Touch the Stars

by Pamela Browning

  Distant thunder rumbled, shaking the ground. It was time to leave the meadow, before the rain came. He walked, head down, lost in thought.

  Julie would leave over the weekend. She had to go back to Venice and her job at the gym. And she was just beginning to trust him, too. That was the saddest part. She'd finally talked freely to him and taken him into her confidence, but she was going away.

  Now he knew that she liked him, and he was sure that he loved her. He wanted Julie to understand that "love" was not a word he tossed around at random. With him, it was serious.

  It could be many long months before he would have an opportunity to spend an extended time with her again. Would everything he had gained be lost during that time? In his experience, absence didn't make the heart grow fonder. The opposite was true. All absence did was create fond memories, and he couldn't be satisfied to be nothing more than that to Julie. He wanted, certainly, to be much more.

  Little raindrops began to spatter his face, and he saw a heavy curtain of rain bearing down from the other side of the meadow. It was too late to reach the house before the storm, so he set off at a jog for the nearest shelter, the barn.

  The barn door was open, and he ran inside. He was surprised to find someone else there.

  "Stephen," Julie called from where she was sitting in a corner on the hay-covered floor. "It looks as though you're through practicing for the afternoon." Beside her, nestled in the hay, were Michael's two children—Mickey, who was six, and Tonia, who was four.

  "Yes, the rain has cut our session short," Stephen said with a worried backward look at the roiling clouds. He'd never seen clouds so black.

  "We were picking flowers along the fence for the dinner table," Tonia said importantly. "We had to run in here when the storm came."

  "I ran fastest," Mickey claimed. "I beat everyone."

  Julie smiled up at Stephen. "Sit down and join us," she said. "It looks as though we're captives here until the storm passes."

  Drops of rain bounced off the red dirt, making little explosions outside the barn door. Raindrops drummed on the metal roof. The barn smelled of fresh hay, which Stephen had ordered spread there so that the floor would be well-cushioned in case anyone fell from the cable he was rigging high up under the roof.

  He sat down with the little group and leaned back against the rough gray boards of the barn wall. From where they sat they could see outside, and the wind seemed to be growing in fury. Great sweeps of rain lunged at them through the open barn doors.

  "I wanna go back to the house," Mickey said after a particularly loud crack of thunder. "I don't like it here."

  "I don't either," Tonia said. Her brown eyes were round with fear.

  "We can't go to the house yet, children." Stephen knew how they felt. He had been afraid of lightning and thunder himself once.

  "Let's play a game," Julie said suddenly and enthusiastically.

  "But I don't wanna play a game," Mickey complained.

  "What game?" Tonia asked curiously. A lightning dart split the sky, striking perilously close. Thunder followed immediately, shaking the barn to its foundations. Tonia began to wail, and Mickey's lips quivered.

  "I think we should play a game, too," Stephen said quickly, with a conspiratorial look at Julie.

  "Good," Julie said. She might have been handling this in her own living room on a beautiful sunny day for all the worry she showed. "Let's play 'I'm Thinking.'"

  "What kind of game is that?" Mickey asked scornfully.

  "It is a game that is lots of fun," Stephen said. Outside the wind was howling. The interior of the barn was gloomy in the diminished light.

  "Oh? Have you played 'I'm Thinking' before?" Julie asked, gathering Tonia into her lap.

  "No," Stephen admitted. "But I'm sure I'll like it." Mickey managed a tentative grin and crept closer to Stephen.

  "The way to play the game is this," Julie said. "I'll say that I'm thinking of something in the barn that is a certain color or shape. The rest of you will try to guess what it is. If I said, 'I'm thinking of something in the barn that is long,' for instance, you might guess that it was that piece of rope hanging on the nail over there. Do you all understand?"

  Tonia nodded, looking comfortable in Julie's lap.

  "Okay," Julie said over the next roll of thunder, "I'm thinking of something in the barn that is soft."

  "The hay!" Mickey exclaimed. "It's soft to sit on!"

