Marcus
1427 Words
Marcus — Meridian Company, Three Weeks Earlier
The apartment is beautiful.
Celeste chose it.
Of course she did.
Everything in Marcus Vane's life since September has been chosen by Celeste. The apartment. The training schedule. The performing partners. The specific carefully curated version of a career that looks extraordinary from the outside and feels from the inside like wearing a suit that is one size too small.
He stands at the window of the beautiful apartment and looks at the city below and thinks about the Stellara.
Not because he misses it.
That is what he tells himself.
He does not miss it.
He misses something adjacent to it that he has not yet been able to name cleanly enough to dismiss.
Celeste comes in behind him.
She says: you're thinking about the circus again.
Not a question.
Celeste does not ask questions. She makes assessments. She presents conclusions. She has the specific quality of someone who decided long ago that uncertainty was a liability and has structured her entire existence around eliminating it.
He says: just looking at the city.
She says: you were thinking about the circus.
He says: I was thinking about the new programme.
She says: the new programme is set. She crosses to the window beside him. She does not touch him. Celeste rarely touches him. The specific warmth she offered during the pursuit has been absent since the achieving. Like warmth was a tool she used to get what she wanted and has put back in the drawer now that she has it. She says: Paolo wants the passing leap at full height by Friday.
He says: the passing leap needs more time.
She says: the passing leap needs you to commit to it.
He says: I'm committed.
She says: you catch like someone waiting for something to go wrong.
He looks at her.
She looks at the city.
She says: at the Stellara you caught like someone who believed the catch was going to land. She says it with the specific cold precision of someone delivering an accurate assessment and finding accuracy more important than kindness. She says: here you catch like you're braced for the fall.
He says: my partner is new.
She says: your partner is excellent. She looks at him. The problem is not your partner.
She walks away.
He stays at the window.
He thinks about the Stellara.
He thinks about Ivy on the platform before a pass. The specific way she stood. The force out building. The release that was always exactly where it needed to be because four years of partnership had produced something that could not be manufactured.
Chemistry.
The word he used to use.
He understands now what it actually meant.
He thinks about the passing leap at the Stellara. The specific quality of it. The way it felt when everything was right. When the catch landed because it was always going to land.
He thinks about the night it did not land.
The bar moving wrong.
His grip going from certain to nothing.
The momentum carrying her in the wrong direction.
He thinks about staying on the catch bar.
He does not let himself think about that for long.
He picks up his phone.
He puts it down.
He picks it up again.
He types: I heard you have a new catcher.
He stares at the message.
He deletes it.
He puts the phone down.
He goes to training.
Back to Ivy
Cole finds me at breakfast with the expression of someone who has been on the phone since six in the morning.
He sits across from me.
He says: the lawyer.
I put my fork down.
He says: I sent him everything last night. The documentation. The photographs. The access logs. The second page. He says it with the focused precision of someone reporting the completion of a task. He says: he called me at seven.
I say: and.
He says: and he says we have sufficient grounds for a formal complaint to the industry regulatory body. He looks at me steadily. Not civil. He pauses. Criminal.
The cookhouse is very quiet.
I say: criminal.
He says: Thomas Calloway's death was the foreseeable consequence of deliberate and sustained interference with safety equipment. He says it quietly. Those are the lawyer's words. That is a criminal matter.
I sit with this.
Criminal.
My father did not die because of wear and inadequate maintenance.
He died because someone made a decision.
A deliberate sustained decision across six months of fourteen entries in a suspension housing.
And the law has a word for that.
I say: what happens next.
Cole says: the lawyer files the formal complaint today. The regulatory body opens an official investigation. He pauses. Morrison is a detective who handles industry criminal negligence cases. The lawyer knows him. He wants to refer our documentation directly.
I say: how long.
Cole says: months. He says it honestly. Possibly longer. He looks at me. It will not be resolved before opening night.
I say: that's okay.
He says: you need the opening night.
I say: yes.
He says: the circus needs it.
I say: yes.
He says: Rosa told me about the debt.
I say: how bad.
He says: bad enough that without the Meridian contract the circus closes after this season. He meets my gaze. But there's something else.
I say: tell me.
He says: the lawyer looked at the Meridian contract. He pauses. Given that the Meridian company contracted the consultant who tampered with your rigging. He stops. The contract may be voidable. If the connection between Celeste and the tampering is proven.
I say: voidable.
He says: meaning the Stellara could potentially exit the contract without penalty. He says it carefully. And pursue damages from the Meridian company instead.
I look at him.
He looks at me.
I say: my father's circus could be free of the Meridian contract entirely.
He says: if the connection is proven. He nods. Yes.
The cookhouse is warm around us.
Mira comes in.
She sits beside Cole.
Their shoulders touching immediately in the specific way of people who have stopped noticing they do this.
She says: what did I miss.
Cole says: criminal charges. Voidable contract. Potential damages from the Meridian company.
Mira puts her coffee down.
She says: right.
She picks it back up.
She says: and on a scale of one to ten how is Ivy handling this.
Cole says: eight.
I say: nine.
Mira says: seven. She says it simply. She looks at me. You're holding something.
I say: I'm holding several things.
She says: one specific thing. She looks at me with the twelve year accuracy. Something happened this morning that is not the lawyer or the criminal charges or the voidable contract.
I look at my coffee.
She says: Theo.
I say: Mira.
She says: his hand.
I say: it was nothing.
She says: his hand on yours at breakfast.
Cole looks at his coffee.
He is very interested in his coffee.
I say: it was a moment. He was being honest about his feelings and then he let it go.
Mira says: he let it go.
I say: yes.
She says: and.
I say: and it was warm. His hand. It was warm and easy and. I stop.
She says: and.
I say: and it was not nothing.
Cole says to his coffee: among other things.
Mira says: Cole.
Cole says: I'm just noting the phrase.
He is smiling into his coffee.
I say: it's complicated.
Mira says: love triangles are always complicated. She says it simply. That's what makes them triangles instead of lines.
I say: it's not a.
She says: Ivy.
I say: yes.
She says: it's a triangle.
I look at my coffee.
She looks at hers.
Cole looks at his.
The cookhouse is warm around us and outside the lot is doing its morning and somewhere in the big top a man is on the catch bar who memorised fourteen entries and checks anchors at two in the morning and said because you are going to be above it simply like it explained everything.
And somewhere at the enclosure a man is talking to a lion who makes eggs at six in the morning and put his hand over mine and said I'm not going to pretend.
Both of them real.
Both of them here.
Both of them doing something to me that I do not have a clean resolution for.
Mira says: the session.
I say: nine.
She says: go.
I go.
- Writer
