She touched her ring finger, remembering last night’s heated whispers and caresses, and headed backstage to prepare for the show.
* * * * *
Jason and Kelsey sat eight rows back, near the middle. The previous seven rows were filled with a chatting, laughing, babbling assembly of Cirque bigwigs and directors who’d flown in from all over the world. The Exhibition always had a celebratory feel. New acts, new artists to admire and nurture, fresh material for aging venues. So why did Jason feel nervous rather than celebratory?
“Stop bouncing,” said Kelsey, pressing down on his knee. “Everything will go fine.”
Jason’s acts were ready, Sara was ready. He didn’t know why he felt this agitation. Maybe because Theo was in an especially long conference with Michel Lemaitre down on the end of the first row. He couldn’t see Lemaitre’s face, only Theo’s carefully controlled reactions to whatever he said. A moment later, the conversation came to an end and Theo climbed the stairs, sliding into the chair on the other side of Kelsey.
“What’s the news?” Jason asked.
Theo grimaced. “Lemaitre is waffling about Cirque Brillante again. He wants Baat and Sara to go, he wants to wait, he’s not sure if it’s the right place for them.” He bent closer, lowering his voice to a whisper. “I think he doesn’t want his little daughter too far away from him.”
Kelsey shook her head. “Someone should tell her. Just tell the poor girl. I would want someone to tell me.”
“It’s not my secret to tell, or yours,” Theo warned his wife. “It will come out eventually, when the time is right. Let them work out their own affairs.”
Jason stayed silent. Would it come out? When he looked at Sara now, he saw so much of Lemaitre in her features, he couldn’t believe everyone didn’t know. More and more, he agreed with Kelsey. The deception bothered all of them, especially Jason. He ought to tell her, but what would happen then? What would be the emotional damage for Lemaitre, Sara, even Jason when she realized he’d kept quiet about it? It could be devastating. When he thought about it that way, he thought Theo was right. Lemaitre was the one who should have to tell her and deal with the fall out. It was his affair, no one else’s. As loyal as Jason was to Sara, he wasn’t sure it gave him the right to “out” his boss.
Kelsey held his bouncing knee again. “Stop it, seriously. Or go sit somewhere else.”
Shortly after that, the lights dimmed and the Exhibition got under way. The first act was a strength act, anchored by two women rather than two men. Every fifteen seconds or so, Kelsey breathed “wow” until Theo held up a finger to silence her. The next act was a completely crazy hoop thing, then a banquine routine that Jason had consulted on.
Between each act there were pauses for performers to introduce themselves, to take questions, to display their equipment, then the next act would need time to set up. Jason waited impatiently as the show dragged on, enduring Theo and Kelsey’s bemused looks. Finally the stage crew pulled out Sara and Baat’s safety mat, cleverly disguised as a dragon boat. Their red trapeze drifted down from the rigging on automated pulleys, Baat sitting on one side, Sara posed on the other. Their preview act was loosely based on an Asian-nature theme, complete with plinking Chinese music and a river and moon projected onto the stage.
Jason relaxed as the act got underway. The presentation was beautiful, with the red and green colors and their striking dark hair. Sara looked strong and confident, and even Baat looked good in his laced-up emerald leggings. Jason had never seen it all together with the costumes and music, and thematic staging. Her costume made sense now. She looked like an ancient jeweled goddess under a mysterious moon. Jason could see Theo’s expertise all over the act, in Sara and Baat’s movements and transitions, in the small, meaningful things they did. He became so lost in the flow he didn’t see the first mistake happen. He only saw Sara twist and grab for Baat’s arm in a jerky movement.
“Was that supposed to happen?” Kelsey whispered.
“No,” Theo said, leaning forward in his chair.
Sara regained her momentum, found her groove again, and the act resumed. But moments later, it seemed to unravel completely. Their moves became stilted, tentative. Jason could see the panic on Sara’s face even from the eighth row.
“Stop. Stop,” Theo whispered. “Something’s wrong.”
Sara did a somersault and Baat almost missed her ankles, grabbing for them in an uncontrolled way. Theo shot to his feet in the darkened theater, jumping over chairs and spectators and rushing toward the stage. “Stop! Stop the act. Something’s wrong with him.”
Jason bolted after Theo, pushing past anyone in his way. Theo called to Baat from downstage. “Stop! Lift Sara up to the bar.” Jason could hear Sara hissing at Baat over the rising hubbub from the audience.
