Girl on a Wire

by Gwenda Bond

  “Youth never has to worry about being challenged by the beauty of age.”

  “You don’t believe that,” I scoffed. “Plus, it’s not true.”

  “You’re right,” she said. It was her turn to bat mascaraed lashes.

  My heart seized. This was my Nan. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed her, since we got here. She hadn’t been herself.

  “I don’t mind being overshadowed once in a while. Not by you, at least,” I said, and stepped aside so she could exit first.

  The day was all blue sky and shining sun without too much heat. We ran into Sam outside on the grass, weaving toward the trailer to shower off after his morning routine of mucking the stalls and learning a few tricks of the trade. Mom had begun to teach him some Russian voice commands, after she caught him trying them solo.

  “I don’t know what this is about,” he said, taking in Nan, “but I’m all for it. Carry on.”

  He mock-saluted and gave me a look that said, Well done, and went inside. He and I had talked over our concerns about Nan more than once in the past couple of weeks. I hadn’t told him about Remy and me teaming up yet, but I would when the time was right—when we had enough info that I was sure it wouldn’t result in Sam picking a fight with a Garcia.

  “You’re still not going to tell me where we’re going?” she asked.

  I looped my elbow through hers and started us across the grounds. “It’s a surprise.”

  Heads turned as we passed, and the whispers reminded me there was a reason Nan had been holing up in the RV. I glared at everyone whose reaction was visible.

  We stopped at Thurston’s massive personal trailer, or, rather, at the semi-massive trailer behind that, which housed his mobile office. The crew jokingly called it Air Force One. Someone had hung a sequin-studded American flag inside one of the long windows, above the Cirque’s painted logo on the outside.

  “Here we are,” I said. “I made an appointment with one of your biggest fans.” Before the prospect of us working with the Garcias at the Cirque had come up, Nan had tended to enjoy reminiscing about her glory days. And Thurston had mentioned to me that he would love to get her autograph on his posters of her, when she had time.

  “I have a bad feeling about this,” she said.

  “Too late to back out.” I knocked.

  Thurston’s office door popped open immediately. He beamed at us. “Come in, come in.”

  The steps up into the behemoth were wide enough for us both to walk aboard. But when I moved forward, Nan stayed put. She had a hand at her throat.

  “Jules . . .”

  Nan never started sentences without finishing them. Not for anything other than effect. She was as spooked as one of Mom’s horses during a thunderstorm.

  “Nan, don’t be shy.” I reached out and laid a hand on her arm. “Thurston has a collection of old posters, including some of yours. You love this sort of thing. When you were the world’s favorite Maroni.”

  Thurston had picked up on the tension. “I wouldn’t want to impose. Jules didn’t think you’d mind, and I am an eager fan . . .”

  His pause let me know that he was not happy this was a surprise to her. I didn’t care. He’d sent that letter about us to Roman Garcia. I wanted to know why.

  Nan relented. “I suppose I’m protesting too much,” she said. “I never used to overdo it. Nothing worse than false modesty in a performer.”

  Thurston laughed. He reached past me and took Nan’s hand. I released my hold on her, and he guided her up the broad stairs.

  “I was going to offer you coffee,” he said, “but that dress merits champagne.”

  “A man after my own heart,” she said.

  There was nothing Nan liked better than an excuse to have champagne during the day. Not that she was a heavy drinker; she wasn’t much of a drinker at all. But she’d explained to me years ago that champagne was an exception. Drinking it is simply telling life that its finer moments are appreciated.

  “I’ll have some too,” I said. We hadn’t had much call for celebration in the past few years.

  “You have a show in three hours,” Nan said.

  “And the owner tries not to directly break laws. Unless it’s to put you a few hundred feet above a city,” Thurston said.

  I shut the door behind me. “Woe.”

  The office had a comfortable seating area in what would have been the living room, with a buttery leather couch and chairs and a polished coffee table in between. A big desk covered in papers took up the rest of the cabin. It was outfitted with state-of-the-art computers and phones and gadgets, and there was a kitchen with a fridge and a coffeemaker beyond it.

