Girl on a Wire

by Gwenda Bond

  “Impressive,” I said.

  She shrugged one shoulder. “What kind of dog act would mine be if they ran it instead of me?”

  “Good point.”

  “What history?” she asked.

  Remy leaned forward. “You were on a show with my grandfather, Roman, one summer.”

  “More than once. We were on the same circuit for a long time.” Kat measured each word.

  “But you weren’t on that many with Nancy Maroni, were you?” I said. “There was a summer when she and Roman performed together.”

  Kat sat back in her chair. I worried she might deny it, but she said, “I was fourteen that summer. A pest. That’s what my big sister called me. That’s what everyone called me.”

  “She was a tiger trainer?” I asked to keep her talking. “Was she crazy?”

  “As the day is long,” Kat said. “She quit not long after that. I couldn’t manage the tigers, so I did other things instead. But you don’t care about that. You want to know about Nancy.”

  I nodded.

  “I don’t know anything for sure. Just rumors. Although these rumors are about things that are true. Things that happened.”

  “There were accidents, deaths,” Remy prompted. “We know that. What did people think caused them?”

  “They thought Nancy caused them,” Kat said, sounding regretful that she had to say it in front of me. “Times were different then. Everyone was anxious. You think we’re competitive now? Back then people were clinging to what they had. It was worse. Nancy and Roman—their chemistry was unmistakable. I was only fourteen but everyone knew what was between them. His poor wife . . .”

  I swallowed. Remy’s face revealed nothing of what he must have felt.

  “But were any of these rumors specific?” he asked.

  “Well,” she said, hesitating. But then, “The thing is, the people that were . . . affected . . . they weren’t any competition for Nancy. Roman had eyes only for her at the time. But he had been involved—Remy, are you sure you want to hear this?”

  Remy gave a tight nod.

  “Roman was an old-school ladies’ man. He loved his family, but he got around. There were rumors. There was a ring girl who died—who happened to be Roman’s girlfriend before Nancy. And there were others. Some sisters that people said had both been with him at different times. A clown he punched out one night, for dating one of his girls. People noticed, so it wasn’t a stretch to assume Nancy did too.”

  “You’re saying my grandmother hurt people because she was jealous?”

  Kat didn’t flinch. “I’m not saying anything. Only telling you what I remember. I also remember that Nancy Maroni’s mother gave tarot readings that were scarily accurate. I hear your grandmother can do the same.”

  It was my turn to nod tightly. “I think I’m going to go.”

  Remy reached out and caught my wrist in his hand, and the light, comforting pressure held me there when I would have left.

  “There’s nothing else?” he asked.

  Kat shook her head. “Roman was the kind of man who inspired obsession in people around him. Always the center of attention. He encouraged it. He loved admiration, especially from women, no matter how young or old. His wife was no exception, but it must have gotten old, being married to him.” She turned to me. “Even as a young girl, I could see how much your grandmother was in love with him. Her passion, it wasn’t healthy.”

  “Do you think they had an affair?” I asked her, point-blank. No use in leaving with only vague ideas.

  “Yes, I do,” she said, with regret. “And the truth is, it all stopped—the accidents, the rumors about some kind of mystical voodoo—all of it stopped after Nancy left. I’m sorry. But it did. That’s what happened.”

  I wondered if their affair had been based on obsession or love. Because none of that sounded anything like love to me. I had to admit, though, it certainly sounded like something that would provoke a response—even if I still couldn’t believe in Nan’s magic, or that she’d use it to hurt others. Crazy in love or not.

  I wrapped my arms around myself like I was cold. And I was grateful when Remy made our good-byes.

  Right up until we were outside. I wanted to say something, to process what we’d just heard together, but the sound of nearby laughter reminded me that we couldn’t say a word to each other. Not out in the open where someone might see.

  eighteen

  * * *

  Another week of late Chianti nights for Dad followed, mixed with a busy itinerary for the show. We did a few days in Indianapolis, followed by a few more in St. Louis, and all Remy and I’d been able to do in the meantime was exchange looks. I even chanced dropping by the schoolroom to see him, but only got out a furtive hello before almost getting busted by Novio.

