Girl on a Wire

by Gwenda Bond

  Nan stood up from the couch, and raised pleading hands to my mother. “And you, Vonia, you agree with him?”

  But whatever Mom thought about the magic talk, she wasn’t easily cowed. “I would never support my child in something she wasn’t capable of. Emil assures me that she is ready.”

  “How can you say these things?” Nan asked my father. “I raised you. It was always you and me. You must understand my powers, what I can do. You know there are forces at work in this world that are beyond what can be seen and easily understood. Do I have to remind you of what could happen to her if those forces come into play?”

  My dad crossed and put a hand on Nan’s arm, guiding her down to sit beside him on the couch. “I know what Grandmama thought she could do, and what she convinced you that you could do too. But we have to be real here.”

  There was a long, quiet moment, and Sam chose it to chime in. “Jules is the one who wouldn’t let us pass up the chance to join the Cirque. She’s already shown that she’s willing to fight for this family. Now she has another big idea, and we should support her.”

  “Thank you, Sam,” I said, and touched my eye where his was still ringed with a bruise. “Back at you.”

  Nan smoothed her hands across her lap, shaking her head, and I noticed something strange. Her fingernail polish was chipped. Not on every finger, but on her thumb and at least a couple of others. I had never known Nan to have one hair out of place, let alone to allow her manicure to lapse into such a state.

  I decided to cut her a break. “Thank you all, actually, for supporting me. And you, Nan, for caring. I promise you, I will be careful. No fears.” I nodded at my dad. “I’m going to go take a look at the tent.”

  Sam started to get up to come with me, but I pressed down on his shoulder when I walked past. I needed some time on my own.

  Outside, I moved slowly toward where they were raising the big top, my slippers scuffing the gravel, thinking over the promise I’d just made to my dad. It was impossible to have no fears. But I would try my hardest. And when I did feel scared—which was inevitable—I’d remind myself of Bird. I knew her life backward and forward, and I’d let her story inspire me.

  She was born into a circus family in 1890, but they must not have seen her destiny shining out of her tiny baby eyes, because they named her Jennadean—Jennadean Engleman. Jennadean may be many things, but it’s not much of a star’s name.

  Her parents ran a small store in Colorado, and they traveled here and there playing mud shows. These small circuses—not so different from my family’s before we joined the Cirque—couldn’t afford big tops, but some probably had a cluster of small tents to house a decent freak show and some naked ladies, a horse act, and an acrobat or two. When Bird was six, her parents formed an act for the three of them, the Millman Trio. And half of Jennadean’s real identity was born. She’d walked a wire in the backyard growing up, and she knew how to do some stunt riding on a pony, along with other tricks of the vaudeville trade.

  When she was ten, her dad fell from the high wire.

  Stopping in the grass and hugging my arms around myself, I had no trouble putting myself in her shoes. She’d have been there. She’d have seen him lying in the sawdust, his bones shattered like broken glass, his fragile body ruined by the impact. Though he lived, that’s not something she’d have ever forgotten.

  It would probably have scared many people off the wire, but it did the opposite for her. It was after that, that Bird was finally born. Whatever fear she felt after the accident, she hid it. She conquered the air. Within a few short years, she was one of the most famous women in America. A star in vaudeville, then embraced by the higher-profile circus. She danced and ran on a low wire, and walked the high wire with ease when she wanted to. Sometimes she used a parasol for balance, and sometimes she didn’t. When she was a Ringling star in 1920, the side rings stayed vacant when she was on. No other act could compete.

  And, to raise bonds for World War I, she did building walks above various cities. Her most notable outdoor walks took place in New York City, including one twenty-five stories above Broadway, and in Chicago—as captured in the photo on my wall. She made the cover of magazines, with delicately colored illustrations of a grinning Bird above a city.

  She was charming, graceful, funny. She is usually called the best “woman wire walker” of all time, but I hate it when people add “woman” to make an achievement seem smaller than it is. She was one of the best wire walkers ever. Period.