  Thurston waved Nan onto the couch, and I noticed a heavy leather valise on the table. He made his way to the fridge and selected a bottle of champagne. I sank into a chair as the cork sighed open. He filled a glass for Nan, and carried the bottle over with him to hand the glass to her.

  Nan took the flute, and a sip. Her eyebrows lifted. “This is a nice vintage.”

  Thurston waved, embarrassed. “I’m honored to have you here. The amazing Nancy Maroni. You are a legend—not least because you retired well before you had to.”

  Nan downed more of her drink instead of answering. The bubbles rioted in the glass. I frowned. Thurston knew at least a little about why she’d left.

  “Nan has many gifts. For my whole childhood, people lined up before our shows to have her read their tarot. Very popular.”

  “To tell the future is definitely a gift. To be able to influence success or failure,” Thurston said. “The businessman in me is jealous.”

  Nan took another drink.

  “I don’t think I ever heard what made you decide to start your own circus,” I said.

  “Me either,” Nan murmured.

  He shrugged. “I’ve always been a circophile, and when you’ve made as much money as I have, you can afford to indulge a few dreams. I wanted one of my own, and I want to make it the best in history.”

  “A modest goal,” Nan said, dryly.

  Thurston leaned forward and picked up the portfolio. “It’s why I started collecting the old posters and other memorabilia in earnest when the idea first occurred to me. What better way to learn my competition? We’re up against the golden age and its epic performers.” He looked at Nan. “Like Nancy Maroni and all the other greats of the past. Do you want to see?”

  “Of course we do,” I said.

  I stayed on high alert, listening closely to see if anything might implicate him in a vendetta against my family. But so far all he’d admitted to was an obsession with circus history. That wasn’t enough to prove anything.

  Thurston unzipped the case to reveal posters in plastic slipcases. It was quite a collection. He flipped past the first several posters, some of them faded with age and probably rarer than any baseball card.

  The poster he stopped at was one I’d seen before—a painting of several flyers and, in big letters at the bottom, the act name, The Soaring Sloans, and the circus’s name beneath, The Chapman Brothers Circus & Menagerie. A blur of audience was dabbed into the background, and two trapeze artists with yellow and red feathered costumes passed each other in midair, having just released from their trapeze swings. The artist’s style wasn’t anything special, but it was nice enough.

  Nan’s face softened and her fingers went to the poster’s edges, a light touch. “That’s me. My first big job. Well, it wasn’t that big, but it seemed like Broadway and Ringling and Hollywood all rolled up into one at the time. I was only sixteen. Do you want me to sign it?”

  The young version of herself she’d tapped was a bottle blonde and feathered sketch on the platform. She hadn’t been well-known enough to be anything more than roughed in, but it was the first time she’d been included on a sell sheet. Nan was in her seventies now, and these were from more than fifty years ago. An eternity.

  “You’d have to put down your champagne,” he said. “Let’s say you can sign them next visit, ok
ay?”

  Nan tilted her glass. “Happily.”

  I didn’t want them to get too chummy. I still had my suspicions that Thurston might be the one so determined to keep rumors of Nan’s magic circulating—maybe even the one behind trying to upset her with the returning objects.

  Thurston turned a few more pages. “What was it like back then?”

  Another sip. “Not like now. People knew us. We were the last of your golden age. My mother and great-grandmother, they were the best of it, but we were the last. The audience was starting to get distracted—cars, TV, the war du jour, all of it.” She waved a hand. “But they still paid attention for a while.”

  “Was it a close community? Sometimes I wonder if I’m doing things right here. Everyone seems to stick to their own. I apologize for the snubs your family has received.”

  Nan grew serious. “Performers compete. Families do too. That’s the way of things. But it’s closer-knit than you think. People get bound up with each other, when they spend so many years bouncing around the same circuits. You may not see it every day, but the ties are there. That’s part of why they treat us the way they do. We went our own way a long time ago. We don’t belong anymore.”