  "Right," Julie said. "Now you get to think of the next one."

  Mickey paused for a moment. "I'm thinking of something in the barn that is a rectangle."

  "The bucket!" Tonia shouted.

  "No, dummy, a bucket isn't a rectangle."

  "The hay!"

  Mickey laughed delightedly. "You are so silly, Tonia. The hay is not a rectangle!"

  "The door!" Tonia shouted. "The door is a rectangle."

  "Good, Tonia. Now you do the 'I'm thinking.'" Mickey settled back, unself-consciously curving himself into Stephen's arms.

  The game went on, and the storm raged around the barn. Finally it seemed to lessen, the rain subsiding until it was only a shower. The sound of it on the roof faded from a drum roll to a drone. The four of them were lulled into a sense of safety.

  Then Stephen noticed that the light in the barn had turned a peculiar shade of yellow. Startled, he glanced outside.

  The black clouds that had been churning so violently in the distance were now rolling directly overhead, and they seemed to be at a greater height and of a more threatening character than those from which the rain had fallen. He stiffened in alarm. Simultaneously he heard the roar.

  Stephen jumped to his feet and ran to the doorway. Across the pasture he saw a funnel shape dip out of the clouds. It was greenish-yellow around the edges. The hair on the back of his neck rose in prickles.

  Julie saw the tornado, too. For a moment they were frozen, unable to move. The gyrating funnel reeled toward them with frightening speed.

  "Over here!" Julie shouted as the din of rushing wind filled their ears.

  Julie shoved Stephen toward the corner so hard that he almost fell. She grabbed Tonia and yanked Mickey by the hand. Julie pushed them all into a pile of hay in the corner of the barn and threw herself on top of the children. Stephen struggled to reach Julie, wanting to protect her.

  The tornado hit with the force of a bomb. First Stephen heard a high-pitched whine, and then the wind hurled the bucket against the far wall with a clatter. Hay whirled in the air, dust choked them. Stephen's ears popped, and he couldn't breathe. All at once, the building fell in on them. It seemed like the end of the world.

  Then, suddenly, the worst was over. Rain pelted down, stinging their skin, and it seemed eerily quiet. Stephen felt as though he were about to drown in the sound of his own breathing.

  When he was sure it was over, Stephen struggled to his feet. Stunned, he saw that the barn was a mass of rubble.

  "Juliana," he gasped. The corner of the barn where they had taken shelter was no longer there. Around them lay huge timbers, any one of which, if it had fallen an inch or two closer, would have crushed all of them as they huddled together. Stephen was frantic at the thought that someone might be hurt. He couldn't tell—there was too much debris everywhere. He dropped to his knees, totally disoriented.

  He knew he had to do something, so he tugged aside a broken piece of wood, and miraculously, Julie sat up. She was coughing.

  "Dear God," she choked out, "the children."

  Stephen tossed a small uprooted shrub out of the way. Rain glistened on his face.

  Then Tonia wailed. Julie pulled the child out of the debris and clasped her to her breast. Beneath Tonia, Mickey struggled to get up.

  "Julie! Julie!" Mickey, regaining his voice, began to sob.

  "It's all right," Julie said, sitting in the rain, tears streaming down her face. "We're all here." Stephen knelt and put his arms around them, his heart beating madly in his chest. He could not believe their incredible luck in
escaping death or injury.

  Someone came running from the direction of the house. It was Albert, white-faced and shaken.

  "Were you all together? Is everyone all right?"

  Stephen swallowed and nodded. Lynda, panicky about her children, raced up. Michael was there, too.

  "Inside!" Albert shouted. "We must get inside!"

  Michael swept Mickey into his arms, and Lynda took Tonia.

  "Into the house!" Stephen pulled Julie to her feet. She was soaking wet and shivering violently.

  "The tornado went in the other direction. We were all in the house, and it didn't touch us. Come on!" Michael led the way. Stephen grabbed Julie and supported her as they ran toward the house.

