Girl on a Wire (11 page)

“You must have been quite the heartbreaker.”

“Careful,” I said, “you’ll make it sound like she isn’t anymore.”

Thurston inclined his head. “You’ve got a smart girl here.”

“Don’t I know it,” she said, her tone considering.

Thurston kept going. They chatted pleasantly through three more posters from giant Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey tours, which had featured Nan in various famous flying acts. Those were the shows where she’d really made her name, in the early 1960s. I stole a glance at Nan. She was finally relaxing, and had polished off her second flute of champagne. Thurston hadn’t given away anything else.

“This was a pleasure,” Nan said, and I understood she was making her good-byes.

“Oh,” Thurston said, “the pleasure is mine entirely. But we’re not quite done. I have one more to show you, the rarest in my collection.”

He turned to the final page in the valise.

I stood. There, on the most dazzlingly beautiful poster I’d ever seen, was Nan in a silver-sequined white costume draped in folds, like a goddess, only with bared legs. She was sitting on the trapeze in the center, and on swings around her were men outfitted in Roman soldier–style garb, with short Caesar-style haircuts. Men with somehow familiar faces. One of them, with a fake breastplate sewn onto his costume, towered above Nan, standing on the trapeze above her. They were all smiling. The script proclaimed them
The Roman Warriors and Their Goddess
, and after studying the poster for a few more seconds, I finally understood what I was seeing: Nancy Maroni starring with none other than the Flying Garcias.

My gasp was audible.

“I bet that brings back old memories,” Thurston said, perhaps to help cover the shock reverberating from me. Or was he motivated by something else? Was he trying to goad Nan into speaking out against the Garcias? Explaining what the old feud was about? Or did he want to discover the truth behind the rumors of magic that swirled around our family?

“Too many,” Nan agreed, with an undercurrent of anger.

I couldn’t stop myself from leaning forward, holding the page up to get a closer look at the poster. Which let me see the contents of the plastic slipcase behind it: a flimsy white envelope addressed to Thurston. I barely got a glimpse of the return address before Thurston reached in front of me to pick up the valise and close it.

The letter was from Roman Garcia. Thurston had kept his return correspondence.

“My apologies if seeing that poster made you uncomfortable, Nancy,” he said. “Truly, that’s the last thing I intended.”

Nan nodded, but didn’t speak.

“The things ancient history has to teach us,” I said. I lifted the empty champagne glass from her hand and set it on the table. “We’d better be going.”

I held Nan’s shaking arm as we descended the stairs to the outside. I had found only more questions. I couldn’t point the finger at Thurston for planting the magic objects at this point. But I wasn’t entirely convinced he was innocent either—not without knowing what was in that letter.

All I knew for sure was that my plan to keep from upsetting Nan too much had accomplished the exact opposite.

thirteen

After our early show the next day, I plopped Sam’s laptop on the kitchen table and started making loud noises in my mother’s general direction about how our wireless network was down, some trouble with the satellite provider, “I hate this stupid thing,” and so on. The usual noises I made when I couldn’t get Sam’s computer to work.

Mom and I were alone. Dad had already left for a walk, and Sam was out helping give the horses their rubdown. Nan was home, but in bed, claiming a migraine. Our visit with Thurston really had upset her. I’d found out enough that I needed to talk to Remy about next steps, but I still felt guilty.

“What’s your trouble with that thing?” Mom asked. She didn’t like computers.

“Someone told me there’s a video of me online. I want to watch it.”

“A video doing what?”

“Walking.” I mimicked holding the balance pole. My fingers twisted as I snapped them. “I know. I can use the schoolroom’s.”

She frowned, but only for a second. “They probably won’t mind. You can get Sammy to fix that later.”

I was already on my way out the door. “Back in a few.”

