Touch the Stars (4 page)

And she hated to be accused of anything less than total family loyalty. After all, it was her affection for the others that made her feel that subjecting themselves to the danger of the high wire again would be a terrible mistake—a terrible, terrible mistake.

* * *

It was after eleven o'clock when Julie crept into the house after a long workout with Molly. She closed the front door quietly and tiptoed down the hall. The guest bedroom where Stephen slept showed a thin line of light beneath the door, indicating that he was still awake.

Julie hurried to the bathroom and showered quickly, letting the hot water sluice over her tight muscles. She had put in a total of ten working hours today; along with the emotional tug-of-war with Stephen, they had taken their toll. She felt exhausted.

After slipping into her nightgown and long robe, she padded across the hall to her room, where she shut the door and turned down the bed. She was about to slide between the sheets when she heard Stephen's hesitant tap on her door.

"Juliana?" No one else had ever spoken her name quite that way. No one else, of course, ever called her Juliana.

"Just a minute," she called out, rewrapping her robe.

Stephen stood in the doorway, looking apologetic.

"I wanted to speak with you about the others," he said. His eyes were solemn.

"Come in." Julie held the door wide and stood aside. He looked around uncomfortably. She waved a hand at the armchair in the corner.

Stephen sat and leaned forward. "I talked with Uncle Bela. As you told me, he cannot work the tightrope again because of his injury. But he wished me luck. He said that his daughter has been asking if the Andrassys will ever have an act again."

Julie sank down on the edge of the bed. "Gabrielle?"

"Yes, Gabrielle. I spoke to her on the phone tonight, and she's very interested. She was not with you in New Orleans?"

Julie felt her breath catch in her throat. "No, Gabrielle was only twelve years old at that time. She was enrolled in school here in Venice."

Gabrielle, little Gabrielle, with her long, skinny brown pigtails, had always been a favorite of Julie's. After the fall, Julie had been so glad that Gabrielle had not yet joined the act, at least officially. Gabrielle, of course, had trained to go on the high wire from earliest childhood. But her parents had wanted her to have as normal a life as possible, and so Gabrielle at twelve had not been in New Orleans. She had been home in Venice with Nonna.

"So," Stephen said with satisfaction. "I have recruited a new Andrassy."

"Gabrielle said she would do it? Honestly?"

"She is a student at Florida State University where she participates in the school's Flying High Circus. Her expertise far outweighs that of her fellow performers, and she is ready for a change."

"Gabrielle is studying to be a teacher!" She wondered what promises Stephen had made, what lure he had held out in front of impressionable Gabrielle.

"She will keep up with her courses through correspondence school. Juliana, I have also talked with Paul."

Paul was the cousin who had married a widow with two boys of her own. Surely Paul, of all people, had not lent encouragement to Stephen's ridiculous idea.

"What did he say?"

"He doesn't want to perform in the act again. He is settled on his farm in Georgia and beginning a new career as a land developer. Fortunately, he will support the rest of us."

"The rest of us? The rest of
you,
you mean!" Julie jumped up from her spot on the edge of the bed and strode to the dresser in the corner, fumbling in the Kleenex box for a tissue.

"Juliana, please don't cry! Please!"

Julie buried her face in her hands. All she could see when she closed her eyes was a pile of bodies, spangled and bright in their matching blue leotards, a pile of bodies lying on the floor of the Superdome.

"Juliana! This mustn't bring you so much unhappiness! Can't you see that the odds are against such a terrible accident happening again?"

He rested his hands on her heaving shoulders, and she was barely conscious of his touch. It was hard for her to accept even the slightest kindness from Stephen when she perceived him as the catalyst that had brought all the old pain and grief out of the far region of her mind where she'd hidden those emotions for the last eight years.

"Juliana?" he said, turning her around.

"Why don't you go away?" she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. "Nonna and I were very happy before you came."

For a moment his face lost its assurance, and the expression in his eyes seemed immeasurably sad.

"Dear Juliana," he said. "Do you think I have not thought of this? But there is the Hungarian circus tradition to think of also. The Andrassys—and the Martinovics, because I know you do not think of me as an Andrassy—we are circus families. Can we allow the tradition to die while we, great performing artists, take jobs as clerks and gymnastic instructors and teachers? Would Anton Andrassy approve? I know he would not."

She could not speak. Stephen was right. If Grandfather Anton had lived, he would have spearheaded a drive to get all the Andrassys back on the high wire immediately after the accident. He would have been ashamed of them for lacking courage.

"You see?" Stephen said, his eyes plumbing the murky depths of hers. "You see?"

"I'm afraid," she whispered. "I'm afraid. I love them all so much."

His arms went around her, strong as steel bands. His body pressed against hers, and there was nothing weak or soft about him. He was solid, real. Alive.

"You must trust me as you trusted your family on the high wire. That trust is the most important thing of all. Trust me."

For a moment, lulled by his voice, betrayed by his words, Julie almost succumbed. Then she remembered what had really happened that night. She remembered the secret she had never told anyone.

She stiffened within the circle of his embrace and twisted away from him.

"Get out of my room! Get out!"

"Juliana—"

"Out!"

Without a word he wheeled and left. Julie flew to shut the door, then locked it. As she heard the click of his door latch, she leaned against the door and closed her eyes, wishing she had never set them on Stephen Andrassy.

* * *

"I thought I'd never get here! The traffic is so terrible out there—I don't think I've ever seen so many Northerners here for the winter season, have you?"

