Mario laughed. “Sound familiar? Seems to me Johnny pulled the same trick when he was about five.”
“Yeah, I remember. I tanned his bottom for it, too. Tess pestered me all the way home to let her travel with us this year, on the road.”
“Why don’t you let her? There are lots of kids with Lambeth.”
“If Liss was still with us, damned if I wouldn’t bring Tess along. Hell of a note when I have to spend eight months of the year away from my own kid,” Angelo said.
“Where is she now? Did you leave her at the convent?”
“No, she’s upstairs in Lucia’s bed—didn’t even wake up when I brought her in the house. I’ll drive her down to Holy Name next weekend. You know, I told Lucia—”
“Hey,” Mario interrupted abruptly, “what time is it?”
“Quarter to eight,” Angelo said, and Mario whistled.
“Cut and run, Tommy—you’ve got to get to school,” he ordered, and Tommy, obedient as always, felt a sudden reasonless resentment as he heard their voices rise again behind him.
He was apprehensive, curiously excited, when he returned to the practice room that afternoon. Mario and Angelo, both in practice clothes now, were standing at the foot of the aerial ladder; they turned their heads briefly as Tommy came in but paid no further attention to him. He took off his shoes and stood waiting for something to happen. After a while Papa Tony came in, followed by Lucia. He looked around and glared, his wide nostrils flaring in disdain.
“Angelo,” he said, “you are eager to start the season by giving the floor a good polish, maybe?”
Lucia put her hand over her mouth to hide a smile. Angelo, who had absentmindedly taken a pack of cigarettes from his sweater pocket, quickly put them back.
“Where is Johnny?” Papa Tony demanded. “Are he and his young friend not going to practice with us?”
Lucia said quickly, “They’ve asked me to help them work on an act, Papa. They’re going to rehearse evenings when they won’t be in the way.”
Papa Tony gave Angelo another quick glare, but said only, “Very well. Shall we begin, then? We may as well know what must be accomplished before spring.”
Before they came to a halt, Tommy was breathless, dripping sweat, his nerves ragged; but now he realized it wasn’t only the beginners who got stepped on. Today Papa Tony had concentrated on Angelo, but Mario had not escaped, either. Angelo and Mario had criticized one another so loudly, in shouts and snarls, that they reminded Tommy of a pair of young lions. As for Tommy, he got it from all sides; he couldn’t move a finger or a foot without evoking scorn from everybody.
He was tired as he had never been tired in his life. His shorts and shirt were so drenched with sweat that they left damp marks on the bar, and every muscle ached like a separate tooth. But he liked it; he wasn’t playing any more.
Finally Papa Tony jerked his head at him. “Go down. You are tired.”
“Oh, no, I’m all right,” Tommy protested, not truthfully.
Papa Tony’s dark eyes flashed at him. “I say you have had enough. You are beginning to shake—that is when you will fall. Go down with you, and put on your sweater.”
Tommy had forgotten to bring a sweater to the practice room, and so he became the season’s first target for one of Papa Tony’s legendary outbursts. “So, you will run around the cold and drafty stairs in clothes dripping sweat? Basta—you deserve to take pneumonia! And your legs bare like an amateur or a woman! Find yourself some tights before you come down here again, hear me? Now get down from there! Get down from the rigging, get out from the room!”
But as Tommy fumbled with the door latch he heard the powerful bass voice raised again. “Angelo, per nome di Dio, is it in Mexico you have forgotten how to come down a rope? So you slip, and what is happening to the skin on your wrist? And where is your wrist guard, anyhow? You think because it is the first day only, that you have grown leather skin there? You Pinocchio on wires, you—”
Tommy shut the door on a flood of staccato Italian, but he heard it open softly behind him and shut again. Mario, tiptoeing up the stairs behind him, whispered, “I thought I’d better escape before Papa Tony started throwing a few pet names in my direction!”
