Rain Village - Carolyn Turgeon [89]
“What about your family?” He reached for a piece of meat on my plate, popped it into his mouth.
“They weren’t at all like your family. Not one bit. You are so lucky, having the brothers and sisters you do. Such a beautiful mother.”
“Dime,” he said.
“We were nothing alike,” I told him, beginning to smile. Something I had never done while talking of my family before. “My sister and I shared a room but barely even spoke. I mean, we practically looked right through each other whenever we were unlucky enough to be awake at the same time, in the bedroom.”
He laughed. “When we were kids we just worked and worked, all the time.”
“Us too,” I said. “Well, not me, really—I was too small to help much in the fields—but my brothers and sister were always out there, breaking their backs.”
“You saved your body for other things.”
I looked up sharply, afraid he was mocking me.
His eyes were warm and liquidy. “I would hate for you to be any different than you are now,” he said.
I let out my breath, unsure of where to look, what to think.
“I think it sounds wonderful,” I said, finally, “to spend all day working in the circus.”
He laughed. “People think we are free in the circus,” he said, “but all of us, we were born into it. It is as natural for me to be on the wire as it is for me to breathe. But you can be anything you want to be, the way Mary could. You are a streak of light.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said. “It must be wonderful, knowing exactly who you are and what you are, the way you do.”
I felt like I could say anything to him. He was, I realized, just like Mary and like Lollie: someone who’d slipped through the cracks, a friend. I do not think I had ever been more myself than I became at that moment, with him.
“Maybe,” he said. “But you can cut a space for yourself in the world. Sometimes, when it’s all you know, it’s different. You want to have more than one life. You envy the people for whom everything is possible.”
His voice was as deep and warm as baking bread. His lips were full, and as I watched him talk, I could feel them on me, grazing my cheek and the sides of my mouth. His hair fell into his face. He smiled as he spoke, and I watched his lips, fascinated.
“I liked you from the first day you came to the circus,” he continued, smiling shyly. “I thought I had never seen anyone like you. You just showed up, slipping from one life into another.”
“Thank you,” I said, not knowing what else to say. I was afraid that if I said anything more, the moment would disappear. I didn’t trust anything, yet my life was so different now. It almost made sense for me to be here, for me to be staring at Mauro Ramirez and he back at me.
“Are you excited for the season?” he asked softly.
“Yes,” I whispered. “Excited, and scared. Scared to perform in front of everyone.”
“You will be amazing,” he said. “Enjoy these last two days, Tessita, because everything will change afterward. Everything.” He stretched his hand across the table and took mine in his palm.
“I will,” I tried to say, but the words seemed to get caught on my tongue.
We drove back to the villa in silence. When Mauro looked over at me I could feel his eyes on me as if they had weight to them, as if he were pressing on me with his fingertips. I lost every breath in my body. It was as if we weren’t even part of the world, with the way the moonlight cast shadows through the windows.
When we got back to the villa I felt like everything had changed. At the front door, Mauro looked down at me. I couldn’t even see straight. I wanted to stop time, wrap myself around this moment and keep it close. But before I could think or feel, he reached his hand out, cradled my cheek with his palm. I was shocked at the warm softness of it, so different from the skin on my own palms, ravaged by the bar. I stared up at him, unable to move.
As his face neared I saw the flash of his eyes on mine as they moved into the light. I saw the lines of his jaw and then suddenly it was as if I were underwater. His lips pressed on mine, as soft as pillows.
Afterward I stood there in shock,