Dance to the Piper

  lapels in the first gesture of violence he'd ever shown his son. "How long have you been carrying this around?"

  "I could be like her," Reed repeated. "Or I could be like the man she slept with, and I don't even know who he was."

  Edwin loosened his hold and stepped back. "Do you want to know?"

  Reed combed both hands through his hair. "No, they're nothing to me. But how can I know what's inside of me? How can I know that what they were wasn't passed on?"

  "You can't. But you can look in the mirror and think about who you are and have been, rather than who you might be. And you can believe, as I do, that the last thirty-five years that we've had together is more important."

  "I know it is, but—"

  "There are no buts."

  "I'm in love with Maddy." With the words came a slow shattering of defenses he'd lived with since childhood. "How do I know that won't change next month, next year? How can I know I'm capable of giving her what it is she needs for the rest of our lives?"

  "That's something else you can't ever know." Why couldn't the answers be simple ones? It seemed to Edwin that there had never been simple answers for Reed. "That's something you have to risk, something you have to want and something you have to work at. If you love her, you will."

  "I'm more afraid of hurting her than I am of anything else. She's the best thing that ever happened to me."

  "I don't suppose you mentioned all this when you were outlining the arrangements?"

  "No." He rubbed his hands over his face. "I made a mess of it."

  "I'd be more concerned if you'd been too smooth."

  "You don't have to worry about that. I pushed her away because I was afraid to reach out for her."

  Smiling, Edwin rocked back on his heels. "I'll tell you this. No son of mine would let a woman like Maddy O'Hurley slip through his fingers because he thinks he might not be perfect."

  After running a hand over his face, Reed nearly laughed. "That sounds like a challenge."

  "Damn right it is." Edwin put his hands on Reed's shoulders. "And my money's on you. Remember that game in your senior year? Ninth inning, two outs, the score was tied. You worked the batter to a full count."

  "Yeah, I remember." This time he did laugh. "I threw a knuckleball and he knocked it over the fence."

  "That's right." Edwin grinned at him. "But it was a hell of a pitch. Why don't you buy your old man a drink?"

  With her hair pulled back by a thick band and the rattiest robe she owned tied loosely at the waist, Maddy sat at makeup mirror and carefully attached false lashes to her own. Her makeup was nearly done, and even with one eye lashed and the other naked, she'd already captured the exotic look that was Mary's. Just a little too much color on the cheeks. Just a little too much sparkle on the eyelids, and a rich ripe red for the lips. As she fastened the other lash, she waited for the knot in her stomach to untie itself.

  Opening-night nerves, just opening-night nerves, she told herself as she carefully adjusted the liner on her left eye. But there was more than that rushing around inside her, and she couldn't get away from it.

  Marriage. Reed had spoken of marriage—but on his terms. The part of her that was always open to hope had waited for the moment when he would accept the fact that they should be together. The part of her that was always willing to see the best of things had been certain that moment would come. Now that it had, she couldn't take it. What he offered wasn't years of joy but a piece of paper that would bind them together legally, leaving nothing to the emotions.

  She had too much of it, Maddy told herself. Too much emotion, not enough logic. A logical woman would have accepted Reed's terms and made the best of it. Instead, she was ending things. Maddy stared at her reflection in the lighted mirror. Tonight was a night for beginnings—and a night for endings.

  She rose and walked away from the mirror. She'd seen enough of herself.

  Outside in the corridor, people were rushing by. She could hear the noise, the nerves, the energy that was opening night. Her dressing room was packed with flowers, dozens of arrangements that doubled themselves in the mirror and crowded the room with scent.

  There were roses from Chantel. White ones. Her parents had sent her a clutch of daisies that looked wild and lovely. There was a bowl of gardenias that she had known had come from Trace before she'd looked at the card. It had merely said Break A Leg. She'd wondered briefly how he'd known where and when to send them. Then she'd stopped wondering and had appreciated.

  Other arrangements sat here and there, but there were none from Reed. She hated herself for overlooking the beauty of what she had in the quest for what wasn't there.

  "Thirty minutes, Miss O'Hurley."

  Maddy pressed a hand to her stomach at the call. Thirty minutes left. Why did she have to have Reed dragging at her mind now? She didn't want to go on. She didn't want to go out there tonight to sing and dance and make a theater full of strangers laugh. She wanted to go home and pull down the shades.

