Act Six
Baylee Wright
Sitting on the stool opposite me, he slides over my whiskey. “Been in Vegas long?” he asks, his lilt clearly American. I’m not really surprised. Even though the Kotovas speak Russian fluently, the ones in his generation only have American accents.
I cup the new whiskey glass. “About three years. I’m a born and bred New Yorker.”
He smiles into his swig of bottled beer, a dark IPA. “I can’t remember much about New York. I was only three or four the last time I was there.”
“It’s incredible.” My face is hot from the whiskey, and my buzzed-self (slowly creeping past buzzed), emphasizes more words than I normally would. “I first lived in Brooklyn. Then once my mom was hired for Aerial Ethereal’s Seraphine, we moved to Manhattan.” I’m already over-sharing, I think, but I continue on. “I started juggling at six, trained by an artist from Seraphine. And later on, when Infini was being developed in New York, they hired me. My first time working in the circus—and it was magical. Once Infini moved to Vegas, I moved with it.”
I become way too passionate about ordinary things most days, and it only intensifies when I drink. If I somehow switch to baseball, I’m going to send this guy fleeing.
In the next breath, I start talking about my mom being Jamaican-American, and I mention that she’s black and my dad is white—and I use present tense for everything. I catch myself talking about them like they’re still here, and that’s when I shut up.
His gray eyes only on me, he seems partially interested and partially curious.
I decide to ask a question since I just spilled my guts. “Your specialty?”
“High-risk acrobatics,” he says. “Aerialist. The normal.”
The normal. For Kotovas, those are the staples. My discipline is more unusual.
“So what’s the best part of New York?” he asks.
There’s so much. I list out the street food, the nightlife, and then of course, I mention baseball. I go off about the New York Mets. So animated that I lean forward, elbows on the table.
“Mets fans have such love for baseball. It’s like sitting in an audience that is completely and utterly devoted to this thing…this thing that gives people sheer happiness.” I stare up at the ceiling for the precise words to what I feel. “Being in the stands at a Mets game is the closest thing to watching Infini live.”
Luka once said that we’ll never experience the magic of our own act from an audience’s perspective. If we sat in the auditorium seats, we’d critique every little movement and cringe at what could’ve been better.
When I finish, he laughs. I can’t tell if it’s more mocking than amused. But I’m leaning towards mocking.
My passion ekes out of my face like an arrow pierced a floating balloon. “You think it’s funny?” I say flatly and edge back from him.
“I’ve never heard anyone compare the arts to baseball. It’s not my opinion.” He swigs his beer, and his eyes drift down my body in a once-over.
“You disagree?” I realize. Which is fine, we can share opposing viewpoints.
“Baseball isn’t the circus,” he states like I never comprehended this simple fact. “There’s really no comparison.”
There is. I just made one, and I’m slightly irked that he’s not considering even a morsel of what I said. Even if he disagrees with it.
Am I being too harsh? I don’t know. At this point, I’d probably grab my drink and ditch my own table and him. I’ve done that in the past, but I’m trying to be open here. So I don’t shut him down that quickly.
“Where are you from originally?” I ask.
“Nowhere and everywhere. The moment I was born in California, I started traveling the world,” he explains. “My family moves with the circus, much more than you have, and I’ve been in touring shows all my life. Infini is actually my first resident show.”
The first time he’s in a place for longer than a few months. “That’s a big change…” I trail off as his gaze veers past my frame and his posture straightens, almost like he just spotted a long-lost friend.
He’s about to rise off his stool, but then he stays seated. And he glances at me. “This is my brother.” He gestures to a tall figure that approaches our circular table.
I turn my head, and my lips part. I’m looking at him.
I’m not allowed—but I can’t stop.
Luka?
It’s Luka.
Luka Kotova.
My stomach drops as I stare directly at his angelic yet chiseled face. A face that can easily be called beautiful. I can’t close my lips together. I’m in pure, cold shock. I haven’t seen that face up-close in years.
And he’s so much older.
Oh God. How much time did I miss?
My eyes begin to well, but I fight the emotion.
He’s more a man than a teenage boy. His plain navy-blue shirt molds the ridges of his abs and biceps; his dark jeans fitting perfectly.
His mischievous yet charismatic eyes haven’t touched my eyes in ages. And in one second—one overwhelming, soul-shattering moment—his grays flit over to me.
And his eyes hold my eyes.
We both inhale—and very deeply, Luka says, “We’ve met.”
We’ve met.
