch, there were many dark areas, but the bright crests of skin and the sharp curve of Richard’s beak made the picture dramatic. Adrienne’s head tilted upward so that there were black shadows in the space between her eyes and eyebrows. She looked like she had the night he saw her do her cabaret show as the Amazon Woman, a spectacle of otherworldly beauty.

  He could still do this. He could still revive Feely and Feinstein. After all, he had found the boy’s brother. When Andre had appeared in his doorway, he’d known, briefly, what it felt like to create something unambiguously good, and why people did it. He’d created something out of thin air, something even more complex than a painting, and he wanted to do it again, for Feely and Feinstein.

  CHAPTER 24

  AS KYLIE FELL, SHE ECLIPSED the white industrial lights that hung in the rehearsal space—head tilted up, arms held straight out to the sides—and the scaffolding she launched herself from shuddered behind her. Henry caught her, righted her, and lowered her stiff body to the ground. She was still more of an actress than an acrobat, thought Henry, but she knew how to fall.

  They were working on Henry’s angel show. Adrienne had dropped them off at the circus grounds with a warning: don’t get caught here by Seamus. Though it had only been a few days since the end of the season, the only person who had permission to be on the circus grounds now was Lorne.

  They knew that they would not be able to perform the show until they found new work—if they were even able to find new work together—but Kylie indulged him. Or, maybe she secretly wanted to see if her newly nurtured acrobatic skills would allow her to try what, only two months ago, she had said would be impossible for her.

  The act came slowly, because Kylie was still unsure what Henry wanted, and even when he succeeded in describing a particular movement to her, she seemed baffled about how to approach it. “I’ll break my arm,” she kept saying, or, sometimes, “That’s physically impossible.” The fall frightened her, and so she looked rigid in the air, too focused on landing safely to make the fall itself funny. Her body dropped from the scaffolding over and over, and Henry had to take deep breaths to stop himself from getting frustrated. He wondered how Christiakov had never wrung his neck, how he’d managed not to lose patience.

  “All great clowns eventually have to take an epic fall,” Henry said, when she was again poised on the scaffolding.

  “This is hardly epic,” she said.

  “It will be,” he said. “You still want to be a star, right? That’s what that little tat you got’s all about, right? Your next stop is Ringling Brothers’.”

  As soon as he said this, he wished he hadn’t. He sounded arrogant, and the reference to Kylie’s tattoo was taboo, a violation of their unspoken agreement not to dredge up the night they had seen each other at their worst.

  For the moment, though, she didn’t seem angry. She stretched her arms to the ceiling before opening them, slowly. She was concentrating, and Henry could see the energy rolling from the center of her body outward. It lingered around her, this energy, and when she pitched herself forward it seemed to slow her descent. Her arms and legs spun like pinwheels, cartoonish and exaggerated and gorgeous.

  She landed in his arms, still light. When she drew a breath, her weight returned to her, and Henry was reluctant to put her down.

  “That was exactly it,” he said.

  “I guess,” she said.

  “No, it was perfect.”

  “You’d say anything, wouldn’t you? You’d say or do whatever to get the results you want.”

  “Maybe.”

  She reached up and put her hand on the nape of his neck. “You wanna know about the star? It’s motivation, like you say. But not in the way you’re thinking.”

  Henry let the weight of her hand pull his face closer to hers. His hair fell softly on her forehead. “Then in what way?” he said, and now he really wanted to know. He couldn’t know for sure what he would do with this knowledge in the future, couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t one day exploit it to hurt her. He didn’t want to hurt her, but then again people did things all the time that they didn’t want to do. If he waited to be certain that he was a good person, he would be waiting forever. He would lose the chance he had to know her, in this particular slice of time, when she was so beautiful, and his intentions toward her were as tender as they had ever been toward anyone.

  “It represents a failure,” she said. “Actually, there are two of them, now.”

  “How have you failed?” he asked.

  “The first is for something back in school. I screwed up a performance. Spaced on all my cues. It probably wasn’t a big deal. But it felt terrible. It was more than I could bear, actually.”

  “They’re like a punishment?”

  “I don’t think so. I just had to do something with that feeling. Guilt or shame or embarrassment or whatever that was. Every time I would even think about it, I’d feel sick. I’d want to hide. It made me not want to be a clown anymore. I had to do something with it, so I could forget about it.”

  Henry understood this implicitly. It was crushing, how well he understood this.

  “Did it work?” he asked.

  “Like a charm.”

  “I don’t want to know why you got the second one, do I?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Sure you do. You’ll love it. Your head will blow up like a balloon.”

  “You think things about my head that aren’t true.” His arms were starting to quaver from holding her so long, but he didn’t let go.

  “The other star is because I got to this crappy two-bit circus and this kid, this self-important little hick kid is a better clown than I am. This kid is running the show. And whatever, so it’s a boys’ club, and I’m not a boy and that’s a real pain in the ass, but the fact is that you’re more talented and more dedicated than me,” she said. She arched her back and propelled herself out of his arms.

  “I’m not funnier than you,” he said.

