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I stole the last of the cotton candy from the vendor as he danced by my seat. Had I not run my fingers through the pinks and purples before digging in, I probably wouldn't have been so enticed by the smell. He knew he'd be missing out, watching me stuff it into my mouth. The former lion tamer spoke with someone on a cellphone, but he eventually stopped to observe me. He was well taken care of, but I could see through the holes in his blue and grey outfit. Everyone could. I was eating in a small tent in a small corner of a small fairground. The buzz of the crowd was a distant companion.
"Good thing I kept a waitress at my table," he said to no one in particular, after observing me grabbing the last of it.
I looked over and saw him gesturing to a little girl with black pigtails and a smudged face. She was carrying an ice cream cone as big as her head.
"Yeah, it's better than pie," I said around a mouthful. I handed some money to her. She walked off, the booth settling back slightly under her weight.
He watched her out of the corner of his eye, then turned back to me. "Still act like you don't care?" he asked.
"About what?"
He clicked his tongue. "Careful, darling. Your detached indifference is an act."
I sat back and crossed my arms. "You think I'm putting on an act?"
"Aren't you?"
I didn't answer her, my tongue traced the lines of the ring around my finger. It wasn't a ring of marriage, but a token of luck my future husband gave to me during our first meeting. I'd been eleven and he'd been forty-three.
He hadn't looked his age, both then and now. All the lines that had begun to form on my face when his eyes first met mine were a testament to how much we had grown. I looked down at the seat in front of him.
"Well, I am an actor, after all." I lied.
"Good," he said. "I don't have any particular fondness for my act. But you, I can believe you're acting." He took the ring off my finger without asking and clapped me on the back. "Thank you for your time," he said, walking off.
He had left me my ring, but I put it on the first finger of my right hand, the one where I kept second set of keys. I looked at him, walking away, the little girl sliding his food across the table to him. He smiled at her. I thought that if he smiled at her, then he was letting me go. I began to follow him out of the tent.
When I reached the foot of the raised pavilion, I saw her. Even with head of pigtails bobbing in the crowd, she stuck out to me. She looked like an eleven- year-old version of me. She was still a foot shorter, her hands smaller, hence the doll she was holding. I wondered what she was thinking as she stared at the picture book. We passed each other, she not seeing me, I definitely seeing her. I wanted to stop her. I wanted to know why she was in the circus. I wanted to know what the doll was for.
She seemed so innocent.
I had seen a lot of innocence since I started training for my act. People were afraid to let down their guard around me. I was the monster that would kill you if you weren't careful. If you were wise, you locked your door and sat down to a lavish meal at your dinner table.
That's why I liked her. She looked so young, and that's what made her different from the other clowns.
I passed the five-ton truck to get to the underpass. He had taken the hands-free earpiece out and I could hear him talking. I walked underneath, hoping to surprise him. But he was standing too still. It was then I realized he had his eyes closed. But they were not closed on the sides, they were closed on the corners. It was as if he was blindfolded.
My heart started. He was talking.
His voice sounded like a laugh at a party, but his words weren't meant for any outsider to hear. I was the outsider. He stood helplessly in his shoes, blindfold, imitations of a young girl. The clacking of the wheels was louder now, and my heart beat faster even as I walked away.
It was since I was a little girl that I had feared things that I couldn't see. Blind people scared me. I was afraid they would guide me away after luring me near with a simple clap on the shoulder and a cheery "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you." But I knew what he was in that close moment. He wasn't a sweet old man on the phone with an angry daughter on the other end.
"Who were you talking to?" I demanded when I got back to his tent.
He put his hands up. "I was only talking to my niece."
"That little girl you hired to serve your food?"
He nodded.
"I talked to her." My voice was dark and unforgiving.
He nodded again. "I saw. How nice of you to speak to my niece," he started, ignoring my anger. "You must have noticed she isn't the brightest star in the sky."
I crossed my arms. "I'm sure she's smarter than me," I said. "But she must be stupid to take your job."
He laughed. "I doubt that. My niece understands the world far better than most people, even me."
"Then she must be sad that you have to call home to talk to her."
The old man shrugged his shoulders. "It might make her day. She finds entertainment where she can find it. It's good for her."
"And apparently for you as well," I said, crossing the line between my childhood fears and the present. "Keeping her around will keep you safe. Keeping her young."
He smiled, then laughed. "You know, you are actually pretty smart."
I prided myself on that. I had gotten very good at lying. But I was more pleased with his blatant compliment of my intelligence. I found it flattering. I smiled, for the first time.