She sets her hand on the globe, spins it around, once, twice, her eyes sparkling.
“Is there a magic number of spins? Like in Jumanji?” Then it hits me like a beam shining from above, illuminating the clue in plain sight. “Behind a place near and dear.”
Pressing my hand on hers, I stop the globe, my palm traveling to South America. The site of Edward’s expeditions. “This was near and dear to his heart.”
Her grin is magnetic. “The lost city he found.”
I rap my knuckles against Brazil, and half the face of the globe opens.
A secret compartment.
Am I expecting a treasure map? Photos from the lost city in the Amazon? Something else entirely?
I peer inside, and the spark of possibility in me ignites into a full-blown flame. I can imagine how this would play out on camera—beautifully, giving me everything I wanted when I agreed to this job.
“You do the honors,” I tell Presley.
With a wild glint in her eyes and a smile as wide as the city, she dips her hand in, reaching for the envelope inside. She opens it and takes out three sheets of paper. Three letters.
Her reaction is priceless: utter, unabashed glee, as she unfolds the first page and reads the date out loud.
* * *
From Edward Valentina
September 1920
* * *
She takes a breath, swallows, and reads.
* * *
My Dearest Greta,
* * *
I am so far away from you but know that you are never far away.
* * *
She takes a moment to scan the letter, wonder in her eyes. “I don’t think there is buried treasure. This is the treasure.”
I slowly nod, understanding at last what they left for their children. “Edward and Greta left them their love story to discover.”
20
September 1920
* * *
My Dearest Greta,
* * *
I am so far away from you, but know that you are never far away.
* * *
It is late where I am, and it is cold. I cannot warm up, for you are not here.
* * *
The only thing that keeps me warm at all is the memory we share and the hope that I can find my way back to you. Sometimes on nights like this, when I can’t sleep, I think of the day we met. Do you remember it?
* * *
I recall every detail as if it were a photograph.
* * *
Under the big top, I waited as the ringmaster told me you had arrived. I expected you to be a terrified nymph, the brand-new target girl. The one I had worked with for years had left The Most Amazing Big Top under the Sun. Who would this new girl be?
* * *
I expected doe eyes and a quiet disposition.
* * *
You had neither. Your sharp blue eyes were shrewd and clever.
* * *
The ringmaster introduced you. You nodded, said hello, and parked your hands on your hips. On your lips you wore the reddest gloss; in your eyes sparked a fire burning brightly like I’d never seen. You were so determined, and later I learned why.
* * *
You held up your wrist with a slim silver bracelet on it. “This was my brother’s. It means a lot to me. Don’t slice it off.”
* * *
I gulped. Not because I was scared of hurting you. I knew I wouldn’t. I was precise. I swallowed roughly because, in those first words you uttered, I was struck with the realization that I had to make you mine. You were so fearless.
* * *
“I won’t take a thing that you don’t want to lose,” I said, and your lips twitched in the hint of a smile.
* * *
You arched a brow. “Good. That’s the way I like it. It should be my choice.” So challenging you were.
* * *
“Always,” I replied. “Always your choice.”
* * *
“As choices should be.” You winked, turned around, and marched in your high heels, wearing your silver-sequined leotard and a crisp pink ribbon tied in your hair. At the wall, you turned, raised your hands above your head, and said, “Let’s see what you have.”
* * *
I’d never been so enthralled. I imagined the crowd on your first night. I imagined they would be equally captivated by your nerves of steel.
* * *
Was that even possible though? Could anyone be as captivated as I? Because I was entirely taken with my target girl. You were so confident, so daring.
* * *
I needed to show you that I was worthy, that I alone was the sharpest, most precise knife-thrower you’d ever worked with. All my years as a boy learning from my best friend Jack would pay off.
* * *
I would be your match, the Silver Blade to your Pink Ribbon Girl.
* * *
I lined up my knife, sharp and glittery-edged, took ten paces, narrowed my eyes, raised my arm, cocked my wrist, and then one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.
* * *
I threw each one at you, my intrepid Greta.
* * *
One lodged next to your thigh. Another between your legs. Still another by your shoulder, stabbing a neat line into the wood behind you. You were a statue, a gorgeous, implacable statue.
* * *
And one more. I threw the tenth blade cleanly into the pink ribbon above your beautiful blonde head.