  Once inside the door, Julie might have collapsed if Stephen had not held her up. Then competent Claire took over, checking them carefully for broken bones and calming the children. Eva brought blankets while Nonna brewed tea.

  "I don't know where it came from," Stephen said to Albert. "One minute it was not there, and the next minute it was. I have never seen anything like it."

  "A thunderstorm can create such a tornado," Albert said, "but I've never seen one up close. It destroyed the barn, but I don't think anything else was harmed except maybe a few trees. It tore through the pasture and then disappeared. I watched the whole thing from the living room window."

  Someone went to call the sheriff's department to report the tornado in case there were other families who lived in the storm's path who might need help.

  "We were so lucky," Paul kept repeating. "I don't mind losing the barn. We were going to tear it down eventually. But if any of you had been hurt..." He looked grave.

  The sheriff's department reported that the tornado had dissipated before it reached the property of two other families a mile away.

  "As tornadoes go, it was a small one," Albert said.

  "If you are the one caught in it, no tornado is small," said Paul, who was still shaken from the experience of watching the funnel cloud totally demolish the barn in a matter of seconds.

  Amid the general hubbub, Stephen approached Julie, who was sitting in a living room chair wrapped in a blanket. She looked worn out, pale and exhausted, but otherwise fine. He sat beside her and picked up her hand. He sat caressing it for a time before he spoke.

  "You were wonderful in the crisis, Juliana. Wonderful."

  She shook her head, prepared to argue.

  "No," he said, placing a finger over her lips. "I was there, remember? When I couldn't think, you knew what to do. You protected the children with your own body. I will never forget how you did that, Juliana."

  "Anyone would have done the same." Her voice was quiet.

  "Other people might lose their heads in such a situation. I almost did. When I saw that big funnel and realized what it was, I couldn't move. You were very brave, Juliana."

  Her eyes were huge and dark. At the thought of what might have happened, his throat swelled and closed. Juliana, crushed beneath a beam. Juliana, cut and bleeding. He could not bear it if anything happened to her.

  "I was afraid for you, Juliana. In the moment before I knew that you were all right, I was sick at heart."

  "Oh, Stephen," was all she said, but he knew from the look in her eyes that she had felt the same way about him.

  He knew now that whatever it was that kept Julie off the high wire, it wasn't lack of nerve. She had proved that she could function in a crisis. No, whatever was preventing Julie from resuming work on the wire was something else entirely.

  He would never give up until he discovered what it was.

  * * *

  The tornado that hit the Andrassy barn was one of many spawned by the storm. A much more destructive one smashed through a nearby campground and killed three people. A television crew sent there from Atlanta heard about the tornado at the Andrassy place and stopped by to talk to Paul.

  "I'm not the one who was in the tornado," Paul told them. "If you want to know what it was really like, talk to Stephen Andrassy."

  "Stephen Andrassy," the reporter said, gazing at the pile of rubble that had once been the barn. "Where have I heard of him before?"

  "Stephen is a former headliner of the Moscow Circus. He was a star of the Cirque du Soleil and a top performer with the Big Apple Circus in New York. He and the rest of the Andrassy performing troupe are rehearsing here. They're taking their act on the high wire soon." Paul firmly believed that if life hands you a lemon, you should make lemonade.

  "Say," the reporter said, the light dawning. "Aren't you all from the same family that fell at the Superdome a few years back?"

  "We are."

  "I want to talk to this Stephen Andrassy. Maybe we can do a feature for our noon news program."

  "I think Stephen would like that very much," said Paul, who considered the loss of a barn insignificant compared to the publicity its loss could generate for the Amazing Andrassys.

  * * *

  "Stephen, you talk to them. I don't want to." Julie flicked a switch in her eyes and the light went out of them; Stephen recognized this particular expression as one she adopted when she was being obstinate.

  "Juliana, you were the one who saved the children. You should be part of the feature they're doing."

  "It's not about surviving the tornado. You know very well that the TV station is going to concentrate on the story of the Amazing Andrassys' return to the high wire."

  "You belong in such a story."

  "No, Stephen," Julie said. "Leave me out of it."

