She swung out, her body bent at a slight angle, and pulled herself up, poised over the trapeze; at the end of the forward swing she threw herself over the bar and twisted slightly in midair, Johnny’s hands slapping around her ankles. She flung her arms wide, then buckled, bending awkwardly at the waist in a clumsy, tucked-up attempt to pass her body through her clasped hands.
“Keep your fanny tucked in,” Liss called from the floor.
Papa Tony shouted, “Clumsy! Is your spine made of sawdust?”
Johnny caught her hands and they swung together, but the effect of the trick had been quite spoiled. As Stella returned to the board Papa Tony snorted audibly. “You had better try it again,” was all he said, but Tommy, looking up, saw a grin pass between Mario and Liss.
“Anyway she did it, first try,” Johnny yelled down, “so take off that Cheshire-cat look, kitten, because I remember somebody who didn’t!”
Stella swing off again, flipping over the bar and twisted, throwing her ankles into Johnny’s grip. Papa Tony called, “Wait for the momentum of the swing . . .wait—now!” This time Stella raised herself more deftly, shifting her hands past her ankles without the awkward pause and buckling, so that the grip transferred smoothly to her wrists.
“It is better, but you still go flop like a rag doll,” Papa Tony shouted angrily at her. Stella came loose, sailed toward the trapeze, and reached for it, but her fingers barely brushed the taped bar; she grabbed and missed.
“Roll over!” shouted Mario, Tommy, and Liss in unison and she snapped over on her back, dropped, and sank deep in the net.
“Come up, come up!” Papa Tony snapped in annoyance. “Can’t you even manage to get back to the board?”
Over Tommy’s head Liss bent down and murmured to Mario, “Flying and Reform School in full session, huh?”
“Glad you’re out of it?”
Liss murmured a reply that was inaudible to Tommy. She and Mario conversed quietly as Stella climbed the rope ladder and began her third attempt at the trick.
“No, no, no, no!” Papa Tony suddenly exploded at the top of his powerful lungs. “Dio mio, ragazza, you will break your wrists or Johnny’s! Off with you, you—you rag doll stuffed with sawdust! Get off the board! Get out of the room! My patience is gone! Out with you before you break your foolish neck! Can you throw a somersault into the net without breaking every bone in your clumsy body, not that it would be anyone’s loss if you did? Or must you climb down the ladder with your backside sticking out like an elephant on a tub? Down with you! Out from here! Learn to take a bar in your two hands before you come up again! Elissa!” he shouted.
Liss, startled, jerked her head up. “Yes, Papa?”
“Come up here, up on the board, and handle the ropes for me! David, David, never mind what David says—I will deal with him! This—this rag puppet here is about to shed tears! Get down, Stella—what are you waiting for, wings?”
The girl dived down into the net, turning in her flight. She landed properly on her back, but Tommy heard her breath jolt out harshly as she skidded on the taut ropes. “You okay, Stel?” Johnny called.
“Sure.” Stella got out of the net and her face crumpled as she looked down at a large rope burn near one elbow.
“You overbalance,” said Liss briskly, putting her toe around the outside rope so that it barely touched the outside rung of the ladder. “I used to do it too, Stel—you try to brace yourself in the net with one elbow and it’s a real good way to pull your shoulder right out of the socket. Keep your elbows tucked in when you fall—and roll, don’t skid.” She started up the rope, adding casually, “If it hurts, there’s some stuff in the change room.”
“Elissa, I am waiting,” Papa Tony snarled. “A little attention, if you please!”
Tommy followed her with his eyes. “David finally came around, then?”
Mario’s smile only stretched his mouth a little. “Lucia talked to him. She promised faithfully not to fly, so he decided to be generous. He says she can play around down here and go up and handle the ropes for us.”
Tommy picked up Johnny’s threadbare sweater that Stella used for a robe and started after her. She was standing in the middle of the change room, very small and disconsolate, her back to him, her sweat-streaked blonde hair slipping out of its elastic band, her elbow raised as she touched the red, abraded patch with careful fingertips.
Tommy let the heavy door swing shut. “Stel, you’ll catch cold. Here.” He laid the sweater over her shoulders, and felt her shivering.
“Why don’t they heat this old barn?” she muttered.
