But it was no holiday for the television crews who had come in to set the lights and cameras. Before they had finished, a small crowd had collected in the entrance of the rehearsal tent. Finally they had everything the way they wanted it. The Flying Santellis would drive down tomorrow for a final rehearsal on the site, spend the night in a local motel, and do the television broadcast the next day. As they finished, a tall, familiar form broke away from the group of watchers.
“Hello, Matt, good to see you,” Jim Fortunati said, and Mario took his hand.
“Hello, Jim.”
“Every time I see Lionel, he asks about you. I heard a rumor you’re going to be doing the flying for that Parrish movie they’re making.”
“Nothing official yet, Jim. How is Lionel, anyhow?”
“Last I heard, he was fine,” Jim said. “He never did get back to flying after that accident you two had; he’s opened some kind of tourist place down in San Diego. Listen, why don’t the four of you come down to our trailer, have dinner with us? Cleo would love to see you all again.”
As they started walking to the trailer, he added, “Matt, I saw your little girl the other day. Your wife—er, your ex brought her along to rehearsal. She sure is getting cute. Looks a lot like Liss at that age.
A shadow crossed Mario’s face. “I didn’t know Susan was still with the show, Jim. I haven’t seen her since we split.”
“That so? When she heard you were coming down for this thing, she asked where you’d be staying, and everything.”
“I know what she wants. I’ll have to get in touch with her, I guess.”
Cleo was waiting for them at the trailer, slender and pretty as ever. Her flame-bright hair had darkened to chestnut, and she wore it fashionably short, but there were no other visible signs of the accident that had ended her flying career. There were lines around the smiling eyes that Tommy did not remember seeing there before, but her smile was undimmed. She threw her arms around Mario and hugged him hard, and after a minute gave Tommy, too, a friendly squeeze. Stella, when introduced, was shy and tongue-tied. Cleo said, with her quick, brilliant smile, “I saw you on television—Circus Days and Nights? I thought so. You remind me a little of Lucia.”
“Family resemblance,” Johnny said gaily.
They were crowded in the dining cubicle of the trailer, but nobody minded. Tommy remembered that for Mario and Johnny, this was a family reunion. Looking at the array of food spread out on the small table, Mario teased, “Learning to cook after all these years, Cleo?”
She laughed. “I’m too old a dog to learn new tricks. I sent out for all this stuff to a place that does up fried chicken by the basketful.”
“It’s about as good as home cooking anyhow,” Johnny said, sinking his teeth into a biscuit.
Cleo giggled like a girl. “Home cooking like mine is why men leave home,” she said. “Matt, are you going to do a triple tomorrow in this television thing? No? I’m sorry to hear it. Simon Barry is a nice boy, and a pretty good flyer, but he’s not in your class. People used to think that anybody who could do the triple at all was pretty special, but now that every good flyer is doing it, people are beginning to realize that there’s more to it than just being able to get that third turn. It’s not just doing it, it’s how you do it.”
Mario shook his head, acutely uncomfortable. “Since Lionel quit, there aren’t that many catchers that can hold me on it.”
Cleo glanced at Johnny. “I should think you’d be big enough.”
“I am,” Johnny said, “only Matt doesn’t think so. There’s a lot of garbage talked about the triple. Like you said, everybody’s doing it now, just to prove they can, and I wanted Matt to do it for this show. But he still has this dumb notion in his head that a catcher for the triple has to be some kind of superman. Sure, when it was first invented, it was something special. How long did it take Barney Parrish to get it? Four years, five? But now it’s not so much. There’s a lot of bull thrown around about how hard flying is,” he added, and Tommy felt the words were a challenge. “Hell, I can break a kid into a flying act in three months, if the kid does what he’s told!”
Cleo said clearly, “I took piano lessons for three years when I was a kid, and I could play everything in the Baptist hymnal. But that doesn’t make me Vladimir Horowitz, either. There’s doing tricks on the trapeze, Johnny, and there’s flying.” She reached her small freckled hand across the table to Mario. “That’s why I hoped I’d see you doing it again.”
