Dance to the Piper: The O'Hurleys

by Nora Roberts

  “Thanks.” Maddy whipped off her skirt. Nudging Rose aside, she began to paint her face.

  “Don’t thank me. We gotta stick together.” Wanda watched negligently as Rose practiced a routine. “Think you’re nuts, though,” she added.

  “I know what I’m doing.” Maddy slipped behind a screen. The blouse she’d worn flapped across it. “I can handle it.”

  “You’d better make sure you can handle Jackie. Any idea what he’d do to you and your pretty boy if he found out what’s going on?”

  “He’s not going to find out.” She came out from behind the screen in a long, slinky gown covered with red spangles. “Look, I’m on.”

  “Crowd’s pretty hot tonight.”

  “Good.” She sent Wanda a grin. “That’s the way I like them.” She walked off stage right again.

  “Lights stage left,” the stage manager called. “Cue Terry.”

  A dancer Reed recognized from the only other rehearsal he’d seen paced out on stage left. His hair was slicked back, and he’d added a pencil-thin moustache. He wore a brilliant white tie against a black shirt. When Maddy came out behind him, he grabbed her arm.

  “Where the hell you been?”

  “Around.” Maddy pushed back the mane of red hair, then settled a hand saucily on her hip. “What’s your problem?”

  Edwin leaned over and whispered to Reed. “Doesn’t look like the little lady who came into your office with a dead plant.”

  “No,” Reed murmured as the two on stage argued. “It doesn’t.”

  “She’s going to be big, Reed. Very, very big.”

  He felt twin surges of pride and alarm, and could explain neither of them. “Yes, I think she is.”

  “Look, sugar.” Maddy gave her partner a pat on the cheek. “You want me to go strip or stay here and read you my diary?”

  “Strip,” Jackie ordered her.

  “Yeah.” Maddy tossed her head back. “That’s what I do best.”

  “Lights,” the stage manager called out. “Music.”

  Maddy grabbed a red boa and walked—no, sauntered—to center stage, then stood there like a flame. When she began to sing, her voice came slowly and built, as arousing and teasing as the movements she began to make. The boa was tossed into the audience. It would be replaced dozens of times before the play closed.

  “I never took you to a strip joint, did I, Reed?”

  He had to smile, even as Maddy began to peel off elbow-length gloves. “No, you didn’t.”

  “Hole in your education.”

  Onstage, Maddy let her body take over. It was just one routine among nearly a dozen others, but she knew it had the potential to be a showstopper if she played it right. She intended to.

  When she whipped off the skirt of the dress, some of the technicians began to whistle. She grinned and went into a series of thunderous bumps and grinds. When the two-minute dance had run its course, she sat on the stage, arched back, wearing little more than spangles and beads. To her surprise and pleasure, there was a smattering of applause from the center of the audience. Exhausted, she propped herself on her elbow and smiled out into the darkened theater.

  Word traveled quickly, from assistant to assistant to stage manager to director. Money was in the house.

  Don went down the aisle, swearing because the grapevine hadn’t gotten to him sooner. “Mr. Valentine. And Mr. Valentine.” He offered hearty handshakes. “We weren’t expecting you.”

  “We thought we’d catch something a little impromptu.” Reed spoke to him, but his gaze wandered back to the stage, where Maddy still sat, dabbing at her throat now with a towel. “Very impressive.”

  “We could be a little sharper yet, but we’ll be ready for Philadelphia.”

  “No doubt about that.” Edwin gave him a friendly slap on the shoulder. “We don’t want to hold things up.”

  “I’d love you to stay longer, if you could. We’re about to rehearse the first scene from the second act. Please, come down front.”

  “Up to you, Reed.”

  He was going to have to put in an extra two hours with paperwork to make up for this. But he wasn’t going to miss it. “Let’s go.”

  The next scene was played strictly for laughs. Reed didn’t know enough to dissect the comedic timing, the pacing, the stage business that made the simplest things funny. He could see, however, that Maddy knew how to play it to the hilt. She was going to have the audience eating out of her hand.

