Pride and Joy

by M. L. Rice

  Bryce looked doubtful. She really didn’t want to leave her friends’ company. She was already on the verge of breaking after all of the attention of the evening.

  “Go ahead. It’ll be good for you.”

  “Can’t I just wait for the server to come over?” Bryce looked and saw a waiter three tables over taking orders.

  “No! No, I think you should go over yourself. It will give you self-confidence!”

  “Wow. You are so bullshitting me right now.” Bryce was befuddled by her friend’s behavior, but she really didn’t have the strength or heart to argue. “Fine. If it means you’ll lay off for the rest of the evening, I’ll go. Deal?”

  “Deal!” Jennifer smiled widely.

  Bryce stood with only a small amount of pain and picked her way toward the bar through the clusters of people. She tried to hide her face as she walked, feeling guilty and weak about her embarrassment, especially after the bravery and honor shown that night by the disfigured sailor and the other wounded veterans, but she knew that nothing she did would draw attention away from the scar.

  She had made it about halfway across the expanse when the panic hit. She stopped dead in her tracks and looked wildly around. No one seemed to be paying any attention to her, but her heart slammed in her chest, and she felt like running straight back to her apartment. Busted leg be damned.

  Her anxiety finally overwhelmed her and she turned around, stumbling slightly as she did so, and took a single step to hurry back to her friends at their table. She was stopped when a hand reached out and gently grabbed her shoulder.

  “Hey. Bryce.”

  She stopped, and in the split second it took to do so she tried to place that voice. She had heard it before, but it seemed like a lifetime ago, so the memory escaped her.

  She turned slowly, gaze focused on her feet, careful to keep her unmarred right cheek toward the speaker, as if doing this would completely hide the damaged side of her face. “Yes?” Bryce saw a woman’s legs in a blue knee-length dress. Not anyone in the military, then.

  “It’s so good to see you.”

  Bryce realized she would never be able to see the speaker properly if she kept trying to hide her face, so she looked up slowly, and as the woman’s features came into her view the missing pieces of memory fell into place immediately. “Oh my God.”

  “That’s not the greeting I expected, but I’ll take it!” The woman laughed melodiously and Bryce felt an immediate stirring in her chest.

  “Daniela! Why…what are you doing here? I mean…I’m sorry. I’m just shocked to see you! It’s been…”

  “About eight years! Yeah.” Daniela’s smile was radiant. She was still shorter than Bryce, but her sleeveless dress showed off her toned shoulders and she had filled out beautifully since high school.

  For a moment Bryce forgot about her damaged face. “What are you doing in Seattle? At this fund-raiser?” Bryce’s shock at seeing her old friend had completely stamped out the panic attack she had been on the verge of suffering.

  “I’m in the touring cast of A Chorus Line. We’re playing at the Paramount for a month before heading up to Vancouver and then east across Canada. When the tour started we were invited to perform a few numbers tonight for the fund-raiser so, of course, we jumped at the chance! It’s for a good cause.”

  Bryce was completely speechless. Daniela had always been extremely pretty, but now, at—Bryce quickly did the math—twenty-four years old, she was drop-dead gorgeous.

  “Bryce?” Daniela’s smile had turned into a worried frown. “Are you feeling all right? Is your leg hurting you?”

  Bryce realized she had been staring like an idiot. When she came back to herself she also realized the Bryce Montgomery that Daniela was seeing was a thousand miles from the Bryce she had known in high school. A weight dropped heavily into Bryce’s stomach, stamping out the pleasant flutters. She realized how she must look now to her old friend. What must she think of her now? Daniela had admired the beautiful, confident star athlete who had the whole world open to her. The person who stood before her now was broken, scarred, rejected, and spiritually severed. Oh, and she lacked a future too. “No. My leg is fine,” Bryce replied impassively.

  Daniela didn’t look convinced, but continued in a much more serious tone. “I’ve wanted to see you again for a long time. There are so many things I want to tell you.”