“Because heat rises. Before it would be even halfway comfortable on the floor, it’d be hot enough to stifle us all, up on the rig. Does your elbow hurt?”
She gave it a dispassionate glance, but he noticed she kept the sweater carefully away from it. “Lost a couple of inches of skin, that’s all.”
“Let me put some stuff on it.” He got out the first aid kit and motioned her to sit on the bench. She did not speak or look up as he got out the tube of antiseptic salve and squeezed some on a gauze square, and he had to take her elbow in his hand and turn it up before he could lay the dressing over the raw patch. He anchored it lightly with two strips of adhesive tape. “There you are.”
“It was okay—you didn’t need to bother,” she said in that light, toneless voice. “I’m used to rope burns. I’m not really all that much of a greenhorn.”
“Well, you could get it infected. Mario would simply raise heck if you went around with a rope burn not covered up.”
“And wouldn’t that be just awful,” she retorted, and as he put the cap back on the tube of salve he saw that her gray eyes were brimming with tears. Hastily she bent her head, fumbling in the pocket of the faded gym suit for a handkerchief. It was streaked with sweat and stiff with resin; she drew her wrist hurriedly over her eyes.
“Stella, did you hurt yourself? Really, I mean? You want to go up and lie down?”
The girl shook her head, and he saw the muscles in her throat move convulsively as she swallowed. She was so thin that every vein showed blue in her face and wrists and bare legs. Tommy put his hand on her shoulder. It felt sharp and narrow, like a cat’s. Carefully, as if he were trying to pet some frightened animal, he put his arm around her waist and drew her close to him. She felt very light and small, her face cold and wet against his cheek, her body taut and quivering like a frightened kitten. As he drew her closer he smelled salty sweat, resin, the stinging smell of antiseptic over and around the mysterious scent of her skin and damp hair. “Don’t cry,” he murmured, against her wet cheek. “Don’t, honey.”
She clung to him, shaking, her head on his shoulder. “Tommy, they hate me, they all hate me. Why?”
“Stel, they don’t. Honest, they don’t, honey, it’s just the way they are. Listen,” he added earnestly, standing back to look at her but holding on carefully to one of her thin wrists, “even after Papa Tony bawled hell out of you like that, didn’t you notice that he told you to somersault down? He never even let me try that till today, and I’ve been working with them for ages.”
“I could do it. I really could. If they just wouldn’t yell at me like that.”
“I know,” Tommy almost whispered, “it sort of gets to me, too. But that’s just the way they are, Stel. You’ll get used to it, like I did. And anyhow, pretty soon they won’t have anything to yell at. Even I can tell that.”
“You really think so?”
“Sure I do,” Tommy said.
She was standing with her wet face raised to his, and Tommy, bending just a little, grazed her lips with his own. Her mouth felt cool and soft. As if moving in a sudden, dazed dream, Tommy hugged her against him; he felt her small breasts through the rough stuff of her suit, her hard little body suddenly pliant, molding itself to his. Then, flushing, her cheeks almost pink, she broke quickly away and said shakily, “I’d better run upstairs and—and change before I catch cold.” Clasping Johnny’s sweater around h
er shoulders, she ran out of the change room and up the back stairs, and after a minute he heard an upstairs door banging shut.
~o0o~
That evening in the big firelit room, as always, Stella was the only silent one. She sat apart, withdrawn, her colorless hair bent in the circle of the lamp over a patched pair of tights, her needle flashing in and out and nothing else but her small hard-knuckled fingers moving at all. She did not look at Tommy, but neither did she seem to avoid his eyes. He sat with his algebra book in his lap, not focusing on the pages, his thoughts playing queer tricks on him. He had never kissed a girl before except in confused erupting dreams from which he woke in startled bewilderment. The reality was infinitely less exciting than the dream, and yet she had felt very nice, very soft to hold. Her mouth had a strange taste. He refused to let himself look again at her mouth. She wore no lipstick and it made her look like a boy. He wondered if she and Johnny were sleeping together, and the thought made disturbing pictures in his mind.
