Touch the Stars (18 page)

Stephen chuckled deep in his throat and pulled her close. Then he picked her shirt up from the floor and helped her put it on. When it was buttoned, he held her silently for a few moments, gently caressing the nape of her neck.

"Go to bed, Juliana," he whispered in her ear. "To your own bed. You must believe I love you, if I love you enough to let you go now."

She stood up and so did he; then she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tight. She'd never thought she was capable of loving a man so much.

In desperation Julie said, "Oh, Stephen, why weren't you good at—at fixing cars or—or making widgets, or building highways? Why did you have to be good at walking a wire?"

It was only a rhetorical question, but Stephen took it seriously.

"Because, Juliana," he said quietly, "I was meant to touch the stars."

* * *

The farmhouse was quiet. Everyone had left—the performing troupe the night before, and Stephen had departed for the mountains before that. Claire, Nonna, Sam, Eric and Lynda and the two children had just driven out of the driveway in two cars, headed for Tallulah Gorge. Stephen would begin his walk across the Gorge at two o'clock.

The morning heat on this mid-August Saturday was stifling, and Julie gave up the idea of running a couple of miles. At loose ends, she went inside the house, picking up one of Tonia's Barbie dolls here, emptying a wastebasket there. It was so quiet with everyone gone!

Julie realized with a jolt that she had never been alone in the farmhouse. Her footsteps echoed hollowly on the wooden floor of the hall, which made her feel even more depressed. As keyed up as she was over the crossing, how on earth was she going to get through this day?

Stephen had asked her one last time before he got into the car on the morning he left, and she had told him again that she would not come to watch him walk the Tallulah Gorge. It would be the utmost torture to see him out there on the wire, and to think of it made her stomach heave. She folded her arms across her abdomen and sat listlessly in front of the TV. If only someone had stayed behind to keep her company! But no one had offered, and she felt more than a little self-pity. She turned the TV on, thinking that maybe there'd be something that would catch her interest.

She watched a few minutes of an award-winning documentary about homeless people, and then came a station break. During the break the singer-actress Rose O'Sharon appeared to plug her new movie, and an announcer from
Dare!
informed the viewers that Rose O'Sharon would make a personal appearance to sing the national anthem at Tallulah Gorge before the famous high-wire performer, Stephen Andrassy, walked a two-inch steel cable across the—

Julie zapped the program with a click of the remote. She pressed her fists into her eyes. No matter what she did today, she couldn't get away from it. Stephen was going to walk across the Gorge, and whether she was there in person or not, she would be there in her thoughts. She loved him, and she would be wherever Stephen Andrassy went, no matter what he did, because he was always in her heart and in her mind.

Julie leaped to her feet and ran upstairs. She found a canvas tote bag and stuffed her nightgown and a spare set of clothes into it; she scooped her few cosmetics from the dresser. She stopped by the bathroom and grabbed her toothbrush, and then she ran down the stairs two at a time. She slammed the front door, pausing only long enough to make sure she had locked it behind her.

She was in her car, lurching it into gear, wheeling it around until she was on the driveway going lickety-split. She was leaving the big empty farmhouse because she could not stay there alone. She had to be present when Stephen stepped off the high wire after a successful crossing.

She didn't know how she would be able to stand it when she watched Stephen out on the wire, advancing slowly toward her. She didn't know how she would be able to look down, down into the yawning chasm when Stephen was suspended over it. But she would be there.

Anything would be better than being back in the farmhouse, all alone, while thousands of other people watched Stephen cross the treacherous Tallulah Gorge with nothing between him and death but a two-inch steel cable.

Chapter 10

Julie dodged battered pickup trucks and Cadillacs and a Subaru that had no sense of direction. She fought for a parking place, lost it, and was finally urged to park in a vacant lot by a boy who was collecting five dollars apiece from drivers desperate to find a space.

"Where do I go to watch the crossing?" she asked as she pressed a bill into his hand, and the boy said, "There's a bus to take you." So Julie hopped into a minivan already occupied by several other passengers including a baby who wailed at the top of his lungs. They jounced the short distance to the site and jumped out of the minivan into a street-carnival atmosphere.

Julie glanced both ways before attempting to cross the busy street, and an impatient policeman directing traffic waved her back. She retreated obediently, backing into a fat man hawking programs. She bought a program and asked the man, "Where's the observation deck, the one for visiting dignitaries?"

"I dunno, miss," he said. "I just sell programs."

A girl vending balloons with a picture of Stephen's face on them overheard the exchange and told Julie, "It's down that way." She pointed toward a dirt road.

Julie fought her way through the throng, and someone stepped on her foot. She barely felt the pain. All she could think about was getting to the observation deck. That was the only important thing now.

The road abounded with milling people. It led to an area on the south side of the Gorge from which the public could watch the crossing, and through the overlying haze of dust, Julie saw a flag-bedecked, canvas-roofed structure. The path to it was blocked by barricades.

A woman carrying a baby in a blue canvas sling jostled Julie, apologized and hurried on. A troop of Boy Scouts ran past, and she was caught up in their midst. In the free-for-all, the ribbon holding her hair in its ponytail came untied and fell to the ground, where it was trampled in the dust along with the bright skins of popped balloons. She heard a band warming up, and frantically she realized that Stephen's walk was about to begin. If she didn't hurry, she would be too late.

