Touch the Stars (5 page)

Julie nodded. Now it was her turn to sit uncomfortably while Stephen scrutinized her.

Suddenly he said, "Juliana, your hair is very beautiful."

"Thank you," she replied stiffly, embarrassed at the attention.

"I'd like to see Julie wear her hair down more often," Dora commented conversationally.

"I can't," Julie said. "I couldn't teach gymnastics with it falling in my eyes."

"But when you're not at work," Dora said, "you could brush it out from a side part, like this," and she worked swiftly to demonstrate. "See?" She turned Julie slowly in the chair, giving her a hand mirror so she could inspect the back.

"It looks very pretty," Stephen said.

"It's not practical," Julie said flatly, handing the mirror back. She looked like a stranger to herself with her hair flowing in a loose wave over her forehead, all but obscuring one eye.

"Still, you might want to brush it that way when you go out," Dora insisted, getting back to her haircutting.

When it was over, Julie automatically began to bundle her hair back into its rubber band, aware of the way Stephen was looking at her. The light of appreciation in his eyes made her feel as though she were someone completely different from the Julie Andrassy she had always been.

She continued her efforts with the rubber band until, under the nervous tension of her fingers, it snapped.

"I'll get you a new one," Dora said.

"No," Stephen said, and his tone stopped the hairdresser in midstep. "Why don't you leave it down for now? It looks so pretty."

"Oh, all right," Julie said, covering her embarrassment with impatience. Her hair flounced around her shoulders as she marched to the cashier to pay her bill.

After they had emerged into the too-bright sunlight and were walking toward her car, Stephen said suddenly, "Let me treat you to lunch. It's the least I can do for the trouble you've taken."

"I don't have much time," Julie protested.

"But you have to eat," he replied in a reasoning tone. "Look, let's go across the street to McDonald's." At the childlike look of anticipation on his face, Julie didn't have the heart to say no. Anyway, lunch there would be quick, and they could eat outside.

Julie ordered a Big Mac, and Stephen ordered a quarter pounder with cheese and three large packs of french fries.

"Are you going to be able to eat all those fries?" Julie asked skeptically when they were seated across from each other at a table. Children laughed in the nearby playground area; a warm wind blew on her face. A picture of Ronald McDonald beamed benevolently down at them from the window.

"Only if you help," Stephen said, pushing one pack of french fries across the table at her.

"I eat mine with catsup," she said, squeezing the catsup out of its little foil packet.

"Do you mind if I try that?" Stephen asked.

She shook her head, forgetting momentarily that she had no ponytail. A forelock fell across her face, and with her hands sticky with catsup all she could do was blow upward to move the hair out of her eyes.

Stephen, reaching across for one of the fries with catsup, said, "Let me," and he extended a forefinger and slowly, musingly, with a smile both sweet and tender, tucked her hair behind her ear. The brief contact stopped her heart for one electrifying moment, and she was startlingly aware of Stephen's lean, hard body sitting across from her, of the corded lines of his throat above the placket of the knit shirt he wore.

Then it was as though nothing had happened. Stephen ate a french fry, declared that he liked them better without catsup and proceeded to consume the rest of his lunch.

Julie, shaken by her swift response to Stephen's gesture, which managed to be both innocent and provocative at the same time, took care that her hair did not slip forward again. No point in putting herself out there as someone who invited his advances.
If
they were advances.

Still, she was aware that her intellect and conscience responded to this man in one way, her body in another.

She might as well face it. Stephen was a unique, stimulating and sexy man who was fully aware of his powers of masculinity. And of their effect on one of the last Andrassys that he needed to win over to achieve his goal.

Chapter 3

"Today," Nonna said as she and Julie were folding clean clothes together that evening, "I called a china company. They tried to sell me dishes."

"You didn't buy any, I hope?" Julie said with some alarm. They were hard-pressed paying their bills as it was, even with her coaching job and Nonna's monthly Social Security check.

"Some of the patterns sounded very lovely. They have one called 'Hungarian Rhapsody.' I was tempted to order it just to see what it looked like."

"Nonna, perhaps you should stop calling those numbers. Have you ever thought that it might be illegal or something?" Julie scooped up a pile of Stephen's underwear with a frown. He wore stretchy little nylon briefs, all of them black.

"Don't you worry," Nonna replied with a sigh. "I don't make many calls. It's too interesting listening to Stephen when he's talking. I wish he'd get a new ring tone. The one he's using sounds like fighting cats."

"And who calls him?" Julie asked, hating herself for asking. Still, she couldn't help being curious.

"That man from the Big Apple Circus called again today. He calls almost every day. And Paul—he and Stephen, they talk and talk."

"I don't need to wonder what it's about," Julie said, ducking across the hall to put the pile of underwear in Stephen's room. A slip of paper on the dresser caught her eye. It had long columns of figures written on it.

She rejoined Nonna in the living room. It was on the tip of her tongue to make a snide remark about what Stephen was doing, but by tacit agreement she and Nonna had avoided the topic of an Andrassy reunion on the high wire. Each knew how the other felt about the matter, and that was enough.

They had barely settled down to watch Nonna's favorite television program when the doorbell rang. Julie jumped up to answer it.

On the doorstep stood a familiar tall figure carrying a small suitcase.

"Julie!" the man cried, enveloping her in a big hug.

