She could smell champagne as if it flowed from fountains. The place was in chaos, people sitting on tables, shouting across the room, accosting waitstaff bearing platters of finger food. No one should have noticed Charlotte and Dorian slipping in late. But they did.
“Charlotte!” Otto called from across the room, where he held court at a round table covered with a red satin cloth and a dozen champagne bottles. He was loud enough to draw the attention of the others, who turned to look.
“To our playwright! To the genius!” Otto raised a glass.
Marta, at her own table with a dozen fawning admirers, took up her own glass. “To the genius!”
And everyone raised glasses and cheered and applauded all over again. This was more than Charlotte had expected, more than she had imagined. She could only bask, silent. The playwright, wordless.
Beside her, Dorian looked at her and smiled. He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close.
“Congratulations,” he whispered, posing for pictures with her, making sure the reporter spelled his name right.
The party went until dawn, but they left early. He brought her home to his place this time and made love to her more attentively than he had since their first weeks together.
BY MORNING, TEN different people had e-mailed Charlotte a photo going around the news Web sites of the masked hero on surveillance footage thwarting a convenience store robbery yesterday evening, the same time she’d been pacing backstage. The photo was black-and-white, grainy, and showed him standing with one foot on a guy who sprawled in front of the checkout counter. A gun could be seen nearby, as if it had fallen and skittered away from the would-be robber’s gloved hand.
Is this the same guy? everyone wanted to know, and how would she know because all she saw was the mask. But she thought it was the same guy. He kept himself busy. She tried to put him out of her mind.
But she recognized the convenience store, on a corner a few blocks away from the theater. He’d been right there, almost.
The reviews of the play were all right, which was more than she’d hoped for, and while they didn’t sell out again after the opening, the house was mostly full every night. Maybe that first night had sold out because of the novelty of her instant fame, if people were just coming to see the play written by that woman who was rescued by that Blue Collar vigilante. But if that was all the play offered, ticket sales would have bombed soon after. Which meant that maybe she knew what she was doing, and maybe everything was going to be all right. Weeks passed, and the play continued its respectable run.
Then people starting asking, “How is the next play coming along?”
And it wasn’t. She stared at her laptop for hours, took her notepad to the park, the coffee shop, the library. She thought she had characters—another woman, another hero, another subversion of traditional Gothic narratives, etcetera. But every line she wrote sounded just like what she’d already done, and the words didn’t fit anymore.
She’d sit in her chair by the window all night—even the nights she spent at Dorian’s—make notes in her notebook, and watch the sky grow light. If she was at Dorian’s, he’d wake up, see her sitting wrapped in a blanket, staring instead of writing, and try to be helpful.
“You’ll get there,” he said. “You did it before, you can do it again.” Like it was just a matter of arguing a case.
One morning at Dorian’s, she’d made it to bed and was still there when he was nearly ready for his day.
“The DA wants to come see your show. I told him I could get him tickets.” Looking in the mirror, he straightened his tie. “You can get tickets, right?”
“Sure,” she said, emerging from blankets. “For when?”
“For tonight.”
“That might be kind of tough.”
“Come on, honey, surely you have some pull. You guys always hold a few tickets back, right?”
Maybe, but she didn’t run the box office. She still had some of her comp tickets left for the run, but there might not be anything for tonight. “I’ll see what I can do, but I’m not a superhero.”
“Great. Text me when you get them, all right? Don’t forget to lock up on your way out.”
“Have a good day, Dorian.” He gave her the appropriate kiss on her forehead and then was gone.
THE BOX OFFICE did have a pair of tickets for that evening. They were even decent seats. Charlotte was very apologetic, promising she’d have more notice next time, and that this was an emergency, and she was very grateful. On the other hand, the box office manager outdid herself apologizing in return, making sure the tickets were the best ones possible, and thanking her for the opportunity to be of service.
