Chapter Nine
Nine
As Alex took his place on the field I held the rose by its stem, gently twirling it.
I dipped my head, letting the leather petals brush my nose, an automatic reaction even though the flower wasn’t real.
But to my surprise, it had been scented with rose oil, and combined with the natural scent of the leather, the result was intoxicating.
It was all the best things of the renaissance faire in an earthy, floral scent.
As the chess match began, I wrenched my mind away from the green-leather-clad man out there on the field and turned my attention back to Stacey.
She had to call a modified match, and those changes would have rattled just about anyone else.
Emily would have probably sent Simon to the sidelines and then barfed on his boots.
But Stacey was more than able to roll with it; she glanced at the paper in her hand when the attention was on the chess field or across the way at her opponent.
When it was her turn to speak, the cheat sheet was nowhere to be seen, hidden in her skirts or in her hand behind her back, and she gave the orders in a clear, confident voice.
There was something about her that seemed at home here, and no wonder.
This whole milieu was her life now; it would be like me giving a TED Talk in the familiar comfort of my living room.
Knowing she was comfortable made me more comfortable, and my attention wandered more and more to the match in front of me.
It was annoying, how easy it was to pick out Alex’s position on the field.
And it was even more annoying that whenever I found him he would turn his head, catching my gaze as though he’d felt my eyes on him.
More than once he shot me a little wave, and I couldn’t quite find it in me to scowl at him.
I tried to put Alex out of my mind as the match ended and we continued with our day, but there was still this damn rose in my hand. Looking at it now I remembered the brush of his fingers against mine and I clenched my teeth together hard. I shouldn’t be thinking about skin. Especially not Alex’s.
I had a Queen to focus on.
“What are other Faires like?” I asked later in the day, after the handfasting and before the second joust. It was another free period for us, where Stacey’s main job was “walk around and look regal.” And I’d been doing my main job, which was keep her on schedule and where she needed to be, while also keeping her silver chalice filled with water; a hydrated Queen was a happy Queen.
She raised her eyebrows at my question. “What do you mean?”
“Are they all like this one? I mean, obviously they aren’t,” I hastened to add. “I know some of them are a lot bigger.”
She nodded emphatically. “Some of them are huge,” she said. “Those big ones, it’s like moving to a small town for a few weeks while you’re working there. But some are small, like this one. Tents and temporary stages that really drive home how fleeting it all is.”
“Which do you like better?”
“Couldn’t tell you.” Stacey shook her head with a laugh.
“They’re all different. But they’re also a lot alike.
I can’t explain it, but when I’m in garb, walking down a dirt lane, hearing the music and people cheering, and the air smells sticky, like funnel cake…
” She shrugged. “No matter where I am, it feels like home every time.”
Home. I was right about that, at least.
“How…” But I shook my head; that wasn’t the question I wanted to ask.
“What’s it like to live that life, though?
All that traveling. It feels so…uncertain.
” The opposite of what I was looking for out of life.
Being laid off had felt like the floor dropping out from under me; I wasn’t sure how much uncertainty I could take.
“In some ways it is,” she said. “There’s no paid health insurance, no retirement plan.
We basically live year to year, contract to contract.
Daniel does his best to keep them lined up, but nothing in life is certain, you know?
And I’m not gonna lie, that can be a little scary if I think about it too much.
” She flashed a quick grin in my direction. “So I don’t.”
“Don’t think about it?” I placed a hand on her elbow, steering her down a lane off to the right.
The Queen’s job between the shows she presided over was to see and be seen, and we hadn’t gone down this side of the Faire yet.
We had time before the last joust of the day.
After that, it would almost be time to end the day with pub sing, which took place at the stage closest to the front gate.
That herded the patrons nicely to the exit at the end of the day.
“Exactly,” Stacey said. “I don’t think about it.
I spent most of my twenties worrying about so many things…
” Her brow creased as she lost herself in memory, but she shook it off with a quick smile.
“Now I focus less on what-ifs and more on just living my life. You only get one, right? Besides,” she said with a soft smile.