  There was something vivid about her, something convincing and sympathetic even in her role as the brazen, somewhat edgy stripper. Reed watched her play two roles, adding the innocence necessary to convince the eager and honest Jonathan that his Mary was a dedicated librarian with a sick mother. He’d have believed her himself. And it was that quality that began to worry him.

  “She’s quite a performer,” Edwin commented when the director and stage manager went into a huddle.

  “Yes, she is.”

  “I suppose it’s none of my business, but what’s going on between you?”

  Reed turned, his face expressionless. “What makes you think anything is?”

  Edwin tapped the side of his nose. “I’d never have gotten this far in the business if I couldn’t sniff things out.”

  “We’re … friends,” Reed said after a moment.

  With a sigh, Edwin shifted his large bulk in the seat. “You know, Reed, one of the things I’ve always wanted for you is a woman like Maddy O’Hurley. A bright, beautiful woman who could make you happy.”

  “I am happy.”

  “You’re still bitter.”

  “Not with you,” Reed said immediately. “Never with you.”

  “Your mother—”

  “Leave it.” Though the words were quiet, the ice was there. “This has nothing to do with her.”

  It had everything to do with her, Edwin thought as Maddy took the stage again. But he knew his son well and kept his silence.

  Edwin couldn’t turn back the clock and stop the betrayal. Even if it were possible, he wouldn’t. If he could and did, Reed wouldn’t be sitting beside him now. How could he teach his son that it was a matter not of forgiveness but of acceptance? How could he teach him to trust when he’d been born of a lie?

  Edwin studied Maddy as her bright, expressive face lighted the stage. Could she be the one to do the teaching?

  Maybe she was the woman Reed had always needed, the answer he’d always searched for without acknowledging that he was looking. Maybe, through Maddy, Reed could lay all his own past hurts to rest.

  Even though it was simply a walk-through, Maddy kept the energy at a high level. She didn’t believe in pacing herself through a performance, or through life, but in going full out and seeing where it landed her.

  While she ran through her lines, practiced her moves, part of her concentration focused on Reed. He was watching her so intently. It was as if he were trying to see through her role to who and what she really was. Didn’t he understand that it was her job to submerge herself until there was no Maddy, only Mary?

  She thought she sensed disapproval, even annoyance—a completely different mood from the one he’d sat down with. She wanted badly to jump down from the stage and somehow reassure him, though of what she wasn’t sure. But he didn’t want that from her. At least not yet. For now he wanted everything casual, very, very light. No strings, no promises, no future.

  She stumbled over a line, swore at herself. They backtracked and began again.

  She couldn’t tell him how she felt. For a woman with an honest nature, even silence was deception. But she couldn’t tell him. He didn’t want to hear her say she loved him, had begun to love him from the moment she’d stood on the sidewalk with him at dusk. He would be angry, because he didn’t want to be trapped by emotion. He wouldn’t understand that she simply lived on emotion.

  Perhaps he’d think she simply gave her love easily. It was true enough that she did, but not this kind of love. Love of family was natural and alway
s there. Love of friends evolved slowly or quickly, but with no qualms. She could love a child in the park for nothing more than his innocence or an old man on the street for nothing more than his endurance.

  But loving Reed involved everything. This love was complex, and she’d always thought love was simple. It hurt, and she’d always believed love brought joy. The passion was there, always simmering underneath. It made her restless with anticipation, when she’d always been so easygoing.

  She’d invited him into her life. That was something she couldn’t forget. More, she’d argued him into her life when he’d been ready to back away. So she loved him. But she couldn’t tell him.

  “Lunch, ladies and gentlemen. Be back at two, prepared to run through the two final scenes.”

  “So it’s the angel,” Wanda murmured in Maddy’s ear. “The one in the front row who looks like a cover for Gentleman’s Quarterly.”

  “What about him?” Maddy bent from the waist and let her muscles relax.

  “That’s him, isn’t it?”

  “What him?”

  “The him.” Wanda gave her a quick slap on the rump. “The him that’s had you standing around dreamy-eyed.”

