by Lisa Fiedler
The elderly waitress behind the counter—Lula, according to her plastic nametag—brings me a cup of coffee before I even ask for one. I guess this is my cue to quickly scan the menu.
“What can I get ya this mornin’?” she asks, her accent as thick as the coffee.
I order a Swiss-and-mushroom omelet with homefries. As she scribbles my choice on her check pad, I summon the nerve to ask, “Are you hiring by any chance?”
The moment is such a far cry from the night I sat in Cornelius’s paneled office and made a similar inquiry. “Find her something to be good at,” he’d told Duncan, and it occurs to me now what a generous thing that was. He could have said, “Find a position that needs to be filled,” but instead, his goal was to find a way for me to be fulfilled, a way for me to succeed.
And although I never did get to walk the wire for a crowd, I doubt there is anything in Austin I’ll ever be as good at as that.
“No openings at the moment,” Lula informs me, “but you can check Crandall’s Doughnut Den. They’re always lookin’ for help.”
“Thanks.” I’m hoping my hours spent apprenticing for Hank in the pie car will count as applicable food-service experience.
My breakfast arrives in record time, but I find I can only stomach a few bites. I’m still a little queasy.
“Excuse me.”
Lula turns away from the ketchups she’s marrying. “Somethin’ wrong with yer omelet, hon?”
“No, it’s delicious. I was just wondering if there’s somewhere nearby where I might hock some jewelry.”
She looks at me funny; I guess I don’t come off as a jewelry-hocking type of girl. Or maybe she doesn’t have any idea what I’m talking about. Luckily, the fry cook is a bit more worldly.
“Lone Star Pawn,” he tells me, his face framed by the kitchen pass-through window, glowing red from the heat lamps. “Three blocks down.”
“Thanks.”
“If you get to McMartin’s Music Shop you’ve gone too far. Hit the buzzer, ask for Stan. Tell him Corby sentcha, so you don’t get screwed.” Then he slides a steaming plate across the metal shelf and bellows, “Steak and eggs, short stack on the side!”
I finish my coffee, leave a generous tip, and push out into the growing Texas heat. The city is awake now, and I lose myself for three blocks in a sea of suits and Stetsons.
At Lone Star Pawn, I press the button and am immediately buzzed into a room crowded with radios, TV sets, power tools, fringed leather jackets, and tarnished silver tea sets. A balding man in a short-sleeved dress shirt stands behind a glass jewelry case filled with watches, bracelets, necklaces.
“Are you Stan?”
He nods.
“Corby sent me.”
He smiles with half his mouth. “You buyin’ or sellin’?”
“Selling.” It hurts to say the word. My fingers grip the brooch.
“And what are you looking to unload?”
I step up to the counter and lay the jeweled pin on the glass top. Stan looks at it, does a double take, then turns it over and looks some more. There is a loupe on a chain around his neck; he presses it to his eye, then he lets it fall, jerking his head up to look at me with his bushy eyebrows crunched low. “This is Cartier.” Not a question. Stan knows his stuff.
I nod.
“Platinum. The diamonds are exceptional, and that ruby’s damn impressive.”
“It was my mother’s. She died.”
He mumbles his condolences—a reflex. I’m sure 95 percent of the baubles in his case came with a dead-mother story attached. Stan does not give any indication that he believes me, or even cares.
“I’ll need a minute to make some calculations,” he says, trying not to tip his hand, but it’s clear that items of such value rarely find their way to Lone Star Pawn.
He hands me the brooch, then ducks through a dark curtain into a back room, his inner sanctum. I stare at the pin gleaming in my palm, refracting the streaks of Texas sunlight that pierce the blue letters painted on the window. I can still see my mother’s hand placing it in mine, and I remember the prisms it threw off in a world where she still existed. Tears well up in my eyes, blurring the jumble of electric guitars and mantel clocks and engagement rings . . . so many engagement rings. I wipe my eyes, but more tears bubble up. Which is why I don’t immediately recognize the man passing by the large front window of Lone Star Pawn.