“Maybe some other time, Cleo.”
“It wouldn’t fit into this show, really it wouldn’t,” Stella said, surprising everyone. “I know Johnny doesn’t agree with me about this. We had a row about it. But it really wouldn’t fit. The triple—” She bit her lip, searching for words. “It’s an—an accomplishment—something spectacular. But this show, this whole Flight Dreams act—it’s supposed to be something that looks perfect, simple, almost dreamlike. The triple, that’s a showstopper. But we don’t want show-stoppers in this. It’s—it’s—again she groped for words—“it’s got to be all in one piece. No star stuff, just perfect teamwork and simplicity.” She broke off. “I’m no good at saying this.”
On the contrary, Tommy thought, you’re pretty damn good at saying it, and I hope Johnny gets the point!
Cleo nodded thoughtfully. “I know what you mean,” she said. “That’s the reason I only did it a few times, and only once or twice in the ring. People kept talking about my being the first woman to do it, and I felt they didn’t really care how it was done, or how well, just that I was the only woman who could do it.”
Stella’s eyes lighted up. “Oh, you do understand! I couldn’t make Johnny see it! That’s exactly why I don’t want to do it, Mrs. Fortunati!” She had forgotten her shyness.
“Cleo, dear, for goodness’ sake!”
Mario’s eyebrows tilted up in the old devilish grin. “In college I read something like that. Some old goat about a hundred years ago said that a woman making a speech was like a bear walking on his hind legs; you didn’t expect it to be done well, because it was surprising enough that it was done at all.”
Jim Fortunati laughed. “Whoever your old boy was, he didn’t know anything about the circus. You expect a bear to walk on his hind legs there!”
Stella ignored him, saying, “Even if I did it, nobody would care how well I did it, or why. Just that I was the only woman doing it. Oh, I know you have to have publicity, a certain amount of ballyhoo, but—but I don’t want that kind.”
Johnny made a wry face. “Matt on one side and Stella on the other, and me in between! Is it any wonder I want to get out of flying when this Flight Dreams thing is over? There just isn’t all that much you can do on television with circuses!”
Fortunati said, “That’s why I wanted to talk to you, John. How would you like to manage the aerial wing of the show?”
“Starr’s? Good God, are you serious, Jim?”
“Dead serious. I’d like to hand it over to Cleo, but Starr would raise holy hell if I put a woman in charge of the whole shebang.”
“That isn’t fair,” Stella said.
Fortunati shrugged. “You don’t have to tell me that, honey. Cleo knows more than any three men. She’s been training every woman flyer on the lot for the past ten years. But that’s the way it is. How about it, John?”
Stella’s eyes were shining, but Johnny shook his head soberly. “I don’t know, Jim. It sounds good, but I don’t know how much future there is in any circus job these days. I’d want some time to think it over.”
“Why don’t I set up an appointment for you to talk with Randy Starr, about money and so forth? I know the show would be in good hands with you.”
Stella said softly, “It sounds like just what you’ve been wanting, Johnny. I know you don’t want to fly anymore. Anywhere on the business end, whether it’s circus or television . . . .”
“It’s a thought,” Johnny said, “but I’m going to have to do a lot of thinking about it,
Jim.”
“Well, you think it over, and we’ll talk about it later,” Fortunati said. “For now let’s forget about business for a while. Tell me all the family news. What’s Angelo doing these days?”
CHAPTER 9
The next day, driving down for the final rehearsal and the television broadcast, Mario chose to go with Johnny and Stella in their car. Tommy was to drive down with Bart Reeder in the MG. To Tommy’s immense relief, Bart did not refer, even with a look, to the subject of their last conversation. He merely motioned Tommy in under the wheel. “Like to drive?”
Bart checked him out meticulously on each of the controls before starting, showing him how to put the car into each of its gears.
“What’s the speed limit on the freeway, anyhow?”