Dorian would have known what to do in this situation. The problem wasn’t that Charlotte didn’t have pull. The problem was she didn’t know what to do with it.
The manager filed the tickets with Will Call, she texted Dorian, and went to her favorite coffee shop to write.
Then she saw him.
She was at a sidewalk table, chin resting on her hand, staring at the traffic moving along the tree-lined street, because staring somewhere else wasn’t any less productive than staring at a blank page. She caught movement. It might have been the flickering of a set of leaves at the top of one of the trees, but it wasn’t. It was a person on the roof across the way. Jeans, dark T-shirt, and a mask.
He seemed to realize that she saw him. He stood and ran, disappearing to the back of the roof.
She stood, jostling the table and tipping over her coffee, which streamed to the edge and dripped to the sidewalk. Grabbing her notebook and satchel, she ran across the street, dodging cars like a creature in a video game. At the first alley she came to, she ran to the back of the building to look, but of course he wasn’t there. Just trash that hadn’t made it into the Dumpsters and puddles from the last rain filling cracks in the asphalt. The back doors of various businesses, shut and blank.
Maybe if she waited here until after dark, she’d get caught by muggers, and the masked man would come to rescue her. She didn’t want to leave, she didn’t want to pretend that he was a ghost, that it hadn’t happened, that she could move on.
“Hello?” she called. Her voice rattled in the empty space and no one answered.
DORIAN WAS WORKING late again and asked her to bring dinner—Thai takeout—to his office.
“He’s a crazy superhuman vigilante. You know what they’re like,” he said when she told him the story.
She felt the need to defend the superhero. While not offending Dorian. “You’re both working so hard to catch these guys, maybe you should work together. Pool your resources. Collaborate.” That was a theater word. She should have used another.
He gave her a look, appalled and amused at once. A “yeah, right” and “don’t be ridiculous.”
That night, back at her own apartment, she tried to sleep, couldn’t. She collected her notebook and sat by the window. Still didn’t write a word, but sitting with a pen in hand at least made her feel productive. The moon was full; she could see every detail of the street, the apartment blocks, the row of shops and Laundromats with steel grates pulled over the doors; at night, all the colors washed out to various degrees of half-tone shading.
On the roof of a row of shops, a figure moved. Monochrome, like the rest of the scene. Black T-shirt. Charlotte couldn’t see his face.
He was watching her. He was. And her heart fluttered at the thought.
SHE HAD SEEN him at all hours. Mostly on rooftops. She couldn’t predict where he’d be, unless maybe she staged a convenience store robbery. But the odds of that ending badly were very, very high, so she didn’t.
Instead, she went to the top of a parking garage on the fringes of downtown with a set of binoculars and scanned the surrounding rooftops. She might have become a vigilante herself, searching for crime, because if she found crime, she’d find him. She didn’t see anything.
For another night, she sat at her bedroom window, wrapped in a bl
anket, waiting for a shadow to race across rooftops and strike a dramatic pose.
And she started writing. Just a few lines in her notebook.
Dorian took her to a charity banquet and introduced her to the mayor. She wore the red dress she’d worn on opening night, met the mayor, accepted compliments from the DA, and Dorian beamed. The evening was a strange echo of the first night they’d met, but different. She was different. An accessory instead of a novelty. She should have been thrilled—this was part of her dreams of a glamorous life, wasn’t it? But she was distracted. It all seemed shallow.
For real drama, some disaster would strike the banquet. Some villain or group of thieves—maybe the same gang that had robbed the jewelry store—would storm the hall, divest the women of their jeweled necklaces and the men of their gold cufflinks, along with wallets and platinum cards and stock portfolios. They would take Charlotte hostage. The red dress made her stand out.
Then he would arrive, an epic battle would ensue, there’d be flames and bullets, she’d be trapped behind a burning door and he would—
“What are you looking for?” Dorian asked her.
“Oh. What? Nothing. Nothing.” She’d been craning her neck, looking at the doors and windows for impending drama.
