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The noise, the music. People walking, smiling. Two young boys are running between the stalls, teasing each other and shouting over the din of the fair.
Behind them walks a slightly older girl, about sixteen, perhaps, holding the hand of a boy of seven or eight at most.
“Steve, Jimmy! Tommy wants to go on the ferris wheel.”
The two boys, aged ten and twelve, turn towards her, sulking. Teresa clearly has a soft spot for their youngest brother, and they want to go and see the Boy Wonder, not get on a stupid ride.
“But… the boy who guesses everything? You promised us!”
The girl tucks a strand of black hair behind her ear, approaching her brothers with a weary smile on her face.
Her father is at home, drinking, and she’s had to drag those little rascals out by the skin of her teeth, spending all her savings.
“We’ll do both. First the ferris wheel, then the Boy Wonder.”
They get in pairs: Steve and Jimmy on the first seat, Teresa and Tommy on the second.
As their chair rises slowly, Teresa notices a boy, a few carriages further on, arguing with a man – probably his father.
She leans against the safety bar and huffs; it seems she’s not the only one having trouble with a parent, although, perhaps, that boy still has a mother.
“Rees?”
“Huh?”
“Are you absolutely sure I can’t grow up to be like Daredevil? Or like the Hulk!”
“Do you want to be all green?” she smiles.
“No, I want to be the strongest and help everyone. Even Dad.”
He looks her in the eyes; his are hazel, he takes after his mum. Hers, on the other hand, are the same colour as his dad’s and all the Lisbons for generations.
“Of course you can be the strongest, but it’s hard work, you know?”
“Never mind. I’ll be a superhero too. What about you?”
He turns, looking down on Chicago from above. What about her?
“I want to join the police.”
“You’ll be a superhero too, then! And you’ll have a gun! I won’t, because I’ll be strong and won’t need one, but you… you will! And together we’ll defeat all the bad guys, won’t we? You’ll be the bravest.”
She smiles again. How do you deal with an eight-year-old boy who’s lost his mum? Should he still believe in Santa, Superman and Daredevil?
She isn’t that brave. They slowly descend and, once on the ground, Steve and Jimmy turn out to be their usual selves. They drag them by force into the prodigy’s marquee.
It’s the same boy Teresa saw arguing a few minutes ago, the one sitting on the stool, staring at them. He’s about twenty, or a bit older, wearing a Boy Scout-style uniform, perhaps to look younger.
He looks her straight in the eye, intensely.
Teresa feels exposed, but she can’t look away.
They follow the show; that boy seems to read people, their deepest thoughts and feelings.
At one point, the father asks her for any object.
“No, not her.” Teresa looks up suddenly. Why does he seem to want to protect her? With a defiant air, she takes her watch off her wrist and puts it in a bag so that the boy doesn’t know what it is. “At your own risk.”
He blindfolds himself and begins to speak, guessing the object, claiming it belongs to her mother, who died recently in a car crash, if he’s not mistaken.
And he isn’t mistaken.
Teresa hears Tommy crying beside her; she squeezes his hand, her own eyes filling with tears, but she won’t let him win. Steve and Jimmy, they’re the usual lot, more impressed by the show than by the emotional weight of it all.
Once the show is over, she grabs her brothers and brings them home, hoping that at least for that evening her father will act like a father, given that she has the damn prom.
Without a date.
***
She’s ready: a green strapless dress and a pair of silver sandals. Just a touch of make-up and her hair tied back. She kisses her brothers goodbye, telling James where to find his dinner, asking him to keep an eye on his little brothers and to brush his teeth before going to bed.
She gets in the car and drives to the school. The music is deafening; she’ll stay for an hour, two at most, and then head home.
She isn’t enjoying herself, standing there in the corner, a glass of non-alcoholic punch in her hand. She isn’t cut out for being around people, not now, not just a few weeks after losing her mother.
A hand covers her eyes.
She jumps and elbows out behind her.
“Hey! You hurt me.”
She turns round to find the Boy Wonder standing in front of her.
“You don’t study here.”
“No.”
“Ok.”
“Do you dance?”
“No.”
He smiles at her, trying to cheer her up, but she’s still upset about what happened this afternoon.
“Look, I’m sorry about today.”
“You could have kept your mouth shut.”
“I get paid to talk.”
She slaps him on the shoulder.
-You know, you’re violent for someone so pretty.
Another slap.
“Sorry, I was joking. About the violence. Not about you being pretty.”
Why is she blushing now? It’s because of his eyes, so blue, isn’t it? It’s because he’s looking at her like that, so intently, just like that afternoon.
“Sorry.”
He reaches out a hand to her.
“Patrick.”
She looks at him doubtfully, before taking his hand.
“Teresa.”
