We Walked the Sky Read online

  Next in the pile was a mod little minidress her grandmother had designed for her to wear at a charity benefit performance. In it, she had delighted an audience of wealthy baby boomers by performing a dance called the Watusi on the wire. Her grandmother’s idea, which Callie had found both campy and fun. And while she might not have been world famous in the strictest Lady Gaga sense of the term, in the circus industry she was hailed as a swiftly rising star, the darling of the tightrope.

  Just as her grandmother, Victoria VanDrexel, had been when she was a girl.

  Callie’s eyes were suddenly drawn to a battered carton in the farthest corner of the garage—not one of the crisp, pristine boxes the moving company had supplied but an old, worn one, with dented corners and paper tape peeling upward at the ends. Written on the side of the box in faded block letters was the name VICTORIA.

  It was as if by thinking her grandmother’s name, Callie had somehow conjured her spirit. Why hadn’t her mother told her she had kept some of Gram’s belongings?

  Maneuvering through the cardboard labyrinth, Callie lugged the unwieldy carton to a roomier spot. Her fingers caught one of the upturned corners of the tape, and when she tore it away, the sound filled the garage like the drumroll that had always preceded Victoria’s act. Callie opened the flaps, and a magnificently familiar scent assaulted her: sawdust and old suede and Chanel N°5.

  * * *

  • • •

  “Callie?”

  She didn’t answer; she was engrossed in a new routine she was choreographing for opening night in Tulsa.

  “Callie . . . come down.”

  “I’m kind of busy, Mom.”

  It didn’t occur to her how unusual it was for Quinn to interrupt her during a practice session. It was always just Callie and Gram in the tent at rehearsal, speaking the almost-secret language that only they and the wire understood.

  “I have to talk to you, honey,” Quinn called up. “Please come down.”

  “Can it wait? And where’s Gram? She was supposed to meet me here at seven. She never sleeps in.”

  “Callie . . . please.”

  Callie climbed down from the platform and presented herself, scowling, to her mother.

  “Baby . . . I’m so sorry.”

  Callie didn’t understand. The full truth was still hidden in the shiver of her mother’s voice, but the heaviness of the words as they fell from her tongue landed hard on Callie’s heart. “Sorry for what?”

  Quinn lowered her eyes. She shook her head as a sob escaped her.

  Callie was suddenly seized with terror. She couldn’t stand up; she couldn’t move forward. The world shrank to a vicious wire, rotating violently beneath her feet. She couldn’t find her balance. Balance no longer existed.

  “Gram’s gone, baby. She died in her sleep. It was so peaceful. Graceful, almost, just the way she would have wanted it.”

  And then more words from her mother, truths that felt like lies. “Cancer . . . last year . . . aggressive tumor . . . didn’t want you to know.”

  But Callie couldn’t listen anymore. Her world had just changed forever, and no amount of explanation could reverse it. Without a word, she turned away from her mother, climbed back up the ladder, and disappeared into her routine.

  * * *

  • • •

  So Quinn had delayed her departure and stayed on at VanDrexel’s to be with Gram while she was dying. Except no one had bothered to tell Callie that.

  As if the shock and heartbreak of Victoria’s death hadn’t been enough, Quinn’s first order of business following the funeral was to call Brad Marston and ask if her job was still available.

  It was. And this time, the relocation package would cover two plane tickets.

  Wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, Callie stared down at her grandmother’s tightrope shoes, the perfect leather slippers with the suede soles. Her grandmother hadn’t worn them in ages, but the uniquely molded shape of them, the worn quality of the leather, had Callie imagining Victoria taking them off just moments before.

  They’d been packed into the cardboard box on top of a vinyl-covered chest—an old-fashioned jewelry box, Callie thought. Stuffed in around the box were other keepsakes: framed photos, old circus programs—even a faded VanDrexel’s Family Circus T-shirt. Setting aside the shoes, but without removing the chest from the carton, she carefully lifted the lid.

