Rain Village - Carolyn Turgeon [74]
I did twenty swing-overs in a row. When I dropped to the ground and looked up into Lollie’s face, and then Mauro’s, I was stunned to see that they were in tears.
“My God, Tessa,” Lollie said, after a few minutes. “Where did you learn to do that? Did Mary teach you that?”
I shook my head.
Mauro just stared at me. I could still feel his palm on my neck, and I looked down, embarrassed.
My shoulders felt like they’d been hacked through. The cuts and scrapes pulsed all over my body, from the net.
Mauro looked down at me. His face lit. “You know how beautiful that was, don’t you? You are weightless, a blur of light. And the strength you have in that tiny body of yours. Unbelievable.”
I blushed down to my toes, beamed in spite of myself.
We could hear the crowds outside, pressing up on us, anxious for the show to begin. The roustabouts started coming into the tent then, cleaning and prepping it, while the concession-stand vendors started setting up the carts that sold popcorn balls and cotton candy and sweet fizzling sodas. I felt like everything about the circus that night reflected the excitement shooting through me. I was an electrical current, one of the lights popping on and off along the midway.
Lollie whispered something to Mauro, then smiled and hugged me. “Wait here,” she said a moment later, running off and leaving me alone with him.
“What’s she doing?” I asked.
“I think she wants to get the others,” Mauro said. He looked in the direction she’d gone. “But we’re incredibly late already. So impatient. She doesn’t want to wait till later. We’ve been working on the aerial acts for a while, Tessita.”
A moment later Lollie rushed back into the tent—still in her pants, without makeup—with her brother Carlos and a tall, thin man I hadn’t seen before.
She was almost breathless as she introduced the man. “Jorge Velasquez,” she said. I knew who he was instantly; once a world-famous acrobat, he was now the manager and owner of the Velasquez Circus, founded by his grandfather. He looked delicate and shy to those who didn’t know better, but, I would learn, he was as tough as they come.
Mr. Velasquez looked me over suspiciously as he took my hand. He had to dip down so low he was almost squatting.
“This can’t wait?” Mr. Velasquez asked, annoyed, standing up and glancing at Lollie. “I’ve got a sick clown and a goddamned lazy fucking ringmaster I’m red-lighting after this show, I swear to Christ. And now my knees are going to fucking give out.”
Carlos was half in his makeup and half out of it. He had on his sparkling performance tights with a T-shirt over them.
Lollie gestured to me, exasperated. “You have to see this, Jorge,” she said. “Now.”
Turning to me, she softened. “Can you do that—just the exact same thing—one more time?”
I looked up and saw the concession girl staring at me. I turned to Mr. Velasquez and, for a moment, thought of my father.
“Yes,” I said, feeling rage bubble up in me.
I shimmied up and did it again—only fifteen this time, but enough. I’m not sure I could have pulled off any other trick at that moment, but the swing-over was mine, the trick that cleansed and renewed me, that pushed me past the filth of the world and into a place where I could forget. After each turn I clenched my teeth and thought, “One more. Just one more.” I pushed and fell and turned, not caring if my arm ripped from my shoulder at the socket. I just went and went. By the time I dropped to the floor, I was exhausted.
Mr. Velasquez simply looked at me and nodded. “Can you do that again in one hour?”
Before I could answer, Lollie stepped forward and said, “No.”
Mauro nodded his head in a agreement. “Look at her,” he said. “She’s exhausted.”
“She’s not ready,” Lollie said. “Look at her wrists.” She took my arm gently and lifted my burned, bloody wrist into the light. “I thought she might be, but she’s not. Not yet. We’re going to have to fix this, fix up the rope with some padding and loops so she doesn’t knock herself up so much.” She turned to me. “How