Tommy’s life fell quickly into routine: early practice alone with Mario, school, another practice with the act in the late afternoon. About a week later, as he was turning on the lights in the practice room for the early session—Mario had been charged with giving Tommy the extra coaching he needed—they heard steps on the back stairs and Johnny came in. He looked bigger, more solid, in faded tights that had once been red.
“Mind if I join you?” he asked diffidently. “Stel won’t get up this early. Could you use a catcher?”
“Come ahead,” Mario said offhandedly. “Tom, you don’t mind, do you?”
“No, I don’t care.”
“Come on, let’s get to work, then,” Mario said, “I’ve been catching the kid up to now, but I can do better on the platform with him if you’re there to catch.” He started up the ladder again, then turned back.
“That reminds me. Tell Stella she could do us a big favor if she would get up early once or twice and come down to work out with us. I’m teaching Tommy to swing in the catch trap, timing it with the bar and so forth, but he’s still a flyweight—couldn’t catch me without breaking his arms. And I don’t think Barbara’s ready. Stella doesn’t weigh much, does she?”
“Hell, no—ninety pounds or so. Okay, I’ll ask her. But what are you teaching Tommy to catch for? I thought he was going to be a flyer.”
“Because,” Mario explained patiently, “it’s a good idea to learn it from both sides. And if Stella’s going to be part of a family act, she ought to start taking her turn—”
“Okay, okay”—Johnny dodged as from a blow—“spare me the lecture. I see you’re right in the old mold of the Angelo Santelli Flying and Reform School.” He went and started checking the ropes at his end of the net, then began climbing to the catcher’s trapeze. “Let’s see this flying of yours, Signor Mario—and I can get a look at your protégé.”
As they watched Johnny work up his swing, then lower himself backward to the catching position, Mario said under his breath, “I’ll go over first. I want to make sure he won’t try any monkeyshines.”
Tommy watched critically as Mario swung out, made a forward flip over the bar, and caught Johnny’s wrists, a neat catch without strain or fumble. As he returned to the fly bar, he nodded. “Neat, Johnny,” he called. “Would you be offended if I told you you’re pretty well in the mold of the Flying and Reform School yourself?”
When it was Tommy’s turn to cross, he realized at once that Johnny was a good, deft catcher; he was instantly aware of the precision of Johnny’s grip as they locked into the reciprocal wrist-catch, the extra little boost that impelled him back exactly as Mario’s call released him. Nevertheless, he was a little regretful. He had enjoyed these early-morning sessions alone with Mario. And though he brushed the thought aside—Good grief, you’re acting like a grade-school kid trying to monopolize your best friend!—he still felt an odd, undefined resentment.
~o0o~
Late that afternoon, after the group practice, Papa Tony went upstairs to dress, but Mario stayed to do some extra work with Angelo. Tommy was holding the bar for him at one end, when, below them, the door opened and shut, and a light feminine voice called, “May I watch?”
“Liss!” shouted Mario, and Tommy, looking down, saw a girl standing in the doorway—at this distance only blue skirt, a dark mass of hair, a dark sweater.
“Don’t come down—go ahead,” the girl called. She knelt on the floor; alter a minute she jumped up, throwing her shoes into the box, and ran across to the foot of the rigging.
Mario signaled to Angelo, then swung and whipped over into a single forward somersault. But instead of returning to the platform, he dropped from Angelo’s hands into the net, made a fast turn to the floor, and ran to the girl, picking her up in
an exuberant hug.
“Liss, Liss, I thought you’d never get here! Come on down, Tommy,” he called.
The girl gave Tommy a quick, hard handshake and a merry grin. “So this is Tommy. I heard a lot about you, last year, in Matt’s letters.”
Elissa Gardner Renzo was a pretty girl, slight and dark, with a quick, vivacious smile. She had abundant dark hair, pulled away from her face in a silky horse’s tail, and dark, feathery bangs above wide-spaced eyes, surprisingly blue. In the curve of Mario’s arm, she looked very small.
“Where’s the offspring, Liss?”
