Playing By Heart

by Melanie Shawn

  Alison gave him an amused half smile, remaining noncommittal as she said, “Those are the words of a man who already has a plan in place, David. So why don’t you just tell me what it is?”

  David and Ira laughed, in that hearty way people do when they are in the midst of a highly polished sales pitch. “You got me.” He turned to Ira. “This one, she’s on top of things.”

  “She’s a smart one,” Ira agreed.

  Alison laughed in spite of herself. She knew she was being played, but Ira and David were so good at it—and, besides, she was actually interested in what they had to say. “Okay, okay. Enough with the flattery. Just tell me what you have in mind.”

  “We’ve organized a fundraiser. It’s the reason we’re in town—three-night run next week. Sold out crowd, all three nights. Command performance by the lead soprano of the San Francisco opera. Only problem? She’s in surgery, having nodes removed or some such.”

  Alison nodded slowly. “So, your idea is that I would step in?”

  Ira pointed at her. “Bingo. We’d hook you up with the music director, intense rehearsal, and then a three-night run. You could consider it a test run for future engagements.”

  Alison closed her eyes to try to quell the warring impulses inside her. To quiet the sharp voices staging an argument inside her own head. Professional challenge versus a home in Valentine Bay. God, they each held so much appeal, they each pulled at her deepest desires with compelling strength.

  And then, in the back of her head, one little dissenting whisper, drifting through the screams, asking her: What if you can have both?

  “I’ll do it,” she blurted out, shocking herself. As David and Ira congratulated her and ordered champagne to celebrate, her ears buzzed with the commitment she’d just made.

  Later, as she walked back to her hotel, she held her phone in one hand, slapping it in a regular rhythm against her opposite palm.

  She needed to call Troy and tell him, but she was having the damndest time dialing the phone. Even though she knew she was being ridiculous, she felt a little ashamed, like she should’ve talked to Troy before making the three-show run commitment to Ira and David.

  That was ludicrous, she knew; Troy wasn’t her husband. He wasn’t her…anything. And as much as that fact made her kind of sad and incomplete in a deep way, it also relieved her of the responsibility to run her professional decisions by him and discuss them before committing.

  Still…it just didn’t feel right. Deep in her gut, it didn’t sit well.

  So, she was freaked out about calling him, and she was putting it off. She didn’t want to hear the words that might be at the other end of that phone call.

  Come on, damn…he’d put them on a break just because she’d wanted to pursue the opportunity via having this dinner conversation. She didn’t know what he was going to say when he found out that she’d agreed to stay through the next week.

  But, then again…how strong could what they had be if just one week apart could destroy it?

  “Ahhh!”

  She stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, people streaming around her as she stood stock still.

  Finally, she took a deep breath, clenched her gut, and dialed the phone.

  All this back and forth wondering wasn’t getting her anywhere. Time to find out what the real conversation was going to be like.

  Chapter 41

  Troy took a huge, satisfying bite out of his sausage, egg, and cheese croissant and followed it up with a sip of rich, hot food truck coffee.

  Jett took his own cup of coffee from Fred, the food truck owner, and stepped over to join him. He gestured to the greasy, fragrant sandwich with his chin. “I think that’s what women call ‘eating your feelings,’ my man.”

  “It’s my drug of choice and I won’t apologize. I didn’t ask you to swing by on my break.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Just don’t give me crap about it until I’m finished. I want to enjoy it.”

  Jett sipped his coffee in silence until Troy had swallowed the last bite of his breakfast sandwich and then slapped him on the back. “When is Alison coming back?”

  Troy snorted. “What makes you think it’s got anything to do with that?”

  Jett smirked. “So. When does she get back?”

  Troy narrowed his eyes. “So, what? You drew the short straw and became the designated brother to come talk to me?”

  “This is coming off like a serious attempt not to answer the question.”

  Troy exhaled and his shoulders slumped. “She’s staying an extra week.”

  Jett nodded. “Why?”

  “There’s this fundraiser thing. A three-night series. She’s filling in for some opera person. I don’t really know the whole story. She left it on my voicemail.”

  “Well, what did she say when you called her back?”

  Troy just stood there silently, feeling more and more sheepish as the seconds ticked by and Jett just stared.

  Finally, Jett shook his head. “So you decided the best thing to do was just not call her back?”

  Troy sighed. “I think calling it ‘decided’ is generous. I just tried to call her back a few times and couldn’t figure out what I’d say.”

  “So you just didn’t.”

  “Hell, dude. It sent me spinning when she was just flying down for a dinner. Now she’s staying for an extra week to do shows? I just…fuck. With every step I see her moving further and further away. Who am I kidding? Valentine Bay is a blip for her. A vacation spot. She was never going to stay. I was an idiot to fool myself into thinking she might.”

  Jett was silent for another moment before speaking. “So, you got all of that from your non-conversation, huh? Quick question—would you say those conclusions were based more on the imaginary things you said in this non-existent conversation, or her imaginary responses?”

  Troy had to laugh. “Fine, fine. I get it. I’m being an idiot. I’ll call her back.”