  Bryce trembled with the effort of acting out some semblance of normalcy for this friend she had lost track of over the years. She felt like such a jerk. Daniela had always been such a good friend to her. How could she have never thought to check on her, to see how her life was going? Just because Bryce herself had been through such an ordeal before she left Saltus? So selfish.

  Seeing Daniela now, apparently a successful actress just like she had dreamed of being, still kind, and so beautiful it hurt to look at her, made Bryce feel unworthy and embarrassed.

  “I have to go.” Bryce pushed past Daniela and, as quickly as she could manage, made her way back into the hotel and down the elevator to the lobby. Once outside, she hailed a taxi and headed straight back to her apartment where she locked the door, discarded her handsome uniform in a messy ball on the floor, and curled up around Bear in her bed, all while crying her eyes out and messing up the mascara Arati had worked so diligently to apply.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “You really hurt Daniela’s feelings, you know,” Jennifer said as she scrubbed at the dried makeup on Bryce’s face.

  Bryce sighed heavily. “I know. I don’t know what happened. Seeing her just brought back so many memories and made me feel…like such a loser.” She paused, but Jennifer said nothing. “What did she do after I left? Was she mad?”

  “No. She came over to sit with us and asked that I give you this.” Jennifer handed Bryce one ticket to A Chorus Line for the following night’s performance. “Bryce, you need to go see her. She was so worried about you after the accident.”

  Bryce was surprised. She didn’t know that Daniela had even known about what had happened to her.

  Jennifer noticed the shock on Bryce’s face and continued. “Everyone in Saltus knows about it. Don’t ask me how. Your parents never said anything. Dani’s parents told her right after it happened, and as soon as she found out that the show would be stopping for an extended stay in Seattle, she got in touch with me to find out how you were doing and to see if it would be possible for her to visit you. The cast just arrived two days ago.”

  “So she knew I would be at the fund-raiser last night?”

  Jennifer smiled. “No, actually. I had no reason to tell her about that. Hell, I didn’t even know if you would go through with it! That was just happy circumstance. I didn’t know that seeing her again would upset you, though. Now I feel awful.”

  “Oh, Jenn, it’s not your fault at all. I just had a mini-breakdown. There’s no way you could’ve known. I just thought about how much I’ve changed. How awful I feel about myself and how I’ve been behaving lately. I was just so humiliated.”

  “What’s done is done. Do you think that you’ll be able to go see her in the show, though? She really wants you to be there. And”—Jennifer pointed to the ticket held limply in Bryce’s hand—“that’s front row center. She’ll know if you don’t show up.”

  Bryce put the ticket down on the kitchen table and settled her face into her hands. “God. You guys are killing me. I feel like I’ve been thrown overboard in the waters of the Bering Sea without a life jacket and told to just swim for it.”

  “Do you ever even think in non-nautical terms?” Jennifer smiled.

  The corner of Bryce’s mouth lifted as she sat up and replied, “Nautical terms help me keep my compass bearing.”

  Jennifer laughed loudly. “Dork.”

  “Landlubber.”

  “But seriously. We won’t be here to help you after we leave tonight. Are you going to be okay?”

  “Define okay.”

  “Bryce, I’m serious. Do I need to worry
about you?”

  Bryce felt guilty for causing her friends to worry about her so much, especially when they had busy lives of their own. “No, Jenn. I’m fine. Really.”

  “Does that mean you’ll go see Dani’s show?”

  Bryce couldn’t find her voice, so she just nodded.

  “Good. I know she’ll be ecstatic that you’re there. Just be sure to talk to her. She said she’ll be coming out of the stage door afterward.”

  Bryce sighed and gave a wan smile. “I kind of wanted to see the show anyway, before I knew she was in it.”

  “Good. Text me when you get home, okay? Even if it’s really late with the time difference.”

  “I will. You and the others call me when you get back home tonight too.”

  “We will.” Jennifer walked around the table to hug her. “You take care of yourself. And we had a blast this week. Seattle is an amazing city. Next year our trip is going to be somewhere warm, though, got it?”

