The caravan drove almost eight hours until the first break. Another ten over night since we didn't have to be considerate of May. She hasn't been gone a whole day and already people felt relief that she was gone. It made things a lot easier, I heard workers say.
Of all the season finales and trips to our winter home, this one felt the most difficult, the most like an actual end. In many ways it was.
There will be no other season like this one. No elephant act. Contractors won't return to a broke fair. The crew will thin out. Acts and workers will be different. We had maybe a few weeks until people started leaving. If they ever made it to the Barn, that is. At the first break, we were two trailers short.
I try to remember Frank's calming words. It's all in the people and the road, not the physical tent or the show itself. The spirit didn't die as long as people held on to it.
But the more I tried to remind myself of this fact, the more I didn't feel it – the spirit. I had felt tired and scared more than I'd felt euphoric and comfortable the last few years. But oh, the highs –
I wanted nothing to change but everything to be different at the same time. The more I tried to find the connection I deemed lost, the more I recognized that I started to outgrow what I so desperately wanted to keep.
My happy memories turned out to be nostalgia and the future became bleaker the longer I stared at it. My time ran through my fingers and I felt the inevitable finality of this strange situation I found myself in. It wasn't just any disaster and the world wouldn't just start turning again. This was an intersection. I had two different lives play out in front of me, I could taste them with every tear I swallowed. Both were completely different from the life I had and both demanded a decision. A decision to accept change, to further it, or to hang on to what was left and fight change just to ultimately fail.
There was a timer somewhere, constantly ticking, scratching moments off the chart. Moments until the ability to chose ran through my hands and would be lost forever.
The worst part was that I had a feeling of when that deadline would be. September 16th. Patrick Jane's eighteenth birthday.
Nine days left.
The first 18 hours of these nine days, I spent in the car and we passed fall and jumped straight into winter the closer we got to our destination. Dad had to start the car heater that we last used during the previous off season. My breath fogged the glass as I leaned against the car window to watch the dark clouds race over the sky. It must be windy outside. Windy and cold. I half expected snowflakes to fall any minute. My feet were tugged under my thighs to keep me warm in my summer shoes and calf length jeans. I had put on an old striped pullover that no one knew who it belonged to but was forwarded from one performer to another. A communal knit turtleneck so to speak. Last awarded to my mother a few years ago and now given to me. Very much a consolation prize for who had the most terrible week.
I had played with a lose thread on the cuff and managed to help it escape a few more knots over the last hour.
We arrived before I could dissolve the rest of the sleeve into thread. Danny and I didn't make an effort to get out of the car because it was custom for us to wait until Dad came back with the keys to our room. My mom and Danny would move us in while Dad parked the trailer on the parking lot across the street. The Ring Barn for training was a few minutes down the street to the right. Usually I had to settle May in her off season stable. It used to take hours to prepare it and then get her accustomed to it again. But this time I was tasked with helping mom.
Dad returned, dropped the keys off and helped us unload the suit cases and boxes onto the curb. The other two got to work immediately, taking as much as they could carry and starting the search for our suit number.
They didn't need to communicate what they're going to do next because it's all they've ever done and I was just a senseless addition to their task.
Car after car stopped in front of the motel, got unloaded and the parking lot across the street filled up with trailers. The train master planted them side to side in rows of ten. Closeness was security. The plan is to park them close enough, so the doors couldn't be opened. A trusted and true method to prevent break ins without having to have two guys march up and down the lot every night.
I grabbed the last two suitcases, carrying one third of our belongings in the direction the other two went. It was the same motel as every year. Three winged, U-shaped building. Three floors. Two arcades facing the patio to reach the upper levels. Everything was splintering red varnish on metal and bleak, creme white walls. Three benches in a half circle in the elongated courtyard. The same three I spent many Christmas evenings on, missing Patrick. I stopped on the first level arcade and leaned over the railing.
Everything was so painfully normal that it made me restless.
Suitcases and faces crowded the place. Never again will these walls have so much life in them until we will leave in spring next year.
"Angela!" My mom yelled from the top floor. "208."
I nodded even though she wouldn't see the gesture. Room 208.
The only thing missing now was -
"Ruskin!" Patrick's voice reached me from a completely different side of the building. He tried to wave with a multitude of bags and boxes in his other hand. He almost dropped everything in the process.
I smiled at his balancing endeavor and yelled the little piece of information I had back at him. "208!"