  "Ah, Juliana," Stephen sighed in exasperation. He hurried off to tell the TV crew that Julie would not participate in the film, and Julie watched him walk away.

  It was a peculiar feeling, this being left out of something that everyone else was so enthusiastic about. But, she thought grimly, she would have to get used to it, because that was the way things had to be.

  * * *

  The Andrassys gave thanks for the sparing of their family members' lives at a big dinner the next night. Nonna cooked a huge pot of her famous goulash, and Julie baked a birthday cake. It was also Nonna's seventy-seventh birthday celebration.

  "Make a wish, make a wish," Tonia cried, none the worse for her experience with the tornado.

  "I want nothing more," Nonna said, smiling broadly. "My wish that my family could be together again has already come true."

  "Wish that the Amazing Andrassys will make a successful comeback," Eva suggested.

  "Yes, that is good," Nonna said. "But Mickey must blow out the candles for me."

  Mickey blew out every candle, and the Andrassys cheered.

  "When will the Amazing Andrassys perform for the first time in public?" Sam asked.

  "It will be in September at the Superdome," Stephen said. "I am in the process of getting a contract with a promoter now."

  "The Superdome!" Julie exclaimed in dismay.

  A hush fell over the group. It was clear that they were all thinking about the past tragedy. Julie felt sick to her stomach, but she knew why Stephen had arranged for them to perform at the same place where the tragedy had occurred. It had to do with pride. The Andrassys needed to prove to the world that they would not be vanquished.

  Finally Gabrielle spoke. "In September! So soon! Will we be ready?" She uttered the words with a clear determination; the past tragedy wouldn't be allowed to jinx future success.

  Stephen's eyes took on a steely look. "We will be ready."

  "Yes," Albert agreed. "We must."

  Stephen went on talking, bringing their discussion back to normal. "Of course, I would feel better if we had not lost the barn in the tornado. With the barn we were assured of a place to practice even if the weather is bad. There are often afternoon thunderstorms here in the summer, Paul tells me. But if we cannot practice so late in the afternoon, we will have to start practicing earlier in the morning. It is the best time anyway."

  "It's okay if I practice with them, isn't it, Mom?" Sam asked anxiously.

  Claire and
Paul exchanged a meaningful look.

  "It will be all right on the low wire, I guess," Claire said. "As long as Stephen is there to supervise."

  Julie stood up abruptly from the table. The return to the Superdome, the determination to go on as if nothing bad had ever happened–it was too much. She gathered several plates and carried them into the kitchen, unwilling to go back into the dining room. On top of everything, she hated to see Sam caught up in this Andrassy madness to get back on the high wire.

  "Julie?" It was Claire.

  "I'm all right. Don't mind me." The words came out clipped and short. For the lack of anything better to do, she grabbed the coffeepot, carried it into the dining room and moved around the table, pouring everyone more coffee.

  "Gee, Nonna, I wish you didn't have to leave so soon. We're going to be here all summer." Tonia hugged her great-grandmother's arm.

  "I don't want to leave," Nonna said. "But Julie has to be back at work on Monday."

  At that moment Stephen's eyes locked with Julie's, and Julie's hand began to tremble so much that she couldn't pour. She fled into the kitchen, even though Paul's cup could have used a refill. She splashed cold water on her face before sliding back into her seat at the table.

  "I do wish you two could stay a bit longer," Paul said to Julie. "Claire's younger son, Eric, is coming home from camp on Sunday. He's a great kid, and I'd like you and Nonna to see him."

  "I'm sorry that won't work out," Julie said, cutting into her slice of cake. "Perhaps the boys could come visit Nonna and me in Florida soon." This invitation was greeted with enthusiasm by Sam, who wanted to learn to water ski.

  Throughout this exchange, Julie knew that Stephen was looking at her, his expression serious. The one time their eyes met, his probed hers disconcertingly. Why didn't he look somewhere else? Why did he have to stare? Someone would notice; someone would see. She was smothering in a tangle of emotions.