Girl on a Wire (15 page)

twenty

Our next few dates, in Des Moines, passed in a blur, with everyone full of anticipation for what came next. I’d been stuck, unable to sneak out, this time cursed with an insomniac Nan. Even Sam had been trapped at home for a few nights. At least I had someone to commiserate with.

But this was the last night before we traveled to Chicago, and I decided to go for it anyway, even though Nan was awake and watching a movie. I didn’t bother asking if Sam wanted to leave together. Sharing this secret didn’t make it any less risky for me. Like I’d said to him: boy perks, he got them. And if he and Dita took their relationship public, those boy perks—and him being my Dad’s nephew instead of his son—would protect him from the full Maroni wrath and being locked in his room until age one hundred.

No such protection existed for this
solnyshka
, the precious only daughter. That status had its perks too, but getting away with private time with Remy—who I’d been expressly warned against—wasn’t likely to be one of them.

So I took even more care than usual passing through the shadows to the main tent. I waited, watching the entrance. Once I was certain I was alone, I darted across the green and inside the darkened backstage area—

Where hands grabbed me and spun me around. I squeaked in surprise. As soon as I processed that someone had jumped out to scare me, I expected it to be Sam. But it was Remy. He was laughing, turning me in his arms to face him. “Wow, I got you good.”

I shoved at his chest. “Not funny.”

His arms stayed around me, holding me loosely in front of him. “Funny from where I’m standing.”

Our eyes met, and his laughter died down, faded into a heavier moment. I realized this was the
if
moment. The possibility for
more
moment.

I exhaled, shaky. “Remy.”

“Yeah?”

I really shouldn’t watch his lips so closely.

Biting my own lip, I lifted a hand to his bicep. I resisted the urge to hold on, to see where this would go, and instead patted his arm. “We’d better get you up there. When you make the quad in Chicago, that’ll show them all.”

“Right.” He didn’t move for a long second.

My heart
beat beat beat
and I wanted him not to let me go, even though I’d as much as asked him to. But he did, releasing me with a shrug of his shoulders. He gave me a sideways glance. “After you,” he said.

I followed him through the nearly dark entryway and into the better-lit big top. I was such a coward. I’d never
felt like a coward before. But what if he didn’t want the same thing as me?

“So,” he said, as we approached center ring, “Dita told me she’s been seeing Sam. He a good guy?”

“What did you tell her?” I asked.

He kept on track toward the ladder, already down in wait for his first attempt on the swing. The spots lit the trapeze and the net below.

“About us? Nothing,” he said. “Just that we were hanging out sometimes.”

There was a strain to the words. We were usually so easy together. This night wasn’t turning out to be anything I was prepared for.

“He’s a great guy,” I said. “And he told me he really likes her.”

“Good.” He stopped and focused his full attention on me. “Dita is special. She knows who she is, but that just means it hurts her more when she’s rejected. A lot of people can’t even see her, because their own garbage is in the way.”

“Spoken like an excellent big brother. She’s lucky.”

He gave a small bow, and when he straightened, our eyes caught again. “I have my moments.”

Yes. Yes you do.
I smiled at him. “Let’s see what else you’ve got.”

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll impress you yet.”

There was an edge to his voice that made me shiver. With fear or anticipation, I couldn’t say.

He climbed the ladder with an economy of motion borne of the hundreds of times he’d done it. I sank down into my usual vantage spot just this side of the net, worrying that I was ruining things. Was I imagining our chemistry? I didn’t think so. But I also didn’t know if most of his connection to me came from wanting to make sure I was safe on the wire, and atone for his grandfather’s bad karma. I sighed. I hated when girls in movies did this, went back and forth, back and forth, about whether someone was into them.

As I looked up and watched Remy chalking his hands on the platform far above, my perspective on everything suddenly shifted. Because wait. Why was I worrying about his intentions, anyway? The question was what
I
wanted. He’d offered me an opening, and I’d shut that door in his face. I’d
patted
his
arm
. I’d sent a clear message. But I wasn’t sure it was the right one.

Sam had told me I didn’t need his guts, but I was having trouble locating my own backbone. This wasn’t a trouble I’d ever had before. My family’s approval was important to me, but was it the most important? I already knew Sam’s answer to that question. But what was mine?

Remy stepped off the platform and grabbed the swing with one strong movement. He swung out wide, slicing into the air. He was in optimal form, swinging powerful and high, gaining speed quickly. But not too much speed, and not too quickly. And then it was time.

He tightened his body, released the bar, and curled into his first spin, hanging there in defiance of gravity through his second, his third, his fourth, and then he came out of it, dropping fast—

I don’t know when I stood, but I was on my feet.