"Excuse me," Julie said, approaching one of the security guards at the barricade. "I need to go to the observation deck."

"The only people allowed past this point are authorized visitors. You got a pass?"

"No, but I'm Julie Andrassy. The wire walker's, uh, cousin."

The guard stared at her. "You don't look like him," he said.

"I got a twin brother, and we don't look nothing alike," the other guard said, smiling at her.

Julie pushed her hair back behind her ears. "Please," she said urgently, addressing the smiling one. "I've got to get through. The rest of my family is there, and we got separated, but I'm supposed to be with them. Really, I am." She favored him with her sweetest smile.

The band, warmed up now, began to play "The Star Spangled Banner." Julie heard the full-throated voice of Rose O'Sharon. If she didn't get there soon, she would be too late.

"Here," she said desperately, digging in her handbag. She found her wallet and flipped through the family pictures to her driver's license. "See? Juliana Andrassy, that's me."

The nice security guard blew a bubble with blue bubble gum and popped it between his teeth. He studied the picture on her driver's license for what seemed like years.

"Okay, lady, you can go through. But just this once, y'hear?" He winked. She ignored the flirtation and sprinted toward the observation deck where she could see, through a fine mist of dust around the pylon that anchored the wire, Paul's burly back and Lynda's bright red hair.

Lynda caught sight of her, and before she knew it, Paul and Sam were reaching down and pulling her up.

"You came!" Lynda said, looking surprised.

"Now we're all here," Tonia said happily. She threw her arms around Julie's waist.

Nonna turned stiffly around in her chair at the front of the deck. "I'm so glad you are here, Julie," she said approvingly.

"I couldn't stay away," Julie explained, her words tumbling out in rapid succession.

"We're glad you didn't," Eva said, enveloping her in a quick hug.

"Come stand with Gabrielle and me. We're way over in the corner with a good view of the platform on the north side of the Gorge." Eva curved an arm around her waist.

The announcer called out, "Ladies and gentlemen, the moment you have all been waiting for is about to begin. Stephen Andrassy is about to start his treacherous walk. In case some of you are not familiar with the name Andrassy, let me tell you about this illustrious family." The announcer kept talking, his words reverberating loudly from strategically placed loudspeakers around the viewing area.

"Does anyone have an extra pair of binoculars?" Julie whispered nervously.

"Use these." Gabrielle handed her a pair, and Julie held them up to her eyes. They brought the pylon on the other side of the chasm startlingly close.

There was a flurry of movement surrounding the pylon, and Julie identified Michael among the group of photographers and TV cameramen waiting for Stephen to mount the wire.

"Do you see him? Do you, do you?" Tonia asked.

"Not yet," Julie replied automatically. The wire swayed ever so slightly with the capricious wind sweeping down the Gorge, but to Julie's practiced eye, the cavallettis seemed well-placed and tight. Below the cable swooped banks of power lines strung between poles. If Stephen fell, chances were he'd become entangled in them. Julie's stomach cramped at the thought.

"Stephen Andrassy will walk across the Tallulah Gorge on a steel cable two inches in diameter," said the voice from the loudspeaker. "The length of the cable is nine hundred and eighty feet between the tower on the north side of the Gorge and the tower on this, the south side. The supporting guy wires for the cables are placed at thirty-foot intervals and are anchored in concrete at various spots in the Gorge itself. There is no net, ladies and gentlemen. When I asked Stephen Andrassy if he was planning to rig a net, he said, 'It is unthinkable.'"

Julie didn't want to know about cable and anchors and cavallettis. She wanted to know about Stephen. Was he nervous? Worried? Had he slept well last night? Was he ready both mentally and physically to go on the wire? And did he think of her now, at all? For safety's sake he must not think of her or anything else once he was on the wire.

She saw a sudden flash of red on the other side of the Gorge, and then she spied Stephen. He was there! He was about to begin.

The announcer's monologue reached a feverish pitch. The crowd stirred restlessly. Julie removed the binoculars from her eyes long enough to see a woman below the observation deck cover her face with her hands.

Julie raised the binoculars again and saw Stephen step onto the platform. He raised his arms, first one, then the other, in a graceful acknowledgment of the crowd's applause. He was smiling and self-assured. The wind was strong enough to ruffle his hair, and Julie remembered the day the two of them had gone together for haircuts. Somehow, that day seemed very long ago.

Stephen accepted his balancing pole from Albert and hefted it in his hands. Then he stepped forward, ready to place his foot on the cable. A hush fell over the crowd.

Stephen stood erect and smiling, gathering his concentration. And then, supremely confident, he stepped out on the wire.

One foot was placed precisely and brilliantly, and then the other foot, as he slid forward in the graceful gait of the wire walker. His hips were straight and did not shift from side to side; neither did his shoulders. It was important to find balance before those first few steps, and Stephen had. His whole body was calm and controlled. He had centered down into himself, and nothing intruded.

Julie barely breathed. She scarcely thought of that terrible night in New Orleans eight years ago. All she thought about was Stephen, and even though her palms were sweaty and her stomach churned, she felt a surprising elation. She concentrated so intensely on Stephen, on his every movement, that she thought she could feel the stiff breeze that blew through the Gorge. She bent with the wind, becoming a part of it, compensating for it, and she felt the wire between her big toe and her second toe, the way Stephen was feeling it now.