  “Ah,” he said, “I have to disagree. The Maronis are my stars. You do belong.” He flicked to another page. “I bet you remember this one.”

  Even I nodded. A print of it hung in our hallway back home. Nan had gotten bigger billing, just two years later. Her face was the focal point of the poster, and radiated a swoon-inducing beauty.

  “Yes. My mother knew these half-crazy flyers from Bohemia. She used to read the cards for them. She signed me with them, the year before she died, when one of their girls broke her leg in a missed catch. I was watching them rehearse—I’d been doing a solo swing act—and I remember the bone sticking out of her shin. This guy”—she pointed to a barrel-chested catcher—“was quite a charmer. Or thought he was. The chemistry between us gave a little extra to the performance, so I suppose I owe him.”

  “You must have been quite the heartbreaker.”

  “Careful,” I said, “you’ll make it sound like she isn’t anymore.”

  Thurston inclined his head. “You’ve got a smart girl here.”

  “Don’t I know it,” she said, her tone considering.

  Thurston kept going. They chatted pleasantly through three more posters from giant Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey tours, which had featured Nan in various famous flying acts. Those were the shows where she’d really made her name, in the early 1960s. I stole a glance at Nan. She was finally relaxing, and had polished off her second flute of champagne. Thurston hadn’t given away anything else.

  “This was a pleasure,” Nan said, and I understood she was making her good-byes.

  “Oh,” Thurston said, “the pleasure is mine entirely. But we’re not quite done. I have one more to show you, the rarest in my collection.”

  He turned to the final page in the valise.

  I stood. There, on the most dazzlingly beautiful poster I’d ever seen, was Nan in a silver-sequined white costume draped in folds, like a goddess, only with bared legs. She was sitting on the trapeze in the center, and on swings around her were men outfitted in Roman soldier–style garb, with short Caesar-style haircuts. Men with somehow familiar faces. One of them, with a fake breastplate sewn onto his costume, towered above Nan, standing on the trapeze above her. They were all smiling. The script proclaimed them The Roman Warriors and Their Goddess, and after studying the poster for a few more seconds, I finally understood what I was seeing: Nancy Maroni starring with none other than the Flying Garcias.

  My gasp was audible.

  “I bet that brings back old memories,” Thurston said, perhaps to help cover the shock reverberating from me. Or was he motivated by something else? Was he trying to goad Nan into speaking out against the Garcias? Explaining what the old feud was about? Or did he want to discover the truth behind the rumors of magic that swirled around our family?

  “Too many,” Nan agreed, with an undercurrent of anger.

  I couldn’t stop myself from leaning forward, holding the page up to get a closer look at the poster. Which let me see the contents of the plastic slipcase behind it: a flimsy white envelope addressed to Thurston. I barely got a glimpse of the return address before Thurston reached in front of me to pick up the valise and close it.

  The letter was from Roman Garcia. Thurston had kept his return correspondence.

  “My apologies if seeing that poster made you uncomfortable, Nancy,” he said. “Truly, that’s the last thing I intended.”

  Nan nodded, but didn’t speak.

  “The things ancient history has to teach us,” I said. I lifted the empty champagne glass from her hand and set it on the table. “We’d better be going.”

  I held Nan’s shaking arm as we descended the stairs to the outside. I had found only more questions. I couldn’t point the finger at Thurston for planting the magic objects at this point. But I wasn’t entirely convinced he was innocent either—not without knowing what was in that letter.

  All I knew for sure was that my plan to keep from upsetting Nan too much had accomplished the exact opposite.

  thirteen

  * * *

  After our early show the next day, I plopped Sam’s laptop on the kitchen table and started making loud noises in my mother’s general direction about how our wireless network was down, some trouble with the satellite provider, “I hate this stupid thing,” and so on. The usual noises I made when I couldn’t get Sam’s computer to work.