He was dropping with his hands extended—

There, right
there
. He’d done it. Novio would have caught him, no problem.

One of his hands tightened into a fist and pumped the air as he spun down into the net.

I was jumping up and down when he hit. Powered by pure joy, I raced over to meet him. We were both laughing. “You did it!” I shouted.

“I know!” He tipped forward out of the net, reaching out and pulling me toward him, reeling me in closer and
closer
until his lips were against mine—

I hesitated for the length of one heartbeat, and then, then I was kissing him back. Our lips fit together like they were made for it.

I leaned into him, and his arms circled me. My arms slid around his neck and my hand tangled in his sweat-damp hair. There was nothing tentative about either of us this time. He made a noise and tugged me forward and we fell into the net together.

“Swoon,” I said.

I had. Practically. We were both laughing again. The net swayed under us. He’d made sure his arm was under my side to keep the mesh from biting into my skin. Cary Grant-esque. Better. Cary might have been in vaudeville, and even learned trapeze, but he couldn’t have ever pulled off a quad like that, now could he?

Remy shifted so we were curled toward each other. Face-to-face. Our laughter vanished. But the heaviness didn’t return. We were floating.

“You’re sure?” he asked, his mouth coming closer to mine.

And I was. I was also watching his lips again. “Sure as sure gets.”

Slowly he tilted his head, and we were kissing again. It was like this was the taste of victory, the best sort of madness. Addictive.

It wasn’t until I made it back into my room later and crawled under the covers, my heart still pounding, my lips kiss-swollen, that I worried how we’d ever manage to keep this particular madness under wraps.

I shrugged.

Maybe we wouldn’t. Sam was right. Parents got over things. It was one of the things they were best at. And those kisses?
Those
had been pure magic, and there was no mystery to that.

twenty-one

The city of Chicago felt as blazing hot as the surface of the sun as our pack of Cirque performers hiked alongside Grant Park on the way to our parade. Heat rose from the sidewalk in waves. I stayed with Dad in the middle of the pack. Mom and Sam were riding off to the side on tall white mounts.

The setup here was way more complicated than normal. The big top was at the far southern end of the park, with baseball diamonds around the wide grassy space where it was erected. Sawdust and earth topped a thin layer of material to help protect the ground. The waterfront was close, just a crossed highway and some sidewalk away from where the tent was staged. The park hosted plenty of festivals and tromping feet for other events, but Thurston had to sign papers promising there’d still be grass under there when we left.

I scanned the pack until I spotted the Garcias. I could make out Remy’s black hair about fifteen feet ahead of us and to the left. I felt almost dizzy and nearly delirious every time I replayed our last night together in my head, but I couldn’t stop. Yesterday’s travel day had been a logistical nightmare, which meant I hadn’t seen him face-to-face again yet. I was filled with butterflies about it. I wished there was someone I could talk to—about how fast or slow I should be taking things, about when it made sense for kissing and touching to turn into something else.

Broaching the subject with my old confidante Nan was out of the question. And it wasn’t like I could grill Sam about whether he was a virgin and, if not, the details. The very idea of the expression on his face if I did made me crack up.

Remy must have heard my laugh, because he turned, and our eyes met. My heart backflipped at the connection, even with a crowd of people in the way. I was definitely still swooning.

Dad rolled his eyes affectionately at me, because as far as he was concerned, I was laughing for no reason. I vowed to enjoy today as much as possible. If Remy agreed with me that we should come clean, then my dad would be mad at me, maybe for a long time. Nan would definitely freak.

The idea of disappointing my family was the lone dark cloud that hung over my impossibly sunny mood. But then I heard Sam’s voice in my head, talking about Dita:
I don’t care if they disapprove. They’ll have to get over it.
He’d been so confident that I was brave too. I wanted him to be right.

When we reached the corner of Michigan Avenue, Thurston summoned Dad and me up front. Like always around him these days, my thoughts gravitated to the letter in his valise of old posters and why he’d moved it. What was he up to? But I was distracted when Remy caught my eye again. He gave me a hello with a subtle tilt of his chin. My toes curled. I gave him a big grin, not caring if I looked goofy.

Next to him, Dita scanned the crowd, then looked down as if disappointed. I was sure she’d been searching for Sam. So I checked to make sure Dad was occupied talking with Thurston, and hooked a thumb to point behind the horde of performers. She nodded, mouthed a silent
Oh.
She was wearing her costume, customized with her usual bow tie.

I realized too late that our minor exchange had drawn Novio’s attention. He was now staring at me. Remy jostled Novio to distract him, and to my relief it worked. I played dumb and swung into motion and around the corner before he could look again.

