CHAPTER 6
THOR
I finally get to bring Sam breakfast in bed.
This girl cansleep, and that’s fine by me. She doesn’t even wake up when I roll out from under her and cover her with the sheet. I whip up eggs, a hollandaise sauce, sausage, bacon, English muffins to drench in the sauce, and a bowl of watermelon and strawberries. Maybe it’s a little much, but I want to spoil her. By the time I come back up the stairs with a tray full of food, Sam is sitting up in bed waiting for me. She kicks her feet under the sheet and squeals.
“The smell woke me up,” she says. “I was hoping you’d bring it to me in bed.”
“Your hopes are my dreams.”
“I don’t even care that that doesn’t make sense.”
“Sure, it does.”
“Nope.” She snaps her fingers and points to the empty space next to her. “Get back in here.”
We don’t care much about spilling crumbs in bed. Last night, we pretty much ruined the sheets. Sam devours everything again, washing it down with hot coffee. She always retreats into herself after a meal, pleasantly stuffed and taking a moment to zone out. She stares at the open balcony doors, watching the creamy drapes dance in the breeze.
“It’s perfect here,” she says.
“I was wondering what you were thinking.”
“Is it always this nice? Does the sun always light up the room like this in the morning?”
I run my fingers through her silky hair. “It’s never this nice, Sam.”
She rolls her eyes. “Cheese ball.”
The fact that it’s the last day of the fair hangs over us like an unwanted guest. Whatever this is, it ends soon.
I know she’s thinking it, too. I know it haunts her the same way it haunts me.
“What are you afraid of, Thor?” She puts her hand on my lap, absentmindedly tracing circles on my thigh. “You’ve got all those photos down there. You’ve done so much with your life. Does anything scare you anymore? Do you feel dread or anxiety? Or is life just… easy?”
“Do you feel dread?”
“Every day,” she laughs. “I don’t know how much longer I can do this show. And that scares me because I don’t know what I’m supposed to do next. I’m not good enough for the big leagues—“
“You’re crazy. You’resogood.”
She nods just to hush me. “The prestige shows are different. You have to beperfect,Thor. I’m the star of a cheap circus run by a man in a purple suit. I’d have to quit, really master my craft, and get through grueling tryouts. And even then, I’m not sure it would be the right fit for me… didn’t you ever feel like this? When you were younger, I mean.”
“Ouch. You know I retired early, right? I’m forty-six…”
“You know what I mean.”
“When I was younger…” I sigh, remembering my days of feeling rudderless. “I felt dread, yes. I didn’t always know what I wanted.”
“So,” she says, hanging on my words. “How did you get through it? How’d you make the right decisions?”
“I figured out what I was really afraid of.”
I run my thumb along Sam’s delicate chin. She looks worried, and I wish I could fix that for her.
“I realized that what I feared most was getting old, looking back, and realizing that I’d lived a dull, empty, vapid life. I was afraid of having no pictures on my walls, no memories, nothing to think back fondly on. Nothing to be proud of. Once I knew that, I just took the first steps. The direction didn’t matter. If it didn’t make me happy, I took another step. And another. That’s all life is, Sam, picking a direction and walking surefooted.”
“Walking the tightrope is less stressful than the stepping stones of life.”
