By a Charm and a Curse(54)
The sun has slipped closer to the earth and my legs are cramped from crouching by Emma’s side by the time I hear Marcel yell, “Oi!”
I grip Emma’s hand even as I turn in the direction I’d last seen my friend in. His shirt is drenched in sweat and he holds two straining plastic bags in his hands, but he’s back, and we’re going to fix this.
He jogs over, muttering a litany of “Shit! Shit! Shit!” when he sees Emma frozen on the ground.
“Can you handle it all yourself?” I ask. “It might go faster if I help, but I can’t leave Emma. Not when she asked me to stay.”
Marcel’s gaze darts down to where I’ve awkwardly twisted my hand to fit into Emma’s frozen fingers and says, “Yeah, no worries.”
In the back of my head, I register the sounds of Marcel working—metal plinking on the concrete as he trades out one tool for another, the occasional curse, the rustle of plastic as he pulls the new parts from their bags—but I tune it out and focus on Emma. “It’s going to be okay, Em. Marcel will have the car running in just a couple of minutes, okay?” Both of these things could be lies, but I say them anyway. “I’m here, okay?” It’s the only thing I know for a fact.
Finally Marcel runs toward us. “We’re good. Let’s go.”
We carry Emma to the car and lay her down in the backseat as carefully as possible. The seat belts are useless, just one more thing to fix that we hadn’t gotten to yet. So I cram myself into the footwell, ready to keep her steady the whole ride to the next site.
Marcel tears down the highway, but we’re quickly ensnarled in afternoon traffic when we enter the town. He speeds through every yellow light and swears loudly at every red. Rocks and clods of dirt ping against the floor of the car and I know we’re on the track leading to the carnival grounds. Marcel taps out a staccato rhythm on the horn, yelling for people to get out of the way.
When he throws the car into park, Emma rocks forward, but I catch her. “We’re here,” I say, more for my benefit than hers. How long will it take for her to come back to us? Where’s the heart of the carnival if the carnival hasn’t even been set up yet?
Marcel and I lift her dead weight out of the car and lay her down on the trampled grass. I twist one of her hands in my own and place my other on her cheek. I just want to see her move. To blink. Something. The murmurs of the gathering crowd draw closer, but my gaze never leaves Emma. I hear a litany of, “Please, please, please,” and it takes a moment to realize that desperate prayer is coming from me.
My heart hammers out a panicked beat against my chest. Then her body gives a shake and a shudder, and she lets out a trembling cry. Marcel and I help her to sit on the ground beside the car, and I kneel next to her, unwilling and unable to let her out of my reach. Her hands twist into the fabric of my shirt, tugging me close, and I wind my arms around her. Neither of us can hold the other tight enough to feel safe.
Performers and roustabouts alike gather around us to see what all the commotion is. A few people—Mrs. Potter, Gin and Whiskey and their parents—seem genuinely worried, panic etched into their brows and frowns pulling down at the corners of their mouths. Others have on the wide eyes and dropped jaws of the shocked. Far too many of them wear the stone masks of the apathetic. The Morettis are nowhere to be seen, and their absence only solidifies their guilt. As these people look down at us, all I can wonder is: what will the Morettis do next?
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Benjamin
The following night, we open the gates to College Station, Texas. The tiny college town is a noisy throng of students decked in maroon. Some of the college kids are so obnoxious that Emma makes a growing list of frat boys who she wouldn’t mind cursing, were it not for the fact that she’d actually have to touch them. Even through her bravado, it’s easy to see she’s still shaken by our breakdown between towns, and the noise and hustle of our unruly patrons does nothing to put her back at ease.
The money flows fast and easy here, but we’ve got to keep going, so the carnival packs up after a week. When it’s time to move on, Emma rides with Gin and Whiskey in their family’s SUV, which is a newer and far more reliable vehicle, at my insistence. Even though the curse is giving everyone car trouble, the odds are better this way. And though Marcel and I had traveled many miles without her, the car feels emptier without her riding shotgun.
In Houston we set up in the parking lot of a dying shopping mall, the downtown skyline a bright complement to the lights of the carnival. Sitting in the crux of several highways means that gasoline and exhaust are perpetual companions to the normal scents of the carnival. We run through a quick two-week engagement, and it’s easy to tell that the other performers want to stay longer. Houston’s a big town, one that could easily support us for a month, but Leslie is insistent, and we’re out of there before the weeds have time to twine their stems around the feet of our machinery.
We are currently camped outside of Orange, Texas. Louisiana is so close that it makes me feel anxious, antsy. I’m lying on the floor of Marcel’s family's trailer as he gets ready for his show, shaping his hair into its trademark peak.
“So will you or won’t you?”
I prop myself up on my elbows to see him better. “Huh?”
He turns away from the mirror and stares down at me. “About when did you zone out on me?”