* * *
When I was through, I walked over to you, removing each blade one by one. I met your eyes, those gleaming irises, and you whispered to me, “Do it again.”
* * *
I shuddered. That was the only time I shuddered, and it was from you. Never from the knives, never from the risk. But from your fire, your daring heart, your adventuresome spirit.
* * *
I was determined to find a way to make you mine forever. I still am.
* * *
Do you remember that night too?
* * *
Love,
Your Edward
September 1920
* * *
My Dearest Edward,
* * *
Do you have any idea how strong my nerves of steel truly are? Did you know that the moment I met you, the second you accepted my challenge, I trembled?
* * *
Because of you. I knew from your eyes, your fearlessness, and your will that I would fall for you, and that was the only thing that ever scared me.
* * *
But I had to stay strong. I’d only ever worked with my brother, and when he passed, I had to be stronger, tougher, able to pair up with someone new. Someone I’d never known. For a woman to support her family was unheard of. But that was my purpose there, to take care of Claudia. Who else could but me? Our parents are gone.
* * *
You needed a new target girl; I needed someone who’d throw blades at me without nicking an eyelash. It wasn’t your skill that won me over. It was your heart, later that night, so tender and so freely given.
* * *
You might remember how you didn’t slice off my bracelet, but I recall the moment when I learned you did indeed have nerves. You came to my trailer, knocked on the door, and said hello.
* * *
I opened the door. Your hands were behind your back, and when you revealed them, you held a bouquet of daisies, and your fingers shook the slightest bit. That was the only time I ever saw your hands shake, when you said, “Good evening, Greta. I would like to take you to dinner.” And that—that little shudder in your wrist—was what told me that you had both the fearlessness that I longed for and the heart I never knew I wanted.
* * *
The heart I couldn’t live without.
* * *
I still can’t.
* * *
I still feel like half my heart is gone with you.
* * *
Does it feel that way for you?
* * *
When I get lost in the ache, I close my eyes, and I imagine we reunite. Under a new sky, another big top . . . somewhere.
* * *
We were quite the act, weren’t we? Dazzling crowds, cheating death, growing ever more daring every night, every week. We had to be more fascinating than monkeys and elephants! We moved beyond simple knife throwing. You put me on the wheel of death, and you spun me round, throwing your blades as the wheel spun faster, then faster still. And never, not once, did you miss.
* * *
Some nights as I circled upside down before those crowds and they cheered, gasped, and held their collective breath, I’d wonder if this would be the night when you stabbed me by mistake. But all I would think was he loves me too much to miss.
* * *
You never missed.
* * *
But now, now I do. I miss you terribly and awfully, and I fear I will never see you again.
* * *
Love,
Your Greta
21
Presley
This is like cracking open a delicious book and sneaking a peek at a chapter in the middle. A chapter you can’t turn away from, as the hero pines terrifically for the love of his life, aching in his very soul for her. It’s poking your head into the theater and catching a glimpse of Scarlett and Rhett in the middle of the movie, a sliver of an epic love story that hasn’t yet played out.
To learn they met in the circus, a place of dreams, a site for escape, is a fluttering kind of thrill.
I’ve become that gif of the woman fainting to the floor, collapsing in a black-and-white fit of swoons.
This is nothing like Corey Kruger’s love letter.
This is something to cherish.
When I meet Hunter’s eyes, his flicker with so much curiosity, so much excitement. I see that spark of adventure in them, a hunger to discover. “Seems Edward had some secrets,” he says, in the understatement of the century.
“The man was a knife-thrower. Who knew?” I say, still amazed.
“And who knew that she was his target? They kept this part of their history off the record for some reason,” Hunter says. “Why would they do that?”
“I have no idea,” I say. “But this background? It fits, if you think about it. A man driven by adventure, exploration, and love? A man who takes risks? A woman who encourages him, who speaks up, who speaks her mind? Yes. Yes! Of course, in retrospect, it’s perfect. Of course this adventurer would meet the love of his life in a traveling circus, only to be torn apart from her.” I clasp my hand to my chest.
“But somehow, he found his way back,” Hunter says.
From a handful of letters written a century ago, I can picture the young lovers, like their story is playing out in a flickering, old-time film. One reel snaps to the next. The daring man, the brave woman.
