by Kathryn Shay
“That’s not what this is and we both know it,” he snapped.
She sucked in a breath and looked up. That was a mistake. She couldn’t maintain the pretense when she looked at him.
“Is it?” he demanded.
She shook her head. The motion loosed a tear from her bottom lashes and let it slide down her cheek.
“Let’s be honest about this. I can’t do what I do or be who I am except at the Slash-C. And you can’t do what you do or be who you are except on the stage, isn’t that right?”
Miserable, she nodded, releasing more tears. Even as a voice inside her cried, I don’t know.
“So, I’m going to kiss you one more time, and then I’m going. But we both know what this is. And we both know what’s ending now.”
He didn’t ask a question. She prevented that voice inside her from forming any answer.
She stretched to meet his kiss, arms wrapped around his strong neck. All that mattered was absorbing the feel of him, the taste of him into every pore, so she would always have this with her. Always.
The kiss ended, both of them breathing hard, hers with ragged edges that sank toward sobs.
“ ‘They Can’t Take That Away From Me’ — from us — isn’t that what that song says?” he said, no longer harsh.
Amid the welter of emotions inside her, she heard the melody of that sweet, sad song, heard the lyrics of a lover’s memories that would be held forever.
“You have changed my life,” he said. “I love you, Donna.”
Then he turned and strode away.
And she let him go, their bubble burst.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
December 22
“— ARE YOU LISTENING to me, Ed?”
He looked up from the breakfast table to where his mother stood at the door, gloves in hand, otherwise dressed to step outside.
“Fence. Battery Creek today. Back Ridge tomorrow,” he said.
She huffed. “Well, don’t be all day about it.”
“I won’t.”
She propped her hands on her hips. Her glare made no dent.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into you since Denver. Staying on like you’d never come back, then driving all night as if you couldn’t get away fast enough. Foolish. It’s not like you. Are you sick?”
“No.”
She huffed again. She swung around, eager to get on with problems she could solve, then called over her shoulder, “Have a good day in court, Walt,” and was out the door.
Ed’s unfocused gaze returned to the table surface.
“Don’t be fooled by looks.” His father’s words were unexpected enough to make him look up again.
Anger shot through him. No one was going to dismiss Donna Roberts that way, like all he’d fallen for were her looks. He wouldn’t listen to that, not even from—
Reason caught up.
His father knew nothing about Donna, much less having an opinion about her.
“Lots of people are fooled by how much you look like your mother, don’t you be, too,” his father said.
Now he was really confused. “What?”
Walter Edward Currick shook out his newspaper and folded it along its creases. Only when they were perfect did he continue. “Your looks, and your love for the Slash-C, that’s what folks see. But you know why you get along so well with your mother? Not because you’re exactly alike, but because you aren’t. You’re my son, too.”
He looked into his father’s eyes. Seeing love there and understanding, but no inclination to relent.
“She’s worried about you,” his father said. “How you’ve been since you came back. She doesn’t understand.”
And you think you do ? The challenge shot through his mind, followed immediately by repentance. How could his father or anyone understand when Ed didn’t.
He kept silent. Usually his father took the hint.
Not this time. “You know the story of how your mother and I met, you know how your grandmother and grandfather met. First sight at a party, and that was it, first for your grandfather, then for me. And you’re a Currick, through and through.”
They looked across the table at each other.
Ed recognized his father’s strength in a courtroom. Not as a distant, theoretical matter, but something real. The draw to answer the unspoken question was so strong...
Ed pounded the side of his fist on the table, making the dishes, salt shaker, and newspaper — but not his father — jump.
“Not this time, damn it. No happy ending for this Currick after love at first sight.”
The damn it hadn’t released any of his frustration. He added a stream of curses.
They didn’t help, either. He wound down to silence, his father still looking at him.
He jerked out of his chair, strode to the door, and flung it open with a force that set the hinges screeching. But before it slammed closed with him on the other side, he stepped back in and caught the door.
“Why do you stay if you hate it?”
His father’s eyebrows rose. “Hate what?”
“Here. The ranch. The life.”
Only when the echo of those harsh words died did his father speak. “The life — ranching — isn’t for me. It’s not the challenge that sets my blood to pumping the way it does for you and your mother. The ranch, I have a great deal of fondness for and I value the continuity and connection.” His voice turned wry. “I do, however, recognize there are places of interest beyond the Slash-C. Unlike your mother and you. At least... ?”
His expression made it more a question than his voice. This time Ed withstood the draw to respond.
His father picked up smoothly, “Here? Ah, here is what really matters. Here is where the people I love live the lives they love, so here is where I belong, all other factors aside.”
He would never have that. Weight pressed harder against Ed’s chest. This time, not only had he been thrown, but the horse, the bull, the tractor had landed on top of him. Best he could hope was to crawl out from under someday.
He pivoted in the doorway.
“Ed.”
Reluctantly, he faced his father.