  She froze. She had no doubt been expecting something cruel from him, and he had almost delivered it before he stopped himself. It was on the tip of his tongue, something like what he’d said to Vroni. He caught Kylie’s hand as she moved away, reeled her back to him. He knew what to tell her this time. He had an answer.

  “You didn’t fail. That second star has to be for something else. I need you. I’m a stick-in-the-mud.”

  “I don’t need you to say this,” she said, but she wasn’t pulling away.

  He hugged her. First with one arm, like they were pals, and then, he thought, Fuck it, and held her with both arms, laid his forehead on her shoulder. Kylie did know something true about him. She felt it, the same as he did, the desire to be special, the frustration of wanting someone’s blessing who was not there to give it or who refused to give it. It was easy enough to say, “I will stop wanting this,” but nearly impossible to put the brakes on such a desire. She knew this as well as him, whatever kind of car she drove, whatever school she went to—she searched their audiences for a face she would not see.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  She didn’t say so, but Henry thought she must have forgiven him, to let him stay so close. And this closeness was different than it had been with Adrienne,
and different than it had been with Kylie in the beginning. Different, even, than it had been with Cassie.

  MAYBE IT FELT DIFFERENT TO hold Kylie because they were accomplices. They had a secret agenda, here, at Feely and Feinstein’s grounds—besides practicing, besides getting so close to making out that they had to hold their breath when they finally pulled away from each other to keep from sighing, out loud, awkward and obvious in their disappointment. They were there to check on Ambrosia, or, if Henry wanted to put it in more devious terms, to spy on her master.

  But they weren’t good spies. They slinked along the edge of the trailers, quiet as they could, toward the animals’ pens. Out of the corner of his eye, Henry saw Tex ambling up the narrow dirt path that flanked the trailers, led by Lorne, who spotted them immediately, and waved. In his other hand, he held the long wooden baton, the one that he had used to take a crack at the horse.

  Tex’s gait sped up when she saw Henry, her trunk swinging in front of her like a jaunty metronome. When she got close enough, she reached out with her trunk and patted his shoulder. Then she tried to pat his face, which was less successful, and made Henry laugh in spite of himself. “Hi, Tex. How’s it going, big mama?”

  “Not supposed to be here, Henry,” said Lorne. He seemed like he was trying to smile. It was not quite a success, and he just looked like he was baring his teeth.

  “I know. We’re just not ready for the season to be over. We were rehearsing a little,” said Kylie.

  “Hmmm,” said Lorne. Tex extended her trunk to greet Henry some more, but Lorne nudged it down with the baton. “You should find somewhere else to practice. There’s not even a payphone here if one of you gets hurt.”

  He sounded sincere, but Henry couldn’t drum up any warmth for Lorne. How could he stand there with that baton in his hand and pretend to be a nice person? “Why would that make any difference to you?”

  Lorne shrugged. “I just think you should take care. Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell Seamus, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m not like that.”

  Then he walked on, leading Tex to a slab of concrete where he sprayed her down for her bath. Tex lay down, resting her big head against the concrete, flapping her ear when water threatened to trickle too deep inside of it. When the water began to pool around her, she dipped her trunk in, and sucked up water to squirt at Lorne. Lorne splashed her back, kicking the water up with his rain boots, laughing and saying something that Kylie and Henry were too far away to hear.

  They continued watching Lorne hose down the elephant. They both seemed loopy, Tex rolling around now while Lorne chattered on at her, chuckling intermittently at his own jokes.

  Kylie motioned for Henry to follow her, and they headed to the animal pens while Lorne was distracted. Ambrosia was fine. Clean as ever with her trough full of hay, her metal bucket of water. The clowns wondered if they hadn’t had some sort of mutual hallucination. They decided that was the best thing to believe.

  CHAPTER 25

  A FEW DAYS LATER, ADRIENNE gave Henry a cardboard box to put his mother’s things in, if he found any. She handed it to him warily, saying, “Now if you’re going to do this, you should be prepared for what you find. Who’s to say your dad didn’t hide her things to protect her secrets? Women have secrets, Henry. You can’t be surprised.”

  Henry took the box. “I know women have secrets. Tampons. Hair removal cream. I’m prepared.”

  Adrienne raised her eyebrows. “Alright,” she said. “As long as you know about the tampons.”

  She almost let it go, almost rolled with the joke, because Henry’s eyes begged her to roll with the joke. But she found she couldn’t.

  “Honestly,” she said, “I’ve been thinking about you and your family. And I’ve been meaning to talk to you. You know, when you grow up, and your parents are alive, you learn by degrees that they aren’t perfect. They’re just human.”

  Henry looked up and sighed, resigned to being lectured. “Yes. I mean, I don’t remember thinking my dad was perfect, ever, but I get what you’re saying.”

  “Right. So … if you find evidence that your mom was only human … I mean, you were so little, weren’t you? She must’ve seemed like an angel to you then. And because she’s gone, in your mind, that’s still who she is. If you find the wrong picture or the wrong piece of junk that she hung on to, she might not be that anymore,” said Adrienne. She was still trying to find a kind way to say it, one that wouldn’t make Henry want to shoot the messenger.