“So, Teresa, will you grant me this dance?”
He doesn’t let go of her hand; he simply drags her onto the dance floor, as a recently released song begins to play melodically.
Teresa keeps her distance, embarrassed by the contact with a boy she doesn’t know, who, on the contrary, pulls her close, guiding her to the slow notes. Slowly, she relaxes, pressing herself against the chest of this boy who is taller than her, resting her head on his shoulder.
“I’m really sorry about today.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
He pulls her even closer, humming the song that accompanies their steps.
Just as slowly as it began, the final notes play in the gym, but they seem oblivious of this. They keep dancing on and on, chatting as they move along to the music. She doesn’t know exactly how many songs have started and ended when the two part, and Teresa, driven by a courage she’s never possessed before, closes her eyes and presses her lips against the boy’s. The only boy who, for the past few months, hasn’t been avoiding her because of her loss.
And he doesn’t pull away, doesn’t move; on the contrary. He brings a hand to the back of her head, runs his fingers through her raven hair and kisses her.
A moment that feels like an eternity.
Her face flushed, she steps away from the centre of the dance floor; it’s time to go home.
She heads towards the car, embarrassed by the courage she’s mustered—courage she didn’t think she had.
Patrick follows her, trying to call her back, but she doesn’t turn around.
He stops her right in front of the car door.
“Have... have I done something wrong? Sorry, I thought you wanted to...”
She kisses him again, wondering why once more, still unable to fathom where all her boldness comes from.
He pushes her onto the bonnet, caressing her face, clutching her bare shoulders. He loosens her hair and looks into her eyes.
He doesn’t know exactly what he wants, other than to stay there, with her, a little longer.
“I have... I have to go. My brothers are waiting for me.”
“The fair starts tomorrow. We’re moving to California. I... I’ll be leaving with them.”
A weight falls on Teresa’s shoulders. Who knows why, though.
“It’s been lovely meeting you, Patrick.”
“I’d like to tell you we’ll meet again, but I don’t want to lie to you. The carnival moves whenever and wherever it wants, and I have to follow it.”
She notices a hint of sadness in his tone. He caresses her face; her skin burns at the soft touch of those fingers brushing against her.
Their eyes remain locked. If this were a fairy tale, he would take her away with him.
He brings his face close to hers again, meeting her lips once more. He presses himself against her, holding her steady against the bonnet.
They part and a sigh escapes the girl’s lips.
“I really must go.”
He nods, resting his forehead against hers.
“Can I ask you for a lift? I walked here.”
They get into the car, with Teresa at the wheel, following the boy’s directions. They drive past the entrance to the fairground and stop a few metres further on, in the dark, right next to the marquee where she had first seen him a few hours earlier.
He looks her in the eyes, then smiles at her.
“You know, you’re a special girl. I wonder why nobody at your school has noticed. I’d really like to stay here a few more days to get to know you better. It was lovely to meet you.”
She blushes, embarrassed. Now that she’s away from school, now that they’re alone in the car, far from the places she knows so well, she feels a bit silly for giving him those kisses.
“Thank you, it’s been lovely meeting you too. Maybe we’ll see each other again, who knows?”
“The fair moves around all the time, we could always come back.”
He leaves a gentle kiss on the corner of her mouth before disappearing into the night.
***
Reaching an unspoken agreement at work isn’t difficult. I know who you are, you know who I am, and no one will know that we know. That’s how it’s been between Lisbon and Jane ever since he was hired as a consultant. Not a word, not a hint, of what happened years ago – it feels like centuries – between them.
Now, though, in that high school gym in Rancho Rosa, with a song that they both know means far more than they care to admit, it’s hard to stay silent.
“Oh God, I used to love this song”
“Loved this song?”
“I used to love this song”
“You love this song.”
“Yeah.”
They both know it’s not just any old song.
“Obviously you wanna dance?”
“With you? No.”
They can’t, not again. Not to the tune of that melody that had already swept them onto the dance floor once before. But there’s no one from work there with them.
“Oh, come on! You can pretend that I’m that mean, cold-hearted guy that you used to worship from afar but never tallked to.”
She smiles at him out of the corner of her mouth. Yes, of course. Cold and mean boy. The looks they exchange leave no doubt that they’re thinking of that very evening so many years ago.
“No funny stuff.”
“Really?”
She smiles, again. It was her, years ago, who pulled ‘strange pranks’, pressing their lips together in a kiss, and then another, and yet another.
She rests her head on his shoulder and feels at home again, in a way she hasn’t felt for far too long.
He breathes in the scent of her hair, whilst his hand rests on the body of that petite woman held tightly in his arms.
They could stay like this forever; he would gladly do so, but... Angela? Charlotte?
“Trumpet?”
“No.”