“To have a happy ending, first you need a happy start and —”
“Impossible.” He didn’t think he had any more words, but that one shot out.
“ — not even that comes right all the time. Sometimes you have to work to reach the happy start. Your mother and I did. When I was your age, I wanted nothing more than to see the last of the Slash-C. Was going to be a city dweller come hell or high water. Had to adjust my thinking. About my life, about her life. More than that, I had to realize it wasn’t that I wanted to live in a city and not be on the ranch, it was that I wanted the law, rather than ranching. Hasn’t worked out too bad, all in all.”
The understatement of a man supremely happy with his life and his wife.
“It’s not part of the story that gets told, but it took nearly two years for your mother and me to really come together, Ed. Two years of talking and arguing and testing our feelings.”
Ed stared at the floor.
No, his stare wasn’t at the floor. It was at his father’s boots.
Nice boots. Good enough for court, as his mother’s comment had indicated Walt Currick had today. Yet not so fancy they forgot the ranch. A man who’d found a way to straddle two worlds.
“Not possible,” Ed said after some time. “Not possible.”
“Because of who the girl is —?”
“No!”
His father went on without a pause, “I take it she returns your feelings. Yes, I see.” Though what he saw Ed couldn’t imagine. His father steepled his fingers in a familiar gesture. “You won’t leave the Slash-C, so I can only imagine she won’t or can’t come here. Ah, yes... Well, then, Ed, what you need to do is to turn that good mind of yours to this problem. Since who and what and why are the givens, and where is the hurdle, what’s left are how and when.”
“EVERYONE HAS GONE,” Maudie
said from the doorway. It was an accusation.
Tonight’s party to celebrate the opening of an extended run in San Francisco was at a nearby restaurant. Very posh, everyone had said as they bustled out.
“I wasn’t in the mood.”
“Again.”
“Yes.”
Maudie came and stood behind her. It seemed the other woman’s will forced Donna to lift her head, to lock gazes in the mirror.
“You, who are so happy, were miserable at Thanksgiving, but that was a day, two. This has been too long. You must talk —”
“I don’t want to talk — to you or Lydia or anyone.”
“Ah, so Lydia is worried, as well. She has a good heart, though not the best of heads. What you should think about —”
“I don’t want to think. I want to do my job and be left alone.”
Maudie ignored her. “Your job. Yes. Not life for you.”
“You’re saying because I miss my family at Thanksgiving and Christmas that I’m not cut out for theater? Is that what you’re — ?”
The older woman’s Tch silenced her. “You cannot listen to reason when you’re talking such nonsense.”
Maudie left, and Donna returned to absently cleaning her makeup brushes. A far more productive use of time than a party.
Eventually she’d have to attend opening night parties again. Not yet.
The only true pang she felt was about Henri. Brad had broken up with him two days ago upon their arrival in San Francisco, reportedly reconnecting with a previous lover. She hadn’t been much of a friend to Henri these past days.
She hadn’t been much of anything.
The new role had required learning lyrics, blocking, lines. She’d welcomed that work. Relied on it. Threw herself into it with the hope each day that she would be too tired by night to do anything but sleep. She was never tired enough.
Everyone seemed pleased with her performances.
But she knew that if Stan Henson came back and saw her, the director would not talk about glow and joy.
She had left those in Denver.
No, they had gone to somewhere she’d never been — Knighton, Wyoming.
CHAPTER TWENTY
December 23
ED STRAIGHTENED. THE fence repair would hold until they dug new post holes come spring. The sweat of exertion cooled under his layers of clothes, his muscles relaxing.
He looked out at the land he knew so well. It was in his blood — his mouth twisted — and his blood was in it, including some drops today from a barb that had slipped through his work gloves.
Blood, sweat and tears put into this land. And it gave back.
It was as much a part of his family as his parents, his sister, his grandparents.
You know the story... First sight at a party, and that was it, first for your grandfather, then for me.
He’d heard those stories all his life. Yesterday was the first time he’d heard about the two years that had followed first sight.
He wished he’d been hearing that all his life. One thing for sure, if he ever did get married and have a kid, he wouldn’t tell them some family legend of falling in love at first sight.
Not now that he knew what could happen after that first sight.
Since who and what and why are the givens, and where is the hurdle, what’s left are how and when.
If he had any idea what his father had meant he’d be thinking like hell about it. How and when. What would that get him — get them, him and Donna.
Donna. His heart clutched like a muscle strained past endurance.
What was she doing right now? Tomorrow was Christmas Eve, would she be doing any of the things they’d talked about in Denver? Was she happy this Christmas?
He looked out again. At the land he loved so deeply.
He’d never before viewed it as empty. Or as lonely.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
December 25
THE URGENT NEED to sew the buttons onto her coat provided Donna an excuse to decline an invitation to join the rest of the company for a Christmas night celebration.
It wasn’t a great excuse.
Especially since they’d also wanted to celebrate her first performance as Charity.