"032." He replied and we simultaneously shrugged, both a little bit disappointed. Of course they would get one of the smaller rooms on the ground floor. They're half the number of people my family was.
Before we could discuss any meeting point for the evening, Alex pushed Patrick, probing him to move and they disappeared in the crowded walkway below the arcade.
My family's suit on the upper floor was divided into two rooms and a bathroom. One room for my parents with a twin bed, a wardrobe and orange curtains and the living room with a day bed for us siblings to share and the entrance door next to the motel window that was covered by blinds. The TV was dangerously standing on a sideboard and I caught the door just in time to not knock the glass in with the handle. The room smelled of dust and old upholstery while light only spilled in small stripes through the blinds. The wall could be macchiato colored or just a really dirty old white coat of paint.
"There you are, finally!" My mom greeted me, running back and forth between her room and the bathroom opposite the entrance door. "Be a darling and put the kitchen box away. Danny is folding the laundry."
Oh yes. The little kitchen unit in the corner. Barely recognizable as such with only a small cooktop and freezer. Barely a cupboard big enough for a pan, a pot and a stack of plates. If you wanted to open the drawer all the way, you had to move the couch. The dishes were done in the bathroom.
Mom managed to make the best food on these. Always sprinkled with the satisfaction of a roof over your head and a lockable door.
I did what she asked me to do and prepared a stack of fresh linens to dress our sleeping spot in after we ate. Mom cooked after dad brought groceries. Dinner was held on the couch and as per tradition, the first dinner in the barn was always accompanied by watching TV.
It had started raining while we finished unpacking. I had done every possible task my parents asked me to do before I was grudgingly excused. I had to do the dished and put clean sheets on the day bed. I even prepared my pajama so I wouldn't wake Danny with my searching for them upon my return. After an hour and asking again and again if I could finally leave, my parents looked at each other and mom shrugged defeated.
"But you stay outside. No rooms!" It was the order of a worried father that I had no intention to keep but promised anyway.
"Take your coat. It's colder in Montana."
Thunder still cut through the dark clouds in bright nets when I finally made it out the door. The neon patterned jacket I chose was enough to keep me warm even with my exposed ankles. At least until I'd get wet with rain when I followed my dad's advice of staying outside all evening. I put up a hood and raced down the stairs, fully prepared to sprint over the yard to get to Patrick faster. But I didn't come that far. He was waiting for me on the last set of stairs, curls dripping with rain and his shirt sticking to his chest.
His cold lips brought the rain under my hood with a kiss and I kept him in my warmth for a little bit.
"Gosh Paddie, how long did you wait here? You're freezing. Should we go get a jacket?"
He smirked. "I'm fine. Besides half of what's left of my stuff is still hidden in the trailer. But no jacket."
"What do you mean no jacket? You're kidding." I laughed at his attempt to hoax me.
"Not kidding." He protested, still with a smile on his lips that caused me to lose mine fast. I looked at him horrified when he explained. "Alex threw all my stuff out. At least what he thought all my stuff was."
There was a sudden influx of guilt in my stomach. All these days that passed and I had never once asked him how he dealt with his side of the story. "Sorry." I began but didn't know how to continue a proper apology. "We should get you inside then."
He didn't react to any of my guilt and just continued his comedic tone. He tried so hard to not let this conversation turn into one of the many sad ones we had the last few weeks. "I wouldn't recommend my room. Too much Alex."
I played into his game, allowing his humor to overshadow the truth he must feel. "We couldn't go to your room anyway. I'm not allowed in rooms.", I serenaded and took him by his hand, pulling him under the arcade.
His brows arched curiously at my knowing smirk. "Not allowed?"
"My dad made me promise to stay outside. No rooms."
"Rooms in general or did he specify what rooms exactly?"
I playfully pushed him away and pulled him back to me all in one move. As if I wanted to spin him around in a dance. "Very funny, Jane. You know exactly what room he meant."
"In that case, I have an idea for shelter that would not specifically fall into the definition of a room." The expression on his face was bold and adventurous. For sure it meant trouble, but I loved the feeling of invincibility it gave me.
"Will it cause any of us to get fired again?" I asked but he had already pulled me by the hand, hurrying us across the yard.
"Unlikely." was his careless response while we crossed the street, evading the one car we couldn't wait on to pass us.