  Her story didn’t end well, though. She met a rich man and retired from the circus and show biz for good. He died ten years into the marriage, felled by the stock market crash, and left her broke. She moved back home to Colorado and passed away of cancer before her fiftieth birthday. An inspirational tragedy was what she was for most people who bothered to remember her now. Her hometown wanted to build a golden statue of her, perched at the top of their downtown clock tower and about to begin a walk, so she could stay up there forever. Maybe it was even there by now.

  For my part, I believed she’d like to be remembered in motion, far above it all, a bright light in the sky. And I believed she’d approve of another girl on the wire, proving herself. She’d approve of me.

  Not to mention the beautiful big top I finally neared. She’d have fit right in here.

  The tent, already up, rose from the gravel and concrete like a striped mirage. It was as if a different world had poked through into this one to improve it. Wrapping my head around the fact that the parade would happen in the morning wasn’t easy. The entire troupe would march and dance and twirl into downtown, hoping to draw people to the opening-night performance.

  But I’d be above them all, the real lure.

  I could hardly believe my first outdoor walk was almost under way. Well, the first one in front of an audience. I would have pictured it on a wire strung between two buildings, like Bird. But in this case, I was going to be walking a bridge.

  Thurston had called Dad and me to his trailer a few hours after our competition performances, and pulled up a picture of Jacksonville’s skyline on his computer. His permit lawyers, after first telling him the whole idea was nuts and shouldn’t be pursued, had been adamant that there was no way to get a permit for this kind of thing in two days, not with a minor involved, not even with parental consent. But these were lawyers who wanted to keep their jobs. One of them finally pointed out that the Cirque already had a half-day permit to close down the Main Street bridge for the parade route. And that the bridge had two towers, jutting high above its middle span. A little more Googling told us the towers were two hundred feet tall with a 365-foot span between them. We’d string the wire between them, and I’d be off.

  It was ideal. Illegal, but ideal.

  I made it to the tent and kept going, heading inside the entrance flap to the adjoining tent that had been raised behind it. This would serve as the backstage area, and was currently deserted, save for trunks and dressing tables set close together. Not fully unpacked yet.

  A light breeze wafted over my bare arms, and I looked up to see Remy step inside and pull the flap closed behind him. He had on a pair of beat-up jeans and another T-shirt, this one dark blue, a uniform he wore so well he could have marketed it as the Remy Collection.

  “Hi,” I said, then kicked myself for not coming up with something pithy.

  “Hi,” he said back.

  Okay, then. We were on equally awkward footing.

  “Are you really going to do the walk tomorrow?” he asked.

  Remy’s dad was in charge of the rigging at the site Thurston, my dad, and I had agreed on. His dad and mine would be the ones who oversaw the crew responsible for setting up the outdoor wire.

  “You must already know the answer is yes. Come to wish me failure?”

  He took a couple of steps nearer. “Aren’t you tempting fate?”

  “First you bring up magic, now fate. I may need to stage an intervention. You’re just jealous they can’t get your trap
eze set up that high. If this does go wrong, the Garcias will be thrilled, from what I can tell.”

  He nodded, though it didn’t strike me as agreement. Then, “Seriously, though. You’re going to do it?”

  Either he was trying to psych me out in some way I’d never encountered before or he was . . . concerned . . . at least a little, on my behalf. Despite my best efforts, I was touched. Hoping I wasn’t about to make a fool of myself, I offered him an explanation.

  “We had an open air setup back home that I spent hours and hours on, growing up. Dad is a big fan of learning to deal with wind currents, because it’s good training for walking in any conditions. And I . . . well, I’ve always idolized this famous old performer named Bird. My whole life, when I walked outside, I wanted to be like her.”

  I studied his face, but couldn’t read his expression.

  “Don’t make fun, or I’ll kill you, okay?” I cringed as I realized it was perhaps not the best choice of words, but he just raised his eyebrows, and I kept going. “For whatever reason, this is my dream.”