Julie rose from the booth at her neighborhood Starbucks and exchanged kisses with her cousin Eva. The two of them resembled each other except that Eva's black hair was not long and wavy like Julie's but straight and worn in a chic Dutch-boy bob.

"Now tell me about Stephen," Eva said after they'd settled back with two hazelnut frappuccinos. "Don't leave anything out. Is he as handsome as his pictures?"

Julie thought about this. Her feelings on the subject of Stephen Andrassy were so conflicting that she had scarcely had time to think about him personally. At least not since that night in her bedroom.

"He's handsomer than his picture, I suppose. And he speaks English beautifully."

"That I know, Julie. I've talked with him on the phone, remember?"

"Yes," Julie said, her voice tinged with irony. "And talked with him and talked with him. What persuasive arguments does he use with you?"

Eva waved her hand. "Family loyalty. And Nonna. He's very big on throwing Nonna's name around. Tell me, is Nonna that keen on seeing the Amazing Andrassys walk the high wire again? Or is this something Stephen made up?"

Julie's shoulders slumped. "I've never seen Nonna like this. The act, the act, the act! It's all Nonna talks about. That and Grandfather Anton. That
he
would have wanted the Andrassys together on the high wire again."

"I suppose that's true." Eva tossed her short hair back and fixed Julie with a serious stare. "And how about you, Julie?"

"I haven't changed my mind."

"Mmm. That's what I figured." Eva's gaze faltered. Then she raised her eyes to Julie's. "I might as well tell you. I'm seriously thinking about it."

Julie stared, dumbfounded. "You're what?"

Eva nodded. "Yes," she said quietly.

"How can you even consider it? Don't you remember standing in the hospital corridor in New Orleans after they'd taped up your arm? You got hysterical when we couldn't find out how Grandfather Anton was. After they came out and told us about the others, you swore you'd never go near a cable again, that you'd never—"

"Julie," Eva said patiently, "that was eight years ago. I was twenty years old. Since then I've weathered a bad marriage and a devastating divorce. I've given up on the idea of ever having children. I like teaching aerobics, sure, but I can't see myself doing it for the rest of my life."

"You'll find a different job. You'll marry again."

Eva made a face. "I haven't had a date since the divorce was final, and I'm not even interested. Even the hunky pool guy who struts around my apartment complex displaying his six-pack abs has no effect on me."

"Eva. Walking a high wire has not been known to restore anyone's libido." Joking Eva out of this insanity seemed the most prudent course at the moment.

Eva laughed but immediately became serious. "I need something more, something to strive for. Something all-encompassing. Working to get the act back together would be that."

"Therapy. You should try counseling."

"I did. The counselor suggested I set new goals. That's why I'm going to tell Stephen I'll do it. I'm going to meet with him today at Nonna's."

"Eva," Julie whispered. She could not believe it. Her cousin had been even more adamant about never going up on the high wire than she, Julie, had been.

"Please try to understand. I
need
this. I need something to give my life meaning again."

Julie could only shake her head in disbelief. Never, in all her wildest imaginings, could she have thought that Eva, too, would sell out.

* * *

"I hope you don't mind," Stephen said apologetically as Julie steered her car through lunch-hour traffic on the following Monday.

"Of course not," she said.

"If I didn't really need a haircut—"

"It's all right, Stephen. I had to come home from work to check on Nonna, anyway. She's been forgetting her pills lately."

"After this, if I'm there, I'll see that she takes them," Stephen said. He paused for a moment. "You know, Juliana, you are a very good driver. Driving is something I never learned to do. One doesn't need to know how to drive in Moscow. In Las Vegas, I took taxis. But here, everyone drives."

"You'll have to learn."

"I will. I must admit that I feel very—how would you say?—
frustrated
not to be able to go anywhere on my own."

Julie parked the car in front of the unisex hairdresser shop.

"I'll come in with you," she said. "Maybe I can convince Dora to trim my split ends."

"Cut your hair?" Stephen said, sounding alarmed. He focused his eyes on her ponytail as though fearful that it would disappear.

She softened toward him. "To trim my split ends means to cut a half inch or so. See how the ends split and look white and funny?" She twisted a strand of hair away from her ponytail's bulk and held it toward him.

He touched her hair with a tentative finger. "Oh. I understand. Split ends. Well, you see, I am learning every day." He grinned at her jauntily, amused at himself.

Dora, who washed and set Nonna's hair once a week and who trimmed Julie's long hair when necessary, greeted them pleasantly. She sat Stephen down in her chair and brushed his abundant silky mop back from his face while Julie watched.

"You have very fine hair," she commented. "And you're wearing it long in the back. Shall I cut it the same way you're wearing it?"

"I think I'd like it shorter everywhere. This way it looks too European for America," Stephen said.

Dora set about her work, turning Stephen around in the chair so that he faced Julie. Stephen leafed through a magazine as she cut, but Julie watched with interest as Dora worked.

Stephen had the most beautifully shaped head. There were no bumps or bulges marring its roundness, and he had a strong jaw line complemented by a prominent brow. As Dora snipped and shaped, Stephen's features assumed a new importance, now that they weren't overpowered by the length of his hair.

Catching Julie observing him, he glanced at her in a questioning manner, then cast his eyes down again as a small acknowledging smile played across his lips. Julie looked away, flustered.

"All right," Dora said, sweeping the cape away. "How do you like it?"

"It 's fine, just fine," Stephen told her expansively.

"Julie, I have time for you if you'd like," Dora said.

Silently Julie sat down in the operator's chair. It felt warm from the heat of Stephen's body.

Dora unfastened Julie's ponytail so that her hair tumbled around her shoulders.

"Just trim the ends?"