Touch the Stars (7 page)

One of the things they found to jaw about that summer was the Andrassy family.

"You reckon them folks is gypsies?" one old geezer said to another after Albert Andrassy came out of the Lion & Lamb Grocery carrying a big watermelon, stowed it in the trunk of his car and drove away.

The second man took time to transfer his tobacco from one cheek to the other.

"Reckon they might be," he allowed.

"I hear they got this big wire strung up out there at Claire Murchison's place."

"You mean Claire Andrassy."

"Well, Claire Murchison that
was."

"Old man Murchison be spinning in his grave if he knew a bunch of gypsies was camped out on his dairy farm."

"Camped out? They're living in her house!"

"You don't say."

"And like I said, they got this big wire strung out across the far pasture."

"Weren't that guy with the funny accent some kind of tightrope walker?"

"Sure was. In a carnival or somethin'"

"Mmm-
mmm!
I declare. A bunch of gypsies is settin' up to walk a tightrope across old man Murchison's dairy farm! What is the world comin' to, I wonder?"

They settled down to contemplate that and other such important questions while somebody slapped a checkerboard down on a sawed-off nail keg, and somebody else dug the checkers out of the pocket of his denim overalls.

Life would go on as usual in Peaceable Kingdom, Georgia.

At about the time Junior Bodine was capturing Bobby Joe Cabbagestalk's last king, Julie drove her sedan onto the shady main street.

"Which way now, Nonna?" she asked anxiously, seeing the town's only stoplight looming ahead.

"Left, I think. No, right. Oh, I don't know. I don't see so well these days."

Eva, riding in the back seat, consulted the GPS in her Blackberry. "Looks to me like you turn right, Julie."

Julie negotiated the turn, then glanced in the rear-view mirror. "Where do I go now?"

"You drive about five miles out of Peaceable Kingdom, then look for a subdivision called Andrassy Acres. Another mile down the road we'll see a rural mailbox with 'Andrassy' printed on it."

"Nonna, are you all right?" Julie asked anxiously.

"Of course. I'm going to see my family together again." Nonna smiled, and her eyes sparkled behind her glasses.

They passed Andrassy Acres, a development of nice-sized brick houses on wooded plots of land bordering several small lakes. Eva craned her neck to look.

"It's a pretty subdivision," she commented, facing front again.

"It was smart of Paul," Julie said, "to think of selling off Claire's cows and dividing the land up for building houses."

"He had a bit of luck, too," Eva reminded her. "If it hadn't been for that new semiconductor plant starting up about ten miles from here, there wouldn't have been a market for the lots. Also, he told me that retirees are moving here in droves."

"Paul is one Andrassy who has found a way to earn a living without risking his neck on the wire every day," observed Julie, unable to resist.

"Oh, look," Eva said, eager to divert any argument with Julie about the wisdom of her own decision to go back on the wire. "There's the mailbox."

The driveway to the house was long and curving, and it wound through gently rolling hills dotted with trees. It was hot in midafternoon, and the air was humid. Grasshoppers sprang out of the way of the car, and cicadas buzzed in the underbrush. Soon they saw in front of them a two-story house of time-blurred brick.

"This is it!" Eva said excitedly.

Julie never had time to worry about the reunion being awkward. They were caught up in the outpouring of people: Paul, swarthy and heavyset, and Claire, his wife, little and bursting with energy and excitement; bearded Albert, walking slowly along the dirt path from the barn; handsome, curly-haired Michael and his red-haired wife, Lynda, with their children, Tonia and Mickey; and little Gabrielle, the youngest cousin, shorn of her pigtails and all grown-up at twenty.

And finally, when Julie thought he wasn't there, Stephen appeared suddenly.

He had been down in the meadow testing the cable. When, on his way back, he heard the popping of gravel under the tires of the car, he had broken into a run, hoping that it really was Julie. As the car passed the path through the woods he saw Julie's profile, and he was filled with happiness. He had been so afraid that she'd decide not to come after all.

Julie stepped out of the car, tossing her long ponytail back from her face in a characteristic gesture. She laughed at something Albert said, and the melodious strain of her laughter tumbled through the air. Stephen hurried toward her.

"Let me help you with that," Stephen said, moving to take Julie's duffel from her hand.

"No, I can—"

"Juliana," he said teasingly, "you must learn to give in once in a while."

She was so glad to see him again! "On little things," she said, letting the handle slip from her hand to his. "Only on little things."

He grinned at her. "That's a start."

Claire led them all into the house to show them where they would stay. Nonna's room was the small unused downstairs study, furnished for her visit with a bed so that she wouldn't have to climb the stairs. Eva, Julie and Gabrielle were to share a blue upstairs bedroom with curtains of dotted swiss billowing languidly inward from the windows.

"Such a pretty room!" Julie told Claire, pleased by the view of trees and gentle hills.

"Do you like it? I'm so glad! I washed the curtains just for your visit, and I made the duvet covers myself." Claire whirled around the room, adjusting the height of the window sash, flicking an imaginary speck of dust off the dressing table. Julie had forgotten how Paul's wife fairly sparkled; her warmth and enthusiasm made seeing all the Andrassys together again easier than Julie had expected.