The street had developed into a stream and the parking lot across the motel consisted of more puddles than parked trailers. Mud and pebbles crunched under our feet as we squeezed through the first row of trailers. Even in this maze, Patrick seemed to know exactly where he lead me.
"You breaking into a trailer will not get us in trouble?" I asked, almost in a whisper because it was not unlikely to encounter one of our coworkers in the long rows of abandoned vehicles.
"No." he pulled a key out from under his dad's trailer once we arrived and squeezed around the back to the door. With this floppy cardboard of a door, no one actually needed to use a key but it calmed my nerves that he actually had one.
He opened the door as much as the neighboring trailer wall allowed, barely enough to get through, and disappeared into the dark inside. His hand reached back out to me, asking me to follow.
"Come on, before this gets flooded, too."
I looked around once. Willing someone to appear if it wasn't a good idea to follow Patrick's lead, but no one came to stop me. Just rows and rows of dirty white standing out against the black sky. It was just us and my broken promise.
Even though I tried not to get my clothes wet while squeezing through the small slit, there was no way of preventing it. Water and dirt stuck to the inner side of my left leg and I pulled the door shut, drenching us in the dim light of Patrick's abandoned family trailer. The two windows on either side were tiny and covered by light bleached curtains. There was a bed on one end and a kitchen on the other and in between there was nothing but the door and what could be seen as a corridor to connect both parts. It didn't smell as bad as I thought in here. The alcohol and tobacco must have moved into the motel with Alex.
"So that's your trailer. I didn't think I would ever allowed in here." I turned slowly, taking everything in while taking off my wet jacket and bumping into Patrick in the process. Everything seemed to be a variation of brown. From the sheets on the mattress to the mugs hanging from hooks under the kitchen cabinet.
"To be fair, there isn't much space for three people. But-" He wagged his finger at me as if he wanted to school me, his superior smile never leaving. "No rooms. So we're technically not breaking the rules."
"I see, Mr. Smartypants." I shot him a look as if I condemned his search for a loophole. Even though he had never done anything more intriguing to me. Curiously, I walked to the bed. More precisely to a box that was thrust into the corner and contained what I recognized as the tent and its interior junk. I skimmed the crystal ball on top with my fingertips and finally sat down on the side of the bed. When I looked back at Patrick, he stood with his hands in his jeans pockets and one lifted eyebrow. A slightly worried, tense stance that I couldn't help but smile about.
"What? Did you want to stand all evening?" I asked naively, pretending to overlook the bench on the other end of the trailer. Patrick eyed the table carefully and swallowed before he moved next to me. Of course we could just sit down in the kitchen nook. We could sit anywhere except on the bed, but how boring would it be to follow the rules.
When he finally managed to sit next to me, I pushed my luck further and leaned back on the bed. He tried to not let enough time pass this round to make it awkward. Though it still looked like he was moving in slow-motion when he lay down. His arms were tugged to his sides like he wanted to make himself as small as possible. Like he didn't dare touch me even accidentally. His gaze was rigidly stuck to the ceiling.
"You don't sleep here?" I timidly asked and put my palm loosely on his wrist. A futile attempt at diffusing his tension. I carefully watched for any movement on his face.
"No." He whispered and paused for a long time. "It's my father's bed."
I nodded, attempting to grasp the outlines of why he's so uncomfortable, beginning with the fact that he had called Alex his father for the first time in years while talking to me about him. "Do you want to leave?"
He shook his head.
"We could sit at the table."
He took his time thinking about this one and removed his hand from my grasp to rest it on his chest. "No. It's fine."
I frowned, somehow becoming impatient with him and his silence. "Why do I not believe you?"
His eyes twitched in response to my sudden change in tone and his voice didn't lose his guardedness. "Because you're trying to read me and it doesn't work."
"I'm not!" I protested but my being offended quickly lost its push when his eyes found mine. I had to relent. "Maybe a little. But only because you're hiding something."
"I'm hiding something?" His reserve turned into amusement. "I'm not hiding anything. It's just too simple for you to accept as a reason and you're trying to find a deeper meaning when the obvious is always the best choice."
"The obvious." I repeated, slightly annoyed. My pride began to hate the way he approached my search for the truth. "The obvious is that you're suddenly rigid as a plank because I came near a bed and you forgot how to function like a human being."