He looked at Johnny, seated with Liss and Mario at an old card table, a Monopoly board spread out before them. Mario usually went home right after supper, but tonight, for some reason, he had stayed on. Tommy noticed, almost for the first time, that Johnny too had the Santelli eyebrows and good looks; he was so blond that he looked unlike the others, but upon closer scrutiny, the features were almost the same. Johnny paid so little attention to Stella in the family circle—he paid less attention to her than he did to Liss or his mother—that maybe, Tommy reflected, she was just his partner and he didn’t think of her that way at all. He supposed Johnny could have any girl he wanted. How would a girl feel about Johnny, cocky and handsome, rough and strong? He thought about Johnny’s hard hands catching him firmly in flight; but would he be gentler with a girl? Mario was handsomer than Johnny. Even in faded practice tights, a shrunken T-shirt stretched across his chest, he was nice-looking. Stella had let Tommy kiss her without any fuss. Did she like to be kissed? Would she have let Mario kiss her like that? The thought was oddly disturbing.
“Come on, Stella,” urged Liss carefully, “put that junk down and come over and take a hand with us. It’s more fun with four.”
She looked up shyly. “I don’t know how to play. You’d have to stop and teach me.”
The fire made a soft hissing noise. Clay and Barbara, stretched on the floor, were yawning over their homework. Papa Tony, sprawled on his spine, was half asleep in a deep chair. Lucia, in her straight chair, was never idle; as always, her hands were busy with exquisite embroidery. Tonight a piece of peacock-blue satin spilled over her knees and she was sewing on sequins, one by one, from a small paper in her lap.
Mario looked up from the dice cups. “You know how to play, don’t you, Tommy?”
“Sure.”
“Well, sit in, then,” Mario said, with an air of command. Tommy stood up, edging past Angelo, who was soldering a loose spoke in the wheel of Clay’s bicycle, before the wide-eyed gaze of Liss’s son, Davey. Little Davey was a chubby, active toddler with huge blue eyes, the apple of everyone’s eye and outrageously spoiled. Tommy didn’t know much about babies, but it seemed awfully late for one of Davey’s age to be awake. The child suddenly grabbed at the silvery coil of solder, and Angelo gave him a menacing scowl. “No, Davey, hot. Liss, take him away before he burns his hand off!”
“Grab him, Tommy,” Liss said negligently, and Tommy lifted the squirming youngster.
“Come on, kiddo. You don’t want that stuff.”
Davey glared at Tommy with wide, stubborn eyes, debating whether or not to set up a howl. “Down!” he shouted, kicking angrily at Tommy.
“Here, here, you little dickens!” Tommy held him out warily at arm’s length. “Liss, take him!”
“Okay. Come here, nuisance,” Liss said. “What are you trying to do, Davey, burn yourself to a crisp? Drive everybody nuts?” She frowned as she lifted him into her lap. “Oh, murder, wet again! Who’ll hold him while I get a dry didy? Here, Tommy.” Gracefully she leaned over Tommy,. where he had slid into a seat at the card table, and plunked the child into his lap. “Careful, he’s wet.”
Mario chuckled aloud at Tommy’s grimace of dismay and held out his arms, scooping Davey into his own lap. His thin face had softened, and Tommy watched with surprise as Mario laid his cheek against Davey’s chubby one and kissed the fat neck a time or two, murmuring nonsense at him in Italian. The baby abandoned his struggle to get down, plunged his fists into Mario’s hair, and began bounding up and down on Mario’s knees.
“How do you do it?” Liss marveled when she returned with the clean diaper. “Magic! Hang on to him while I run up and get his sleepers, will you?”
“I’ll go.” Stella flung down her sewing and ran toward the stairs.
Angelo raised his head from the wheel of the bike and inquired, “Shouldn’t he be in bed, Liss? It’s awfully late for a tyke that size.”
“If I put him to bed, he’ll scream the house down and I’ll have to stay up there and keep him company. Just let him wear himself out. He’ll fall asleep on the rug after a while, and then I’ll carry him up and put him in his crib— Thanks, Stel.” She took the sleepers from Stella; Mario held out his hand for them and Liss surrendered them thankfully.