Nothing would do but that they must tour the rest of the house, and so they stopped by the bedroom where Albert bunked with Claire's two teenage sons—Sam, who was working that day, and Eric, away at summer camp. They peeked briefly into the snug sewing room that served Stephen as an office and was where he slept alone on the pullout couch. They saw the big corner room that was Claire and Paul's master bedroom. Then they trooped out to the field where Michael was staying with his family in a two-bedroom mobile home. It had once been occupied by the foreman of the dairy but was no longer in use, since most of the farm had been subdivided into tracts.

"There's cold watermelon on the back porch," Claire announced after they'd seen everything, and they gathered to rock in slat-backed rockers and to cheer on Michael's two children, who engaged in an impromptu watermelon-seed-spitting contest.

Stephen sat on the floor beside Julie, eating watermelon for the first time. He wasn't sure if he liked watermelon or not; there were so many seeds! But he did like listening to her talk about the long drive from Venice to Peaceable Kingdom with Nonna and Eva, taking pleasure in the way she laughed about the lunch they had eaten in an awful fast-food restaurant along the way.

Finally, when they had talked themselves out and the children had run away to catch grasshoppers to put in a Mason jar with holes poked in the lid, the talk died down and they sat too lazy to move. They inhaled the scent of roses, which were the shade of garnets, and watched clouds billow softly across a sky of brilliant sun-washed blue.

Nonna rocked gently in the shade of a wisteria vine, her face peaceful. "All my grandchildren are here," she murmured softly. "And my great-grandchildren, too. Oh, Julie, I am so happy."

And in that moment, Julie was happy for her.

Still, she had a feeling that it was going to be a long two weeks. The Amazing Andrassys would begin training on the wire tomorrow.

Chapter 4

The next day promised to be flawless, with white clouds like paper cutouts pasted against a pale blue sky. Stephen headed to the meadow early, whistling as he went. Today he felt happy and buoyant with anticipation.

He began to check the practice cable that he'd strung three feet above the ground between two trees. He concentrated so completely on his task that he was surprised to see a figure working its way toward him, not on the path he had made, but through the tall grass.

Julie approached quietly. At first he thought she was Eva. But then he saw the ponytail bouncing around her shoulders.
Juliana,
he thought, but the wire required concentration. He kept pulling the metal eye toward the hoist hook, finally fastening it.

"You're out early," she said, standing in grass that reached her knees.

"So are you," he said. He ran a cloth over the cable.

"Want me to help check for kinks?" she offered suddenly and unexpectedly.

He tore off a piece of the cloth and tossed it to her. "You start at that end of the wire, and I will start at this end."

She began to wipe her bit of cloth along the cable. "I saw Grandfather Anton and my father and Uncle Bela do this many times," she said by way of explanation. "No meat hooks, that's important." Meat hooks were broken wires that could stick up and do damage to an unaware wire walker's foot.

They worked along the cable, Julie shooting surreptitious glances toward Stephen. He didn't try to start a conversation, and she supposed she should be grateful. But she wasn't.

"Where did you get the wire?" she asked after a while.

"Paul kept it here on the farm, lying in those weeds over there." He gestured toward a thicket.

"I didn't know Paul thought that there would ever be an Amazing Andrassy act again."

"He didn't. He just figured that in case it happened, it would be good to have aged wire. Now let's switch sides, and you rub your cloth the opposite way. It is best to double check each other."

Julie concentrated on her task. This looked like good, sturdy wire, and due to its outdoor aging, there seemed to be no grease left in it. During the manufacturing process, steel cable was greased, and the grease had to be removed before it was ready to be used. Grandfather Anton had been a fount of knowledge about the wire, and he'd taught all of them well.

"Now," Stephen said with satisfaction, "we are done." He stepped back and rested a hand on the cable. He looked pleased and sure of himself.

"I thought you were going to practice in the barn," she said, wondering why, if that was so, Stephen had stretched this cable between two trees.

"First I want to begin outdoors. I want us all to feel the fresh air, to breathe it, to become one with nature. Then it will be easier to conquer the strongest force of nature—gravity. Do you not believe this?"

"I don't think about it," Julie said. She had no intention of listening to such nonsense and threw the rag to Stephen.

"Juliana," Stephen said in a low tone. He blocked her way, standing there in jeans and a gray T-shirt with the sleeves torn out. The shirt didn't cover his stomach but was cut off to reveal the tight, hard muscles there.

"I want to explain something to you."

She stared at him mutely, wishing he would move aside so she could pass.

"A cable in the air connects two points in space," Stephen said, his eyes glowing with passion. "If I walk the cable, then I am the connector. I am the person who makes those two points one."

She was caught up in his intensity, in his purpose. It was clear that he believed wholeheartedly in what he was saying.

"There are spaces to be connected between members of the Andrassy family before they can be as close as they were in the old days. When the family again performs together on the high wire, they will no longer be apart in loneliness. Do you understand?"

Julie suppressed a sigh of impatience. Okay, so Stephen believed himself to be the instrument for reuniting her family. He was not only the walker of the real wire, but the walker of the invisible thread of communication he had unreeled for the Andrassys. Big deal.

"You are much too idealistic, Stephen. There is nothing mystical about walking the wire. It isn't an exercise of the spirit, but of the flesh. And the flesh is all too frail."

He wasn't fooled; he knew that she understood the point he'd been trying to make. He felt pity for her. She looked so forlorn, so unhappy.