Buried memories pummel me fast. I have a flash of New York. Where we ran across the city as kids. I always convinced him to go to the batting cages, and he’d pretend to be the announcer behind the fence while I struck the baseballs.
And then on our free days, he convinced me to play one-on-one basketball at a rundown court. I was awful, but I’d try to show off and spin the basketball on my finger. He’d grab the ball and dribble between my legs before doing layup after layup. Then he’d cheer, and I’d shove his arm.
Somehow we always ended up hugging.
I see Luka in my room at thirteen and fourteen. Depression and grief chained me to the mattress. The mornings I struggled, he’d crawl onto my bed, and we talked softly, quietly until I gathered the strength to rise.
In my living room, we danced to the beat of our emotion. Feelings strung in the air like a million neon lights. Soca music thrummed through my veins while he held my cheeks. And he kissed me. My first kiss.
My first love.
He’s right here.
I look away quickly. My body stiffens like a wooden board. I wait for him to leave, but Luka takes a seat on a stool, much closer to me than his brother.
This can’t be happening.
I just looked at him, and we’re not allowed to look.
I glance over my shoulder, but I can’t spot Brenden through the loud, packed bar. More than just Aerial Ethereal artists are here since 1842 is open to all hotel guests.
The cast part is secret.
Meaning the whole point is to go behind the company’s back and figure out the cast sheet before they tell us. So no one here should be spying on Luka and me.
Still, it’s been years.
Why is he coming near me now? Why is he willing to take this huge risk?
I look up at his brother. His brother. He says something to Luka in Russian.
I’d love to gauge Luka’s reaction and read his expression, but I can’t risk staring at him face-to-face again. It’s too hard. It’s too much.
And I’m afraid.
Luka sits as rigidly as me. “She doesn’t understand Russian.”
His brother makes a face like so what? “I was speaking to you.”
“I don’t care,” Luka says, slight edge to his voice that’s mistakable if you don’t listen closely. Luka isn’t usually confrontational. He’ll help stop a fight before he starts one.
It clicks.
When Luka’s family split up years ago (before I even met Luka) two brothers stayed with his parents: Peter and Sergei. Luka almost never harbors animosity for anyone besides the figureheads of Aerial Ethereal. I sense bad blood between them, and it’s more alarming because of who Luka is.
Loving and very understanding of other people—and caring.
So caring.
Maybe he saw his brother chatting with me from across the bar, and he felt compelled to intervene.
I jump into their conversation and ask, “Peter?”
He peels his eyes off Luka. “Sergei.” He’s the first-born, I remember. Older than even Nikolai. Twenty-eight or twenty-nine? “And he’s Luka Kotov.”
“Kotova,” Luka corrects. Honestly, I don’t know what’s worse: the hostile tension laced between them or the thick, uncomfortable tension threaded between us.
“Not this again,” Sergei mutters. “Our birth certificates don’t really matter. We’re Russian. We go by Kotov.”
I understand what he’s saying. Russian surnames change depending on masculine and feminine. Men drop the a, and women keep the a at the end. When the Kotova family immigrated to America, they had to choose between Kotova and Kotov for their documentation.
Obviously, they picked Kotova.
And every Kotova that I’ve ever come across has identified as just that. Kotova. I remember Luka mentioning that his father upholds Russian customs more than others in their extended family, especially his mother who wanted to pick less traditional names for her children. Maybe their father had a greater influence on Sergei, and that’s why he’s so dead-set on Kotov.
“You can go by whatever the hell you want,” Luka says. “I’m Russian-American. I’m a Kotova. I’ll always be a Kotova.”
“I should leave,” I say aloud.
Sergei reaches out his hand. “No. Don’t leave. We’re fine.” He means him and his brother. “Right?” he asks Luka.
They’re anything but fine—but like I said, Luka won’t be the first person to start a fight. So I’m not surprised by his response.
“Sure,” Luka says. “Fine.”
I sip my whiskey, and as Luka shifts on his stool, I’m overly aware of how close his shoulder is to my shoulder. I feel like he’s watching me out of the corner of his eye.
He drops his hand off the table.
My arm falls to my side.
Do you still think about me?
Are you the same as you once were?
How much have we both changed?
Sergei speaks to his brother but gestures to me with his bottle of beer. “I was just talking to…” he trails off.
“You don’t know her name?” Luka almost laughs. I listen keenly, wishing and hoping that I could hear his full laugh. Don’t stop.
Keep going, Luka.
Sergei snaps at him in Russian, and Luka replies back in a smoother tone.
“What’s her name then?” Sergei retorts like he’s quizzing his brother.
