Girl on a Wire (8 page)

I didn’t know what was going wrong, but something had definitely thrown me off balance. And that was the most dangerous thing that could happen, all the way up here, with no way to be rescued.

I had to get back under control. Maybe they’d believe I
was
just performing if I—

I laid back, reclining on the wire, my one leg on it, the other dangling off. The pole I kept flat on my stomach. I closed my eyes and breathed. Breathed.

I opened them. Lazy clouds. More shouts. Sirens in the distance. I had to get up.

Except getting up from this position, on this kind of wire, with its slight sway, well, that was harder than the lying down had been.

That was when I heard a voice, shouting.

It was Remy. Still far off, but nearer than the others. My curiosity was strong enough to get me back into a sitting position. I let the bar find my balance for me, and I scanned down the tower.

Oh no.
He was climbing the ladder up to the second platform. There were more police down there, and the rest of the parade was barely visible, almost across the bridge.

I
had
to get up.

Remy looked at me then. We were too far from each other to make real eye contact, but he held up a hand to me. He called out, “You’ll do this.” And he started climbing again.

Of course I would do it. I was just taking a break. Letting the wooziness pass.

I brought my body into a crouch and drew my dangling foot back onto the wire. Then I straightened, rising dramatically, wishing there was a way to wave or flourish. But I couldn’t risk releasing the pole with one hand to try. I needed it too much.

The only way I could show how okay I was involved finishing this walk. So, one foot in front of another. My breathing found its rhythm again, my heart no longer a flutter in my chest. I held my head high, and smiled, and I went on smoothly, but not so slow as before.

Remy had made it to the platform, and he had the nerve to look relieved. “You’re okay,” he called out to me.

I wanted to hit him over the head with the pole.
Of course
I was okay.

Smooth and steady. Steady and smooth. Smiling, managing not to grit my teeth by willpower alone, and the platform was two feet away, then one, and then Remy’s hands darted over the pole, grabbed my waist, and lifted me onto it. For a moment, I might have been weightless. My breath came in gasps, and I wasn’t sure if it was from the close call or relief at feeling Remy’s strong arms bracing me. Pulling the pole from my grip, he put it down behind us. He clamped his hands onto my shoulders, holding on like he thought I might fall.

It took me a moment to be able to speak. “What . . . in the name of Barnum . . . do you think you’re doing?”

He released one of my shoulders and reached behind me, messed with my hair, even as I slapped his hand away. Before he could do anything else, I straightened to my full height and folded forward into an elegant bow, in case anyone was watching. The shouts and sirens below assured me plenty of people were. I flourished, my hands happy to not be gripping the pole so tightly it felt like the bones in my fingers might break.

I could never admit to my family how close that had been.

Remy said, “Look,” and he held up something I didn’t recognize right away.

It was a long feather. A black eye at the end and a fringe of bright colors along the shaft.

A peacock feather.

The one thing that was absolutely banned from a performer’s costume as bad luck.

The wind kicked up, plucked it from his hand, and we watched together as it twisted along the air currents to the river, and vanished beneath the deep blue water.

“You can thank me any time,” he said.

nine

I could guess what Nan’s reaction would be if she learned about the peacock feather. I wanted to excuse its presence away, but given what she’d said about someone planting the elephant hair . . . it seemed impossible that this was a random prank.

“It’s just a feather. Right?” I asked Remy, feeling off balance again and wanting him to steady me.

Especially after I took the opportunity to look down. Dad stood at the bottom of the ladder with his arms crossed over his chest like a fatherly skull and crossbones.

“I . . . I don’t know,” Remy said. “I saw it on you before you went up. I was trying to get your attention.” I flashed back to the moment I’d caught his eye in the crowd, and nodded. I hadn’t realized then, but now I could imagine that, yes, he’d been trying to tell me something.

“But it’s still just a feather.” I straightened my skirt, pulled at my sleeves. Fidgeting. My wooziness returned stronger than ever when I thought about Nan’s claim that the elephant hair had made me fall. I could have fallen much farther this time.

“A
peacock
feather,” said Remy. “Don’t leave out the details.”

“Fine,” I said, wanting to change the subject. “Did you give me that rose the other night?”

“What? No.” He frowned. “Why did you even think of that?”

I frowned back. “Please tell me what’s going on. Why did you come up here?”

“I
can
explain,” he said. “Well, I can explain some things. Why I was worried. But I swear it wasn’t me.”

“Julieta!” My father’s call was a command. Not a good sign. Below us, Thurston stood beside him, smiling nervously.

I motioned to the dangling ladder. “There’s no time now. We have to get down there.”