I knew exactly where the schoolroom RV was parked, despite the fact I hadn’t been inside of it yet. Before we’d even arrived, my parents had decreed that Sam and I would stay separate from the other under-eighteens, clocking our time with Nan to get enough school hours for work permits. That was fine with me. I had no need to spend hours with the teacher Thurston hired, a perky PhD student from the Ivy League. I guessed she’d taken the gig for résumé color or as research for some long-winded essay about how wacky circus culture was. Nan was a great teacher, and I liked getting the extra time with her anyway.

The small trailer was more battered than most of our fleet, but a fresh coat of red paint made it less of a scrap heap reject. I was jumpy approaching the door. Not because of seeing Remy, I told myself, but because of what I had to tell him.

The schoolroom was cramped inside. Old desks crowded around the edges, and I spotted only two computers. In contrast to everything else, they appeared to be state-of-the-art, with huge flat-screen monitors. Thurston’s doing, no doubt.

I almost smiled with relief when I saw Remy at a desk, scratching away with a pencil at a notebook, a book open flat in front of him. But I stiffened when I realized that he wasn’t the only other person in the room. Novio was occupying one of the computer stations.

Clearing my throat, I stepped forward. This was my best opportunity to talk to Remy, and I didn’t want to miss it. But what would Novio think? Remy had told Dita I was interested in him, but that didn’t mean Novio had been given the same story.

Novio said, “What are
you
doing here?”

His tone made it clear he’d be happier if it turned out he was hallucinating. Great. No cover story.

Remy said, casually, “Yeah, to what do we owe the honor? You need to borrow a dictionary or something?”

Novio laughed as if this was funny.

I studied my surroundings, like I was ignoring them both.
C’mon, Remy, help me out here.
The wood-paneled walls were dotted with “art” done by children. Near me was a messy, many-hued drawing of a cigar-smoking clown, colored way outside its lines.

“Where’s your teacher?” I asked.

“She ran over to the mess to grab coffee before the others get here,” Remy said. “Caffeine addict. You need something?”

Novio tossed his brother a frown. “Why don’t you just roll out the red carpet for her?”

Remy shrugged. “What does it matter?”

Novio stood. “I think I need some coffee too.”

“Suit yourself,” Remy said.

I braced like Novio was going to punch me as he went past, but couldn’t resist a quip. “Don’t bother to bring me a cup. I’m not staying long.”

“I wasn’t going to,” he said, “and good.”

With that, Novio left. But he didn’t shut the door behind him.

“Hurry,” Remy said, getting up. “He could change his mind and come back.”

Remy sat down at the computer station next to the one his brother had just been working on. “Come on,” he said.

“Why?”

“In case they come back. I’m helping you, remember?”

“Right.” I pulled over a chair so I was next to him.

Remy punched a button and the screen flared to life.

“I don’t really need to see anything.”

“Appearances,” he said. “Other people will be here soon. What did you say you were coming here to do?”

“Look up a video of myself. But I just made that up.”

He launched the browser and started clicking around. I took advantage of the opportunity to look at him without having to meet his eyes. He was clean-shaven today, his hair still damp from a shower. It was yet another of the unfair things about life that he was this appealing.

His head shifted toward me, brown eyes seeing far too much.
Busted.
I waited for him to tease me. Instead he leaned in, and I did the same, before I even understood why. Our lips met, tentative at first, then less so. Far less so. Remy caught my upper lip softly with his teeth and my mind blanked.

Then he pulled back, and our eyes skated away from each other.

“What’d you find out?” he asked, his voice a little shaky.

That you’re too attractive for your own good. That I just had my first kiss.
“What?”

“You wouldn’t have come here unless you had a reason. Though . . . I’m glad you did. But did you show her the cards?”

Oh, right. The reason I was here. I straightened, and laid my trembling hands on my knees to steady them. “Not exactly. Has anyone ever mentioned an act your grandfather did where he dressed like a gladiator?”

Two small furrows appeared on his brow. “Yeah. It was actually part of the inspiration for our act now. He had the idea because of his own name—
Roman
, get it? At some point later, he suggested to Mom that she give her kids names along the same lines, so they’d end up with a ready-made act.”