“You writers,” Dorian said, squeezing her hand.
SOME NIGHTS, SHE went to the theater to take in the atmosphere, but avoided Otto because he always asked about the next play. She watched the old play from the house once, but otherwise sat backstage, well out of the way, and made notes. She was like an observer on a rooftop.
The text messages from Dorian continued. “Sry. Work ran late. Will make it up to you. xoxo.”
So again, she took herself to dinner, to the same favorite café with the rooftop patio. It was raining, but she asked to sit on the patio anyway.
“But it’s raining,” the host said.
“I have an umbrella,” she said.
She dried off a chair with a napkin and sat in a sheltered spot near the wall that housed the main part of the café, under her umbrella, drinking coffee. The petunias and daisies in the large planters at each corner drooped, and the sky grew grayer.
And there he was. He didn’t seem to mind the rain. The T-shirt molded to him a little more, and water dripped off his arms and the edges of his mask. Quickly she stood, then thought maybe she shouldn’t—she didn’t want to scare him off. But when he didn’t run, she didn’t sit down.
“Hi,” she said.
A moment passed. “Hi.”
He seemed nervous; he kept looking away. So he was shy. That made sense. He had secrets to hide, no one could know who he was—it was all very romantic, she was sure. Beautiful, even right down to his jeans, to his ungraceful boots.
Then he said, “I have to go—”
“Wait!” But for what? For her? How did she talk a masked avenger into waiting for her? “Who are you?” She winced. So obvious.
He gave her a lopsided smile. “I can’t say.”
“But—” And what excuse would she give, about why she was different? Why was she any different, except that he’d once plucked her out of the air? “Why are you following me?” she said, surprised to say anything, even the first thing she thought of. She’d expected to let him flee.
“To make sure you’re safe. That gang—they could come after you again.”
“Really?”
He averted his eyes. So the answer was no. She hadn’t thought so.
“If you’re looking for them, trying to catch them, you should talk to Dorian. He’s my—” She didn’t want to say the word. She didn’t want to shut the door. “My friend, he’s an assistant DA, he’s got the robbery case if it ever goes to trial. He’s working with the police. He may have information you can use. Maybe you could work together.” It seemed reasonable.
“I don’t think so.”
“Is it just because of the mask? Because you’d have to tell them who you are? I mean, do you really have to hide who you are?”
“It’s traditional,” he said, and now he sounded apologetic. The only expression she could see under the mask was a flat-lipped frown, a gaze somewhere between determined and resigned.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t pry, but it’s just—I’m sorry.” It’s just that he was strange, and she wanted to help him.
“I saw your play,” he said then.
She wondered, How? Was he in the audience? In the rafters? How had she missed him? But what she asked was, “What did you think?”
“I liked it.” What a sweet smile. He turned bashful again. “I’d never seen a play before.”
“Really? Really? Oh my God, mine shouldn’t have been your first play ever! How could you have never seen a play?”
“I guess I don’t get out much,” he said, which seemed ironic.
They just kept standing there in the rain. She lifted the umbrella and stepped closer to bring him under the shelter—he stepped back, as if afraid.
She tried not to be hurt. Tried not to take it personally. She swallowed her pride.
“I don’t know anything about you.” A statement containing all her questions. “I mean, where do you live? What do you do? Do you have a day job? A … a girlfriend? What’s your name?”
He might as well have been an alien, a character, a face on a billboard. He seemed uncertain, pain in his eyes—biting his lips. He seemed to consider. When he returned, taking back the step he’d moved away, closing the distance between them, she thought he’d tell her everything. He moved quickly, with the reflexes that had saved her from crashing to the pavement. Touched her chin with gentle, calloused fingers.
She closed her eyes, waiting for that kiss, and so didn’t see him run away. Only felt a draft on her face where there should have been warmth.
