by Staci Hart
“Sorry for the noise,” Susan said, her cheeks pink from exertion. “I love the beasts, but they have no manners.”
“It’s no trouble.”
Elle took my arm and ushered me in a little further. “Greg, I’d like to introduce you to our mother, Emily.”
A beautiful woman with Nice to meet you. We’ve heard so much about you,” she said.
Her hand was warm in mine. “Likewise. It’s a pleasure.”
“And this is Meg, our younger sister.” Elle gestured to a bright-eyed, smiling little girl who thrust her hand out for a shake.
When I took it, she squeezed with surprising strength and pumped it like a pro.
I just stepped back when I saw Annie.
She entered the room with the lightness I’d come to associate only with her. Her hair was shining and golden, smoothed and pinned into a twist. The dress she wore was a shade of navy so dark, it was nearly black, the neck high and sleeves capped, tailored at her small waist, but the skirt was flared and shifted against her thighs with every step.
I found myself unable to breathe; all the air had been drawn from the room the moment she walked in.
Annie smiled and made her way over. “Sorry I’m a little late. Are you ready?”
I managed to swallow and nod.
She kissed her mother on the cheek as Meg grabbed her around the waist and squeezed. And with another kiss for Elle, we were saying our goodbyes and waving our way out the door.
When the elevator doors closed, she sighed. “Your suit is gorgeous, Greg.”
Amusement and pride lifted one corner of my lips. “Not nearly as gorgeous as your dress.”
She smoothed her skirt, blushing. “Thank you. I have on heels and everything! I just hope I don’t break an ankle.”
I offered my elbow. “Guess you’ll just have to hang on to me.”
And she slipped her hand into the crook of my arm, smiling up at me. “Guess I will.”
“Mmm,” Annie hummed an hour later, her eyes closing for a brief moment. “You have to try this.”
She sliced off a piece of her chicken Kiev and spun her plate to put it in front of me.
I speared it, making sure it was well acquainted with the mushroom sauce before bringing it to my lips. “Mmm,” I echoed when it hit my tongue.
Annie forked another bite of my Stroganoff, watching me eat with cheerful pleasure. “I know.”
As I helped myself to another piece of her chicken, her eyes wandered from my face to our surroundings. We were secluded in a wraparound booth in the back corner of the Russian Tea Room. I’d been here a couple of times before, and when Cam had suggested it, I had known Annie would understand the magic and mood of the place and not only embrace it but amplify it.
The room was brilliant and rich and a little over the top—from the gold-leaf ceiling to the deep emeralds and blood reds of the walls and booths and carpet. Antique samovars shone from perches all over the restaurant—from the walls to the ledges between booths, their curved spouts proud and beautiful, their wide bellies waiting for tea. The walls were adorned with an eclectic mix of paintings in gilded frames; the one above our booth couldn’t have been more appropriate.
I’d noticed it the second we walked up, inspecting it while Annie shrugged out of her coat and slipped into the booth. It was quirky and imperfect; a dark man in a dark suit stood in the foreground, patchwork hills stretching off behind him, and his hand held that of a lady who floated up and away, her face turned to him and her feet closer to the sun than the earth, her red dress caught in the wind.
It was Annie, light and floating away, and I was hanging on to her with blind devotion.
“So,” she said with a secretive smile on her face, “I have something to tell you.”
I smiled, ignoring a jolt of wishful thinking that her admission could be the words I longed to hear. “Oh?”
She nodded. “I sent my audition to Juilliard today.”
“Oh my God, did you?”
“Mmhmm!” she hummed proudly, her back straight as an arrow and smile sweet and pretty. “Thank God I knew so much of the material already. All I’ve done the last few days is practice and do trial recordings, but I finally got it all put together, and man, I only hope I’ve got a real shot.”
“Well, you did your best, right?”
“I did,” she answered.
“Do you think it’s good enough?”
“I do,” she said with her shining eyes on mine.