  A sort of shelf was nestled into it, and on it sat a black-and-white photograph of two pretty girls. Callie had never seen the photo before, but there was no doubt that the dark-haired one was Victoria. Judging by the other girl’s hairstyle, Callie guessed it was probably taken sometime in the 1960s, and Victoria and her friend appeared to be riding in the back of a pickup truck. Squinting, Callie saw that her grandmother was holding a paper bag with the word WOOLWORTH’S emblazoned across it.

  Putting aside the photo, Callie lifted the velvet tray, shocked to find that, instead of jewelry, the box was filled with several strange scraps of paper. Each was a different shape, color, texture; each had a phrase or sentence written on it by her grandmother. Some of the phrases were carefully inscribed in the lovely looping script Victoria used when signing autographs; others were written in her tidy, careful print, and still others seemed to have been dashed off in a hurry, their letters all sloppy and smudged.

  If the balloons can do it, so can I.

  A name is a kind of enchantment.

  A thing that’s wild can be taught, but never tamed.

  It was all too much for Callie—too close, too far away, too . . . over. With a shuddering breath, she closed the lid and left the garage.

  * * *

  • • •

  “Did you find what you were looking for?” asked Quinn.

  Callie gave a curt nod. Tamping down the ache in her chest, she forced herself to focus on her new living situation.

  It was certainly spacious enough, spreading out across the width of three garage bays. It was also profoundly musty and dank; the oxygen felt vintage, like it was so old it had forgotten how to let itself be breathed. Cobwebs dripped from the empty curtain rods like amateur aerialists, and the floor was coated with dust. All the furniture was draped in white sheets, giving the impression of a gathering of ghosts.

  Worst by far was the kitchenette with its amalgam of roaring twenties cabinetry, 1950s linoleum, and disco-era appliances.

  Two rooms opened off the main living space. Callie trudged into the first, where a double bed with a wicker headboard was shoved haphazardly against the far wall. The mattress, she was relieved to see, was brand-new, still in its plastic wrapping. She supposed she had Marston to thank for that (though she wouldn’t). There was an antique dresser next to the closet, and the floor was fashioned of wide bamboo planks that would probably gleam after a good sweeping. A glass door with leaded panes opened onto one of the little balconies, which, precarious condition of its banister notwithstanding, Callie didn’t hate. Across the room, a large window looked out on a pair of swaying palms.

  Maybe, if she tried, she could get used to this place.

  But she had no intention of trying.

  Why bother, since she had no intention of staying.

  Because even if this were the cutest apartment on the planet, it would always be standing still. There would be no more falling asleep to a snowy mountain view outside her window, only to awaken to a balmy seaside sunrise.

  Just keep moving forward. Callie’s grandmother had drilled that phrase into her head from the moment she’d first mounted the practice rope at age three. It wasn’t simply good advice, it was a rule, a commandment. Directional inertia—the means by which those who walked the wire stayed alive. Standing still for too long meant failure.

  Which was why tucked into one of those suitcases in the other room was a letter addressed to Signore M. Ricci, owner and operator of Un Picco
lo Circo Familiare in Perugia, Italy.

  When she heard the soft squeak of her mother’s sneakers behind her, Callie didn’t turn around. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Quinn placing something on the dresser—a pewter urn engraved with a single V. As if by some unspoken agreement forged of anger and heartache, neither of them acknowledged it.

  “Not a bad little room,” Quinn pronounced, joining her daughter at the window.

  “Sure, if you like wicker,” Callie baited.

  Quinn shot her daughter a look and began opening windows. “Anyway, it’s just temporary. Mr. Marston’s going to have the whole place remodeled for us. He’s already apologized a thousand times for not having it done already, but it’s not like I gave him much notice. He’s promised that come summer, our home will be state-of-the-art.”

  Come summer, Callie thought, I’ll be gone.

