He can’t lose his nerve now. We haven’t even gotten to the hard stuff, like shooting stars, which are ten times as hard on the rail. The distance between this stone and the next suddenly seems to widen before my eyes.
I shake out my hands, which have begun to fist. “Come on, Brother. It’s all muscle memory. ‘Tame the devil in your mind, and you can fly.’” I repeat Ba’s old phrase. “Remember?”
“It’s not my mind I’m worried about. It’s... this.” He gestures at himself.
“So you’re no longer spindly. But we’ve been growing all of our lives, and we’ve always taken it in stride. Why can’t you do that now? Practice and your body will figure itself out. Try the gunslinger again.”
“I doubt I can manage a two-arm handstand up there, let alone one.”
“You just have to work up to it.”
“Stop pushing me. I can’t do it all by tomorrow.” He grips his temples, his knuckles whitening.
I cross my arms. I feel Bo’s eyes on me and remember his comment about me ordering Jamie around. “I only push hard because I know what we’re capable of.”
“You know whatyou’recapable of.” Jamie glowers at me, and I glower back. Mum always said we were like the two sides of a railroad track; when one got hot, the other got equally hot.
“But I can’t do it without you.”
He sighs. Suddenly his glare loses its heat. Something has changed about him, a shift in attitude that leaves me feeling foolish and young.
“Want to know what I think?” Bo says quietly in Cantonese.
I’m about to say no, but Jamie says, “Yes.”
“Either of you walking on that rail is enough to turn heads. I think Jamie should do the basics and leave the fireworks to Valora.” Bo puts a fist over his mouth, the bump of his ring like a peeking frog’s eye. I definitely don’t notice how his arm muscles bulge. He catches me not-noticing them, and I quickly shift my focus to my big toe. “I bet she can handle herself.”
Jamie swabs his forehead. “What do you say, Val?”
“So... no double shooting stars? No gunslingers?”
Jamie slips on that old smile, which fits his face as easily as his cap fits his head. “We’ll think of something just as impressive.”
23
Drummer finds us a space to practice in a cargo hold with a rail like the one on the docking bridge.
After much vigorous discussion, Jamie and I agree on a routine that, like Goldilocks’s porridge, is neither too hot nor too cold.
Yet even after we’ve practiced enough to imprint it deep in our fiber, a feeling of unease settles over me, like a London fog that can’t be blown away. Will it be too much for Jamie, after years of not practicing? Will it be enough for Mr. Stewart, who surely has seen his share of performers better than us? I hope I haven’t oversold the act.
Tao says he wants to fast, and so I join the Johnnies at dinner, digging into sausages gleaming with jewels of fat. Again, we don’t receive bread, and this time not even the pretense of butter. The headwaiter marches around the room with self-important strides, ignoring us. We ignore him right back.
I watch Jamie sling jokes and slip in and out of conversations with the Johnnies as easily as if he had known them all his life. The only one he doesn’t engage is Ming Lai, who’s deep in conversation with Dina Domenic, the Russian girl, despite lacking a common language.
Raucous laughter erupts from the other side of the room,where the sweeps winner Bledig and the other bottom cutters are lifting their cups. Under his stocking cap, Bledig’s face wears the ruddy sheen of one who has had a few drinks too many, yet he tosses back another and lifts his cup for more.
As if feeling my gaze upon him, he turns to me. His eyes lose their glazed look, and he elbows the man next to him, setting off a chain reaction. Suddenly, all four are peering at me, devilment in their faces. I can’t look away. It’s as if their eight eyes have become pins, trapping me like some insect specimen. The room seems to get louder and brighter, as if someone has raised a switch on the electricity, charging the air.
Jamie senses me stiffen.
“Those are the men who knocked us on purpose,” Olly whispers.
Jamie and Bo cut the men a look, drawing their interest. With the practiced hand of an old fisherman casting a line, Jamie flicks out his middle finger, using his other hand to slowly reel it in. Bo snickers.
Bledig’s eyes become two chips of dirty ice.
A door opens and out marches the headwaiter, carrying a silver platter of candied fruits as pretty as Christmas lights. Conversations shut off. Heads turn, their faces animated.
