Rain Village - Carolyn Turgeon [90]
I rushed into my room, unsure if my legs would still carry me. When I stood in front of the mirror I barely recognized myself with my flushed cheeks and dark, shaded eyes, my body so strangely muscular and bruised from the constant training.
I fell onto the bed. My heart pounded, my whole body trembled. His kiss had crept its way under my skin, past where my father had burned his handprint, past my revulsion at what love could make of a woman like Lollie, or Mary, who had followed Juan Galindo like a dog through the ice and snow. I wrapped my head around it, what would make him do something like that, anyone do something like that, with someone like me. I moved from excitement to fear and back again, watching the stars outside my window.
I did not know what to expect from Mauro the next day. I watched the sky turn pale pink and then slip into yellow, and still my heart would not calm. Again and again I saw Mauro’s eyes as his face leaned into mine. What if I had imagined that moment? One minute I was convinced the world had changed, the next I was sure I had imagined the texture of his hair and lips, the scent of his skin. Everything seemed so fragile then, in my life. But most of all I was afraid to look in the mirror and see the same Tessa Riley, the one who used to lie in the cornfields, staring past her father’s shoulder at the moon.
Finally the sun reached the top of my window, and I knew I had to leave my room, return to the world to see what was different in it. I got up and bathed, imagining his lips, his gaze over my body as I sponged myself down. I poured water over my torso and watched it drip down my legs to my feet, wondering if I could ever be beautiful to someone like Mauro, or anyone at all. I still was myself, tiny and flat and disappointing: I felt so utterly transformed by Mauro’s kiss that I thought I might look down and see rounded, sculpted legs like Mary’s, breasts that were full like fruit.
I dressed slowly, in my plain white training leotard and shorts, and pulled my hair back with trembling hands. I slapped cold water on my face. I took so long that when I stepped out of the house to where the pool and fruit trees were, they were all already there: Lollie, Mrs. Ramirez, Luis, Victoria, Carlos, Paulo, José, and Mauro, who looked up at me and smiled as if someone had knocked his face clean open.
“Tessa,” Carlos called out, laughing, “we thought you had gone off and run away! Mauro here was about to hop on a horse and run after you.”
I glanced at Lollie, who smiled and winked, then looked at Mauro, whose face, I noticed with surprise, was every bit as red as mine.
I wanted to sink into the floor and, at the same time, run leaping toward them all. Nothing made sense to me that day; it seemed like the whole world had gone mad.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
On our last night in Mexico we all gathered around the long table and ate tortillas, sliced avocados, and fried meat. I knew I was crazy, but I felt the way I used to feel when the sun dropped, when it was time for me to leave Mary’s library and head home. My excitement fell into sadness and back out of it again. I wanted to perform, but I almost couldn’t bear the thought of leaving the hushed, tile-floored house, the burst-open flowers like explosions along the dusty streets.
Luis sat at the head of the table. My costume hung like a secret in my closet, wrapped in tissue. I sensed a bittersweet sadness in Mrs. Ramirez and Luis, something all circus people feel: that longing to watch the landscape blur by as you go from town to town, to smell the sawdust and feel the lights beaming on your skin. I looked around the table, at Carlos’s shining face, José’s quiet inward gaze, Paulo’s dreamy secretiveness. I watched Lollie with Geraldo next to her, beaming with a desperate sort of happiness, one I recognized instantly after so many days and nights with her. And I turned to Mauro, who looked at me with his inky eyes