Angela had called in “sick.” Rumor was she’d left San Francisco and had flown to Los Angeles for either a rendezvous with a lover or to try to get a role in an upcoming movie. Or both.
As a result, Donna had played the lead role in the national touring company of “Sweet Charity,” in one of the biggest theaters on their tour. The spotlight she’d dreamed of had been trained on her. She’d been great.
Everybody said so. Everybody exulted at it. Even she knew she’d done an exceptional job. Hardly any nerves at all.
So, yes, her excuse had drawn a few rolled eyes. But she’d stuck to it.
After all, she needed to get these buttons on. She needed the warmth against San Francisco’s raw, foggy chill, since she didn’t have anyone walking beside her buffering her from it.
Maudie had supplied her with needle, thread and scissors. The mindless task suited Donna. Mindless meant no mind, and no mind meant no thinking. That was good. All good.
A knock sounded on the frame to the open dressing room door.
“Come in,” she said, though Barker, the doorman, had already shambled across the threshold. Another city, another theater, another doorman. This one actually opened the door sometimes.
She preferred Grover.
She put the needle through the fabric and pulled the thread steadily.
“You got one,” Barker said.
Donna’s head snapped up. “What?”
She spun around to Maudie, pinning a note about repairs to a costume at the back of the communal dressing room,.
Maudie shook her head, and raised her hands, denying any knowledge.
“Not one of those hippies, neither. He asked me to ask you — ”
“No. Send him away. I won’t see him. I won’t see anyone.”
Barker looked past her to Maudie. From the corner of her eye, Donna caught Maudie’s shrug.
Barker turned and left.
Not another word was said until Donna clipped the last thread on the last button, and shook out her coat.
Maudie came and tucked the sewing things into a bag hooked to her belt, then sat on the chair facing Donna. “Have you called him?”
“No.”
“Has he called you?”
“No. We said everything already. He told me he loves his ranch. I told him my dream is to star on Broadway.”
Maudie nodded. “That is the dream — the only dream — for some. Me, I just wanted a home and family.” Her voice turned dreamy. “A little girl. Would’ve named her Lisa. Always liked that name. Lisa... ”
“Then why —?”
“Why am I rattling around theaters as an old lady? I fell in love with Manny.” She sighed. “Lord, he was beautiful. A principal dancer.”
Donna felt a stab of envy, quick and sharp. Maudie’s love had been of the theater, too. They’d had the chance to pursue their dreams together— She pushed that envy away. It was not only sharp, but poisonous.
“We were best of friends. Laughed, my how we laughed. Told each other everything.” Maudie looked up, a sheen across faded brown eyes. “He was gay — queer they called it then. He never hid it from me, and when I told him I loved him anyway, he was the one held me while I cried my heart out.”
Donna remembered Maudie’s words that first night Ed had waited for her.
What would you be wanting with one who didn’t want that eventually? A lot of good he’d do you.
Poor Maudie, to spend her life loving a man who could not love her back.
Ed loved her back. They just couldn’t be together. Was that any better?
I can’t do what I do or be who I am except at the Slash-C. And you can’t do what you do or be who you are except on the stage.
“We stayed best friends right to the end. Lost my Manny eight year
s ago. But I lost my chance at a little girl named Lisa a long, long time before that.”
“I’m so sorry, Maudie.”
Maudie patted her hand. “I know. I just don’t want you to be sorry when you’re my age. For a few, performing’s what they need to keep the blood pumping. Broadway or Timbuktu, doesn’t matter, as long as there’s an audience. For some, only being a star will do. Many become bitter in the trying, or in the succeeding. For others, this life is a wonder, but it’s not all they are. Then there are those where the stage is mostly an accident. Performing isn’t their love, doing is. Singing, Dancing. An empty room’s as good as Broadway. Only you can know which of those is you, Donna. Only you.”
She’d been so sure. Always so sure. Yet tonight, when the spotlight had focused on her, there had been nothing like what she’d felt with Ed’s look. Could the stage spotlight be an imitation?
“One more thing you should think of,” Maudie continued. “What we are willing to fight for tells the most about what is important deep inside. You snapped about me questioning your devotion to your job. But think of this, Donna. Day after day you accept how Angela mistreats you onstage. Not once do you react, much less confront her. Even though it has been weeks now. What do you stand up to her about? The brush from your parents, and her words — mere words — about Ed.”
Even if she could have spoken Donna didn’t know what she would have said.
Maudie sighed. “So, you think about what you have found worth fighting for, and what you have not. But for now, you’d best get back to the hotel.”
“I’ll wait for —”
“No, no, I have a lot to do. I’m leaving the company next week.”
“What?” Shock jerked her head up.
“December thirtieth. Starting a new life with the new year.”
“But—But... where are you going? Why? Are you —”
“Dying?” The woman chuckled. “No. I’m going back to Denver. Going to live in sin with Grover. At least for a while. If it works out, I might marry him.”