  Bryce smiled. “Find me a private island in Tahiti and I’m there.”

  “I’ll work on it.”

  *

  Bryce tapped her fingers nervously on the program as the seats around her slowly filled. The din of conversation in the large theater grated on her nerves and she wanted nothing more than for the lights to dim and to be swept away in the music. She could feel gazes on her damaged face. Instead of letting herself tumble into another panic attack, she opened up the playbill to read the cast biographies. With a pleasant jolt she came upon Daniela’s name and discovered that the young woman she had been so impressed with in high school was playing Diana Morales, a character who struggles through acting classes and ends up singing one of the best songs in the show. Bryce couldn’t help but smile. She had seen Daniela’s talent emerge in Bye Bye Birdie all those years ago, and now she was about to see her in a real, professional show. Excitement replaced nervousness.

  She decided not to read Daniela’s biography. She would rather have something to talk about when they met up after the show. Instead she just stared at the amazing headshot printed in black and white on the page. Daniela really had grown into one of the most beautiful women Bryce had ever seen, and she found that she couldn’t tear her eyes away.

  Uh-oh.

  At just that moment the lights dimmed and the steady A from a single oboe started the tuning of the orchestra. Bryce clutched her program to her chest and tried to slow the beating of her heart. In only a few seconds, Daniela would see that she had been brave enough to come to the show and Bryce would see firsthand how talented…and attractive…her friend had become.

  *

  For two solid hours Bryce had felt happy. She had forgotten her self-deprecating depression and had lost herself in the story of desperate triple threats. Every member of the cast was brilliant, but Daniela…Bryce had never been as mesmerized by another performer. Even when she had just stood in her bored dancer’s pose, one knee bent daintily forward and hands on her hips, she had owned the stage. Bryce’s eyes had run up and down the length of Daniela’s body from her muscular legs in dancer’s tights to her perfect ponytail. The view had been…titillating.

  The best part of the show had happened in the first five minutes, though. As soon as the dancers formed up into their famous line, Daniela’s eyes had furtively glanced straight to Bryce’s seat to see if she was there. When she had seen Bryce staring up at her, she had forced back a smile and winked directly at her. Bryce had felt light and significant for the first time in a long time.

  Now the afterglow was fading. The show had ended and Bryce stood by the stage door with several other fans, out of place and unprotected in this group of people. She kept her back firmly to the wall but felt as if she could lose it at any second. Eyes still glanced furtively her way, taking in the cane and her face. She’d never get used to it.

  Fifteen minutes later, Bryce nearly chickened out and left. But even as she considered it, the stage door opened and actors, orchestra members, and crew filed out. The actors smiled, signed autographs, and posed for pictures with their fans before jumping into the backseats of their chauffeured cars. From her semi-hidden spot against the wall Bryce could only see the backs of everyone’s heads, but eventually an actress slightly shorter than the rest exited and Bryce recognized Daniela’s dark, straight ponytail. Young girls flocked around her and Bryce watched with amazement as she posed with her arms around her adoring followers. The timid girl Bryce had babysat and taught to swim had become a celebrity.

  Instead of following her cast mates into the waiting car after signing all of the autographs, Daniela hesitated, scanning the crowd with a frown replacing her movie-star smile. Bryce stood up a little taller and stepped from the shadows into the stage door light. Daniela saw the movement out of the corner of her eye and turned around quickly.

  “Bryce. You came! Thank you so much.” She approached cautiously—probably afraid of scaring her off again.

  Something appeared to be caught in Bryce’s throat, but she managed to speak around it. “No, thank you, Dani. You didn’t have to comp me a ticket.”

  “Yes, I did. You’re part of the reason I’m here.”

  Bryce’s confusion made Daniela laugh.

  “We need to do some catching up. Feel like joining me for a late dinner?”

  Bryce’s heart skipped a beat. “Yeah. Sounds great.”

  *

  They walked a few blocks to a late-night diner and sat down at a booth by the window. They perused the menu in silence for a few minutes before Bryce said, “You know? I’m not really hungry.” She was too nervous.