He seemed to love my helplessness, even turned on his side to have a better view of the way I tried to contain my budding anger. He might have caught me red handed but that didn't mean I wasn't onto something.
"The obvious is that you're constantly trying to tease me and your efforts have never looked so real before."
It made my heart race, the way his voice had found his way back to almost a whisper. I hated that I could feel my cheeks burn and that it made him grin even more. Screw this traitorous blush.
My voice was squeaky with nervousness. "I could maybe not be so suspicious if it hadn't become a habit of yours being too scared to tell me stuff all the time. I always think something's wrong and you're keeping it from me when you're silent like that."
Patrick masterfully evaded this topic immediately without showing any change of expression on his face. "Speaking of which. I wanted to talk to you about something."
He scooted closer and caressed my hand. His icy fingertips send shivers over my skin and droplets of rain fell from strands of his hair onto my shoulder as he leaned over me. Of all the coldness, the serious look on his face froze me the most.
"Yes?" I breathed, suddenly shivering too, not of the low temperature but the prospect of the little remains of my life crumbling.
Patrick cleared his throat and his finger followed the lines of my veins under my skin. I could feel the weight of what's to come. I felt it tear at my heart even though I didn't yet know what chaos it would ensue.
With the sound of his voice reaching my ears, it started.
"I know I don't have any right to make a proposition after what I did. I didn't think a few teared down posters would cause a tragedy like it did. If I had known, I wouldn't have followed his demands."
"You know you had to. You promised him." My paltry excuse of consolation kept getting stuck in my throat. There more he pointed out the role he'd played in May's death, the more I couldn't separate him from the blame.
Patrick shook his head unconsciously and continued as if I hadn't interrupted him. "You know why I came back this summer? I wanted to see if I could live the life I had before my mom died. I hoped my father would be happy having me back, more content with the work I did. Now that I could really do work. I planned on putting on a good show, good enough to maybe not only work as a side act. Maybe get a spot in the main line-up. Making my father proud. And I wanted to try to talk to you again. I spend all the years imagining how you'd be when I got to see you again. Even though I was certain you wouldn't even acknowledge me after they took me away and I couldn't say goodbye."
He chuckled to himself, deep in thought, and he gently circled my knuckles when he was done drawing along the outline of my hand. "I thought about the life you were having during those years, the act you'd be choosing for yourself. I knew you'd end up one of the big acts. You've always had the determination for it. To be fair, I thought you'd end up like your parents and doing aerial. So I was wrong. Partly."
His confessions enticed a scared smile on my lips that he didn't seem to notice.
"But you know what I knew, too?", he kept on rambling without waiting for my guess. "I knew if I wouldn't have been taken away, we would've ended up together earlier. I always told myself that I would have soon mustered the courage to ask you out and maybe we would have been married by 18 or 19. Depending on if you'd said yes of course. But in my daydreams you did."
I swallowed, overwhelmed by the simultaneous warmth in my chest and the frightened numbness in my limbs. If I hadn't fainted before, I'd be sure this would be what it felt like. I couldn't really feel happiness over the obvious secret that he had thought of me as much as I'd thought of him. Because this is what I knew: He was about to tell me that he was leaving.
His promise to not mention leaving again unless I did, echoed in my mind and the tugging sadness that he was about to break it bloomed in my chest.
Patrick came back to reality and he found me again. I knew it was impossible to shield my feelings from his searching gaze, so I didn't. His palm pressed flat on my arm and he pursed his lips for a second. I could feel his thoughts race behind his flickering eyes but he didn't comment on the feelings I didn't know myself I had. Instead a worrisome crease appeared between his eyebrows.
"Did your parents talk about the future yet?" He eluded in a businesslike way.
"No." My voice was barely there. I felt my jaw trembling and did my best to still it.
He looked pained but commenced anyway. "People will leave the carnival. They either wait for after winter break or try their luck now. Either way there will be a need for new plans. Especially for you and the main act. Buying a new elephant will be too expensive so another performer will probably take over and expand their act."
I took a shaking breath and decided to end our suffering, ripping it off like a bandaid. "That's not what you want to say. Just say it, Jane, and get it over with."
It came out way too harsh and he cringed at my stern tone. But it was that or sobbing miserably and I preferred to safe myself some dignity.
"I will not be here for much longer."
Have to split the chapter here or it will be way too long. Hope you enjoyed and thanks for reading. Next part coming soon.