  Today, the Cirque had paraded through Kansas City, Missouri. I had done an outdoor wire walk in some tourist-revitalization-type district. It was only about five stories above the sidewalk, so I’d used a parasol and chanced a single pirouette in the middle. Wild applause had drifted up to me, but I’d felt wobbly. I’d think twice before trying it again outside. The problem was just from wind or unsteadiness from too much momentum, though. Of that I was nearly certain.

  After the evening performance, my parents went to bed early. Thankfully. I snuck out wearing my own practice clothes, a black leotard under a petal-pink tunic covered in tiny black polka dots. I was hoping to get in a little time on the wire. I’d never gone up at night, when the tent was deserted, the stands in shadow. And . . . I wanted to show off for Remy. I was at my best when I was performing, never unsure and awkward like I was sometimes with him off the wire—and what we’d learned from Kat definitely landed us in the territory of Totally Awkward.

  When I arrived, Remy wasn’t practicing for once. He was sitting outside the edge of the center ring, legs sprawled in front of him. His back was to me. Probably because turning your back on the ring was the same as turning your back on luck. No one did it. Another superstition.

  I toed the ground beside him with the point of my red slippers. “Running late tonight?”

  “I was waiting for you, hoping you’d show up,” he said, and I watched him take in my clothes. “You want to learn some trapeze?”

  My laugh rang out way too loud, loud enough that I quieted. I didn’t want to tempt fate that much, and risk our discovery in here.

  “No way.” No way I’d try something like that for the first time with him watching. “I thought I might get in a couple of turns on the wire tonight.”

  “I don’t know why the idea of trapeze is so funny.”

  I patted his shoulder as he rose to his feet. “Of course you don’t. You like nets.”

  “It’s almost like you don’t want me to turn some lights on for you.”

  I poked him with the end of my parasol. “Pleeeaase?” I added a dose of eyelash fluttering.

  “Not because of that,” and he fluttered his own entirely too long lashes, “but because I owe you.”

  I could have asked what he meant, but I didn’t need to. He’d come the closest ever to making the quad during that night’s show. The adjustments to his form going into the somersaults—some of which I’d suggested during these nighttime rendezvous—were finally paying off. At least, I thought that was what he meant.

  Remy jogged into the stands and disappeared into the control booth where the lighting and mechanical team manned the switches and boards. As far as I was concerned, the ladder rising and falling was akin to magic—the delightful kind you could see, not the kind that supposedly brought bad luck and rumors. But someone was still responsible for it.

  Lights splayed over my wire as everything except it and the trapeze faded to dark. My ladder lowered. When Remy didn’t return right away, I went over and put my hands on the rung to start climbing. It immediately started to rise.

  The ladder’s progress paused. I used the second to get a better grip, shaking my head since he could obviously see me. When I was set
tled, the ladder started again.

  He wasn’t making me climb. It was Cary Grant-esque.

  I stepped off onto the platform, and waited. Remy jogged back out of the corner, the grace of his movement unfair to regular people. I couldn’t believe I’d thought he didn’t move effortlessly enough to be a flyer when we met at the masquerade.

  He jumped up into the net beneath the trapeze, lay back, and waved his hand.

  “Go on,” he called. “I’m ready.”

  Did he think I wanted him to critique me? The idea made me squirm. Too late now. I did a couple of stretches to warm up, and set a foot on the wire. I went cautiously at first, in case he startled me by calling something up to me, but I should have known better. He was no amateur.

  I went through the act, doing the version that had a little extra. The new arabesque, some elaborate motions with my free hand. I added a curtsy at the end. There was no applause when I finished and crossed back onto the platform. Remy was standing, gazing up. He called a question: “You want to go again?”