“Wow,” I said. “So Romeo
is
your real name. That’s . . . wow.”

“Why are you asking me about this?”

“I took Nan to see Thurston’s poster collection. There’s one of her as part of that act.”

“No way.” Remy shook his head. “A Maroni in a Garcia act? And we never heard about it?”

“I know, right? Might be worth asking your mom. See what you can find out.”

He frowned at me again. “You didn’t find out the deal from your nana?”

“Nan,” I said. “Never nana.” I bit my lip. “She flipped out a little when she saw it. Went quiet. But I discovered something else. Remember that letter from Thurston on the murder board? Well, I’m almost positive he still has your grandfather’s response to him. I saw a letter when he was showing us his poster collection. It’s in the leather portfolio, right behind that poster that shows Nan and your grandfather together.”

He blinked. “You risked bringing it up with him? On your own?”

“I didn’t take any risks or say anything outright,” I said. “I just happened to see it. And Nan was with me the whole time. I wanted to feel him out. I definitely think he knows more than he’s saying.”

“We need to read that letter,” Remy said.

“But how? We’re going to break into the owner’s office? Because that’s definitely something that won’t get us kicked off the show.”

Remy sighed. “Have a little faith. We’ll figure out a way. Now, what did your . . . Nan say about the cards?”

“I haven’t exactly shown them to her yet.”

“Jules, you have to.”

I knew that, but, “You can’t tell me what to do.”

He gave me a wry grin. “I know that. We’re too much alike. I saw that about you when we met. It was a useful thing to notice. Or it was until now. You love doing what you shouldn’t.”

“I do not.” Though I remembered, with slight mortification, how I’d stepped between Sam and Novio during their fight. And how much I’d enjoyed the kiss we’d just shared, even though a romance with Remy Garcia was probably the worst idea in the world.

Wasn’t it?

He was visibly biting the inside of his lip to keep from laughing, and it made me want to kiss him again. I was doomed.

But his smile vanished. “We don’t know when something else might happen. There’ve only been two objects, and there were more photos on the board than that. You have to talk to her.”

“I’m not sure how she’ll react to having the cards back.”
Or if it will incriminate someone in your family besides your grandfather.

“Well, show them to her soon. Or Jules? I will. There is danger in waiting. We need to figure out who’s behind this before someone gets hurt. Before you do.”

Before I could growl at him that
he
was not to talk to Nan about this, no way, no day, he started clacking away at the keys and examining the monitor. Noise blared from the computer speakers all of a sudden, the tinny sound of wind blowing.

On the screen, there was a blurry video of a girl in red walking across a wire. It was from my bridge walk.

A cough sounded behind us. “Ego Googling?” The teacher stood inside the door, coffee cup in hand. She rolled her eyes behind heavy-framed glasses, but her smile was friendly. “You’re the one whose grandmother teaches you. Did you want to sit in today?”

“No, I’m good. I have everything I need.” If only that was true.

“Okay, then, it’s almost time for our class,” she said.

Remy stayed focused on the screen, where the shaky camera made it appear that I was wobbling across the wire. He reached forward, flicked the monitor off. The image of me disappeared, fading to black.

“See you around,” Remy said.

I’d been dismissed. It shouldn’t have stung. He had no choice, with the teacher watching and Novio due back any second. “Sure. I’ve got important things to do.”

The teacher smiled again, like she almost believed me.

But Remy was right. I needed to give Nan her cards while we decided how to get the letter from Thurston. I might have growing doubts about what was causing the mayhem around me, but I still couldn’t swallow claims of magic.

I also couldn’t forget that our families were enemies, even if Remy and I were becoming something else. The two of us couldn’t keep meeting like this, not without solving the puzzle first. No good would come of it.

fourteen

Sam and I walked back from dinner together, an hour and a half before that night’s show. He was rattling away, beyond excited, about how Mom had promised to let him give a command in the middle of the act soon. The schedule was tough now that we were in the thick of it, hitting a new town every three to five days. June was already here. Our shows weren’t all sellouts, but some were, and the rest drew more than decent crowds.