“Legally, seventy. Practically, anything the traffic will bear,” Bart said. “I’ve gone up to a hundred when there wasn’t any traffic. The road’s engineered to take it. On the other hand, if you go zipping in and out of traffic from lane to lane at rush hour, you can get a ticket doing forty-five. Take her up to anything you feel safe with.”
“I did a hundred and thirty on the autobahn, once. A buddy of mine had a Mercedes.”
“Well, there’s a hell of a lot of freeway between here and Tijuana. Have fun.”
There was a little too much traffic for Tommy to feel comfortable with anything over eighty-five. Nevertheless, the silver MG handled like a dream, and he slipped into the curious, hyperconscious blend of acute attention and exhilaration which characterizes all drivers who handle a car for the sheer love of it. For a time he lost all awareness of time and space, conscious only of the road, the traffic, the controls, the silent presence and close communication of the man at his side. After a long time, a series of signs warned of the approach of the Mexican border, and, regretfully, he slowed the car and came back to ordinary consciousness.
“What time is it, anyway, Bart?”
“Quarter to eleven. We’ve got time enough to have some lunch down here, if you want to.”
“Sure. What is it, about eighty miles back to winter quarters?”
“Something like that. You like Mexican food?”
Tommy chuckled. “I grew up on Texas chili. The hotter, the better.”
Bart nodded. “I like it Border style, too—hot enough to tear a hole in your mouth, and with plenty of beer.”
“Okay, but I better go easy on the beer. I got a show to do.”
“I know a place where all the guys go after the races.” He walked around the car to slide under the wheel. Tommy, moving into the passenger seat, met Bart’s eyes, and the older man reached out and laid a hand on his arm. But he didn’t speak, and Tommy was relieved.
The restaurant was a small unpretentious place, but the half dozen cars drawn up outside made Tommy blink with sudden envy.
“Like I say, the whole race crowd goes here a lot,” Bart said. Then, meeting Tommy’s eyes with a sudden, intimate look, he warned, “Listen, car buffs are mostly so straight it hurts. I’d like to be able to hold your hand, but this isn’t the right time or the right place. Understand?”
Tommy laughed. “Okay by me, Bart,” he said, and somewhere in the back of his mind was aware of what was happening between them, a series of small barriers being lowered one by one. He wasn’t sure he wanted it quite like that. Part of him was glad that Bart could pass in an ordinary crowd without immediately being spotted as queer—and believed that he could—but in another way, the sense of sharing a secret with Bart Reeder was not entirely welcome.
We’re two of a kind. Why should that bother me? And as another barrier went down, he realized it didn’t bother him at all, that it was good to know he was with a man who could understand and share his own sense of alienation.
“Hey, Bart!” someone called from the counter as they entered the restaurant, “you coming down Sunday?”
“You bet,” Bart said. They joined a group in one of the big corner booths. “This is Tom Zane. Tom, you are coming down for the rally day after tomorrow, aren’t you?”
Tommy’s hesitation was only momentary. By that time the Flight Dreams show would be over. It would be a welcome change from his constant preoccupation, not with flying—he didn’t mind that—but with constant worry over whether Mario would hold together long enough for the show.
“Sure,” he said, “glad to.”
As Bart had promised, the Mexican food was very hot and very good. While they ate, Tommy listened more than he talked. The conversation was mostly about cars, and he did not feel quite as much of an outsider as he had feared.
“You do any driving, Tom?” one of the men asked.
“Strictly an amateur.”
Bart laughed and said, “He’s being modest. He brought the MG down, and he’s got the knack.”
“And MG is amateur stuff. Sooner or later you’re going to want a Ferrari.”
“I can do anything in the MG that you can do in the Ferrari,” Bart argued, and they were lost again in a discussion of cornering speeds and controlled slides.
They ate quickly, however, with one eye on the clock. Bart said, “I’ll drive back. You don’t want to turn up all worn out.” As he slid under the wheel he gave Tommy another of those quick, intimate smiles. “Or all stirred up, either.”
At the winter quarters, Mario was waiting in the rehearsal tent, already in tights, pacing restlessly back and forth, fretting.
“Where the hell have you two been? You get lost or something?”