“Davey? Oh, I parked him upstairs with Lucia. He’ll spend the next three days, at least, making the rounds from one lap to the next. And Johnny, bless him, hauled David off to see his sports car. But I wanted to come right down and see you, Matt, and your protégé. Is he really good?”
“Darned good,” said Mario seriously.
Angelo joined them on the floor, kissing Elissa’s cheek and adding a hearty hug. “Hello, kitten. Did you come down to see the famous triple?”
She flashed excited blue eyes at him. “I can’t wait. Oh, Matt”—she seized her brother’s hands again—“Lu told me, and it’s so wonderful, after all this time!”
“I did it on the road just once, but I’ve got it half a dozen times since. On good days. On bad ones I don’t try. Not today, sweetie, if you don’t mind—I’m all excited about seeing you. You look wonderful, Liss.”
She gave the ropes of the aerial ladder a tentative little tug. “Can I come up?”
Mario looked somehow pained, but he said quietly, “If you want to, Liss.” He said to Tommy and Angelo, in a tone of overdone comedy, “I believe the girl’s homesick!”
“Oh, I am.” Then she looked shyly at Tommy and said, “I’m out of practice, though. I haven’t been on a flying rig since Davey was born.”
“It was your own choice, Liss,” Mario said. “Regretting it?”
“Not really. David’s an angel, really. And Davey’s a lamb, now I’ve got over being afraid I’ll drop him. And a settled old mama can’t go traipsing around the country with a circus. And so forth, and so on.”
“Your own mother did,” Angelo pointed out, “and very nicely, thank you, starting when you were about six weeks old.”
She laughed. “I’m just quoting David, Uncle Angelo. And I’m really perfectly happy. Oh, I wouldn’t display my rusty technique in front of just anybody, Matt, but I did want to try again—oh, let’s say, just one more time. No, I won’t say that. When Davey’s older, who knows? But—Matt, please? Angelo?”
Mario laughed. “How much do you weigh, angel?”
“Ninety-nine pounds, fully dressed and wringing wet,” she flashed back at him. “I’ve lost weight since I had Davey, not gained it!”
Angelo put his hands around her little waist and lifted her. “I believe you have, at that,” he said approvingly. “Nice tough tummy muscles, too.”
He set her on the floor, and she giggled. Mario came around behind her, taking her elbows in his hands. “Allez-y,” he murmured, and lifted her into an elaborate arabesque. She went up delicately on her toes, then let him raise her in a high, balanced lift.
As he set her down she made a quick spin, whirled, then sank in a graceful pose. “That’s about all I can manage without blocked shoes,” she confessed.
“Yeah, you’ll hurt your ankles going pointe on barefoot,” Mario said. “You know that.”
“You two ballet dancers!” Angelo muttered with a gesture of amused disgust.
“If you really want to come up, Liss,” Mario said, “I’ll catch for you.”
“I don’t know. Let me see how I feel after I swing a few times. All right?” Then she glanced uncertainly at Angelo. “Oh, but you were working—”
“Forget it,” Angelo said. “I wouldn’t get any more work out of Matt anyway, now you’re here. We were about through, anyway. Want me to stick around and call for you or anything?”
Mario shook his head. “No, thanks, we’ll manage.”
“Not that you want to get rid of me, or anything,” Angelo grinned. “Okay, you stay and play with the boys, Liss. I’m going up and see how much my favorite grandnephew has grown!”
Liss shouted after him, “Don’t you dare give him any candy,” but he slammed the door on the words, laughing. She said ruefully, “Every time I come down here, Davey gets spoiled perfectly rotten.”
“And it does him good,” Mario said. “Did you bring some tights, sweetie? You can’t go on the rig in that outfit.”
She unbuttoned her flaring blue skirt at the waist, without even a glance at Tommy, and stepped indifferently out of it. What he had thought were dark stockings were black ballet tights. She raised her arms and tucked her hair a little more securely into its bandeau. Then she took one or two steps backward, looking at the bare, wide floor with a curious, impersonal watchfulness. Methodically she raised her arms up over her head and whirled over into a row of steady, perfectly balanced four-point cartwheels. She came up to her feet the length of the room away, waved at them, and laughed.
