Touch the Stars (19 page)

The balancing pole swayed slightly, caught by the wind, and Julie knew Stephen's struggle to maintain his balance, knew it intimately. For she had fought the same fight, the fight against gravity, and she knew the battle well. Move your balancing pole side to side; never sway it up and down. Be economical of movement, and don't waste any gesture. Do not, under any circumstances, break rhythm.

You must not look down. Make gravity your ally, not your enemy. You must be aware of grease drawn out of the cable by the hot sun. Slide each foot forward surely, and don't let the wire know you are afraid. If the wire knows you are afraid, you have lost your chance to master it. And you must master the wire or die.

Julie read the expression on Stephen's face. It was a look of the utmost concentration. He walked on, his mastery of his art evident in every studied movement. He walked on, impervious to the wind in his face. He walked on, bravely defying gravity.

"Stephen Andrassy," the announcer said in a hushed voice. "The third man to walk the wild and lovely Tallulah Gorge. There is no net, ladies and gentlemen. Stephen Andrassy walks a two-inch steel cable nine hundred and eighty feet above the Tallulah River. Below him lie sharp rocks, trees, and nine hundred and eighty feet of nothing." The announcer paused dramatically. "Remember that... as you watch... this man walk... high above Tallulah Gorge."

Anxiety gnawed at the pit of Julie's stomach, but she didn't stop watching Stephen. She kept the binoculars trained upon him. The crossing was going well. She could tell by the exuberance on Stephen's features. He was also certain to be feeling some fatigue by now, but he would know how to deal with it.

Someone in the crowd gasped as Stephen stopped on the wire.

"What's happening? Why is he doing that?" A well-dressed matron on the observation platform grabbed at her escort's arm.

"Now Stephen Andrassy stops," intoned the announcer, sounding puzzled. "And he—why, he's sitting
down
on the wire! Now he's—why, he appears to be
lying down!"

Julie wasn't as worried as others in the crowd. As Stephen bent one knee and slid that leg forward, his head eased back until it touched the cable. His other leg fell off the wire and dangled in space. He held his balancing pole with only one hand.

Stephen was resting during his almost one-thousand-foot trek across the Gorge.

Others caught on to what Stephen was doing. A ripple of amazement ran through the crowd. The announcer said, his voice jovial, "Well, would you believe that, ladies and gentlemen! Stephen Andrassy is taking a little snooze!" He laughed heartily.

Julie knew what Stephen was doing, and it wasn't snoozing. He was recentering himself, finding that point of calm and concentration before he resumed his walk. Even on the wire, he had trained all his muscles to relax when he gave them a mental command. He would be reinvigorated when he rose from the wire.

After several minutes, Stephen carefully sat up and rose slowly to his feet. The crowd went wild.

Step by step, Stephen progressed toward the south side of the Gorge. Step by step, he moved closer to safety. And he moved closer to Julie.

At the midpoint of his journey, Stephen stopped and lifted one foot to knee height. He also lifted the opposite arm in a salute to his audience. Again the crowd cheered, solidly behind him. They wanted him to succeed with this walk and were agog with admiration for the man who would dare it.

Now Stephen was in the final stage, and Julie's tension was almost unbearable. Each time Stephen's foot moved forward, she willed it to find the right place on the wire. She studied each movement, knowing that she would sense immediately if something began to go wrong. She would be able to spot the slight tensing of the wrong muscles or the sudden flicker of knowledge in Stephen's expression. With him, she tested the void. With him, she walked every inch. With him, she savored the heady sense of accomplishment.

It was only twenty feet, then ten, then five. The crowd's attention was utterly on Stephen. And then, triumphantly, he had reached the platform! Stephen Andrassy had successfully walked the Tallulah Gorge!

Every one of the Andrassy women on the observation platform was crying, including Julie. Tears ran down her face, but they were tears of relief and pride. Her heart swelled with Stephen's accomplishment.

At that moment, when she and Eva and Gabrielle caught each other in a big embrace, Julie felt bonded to her family again by a tremendous, indescribably emotional surge. Julie had willingly banished herself from the family spotlight, and now she was sharing it. Once again she felt united with the rest of the Andrassys.

Stephen jumped down from his platform, surrounded by television cameras and well-wishers and slapping a high-five with one of the producers of
Dare!

"Let's go," Eva said, and she and Julie and Gabrielle led the family, running.

He saw them pushing through the crowd below him, and he said in a commanding voice, "It is my family; please let them through."

But it was Julie upon whom his eyes fastened first, Julie who was the recipient of his exultant smile. And it was Julie who threw her arms around him, crying, "Stephen, oh, Stephen, it was wonderful!"

"You came to watch! Juliana, I did not dream you would!" But these words were only for her, murmured softly into her ear.

As they reluctantly broke apart, Stephen was engulfed by the others, and all too soon he was torn from them by eager photographers who wished to record Stephen standing victorious at the brink of the Gorge.

As Stephen was borne away, Julie clasped her hands beneath her chin and closed her eyes to give thanks for Stephen's triumphant crossing. And when she opened them, Eva was staring at her as though she didn't know Julie at all.

* * *

"So when are you going to tell me what's going on between you and Stephen?" Eva asked, unable to contain her interest. To Eva's delight, Julie blushed. They were driving in Julie's car to the mountainside house where they were all going to stay overnight.

"Something
is
going on. I was right!" Eva laughed, pleased with herself.

"It's nothing," Julie said unconvincingly.

"Right under our noses—the two of you managed to fall in love!"

"Eva—"

"Don't deny it, Julie. I saw the expression in his eyes after the crossing. He looked as though he wanted to devour you right on the spot."

"I—" and Julie stopped. Eva looked over to see that her cousin's eyes were brimming with tears.

Julie blinked the tears away and accepted a rumpled tissue.