“Shut off the music,” Lemaitre boomed across the theater. “Stop the act.”
Sara stopped then, hanging limp from Baat’s hands. He’s going to drop her. Fucking Christ, what if he drops her? A moment later Sara had swung herself up to the bar, and climbed to perch on the narrow length of wood. Baat settled beside her, slouched over, glaring down at the audience. Slowly, the trapeze began its ascent into the rafters.
“No, not up. Lower it,” barked Lemaitre. “Bring them down.”
The theater was in an uproar. Twenty people were on stage now, ranged around the apparatus, and forty more milled in front of the seats. Jason stood right under Sara. He’d catch her if he had to. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Theo slip away through a side door, his shoulders up around his ears.
“Sara,” he whispered. When the trapeze arrived at stage level he caught her in his arms, hugging the solid, intact shape of her. “Are you okay? Is everything okay?” He went into coach mode, checking her joints, her shoulders and elbows, wrists and hands. “I thought you were going to fall. What the hell happened up there? What was Baat’s problem?”
She shook her head, bursting into tears. “I don’t know. I don’t know what happened.”
While Jason tried to console Sara, Lemaitre spoke to Baat, demanding explanations. His gaze burned dark as the depths of hell. Since Sara was bawling too hard to translate, the men fell into pantomime. One of the directors made a drinking sign, the universal gesture of tossing one back, and Baat nodded ruefully.
Jesus Christ. He’d been drinking. Baat had taken Sara fifty feet in the air and performed with her while he was inebriated.
Jason didn’t think. He let go of Sara and lunged at Baat, tackling him to the painted safety mat. The man’s breath blew in his face, saturated with alcohol. This cushy surface was bullshit. Jason wanted Baat to hurt.
“You could have killed her,” he yelled, throwing him off the mat and onto the floor. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” He ducked as Baat threw a fist, then they were rolling across the stage, grappling, punching each other. Jason didn’t feel anything, didn’t think anything, just pummeled Baat with the metal taste of adrenaline in his mouth. Baat snarled in Mongolian, his diatribe rising over panicked shouts and screams. Jason didn’t care what Baat had to say. All he cared was that Baat had gone up on the trapeze with Sara while he was full-on drunk, and almost dropped her on her head.
It was bedlam, with artists and staff shouting, and Sara bawling, and someone blowing a whistle, loud and shrill. Finally Lemaitre wrenched him and Baat apart an
d stood between them. “Enough. That’s enough.” His voice rang out sharp as a gunshot. The entire auditorium went silent, except for a few muffled sobs. “No more trapeze in Paris,” he shouted. “This is why. It’s cursed, and I tell you now, never again.” He shoved Jason toward Sara. “Leave and take her with you. You,” he barked at Baat. “Go somewhere and clean up.”
Baat was bleeding, a steady stream from his nose and a swollen, mangled lip. Sara hid her face, a picture of misery in her resplendent green costume and headpiece. The trapeze rested on the stage, the ropes arrayed around it, tangled and twisted. This one wouldn’t rise again.
“Come on,” Jason said as calmly as he could. “Exhibition’s over.” With one final, vicious glance at Baat, he took Sara’s arm and guided her through the crowd of sympathetic gawkers to the locker rooms, and then outside into the oppressive August air.
Chapter Thirteen: How You Learn
Sara shed her costume beside Jason’s bed while he paced back and forth. Every now and again he stopped and rubbed his eyes, and shook his head.
“Where should I put it?” She held out the green leotard and the headpiece she’d crumpled in her hands on the way over.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Throw it on the floor. They won’t be used again.”
No more trapeze in Paris, Mr. Lemaitre had yelled. Never again. Sara folded the costume, her tears blurring the sequins and rhinestones together into a green blotch. After all her hard work, and Theo’s hard work, and everyone’s hard work to put the act together, she and Baat were finished. Over. This was a nightmare and there wasn’t any way to wake up.
“They won’t allow him back, will they?” she asked, swallowing a sob.
Jason turned to her, his eyes blazing. “Do you want him back? Really?”
She didn’t dare answer. Jason wasn’t only angry at Baat. He was angry at her too. He’d held her and soothed her all the way home but now...now he wanted answers, and she didn’t have them. She realized now that she’d fucked up, that she’d protected Baat one too many times.