  TWO

  Massachusetts, 1965

  THE WORDS FOR THIS parting do not exist in any language, so I bid my mother goodbye without them, kissing her lightly on her forehead.

  Then I run. Because that’s what you do when you’re running away, isn’t it? You run, knowing that what you’re running from might at any moment discover you’ve escaped; you run, fearing that the danger will follow you for the rest of your life. But that’s the bargain you’ve made, that’s the risk inherent in all actions undertaken in desperation. If nothing else, at least I know I’m going with my mother’s blessing.

  I wonder briefly if I will look suspicious to anyone who might notice—a rich girl in a pair of pristine white Keds, plaid pedal pushers, and a powder-blue cotton blouse, sprinting at full tilt along the manicured lanes of Brooksvale. Perhaps on any other day I would, but today, I imagine—I hope—it will just seem like I’m eager to get to the circus.

  * * *

  • • •

  I run until I can see the fairgrounds ahead, where the Big Top looks like some floppy canvas version of the Taj Mahal. Just keep moving forward, I tell myself, keep moving forward. Slowing my pace, I do just that, visually transforming myself from frightened runaway to carefree circus-goer. It’s amazing how easy it is to disappear, to vanish into this crowd of eager strangers, into the colors and the music, into this place where my father would never even think to look for me—the me he thinks I am, at any rate; the me he has created with the back of his hand and the heel of his shoe and the unwavering gleam of ownership that both lights and darkens his eyes whenever he looks at me.

  Or at her. I take cold comfort in the fact that he won’t have her to look at for much longer and wrap my fingers around the diamonds, emeralds, rubies, and sapphires clustered in her brooch. It occurs to me that my mother’s gift contains all the colors of the circus, and I squeeze it once, gently, before slipping it into my pocket. I’m relieved to feel the few coins and dollar bills I slipped in there earlier today. My plans with Emily for the evening, in addition to listening to records in the Davenports’ rumpus room, included a walk to the soda shop, where Emily has a charge account. Not me. When you’re not supposed to be someplace, you don’t run a tab. You pay cash and hope your father never finds out where you’ve been.

  The crush of the spectators envelops me, as the ruddy-faced barker, in a parody of himself, cries out, “Step right up, step right up . . .”

  And so I do, and he sells me my escape for three dollars and fifty cents.

  “Better hurry ’n’ grab a seat, sweetheart,” the ticket salesman advises. “The Spec’ll be startin’ in five.”

  “Spec?”

  The barker laughs. “Our big entrance. A real grand circus parade.”

  The ticket in my palm is like a talisman; I will go where it takes me. The flow of the crowd sweeps me into the tent, and my heart races as I enter. I hadn’t been prepared for how glittering and seductive a world made of canvas could be. Three enormous rings have been set up in the dirt, and I take my seat on the bottom bleacher. I am as close as I can be to the show, as far as I can be from my life of just minutes ago. Overhead is a vast network of ropes and wires, like the rigging of the tall ships I’ve seen in Boston Harbor. Vendors hawk sodas and souvenirs over the noise of a thousand eager conversations. The anticipation is palpable, the din oddly womblike.

  I catch a glimpse of a woman in fishnet tights climbing a ladder toward the pinnacle of the tent. She has feathers in her hair and looks utterly calm, despite the fact that she has now risen forty . . . no, forty-five . . . fifty . . . sixty feet above the ground! The ladder deposits her on a small platform with a hand railing, and she stands there with her hip cocked, her toe pointed, perfectly still, like a doll placed on a high shelf out of the reach of careless children. Stretched out before her is a wire that reaches clear across the center ring.

  Others have spotted her now and are pointing, gasping.

  Suddenly I’m gasping too, but it has nothing to do with the girl in the sky.

  Panic seizes me. What am I doing here? This isn’t a fairy tale. I can’t run off to join the circus!

  I feel myself rising from the bleacher, but my legs buckle and my back pockets reconnect with the hard wood of the bench.