“Daniel plans ahead enough for the both of us. He researches our health insurance plans at least every six months. We don’t talk about it much, but knowing him I’m sure he’s got something stashed away for the future. You want my advice?”
I nodded. “Always.”
She gave a sage nod, and before my eyes Stacey had disappeared, and I was getting life advice from the Queen.
“Life is risky,” she said. “And tomorrow is never promised. But the trick, for me at least, is to go through it with someone you know you can rely on. Daniel always makes me feel like he’s on my team, and I let him know as often as I can that I’m on his.
He’s the planner, and I’m the one that likes to go with the flow. Together we balance each other out.
“It’s like your aunt and uncle. Emily’s a Cancer, that’s a water sign.
She’s all nurturing and family focused, but she can be a little…
emotional about it.” She raised her eyebrows at me, and I got what she meant.
“Meanwhile, Simon’s a Virgo. Earth sign.
He keeps her grounded, but without her, he can forget to find the fun in life.
So they balance each other out. Me, I’m a Libra, and Daniel’s a Capricorn; his checklists have checklists.
” She squinted at me. “When’s your birthday? ”
“September twelfth.”
She nodded. “Virgo. So you’re the earth sign in this equation. The grounded one.”
“Lucky me,” I said dryly, and Stacey’s sunny smile was back.
“I can see that in you,” she said. “You’re flailing a little bit right now, right? Home for the summer with no real plan for the future.”
“Hey,” I said defensively. “I’m working on it.”
“Of course you are.” Her voice was all sweet reassurance. “I just mean that you hate feeling uncertain. Life’s smoother for you when you have a plan.”
“It is,” I conceded. It made me sound so boring, but then again Stacey didn’t sound bored when she talked about Daniel. So maybe it was okay to feel that way.
“Just make sure you remember to find the fun in life. You could use a good air or water sign for that.”
I gave a noncommittal hum, my mind whirling. Find the fun. That sounded too much like Alex, and our walk through the Faire early this morning. He’d said he wanted me to find the magic of the Faire again. And damn if he wasn’t doing just that.
I reached up a hand to brush my fingertips across the petals of the green leather rose that I’d tucked in my hair. Stacey tilted her head, watching me with a smile. “When’s Alex’s birthday?” Her voice was all innocence, but I didn’t buy it for a second.
“No idea.” I dismissed her line of questioning as fast as I could.
For one thing, champion or not, I wasn’t thinking about Alex that way.
For another, astrology had never been my thing.
It was too much like…well, too much like being here at the renaissance faire.
An element of whimsy, a release of control, that I simply didn’t have in me anymore.
Another thing that was Alex’s fault, probably.
Somehow, blaming Alex didn’t have the vehemence it used to.
Anyway, none of it mattered. Alex and I might have cleared the air, and I’d developed a hobby of objectifying his abs, but that was as much of a relationship he and I were ever going to have. Friends? Maybe. But no more than that.
A group of patrons stopped now to interact with the Queen, and our conversation was cut short while Stacey slid easily back into character.
I moved to stand next to Toby, in my role of lady-in-waiting, and did what I did best. I waited.
I happily took photos with the patrons’ phones; I made up fanciful, off-the-cuff stories of my glorious life in the court with the Queen; I posed for a photo with a little girl who said I looked like a princess.
All the while, my conversation with Stacey played in my head.
She was so happy, living a life that I wouldn’t even dream of.
The idea of it made me itch—the lack of security.
Stacey was right—I did like a plan. Plans meant security. Certainty.
But was any life really secure? Hadn’t I done everything right, only to be laid off with no warning?
That morning I’d logged into the system to see an all-hands meeting had been added to my calendar.
Dread had swirled through my stomach, and two hours later it was all over: thirty of us laid off in one fell swoop.
Talk about a meeting that could have been an email.
That secure, stable life—a good job with benefits, vacation time, and room for advancement—had disappeared in moments. Who’s to say that the next position I landed wouldn’t end the same way?
But that didn’t mean I wanted the other extreme—running away and joining the renaissance faire.