The Circle

and yet he was standing,
     chest out and hands awake, as the circus performer assessed him, eyes steady, as if
     choosing between staying in character, in this circus, following through with the
     show and getting paid, and paid well, by this enormous and prosperous and influential
     company, or tangling with this guy in front of two hundred people.
    Finally he chose to smile, theatrically twirl his mustache by both ends, and turn.
    “Sorry that happened,” Kalden said, helping her up. “You sure you’re okay?”
    Mae said she was. The mustache man hadn’t touched her, had only scared her, and even
     then, only for a moment.
    She stared at his face, which in the suddenly blue light was like some Brancusi sculpture—smooth,
     perfectly oval. His eyebrows were Roman arches, his nose like some small sea creature’s
     delicate snout.
    “Those assholes shouldn’t be here in the first place,” he said. “A bunch of court
     jesters here to entertain royalty. I don’t see the point,” he said, now looking around
     him, standing on his tiptoes. “Can we leave here?”
    They found the food and drinks table en route and took tapas and sausages and cups
     of red wine to a row of lemon trees behind the Viking Age.
    “You don’t remember my name,” Mae said.
    “No. But I know you, and I wanted to see you. That’s why I was near when the mustache
     came at you.”
    “Mae.”
    “Right. I’m Kalden.”
    “I know. I remember names.”
    “And I try to. I’m always trying. So are Josiah and Denise your friends?” he asked.
    “I don’t know. Sure. I mean, they did my orientation and, you know, I’ve talked to
     them since. Why?”
    “No reason.”
    “What do you do here, anyway?”
    “And Dan? You hang out with Dan?”
    “Dan’s my boss. You won’t tell me what you do, will you?”
    “You want a lemon?” he asked, and stood. He kept his eyes on Mae as he reached his
     hand into the tree and retrieved a large one. There was a masculine grace to the gesture,
     how he stretched, fluidly upward, slower than might be expected, that made her think
     of a diver. Without looking at the lemon, he handed it to her.
    “It’s green,” she said.
    He squinted at it. “Oh. I thought that would work. I went for the biggest one I could
     find. It should have been yellow. Here, stand up.”
    He gave her his hand, helped her up, and positioned her just away from the boughs
     of the tree. Then he threw his arms around the trunk and shook it until lemons rained
     down. Five or six hit Mae.
    “Jesus. Sorry,” he said. “I’m an idiot.”
    “No. It was good,” she said. “They were heavy, and two hit me in the head. I loved
     it.”
    He touched her then, shaping his hand around her head. “Anything especially bad?”
    She said she was fine.
    “You always hurt the ones you love,” he said, his face a dark shape above her. As
     if realizing what he’d said, he cleared his throat. “Anyway. That’s what my parents
     said. And they loved me very much.”
    In the morning, Mae called Annie, who was on her way to the airport, heading to Mexico
     to untangle some regulatory snafu.
    “I met someone intriguing,” Mae said.
    “Good. I wasn’t crazy about the other one. Gallipoli.”
    “Garaventa.”
    “Francis. He’s a nervous little mouse. And this new one? What do we know about him?”
     Mae could sense Annie speeding the conversation along.
    Mae tried to describe him, but realized she knew almost nothing. “He’s thin. Brown
     eyes, tallish?”
    “That’s it? Brown eyes and tallish?”
    “Oh wait,” Mae said, laughing at herself. “He had grey hair. He
has
grey hair.”
    “Wait. What?”
    “He was young, but with grey hair.”
    “Okay. Mae. It’s okay if you’re a grandpa chaser—”
    “No, no. I’m sure he was young.”
    “You say he’s under thirty, but with grey hair?”
    “I swear.”
    “I don’t know anyone here like that.”
    “You know all ten thousand people?”
    “Maybe he’s got some temporary contract. You didn’t get his last name?”
    “I tried, but he was very coy.”
    “Huh. That’s not so Circly, is it? And he had grey hair?”
    “Almost white.”
    “Like a swimmer would? When they use that shampoo?”
    “No. This wasn’t silver. It was just grey. Like an old man would have.”
    “And you’re sure he
wasn’t
some old man? Like some old man you found on the street?”
    “No.”
    “Were you roaming the streets, Mae? Are you into that particular smell of an