  A voice over the loudspeaker fills the tent. It’s rich with authority and promise and something else I can’t quite name. “Ladies and gentlemen . . . children of all ages . . .”

  No one moves; every guest in every seat is instantly breathless, wide-eyed. A spotlight ignites, and in the center ring stands a man in white jodhpurs and a red velvet blazer trimmed with gold braid. With his arms outstretched and his silk top hat tipped at a jaunty angle, he is elegance and whimsy rolled into one. He is the Ringmaster, a human miracle of entertainment mixed with absolute power. He is a secret, standing there for all to see.

  His voice rolls over us like thunder. “I am proud to present for your amusement and amazement, an evening of unimaginable thrills, a show of magnificent splendiferousness, the ONE . . . the ONLY . . . VanDrexel Family Circuuuusss!”

  He cracks his whip and the sound makes me jump in my seat. The band strikes up—a brassy fanfare of piano and percussion. More spotlights erupt, chasing themselves around the tent.

  My panic fades, and in its place I feel something new, something like sugar melting into my soul—warm and sweet and a little bit decadent.

  The tent flaps are pulled wide and six putty-colored horses charge into the Big Top. They are dressed as if this is their coming-out ball, in white tulle, silver fringe, and sequins that seem to outnumber the stars in the sky. An olive-skinned young woman rides without a saddle. Her hair bounces in time with the fluttering of six silken manes and tails. The ground shakes, the bleachers shake—we’re all of us a part of this ride.

  Clowns on tiny bicycles roll in; then a troupe of aerialists enters behind them—the men, bare-chested athletes in satin trousers, wave to us like old friends; the women dazzle in their shimmering leotards, their upswept hair spilling ringlets.

  Two young men walk in behind the aerialists. They’re surely brothers, and they couldn’t be more handsome if they tried—rugged, with their shirtsleeves rolled high to show off their muscled arms. They wear khaki pants and tall unpolished leather boots. Just behind them on a float is a tiger in a cage.

  Dancers.

  Tumblers.

  Baton twirlers.

  A man juggling swords.

  This is the bigger, bolder brother of the parade that passed by my house. The last thing my mother and I experienced together.

  “Go, Catherine.”

  Another spotlight flares to life, haloing the girl on the wire. The band plays a new song, something delicate, crystalline. I lift my face, squinting into the glare just as the girl takes her first step onto the tightrope; an awed gasp escapes my lungs, crashing into the thousands of other gasps from the crowd. The girl is so accomplished, so ethereal, that the tightrope barely dips with her weight. I’ve never seen such confidence,
such purpose. She has perfect posture and an otherworldly sense of balance. I pull my eyes from her, scanning the area beneath the rope. Surely there’s a safety net.

  No. No net. Just her, on the wire, in the spotlight.

  Just her.

  Just me.

  No net.

  I’ll change my name. I’ll tell a story, put on a show. I’ll march right up to the man in the red blazer and tell him I am seeking employment with his troupe. Anything to secure myself a temporary spot in this marvelous caravan that will put enough miles between me and my soon-to-be widowed father, earning a few dollars while I’m at it. Then three, perhaps four towns from now, I’ll quietly disappear again. I’ll lose myself in a whole new place. I’ll find a job, an apartment, and I’ll finally have the one thing that has always been most forbidden under my father’s reign: independence.

  A simple thing, but one I never could have imagined for myself before—the freedom to dress as I like, to choose my own friends, to not marry the sort of boy my father would have chosen for me. I will rely on no one and answer only to myself.

  I’ll find a way to take classes at night and finish high school. I’ll save money and go to college. I’ll teach myself to have what the girl on the wire has. Confidence. Purpose.

  Sixty feet in the air, she is practically skipping now, skipping across the wire to the other side. The music swells, she spins, pliés, making it look easy. But it’s not easy, and that, I realize, is what makes the circus the circus—doing what’s difficult and making it look simple. It’s the presence of that one thing I’ve never had but always needed and didn’t even know I was missing.