“I didn’t hear you come in.” Dad’s eyes widen in surprise, but his voice is like a calm stream. It carries his words, but the cadence hardly ever changes. He sees his office the way I see the circus—like it’s a place where time freezes, and anything is possible. The problem is that he rarely notices anything going on around him when he’s in the zone. “Where’ve you been all day?”
“Mom needed me to pick up Janie’s costume.” I trail my fingers along the edge of his desk, trying to think of the right way to bring up my change of plan.
The right way to tell him that I’m going to disappoint him.
“How was the show?” Dad asks without missing a beat. He doesn’t always notice what’s going on right in front of him, but he seems to notice everything that goes on when he’s not looking.
I smile sheepishly. “Incredible, as usual.” I take a step toward the music stand and peer down at the scribbled notes on the page. “Is that for the new winter set list?”
Dad nods, placing the clarinet in his lap and leaning back against the chair. “Just a few adjustments before rehearsals start next week.” He pauses, his eyes the color of warm topaz. “The clarinet solo is for the new trapeze act.”
My heart feels like it’s being tugged by a puppet string. Teatro della Notte does a complete revamp twice a year—once for the summer-autumn season, and again for the winter-spring. There are new performances, new costumes, new music… and everything is kept top secret until the opening night of the new show—or, in my case, the first night of rehearsals.
The anticipation is torment.
I have no idea what Mom and Dad have been planning for next season, but I do know Dad’s clarinet solo is whimsical and catchy, and I’ve seen a crapload of colorful fabric samples being shuttled in and out of the house over the last few weeks.
When I ask Mom to give me hints, she just winks and says, “All in good time,” which always sounds more ominous than she means it to. But it’s better than Dad’s reaction, which basically involves ignoring me. He has a good poker face.
I don’t know if it’s the bliss in knowing the circus will soon be transformed all over again, but I suddenly feel a burst of confidence filling my soul. I feel invincible.
The words pour out of me before my brain gets a chance to process them. A side effect of wanting so badly to be heard.
“I saw Tatya backstage earlier,” I say, watching Dad’s careful eyes drift back to his sheet music. “She offered to train me. If it’s okay with you and Mom.”
Dad looks at me for a split second and then jots something down with his pencil. “Mmm. That’s very generous of her. Just remember you’ve got classes, and she has a career—it might be harder than you think to fit in extra training once school starts.”
“Actually, I was thinking more of an apprenticeship-type situation? Something more… serious?” My heart tugs a bit harder.
“Why do I get the feeling you’re asking me for a job?” he asks, setting his pencil back down and meeting my gaze.
“Because I am,” I say firmly. “I wouldn’t expect you to pay me or anything while I’m training. But if I get really good, maybe you and Mom could think about letting me perform sometimes?”
“Does Tatya know you intend to replace her?” he asks seriously.
“I don’t want to replace her,” I say quickly. Defensively. I brush my palms against my pants because they’re starting to feel clammy. “But even Tatya takes time off, and you’ve always had Nina as her second. Maybe I could be Nina’s second. Like, a last-resort backup plan. For emergency situations only.” My hopefulness feels like it’s wedged in my throat—it hurts to get the words out, but it would hurt even more to swallow them back down and bury them in the pit of my stomach, where they’d fester for an eternity because some dreams refuse to die.
Dad’s face is emotionless. “How do you intend to take up a full-time apprenticeship and keep your grades up?”
I raise my shoulders like I’m trying to hold up the weight of this conversation. “I—I’ve decided not to go to college.”
Silence. A heartbeat. A twitch on the right side of Dad’s mouth.
And then all the words I don’t want to hear.
“Out of the question.”
“But—”
“This is not up for discussion.”
“I just want—”
“You’re not quitting school.”
“I’m not—”
“It’s worse than quitting—you’re giving up without trying.”
“It’s better,” I practically shout, and clamp my mouth shut when Dad narrows his eyes. I can barely hear myself over the pounding in my chest, the ringing in my ears, and Dad rejecting my dreams without even listening to me. I breathe the cold air through my nostrils and try not to cry. “I don’t want you and Mom to waste a bunch of money on a degree I don’t want. And so many acrobats retire in their thirties,” I point out. I can feel the fire in my eyes—the hunger for him to just understand. “If I don’t start training now, I might never get the chance.”
Mom speaks from the doorway like she’s been waiting to jump in for a while. “Why on earth would you trade your education for a career in acrobatics that’s only going to last you ten years?”
I turn around. Her arms are crossed against her chest, and her short bob is pushed mostly to one side. She doesn’t look Chinese like Popo or Irish like Grandpa Cillian. She just looks like her—like she’s content sitting exactly in the middle.
I don’t feel like I’m in the middle of anything. I feel like I’m on a thousand different points of a thousand-sided polygon.
I twist my mouth and find my words. “It’s not a trade—I don’t want to go to school. I don’t even like school,” I say.
“You love school! You took all those extra classes and graduated early from a magnet school with a good GPA—” Mom starts.
“Yeah, so I didn’t have to stay there for an extra year,” I interrupt. “And my grades were only good because I turned in all my homework and could fake my way through an essay. It’s not because I actually learned anything.”
Dad sighs. “That’s because you’re easily distracted. If you spent less time daydreaming and more time—”
“That’s not it!” I bark too loudly.
Mom makes a noise that sounds halfway between a growl and a “hey.” It’s a warning—a yellow light. A sign to tread carefully. She and Popo don’t always see eye-to-eye, but they do agree on one thing—children should respect their elders.
And I don’t necessarily agree completely—I mean, there’s a gray area to everything, right?—but something tells me now is not the time to argue.
I try to slow down my heart rate by thinking about balancing on the static trapeze twenty feet in the air. “I’m not good at school. Information just doesn’t sink into my brain the way it does for most people. I have to reread things a hundred times, and even then, I rarely comprehend any of it, unless there’s a movie to go along with it or some kind of visual chart. It takes me longer to learn stuff, and it’s frustrating. It makes me feel bad about myself, okay? Like I’m not good enough. And I’m a good aerialist—I can remember routines and positions and terms and everything else. It just makes sense to me, the way music makes sense to Dad or math makes sense to you.”