Existence Read Free Page B

night,” she says. “I was homeschooled for a while; then I got into the academy, where classes are a joke—everyone knows nothing matters but dancing.”
    â€œI bet you’re a beautiful ballerina,” he says.
    â€œI was,” she says, again without modesty. He notes the tense.
    It’s hard not to stare at the unfathomably long line of her neck, the graceful way her arms arc and wave as she makes her point. Every move is graceful, efficient, almost as if she were a fighter, like him. And maybe they’re not so different after all. The hard work, the oppressive training schedule, the tunnel vision for a life oriented around a single goal . . . he recognizes all of them, and wonders whether this is the magnetic field that draws them together, this singularity of purpose.
    â€œI’ve been to Paris, Tokyo, Buenos Aires, Cape Town—name a city, and I’ve danced there,” she says. “Danced, and nothing else. No sights, no culture, certainly no local foods. Nothing that would get in the way of the training regimen. No distractions whatsoever.” She peers at him through lowered lashes. “Definitely no boys.”
    â€œIt can’t be as bad as all that,” he says. “You’re here.”
    â€œExactly. Because I quit.”
    â€œWhat? You said dancing was your life.”
    â€œIt was my life, and what kind of life is that?” She steals the rest of his anticuchos, gulping them down with relish. “I couldn’t handle it anymore. I just did one plié too many, you know?”
    He shakes his head. Tries to imagine walking away from his life, from any of it. Declaring independence from everything he’s ever known. There’s such a thing as too much freedom, he thinks. Freedom from everything can leave you with nothing.
    â€œMy father was cool about it, but my mother?” She shakes her head.“ Freaked. Out . I finally convinced them to send me down here for six weeks, kind of a trial separation from ballet, you know? I’m supposed to be ‘thinking about my options.’” She curls her fingers around the words, and it’s clear that she hopes to do very little thinking while in Peru. “I’ve basically missed out on the first sixteen years of life, Jago. I plan to make up for it, starting now.”
    â€œThat’s a lot to catch up on in six weeks.”
    â€œI’m very efficient,” she says. “It only took me four days to find you, didn’t it? And about ten minutes to catch you?”
    She’s so sure of herself—so sure of the two of them, even though they’ve spent less than a few hours in each other’s presence. “You think you caught me, huh?” he teases her. “I may be more slippery than you expect.”
    She puts her arms around him, pulls herself onto his lap. “Just try to get away,” she whispers in his ear. “I dare you.”
    Summer school isn’t like real school, especially in Juliaca. Alicia has plenty of friends to cover for her, and the teachers and guardians at the study-abroad program don’t require much covering. There’s no one to care if she spends all her time with Jago.
    So she does.
    It’s different than it’s been with other girls: she doesn’t want him to buy her anything; she doesn’t care about his power, or the things he can make people do. She likes to hear the details; she finds it fascinating, the contours of power, the things he knows, the strings he can pull. She likes to hear about corrupt officials—who gets paid off and how much—about how you can learn to attune yourself to the smell of weakness and cowardice, about how to sniff out an Achilles’ heel, and exploit it.
    She likes it, but he doesn’t like telling her, because he can see the judgment in her eyes, hear it in her voice. She’s fascinated . . . but she’s also repulsed. “I just think there’s