“I should go down first, in case—”

I interrupted. “So you can look up my skirt the whole way down? Not happening.”

He smiled, unexpectedly, and stepped back. That smile should be registered as a deadly weapon. He moved aside so I could reach the ladder. “You go first then.
I
don’t mind
you
enjoying the view.”

I lowered myself onto the ladder, glad I could duck my head to prevent him from seeing me blush. He followed suit once I’d made enough progress, swinging his legs around to the opposite side so he was climbing down facing toward me. That balanced the ladder so it hardly twisted in the air.

“Jules,” he said, when we were about halfway to the street. His tone was serious.

“Yes?” Next rung.

“Stop for a sec.”

I did, reluctantly.

He came down a few more rungs, stopping when our faces were inches apart. His hands gripped the rungs on either side of mine. “There’s more, but . . . I came up because I was afraid something was going to happen to you. I’m glad it didn’t.”

I tried to ignore the stupid thump of my heart. He’d saved me, but he could hurt me too. The only thing that determines the success of a performance is whether the audience thinks the performer carried it off. I didn’t think anyone else would have noticed the peacock feather—besides whoever put it in my hair when I was in the crowd—but my family couldn’t know about it. Nan would tailspin. I had to find out who was doing this, and why. Yes, I’d freaked out on the wire, but I still didn’t believe it was because of magic.

Fears are what cause falls.
That’s all it was. Dad had been right. These ideas were the dangerous thing.

“You won’t tell anyone about the feather?” I asked. “My grandmother . . . she’s not what you think, but she believes in this stuff. You said your parents and grandparents did. You understand why she can’t know?”

Our eyes caught, held. Sun and shadow raked across his features as the nylon ladder swayed with our weight. His eyes were so brown, the pupils small in the brilliant sunlight. He didn’t answer.

“You don’t believe it could really have hurt me?” I pressed.

“I don’t know, but I know it shouldn’t have been there. We need to talk,” he said. “But I won’t tell.”

“Then I will say it. Thank you.” I went back to making my way down. Hands gripping nylon, then lowering feet to next rung, repeat. At the bottom, I jumped to the pavement. Dad caught my waist. When he let go, he put a hand on my arm. Like he needed convincing I’d made it.

Remy leapt off and landed next to us. Dad gave me a narrow stare that made me want to flinch or curl up into a ball. Then he turned it on Remy. I still couldn’t believe Remy had climbed up onto the platform during my walk—no matter what his reasoning. More, I couldn’t believe I was grateful. I had been in trouble.

To his credit, Remy accepted Dad’s regard without cringing or fleeing. He said, “Sorry. I was afraid”—he paused, shrugged in my direction, and I
was
afraid of what he’d say—“that she was about to go down in flames. And if that was going to happen, I wanted the credit to go to a Garcia.”

In flames. Wanted the credit. Reminding Dad he was a Garcia. He was pretending he’d tried to wreck my performance, or maybe take credit if it was going poorly already, by interrupting. My dad bought every word. The rest of the Cirque would too.

“You could have caused her injury,” my dad said, a murderous glint as he stepped toward Remy.

But I put a hand on Dad’s arm to stop him. “No, he couldn’t have. I was fine.”

“Oh well,” Remy said.

But he was smart enough not to linger. Maintaining the cocky façade, he sauntered away past Thurston and a couple of cops. And two men in fancy suits who were talking to the cops at warp speed, waving documents.

Dad was more skeptical of the explanation than I expected. “Have you been . . . fraternizing with that boy?”

I scrambled to reassure him. “Oh no—we’re not . . . No. Is that what you thought?”

He didn’t answer, only became more intent. “You are to stay away from that boy.” He gave my arm a shake, hand firm. He meant it. “Promise me. You will stay away from that boy. The Garcias can’t be trusted. Not by us.”

Nothing less than total and convincing agreement would satisfy him. But I didn’t want to flat-out lie to my father either.

“Dad, please. You saw. He almost ruined my walk. And enjoyed it.”

He released my arm, satisfied. “You’re okay?”

I wanted to sit down. I wanted to find out what Remy knew about all these superstitions floating around. Did he have answers about the rose landing at my feet, the feather in my hair? I gifted Dad with my best worry-free smile and said, “Never been better. The truth is, being on solid ground feels nice for once.”

He looked only half convinced.

The lawyers stopped talking, and one of them held out a hand to the cop to shake. The cop’s partner was talking on a cell phone, serious and deflated. Thurston left them and came over to us.

“Welcome back to earth,” he said.

“Am I going to jail?” I asked. “I’m really not dressed for it.”