“Wait!” She saw a shadow fleeing through the mist, then he was gone, and she was alone, the only one stupid enough to stay on the rooftop in the rain.
THE NEXT EVENING, Dorian’s text message about working late came later than she expected, but it came. It rained again, and Charlotte imagined the masked man out there in it. She watched the news for an hour, looking for signs of him. But he didn’t seem to be busy tonight, or if he was, the network wasn’t showing it. They were more interested in the flashier heroes, the Invincibles and Red Meteors, who had a sense of style and public relations. And she thought of Dorian in his courtroom attire, which was just as alluring as a vigilante costume, in its own way.
Then she wondered. Dorian had been so busy lately.
The masked man had brown eyes, Dorian had brown eyes. They were about the same height, and their chins—chagrined, she realized she couldn’t say that she had ever noticed Dorian’s chin. It was a nice chin, average. She noticed the hero’s chin because the mask drew attention to it.
The masks were deceptive. They seemed like they shouldn’t be able to disguise anything, but it was more than a mask, it was a distraction. She had never, ever seen Dorian in jeans and a T-shirt. His version of casual involved Dockers, polo shirts, and loafers. Boating or golf attire. He always had a bit of polish because, as he said it, he never knew when he might run into someone who needed impressing. She could never imagine him standing out in the rain, wearing a T-shirt and a goofy smile.
Maybe that was the point. She had seen Marta in half a dozen shows, playing ingenues and dutiful daughters, unrecognizable from one role to the next.
Later that week, they didn’t meet for dinner, but she came over to Dorian’s place anyway, late, to spend the night. Dorian was in the kitchen, pouring himself a tumbler of scotch.
“You’ve been working late a lot,” she said, watching for his reaction.
“Yeah,” he said, in a mock long-suffering tone.
“What exactly do you do?” She winced because it sounded accusing.
“Paperwork, mostly, believe it or not. I meet with people all day so the paperwork gets put off. And the police work late. I like to keep track of them.”
“Ah. I gu
ess I’ve never had a sense of what goes on in a real job.” She quirked a smile, trying to make it a joke.
“That’s why you have writer’s block. You need to get out in the real world and then you’d have something to write about.”
She tried to remember how the masked man had smelled. She’d been close enough to smell his skin, his sweat. Maybe she could tell if he and Dorian smelled the same. But all she remembered from him was the smell of rain on fabric, and the sensation of warmth when he touched her.
Get out in the world so she’d have something to write about. Yeah.
WHILE DORIAN SLEPT, Charlotte was about to go sit by the window when Dorian’s phone rang.
He seemed to be ready for it. “Hello? Yeah?” He rolled out of bed and took his phone into the next room. Sitting very still, she could hear.
“You got them? They’re cornered and not surrendering … Of course I want to be there. Give me fifteen minutes.” He came back into the bedroom and dressed quickly—he didn’t even bother with a tie.
“What?” she said.
“Never mind. Go back to sleep. It’s all right.”
“But—”
He was out the door. He’d never even turned on the lights.
Something was happening. Or was about to happen.
Charlotte got up and went to the next room to turn on the TV, but whatever was going on, the news hadn’t picked up on it yet. Dorian’s laptop sat on the desk, and she went there next, fired it up, and checked “Rooftop Watch.”
A dozen updates had been posted just in the last ten minutes. “It’s those jewel thieves, the cops are there.” “Any supers?” “On the lookout for supers.” “The police seemed to be centered on 21st and Pine.”
She was turning into one of those superhero stalkers who haunted Web sites like this and posted conspiracy theories. She didn’t care.
Then she read the latest post: “Blue Collar’s been sighted! Just for a second!”
Charlotte found her phone and called Dorian. Waited, and waited, but got no answer. And maybe that was her answer. She called a cab while getting dressed, reached the curb just as it pulled up, trundled into the backseat, and told the sleepy-looking driver the address.
Songs of Love and Darkness Page 5