"Albert, oh, Albert!" It was her cousin, the one no one had been able to locate after he relocated to Mexico in the aftermath of the accident.

Nonna hobbled to the door and she, too, was embraced.

"You must come in," Nonna said happily, marveling at the sudden appearance of her bearded grandson. "It has been so long since I have seen you."

"Too long," Albert agreed, setting his battered luggage down just inside the door.

"You must tell us all your adventures," Nonna decreed. "Julie, please put on the coffeepot. And cut some of that caraway cake I made yesterday."

Julie still could not believe he was here—Albert, her long-ago idol, brother of Paul and Eva and Michael and Gabrielle! "Before I put the coffee on, I want to know what brings Albert home after seven long years."

Albert stared at her in perplexity. "Why, Julie, don't you know? I've come to join Stephen. The circus grapevine brought me the news that he's starting up the act. I want to be part of the Amazing Andrassys!"

* * *

Early the next morning, the silence of the backyard was broken only by the warble of a cardinal flashing in and out of the palmetto leaves. Julie refilled the hummingbird feeder and stood back. If she waited long enough and quietly enough, her regulars might swoop in for a bit of sugar syrup. And she had time; she wasn't due at the gym for another hour.

She heard the back door swing open and slam shut, but she didn't turn her head. She knew who it was.

"They are all with me now, Julie," Stephen said, approaching from the direction of the house through grass damp with dew. "All of the Andrassys except you."

"And I will never be, Stephen. Never."

"Never say never," he said lightly. He went to the outdoor spigot and turned on the hose. Julie watched him refill the concrete birdbath, taking in his newly acquired tan, the way dancing sunbeams glinted off his hair.

"I will miss this backyard of yours and Nonna's. It is very pretty here. You've done a lot with the plants and shrubs."

"Are you going somewhere?"

He studied her face carefully as though committing it to memory. His eyes were clear and somehow serene, the eyes of a man who was pleased with himself. She had never known anyone else who had the self-assurance of Stephen Andrassy. Or the stubbornness, either. Well, she could match him for stubbornness, she supposed. The thought made her lips twitch slightly in a near-smile.

"Oh, so you are glad I am leaving?" His voice was usually so gentle, even when she didn't like what he was saying, but now it was sharp.

What would their home be like without Stephen chattering to her and Nonna in his Hungarian-British accent, without the phone ringing constantly for him, without his black underwear taking up room in the laundry basket? She had grown
used
to him. That was the word. She was
used
to him.

When she didn't answer, he said brusquely, "I am taking the Big Apple Circus offer."

The announcement was so abrupt and so unexpected that Julie said "Oh!" It was almost as if he'd slapped her. How could he go with the Big Apple show now that he had the backing of everyone in the Andrassy family except her?

"I will perform in New York until the summer. They have offered a special contract that gives me three months of work at a very fine salary. I'll save my money. When I return, I will have enough to pay for what we need to get the Amazing Andrassys back on the high wire."

She had not thought of the financial end of it. Yes, it would take money to do what Stephen wanted. Albert had left his circus job in Mexico; Eva would quit her job also. Michael had a wife and two children to support. Yet they would need to work full-time for months getting the Amazing Andrassy act ready to play to an audience. Now she understood the columns of figures she'd seen on the paper on Stephen's dresser.

"That's very ambitious of you," she managed to say.

"It's good to be ambitious in America."

"When are you leaving?" she asked, looking at the red plastic flowers on the hummingbird feeder and not at him.

"Tomorrow. I will miss you, Juliana. And Nonna, of course."

"Of course," she murmured.

"When I return, I would be honored if you would join the rest of us. You are an Andrassy above all else. You should not be clinging to the ground in fear. You, Juliana, should be touching the stars. Please think about it." His hand rested briefly on her arm.

"I already have, Stephen. You know my answer." The words were faint.

"It will never be too late to change your mind," he said, squaring his shoulders. Then he strode away toward the house, leaving her quite alone.

A hummingbird dipped out of the allamanda vine to feed, its wings flashing green fire. But Julie didn't take pleasure in its presence. All she could think about was that Stephen was leaving.

And that she would miss him, in spite of everything.

* * *

Stephen was lonely in New York. He missed living at Nonna's house.

He was a man of solitude. All his life he had been lonely. Well, perhaps not all his life. His early years had been spent as an honorary Andrassy, and what Andrassy could be lonely with that wonderful sense of fellowship that prevailed when Andrassys were together?

He remembered Grandfather Anton, with his hair that was so white even in those days, and the way Grandfather Anton had held him in his lap and fascinated him with tales of the circus. Stephen had delighted in all the stories about clowns and animals and temperamental performers, about enthusiastic circus fans and grumpy circus owners. The Andrassys had lived and breathed circus life in those days.

And Nonna. How gentle she had been when he had the measles, nursing him through his high fever and making her wonderful chicken broth just for him. How kind she had been to his mother when his father had drowned in Budapest, victim of a freak boating accident on the Danube River. To Stephen, Nonna was the grandmother he had never known.

And now, once again, he had a chance to become part of the wonderful Andrassy family. The way Stephen saw it, he owed the Andrassys a debt of gratitude. They had taken care of him and his mother in the old days, and now he would repay them for their kindness. He was one of the few people in the world who had the expertise to help them put their fabulous high-wire act together again.