“You’d be amazed what you can make happen by offering the mayor’s office a few truckloads of new computers for local schools and a commencement speech by one of America’s leading entrepreneurs—especially in an election year. I believe our friends are about to have it confirmed that our permit was to do whatever we felt like on that bridge.”

“I want to be a billionaire when I grow up,” I said.

Thurston laughed. We watched as the cop with the phone hung up and nodded sullenly at the lawyers. I could see them resist high-fiving each other. One of the cops said, “Free to go.”

“Your public awaits,” Thurston said.

The crowd gathered at the end of the bridge was large and only growing when we reached it. The circus parade had been entertaining them with tricks while they waited for us, but quiet spread among performers and townies alike at our arrival. Beauty’s head stuck up over the crowd, and Mom waved to me from her saddle, her smile tight, but no less real for that. Nan stood beside the horse, patting its nose absently while she paid close attention to something in front of her.

Make that someone. I followed her line of focus to Remy, standing with his family. Novio and their mother were both scowling at him. Remy didn’t wave to me or even look up. By all appearances, he didn’t even notice I was there.

Thurston switched on his wireless mic and held up my hand above our heads. “Ladies and gentlemen, I present America’s new Princess of the Air!”

I accepted the cheers, the shouted handful of questions from reporters, the smiles of my family. It was the spotlight I’d always wanted. But the walk hadn’t magically transformed me into a princess or rehabbed the Maroni name.

The bullet had missed, but our family clearly still had a target on its back.

ten

During our first few days, whether the afternoon show or the evening one, I hid behind one of the dressing curtains in the corner of the bustling backstage tent for privacy before I went out for my act. There, I checked over every inch of my costume in a full-length mirror for unwanted additions. I never found anything suspicious, though, and the performances went off without a false pirouette. No one would ever guess I was beginning to have more questions than confidence.

Fake it until you make it. Or, in this case, until I figured out whether the danger was real and who it was coming from. I’d been waiting to talk with Remy since our moment on the nylon ladder, but that was proving impossible under my dad’s watchful eye.

I was determined. Garcia or not, I wanted whatever answers Remy had to share. And maybe something else too. I couldn’t forget that weightless feeling when he’d lifted me off the last inches of wire onto the bridge platform and to safety.

So after taking my bows at our last show in Jacksonville, I decided to linger backstage in hopes of bumping into him. The open floor plan of evenly spaced makeup tables and warm-up areas, punctuated by costumer, snack, and first aid stations, was usually filled with people. The grand curtained entrance out to the center ring was given a wide berth, however, with two costumed crewmen in charge of pulling and lowering the flaps.

Other members of the crew ensured the way was clear as Mom and her horses thundered past me to make their entrance. She shot me a wink as she ran by in her bright-blue jacket and riding pants. Sam came at the back of the herd of seven, clicking encouragement. The horses loved him almost as much as Mom.

I maneuvered through backstage to the side entrance near the edge of the stands. No one would think anything of me watching Mom’s act from here. If I was lucky, Remy would turn up.

Mom was in top form as always, her adoring mares and stallion lifting their hooves high in the air to paw on command as they stood on their back feet. They lowered their bodies, raced in a circle around her. She let them make the rounds a few times, while she transferred herself from one horse to another. She stood on one’s back, only to jump in a sideways blur and end up sitting backward on another, or to spin in the saddle while the horse was in motion.

Sam waited outside the ring, ready to help if any of the horses got distracted. They rarely lost their focus on Mom, her control of them so complete that it looked easy. But I knew that any one of these powerful creatures could cause a terrible accident in the smallest slice of time, in the wrong circumstances. It was good Sam was there, in case.

The act ended with all seven horses kneeling to Mom, and her flipping onto Beauty’s back to ride them in one last circle and out of the ring. Thurston boomed his praise over the crowd’s loud applause.

I waited for a while longer, but when Dad came for me, I hadn’t seen any sign of Remy.

I dreamed a chorus line of elephants, vast and lumbering. They wore headdresses made of peacock feathers. They rose onto their hind legs as one, massive front feet swaying in a dance. And then I was in an ornate saddle on the back of one, clutching at the harness in an attempt to stay on, feathers coming apart in my fingers . . .

Just what I needed: bizarre nightmares.

We moved on to our next city, Charlotte, where our first three shows were already sold out.

My picture had been on the front page of the Sunday paper, along with my new “Princess of the Air” tag. The attitude of our fellow performers toward us remained chilly. I hadn’t managed to talk to Remy yet, and I was getting impatient. The bad dreams didn’t help.