  Not if I wasn’t getting applause. “Nah.”

  “Excellent,” he said, “because you don’t need the practice like I do.”

  What was that supposed to mean? “Hey, I practice hard.”

  He gestured for me to get on the ladder. I did. He vanished and it lowered me to the ground. In a few seconds, he was coming back toward me.

  “I’m not saying you don’t, just that you make it look so easy,” he said. “Did you always know the wire is what you wanted to do?”

  That was such a compliment coming from him that I almost missed the question. I snapped back to attention. “What, the wire? You’ve seen my dad—he’s better than me. I wanted to achieve that. Still trying to.”

  “I prefer you to your dad.”

  “It’d be a little creepy if you didn’t. Despite the fact our grandparents apparently preferred each other at one point.” There it was. The first mention of what we’d discovered. Saying it made me feel vulnerable, and I was even more aware of him, standing in front of me, close enough to reach out and touch.

  “True.” Remy nodded, but didn’t look uncomfortable. That was a relief. “I’ve been doing trapeze since I could walk. But I didn’t choose. It was chosen for me—for all of us.”

  “But you love it now, don’t you? You wouldn’t work so hard, if you didn’t.”

  “It’s one of the reasons I started trying the quad. To add something I wanted to do in our act. I wish we’d grown up training with the same freedom you did.”

  “Remy,” I said, and reached out to him before I could stop myself. Before I realized it was a risk, I had his hand in both of mine. “I’m sorry about what Kat said about your grandfather the other day.”

  Remy’s head gave a slight shake. “Don’t. You shouldn’t be.” He put his other hand on top of mine. “You know I told you I didn’t want to be one of those guys?”

  “You aren’t.”

  He waited, his eyes on mine, and I was quiet.

  “It’s a choice. Not that I ever could be, but . . . Jules, none of that was news. I grew up with ‘Roman Garcia: Roman Gladiator.’ You know, he used to tell us the stories of his conquests—of the women he slept with, led on, screwed and then screwed over—while my grandmother was right there. She could hear every word. I would never want to be like him.”

  I clutched his hand like it was the ladder soaring up to the wire. “I’m so sorry.”

  “But I would never wish for a different family,” he said. “Dita, Novio, my parents. I know how lucky I am. I would never wish it different, even the bad parts. Never. But I wish he had hurt people less. And I wish you didn’t have to listen to all this stuff about Nan.”

  “What if she was jealous? It’s still crazy, right, the idea that she could have used magic for it?”

  He didn’t answer right away. “Yes,” he said. “Still crazy. And we’re going to find out who is behind this.”

  And that was the truth. I could tell he meant it. He was hanging in there with me on our search. It made me want to fall into him, into us. But I was still too afraid.

  He grinned, like he sensed the need to lighten the moment. But what he said next wasn’t funny. “I wish our families didn’t hate each other.”

  Before I could respond, he was pulling his hands away and backing toward the light booth, saying, “Enough of that for tonight, though. I’m getting closer. Have a seat and tell me if you see anything else I can adjust.”

  So I did.

  By the time I made my way back to the RV, the grounds were silent. Even the last carousers were in for the night, so I took my time, wondering whether I’d missed my opportunity to let Remy know what I wanted. If I had the guts to officially want it. Our first kiss had been almost an accident. The risk to both of us if it happened again seemed much bigger now.

  Grass tickled my feet, crickets singing loudly in the darkness. Remy was going to make that catch, one night soon. And I’d know I had a part in it. But no one else would know—they might never know. As it should be. We acted as each other’s invisible nets these days, supporting and saving with no one else the wiser. Without him, I’d have been on my own, digging into the past, trying to decide if magic was real. Or, much worse, I’d be in the river in Jacksonville.

  I stopped at my window. I’d pull myself up and shimmy quietly inside until I was safe in bed. There were benefits to the kind of strength you get as a performer that were a major help at sneaking out and back in.