Until I spot the overalls.
“Vince?” I lean closer to the window. He looks troubled, upset, gripping his trusty fedora as he looks up and down the busy street.
He sees me in the store at the precise second that Stan breezes back through the curtain.
“Miss?”
Simultaneously, Vince is outside speaking my name. I don’t hear him of course, but I see his lips forming Victoria, and there is no mistaking the look of relief on his face. It’s me he’s looking for. My stomach flips and I almost vomit again.
Did Valerie tell? Or perhaps something’s happened at the circus.
I turn to Stan. The pawnbroker inclines his head and holds up what can only be described as an enormous fistful of bills.
“I’ll be right back,” I tell him, then rush out through the door he is kind enough to buzz open for me.
“There you are! I been lookin’ all over Austin for you.”
“How did you know I was here?”
“Genevieve heard you askin’ Rick for a ride last night. Somethin’ about visitin’ friends in the city.”
“Vince, what is it? Is it James? Cornelius?” Another horrible thought hits me. “Boo?”
“It’s Sharon.”
A yelp of dread escapes me, but he quickly holds up his hands, like he’s on the wrong end of a stickup. “She’s fine. Not sick, not hurt, just . . . gone.”
I gape at him. He might just as well have said she sprouted fins and swam off into the Gulf of Mexico. “Are you sure?”
His response is to produce an envelope from the back pocket of his overalls and hand it to me. “She left this,” he explains. “Cornelius found it on your pillow, when he went to ask you if you had any idea where she might’ve got to.”
I take the envelope, half expecting it to burn my fingertips, and see that my name is written across the front in Sharon’s handwriting. “What does it say?”
“Well, hell, Victoria, I don’t know. It’s addressed to you.”
This stuns me. Even in a moment of urgency, Cornelius respected my privacy enough to refrain from reading my letter, opting to send Vince looking for me instead.
It is humbling to know that a person could be that . . . decent.
I have to tuck the Woolworth’s bag under my arm and slip the brooch into my pocket in order to open the envelope, which I do with trembling fingers. I read quickly, silently. Halfway through I’m crying; thankfully they are tears of joy.
“She isn’t gone for good,” I tell Vince, my voice shrill with relief.
“Hallelujah,” he huffs, rubbing his brow. “So where the hell is she?”
I can’t help the giggle that escapes me. “She’s with Vadim. They’re on their way to Niagara Falls! They’ve eloped! They ran off last night after Val’s party.”
So this was what she was trying to make me understand that night at Husky Pete’s.
“Son of a bitch,” he murmurs, more in awe than in anger. Then: “When are they coming back?”
I read a little further.
“They are comin’ back, aren’t they?”
“Well, yes . . . and no. They’re taking some time for a honeymoon first.”
Vince ponders this briefly, then shrugs. “Okay. I guess we can’t blame her for that. How long?”
I hesitate, knowing he isn’t going to like the answer. “They’ll be back at the start of next season.”
“Aw, hell.”
/> I see his point. Sharon’s happy news has left him, the gaffer, with a significant problem. He has no tightrope walker, not only for tonight’s performance, but all the way through to next spring.
A sudden flash of anger streaks through me.
How could Sharon be so selfish, so unreliable, as to leave Cornelius without a tightrope walker?
The answer is, she couldn’t. And she didn’t. At least as far as she knew, since she had no idea I was planning to skip out in Austin.
My eyes go again to the bottom of the page, where before, I’d only skimmed over her signature, ignoring the closing entirely.
I read it, my heart growing heavier with each syllable.
Your turn to walk the sky, sister. Love, Sharon.