  Jett put his hands up in front of him. “Hell, no. That’s the last thing you should do.”

  “What are you talking about? What has this whole lecture been about then?”

  “Look, I do think the mature thing to do would be to call her back and have a rational discussion. But since you don’t seem to be either mature or rational at the moment, maybe the best thing to do would be to wait until you’re one or both before you talk to her.”

  Troy looked down at his coffee cup. “Shit. That bad, huh?”

  Jett laughed. “Pretty bad, my man.”

  Troy threw out his now empty coffee cup and turned back to Jett. “This is one of those if you love someone, let them go things, right? If she loves me, she’ll come back?”

  Jett shook his head. “Nah. Not let her go. Doesn’t need to be that dramatic. Just…if you love her, let her be. She might stay for a while, she might go for a while, and then she might stay for a while more. You fell in love with a butterfly. Don’t freak out when she wants to flutter, dude. That’s who she is.”

  Troy tilted his head to the side. “The hell?”

  Jett shrugged. “I’ve watched a lot of hungover daytime TV when I was partying. Doesn’t mean it’s not good advice.”

  Troy nodded, acknowledging the truth of that. That’s when it occurred to him—the ultimate way to stop being an idiot and prove to Alison he was worthy of being her man. A real man, not an idiot.

  “Jett, can you meet up with me after I get off work? And see if the guys can come. I have an idea about Alison. But I’m going to need some help.”

  Chapter 42

  Alison studied herself in the dressing room mirror as she applied her final coat of lip gloss. She fluffed her hair, smoothed down her gown.

  Everything was perfect. She was all set for her final performance of the three-night run. It was all going smoothly.

  Still. There was a wrongness in her belly that she just couldn’t shake. And she knew exactly what it was about: Troy.

  He hadn’t returned her phon
e call. Instead, he’d sent her a text saying, “Sounds good. Talk when you get home.”

  She’d analyzed those seven words for every possible shade of meaning so many times it made her head spin. It was so difficult to analyze tone and intention in a text message. Was it literal—he actually thought it sounded good? Or was it sarcastic—he actually thought it sounded terrible?

  Well, she reasoned, at least he’d still called it, “home.” That was a good sign.

  A light knock sounded at the door. “Five minutes, Ms. Bartholomew.”

  “Thanks, Five,” she responded automatically.

  She took one last look at herself in the mirror and then stood and walked through the dark, rope-strewn hallways that led to the stage.

  God, she couldn’t help the tingle of excitement that flowed through her as she did. She loved the hard thrill she felt when the stage manager called five. She loved the way the backstage area of every theater she’d ever been in was dark and filled with shadows and pulleys and cords and lights and all of the other things that made the machine run smoothly behind the scenes.

  She loved the sound her heels made on the boards when she stepped out onstage. She loved the hush that came over the audience when the lights came down. She loved the gasp of anticipation when the curtain rose, and the ripple of pleasure that went through the audience when the first actor said a line, or when she opened her mouth to sing.

  There were so many things in the theater world she needed a break from, but the stage was certainly not one of them. It never would be.

  She needed this. And she needed Valentine Bay. They were both her home, in a way.

  She thought she knew how she could have both. She had a plan, and she was pretty sure she could make it work.

  She’d just have to convince Troy that it would.

  She walked out onstage, and the confident, bold sound of her heels on the hollow boards underneath her feet thrilled her just as hard as it had last night and the night before, and every night she’d ever heard it before, or ever would again.

  The house lights came down, the curtain went up, the music began. She opened her mouth to sing…and then time simultaneously sped up and stood still until the moment she was thanking the audience and walking offstage, waving with both of her hands above her head.

  That was such a strange phenomenon, and one she’d never been able to adequately explain to anyone who didn’t have greasepaint in their veins. When you performed, it seemed like the performance was the whole world, and you existed in it without the bounds of time.

  But, simultaneously, it also felt like it was over in the mere snap of fingers. A split second, then done. Even though those two concepts seemed completely at odds with each other, in reality, they weren’t. They coexisted quite comfortably. And if you’d experienced that inexplicable mental state even once, you never stopped chasing it.

  That was what it meant to be in the theater. She understood now in a way she never had before that it would never leave her.

  But, much in the same way, Valentine Bay was now in her soul forever—and she’d taken a big step to prove that permanence.

  She didn’t blame Troy for being wary of her reliability. After all, he had Mila to think about. She just hoped that what she’d done was enough to prove to him that she was in it for the long haul.

  She returned to her dressing room and waited for the parade of well-wishers to come through. Opening night and closing night were always the busiest when it came to local luminaries stopping by backstage to congratulate her, and take photos, et cetera.

  Just because she was finished singing didn’t mean the performance was over.

  The first person to knock on the door was the mayor of San Francisco, with a huge flower arrangement and five people in his entourage. She chatted with him and then took photos with everyone in his group, and then it was on to the next group.

  The following hour and a half passed by in a blur with similar interactions repeating over and over again. 49ers, Raiders, and Warriors. DJs from KOIT and KFOG. Anchors from KQED.