Thurston kept me on one side of him and Dad on the other as we waved at the more than decent crowd lining the sidewalks. We’d come to Chicago often enough when I was a kid, but I’d never imagined playing here with a gig like this. Not being advertised as a big attraction for a major holiday. Never in my best and wildest dreams.

But so much for my vow to enjoy the day and how special this was. I just wanted it to be late at night. I was determined to sneak out and see Remy again.

After the parade was over, Dad and I went with Sam and Mom to “stable” the horses on the green in a temporary paddock that created a wandering space backed by trailers lined with blankets. A couple dozen feet away, the red and white stripes of the big top made the slightest sway in a welcome waterfront breeze.

Sam removed Beauty’s plumed headdress, which the horse appreciated. She lowered her head so her cheek was alongside his.

“True love,” I said.

He stroked his hand down the middle of her long nose. “She’s one of mine, no doubt.”

I could guess who the other love would be. But it wasn’t the right time to say so.

Or was it? I was desperate to tell
someone
about what had happened between Remy and me. I could tell Sam. But he probably already assumed we were romantically involved . . . and what was he going to say? Congratulations? He still didn’t know about the weird objects and the murder board, the magic and the threats that had pushed Remy and me together. I wasn’t sure he needed to. Now, with my thoughts wrapped up in romance, all that seemed far away. I thought about Nan’s ominous tarot reading, which no longer made me feel as nervous as it once had. Maybe there were different kinds of falling. Maybe a fall didn’t
always have to be a bad thing.

When Sam and Mom finished settling the horses, we started the long, hot walk back to the RV, weaving our way to the cramped museum-complex parking lot everyone was calling home. It was much farther away than usual, and the trailers were forced into rows with only a few feet between each. The poor work crew had even more of a hike, and were already exhausted from the back-and-forth.

Finally, after what felt like a sweaty eternity, we neared our spot. I asked Sam, “You want to check out the Batman building with me?”

The site in question was several blocks away, the boringly named but excitingly designed Chicago Board of Trade building. It had been dramatically wrecked in the movie
Transformers
, but Sam cared more about its famous role in
The Dark Knight
, which was his favorite Batman
movie
.
The building was where the superhero had gotten into elaborate fisticuffs with Heath Ledger’s Joker. Neither was my kind of movie, but the building was my kind of building—a perfect setback at twenty stories to stretch a hundred-foot wire across from one side to the other, with art deco loveliness above and below. The street in front would provide an ideal view for the spectators.

“All I want to do is sit in front of an air-conditioning vent, with a fan,” Sam said, his hair plastered to his temples.

“Come on,” I wheedled. “It’ll be fun. It’s the Batman building.”

Sam gave me a look. “I need to be around to check on the horses. And things.”

Oh.
Maybe he had a rendezvous with Dita. “And things,” I said, poking his shoulder.

His look morphed into an unmistakable
Shut up
, so I did. He was right. Just because I wanted to tell the world everything didn’t mean he and Dita were ready to. But my parents gave no sign they suspected a thing. They were holding hands, despite the heat. I didn’t know what he was worried about.

Sam had a point about the pleasures of fans, though. The day was only supposed to get hotter.

Our RV wasn’t visible until we were practically at the front door, and we all stopped at once in front of the large item that had been left there. It was an old-style steamer trunk, covered in creaky aged brown leather.

Sam took a step forward.

“Wait!” I said, too loudly.

I tugged on my lip while my family frowned at me. And then it connected, where I’d seen it before. In the black-and-white photo on the murder board hidden in Remy’s room. In it, clowns had been standing next to a trunk identical to this one, right down to the distinctive pattern of gold studs across the top. I’d focused on the scarf, but maybe the trunk was supposed to be the threat.

The door to our RV swung open, and Nan appeared. “I thought I heard you—” she started, and blinked with shock at the trunk. She stepped down and carefully around it, wearing a simple black tunic that flared as she hit the pavement.

“We’ll have to get rid of this.” She held my gaze. “I told you there was still danger.” The effort it took her to keep her voice calm was obvious by the wobble at its edges. “But first I need to see what’s inside.”

There was a large brass buckle on the side nearest us, and she reached out with immaculate, red-polished nails to prevent anyone else from opening it. “Let me.”

None of us appeared to know what to say. My parents and Sam were probably too confused.

Nan worked her nail beneath the buckle until it popped free. She didn’t object when Sam eased in to help her lift the heavy lid.

The trunk was filled to the brim—with
my
things from backstage. They were mostly spares, since I tended to get dressed in my room, but they were
my things
. Stuffed in. Tights. A tutu and bodice. Hair combs and extra slippers. Wadded and balled and heaped.