“Then you did what you came to do. And now, you wait.”
She groaned, the brief seriousness broken. “I hate waiting.”
I chuckled and scooped a bite of Stroganoff up with my fork. “No…you? Impatient? I never would have guessed.”
“I know; I’m the picture of restraint.”
We both laughed, and Annie picked up her fork and knife again, her eyes on her hands as she spoke.
“I told you about how my parents scrimped and saved to put me through lessons, making deals with Mrs. Schlitzer, although I think she was glad to teach me. Maybe because we both loved it so much, more than anyone else we knew. Don’t get me wrong. People tried to understand, but I don’t know that anyone without a passion could understand true passion. It’s easier to describe obsession, which is, I guess, almost the same thing. Like saying you’re particular instead of picky.”
I took another bite, content to listen to her talk as she was content to speak.
“But what a wonderful way to repay them all for what they’ve done for me. Juilliard,” she said with a wondrous shake of her head. “I wonder what Daddy would have thought.”
“Well, I didn’t know him, but I can’t imagine he wouldn’t have been proud.”
“I wish…” She shook her head. “You already know what I wish for. I’m sure you’d wish the same.”
“Yes, I would.”
“Wish in one hand, shit in the other. See which fills up first.”
A brief, unexpected laugh burst out of me.
She shrugged, but she was smiling. “Something my pops used to say. A little nugget of grandfatherly wisdom he left me with.”
“Do you have any other family? Besides your mom and sisters?”
“Daddy’s parents died before I started junior high, and my dad was an only child. My mom’s parents are alive, but I’ve never met them.”
“Where do they live?”
“Here in New York.”
I must have looked surprised because she explained, “They didn’t approve of Daddy, wanted her to marry someone they knew, someone with breeding and a family name, not a woodworker from Nowhere, Texas, who hadn’t even gone to college. When she made her choice, they cut her off.”
“Jesus,” I breathed. “I will never understand what would bring someone to put that much of their own expectations on their child.”
“Me either. We didn’t talk about them at all, growing up. My uncle—the one we’re staying with—wanted to help, but Mama’s as proud and stubborn as her own parents. My parents tried to make things work, even with all my medical bills and lessons and…well, with everything. It was why they didn’t have much when Daddy died.”
I nodded, swallowing hard. “When my mom died, the medical bills were—are a small fortune. With Dad unable to work, there was nothing we could do but move in with him and help him pay the debt down. There was no money saved. Everything had gone to keeping her alive after her diagnosis.”
“It’s so crazy to me that we have insurance for exactly these reasons, but what we’re left with after insurance pays is enough to rob a family of everything they have. My first open-heart surgery was at three weeks old. Can you imagine? To have a baby so sick that you have to rely on science to save them and then have to pay for their life for the duration of yours?” Her hands moved into her lap, and she met my eyes with her entire heart shining in hers. “My parents sacrificed so much for me. I wish they’d accepted help from my uncle, so they wouldn’t have had to suffer like they d
id. So they could have enjoyed their lives before…before…”
I reached into her lap for her hands, slipping my fingers through hers as my throat locked up.
She sighed and met my eyes with a smile that spoke to me of optimism and strength. “Even when we can’t go on, we go on. Because the world keeps turning and the clock keeps ticking and our hearts keep beating even if we sometimes wish they would just stop. And so what else can we do with that inevitable time but honor the ones we lost by finding joy again? I’ve come to find that it’s the only way I’ve been able to stitch what’s left of me back together.”
I drew a breath from deep in my lungs and let it slip out of me. “Where in the world did you come from, Annie?”
She smiled. “Out in the sticks and rivers.”
“Must have been a good place to hide.”
“Oh, it was. But I was never one for hiding.”
“No,” I said softly, “I don’t suppose you were.”
She turned back to her dinner, and the conversation drifted to easier things, things with less rust and pain. But mostly I just listened to her, watched her. Heard her. Saw her.