“You better shine your cowboy boots,” I said. “It’s all about the glam under the spotlights.”

He shook his head, sand-colored bangs so long they brushed his eyebrows. “It’s different for me. The horses are the stars. And your mom.”

“So modest. Why, I’d think you wanted to stay hidden on the sidelines forever.”

“No,” he said, oddly serious for once, “I’m proud to be part of the family tradition. Like you. I’m paying my dues. I can’t believe I get to be a part of this, or that I might get to share the ring with your mother.”

I smiled at him. Throughout our arrival and frosty reception, and discussions about magic and stunts, Sam had been a grounding presence. He’d been like a brother before we came, but he was even more like one now. I couldn’t imagine not having him to talk to.

Which is why I felt guilty I hadn’t told him everything yet.

“Shine those boots, I’m telling you. We Maronis have a reputation to uphold.”

Sam laughed. “I am
not
putting sequins on my boots.”

I shrugged. “Fine. Smudge the family name.”

“Like we could, either of us,” he said.

A clown already in full makeup tipped the ashes from his cigar as we passed. Not many clowns were smokers at the Cirque, so the drawing I’d seen in the school trailer must have been modeled on this guy. “Evening, Sam,” he said. He blew a smoke ring overhead.

Sam nodded at him.

“Look who’s making friends and influencing clowns,” I said, once we’d left him behind. From Nan’s old stories, I could barely think the word
clown
without also thinking,
Debauchery.

Sam said, “They practice their gags behind the stables. They’ve all been nicer lately.” He paused. “Jules, you’ve been hanging out with Remy some, haven’t you?”

I kissed him.
I nearly blurted it out, but pulled myself together. “You’re not spying on me for Dad, are you?”

He snorted. “Like I would. No.” He stopped and pushed his hair out of his eyes again. “Can you keep quiet?”

I mimed locking my mouth and throwing away the key, intrigued.

“Dita told me. She likes the horses. I’ve been teaching her how to ride a bit. Only when no one’s around,” he said. “Nan won’t find out.”

“Sam,” I said, “who’d have guessed we’d both be hooking up with Garcias?”

“We’re not hooking up,” he said, in a way that was not convincing. “Yet. Are you?”

“No,” I said, not sure if it was true or a lie. “We’re just both interested in what happened between our families back then.”

Sam nodded. “The Garcias, our ancient enemies. Nan hasn’t mentioned them lately. Maybe she’s mellowing.”

I couldn’t help thinking back to the way she’d spoken of bad blood before we came here. She’d been avoiding me ever since we visited Thurston. Her migraine resurfaced every time I was home.

“Maybe,” I said.

“I know, probably wishful thinking on my part,” Sam said. “I told Dita we should be careful, at least for now. But do you think Nan really might mellow out some? If she did, then we could tell her. If and when there’s something to tell.”

“We’ll see.” I didn’t want to discourage him from hoping for the best, no matter how unlikely it was.

Sam opened the door to the RV, and held it for me. The first thing I saw inside was Nan, reclining on the couch.

Remy had been serious when he’d threatened to tell Nan about the tarot cards if I didn’t. And seeing him turn up at our front door would make Dad’s head explode. The possibility was a clock
tick-tick-tick
ing in my ears.

It was time to present the cards to Nan and see what she had to say. After tonight’s performance, I’d be able to catch her alone. With this plan in mind, I changed into my costume, pulled my hair back, and put in some small black pearl combs that had once been hers. I tried to channel calm as I layered on mascara.

My nerves didn’t have anything to do with the wire. They were about the confrontation that was yet to come.

I pulled on the cast-off Chinese silk jacket over my blood-red tutu as I left backstage and made my way across the grounds. A fat pumpkin moon hung over the horizon, pale orange and low. A hint of wind worried the loose tendrils of hair around my face. The forecasters had claimed clouds would move in soon, buckets of rain with them.