  There was a quick knock at her door, but before she could answer, her parents poked their heads through. "Can you use a couple of friendly faces?" Molly asked her.

  "Oh, yeah." Maddy stretched out her hands to her mother. "I need all I can get."

  "The house is filling up." Frank beamed as he looked around the dressing room. There was a star on the door. He couldn't have asked for more for his daughter. "You got standing room only, kiddo.''

  "Are you sure?"

  "Sure I'm sure." Frank patted her hand. "I talked to the general manager myself. He's wearing out the leather on his shoes dancing around."

  "He should wait until the curtain calls to do his dancing." Maddy put a hand to her stomach again and wondered if she had any Alka-Seltzer.

  "You won't need it when the curtain goes up," Molly commented, reading her daughter easily. "Opening-night jitters, Maddy, or is there something else you want to tell us about?"

  She hesitated, but there had never been any secrets between Maddy and her family. "Just that I'm in love with an absolute fool."

  "Oh, well." Molly lifted a brow toward Frank. "I know how that is."

  "Just a minute now," he began, but was summarily shooed from the room by his wife.

  "Out, Frank. Maddy has to get into costume."

  "I've powdered her bottom," he muttered, but allowed himself to be pushed out the door. "Knock them dead," he told his daughter. Then he winked and was gone.

  "He's terrific, isn't he?" Maddy smiled as she heard him call out to one of the dancers.

  "He has his moments." Molly glanced at the costume of sequins and feathers hanging on the back of the door. "That for opening?"

  "Yes."

  "I'll give you a hand." Molly took it off the hanger as Maddy tossed her robe aside. "The fool wouldn't happen to be Reed Valentine, would it?"

  "That's him." Maddy wiggled herself into the snug bikini.

  "We had dinner with him and his father tonight." She helped Maddy hook the brief spangled bra that would go under the outer costume. "Seems like a nice young man."

  "He is. I never want to see him again."

  "Mm-hmmm."

  "Fifteen minutes, Miss O'Hurley."

  "I think I'm going to be sick," Maddy whispered.

  "No, you're not." With competent hands, Molly pressed the Velcro together at her daughter's hip. "It seemed to me that your Reed was a bit distracted at dinner."

  "He's got a lot on his mind." Maddy turned this way and that to be certain the costume was secure. "Contracts, mostly," she added in a mutter. "Anyway, I'm not interested."

  "Yes, I can see that. They don't make our lives easier, you know."

  "What?"

  "Men." Molly turned her daughter around. "They weren't put here to make our lives easier. They were just put here."

  For the first time in hours, Maddy felt a laugh bubbling up. "Did you ever think the Amazons had it right?"

  "The ones who killed off the men after they'd made love with them?" Molly seemed t
o consider the question seriously before shaking her head. "No, I don't think so. There's something comforting about having one man for a lifetime. You get used to him. Where are your shoes?"

  "Right here." Studying her mother, Molly stepped into them. "You still love Pop, don't you? I mean really, really love him, just the way you always did?"

  "No." When Maddy's mouth dropped open, Molly laughed. "Nothing stays the same. The way I love Frank now is different from the way I loved him thirty years ago. We've four children now, and a lifetime of fights and laughter and tears. I couldn't have loved him this much when I was twenty. I doubt I love him as much now as I will when I'm eighty."

  "I wish…" Maddy let her words trail off, shaking her head.

  "No, tell me what you wish." Molly's voice was gentle, as it rarely was. "A daughter can tell her mother anything, especially wishes."

  "I wish Reed could understand that. I wish he could see that sometimes it can work, sometimes it can last. Mom, I love him so much."

  "Then I'll give you one piece of advice." She took Maddy's wig off the stand. "Don't give up on him."

  "I think I'm giving up on me."

  "Well, that'll be a first for an O'Hurley. Sit down, girl. Maybe this wig will help keep the brains in your head."

  "Thanks."

  The five-minute call sounded. Molly walked to the door, then turned to give her daughter one last look. "Don't miss your cue."

  "Mom." Maddy rose, keeping her shoulders straight. "I'm going to bring down the house."

  "I'm counting on it."

  Maddy stepped out of her dressing room with four minutes to spare. A member of the chorus came clattering down the stairs with an outrageous plume of ostrich feathers on her head. The overture was already playing. She walked toward the music, losing a little bit of Maddy O'Hurley with every step. Wanda was already in title wings taking long, cleansing breaths.