What drove them apart? What brought them back together? And most of all, why did they leave these letters for their children? Was it a game?
Hunter scrubs a hand over his jaw, his voice deadpan. “I guess the toy collection makes a little more sense now.”
I punch his arm. “I told you the collection would matter.” I count off on my fingers. “Monkey, elephant, pink ribbon. It’s all their history. Was it his friend’s circus? He said he learned to throw from Jack.”
Hunter gestures wildly like a madman to the letter still in my hand. “Don’t leave me hanging, woman.”
Unfolding the last one, I read it aloud.
* * *
Dear Children,
* * *
You found the place near and dear to our hearts! Brilliant! But do you know why the Lost City of the Sun means so much to us?
* * *
Maybe you are starting to figure it out.
* * *
We can tell you, or you can come along for the rest of the story.
* * *
What happens next, you may be wondering?
* * *
What happened when The Most Amazing Big Top under the Sun was sold to Baron Z’s Fantastical Showcase, and your mother went to one side of the country and your father was left jobless? What became of us? What would become of you?
* * *
The next part of the tale might require you to find a curiosity near the boards with the greatest of ease.
* * *
You know where all the best ones are in a particular district.
* * *
Love,
E & G, most affectionately known as Mom and Dad
* * *
Brow knitted, I try to work the clues as I snap a photo of the letter. “Was The Most Amazing Big Top under the Sun actually the Caribaldi Extravaganza when they met? I wonder if his friend’s family sold the circus to this company or something? To this Baron Z?”
Hunter’s already asking Google, trying to see if there’s a connection between Caribaldi and Baron Z’s Fantastical Showcase. “There’s nothing here about Caribaldi having a connection to Baron Z’s, and that circus was shuttered a few years later. Left for pieces on the side of the railroad. Picked over by other circuses for parts in 1924, like the Water for Elephants guy. As for Caribaldi, Jack and his family ran their circus till they switched, along with the Valentinas, to the theater business in the forties, so I don’t think Caribaldi was connected.”
My eyes widen, and I clasp a hand to my mouth.
“What is it?”
“The Sun! The Lost City of the Sun! The Most Amazing Big Top under the Sun. Edward must have named the lost city he found after where he met his wife.”
Hunter’s smile deepens. “That’s it. But—”
A clock ticks loudly, portentously. I swing my gaze to the grandfather timekeeper. Nine thirty. We’re due at the house in an hour to catalog more of the estate.
We fly down the stairs, past the receptionist, who waves madly. “Bye, Hunter! Bye, Presley! Hope you found what you were looking for!”
“We did,” I call out.
“So much good stuff, Melody. You’re the best,” he shouts, flashing her a movie-star smile that’ll surely make her giddy. “Thank you so much.”
“It was so very good to see you. Can’t wait to hear how it all turns out.”
“How what turns out?” I ask Hunter as we rush.
“The Valentina house,” he says, like it’s obvious. Funny, how it almost feels like we’re working on something else. Something more personal and private.
As we slide inside the limo, I’m tempted to say, Step on it!
But this is New York City and traffic is real. There is no stepping on it.
Hunter leans forward, asking Lenny to drive quickly and efficiently.
“I’ll put on the turbo boost, but drive like it’s a Volvo,” Lenny remarks.
Hunter thanks him, then presses the button to raise the partition, the tinted window sealing us in our portion of the car.
“Is it terrible that I want to skip this house and spend the day chasing down these clues?” I ask, not feeling guilty in the least. I’m buoyed by the unexpected discovery of a love affair between two performers back in the heyday of the traveling circus.
“Only if it’s terrible that I want the same,” he says wryly, and right here, right now, I’d like to play hooky of another variety. Say goodbye to the day, grab him by the shirt collar, and kiss the hell out of him until we’re doing so much more than kissing. Let the record reflect there is no bigger turn-on than a love story. Than someone else’s love story, really, with all its exquisite ache.
But the clock doesn’t lie, and we’re on a deadline.
Work beckons, and I should call my boss. I reach for the buckle of the seat belt. It sticks again as I tug it from the leather. Hunter stretches his arm across me, and this time he doesn’t hide that he’s brushing his hand down my arm, over my chest, then to my waist. He wiggles his brows. His eyes glint.
PS It's Always Been You Page 14