Legally, he can’t utter my name, so I’m about to cut in and say it.
I don’t even open my mouth before he speaks.
“Baylee,” Luka says aloud, and I swear he says my name from deep in his core. As if he’s breathing out years of weighted silence. “Baylee Wright.”
My stomach tosses in good and awful ways—we can’t do this. I’m scared of the no minors policy. I’m scared of hurting other people because of our carelessness. I look over my shoulder again. No onlookers, right? No one will tell on us here?
Selfishly, a very big part of me hopes and wishes and yearns for this moment to extend. I don’t want this to stop, and maybe that’s why I stay seated. Maybe that’s why I cling onto every second I can share with him.
Beneath the table, our fingers brush.
I inhale, a spark zipping up my veins. Our fingers try to grab hold stronger. Longer. We almost do.
“Baylee,” Sergei says.
I retract my hand, our fingers breaking apart, and I cup my whiskey with both palms.
“You want Infini to go well?” Sergei asks me.
“Yeah.” I nod, a little dizzy from drinking and from Luka. He ruffles in his jean’s pocket for something, and then he places a handful of Jolly Ranchers on the table.
I’m a little worried he stole them, but I’m also used to Luka shoplifting candy and then sharing most of the loot.
He pushes the green apple towards me. My favorite flavor.
I pick up a piece while he unwraps a blue raspberry one.
Waving his bottle at me, Sergei tries to seize my attention again. When he’s successful, he says, “Then you should tell my brother to start answering my emails.”
I go cold. “He’s ignoring you?” It’s weird having to talk like Luka isn’t right beside me, but it’s not like him to carry a grudge like this. He loves everyone but the company hierarchy.
Maybe he’s changed.
No. I still don’t want to believe that yet.
He feels the same.
“For months he’s been giving me the cold-shoulder,” Sergei says. “And we’re brothers. It’s kind of unbelievable, right?” Whatever exists between them must be deep-seated.
And I can’t side with Sergei like he wants me to. I’d defend Luka for millenniums. He’s not just my secret ex-boyfriend. He’s the boy who my dad called, “Poignant.” Luka moved my father to near tears because…he was there for me.
For as long as I can remember, I have days where I just lie in bed, feeling weighed down, empty. My dad would nudge me to go to a Mets game, and the thought sounded worse than work. It seemed lifeless and then painful. All the things I love have felt pointless at some moment in time.
I hate the feeling. Because it’s unshakable. It grips every bone in my body and tells me not to move, not to dance. Not to live.
That all joy is joyless. That all love is worthless.
That happiness is too far gone.
Before my parents passed, people would tell me “don’t be sad” and “you have so much to be happy about”—and I did. Yet, my sadness doesn’t listen to these pleas. There’s not a switch that I can pull to turn it all off.
So my mom brought me to a doctor. I was diagnosed with clinical depression. I met Luka around the same time I began taking antidepressants. The pills help a lot now. It doesn’t eliminate depression, but the medicine subdues these miserable feelings. Pushing them back into the crevices of my body and mind.
At first, way back then, the side-effects exacerbated my sad, disheartened thoughts and feelings. My dad was afraid of the warning label on the pills. Suicidal thoughts in teens.
At the beginning, it was hard.
Luka would come over while I lied on my couch, moping, and he’d lie on the other side, our legs tangled. We’d eat candy and popcorn, and he’d just keep me company. The kind of company I needed when I felt so completely hollow and alone inside.
My dad saw someone that was there for me in the simplest but most profound way.
Poignant.
“Why are you dragging her into this?” Luka asks his older brother. “You just met. You didn’t even know her name.”
“I like her,” Sergei says, “more than I honestly like you right now.” His glare grows hotter on his brother. “If you responded to me at all, you’d realize that we’re supposed to be partners.”
“What are you talking about?” Luka shakes his head.
“The Wheel of Death. It takes two people. Who’d you think you were working with?”
In my peripheral, I see Luka’s jaw muscle tic.
“You’re stuck with me whether you like it or not,” Sergei continues. “We have to work together, and our act depends on communication.” He finishes off his beer with a grimace. “At least be better than Timofei.”
Oh shit.
Luka’s back arches at the sound of his little brother. “What do you know about Timo?”
Sergei rips the label off the bottle. “He called me a traitor and said I wasn’t to ever step into his room unless I wanted a broken kneecap.”
“You’re rooming with him?”
“Yeah.” Sergei pauses. “He didn’t tell you? I thought you were close.” They are.
We’re all silent. Even over the bar’s loud commotion, I can hear the crinkle of the Jolly Rancher wrapper between Luka’s fingers and the green apple one that I set down.
