“Yeah, I was younger and buffer…and foolish. What’s my excuse now?”
“Just don’t bend over, Dad. You’ll be okay,” Jamie laughed. They loved teasing their father about his wigs and costumes for Kiss Me Kate. Fortunately for D.J., he’d convinced the director he’d wear the Shakespearean tunic and tights in only one scene. The others, he’d dress in late thirties’ garb, the time period of the more modern set pieces of the musical.
The 2005 revival of Cole Porter’s 1948 hit, Kiss Me, Kate, was a galloping success. Promoted in all the newspapers and theatre weeklies was the renewed pairing of husband-and-wife opera stars, Darren McKay and Eva Cook. Their return to the Broadway stage heralded a rush at the Box Office and by opening night, the first four months’ performances were completely sold out.
At the premiere, their daughter, Sara, was in the audience with her half-brothers, Jamie and Justin, and half of the McKay extended family, including Liz McKay. Eva’s mother had come, also. Vonnie had flown in from Nashville, where she was recording another album.
After the finale, still in their Elizabethan costumes, Eva and D.J. took their curtain bows along with the rest of the cast. The applause was thunderous and, as Nate Bernstein in the front row held up both thumbs, the show appeared to be a box-office smash. Their children, sandwiched between the two grandmothers in the front row, echoed Nate’s sentiment with thumbs-up accolades.
From their vantage point downstage-center, they clasped hands once again as D.J. bowed deeply and held his hands over his heart. Eva curtsied nearly to the floor, her billowing gown impeding her rise. D.J. smoothly helped her up and caught her around the waist with one arm.
“Thanks, D.J. This gown’s a little too long,” she said, realizing she couldn’t be heard over the applause.
“You’re a trooper, Miss Villa,” D.J. told her, his look catching her eye. Something was up, for he wasn’t taking another bow but standing tall and too close to her. She took a step to the side, away from him in order to have room to curtsy.
Unrehearsed, he seized her, dipped her back and kissed her on the mouth. When he released her, laughing at her surprised look, she felt herself flush through her make-up. Their stage paint was smeared but who cared?
Their fellow cast members laughed at D.J.’s impulse of the moment. Not willing to let him upstage her, however, Eva flung her arms around his neck, rose on her tiptoes and kissed him back. A loud smack on the lips.
It was his turn to color. They laughed, helpless to contain the joy that overwhelmed them. They’d come a long way and it wasn’t over yet.
They took the hands of their fellow cast members and everyone bowed in unison. When she and D.J. were left alone on stage again, they let their joy erupt. Almost as one, they came together, embraced and kissed.
The audience loved it and rose to its feet.
Eva drew back and amid the deafening ovation, said something.
“What?” he asked.
“I said, one down, sixty-three to go. Can you bear it?”
He smiled, and turned them both to face the audience for another bow and curtsey.
“With you, darlin’, I can bear anything.”
About the Author
I’m a retired high school teacher, whose first passion has always been reading and writing books. I’ve been a storyteller ever since I could print. After raising two children and a husband, I now have the time to devote to my first love, storytelling. My hobbies include traveling, painting, singing and golf. Half Latina, my first two books reflect my mixed, bicultural, bilingual heritage. In my third book, Born To Sing, my heroine is also latina, a Tejana or Texicana (a born-and-raised Texan of Mexican descent). My first book, Operation Familia, won an award in the Latino Books into Movies contest, sponsored by the Latino Book Festival, 2010. In the novel, Born To Sing, I’m branching out and starting a new series about singers and their careers and love lives.
Born to Sing, no. 1 Page 27