  “I don’t stand around dreamy-eyed.” At least she hoped she didn’t.

  “That’s him,” Wanda said with a self-satisfied smile before she strolled offstage.

  Grumbling to herself, Maddy walked down the steps beside the stage. She put on a fresh smile. “Reed, I’m glad you came.” She didn’t touch him or offer the quick, friendly kiss she usually greeted him with. “Mr. Valentine. It’s so nice to see you again.”

  “I enjoyed every minute of it.” He sandwiched her hand between his big ones. “It’s a pleasure to watch you work. Did I hear the man mention lunch?”

  She put a hand on her stomach. “That you did.”

  “Then you’ll join us, won’t you?”

  “Well, I …” When Reed said nothing, she searched for an excuse.

  “Now, you wouldn’t disappoint me.” Edwin ignored his son’s silence and barreled ahead. “This is your neck of the woods. You must know a good spot.”

  “There’s a deli just across the street,” she began.

  “Perfect. I could eat a good pastrami.” And it would only take a quick call to cancel his reservation at the Four Seasons. “What do you say, Reed?”

  “I’d say Maddy needs a minute to change.” He finally smiled at her.

  She glanced down at her costume of hot pink shorts and tank top. “Five minutes to get into my street clothes,” she promised, and dashed away.

  * * *

  She was better than her word. Within five minutes she had thrown a yellow sweat suit over her costume and was walking into the deli in front of Reed and his father.

  The smells were wonderful. There were times she stopped in for them alone. Spiced meat, hot mustard, strong coffee. An overhead fan stirred it all up. Most of the dancers had headed there from the theater like hungry ants to a picnic. Because the proprietor was shrewd, there was a jukebox in the rear corner. It was already blasting away.

  The big Greek behind the counter spotted Maddy and gave her a wide white grin. “Ahhh, an O’Hurley special?”

  “Absolutely.” Leaning on the glass front of the counter, she watched him dish up a big, leafy salad. He used a generous hand with chunks of cheese, then topped it off with a dollop of yogurt.

  “You eat that?” Edwin asked behind her.

  She laughed and accepted the bowl. “I absorb it.”

  “Body needs meat.” Edwin ordered a pastrami on a huge kaiser roll.

  “I’ll get us a table,” Maddy offered, grabbing a cup of tea to go with the salad. Wisely she commandeered one on the opposite end of the room from the music.

  “Lunch with the big boys, huh, Maddy?” Terry, with his hair still slicked back à la Jackie, stooped over her. “Going to put in a good word for me?”

  “What word would you like?” She turned in her chair to grin up at him.

  “How about ‘star’?”

  “I’ll see if I can work it in.”

  He started to say something else but glanced over at his own table. “Damn it, Leroy, that’s my pickle.”

  Maddy was still laughing when Reed and his father joined her.

  “Quite a place,” Edwin commented, already looking forward to his sandwich and the heap of potato salad beside it.

  “They’re on their best behavior because you’re here.”

  Someone started to sing over the blare of the jukebox. Maddy simply pitched her voice higher. “Will you come to the Philadelphia opening, Mr. Valentine?”

  “Thinking about it. Don’t travel as much as I used to. There was a time when the head of a record company had to be out of town as much as he was in his office.”

  “Must have been exciting.” She dipped into her salad and pretended she didn’t envy Reed his pile of rare roast beef.

  “Hotel rooms, meetings.” He shrugged. “And I missed my boy.” The look he gave Reed was both rueful and affectionate. “Missed too many ball games.”

  “You made plenty of them.” Reed sliced off a corner of his sandwich and handed it to Maddy. It was a small, completely natural gesture that caught Edwin’s eye. And his hope.

  “Reed was top pitcher on his high school team.”

  Reed was shaking his head with a smile of his own when Maddy turned to him. “You played ball? You never told me.” As soon as the words were out, she reminded herself he had no reason to tell her. There were dozens of other details about his life that he hadn’t told her. “I never really understood baseball until I moved to New York,” she went on quickly. “Then I caught a few Yankee games to see what the fuss was about. What was your ERA?”