Except it wasn’t. Because I had already left VanDrexel’s for Austin. Indeed, I was having this conversation with Vince in Austin. The decision had not only been made but executed. I was going on alone in the Lone Star State. No more entanglements, no more heart-stopping moments like this. No one to worry about, or answer to, or learn from. No one to overhear you asking for rides, no one to respect or be respected by. Or love.
Vince lets out a heavy sigh. “I should be getting back,” he grumbles, adjusting his fedora. “Enjoy your visit, Victoria. I’ll see ya back at the fairgrounds.”
No, you won’t. “Goodbye, Vince. I’m glad you’ll be able to tell Cornelius Sharon’s all right.”
“So’m I,” he says, raising his arm high to hail a cab, “but I sure ain’t lookin’ forward to tellin’ him he’s gonna have to make do without a wire walker for the foreseeable future.”
Folding the letter, I glance back through the Lone Star Pawn shop window, where Stan is still holding that ridiculous pile of cash. He gives me an expectant look.
I shake my head. Transaction complete.
“Vince. Wait.”
As I climb into the taxi, I realize two things: One is that this is the first time since Vince and I met in New Jersey that he hasn’t called me First of May.
The second is that while freedom may be something, home is everything.
* * *
• • •
The rest of the day is a whirlwind. Sharon left her costumes behind for me. Myrtle helps me select the one that best suits my coloring—a dazzling sapphire-blue satin with white sequined trim. I spend at least an hour in the wardrobe car, having it fitted to my figure. I turn this way and that in front of her mirror as she hitches it up and cinches it in, adjusting the neckline ever so slightly.
Then I meet with the band and tell them that instead of using Sharon’s lilting music box number, I’d like to try something a little . . . different. “How familiar are you with current music?” I ask.
The trombone player, Gary, smiles. “We’re a lot hipper than we look,” he says. “What is it you’d like us play?”
I write down a short list of titles. “Try McMartin’s downtown, if you need the sheet music. Oh . . .” I turn to Marcus, the drummer, smiling. “And feel free to keep that drumroll.”
Marcus laughs and Gary says he can shoot into Austin, pick up what they need, and still be back in plenty of time to play the Spec into the tent.
I spend some time practicing on the wire above the net, just to be certain that what I’m planning isn’t going to look silly, or worse, kill me. When I’ve put together what I believe is a solidly entertaining routine, I climb down the ladder and go in search of Cornelius.
I don’t find him in his office, so I try the menagerie, and sure enough he’s there, standing beside Baraboo’s wagon, arguing in hushed tones with James. I halt a few yards off to let them finish their conversation. When James thunders away, it is all I can do to keep from going after him. Instead, I join Cornelius, who is stroking the lion’s head through the bars.
Boo is very still, very thin, wheezing in the heat. It’s clear he’s far worse than he was in Chicago.
“Mr. VanDrexel?”
Cornelius turns away from the lion, and again I am struck by how meticulous he always looks in his Ringmaster’s uniform. The nap of his velvet coat is smooth, his trousers are unwrinkled, and his top hat is as black as midnight, without a speck of dust or lint to mar the silken sheen.
“Greetings, Victoria.”
“I just wanted you to know that I’m going to do my very best for you tonight.” Because I owe you that. Because I love you and your son, and your circus.
He smiles, but there is sadness in it. “I have every confidence that you will shine, my dear. I only regret that the same cannot be said for our fabulous feline friend.”
“I saw you speaking to James. Did you suggest—” I can’t bring myself to say the words put down, but I don’t have to. He knows what I mean.
“I did. Sadly, the boy is still too blinded by his love for the animal.”
“But he’s suffering.”
“They both are. James is relying a tad too heavily on the old adage ‘where there’s life, there’s hope.’ He wants to believe Boo can get well. If he weren’t so afraid of losing him, I know he would be the first to want to end his misery. So I will try again tomorrow, but for now, all I can do is attempt to provide a bit of comfort.” Cornelius pulls a silver flask from his pocket and pours an amber-colored puddle onto the floor of the wagon, which Boo slowly laps up. The Ringmaster helps himself to a hearty swig.