It wasn’t her eyes, as wide and vibrant as they were, and it wasn’t the swell or bow of her lips, as soft and lovely as they were. It wasn’t the shine in her golden hair, and it wasn’t her long, elegant fingers. It was Annie herself. Her beauty burned in her chest, in a heart that beat without rhythm.
And for a moment, everything was perfect.
The girl sitting at my elbow. The smile on her face. The way her bright eyes drank in the twinkling opulence and undemanding charm of the restaurant. The way her creamy skin looked against the crimson of the booth.
Perfect, except for one thing.
I’d tried to convince myself I could be her friend and nothing more. I’d considered the earnestness of her feelings, the depths I knew to be true; she cared for me and wanted me, just not in the way I wanted her.
I’d told myself I would take her any way I could get her. But the moment I’d first seen her tonight, I’d caught a glimpse of the truth; the task would not be simple or easy. And with every passing minute, that truth became more apparent, more invasive.
I couldn’t be Annie’s friend.
All things had a line that, once crossed, could not be stepped back over. And I had reached that line, passed it without realizing until I looked down. But instead of finding myself in her arms, I was pressed against the glass, the separation between us as thin as it was impenetrable.
And despite that knowledge, I didn’t want to be anywhere else but exactly where I was.
Before we left the restaurant, I took her upstairs to the Bear Lounge. But I didn’t see the bear aquarium or the perch swimming around in his vast belly; I saw her face bright with wonder as she peered inside, holding her breath. I didn’t see the glass ceiling; I saw the colored lights on her cheeks and bridge of her nose as she tipped her small chin up to look. I didn’t see the tree laden with glass eggs; I saw Annie with her fingertips pressed to her parted lips as she stepped under the branches, reaching for my hand without looking to pull me under with her.
But she’d pulled me under long before that moment.
Annie
I watched behind a curtain of tears as the music crescendoed and Romeo ran to Juliet’s stone pedestal where she lay dead. Blinking only cleared my vision for a moment at a time, and I fought the urge to close my eyes.
I didn’t want to miss a single thing.
And so my tears spilled down my cheeks in hot streams as I reached for Greg’s hand, needing something to tether me to the ground. Romeo tried to wake her, lifted her up, and Juliet was a rag doll but still graceful, poised and beautiful, even in death. And the poison slipped past his lips just as she woke. The vision of her hands on his face and hers bent in pain, shining with tears. His body, too heavy to lift. The dagger, too sharp for hesitation. And she crawled back to him, nestled in his chest, held his face once more, pressed a final kiss to his lips, and then she was gone.
Their parents entered to find them both dead, and I sagged into Greg, my eyes finally closing as I let the wash of emotion win, my hiccuping sobs drowned out by the orchestra. And the curtain closed as the applause rose. We were on our feet in a breath, clapping through the curtain call, clapping until our hands stung and cheeks ached from smiling.
People began to exit, standing to pack the aisles, but rather than follow them, Greg sat.
I eyed him curiously. “Don’t like waiting in lines?”
At that, he smiled. “No, it’s just that I know how you love surprises.”
My eyes widened with my smile. “What did you do?”
“You’ll see. Come here and sit for a minute.”
I did as I’d been told and leaned on the armrest between us. He was beautiful beyond the strong features of his face, beyond the lines of his body, defined brilliantly by the architecture of his suit. His beauty lay in the depths of his eyes where his heart and soul lived, in the joy of his laughter and the way he cared. Because he did care; he cared deeply.
There had been a moment under the egg tree in the restaurant when I turned my gaze from the wonders of our surroundings and met his eyes. I didn’t know if it was the magic of the moment or something more, something in the air between us, something in his heart or mine. But for that long moment, we stood under the branches and breathed, our eyes connected. We connected. And I thought—wished—he might kiss me.
But he’d stepped away with a friendly smile, and I was reminded again exactly what he felt and where the boundaries of our relationship lay.