"I can't love a man who walks the wire for a living," she said after a while.

"Oh," Eva said. "I guess I understand, sort of. With this phobia you have about the wire, it makes sense."

"You used to hate the wire, Eva," Julie said. "I thought you'd understand how I feel."

"I got over it. I wish you would."

Julie shook her head. "I've tried. I just can't." She sighed unhappily.

"Maybe you haven't tried hard enough. After all, you didn't even fall. The rest of us did."

Julie's tone was low and emphatic. "The worst part of all was that I wasn't on the wire with the rest of you that night."

"Is
that
what bugs you?"

"Eva, you don't know, you can't possibly know—"

"Turn here," Eva interrupted, and Julie swerved her car onto a road twisting up the side of a mountain. Driving required all her concentration, for which Julie was thankful. It helped her regain her composure.

She pulled the car to a stop beside several other vehicles in front of a modernistic wood house cantilevered off a cliff. She let out a deep breath.

"You're not angry with me for asking about you and Stephen, are you?" Eva asked anxiously.

Julie smiled a sad smile before she stepped out of the car.

"No, Eva, I'm not," she said before she hurried inside.

Julie didn't want to admit publicly what she couldn't even face in private yet. She didn't want Eva or anyone else to know that she loved Stephen Andrassy.

* * *

After Stephan signed autographs at Tallulah Point for an hour, he was interviewed by several journalists. When he finally arrived at the mountain house, he was enveloped by the family, and after a sumptuous meal, they all settled down to watch a TV segment about Stephen's crossing of the Gorge, his childhood in Hungary and Russia, and the family's past performances. The program, much to Julie's shock, touched briefly on the fall in the Superdome eight years ago.

Julie didn't run from the room, though she was fully aware that everyone expected her to do just that. Instead she forced herself to remain seated, shaken to the core as each succeeding image on the television screen tore at her heart.

There were the Amazing Andrassys in their nine-person pyramid that night in New Orleans, their feat forever frozen on film by a news photographer who happened to be in the audience. After that came a close-up of Grandfather Anton's face reflecting his certain knowledge of something gone awry on the wire, then a picture of them tumbling through the air, all of them, the picture that had been engraved upon Julie's conscience ever since that long-ago night.

But Julie watched the whole program. She even managed to sit through Stephen's short speech at the end of it.

"The Amazing Andrassys have come a long way since that night in New Orleans," Stephen said. "Today began a new era in family history—and soon the Andrassys will walk together again on the high wire."

Everyone clapped and cheered except Julie. She found herself feeling decidedly confused. She hated the idea of her family's performing on the high wire. But she was proud of Stephen for completing his crossing of the Tallulah Gorge. She never thought of the night of the fall in New Orleans without considerable gut-wrenching guilt, but she had sat through a television program tonight, with its terrible pictures of the fall, and she hadn't wanted to run away. And today she had felt a wonderful sense of belonging and sharing with her family. She was, she thought with wonder, beginning to face the tragedy for the first time since the accident.

Eva said, "I'm turning in. I'm exhausted." Her words were punctuated by a wide yawn.

The others followed, disbanding to various wings of the house. Julie heard Tonia whining, "I don't want to go to bed, Mommy," and Nonna shushed her, offering to put Tonia to bed herself. Doors opened and closed, and Gabrielle said, "Julie can share with you, Eva. I'll sleep in Nonna's room."

Julie began to turn off all the lights in the living area. Stephen, who had been standing beside a window, said suddenly, "Juliana, come look at this. It is very beautiful."

She paused and then walked slowly across the darkened room to the window. He turned, smiling, and held out his hand, pulling her close to him.

"Look," he said, holding aside the drapery.

A full moon poured silver light over the wooden deck and the trees beyond; below in a valley nestled a town, its lights glowing gold and jade and garnet and sapphire against the brilliance of the sky.

"Will you come outside with me?" he asked suddenly, and Julie knew intuitively that Stephen meant to draw the threads of their relationship tighter. She didn't object; she couldn't. She had faced her family's tragedy tonight without flinching, and there were other things she must face, too. Stephen's love for her, for one thing. Her love for him, for another.

She followed him outside into the profound silence of the night, closing the door quietly behind her. Soft mountain breezes swayed the leaves above them, and the house shimmered like quicksilver with reflected moonlight.

"I am glad you came today, Juliana," Stephen said earnestly, taking both her hands in his.

"I couldn't stay away," she murmured.

"When I saw you there, I thought it was a dream. I was sure that the altitude had affected my senses."

"You were magnificent, Stephen. It was a masterful performance."

"The best part of it was the end, when I saw you." The pleasure in his eyes was replaced by something more serious, and then, no surprise to her, he gathered her into his arms, pressing her face into his shoulder.

She held on to him for dear life, as though she had never held him before and would never hold him again. She closed her eyes and listened to the trilling in her blood.

"You feel as I do, I can sense it," Stephen whispered against her hair.

She was conscious of her breasts pressing into his chest, and her knees felt so weak that she feared that her legs wouldn't support her. She dared not speak.

Stephen's hands traced the line of her backbone, their heat seeping through her thin shirt. They cupped her shoulders briefly, then held her away from him. His eyes were serious, and a question burned there. But the question faded into quiet relief when he saw the mute answer in her eyes.

"Tell me, Juliana. Say the words. I see it in your eyes, but I have to hear it, too." His voice was unsteady with overwhelming emotion.

"I love you, Stephen," Julie whispered. "I love you." She had thought she would never tell him, and now she wondered if she were crazy for doing it.

Stephen's arms clasped her as though he would never let her go. Her admission of her love for him had caused her so much anguish that he felt it coursing through her body, making her muscles tense, drawing her away from him. Finally he was the custodian of that love, and he was determined to care for it well.