“Sweet children of mine, what the fuck are you doing?” Dimitri Kotova appears, and I go cold like solid ice. He’s a part of Infini’s cast, and he’s most likely been inside the bar for a while now. I wonder how long he’s been watching us.
“Talking,” Luka rebuts and gestures from his chest to Sergei’s. Emphasizing that the conversation is not between us. Dimitri is too loyal to his family to snitch on Luka to AE’s figureheads.
So I try to keep calm about us breaking the contract as we sit next to each other. As we cast furtive glances. As we even speak.
Water bottle in hand, Dimitri sidles next to his cousin Sergei. One quick look, he studies the candy along the table, plus our stiff postures.
“Aren’t you performing tonight?” I ask him, trying to sound casual and not tense.
Dimitri swishes his water bottle in affirmation, not drinking alcohol. He’s in Aerial Ethereal’s Amour along with Nikolai, Nik’s girlfriend Thora, Timofei, and others. It’s almost unheard of to pull double-duty in shows. To be in two at once.
Not only because of scheduling conflicts but because it’s tiring. It’s not that Dimitri is a scene-stealer or that they need him for gasps and awes.
It’s more simple: Dimitri is really good at assisting the hardest apparatuses. He performs in large group acts, always ensuring that no one gets hurt on Russian swing and teeterboard, and in Infini, he has always assisted my juggling routines.
Dimitri is the one who throws me extra clubs and balls. We work well together, even if he’s absolutely unequivocally crude. When I was thirteen, he called a corndog a fellatio stick. Which really, when you think about it, makes no sense.
“You’re cool with Sergei?” Luka asks Dimitri. The air thickens, their familial divisions raw, like an open, infected wound.
Before he can reply, Sergei says, “Dimitri is mature.”
I let out a laugh. I can’t help it.
Sergei’s brows knot at me, confused. Dimitri cocks his head in my direction, not surprised by my outburst.
“Sorry,” I say into another muffled laugh. Dimitri mature. He may be older than us and professional when it matters, but he’s been to jail for peeing on the street three times. And he constantly draws penises and balls on foggy locker room mirrors.
“Go ahead and laugh,” Dimitri says, “at least I know which dicks I can and cannot touch.”
Low blow. I’m used to them from him. I force a smile. “I didn’t realize you planned on touching your cousin’s dick.”
Luka laughs under his breath, and my chest rises, lungs expanding. I made him laugh—and I want to hear him laugh again. And again.
Dimitri shakes his head at both of us like knock it off. He traveled down this disastrous road first by bringing up Luka’s dick.
Now I’m really imagining his dick. What it used to look like—what it might look like now. Great. I need to stop. I know I need to stop, but it’s like a snowball effect. I can’t slow down enough to just…leave him. And this situation.
I can repeat no minors policy a million times, and it’s not helping enough. It’s not forcing me off my stool and through the exit.
I feel like a terrible person. Maybe I really am one.
Dimitri hasn’t physically separated Luka and me yet, and maybe he’s uncertain on what action to take since we’ve never been this close before. At least not after we signed those contracts. Almost five years ago.
Sergei’s confusion escalates, and he suddenly motions between me and his little brother. “Are you two together?”
“No,” we say in unison.
My bones ache; I’m so rigid.
“What are you drinking?” Dimitri asks me, grabbing my empty glass. He sniffs. “Alright, Baybay”—I hate when he calls me that, and unfortunately, he knows it—“you’re cut off.”
He likes to pretend he’s my father and Luka’s brother, but he’s neither to us. He’s his cousin and my co-worker friend.
For some reason, his words really rile me. It touches a deep place in my gut that was ready to enflame. In this moment, Dimitri represents Aerial Ethereal, those strict contracts, and every other hand that has clawed Luka and I apart.
On my stool, I spin more towards Dimitri—Luka looks at me. I feel him staring right in my direction.
“You can’t tell me when to stop drinking. You can’t order me around at all.”
Dimitri raises his brows. “I think I can. I throw my balls, you catch my balls. That’s how it works, Baybay.”
Luka hates when Dimitri refers to them as his balls more than me. I usually don’t care, but when he uses it as an attack, it’s annoying.
So I’m not surprised when Luka retorts in Russian, right at Dimitri.
“Stay out of it,” Dimitri tells Luka.
Before Luk replies, I say, “You’re not my dad, Dimitri. I had one.” They all hush and stare at me intently. My passion returns but in a more painful way. “His name was Neal Wright and he was a brilliant novelist, and not you or anyone could ever replace him.”