Nan stilled, not moving or even seeming to breathe. The stinging heat made the moment even more surreal, as if we were all being baked into stillness, standing over my things crammed into this mystery trunk.

But then she bent forward and pawed through the trunk, tossing my clothes and hair ties and shoes out onto the hot pavement. She made quick work of emptying it.

Once she’d stopped, my father spoke. “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded.

Nan exhaled. She was breathing hard from her exertion. “You know the superstition about wardrobe trunks. Once placed upon arrival in a new city, they must not be moved again until the circus itself moves on. It is extremely bad luck, especially if a performer goes against it and wears the items inside a trunk that
has
been moved. Accidents can happen.”

“Why are you so worried?” My father looked perplexed. “This trunk isn’t ours. It must be a mistaken delivery. But, then, why are Jules’s things inside?”

Nan didn’t shrink from the questioning. “I know this trunk. Someone is not willing to forget the past. I know you don’t believe me, but I told you I could work magic, and magic lingers. We have to get rid of this now, in just the right way. If we do, it won’t cause any harm. There’s no other danger here, and nothing that I cannot dispel.”

“Then get rid of it,” Mom said, and removed her arm from mine so she could make the sign of the cross.

Dad insisted I stay behind with Mom while he and Sam carried the trunk somewhere they could get rid of it, under Nan’s direction. When I’d started to walk with them, she’d given me a stern look and added a “Please” that told me I’d have a battle on my hands if I wanted to go. So I stayed, helping Mom clean my things off the pavement. There was no slipping off to talk to Remy, either, not with Mom watching me.

When it became apparent the trunk disposal wasn’t going to be that quick, since they still weren’t back, I took a shower and changed clothes. Mom and I ended up back in the living room. We sat, waiting, in front of a large round fan that boosted the efforts of our old air-conditioning system. Cool air whirred toward the couch. The wet ends of my hair dripped onto the shoulders of the silk dress I wore, soaking the thin fabric through.

“Julieta.” Mom’s eyes were ice blue, trained on me so she wouldn’t miss a thing. “Do you think your grandmother is telling the truth about this magic?”

Yes and no. Yes someone is clearly obsessed with the past and out to get us, but no, no on magic. Still don’t buy it.

I had to be careful what I revealed to her. “I think she believes it, and I think she has enemies. I think
we
have enemies. That’s all.”

She was about to ask something else when the door opened and Dad came in. His face was grim. “Vonia, I’m so sorry about all of this,” he said.

Mom sniffed, but she patted the vacant side of the couch. “Come get in out of the heat.”

Nan had entered behind him, and stood in the kitchen. Sam stopped next to her, in front of a smaller fan on the counter. “Is anyone going to explain where that thing came from?” he asked, not sounding like he had much hope of it. His T-shirt, wet with sweat, clung to his skin, and his cheeks flushed red.

We were all looking at Nan, even Dad.

“There are lots of old superstitions,” she said. “As I said, this particular trunk is familiar to me. I thought it no longer existed. I haven’t seen it in decades. I don’t know how or why it arrived now. But it doesn’t matter. It can’t hurt Jules anymore. Someone wanted to upset me again. They let us get comfortable. That’s all.”

“Do you really think that trunk had the power to
do
something?” Sam couldn’t have been more skeptical. “As in
magic
?” At the last word his voice almost squeaked in disbelief.

“Yes,” Nan said, firmly.

I knew what she believed, but I was curious why she’d been so intent on emptying my things out of it. “When you threw my stuff out of it, were you looking for something?”

Nan hesitated, and then said, “I was making sure that the trunk was the only threat. It was.”

I conjured that picture in my head, of the clowns pointing . . . at the trunk. The scarf might have nothing to do with any of this. I had no reason not to take her word.

Mom said, “I don’t like Julieta being involved in this. If you think it’s the Garcias behind this, I’ll go to them now and end this. Whether it’s just meant to upset you or not, I have no idea. But it’s not okay.”

I was certain Sam felt the same panic I did.

“No,” Nan said. “I don’t know who it is, but I don’t think it’s them.”

Dad spoke up then. “This is a good reminder. Not to trust, to be careful. We must all be more cautious. Our success makes us more visible.”

There was a knock at the door, loud enough to startle all of us. Sam went to answer it. “Yes? Oh, hi, boss.”

I glanced at the clock below the TV. Dad and I were supposed to have met Thurston and Remy’s dad fifteen minutes ago for our scouting trip.

Thurston poked his head inside the door. “You ready? I figured I’d come check in case there was—” Seeing us so serious, he took a step up the stairs, pulling the door to behind him. Sam backed up to let him in. “Everything all right?”