We were to roll out later that night to Norfolk, as soon as we could get the show torn down and packed up. The local meteorologists were fortune-tellers when it came to our travels. A circus never wants to wait on a turn in the weather, not if it can be helped. It’s bad luck.

The living room light in our RV was on, the window bright. Mom was going on now, and she and Sam would be busy for a while after. Dad had taken to watching my act and then Mom’s from the side curtain, and returning to our makeup table to wait for his finale spot to roll around.

Once inside, I saw Nan had the TV on mute. A black-and-white Western I didn’t recognize was playing, while Nan flipped through the new
People
that Dad had picked up for her in town. Her eyebrows lifted. “I wasn’t expecting you back so early.”

She wore her red silk dressing gown over a pair of pajamas. Minimal makeup, but enough to be what she would call “presentable.” She had a scarf patterned with black and gray roses tied around her head, tail hanging over her shoulder.

“Headache better?” I asked.

“Some.”

“Any afterlife messages from Elizabeth Taylor reported?”

Nan let the magazine close, her hand holding her spot. “Not in this one. This is reputable journalism.”

“Right. My mistake.”

I went back to my room, debating whether to go through with this. I’d risked catching Remy’s eye backstage. His look had been a question, and the question was,
Well, have you told her?
What is it they say about pride? Lots of things. Fear too.

In my room, I noticed Bird commanding the city from her framed photograph, which reminded me to be brave. This was Nan. This was a conversation with Nan. I’d had a million of them. I smoothed my hair back and wedged my hand under the mattress. The edge of my finger brushed Remy’s note as my hand closed around the deck.

I took a breath, and left my room.

Nan looked at me over the magazine, and I held the stack of cards high. “Look what I found,” I said, as casually as I could manage. “How about a reading?”

For a long moment, she stayed fixed where she was like a statue of herself.
The Lady on the Couch
, the piece might have been called. Then she folded the magazine shut and tossed it onto the floor. It slid, stopping at an angle that turned some actress’s face into a sleek funhouse curve.

She rose to her feet, pulled her dressing gown straight. “Did you steal those?”

I was supposed to be asking the questions.

“Did you steal them?
Answer me.
”

Lying had no point. Not when the idea that I’d taken them disturbed her this much.

“I didn’t steal them. I . . . found them at the Garcias’. Were they taken the night of the break-in?”

I watched her face change as she puzzled through what I was saying.

“No,” she said, after a pause. “They weren’t taken. They were given. They were a peace offering.”

I didn’t know what I’d expected, but that wasn’t it. “These were handed down to you from your mother. Why would you give them away as a peace offering? Does it have anything to do with you and Roman Garcia being in an act together? Did he accuse you of doing something to him too? Before he turned against you and started the rumor mill?”

She didn’t respond right away. Finally, her voice strung tight as a wire, she said, “I won’t talk about him with you. You know all you need to. The Garcias hate us. They always will. Don’t kid yourself that family won’t come first in the end. Blood is always thicker than water. But if a reading is what you want, who am I to refuse you?”

Before I could react, she grabbed my upper arm, her fingernails biting into the muscle through my jacket. She yanked me through the living room to the kitchen table, levered me down into one of the chairs. “Sit.”

I’d lost control of this, and I wasn’t sure how to get it back. “Nan, I—”

“Stay here.” She hurried back toward her bunk, the robe flaring behind her.

I laid the deck on the table, no longer wanting to be the one with the cards. Wishing I’d left them in that drawer in the Garcias’ kitchen, refused to take them from Remy.

Nan returned with a candle and positioned it at the table edge. It was fat and white. Odds were it was the same one I’d
seen her with that night, burning the elephant hair. The lighter
sparked to life and she lit the wick. Smoke streamed toward the
ceiling. She stepped around me and flipped the overhead light
off. The TV was still running. The flicker of the black-and-white
movie combined with that of the candle made me feel dizzy.