Mario, holding a naked and squirming Davey across his lap with one elbow, pinned on a clean diaper and hauled the sleepers on deftly with his free hand. He gave the child a brief, loving spank on the bottom. “Now, behave, and try to keep from driving your mother nuts for a while yet, Davey.” He deposited him gently on the floor. Joe picked him up, and Davey, apparently exhausted by all the attention, abruptly thrust his thumb into his mouth, snuggled against Joe’s shirtfront, and closed his eyes. Joe rocked thoughtfully on, shifting his magazine so the turning pages did not disturb the baby, and Liss sat down and picked up her dice cup with a sigh of relief.
“We used to play this by the hour on the road,” Johnny said, moving his pawn. “We had a game once that ran three weeks. We’d leave it set up and play between shows, and go back after the night show and play some more until Lucia chased us off to bed. Who won that goddamn game anyway?”
“Five cents,” said Lucia, raising her eyes from her sequins. Ruefully Johnny dug into the pocket of his dungarees, fished out a nickel, and deposited it in the huge, hideous purple pig on the mantelpiece. Tommy had learned that this had been a family custom since the time Lucia, at nine, had repeated something she had heard one of her uncles say; he understood now why Mario and Angelo and, in general, Johnny were so clean-mouthed.
“I remember that game, Johnny,” Liss gloated. “I bankrupted Matt first, and then he sat behind my chair and helped me lick you. It was the only time I ever managed to get four hotels on the Boardwalk and Park Place both, and all the railroads.”
“Yeah,” said Johnny, rolling out the dice, “I remember now. You two always ganged up on me. You even used to speak Italian so I couldn’t listen in.”
“Nobody kept you from learning the language,” Mario said. “We all grew up speaking it.”
“You fixed us, though—you always got even some way,” Liss grinned, showing the dimple at her chin. “Matt, remember the time he put a hunk of cactus in my bed, the time we were playing through Arizona? I got in, and I hit it with my feet, and let out a screech you could hear way back in the elephant cars. I had to go sleep with Matt, and Lucia gave me he—Hail Columbia. We never did get all the stickers out of my mattress, either—I was picking them out of my heels all the rest of the season!”
“Any time people talk about the fun of big families, they should try trouping with a pack of teenage kids.” Angelo let the wheel rest on the floor, laid the soldering iron down so that the hot tip rested safely on the stone fireplace, and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “It was bad enough when they were little kids, and adopting strange kittens and frogs and things. And Liss, by herself, was okay—the worst thing she ever did was sneak a cigarette now and then, or start gobbling banana splits between shows and bu
st out of her tights.”
“I never! I never did! Angelo, I’ll kill you—”
“But the years we had the three of them on the road, when they were in their teens . . . Man, I tell you, I used to look forward to the show because it was the only time I could trust you all to behave—and at least when you were all together at the top of the rigging, I knew where you were!”
Mario, shuffling the Chance cards, grinned at Tommy. “That was before we came over to Lambeth. We traveled with Carey-Carmichael Shows, and Lucia toured with us to look after Liss.”
“Fat lot of looking she did,” Angelo snorted with an affectionate smile at Lucia. “You know who looked after all the kids in the family from the time she got ’em on a bottle! Uncle Angelo, that’s who!”
Lucia shrugged. “Well, you like kids. I never heard you do any griping about it.”
“And who’d listen if I had?” Angelo picked up the soldering iron again.
“Lucia was the finest manager we ever had,” Papa Tony said, opening his eyes. “She was always far better than I at it. I had never believed a woman could manage us better than any man, but she did. I wish I could persuade you to travel with us this year, dear Lucia.”
“I had quite enough of that before Liss was married, thank you.” Lucia tossed her head, with the whimsical turn that showed where there was, still hiding, a dimple like her daughter’s. “I’m quite comfortable here. The nicest thing about having children is being able to neglect them when they’re old enough to take care of themselves.”
“The dowager queen,” Joe laughed, putting aside his magazine. “Papa, remember the time she socked the prop man?”
Papa Tony threw back his head with a shout of laughter, and Lucia made a mock-despairing, flyaway gesture of hiding her face. “I should have pitched a tantrum every other performance, like Barney Parrish, and maybe they’d let me forget my one and only. The one time I lose my temper, it becomes a circus legend!”
“Tell us!” Clay clamored. “I never heard that one, Lucia. Daddy, tell us!”
The Catch Trap Page 14