At least I could watch him at work. I’d been taking every chance to catch the Garcia act over the last couple of days. It was incredible to watch him up there. Yes, I’d seen him practice alone more than once, but there was no substitute for seeing the real deal in front of a live audience with the ringmaster’s patter, with the lights and music going gangbusters. His charisma was undeniable.

Dad was busy preparing to go on after the Garcias, so I went to the side curtain to watch Thurston introduce them. His patter built up the excitement, and truly made their act
come alive. The Garcias didn’t perform as “The Flying Garcias”
exactly. No, it was way more over the top than that. Thurston boomed, “Welcome the best flyers anywhere on Planet Earth or in the heavens of Olympus—the Love Brothers and the Goddesses of Beauty, featuring the Flying Garcias!”

I listened to the swelling melody that, I knew, would fade out to drumbeats for the biggest tricks. High above, Remy and Novio were doing their partner swing, putting a little extra zip into it for the adoring audience, while Thurston’s voice told the oohing crowd, “Casanova and Romeo, timeless scoundrels, noble knights interested in slaying only the hearts of ladies . . .”

I didn’t know if their stage names were their real ones, but I suspected they were. I’d go by Novio and Remy too, if those were my choices. Regardless, there was always a gaggle of women waiting for their autographs at the end of the night.

“And their sister, the lovely goddess of love herself, Aphrodite.” Dita swung out and then up into her tight triple somersault, a spinning ball of pink and red flame, her hands extending for Novio to catch her taped wrists, her hands gripping his. Next came “the Sirens,” the twins, twirling on their swings and flirting with Romeo until he gracefully leapt from his trapeze to land on their platform.

“Wherefore art thou, Romeo?” crooned Thurston. “With the Sirens perhaps?”

On the platform, one of the blonde twins fake-swooned into his arms. When we’d studied mythology, I hadn’t gotten the appeal of the sirens. Why couldn’t the sailors resist the empty promise of their song? I sensed rather than heard someone join me, checked over my shoulder and found Sam.

“It’s too bad we’re their ancient enemies,” he said.

“Why’s that?”

“Because it prevents us from mocking their names to their faces.” He raised his eyebrows for effect. “
Romeo
and
Casanova
? Seriously?”

“And don’t forget Aphrodite. But we can mock them from over here.”

“That’s what I’m doing, but what about you?” he asked, mischief in his eye. “Looks more like admiring.”

I didn’t bother with an answer.

A moment later, Thurston started the lead-in patter to the quad, explaining how Romeo was about to attempt one of the circus’s most dangerous feats. Remy began to swing back and forth, back and forth, his body churning to build up power. Sam was focused on me, not the act. “Your dad told me to keep an eye on you,” he said.

The band was doing its
drumroll drumroll drumroll
. “Because of Remy?”

“He wants me to tell him if I see you together. Just be careful you don’t get caught. All they need is another reason to freak out. Especially Nan.”

Nan had interrogated me about my pause on the bridge, but Dad had stepped in.

“Agreed.”

I stared overhead, willing Remy to make it. But when he completed the fourth somersault, Novio’s hands slipped past Remy’s. They were heartbreakingly close to a catch. But not quite there. They hadn’t mastered the quad yet. Down, down, down Remy went into the net.

When I looked back to Sam, he was headed toward the snack table. I decided to wait through Dad’s act. The band played as he ascended to the platform, then stayed silent through his walk. The audience followed suit, at the edge of their seats, afraid to breathe.

My back warmed as someone came up behind me, taking my hand before I could turn to see who it was. A folded piece of paper pressed into my palm, and Remy murmured, “Take it,” into my ear.

I closed my hand around the note, intensely aware of his fingers sliding against mine. By the time I whirled around, all I could see was his back as he crossed the tent. He laughed as he raised a hand to catch the bottle of sports drink Novio tossed to him. A quick skim of the people around told me no one had noticed anything.

I put off reading the note until I was back in my room, a delicious secret for me alone. The paper was a square torn from a notebook, ragged-edged and blue-lined. Printed in black ink was:

We still need to talk. Come to our trailer during dinner tomorrow. A good spy would destroy this message.

I stuck the note under my mattress instead. And smiled. Tomorrow, there’d be answers. Tomorrow, I’d get to talk to Remy.

Another nightmare.

I was back on the wire above the bridge. I was sweating, struggling to breathe, trembling, and, finally, shaking too badly to stay on. Remy stood on the platform and watched me as first one foot slipped off into thin air, then the other. I fell, down and down, toward a net made of peacock feathers. A thousand staring black eyes.

I woke before I hit.