Nan pulled out the chair opposite me and lowered herself into it.

I asked, “Why are you so angry at me?”

“No,” she cut me off. “No, there is only one thing that can happen now. You want a reading, and you will have one.”

This wasn’t how I’d meant for the conversation to go. There was something almost possessed about her face. Some harsh force motivating her. But her readings had never caused me any harm. There was even a chance that doing one would remind her of how close we’d always been.

“Fine.” I nodded, and her eyes narrowed. Candlelight writhed across her cheek and the scarf above it. She picked up the deck.

“Why did you need to make a peace offering to the Garcias after what Roman told people about you?” I asked.

She didn’t answer. The painted faces on the cards shifted in the dim light as she shuffled, thumbing the edges as she sorted. She set more than half the deck aside, and I could guess from experience that she had kept only the Major Arcana in her hand. They’re the cards most people picture when they hear the word
tarot
. She always consulted them on serious matters. I’d never been sure if she did it that way because people wanted to see cards that seemed the most important and powerful, instead of the more anonymous ones, or because she thought they gave a more accurate picture.

She shook her head at me. “No,” she said, “your questions are going to be answered by the cards. You don’t know what you’re playing with. It’s time you understood the danger you’re in.”

“I want to understand, so I can stop it. That’s all I want.”

“No,” she said, like that was the only word she had for me. “No, you only think you do.”

She stroked the cards, fanning them out and then bringing them back into a tidy stack. “Time to glimpse your fate. It’s the only way we can see what’s ahead. Three cards. Draw them.”

No
, I echoed her in my head.
No.
“A Three Fates reading? But you always said that the Fates are too powerful to mess with.”

I’d never believed tarot readings amounted to anything more than superstition from the old country, handed down like the cards had been. These cards had been custom painted by Nan’s mother to feature circus-themed figures and scenes, and she’d added her own twists to the usual fortune-teller bag of forecasting tricks too—or so Nan claimed. I wasn’t sure if the Three Fates reading was one of them or not, but Nan had always been consistent in telling me how potentially dangerous it could be.

She nodded toward the cards again. “You want the attention of the mother, maiden, and crone, don’t you? You want the universe focused on you? You said you wanted answers. Now you’ll have them.”

Nan did many different spreads of the tarot, from incredibly complicated arrays to the more common Celtic Cross, but I’d never seen her do this one. When people at our shows asked for it specifically, she always refused. According to Nan, you couldn’t argue with a Three Fates reading. The future it predicted could not be changed.

She shoved the deck closer. “Three cards, from anywhere in the stack.”

So much had happened since we’d come here. I still didn’t believe Nan could do magic or tell the future. But I was no longer so sure what might be possible.

Uneasy, I removed the top card, laid it down. The hand-painted swirls on the back seemed to crawl in the candlelight, a black and red and white nest of snakes and shadows, shifting end over endless end.

“And again,” she prompted.

I selected the next card from the middle. When I went to lay it down, she tapped to the right of the first card. “Here.”

“I know.”

The third card I barely touched, holding it with my fingertips the few seconds it took to drop it at the end of the line. I blinked, trying to blot away the blur, the snakes, the twist, the heat from the candle. My cheeks were hot. The painted backs of the cards kept shifting, swirls moving, despite my blinks. This didn’t
feel
like any reading I’d ever had before.

Nan studied the backs of the cards like they were already speaking to her. Then, she reached out and touched the back of each, briefly.

She turned the first card over. Then she grunted, but said nothing more.

I bent forward, the heat from the candle warming my face as if it were a much larger fire. The first card I’d chosen was the Magician. A sexless figure, possibly a man, possibly a woman, dressed in robes covered by stars and suns. A red moon hung in the background, over a black sky. Though outside, the magician was on a stage. In one hand was a snake, in the other a wand.

“That’s you,” she said. One red-tipped nail touched the table just above the card. “The Magician, the performer, the traveler, the trickster.”