  Daniela replied, “I’m starving. Doing that show every night really takes it out of me.”

  “I imagine so.”

  The waitress approached and took Daniela’s order of egg whites, a whole-wheat English muffin, veggie sausage, milk, and sliced fruit. Bryce ordered a coffee.

  When she had gone, Daniela stared at Bryce for a minute, then finally said, “So.”

  “So,” Bryce replied, unsure of what to say.

  “I’ll start. I have so many questions about your life since high school.”

  Bryce smiled, but was dying to know everything about Daniela. She was entranced by what her friend was doing with her life. “Okay, but you first. I mean, I can’t believe you’re an actress.”

  “Well, I have you to thank for a lot of that, Bryce.”

  “Me? What did I do?”

  “Well, you were pretty much the only person who ever made me feel truly special. You supported me whenever I needed the encouragement. My parents never wanted me to do this. Dad always said that he didn’t move to America from El Salvador for me to waste my life pretending to be someone I’m not, embarrassing myself in front of thousands of people.”

  “That must have been difficult.”

  Daniela shrugged.

  Bryce understood having to deal with unsupportive parents, so she let it drop. “Well, I didn’t do anything special.”

  “Not true. You made me feel talented and worthwhile. You complimented me on my role as Rosie, remember? When I told you that I wanted to be an actress you said, ‘Then that’s what you’re going to do. And you’re going to be amazing.’ You also said that you couldn’t take your eyes off me when I played her.” She smiled in a pleased way.

  “You remember all that?”

  Daniela’s cheeks reddened. “I remember pretty much everything you ever said to me, Bryce.”

  “Wow.”

  “Why so surprised? You have to realize that you were the coolest girl in the school and I worshipped the ground you walked on.”

  Bryce snorted. “I wasn’t Miss Popularity, Dani.”

  “True, you didn’t run with the ‘popular’ girls, thank God. They were all bitches. You were that girl who’s nice to everyone so everyone loves you. And being a super-hot swimmer sure didn’t hurt.”

  Bryce flushed from the compliment and sat pensively for a moment. “You know, it just didn’t feel like that from my side, I
guess. I mean, yeah, I tried to be nice to everyone and I did well on the swim team, but there were always girls more beautiful, more popular, and way cooler than me.”

  “I beg to differ.”

  The flattery warmed Bryce…and embarrassed her. “You make me sound like I was the prom queen or something.”

  “No, I mean, I differ with you on two of those points. I thought you were ridiculously cool and you were definitely the most beautiful.”

  It was Bryce’s turn to blush, but not before her stomach dropped. “Well, I’ll still claim cool, but beautiful…” She gestured to her scar and drooping eye, then shrugged it off. “But we were talking about you. How were the rest of your high school years? What happened after you graduated?”

  Daniela frowned quickly, then said, “High school was normal, I guess. I continued to do theater in school and community productions. Shakespeare in the Park and the like. I figured out pretty quickly that I had found my calling.”

  “It shows. You were fantastic tonight.”

  Daniela blushed. “I’ve always been a pretty shy person, but when I’m onstage I can be someone else entirely. It’s an amazing feeling. I can be anyone and it’s really cathartic.”

  “Well, once again, I couldn’t take my eyes off you.” Bryce gulped as she tried to force the words back into her mouth, but Daniela’s eyes lit up as her face broke out into an enormous smile.

  “See? That’s what I’m talking about! You were always so complimentary and supportive of me. Thank you.”

  Bryce coughed, trying to cover up her embarrassment. The waitress rescued her by setting her coffee and Daniela’s milk on the table. Bryce took a good two minutes doctoring her cup before she asked, “What about after you graduated?”

  “Dad tried to pressure me to go to medical school, but I kept thinking about your encouragement to do what I wanted with my life, and I really wanted to act. I had secretly applied to all of the best acting program colleges and, after a terrifying live audition, I got accepted to the musical theater program at NYU and earned my degree there.”