Ringmaster

“You think she’s beautiful.”

The piece of wax paper I’m trying to wrestle off the roll suddenly rips in two. “What?”

Mum pauses, her floury fingers over the bowl, gazing at me like I’ve just asked her something extremely obvious. “Ryah. You have feelings for her.”

“No, I don’t.”

She gives a pitying shake of her head. My mouth works and I hold out my arm, gesturing at the doorway Ryah’s just disappeared through, and—and what? The complete obviousness of what my mother has just said to me?

“I need some more string,” I mutter, turning away from her.

“On the chimneypiece. There’s no point in denying it. I know my son. You’re different this Christmas, and I’ve heard something in your voice since the summer. Something hopeful. I like it.”

I measure out lengths of string and begin tying up the paper packages. I consider telling my mother the truth. I have feelings for Ryah. I want to take her in my arms and kiss her. I want to do so much more than that. She’s had a special spot in my heart since I met her, but lately that spot’s been growing and growing until it feels larger than my whole chest. Larger than my whole body.

Or I could lie.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’ve been meaning to talk to Ryah about it, actually,” Mum goes on, as if I haven’t said anything. “But I thought I’d say something to you first.”

Panic sweeps through me. “Mum, don’t you dare talk to Ryah.”

“But I have to if you won’t admit it. Someone has to get the truth out of you.”

I take a deep breath and let it out gustily. “Alright. I have a—” I step back to check no one’s listening at the door and lower my voice to a whisper “—soft spot for Ryah, but that’s all. She’s very sweet, but she’s also very young. Naïve, really. If she was going to be romantically involved with anyone it should be a seventeen-year-old boy.” Even as I say it I can feel my whole body revolting at the notion.

No one gets to touch Ryah. No. One.

But me. And I won’t allow that, either.

“She is young,” Mum agrees. “But she’s resilient and clever, and she’s growing into a beautiful young woman. Do you want someone else to snatch her up first?”

No, I fucking don’t. “That’s not the way the world works. You don’t place dibs on people.”

She’s mine.

“If you keep clenching your teeth that hard, they’ll break.”

“I’m not,” I growl through my clenched teeth. I sound like a petulant teenager. A jealous, petulant teenager. I keep wrapping cookies, trying to ignore the whole goddamn conversation.

But what if Mum’s noticed something about the way Ryah looks at me. That would be interesting to know about. For purely educational reasons. “Do you think she…feels anything for me?”

Mum makes a mystified face. “How should I know, darling? Why don’t you ask her?”

Yeah, right. “Do you think she knows how I feel?”

Mum muses for a moment. “I don’t think so. She probably thinks you feel about her the same as you feel about everyone in the troupe. Unless someone tells her.” She cracks an egg into her mixing bowl.

My eyes widen. “Mum. Don’t you dare.”

“Then you do it.”

“She’s seventeen!”

Mum waves that away like a gnat on a summer’s night. “You’re not going to propose her. You’re not going to do anything. You’re a good man. But she’s not going to be seventeen forever, and soon, maybe next week, maybe even tomorrow, she’s going to notice that there’s something different about the way you look at her. She’ll realize you don’t look that way at anyone else. Because that’s how I k

new.” Mum sniffs. “You’ve told her about Mirrie?”