  A low cough sounded, and I turned. Sam stood at the door to the RV, his palm on the handle. We looked at each other.

  “Sam?” I whispered.

  But he didn’t answer, only lifted a hand in greeting. He opened the door and went inside, silent as a thief. A silent, happy thief. There’d been the hint of a smile on his face, and bumping into me hadn’t budged it.

  I made my way back through the window and waited for him to come in so we could talk and I could find out if he’d been with Dita . . . or somewhere else altogether. I’d been neglecting my snooping duties as his surrogate sister. But he didn’t visit, and after a long time, I went to sleep.

  I’d get the dirt tomorrow.

  nineteen

  * * *

  Sam always got to the mess tent before me at breakfast, and I spotted him at our usual exile table as soon as I entered the tent. I was on a mission to talk to him. Grabbing the last glistening cream cheese Danish from the deluxe catering table, I started his way.

  Only to be nearly plowed down by Thurston’s pixie-small but high-energy admin assistant as she waltzed in to make an announcement. She clapped her hands for attention, and shouted, “All Call in twenty minutes. All Call in the big top in twenty. Everyone—crew, performers—should be there. Orders of the boss. Spread the word.”

  Someone was getting to like the lingo. And she left the tent buzzing in her wake.

  An All Call was rare once the season got under way. Announcements tended to be minor and spread by word of mouth or flyers tacked onto a board at the back of the mess. Getting a message to everyone was easy enough; the circus was an efficient place to spread news . . . and gossip. As I knew firsthand.

  Sam’s eyes met mine, and he got up and ambled over to me. “Wonder what this is about?”

  Wonder where you were coming back from last night.

  “Hopefully we’re not both busted,” I said, low.

  Sam didn’t appear to see the humor, which wasn’t like him. “That wouldn’t require an All Call.”

  He was so serious this morning. Interesting. I snagged an orange juice and managed a bite of the pastry from heaven as we walked outside. “Sam, slow down.”

  “We don’t want to be late,” he said.

  I stepped in front of him, making him stop. A few people behind us grumbled with irritation as they were forced to go around. Sam could’ve ignored me and kept going, but my breakfast would have ended up all over both of us.

  I handed the juice to him. “Hold
this. We’ve got a few minutes. Now, over here. You know when you’re evasive it just makes me want the details.”

  We stepped out of the leisurely stampede of performers heading for the big top. I steered us to an uninterrupted stretch of grass in the morning sun along the back of the mess tent. Then I gave Sam my best I’m waiting, explain yourself expression.

  “You know, I’m not interrogating you about where you were last night,” he said.

  “I know, and I’m shocked. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to know where you were. They hardly even police your whereabouts. It’s one of your boy perks. So why were you sneaking?”

  Sam stared over my shoulder like he was deciding something. I ate some more pastry while I waited.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’m only not asking you because I know where you were. You’ve been hanging out with Remy when he rehearses at night.”

  I froze. Completely. I had no idea what to say. Whether to bother denying it or try to explain.

  “I’m not going to rat you out, Jules. Give me some credit. I don’t care who you date, and your parents’—and Nan’s—thing against the Garcias has nothing to do with us.”

  I was reminded that he didn’t have the whole story of why Remy and I were meeting.

  “And you know about my activities because . . .”

  “Because I was with Dita. We’ve been seeing each other. Quietly.”

  “Not just riding lessons!” I shoved the rest of the Danish into my mouth and swatted Sam’s arm with a sticky hand. “Shut up!”

  “No, this is where you have to shut up.”

  I was offended. “I’m not going to tell either. We have to keep all this secret or Mom and Dad will flip.”

  Sam shook his head. “No. That’s not why I haven’t told anyone. This is still new. Jules . . . She’s not sure of me yet. I’m waiting until she is. But I don’t care if they disapprove. I . . . I really like her. They’ll have to get over it.”

  “Sam, I apologize. I never figured you for a romantic.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Stop reminding me that there are other benefits to keeping this secret.”