  He lifted a brow. “2.38.”

  It pleased her that he remembered. She rolled her eyes at his father. “Big-league material.”

  “So I always told him. But he wanted to work in the business.”

  “That’s the big leagues, too, isn’t it?” She nibbled on the portion of sandwich Reed had given her. “Most of us only look at the finished product, you know, the CD we put in the player. I guess it’s a long trip from sheet music to digital sound.”

  “When you’ve got three or four days free,” Edwin said with a laugh, “I’ll fill you in.”

  “I’d like that.” She drank her honeyed tea, knowing it would seep into her bloodstream and get her through the next four hours. “When we recorded the cast album for Suzanna’s Park, I got a taste of it. I think the studio’s so different from the stage. So, well … restricted.” She swallowed lettuce. “Sorry.”

  “No need.”

  “A studio has certain restrictions,” Reed put in. He took a sip of his coffee and discovered it was strong enough to melt leather. “On the other hand, there can be untold advantages. We can take that man behind the counter, put him in a studio and turn him into Caruso by pushing the right buttons.”

  Maddy digested that, then shook her head. “That’s cheating.”

  “That’s marketing,” Reed corrected. “And plenty of labels do it.”

  “Does Valentine?”

  He looked at her, and the gray eyes she’d admired from the beginning were direct. “No. Valentine was started with an eye toward quality, not quantity.”

  She slanted Edwin a wicked look. “But you were going to offer a recording contract to the O’Hurley Triplets.”

  Edwin added an extra dash of pepper to his sandwich. “You weren’t quality?”

  “We were … a slice above mediocre.”

  “A great deal above, if what I saw onstage this afternoon is any indication.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “Do you get time for much socializing, Maddy?”

  She plopped her chin on her hands. “Asking me for a date?”

  He seemed taken aback, though only for an instant. Then he roared with laughter that caught the attention of everyone in the deli. “Damned if I wouldn’t, if I could d
rop twenty years. Quite a prize right here.” He patted her hand, but looked at his son.

  “Yes, she is,” Reed said blandly.

  “I’m thinking of giving a party,” Edwin said on impulse. “Sending the play off to Philadelphia in style. What do you think, Maddy?”

  “I think it’s a great idea. Am I invited?”

  “On the condition that you save a dance for me.”

  It was as easy for her to love the father as it was for her to love the son. “You can have as many as you like.”

  “I don’t think I can keep up with you for more than one.”

  She laughed with him. When she picked up her tea, she saw that Reed was watching her again, coolly. The sense of disapproval she felt from him cut her to the bone.

  “I, ah, I have to get back. There are some things I have to do before afternoon rehearsal.”

  “Walk the lady across the street, Reed. Your legs are younger than mine.”

  “Oh, that’s all right.” Maddy was already up. “I don’t need—”

  “I’ll walk you over.” Reed had her by the elbow.

  She wouldn’t make a scene. For the life of her she couldn’t pinpoint why she wanted to so badly. Instead, she bent down and kissed Edwin’s cheek. “Thanks for lunch.”

  She waited until they were outside before she spoke again. “Reed, I’m perfectly capable of crossing the street alone. Go back to your father.”

  “Do you have a problem?”

  “Do I have a problem?” She pulled her arm away and glared at him. “Oh, I can’t stand to hear you say that to me in that proper, politely curious voice.” She started across the street at a jog.

  “You have twenty minutes to get back.” He caught her arm again.

  “I said I had things to do.”

  “You lied.”

  In the center of the street, with the light turning yellow, she turned toward him again. “Then let’s say I have better things to do. Better things than to sit there and be put under your intellectual microscope. What’s wrong, don’t you like the fact that I enjoy your father’s company? Are you afraid I have designs on him?”

  “Stop it.” He gave her a jerk to get her moving as cars began to honk.

  “You just don’t like women in general, do you? You put us all in this big box that’s labeled ‘Not To Be Trusted.’ I wish I knew why.”