I reached for his hand and squeezed. “How can I ever thank you for tonight? It’s been a dream. I wouldn’t have wanted to experience it with anyone but you.” Not even Will, I thought to myself, brushing the words away.
“You don’t have to thank me, Annie.”
“But I want to, and someday, I’ll make it up to you.”
Something in his face shifted, a flash of emotion in his eyes I couldn’t catch before it was gone. “Annie, I…”
He didn’t—couldn’t?—finish, searching my face, as if the words were written on my cheeks and nose and lips.
“What?” I asked. The word was barely above a whisper. “You can tell me.”
Greg took a breath, opening his lips as if to speak, but his eyes shifted to look behind me, and in a second’s time, the moment passed.
“Ah, here we go,” he said as he stood, his eyes behind me. “Come on.”
He took my hand, and I followed breathlessly as Juliet herself stood at the side entrance of the stage, waving us up.
“Oh my God, Greg. Oh my God!” I giggled as he towed me up the stairs and to the stage, not stopping until we were standing right in front of her.
She was even more beautiful up close. Her blonde hair hung down her back in princess waves, her eyes big and blue, her legs ten miles long in her pink chiffon costume.
“Annie,” he said with the most marvelous smile on his face, “I’d like you to meet Lily Thomas.”
She extended her hand, her smile wide and friendly. “I’m so glad to finally meet you. Rose told me all about you.”
A shocked laugh bubbled out of me. “You’re kidding.”
But she laughed sweetly. “She tells me pretty much everything, and I know enough about Wasted Words that it’s a wonder I don’t work there myself.” She moved to press her cheek to Greg’s. “It’s good to see you.”
“You too.”
“I have to say,” I started with a shaky voice, completely starstruck, “that was incredible. I’ve never…I mean, I’ve been to a few shows, but I’ve never seen anything like that. You were incredible. God,” I touched my warm cheek. “That sounds so corny. I’m just speechless.”
Lily laughed, her cheeks rosy, too. “Thank you, Annie. Really, it’s all music and lights and production. I’m just lucky to be a part of it all. Can I show you guys around?”
And to my utter and complete j
oy, she did.
We followed her backstage. There was a line of mirrors with lights for the dancers, and props and people were scattered around backstage. She walked us to the sewing station, a special spot littered with supplies to sew their shoes. She even showed me how to do it. I got to hold a real-life ballerina shoe with satin ribbons backstage at a theater in the Lincoln Center.
I was checking off firsts I hadn’t even known I had.
By the time we were finished, the stage was mostly empty, and the theater had cleared out other than a few people who seemed to belong there.
Lily left us to speak to a stern man who glanced at me and back at her with a disapproving arch of his brow and a conceding nod.
My hand was still in Greg’s. I didn’t even notice until he bent and brought his lips to my ear.
“I have one more surprise for you.”
When he reappeared in my line of vision, his smile could have powered the sun.
“Come with me,” Lily said, waving us behind her.
Down a set of stairs we went and to a doorway, passing through to bring us into the orchestra pit.
It was a place I’d dreamed of, a place I’d only imagined until tonight. And the vision left me breathless.
Greg let me go so I could wander around the cluster of chairs arranged in radiating half-circles, my tentative fingers brushing the tops of the chairs and trays of the music stands. I stepped around the director’s podium and looked up to see the stage and theater from this angle. We were surrounded by the building itself, the sunken space the very heart of the theater, the place where the music lived and breathed.
I turned back to Greg, tears stinging my eyes again, but it was Lily who said, “Keep going.”
When I looked back, my gaze found the piano.
I slowly approached it, touched the ebony and ivory, imagined the sound echoing against the balconies, wondering if, someday, I would be so lucky as to play in a place like this.
Greg was at my elbow. “Go ahead. Have a seat.”
I whipped my head around to gape at him. “I can’t.”
Lily nodded around Greg, grinning. “Yes, you sure can.”