  Henry must have been able to tell that she was circumnavigating the truth with this vague warning, that she was nervous about his reaction. He didn’t say anything for a moment, and Adrienne had learned that this didn’t mean he’d dropped out of the conversation, but that he was measuring his words.

  “She’s my mother. Doesn’t matter what junk I find,” he said.

  “I suppose that’s a good point,” she said. “But that’s not exactly what I mean. Of course you love her, but … you remember what I told you about Curtis.”

  He nodded.

  “He’s got that van because he still works for Southern Blue. He doesn’t sell door to door anymore, but he did when we were married. And you know, it was pretty common for the door-to-door guys to sell drugs, too, back then. I don’t know who came up with it, but it was a good delivery system for people who lived out of the way and wanted to be discrete.”

  Henry squinted, as if trying to process the connection between Adrienne’s warning and this confession about her ex-husband. He seemed to be coming up blank. Even clearheaded, she knew he could not envision his mother as a person who could self-destruct.

  “I’m saying that Southern Blue salesman came to your house more than once. I’m saying your father chased him out of the house at night, didn’t he? Isn’t it weird that he would have come to your house at night?”

  “Oh,” said Henry, finally seeing Adrienne’s implication. “But he—well, I just thought they were sleeping together.”

  Adrienne held up her palms. “I wasn’t there. I don’t know for sure what happened. All I know is that Curtis sold a boatload of methamphetamines. And that generally, women in their twenties don’t die just because their husbands stress them out. You know? You see why I’d think this?”

  Henry stared at her, then into his empty box. “Yeah, I see.”

  “I’m not trying to jump to conclusions.”

  “I mean. It shouldn’t matter … except, if that’s true …” he said. He didn’t finish his thought, and Adrienne didn’t push him. He cleared his throat. “See you when I get back?”

  “There was another thing I wanted to talk about,” she said.

  Henry’s eyes widened and he took a step back. “Oh, God, please, don’t.”

  “It’s about when you kissed me,” she said.

  “Jesus Christ, I know what it’s about, and I’m saying please, please let’s not talk about it. Can we just say that I’m stupid? Can we just say that I have awful judgment when it comes to girls? And leave it there?”

  “No. I wasn’t even going to criticize your judgment,” Adrienne said. It was hard not to smile at his melodrama, or the real embarrassment that his act was designed to cover.

  “If you say you want to just be friends,” he said, “I will jump out this window.”

  “We’re on the first story. It’s a four-foot fall.”

  “Don’t push me; I’m at the end of my rope.”

  “We’re friends, Henry,” she said.

  At this, Henry dropped his box and opened the window. Adrienne reached for him, tucked him beneath one of her arms and locked him there with her other arm.

  “You’ve broken my heart,” he said. “Now you’re breaking my rib cage.”

  “Listen, I’m trying to tell you, I’m a good friend. I’m a better friend than most people ever have. I’ll stick my neck out for you. I already have. A million times! And I’ll keep doing it. And eventually, you’ll see. You’ll see I’m not going to stop.”


  She realized she was squeezing his torso pretty hard, and he wasn’t saying anything. For a moment, she wondered if she hadn’t gotten a little overzealous and made him pass out. She’d done that with a cat, once. But she felt him tremble, a small laugh escaping him.

  “Adrienne, I know, alright? I already know all this. You’re like the best friend I’ve ever had. Like, I’ve done nothing but fuck things up from the moment I got here, and you’ve done nothing but tell me I’m great,” he said.

  She sighed. “I know you don’t think I’ll stick around. But I will. You’re going to see.”

  “I believe you,” he said, earnestly, now, quietly. The change in his tone convinced her that he understood.

  “Please,” said Henry. “This sort of actually hurts.”

  IN EDGEFIELD, THE AIR TASTED like it did the day Henry jumped on the back of a freight train and abandoned the town. The leaves had just started to turn, and the air was light and fresh-feeling in his lungs. Different from the air in the city.

  Henry played Kylie’s tape in the rental car as the cornfields gave way to uneven sidewalks, old brick buildings in various states of restoration. The music carved minor chords into their eardrums while Henry watched Andre become more and more restless. He drove erratically, starting and stopping too suddenly, like he couldn’t predict when he would need to push what pedal, like every stop sign took him by surprise.

  When they arrived and Andre cut the engine, Henry felt no nostalgia about the house they were parked in front of. It could have been any little house in a small town. The white paint peeled in strips, a jagged pattern that revealed the gray wood beneath. Two trucks sat in the driveway, trimmed in orange rust. Tree branches and helicopter seeds littered the yard, and black-eyed Susans slumped against the side of the house, their season almost over.

  They knocked on the door of the little house. A TV blared inside and the evening news trumpeted its call letters. A thin boy answered the door, wearing a white T-shirt and round John Lennon eyeglasses. The sparse brown hair on his legs hung over his white sports socks, which were pulled all the way up to his ankles. He looked, in general, like he’d just got out of bed.