“Okay, you’ve made your point,” Mario said. “Go on up, if you want to.”
Tommy held the ladder for her. She went up neatly, placing each black-clad foot with dainty care; the ladder did not twist or swing. Mario murmured to Tommy, “Liss used to be pretty good, for a girl. Most girls are rotten flyers. They can swing around and look pretty on a bar, but their center of gravity is too low for the big tricks. But she wasn’t bad.”
“Mario, would you rather I cleared out? You told me once she hates being watched . . . .”
“No, stick around—I want you to. But stay down here a minute. I’m going up with her first and watch her swing, before I let her go over.”
He climbed up to join his sister, and they stood on the platform side by side. Tommy could hear their low voices, but not their words. After a minute Elissa rubbed her hands with resin and swung out. At the end of the swing she reversed her hold, pulling herself up on the trapeze and sitting on it like a child in a swing; then she lowered herself back until she was hanging by her knees. At the end of the third swing she pushed up again, took the bar with her hands, and jumped off neatly on the platform, releasing the bar into Mario’s hands without an instant of overbalance. She called down to Tommy, “How’s that for a rusty old homebody?”
She looked exhilarated and sounded it. Tommy called back, “Fine!”
“Come on up,” Mario directed, and Tommy climbed up to join them on the platform. Mario said, “If you want to try, Liss—”
“Oh, please!”
“I still have the feeling Lucia would make you try it in a mechanic first.” He looked her up and down doubtfully. “Let Tommy come over first and you throw the bar. That way I can see how your timing is.”
He went down into the net, waded to the opposite end of it, and started to climb the web toward the catcher’s trapeze, hand over hand. Liss, left on the platform with Tommy, seemed at a loss for anything to say. Finally she smiled and remarked, “Matt’s written a lot about you, Tommy. I’m a little jealous of you—getting a chance to fly with him this season!”
“It seems funny to hear everybody calling him Matt. I never called him anything but Mario.”
“I guess they do call him that most of the time, on the road.” They watched Mario settle himself into catching position. “I really am jealous of you, though. Honest. He hates working the catch trap. He never would catch for anyone but me, before this. He made Johnny—”
“Liss, Tom—ready?” Mario called. Liss pulled in the fly bar, passing it to Tommy with deft precision. He gripped it in his two hands and stood poised.
“Now,” Elissa said, and Tommy pushed out, went over the bar in a single somersault, and straightened out, catching Mario’s outstretched hands. They swung once and he saw Liss throw the bar for the return—right on time—then the swift arch and drop, and he was back on the platform beside Liss. For once he did not ov
erbalance and grab the ropes as he released the trapeze. She caught it and drew it neatly out of his way.
“Neat,” she said in appreciation. “And your first season?”
“All right, Liss,” Mario called, “come ahead. What are you going to do?”
“Silly question,” she called back, “the Minneapolis Express!”
Mario, upside-down, choked with laughter. “My God, do you still remember that? Look out, or I’ll pull the watch trick on you! Okay, Tom, she’s going to do a seat jump.”
Tommy stepped carefully past her, then handed her the bar. She went off in a graceful, sailing swing, pushed up until she was sitting on the trapeze, then jumped off in a neat, arching leap toward Mario’s hands. For an instant Tommy thought she had missed; then her hands found her brother’s wrists and closed around them. He smiled as they swung together.
“Not heading for Minneapolis today!”
“Canceled my reservation,” Liss said merrily. Tommy dropped the bar; Liss sailed toward it, caught it effortlessly swung back to the board, and dropped off, smiling at Tommy in shy self-satisfaction. She called to Mario, “How’s that?”
“Good enough after a two-year layoff,” Mario called, “but Holy Mike, Liss, don’t grab that way! You’re up to your old tricks, trying to fly and catch at the same time!”
The Catch Trap Page 12