  "This is it."

  Maddy smiled at her before she looked over the stage manager's shoulder to the monitor on his desk. He could watch the play from there, seeing it as the audience did. "What's the top in curtain calls for you, Wanda?"

  "We got seventeen in Rochester once."

  Maddy put her hands on her hips. "We're going to beat the hell out of that tonight." She walked onstage, faced the curtain and took her mark. As the other dancers filled the stage, she could feel the rear-laced excitement. The nightclub set was in darkness behind her. Hidden by the wings was Macke at stage right. Maddy glanced over at him and tossed her head. She was ready.

  "House lights half… go."

  She drew in oxygen.

  "Cue one… go."

  Above her head, lights flashed on, bathing her in a rainbow.

  "House lights off… go."

  The audience hushed. "Curtain."

  It rose, and so did the music. By the time Maddy walked off stage right for the first scene change, the electricity was high. Immediately wardrobe began stripping off one costume and bundling her into the next. She breathed a sigh as her wig was removed and her own hair fluffed out.

  "You keep that energy up until the final curtain and I'll buy you the best meal in Philadelphia."

  Maddy caught her breath as she stared at Macke. Her dress was zipped, her shoes changed and her makeup toned down, all in a matter of two minutes. "You're on." Then she made the dash that would take her under the stage and across for her cue.

  She passed beneath the floor of the stage and crossed behind the orchestra pit, where the musicians now were silent. Her Jonathan and the actor who played his best friend were exchanging lines. She heard the audience give a roll of laughter as she moved through a makeshift lounge where enterprising members of the crew had gathered a couple of chairs and a sagging sofa. Near the steps that would lead her back up stage left, a group of stagehands loitered around a small portable television. The sound was down to a low buzz so that the business on stage could be heard clearly. Maddy paused, knowing she had time before the next cue. Obviously they did, too.

  "Who's winning?" she asked as she caught a glimpse of the ball game.

  "No score. Pirates against the Mets. They're in the third inning."

  "My money's on the Mets."

  One of the men laughed. "Hope you don't mind losing it."

  "Five bucks," she said as she heard Jonathan finishing up his song.

  "You're on," he told her.

  "I certainly am." She went up the steps and out onstage for her first encounter with Jonathan C. Wiggings III.

  The chemistry was right. Mary and Jonathan met on the library steps. They clicked. The audience's interest was caught up in the romance between the stripper and the rich man's son with innocence shining out of his eyes.

  The last number before intermission was Maddy's striptease. She came rushing in, as she had in rehearsal, struggling out of her prim dress and into her flamboyant costume and wig. Her dialogue with Wanda was edgy and acerbic, her argument with Terry tough. Then the lights came up in hot pinks and reds. She began with her energy at peak and never let it slide.

  She whipped the boa off and let it fly. The audience sent up a howl as it landed in her father's lap.

  For you, Pop, she thought as she sent him a broad wink. Because you taught me everything.

  Maddy kept her word and brought the house down.

  Intermission wasn't a time for relaxing. There were costume changes, makeup to be freshened, energy to be recharged. Word was sent to Maddy that the Mets were down in the sixth, 2-zip. She took it philosophically. She'd lost more important things that day.

  From her place in the wings, Maddy sipped a cup of water and peered out at the audience. The house lights were up, and she could see people swarming around the theater. The buzz of excitement was there. She had helped put it there.

  Then she saw Reed with the lights from the chandeliers spilling over his hair. Her father stood beside him, inches shorter, years older but just as vital. As she watched, Frank laughed and tossed an arm around Reed's shoulder. It warmed her. She told herself it didn't matter, could no longer matter, but it warmed her to see her father laughing with the man she loved. Maddy stepped back until the audience was blocked from her view.

  "You look like that, you're going to scare them away before the finale."

  Turning, Maddy looked at Wanda. They were both dressed in nightclothes for the scene in the apartment they shared. The beaded curtain would come down soon, and Maddy would do her dream sequence. "I can't do that. We still have to beat those seventeen curtain calls."

  "He out there?" Wanda didn't bother to look, but motioned with her head. "Yes, he's there."

  The house lights flashed off and on, off and on. Wanda quietly began her deep breathing. "I guess you've got something to prove."