  “Birds can fly, people can’t,” he said. But then he added, “I’m not making fun. And I wouldn’t be thrilled.”

  “Good.” I swallowed. “Then you can live. Besides, don’t think of it as tempting fate. Think of it as embracing my destiny.”

  “Cheesy.” He gave an eye roll.

  “What can I say? I was born with a theatrical instinct.”

  I punched his arm, and he let me.

  I was reminded we were alone. No one else was here.

  One hand—well, one finger, actually—would be sufficient to count the number of boys I’d been alone with that I wasn’t related to. The two of us were making a habit of it.

  So it was probably for the best that voices approached outside. The crew, coming to set up the dressing tables. Yes, definitely for the best, since it made us step apart. That was what I told myself.

  “Break a leg tomorrow,” Remy said.

  And before I could say I didn’t plan on it, he was gone.

  eight

  * * *

  The process of getting ready conspired to make me late the next day. I finished adjusting my hot-off-the-sewing-machine outdoor walking costume in the full-length mirror in Mom and Dad’s room.

  The costumer had made it beautifully, if much faster than she wanted. It was fitted and covered in flat red sequins. A square neckline gave way to sleeves that would stave off any chills from potential breezes, above a short straight skirt those winds wouldn’t budge, with slits to the waist on either side for ease of movement. I wore a pair of leggings underneath and my best pair of slippers. With one last tug on the sleeves, I ran—glittering—through the RV.

  “I’m coming! Let’s go!” I shouted as I flew out the door, slamming it shut behind me.

  “We thought you might need a ride,” Mom said.

  She was on Beauty, her favorite mare. Beauty was saddled with an ornate leather contraption, a shock of red and gold feathers shooting off the bridle at her milky forehead.

  I would have sworn Mom’s eyes were shining with tears. Which I did not want. I was already crackling with nervous energy. I believed I could do this, but what if I couldn’t? What if something went wrong? What if there was truth to what Nan said, and old magic that might put me in greater danger did exist?

  There isn’t. It doesn’t. You’re going to prove it.

  “All right,” I agreed, not thrilled about it. I did need a ride, just not this particular one.

  Mom smiled. She knew I wasn’t good with horses. She’d tried turning me into a rider when I was a kid, but all I’d done was kick and scream whenever she made an attempt to lift me into the saddle. It might have broken her heart, for a day or two, when I climbed onto the wire for the first time.

  “How far behind schedule are we?” I didn’t want Thurston to think I’d changed my mind.

  I put my foot in the stirrup, and Mom helped pull me on behind her. “We will be right on time.” She clicked her tongue and gave a command in Russian. Beauty bounced into a trot across the field. Mom’s ponytail swished in my face. We hit the sidewalk, the horse’s hooves clattering on concrete. Mom called back to me, “Solnyshka, you do not have to do this to make us proud. You know that?”

  My answer was light. “But you will be proud, right?”

  I was glad I was behind her, because I could hear the shiny tears in her answer. “I am always proud of you, my brave girl.”

  “Mom . . . I’ll be fine. I promise.”

  “If anything happens to you”—she paused, then—“I’ll kill your father.”

  We both laughed, though she probably wasn’t joking.

  The parade lineup came into view beside the river. Orange traffic cones blocked entry to the bridge connecting this side of the waterfront to the city. A couple of police cars were parked sideways to send a message: No Admittance. The herd of performers waited on this side, so bright and wonderful in the full sun that I almost regretted I wouldn’t be crossing into downtown among them—even if they were probably glad to have one less Maroni in their number.

  There was the silver-haired older lady ironically named Kat, wearing her epauletted uniform and surrounded by a half dozen of her dogs, barking and running around everyone’s feet in excitement. The Chinese acrobats wore their dragon-covered costumes, holding long streamers to wave in the air when they weren’t doing flips or when they were walking on each other’s shoulders. The clowns, diamonds of red greasepaint on their faces, stood near them on stilts covered by ballooning white silk pants. They towered over the Garcias, decked out in their pink and red and black. I scoured their group and finally picked out Remy, standing next to Novio and clearly making the blonde twins laugh. Dita wore a bow tie with her costume. The fact that it clashed with her skintight sequined number made me think that her mom probably didn’t approve of it any more than she had Remy’s quad attempt.

