on one of the green-painted slab tables where, leaning back on their arms to look up through the treetops they silently observed the stars in the sky. From the ballfield next door came the varied sounds of the circus now dispersing. Men spoke muffled, sometimes loud, directions that carried into the surrounding silence. But the activity seemed to Tyler out of place. Sitting with the girl in the park, he felt insulated from the outer world.
“This is nice,” he said.
“What is?”
The night… sitting with you… looking up into the dark.”
“What do you see?”
“I don’t know. What do you see?”
“Cassiopeia,” she pointed, “which is that big W. Do you see it? It stands for all the double u mystery words: why, when, where, who.”
“What?”
“Yep,” she laughed, “that too.”
He looked at her and she looked at him back.
“Can I kiss you?” he asked.
“I’d rather if we just sit here and watch the stars. Is that okay?”
“Sure, okay. I just thought I’d ask, in case you wanted.”
“Well, maybe later. Let’s wait some and see.”
So they waited and looked to the stars and saw in them whatever they wished to imagine until she again raised her hand and pointed, claiming one of the stars was moving, independent of all the others.
“That can’t be,” the boy said.
“But it is,” the girl insisted. “See it? Tell me that one isn’t moving.”
“It isn’t.”
“No, I mean don’t tell me it isn’t. It is. Or it was. I saw it. Believe me.”
“Okay,” he agreed, pausing. “I believe you.” Moving his hand to hers, he touched the tips of her fingers. “What is your name?”
“What would you like it to be?”
“Whatever it is for real. I know it’s not Cinderella”
“How do you know?”
“I just do. That would be too much... coincidence.”
“How would it be... coincidence?”
“Well, you know what I mean.”
“Yes, I guess. Maybe I do.” She paused, looking up at the sky as he touched her fingers again and waited. “My name is Cassandra. It means a prophetess, fated never to be believed.”
“That sounds dramatic. But I believe you.”
“Do you? Do you believe we are stardust?”
“What do you mean?”
“We come from the stars, from which we are destined to return.”
“I don’t know. That sounds not only dramatic but strange.”
“It’s a mystery, I grant you.”
“You grant me?”
“That means I know what you mean.”
“I mean to kiss you. Did you know that? What do you think?”
“I think you’re sweet.”
“Cassandra… Cassie… Cassiopeia…” He tilted his head back as he repeated her name and formulated a list of derivations, trying to find the one he liked best; she leaned all the way back on the slab and turned the palm of her hand into his. Finally, he leaned back beside her.
“I never thought of that before,” she said, quietly.
“What?”
“The connection, you know, between my name and the stars.”
“I don’t believe you.”
She turned her head to look at him and he looked at her, smiling, until finally she whispered, “Would you believe I want you to kiss me?”
So they kissed, but only briefly before she sat up saying she shouldn’t have let him. She told him solemnly they would never see each other again and it wasn’t fair, either to him or to her, but mostly to him, as the circus would be leaving early the next morning.
“My mother hated the life,” she said after a short pause, her voice trailing again into silence.
Tyler, who listened the whole time lying beside her with his head propped on one hand, sat up then and touched the curl extending down the near side of her face, imagining what it would be like to kiss her again, only longer.
“You have a mother?” he asked, still imagining.
“Everybody has a mother.” She smiled, but instead of turning towards him she continued to look outwards, towards the creek and the dark hills beyond.
“What happened to her?” Tyler again touched the soft curl, pulling it down until she raised a hand and gently pushed his fingers away.
“She simply got off the ride and went elsewhere.”
“I’m sorry,” Tyler said, taking his hand back. “What do you mean she got off the ride? What happened?”
“She and Dad had a carnival marriage. They rode the Ferris wheel together the summer I was conceived. But by the next summer she’d had enough. So she and Dad rode the wheel backwards and not long after that she left us. And we haven’t heard a peeping thing from her since.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No need to, life is what it is.”
“I want to ride the Ferris wheel with you.”
“You’re sweet. But it’s too late for that. The circus is ended.”
She pushed away off the edge of the stone tabletop and stood, brushing her buttocks with both hands.
“I have to go. I see Daddy coming.”
Tyler looked and then saw him too, a shadow approaching the edge of the park, calling with a low but sure command in his voice: Cassie!
“I’m coming, Daddy.”
“Can I kiss you again?” Tyler reached for and again held her hand, reluctant to let go.
“No, it’s too late now. I have to go.”
“Wait,” Tyler said, suddenly desperate to retain her. “I have something to give you.” He reached in his pocket and withdrew the flat clear plastic case containing two blue enamel star earrings set in silver and a matching crescent moon necklace he’d purchased earlier that day from the fortune teller lady, who had looked at his palm and said his future could only be told by the stars.
“Here,” he said, reaching out, placing the case in her hand. “It’s not much, only a little something... for you... to remember me by.”
“Oh Tyler,” she said. “I’ll remember you forever, no matter what.”
He felt her fingers enclose the case, taking it as she turned. Without looking back she ran through the shadowy darkness of the surrounding trees, emerging as a dim silhouette next to her father.
He walked home wondering what life would be like in the circus. As he went up under the spruce tree and climbed to his window, he wondered if maybe he shouldn’t leave a note on his bed-stand and go back. But instead he undressed in the dark and slipped between the cool bed sheets and stared at the ceiling, imagining the hidden concourse of stars moving overhead, until he closed his eyes, still imagining stars, and fell asleep dreaming of colored balls colliding and dispersing their energy upon an unfathomable, three dimensional, field of green.
The next day he got up early and walked back down to the park before breakfast. The only evidence the circus had gone through were the flattened and worn places on the ballfield grass, and a deposit of chunky red vomit left in the basin of the village park drinking fountain sometime after midnight.
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