  By the time the stream of people had abated and she was finally free to sit among the virtual sea of flower arrangements they’d left in their wake and start the arduous process of taking off her makeup and stage jewelry, she was exhausted. It was already past midnight.

  Her flight took off at seven a.m., and she’d pretty much decided to forgo sleeping at all that night. She’d stop by the hotel and pack up her things, Uber to the airport and see if she could get on an earlier flight back home.

  Home.

  God, that sounded so good right then.

  She’d no sooner settled in at the vanity and pulled a makeup remover wipe from its packaging than she heard a deep voice from the doorway say, “Wow. I think I should’ve brought bigger flowers.”

  Her head snapped up. She couldn’t believe her ears. But, yes, there he was—she could see him reflected in the mirror, leaning jauntily against the door jamb.

  She spun around on the vanity stool, not quite trusting her eyes, or maybe not quite trusting the reflection.

  And yes, there he was, clear as day.

  “Troy? What are you doing here? How did you get here?”

  He held out the single red rose toward her. “I came to see an incredible performance by a brilliant woman. It was well worth the trip.”

  Tears began streaming down her face and she made no move to wipe them away. She launched herself into his arms, kissing his face, and then his lips.

  They kissed passionately, and then just held each other tightly for a long moment. She drank in his presence. The manly musk of his cologne that never failed to turn her on, even at moments of heightened emotion like this one.

  Finally, she pulled back and put her hands on either side of his face, searching his eyes for…she wasn’t quite sure what.

  “You’re really here,” she said wonderingly.

  “I am.”

  “It’s not a dream.”

  “Not unless I’m having the same one.”

  She pulled him over to the couch that ran along the far wall and they sat together. She gripped his hand tightly. She still wasn’t entirely convinced that he wasn’t going to just, POOF, disappear—that he hadn’t been a figment of her imagination all along.

  “Alison, I have something to say to you. I’ve given it a lot of thought.”

  Her eyes widened and she steeled herself as her stomach turned over. Oh, shit! There’s no way he’d fly all this way and surprise me backstage just to officially break up with me in a singularly dramatic fashion…right? I mean that would be crazy!

  She kept her face as neutral as she could, waiting for him to fill her in on what he’d been thinking about.

  He took a deep breath. “I’ve been an idiot. There’s no reason you can’t have everything—Valentine Bay, me, Mila, your career…I don’t know what I was thinking. My only excuse is that I’ve been so fiercely protective of Mila for so long that when I started to feel like there was a chance of you drifting away and not coming back, I flipped.

  “But I realize now it wasn’t even about her, not completely. It was about me. Feeling scared. Feeling out of control. Because I love you. God, so much. It’s deep, and it’s permanent, and it’s not something that can be torn apart by some fucking travel that you need to do for work. God, I was such an idiot! And I’m just praying I’m not too late to show you how I feel.”

  “I bought the house!” she blurted.

  Troy stopped, drawing his brows together. “What? What house?”

  “The house I’m living in. I called the owner and made a ridiculous offer. Which she accepted. I know I paid way more than it’s worth, but I don’t even care. It’s worth it to me. Because I’m staying in Valentine Bay. It doesn’t matter how many trips I take for work. Valentine Bay is my home. You’re my home. And I needed you to know that.”

  Troy kissed her then, with so much passion it took her breath away. When he pulled back, he had a sheepish smile
on his face.

  She giggled. “What? What’s that smile about?”

  He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a sheaf of photos. He handed them to her without a word and she took them and leafed through.

  She tilted her head to the side. Each photo was more beautiful than the last.

  “Troy, how did you find these? Whatever space this is—it’s the perfect combination of all of the ideas I had for Triple Threat. It’s amazing…it’s perfect! Where is it? I want to go visit it. I want to go right now!”

  Troy smiled. “It’s in Valentine Bay.”

  She drew back, shocked. “What? What are you talking about? Where?”

  He grinned. “It’s your space.”

  Alison’s eyes widened as she took in the implications of his statement. “What are you talking about? How is that possible?”

  He shrugged. “Oh, you know. Called in a few favors. Pulled a few all-nighters. Or, you know. Seven. And it’s just the basics. There’s still a lot of work to be done.”

  “It’s amazing. You’re amazing. Oh, Troy, God…I love you!”

  He reached out and wiped away the tears that were falling down her face again, then leaned down and kissed her gently.

  She snaked her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his ear. “Take me home, Troy. Let’s go home.”

  He pulled her tight against him. “Damn, I like the sound of that. Home.”

  Epilogue

  Alison stood with Troy on the windswept beach below their houses. It was a rare bright day for the season, exactly one year to the day since she’d pulled up in front of the house on the bluff, hoping to change her life.

  She cast a loving gaze at the people surrounding her. She’d definitely accomplished that. Here she stood in her flowing, simple wedding gown across from Troy, looking impossibly handsome in his suit. He was flanked by his brothers, also in suits. She smiled to herself. She knew she was biased, but she didn’t think they were anywhere near as dashing and gorgeous as Troy.