At this, I stand off my stool. And I wobble. Luka reaches out to catch me, but I spin into someone else’s chest.
My brother.
Shit.
Brenden holds me close and looks murderous, not just at Luka—but at all the Kotovas. Like they’re an extension of Luka’s bad influence on me.
“I’m leaving,” I say to my brother, fisting the back of his shirt so my knees don’t buckle.
Brenden points at Luka. “You owe her a grand.”
“Stop,” I force, about to break away from him now. I can’t bring myself to meet Luka’s eyes.
“What are you talking about?” Luka asks, sounding confused.
“You stole her box and then put it in another room.”
Luka says, “You were fined?” I think he’s asking me. He’s talking to me. He shouldn’t be…the contract…
A pit lowers in my stomach. I’m staring off at the wall—at the exit. I’m leaving. I try to pull away from my brother, but he clasps my hand like I need support.
I do, but not in the way he’s providing. It’s not his fault. He’s doing what he thinks is right.
“I told you he did it,” Brenden says to me.
Luka interjects, “What? No. No, I didn’t steal anything of hers. I wouldn’t…”
“Wait,” Sergei chimes in. “What box are you talking about?”
My head whips up to Sergei. He’s the only person still sitting, and behind him, Zhen starts to step on a tall stool to make an announcement.
“A cardboard box,” I say.
“Her name was on it,” Brenden adds.
“Right.” Sergei nods in realization. “That was me.”
What? I’m dumbfounded. Jaw unhinged, eyes big. He’s not apologetic, but maybe because he’s not aware of what happened.
“You stole her box?” Brenden is disbelieving. I think he wanted the thief to be Luka.
Zhen stands on a stool. “Infini artists!” he calls, barely catching anyone’s attention.
“I was helping a cousin move, and I remember taking the wrong box. I thought I put it back in the right room. Didn’t I?”
“At midnight.” I gape.
“You owe her a thousand bucks,” Brenden says.
Sergei’s eyes widen in shock, and he raises his hands. “No. I don’t have that kind of money. Aerial Ethereal didn’t even pay for my flight to the US.”
“You think my little sister has an extra grand lying around?”
“Little sister,” Sergei repeats under his breath, looking between us. “Right. I’m sorry, but I can’t help her. It’s not my problem.”
Luka shakes his head repeatedly. Over and over.
“What?” Sergei snaps.
Luka fumes silently, trying not to start something. He starts to walk away.
Sergei hops off his stool and grabs Luka’s shoulder. “No, what do you have to say? Tell me.”
Luka faces him. “You don’t want me to tell you what I think.”
“I do. I just asked.”
Luka grimaces, features brutally pained. He runs a hand down his face like he hates feeling this, like he’s trying to wipe it all off. I wince at the sight.
“Luka,” Sergei growls.
“Nothing’s ever your problem,” Luka tells him. “Nothing’s ever your responsibility—”
“Everyone!” Zhen shouts and snaps his fingers, wine in his other hand. “Look here!”
The bar quiets, just as Sergei snaps, “That’s not true.”
Luka’s brows jump. “That’s not true? You just told her it’s not my problem.”
“It’s not.”
“Is that what you said when Mom and Dad asked you to take care of us?” Luka questions. “It’s not my problem. You just shirked everything onto Nikolai without a second thought. I know you did. Look at your face. It says you don’t care about anyone but yourself, which is fine. You don’t care about me, and guess what, I don’t give a fuck about you.”
It hurts.
Every word he says bleeds into the air.
“I was twenty-two,” Sergei retorts.
“I was thirteen,” Luka says with the shake of his head. “Timo was twelve, and you know, Kat, she was ten.” He stretches his arms. “I’m done.” The bar is utterly quiet as Luka heads to the exit, but then he pauses and spins back again.
I can’t read Sergei’s expression. My vision not only blurs, but he keeps his emotions bottled.
Everyone in the bar stares at Luka, not Zhen.
“Don’t you dare fuck with Timo,” Luka says coldly. “Dimitri and whoever might be okay with you here, but I’m not. And that girl, right there”—he points at me but glares at Sergei—“is way too good for a piece of shit like you.”
At this, Luka walks tensely out of the bar.
Leaving me iced-over and stunned. I don’t attempt to follow him, even if I want to—because there are multiple men who’d physically restrain me from reaching Luka’s side.
Zhen raises his wine glass and clears his throat. “Here’s to a new season,” he announces. “May we all work together and set aside our differences. Because…it might be the only way we can save Infini.”