  That I can survive, Maddy thought. That I can complete my own life if I have to. "To myself," she murmured before they moved out to their marks. "Not to him, to myself."

  In plays, the writer can twist events, shift them, manipulate them to create a happy ending. In the end, Mary and Jonathan had each other. They had overcome differences and deceptions, backgrounds and lies, distrust and disillusionment. For them, happy-ever-after was there for the taking.

  Then the applause began. It rolled, it thundered and echoed over the chorus as they took their bows. It continued, only stronger, over the principals. With her hands gripped together, Maddy waited. She would go out last.

  With her head up and the smile already in place, Maddy strode out onstage. Applause rose like lava, warm and fluid. The cheers began in the balcony and rolled down, growing louder, still louder, until the theater was filled with them. She took her first bow with them ringing in her head.

  Then they were standing, first one, then two, then a dozen. Hundreds of people rose up to their feet and shouted for her. Stunned, she could only stand there and look.

  "Take another bow," Wanda said to her in an undertone. "You earned it."

  Maddy broke out of her trance and bowed again before l
inking hands with Wanda and her partner. The cast as a unit bowed again, and the curtain came down. The applause kept coming, wave after wave, as Maddy threw her arms around Wanda and squeezed.

  The unity was there, a line of dancers, a group of actors, all of whom had worked and studied and rehearsed endless hours for this one moment. So they held on to it as the curtain, for a moment, cut them off from the audience and ranged them together.

  "Here we go again," Maddy said, and locked her hands tight.

  The curtain rose and fell twenty-six times.

  It took Maddy some time to work her way back to her dressing room. There were people to hug and a few tears to be shed. Macke scooped her up in his arms and kissed her full on the mouth.

  "You better be just as damn good tomorrow," he told her.

  It was a riot backstage, with dancers whooping around and planning a big celebration. They were a hit. Whatever adjustments, polishing or tightening that would have to be done before Broadway couldn't take away from the fact that they were a hit. No one could take it away from them. The hours and hours of work, sweat and repetition had paid off.

  Feet clattered on stairs as members of the chorus scrambled up to their dressing rooms. Someone had a trumpet and was blaring out reveille. Maddy squeezed through the crowd in the hall and into her own room. There she collapsed on a chair and stared at her own reflection.

  There were pots and tubes jumbled over the surface of the table. Greasepaint, powder, every color of the rainbow. Above it, she studied her own face, then broke into a grin.

  She'd done it

  Her dressing room door opened, and part of the riot slipped in. She saw her father first, the boa slung around his shoulders like a mantle of victory. Energy poured back into her as she jumped out of her chair to fling herself into his arms.

  "Pop. It was great. Tell me it was great."

  "Great? Twenty-six curtain calls is better than great."

  "You counted."

  "Of course I counted." He squeezed her hard until her feet left the floor. "That was my girl out there. My baby girl knocking them dead. I'm so proud of you, Maddy."

  "Oh, Pop, don't cry." Sniffling herself, she reached into his pocket for a handkerchief. "You'd have been proud of me if I'd flopped." She dried his eyes. "That's why I love you."

  "How about a hug for your mother?" Molly held out her arms and gathered Maddy close. "All I could think of was the first time we put you in dance shoes. I could hardly believe it was you, so strong, so vital. Strong." Molly drew her back by the shoulders. "That's what you are, Madeline O'Hurley."

  "My heart's still racing." Laughing, Abby embraced her sister. "Every time you came out, I'd grab Dylan's hand. I don't know how many fingers I broke. Ben kept telling the woman beside him you were his aunt. I just wish—"

  "I know, I wish Chantel could have been here, too." She leaned down to hug Ben, then glanced up at Chris, who was nestled droopy eyed in Dylan's arms.

  "I didn't fall asleep," Chris told her with a huge yawn. "I watched the whole thing. It was pretty."

  "Thanks. Well, Dylan, do you think we're ready for Broadway?"

  "I think you're going to rock Broadway back on its heels. Congratulations, Maddy." Then he grinned and let his gaze slide down her. "I also liked your costumes."

  "Flashy, but brief," she said with a chuckle as she glanced down at the red merry widow she wore.

  "We have to get the kids back." Abby looked at Ben. His hand was already caught in Dylan's. "We'll see you tomorrow, before we go. Call me." Abby touched

  Maddy's arm in a gesture that said everything. "I'll be thinking of you."