  Mom and I were alone. Dad had already left for a walk, and Sam was out helping give the horses their rubdown. Nan was home, but in bed, claiming a migraine. Our visit with Thurston really had upset her. I’d found out enough that I needed to talk to Remy about next steps, but I still felt guilty.

  “What’s your trouble with that thing?” Mom asked. She didn’t like computers.

  “Someone told me there’s a video of me online. I want to watch it.”

  “A video doing what?”

  “Walking.” I mimicked holding the balance pole. My fingers twisted as I snapped them. “I know. I can use the schoolroom’s.”

  She frowned, but only for a second. “They probably won’t mind. You can get Sammy to fix that later.”

  I was already on my way out the door. “Back in a few.”

  I knew exactly where the schoolroom RV was parked, despite the fact I hadn’t been inside of it yet. Before we’d even arrived, my parents had decreed that Sam and I would stay separate from the other under-eighteens, clocking our time with Nan to get enough school hours for work permits. That was fine with me. I had no need to spend hours with the teacher Thurston hired, a perky PhD student from the Ivy League. I guessed she’d taken the gig for résumé color or as research for some long-winded essay about how wacky circus culture was. Nan was a great teacher, and I liked getting the extra time with her anyway.

  The small trailer was more battered than most of our fleet, but a fresh coat of red paint made it less of a scrap heap reject. I was jumpy approaching the door. Not because of seeing Remy, I told myself, but because of what I had to tell him.

  The schoolroom was cramped inside. Old desks crowded around the edges, and I spotted only two computers. In contrast to everything else, they appeared to be state-of-the-art, with huge flat-screen monitors. Thurston’s doing, no doubt.

  I almost smiled with relief when I saw Remy at a desk, scratching away with a pencil at a notebook, a book open flat in front of him. But I stiffened when I realized that he wasn’t the only other person in the room. Novio was occupying one of the computer stations.

  Clearing my throat, I stepped forward. This was my best opportunity to talk to Remy, and I didn’t want to miss it. But what would Novio think? Remy had told Dita I was interested in him, but that didn’t mean Novio had been given the same story.

  Novio said, “What are you doing here?”

  His tone made it c
lear he’d be happier if it turned out he was hallucinating. Great. No cover story.

  Remy said, casually, “Yeah, to what do we owe the honor? You need to borrow a dictionary or something?”

  Novio laughed as if this was funny.

  I studied my surroundings, like I was ignoring them both. C’mon, Remy, help me out here. The wood-paneled walls were dotted with “art” done by children. Near me was a messy, many-hued drawing of a cigar-smoking clown, colored way outside its lines.

  “Where’s your teacher?” I asked.

  “She ran over to the mess to grab coffee before the others get here,” Remy said. “Caffeine addict. You need something?”

  Novio tossed his brother a frown. “Why don’t you just roll out the red carpet for her?”

  Remy shrugged. “What does it matter?”

  Novio stood. “I think I need some coffee too.”

  “Suit yourself,” Remy said.

  I braced like Novio was going to punch me as he went past, but couldn’t resist a quip. “Don’t bother to bring me a cup. I’m not staying long.”

  “I wasn’t going to,” he said, “and good.”

  With that, Novio left. But he didn’t shut the door behind him.

  “Hurry,” Remy said, getting up. “He could change his mind and come back.”

  Remy sat down at the computer station next to the one his brother had just been working on. “Come on,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “In case they come back. I’m helping you, remember?”

  “Right.” I pulled over a chair so I was next to him.

  Remy punched a button and the screen flared to life.

  “I don’t really need to see anything.”

  “Appearances,” he said. “Other people will be here soon. What did you say you were coming here to do?”

  “Look up a video of myself. But I just made that up.”

  He launched the browser and started clicking around. I took advantage of the opportunity to look at him without having to meet his eyes. He was clean-shaven today, his hair still damp from a shower. It was yet another of the unfair things about life that he was this appealing.