“Will that help him, do you think?”
Cornelius shrugs. “Who can say? But as I have no other solace to offer this poor, noble king of beasts, I choose to believe it will.” He takes my arm in his and leads me away from the lion. “And now, Victoria, regardless of . . . well, everything . . . you must go and prepare for your debut. You know what we say in the circus.”
“The show must go on,” I recite, a disciple steeped in faith.
“The eleventh commandment,” he says loftily. “The words we live by.” He smiles again and this time I see only fondness there. “I wish you the best tonight. Know that I will be watching and cheering you on.”
* * *
• • •
I climb the ladder into the shadows where gravity has less authority. My wire is rigged to span the center ring.
James and Gideon have just completed their performance with Clemmy, Scruff, and the tiger prince in the ring to the right of the grandstand. They exit to a riot of applause. James returns immediately and tucks himself off to the side to watch me, unseen by the fans who would surely be distracted by having one of the dashing VanDrexel boys in their midst.
Cornelius’s deep, melodic voice rings through the tent. “And now, my friends, prepare to be enchanted . . . entranced . . . enthralled! Lift your eyes to the skies and welcome the dainty and death-defying, beautiful but brave, sassiest sweetheart ever to walk the wire . . . our own . . . Victoria!”
The spotlight flares and I feel it light me up from inside, as if I’ve somehow become incandescent. The band strikes up—a drumroll!—and as I also requested, the next few notes belong to Sharon. I asked them to play the intro to her program hoping that it will be the next best thing to having her here to watch me.
I step out onto the tightrope, kicking one leg up behind me, then the other, a little prancing march that takes me to the midpoint of the wire. I sense the net stretched out beneath me, rendering me fearless. Then I flick my wrist—a signal to Marcus to change tempo. The band switches to the first of the songs I requested . . . “The Wah-Watusi,” the song James and I (more or less) danced to at Husky Pete’s. As played by a circus band, it sounds much different than it did on the jukebox, but when the teenagers in the crowd recognize the song and the moves, they cheer and holler, and some even leap up and begin dancing in their seats along with me.
When the band segues into Petula Clark’s “Downtown” I slide into the slightly sexy, kittenish motions of the Frug, and again, the young spectators applaud and
join in.
Finally, the band slows into a moody version of “Ticket to Ride.” For this, I soften into an airborne ballerina (or is air born more accurate?—since truly, I feel as though my life is starting fresh right here, right now). My every step is lithe upon the wire, exactly the way Sharon performed her routine that first night I saw her back in Brooksvale.
When the music stops, I retreat to my ledge and pose in the glow of the spotlight.
Cheers float up to the wire like bubbles in a glass of champagne. James is whistling through his teeth, beaming, and Cornelius, his face filled with fatherly pride, removes his iconic hat and bows his head to me in a show of respect that has me wanting to skip back out onto that wire and do it all over again.
Which I will. Tomorrow night. And the night after that. And every night and weekend afternoon for the rest of my life.
I know that I could not leave VanDrexel’s now if I tried. As long as the circus is willing to protect me, I will stay on that train and I will perform in the sky.
I will be part of this unique and powerful family, and in that, I will know more freedom than I could have ever hoped to experience on my own. The freedom to shine, and the freedom to fall.
And always, I will trust the net.
TWENTY-FIVE
“WHY CAN’T WE GO back to VanDrexel’s?”
“Because,” said Quinn, stomping up the carriage house stairs in front of Callie. “It’s not practical.”
“So what is practical, Mom?” Callie persisted, stalking her mother to the kitchen. “Staying here without a job?”
“I’ll find a job.”
“Okay, you find a job. I’m going back to the circus.”
“You can’t go back to the circus” was Quinn’s infuriatingly calm reply as she went to the kitchen sink to fill the teakettle. “End of story.”