Tommy glanced defensively at his watch. “I’ve still got half an hour. Take it easy, huh?”
“You’re not even dressed yet!” Mario was glowering.
“For Christ’s sake, Matt, how long does it take me to get into a pair of tights? Where do we dress?”
“Men’s dressing top, right over there.” He pointed. “Our bags are there, too. Johnny and I made reservations at a motel, but we haven’t checked in yet, okay?”
“Sure. Look, I told Bart I’d go to that car rally with him on Easter Sunday. That all right with you?”
“Lucky, you don’t have to ask my permission to go to places, for God’s sake!”
There were half a dozen strangers in the dressing tent. Tommy found his bags and Mario’s, stripped hastily, and got into his costume. Bart looked around curiously, seeming to take in every detail of the tent. Tommy guessed that for any actor, this opportunity to see inside the life of the character he was to play was a valuable thing, not to be missed.
He was losing his nervousness about Bart. The man might be one of the “obvious” types he had detested since childhood—but only among those he knew and trusted. Before outsiders, Tommy was beginning to know, he could be as discreet and ordinary as Tommy himself. He did give Tommy a quick, shared grin as he helped him adjust the silver belt of the costume. As they left the tent he said under his breath. “Sure, Tom. In my business you can be a crook, a rapist, blackmailer, any damn thing you want to, and so long as the public thinks you’re a solid citizen the front office will stand by you. There’s just two things you can’t admit to being in this business. And the other’s a Communist.”
Back in the rehearsal tent, bleachers had been set up for the live audience, and the television men were fussing with their lights. Tommy joined the others at the foot of the rigging. It seemed strange to wear streamlined silver and white instead of Santelli green and gold. Stella looked pale, and Mario was as taut as a bowstring.
Johnny walked over to confer with one of the cameramen. “Okay, kids, we’ll run straight through. The show’s being done live tomorrow, but they want some film footage of us to use over the opening credits. First they want to get shots of us coming out of the entrance over there . . . .”
From his work as a stunt double, Tommy was familiar with the endless retakes, repetitions, and “protecting” shots, to be spliced in from any angle. But the monotony made Stella nervous, and before too many retakes, Mario was fidgeting and tense. By the time they actually climbed th
e rigging to go through the program for final rehearsal, Tommy could see that he was sweating, his eyes narrowed against the light. He murmured as they climbed the ladder, “If I ever let us in for anything like this again, Tom, kick me, will you?”
It was easier when they were actually going through the routines they had rehearsed so often in the practice room. When Mario and Stella flew past one another in the midair pass, there was a burst of applause from the scattered few in the seats. Tommy, handling the ropes, thought, They’re good together, very good, and then he was briefly, painfully jealous. In their old duo routines he had had that kind of perfect synchronization with Mario. Sick at heart, he thought, As a flyer, I’m not in their class, not at all.
“You’re on!” Stella nudged him in the ribs, and he pushed aside all personal awarenesses, conscious only of the thick taped bar under his fingers, of Johnny’s swing accelerating to match his own. He spun off the bar into the forward double, not even realizing that he was altering his own rhythm in midair to accommodate to Johnny. He frowned as they swung together, wrists meshed, and the thought barely skimmed his mind: Johnny’s not as good a catcher as he thinks he is. Stella would look even better with a better catcher. Then he was flying free, in the split second of mingled fear and exaltation, the held-breath jolt of released adrenaline flushing him with heat as he landed on the platform.
The repeats and extra footage for slow-motion sequences took longer, with more repeats and retakes. They worked steadily until nine that evening, and afterward the four of them went out for supper at a local steak house. Mario was silent, sunk in after-show depression, but Johnny was jubilant.
“Reeder said he’d have people here associated with the Parrish movie. This is going to be a big thing for all of us. Now, if I can only give them some kind of assurance—” he said, glancing at Mario. Tommy, seeing Mario flinch, made an excuse to draw Johnny aside as they were sliding into the booth at the restaurant.
“Listen, John, I got something to say to you.”
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