  And there was Dad, striding out of the pack toward us, with Thurston in full ringmaster garb at his side. I’d already seen Thurston earlier, when he met Dad and me in the morning to discuss the wire setup with the crew. Since then, Dad had been here supervising.

  Thurston outpaced Dad to meet us, a wireless mic clipped to his collar. “Good timing,” he said to us. “One of those cops is getting nervous. I’m afraid he’s going to call someone. Vonia.” He nodded at Mom in greeting.

  “We’ll be right here the whole time,” she said, quietly.

  “I know.” I slipped off Beauty as Sam, wearing the fringed ensemble he donned to assist with getting the horses in and out of the ring, clopped over on another of Mom’s mares.

  Thurston rattled on, “I was almost afraid our star here had decided not to—”

  “Do I look like a chicken?” I interrupted. When Sam opened his mouth to give a smart-ass answer, I gave him a good-natured dose of Bette Davis dragon: “Not a real question, Sam.” I made sure Thurston was listening before I went on. “This was my idea. We’re late because I just got my costume. No other reason.”

  “I was going to say, ‘No, you don’t look like you just came from a henhouse,’” Sam said. He grinned. “It was supposed to be a compliment.”

  I met Dad’s eyes, gave him a nod to let him know I was solid. He gave me one back that said he’d never questioned it for a second. It did more than anything else to make me feel ready.

  “Good,” Thurston said, chastened. “Like I said, we have a nosy cop, and we need to get things moving. I had to pretend we have a helicopter that’s going to fly over and drop a banner onto the wire.”

  Sam snorted. “What moron would believe that?”

  “That’s what I’m saying. Eccentric rich guy only goes so far. Let’s get a move on.” Thurston motioned toward the colorful crowd. Dad put a hand on my shoulder, squeezed, but that was it.

  None of them bothered with questions, with last-minute good lucks or be carefuls or offers to stay with me until I went up. Maybe we were all too superstitious to do i
t. Or maybe it’s just wiser not to consider the worst-case implications of anything we do, not right before we go on. I knew Nan was watching from the other side of the bridge. Maybe she’d keep her chipped fingernails crossed for me.

  The bridge was painted a vibrant blue. A steel structure made up of crisscrossing beams stretched in a long arc over the deeper blue waters of the Saint Johns River, the two towers rising on either side of its middle section like some giant’s Erector set.

  As we approached, the circus’s band arranged themselves at the back of the pack. They had brought the horn section and a portable drum along. When Thurston lifted his hand and signaled, they began to play. The sound was bright, horns blazing.

  We surged forward with the parade onto the four lanes of pavement, blue metal beams crossing over our heads, a large chaotic group under control for the moment. The switch into performance mode was complete in a blink.

  Thurston shepherded me to the front of the pack. He was talking, but I wasn’t absorbing a word he said. Someone jostled against my other side, and there was a tug at the low knot of my hair at the base of my neck. But when I turned, no one was anywhere near me. I caught Remy’s eye over my shoulder, and he gave me a slight frown. I resisted the urge to wave.

  Thurston and I sped into a jog to outdistance the others. They’d crawl along until I was in position and couldn’t be stopped, the better to prevent any interruptions by the authorities. We stopped below the first of the towers.

  The tower began well above the roadway, poised on the sixteen-foot metal “ceiling” of the bridge. The innards of the column were full of levers and cables, equipment for its actual purpose—to raise the entire middle section so tall ships could pass underneath. A nylon ladder the workmen had left for me dangled at eye level. There’d be a match to it on the opposite tower.

  And I’d be alone once I reached the top. The workmen, Thurston, my dad—they had no place in what was coming next. That was all on me.