You Know Me Well(40)

“You look beautiful. Go. Sweep her off her feet.”

Violet, I text. I’m so sorry. Where are you?

The dots appear immediately. Then they stop. Then they’re back.

Just got home.

“She’s home,” I say. “I don’t know where that is.”

“Ask her for the address.”

I do.

I hold my breath.

She gives it me.

“It’s in Hayes.”

“That’s close,” Mark says. “Let’s go.”

I wish I could buy her a gift, but all the shops are closed, so when we show up at her house ten minutes later I’m empty-handed.

“Do you want me to wait for you?” Mark asks.

“Are you kidding?” I say. “You’re coming with me.”

“Ummm,” he says, shaking his head. “That is not very romantic. Don’t worry. I won’t leave you until you tell me to go.”

I nod, and enter the gate alone. I follow the instructions she sent in her text and round the house to the back, where there’s a small studio, lit up in the night. I knock on the door.

She opens it.

It breaks my heart to see her. She’s still dressed for the party in herringbone pants and high heels, a skinny black tie around her slender neck. If I saw her on the street I would stop still in lust and wonder.

But seeing her now, as she steps back to let me into her room, is too much for me to take. I look at her walls instead. They’re mostly bare save for some black-and-white photographs pinned to one of them. I step closer. They’re all of the circus.

“Did your mom take these?” I ask her.

She nods.

Her laptop is open on her bed, a YouTube video paused on the image of a trapeze artist in silver against a black backdrop, dangling from the bar by one leg.

I came to apologize, to confess. I did worse than desert her. I didn’t even show up.

But instead I ask, “Do you miss it? The circus?”

She’s quiet. I finally look at her for the first time since walking into her room.

“I thought I wanted to stay in one place,” she finally says. “Make a life for myself here. But I can’t even bring myself to unpack.”

She gestures to her suitcase and her boxes and I see what she means. There is no dresser or desk or chair. Only a bed and a kitchenette without pots or pans or other signs of living.

“I’m not used to staying anywhere very long. I came here because I thought something might be waiting for me.” She looks on the verge of tears, but she blinks them away. “Let’s go out. I need some air.”

“Okay,” I say. “I should tell you that Mark’s out front, though. In case you wanted to talk. I can tell him we need some time.…”

“To be honest,” she says. “I don’t feel much like talking.”

I follow her outside, my throat tight, my eyes burning.

“Hey, Mark,” she says. “I’m in a shitty mood. I think we should all get ice cream.”

“I like ice cream,” Mark says, and we walk, Violet leading us toward the heart of the neighborhood where ultracool adults laugh on street corners and sip from pint glasses in a beer garden. We are the only teenagers in sight.

I see the ice-cream store in the distance, but before we get there Violet stops short in front of a woman, sitting on a blanket on the ground.

“New plan,” she says to us. And then to the woman, “I’m buying my friends readings.”

I step closer and see that a sign on the blanket says Tarot.

“I’m not sure about this,” I say.

“Yeah…” Mark cocks his head. “Thanks, Violet, but—”

“Admit it,” Violet says. “You could both use a little clarity in your lives.”

And even though I have done enough soul-searching for the night, I know that I can’t let Violet down again, so I grab Mark’s hand and lead him over. Up close, the Tarot reader’s younger than I thought she’d be. Her blanket is soft under my legs and small enough that my knee touches Mark’s.

“I’m Kylie,” she says. “Have either of you had your cards read before?”

Mark and I shake our heads.

“A good way to begin is with a spread of three cards. The past, the present, the future. Which one of you wants to go first?”

“Him,” I say.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Violet says from behind us. Then, to Kylie, “Kate has a little problem with follow-through.”

Kylie nods as though she already knows. She takes my hands in hers and I can’t help but blush, and for the first time tonight I feel the cold of the evening, and wish I had brought a sweater or a jacket or at least a scarf, something to wrap around myself.

She lets me go and reaches for her cards but then stops.

She shifts to face Mark straight on and takes his hands. She inhales for longer than I knew was possible, and then exhales just as slowly.

“I’m going to do a joint reading,” she says.

I glance at Mark. He shrugs. I wait to hear why, but all she says is, “It feels right.”

She opens a gold box and pulls out her deck of cards.

“You shuffle,” she says to me. And then, to Mark, “You cut.”