I am a stone. Cold, sitting out in the dark, under the stars. Tomorrow morning, when the sun is on my face, I will warm up so that I am hot to touch. I will burn your fingers.

I have barely moved in hours. My cigarette has been out for some time but I hold onto it desperately, as though it is a safety blanket of some kind, an answer to my need for security. In reality, it is just a cigarette. Somewhere in my mind, I know this. I can't seem to let it drop from my fingers.

Richard is right, and I know it. I am a stone. But I am a stone with ears and a heart, and I realize that Richard is only anxious for me, even if he is rough and rude. There is a bruise on my arm where he grabbed me - humiliated me. In the name of concern, or the name of hate, or the name of the night we made love under the influence of ale and a good audience, or the name of something nameless altogether. Richard feels the wind when we're high in the air. I feel Jackson's kiss upon my cold face and often forget where I am.

But what do I do about it? I can't leave the circus, can I? After all these years, the training, the people, Jackson, Jackson, Jackson. And Richard, but Richard, for all the regard he has for me, I would not miss. I could not miss Richard.

So I leave. Do I leave? Yes. No. I am sitting up on the roof of my trailer, looking at the lights of London from our circus ground, and I begin to wonder, where could those lights take me? Sarah. Sarah, what was it you wanted to be, so long ago? What put you into the business of performing, after all? Your body. Your voice. You wanted to sing, to capture the chemicals in a man's brain and send them firing in different directions, so that he desired you, so that he loved you and wanted you and feared you and loathed you all at once. Wasn't that it? Wasn't that the dream? These days I sing with my body, I capture hearts with my stunts, but the melody is flat and the voice is lazy and unpracticed anymore.

I could sing. I still want to sing. But where do I go to do it? Where can I go where people will want to hear me, want to hear the emotions I have to give? London. London will take me.

I let the cigarette drop from my fingers and I do not sleep.

*        *        *

I am flying, flying, flying. I do not have a death wish today, and Richard notices. He smiles at me as he swings forward, and I grab his legs, as rehearsed. The crowd cheers and mutters and I don't care that they wish I would fall, because today I am not a trapeze artist. I am a singer. I am singing with my body and soon I will be singing with my voice and my heart because I will be in London, far from the circus.

Richard laughs because I am more daring than usual and at one point he winks at me, thinking that I am back from the dead for him, and because of him. He is wrong, of course, but I will not break his heart by telling him. I will break his heart by leaving and not saying good bye. Perhaps it seems more cruel but I am a coward and not good at good byes.
   
We end the set and bow for the audience, who cheers and laughs, and I hear several babies crying. Life goes on, and the crying follows us out of the tent. As does a man.

"Miss Franklin! Miss Franklin!"

Richard keeps walking and I turn around and find myself face to face with a reporter, notepad in hand. His pen is poised as though I have already been quoted and he is about to write down his witty response.

"Can I help you?" I ask warily. He smiles at me, an award winning, mega-watt smile that might make me swoon except that I am extraordinarily irritated with the whole reporter race, almost to a fault. He has green eyes.

"Miss Franklin, that was simply amazing, you know that?"

He is American. I am a little charmed.

"I am certainly flattered, Mr...?"

"Olsen. I'm a critic for the Times. Can I ask you a few questions?"
 
I look him up and down. He is handsome, but the problem is that he knows it and this tempts me to walk away.

"That depends, I suppose."

"On?"

"On how my words will be used against me," I reply demurely. I bat my eyelashes at him. He balks and this is pleasing because any man that can still balk at a woman batting her eyelashes must have some humility left. I consider him.

"I can already tell I'll be doing most of the parrying, Miss Franklin."

I am singing.

"My trailer is right over here, Mr. Olsen. If you'll follow me, we can have a chat and you can ask me anything you want."

I turn my back on him and lead the way. I feel his eyes on the back of my neck, on my shoulders, on my back. I feel Jackson's hands in my hair, on my collarbone, and I remember that I am leaving the circus. I will not tell Mr. Olsen this.

My heart is singing.