by Mia Madison
“He didn’t have much choice but to listen,” Eloise laughs, when I tell all the girls about how I felt being heard by flying guy.
Like no man had ever listened to me so intently and seemed to understand. No man has ever been like that other than my dad. And I don’t remember a kiss that inspired such a thrill of shivers all down my spine. It seems so wrong to be thinking this way, to have my hands wander between my thighs whenever I get a chance to indulge my fantasy. Jeez, the guy almost died.
The dancers don’t only have five shows a day to perform, there are also promo events and TV appearances around the city. And the endless parties. We have chaperones that are always around on work events, ensuring that the celeb hunters don’t take advantage. It’s nice to feel cosseted and protected although I know it’s only for the secure reputation of the show.
With only a week until Christmas, the schedule heats up and when not whirling my way though five shows, I’m at parties and appearances. An early evening meet and greet for some corporate benefactor sounds like the biggest bore except when I enter the room, I draw a sharp breath.
It’s like stepping through the wardrobe into another world. A Christmas fantasy of snow and lights. Everyone is invigorated by the wintry wonderland but I’m so tired I decide to indulge in a cocktail. I move over to the bar where a man is leaning heavily. As I take the bright red concoction from the bartender, I notice the man is actually standing with crutches and when he turns to look at me I almost pass out.
‘Oh, it’s you,” I gasp, my lungs contracting for air.
Can he possibly be even more gorgeous than the last time I saw him? His chin has the perfect amount of stubble and his hair is just as lush and inviting. Instead of the black sweater, he has on a black suit and tie - designer expensive that makes his body look even hotter. Luckily I’m gripping the glass with both hands and can’t reach out to touch him although I’m dying to.
“You’re okay,” I murmur, suddenly tongue-tied. He’s looking at me curiously like he has no clue who I am. I guess he could have amnesia, if he hit his head on the sidewalk. “I mean aside from the broken leg.”
He’s staring at my hair strangely. I look at the ground, unable to maintain eye contact with his intense gaze raking over me. When I lift my eyes back to his impossibly perfect face, recognition sweeps across his features.
“Lana,” he rasps in the gravel voice from my dreams. “Is it you?”
“Hmmm,” I nod, still tongue-tied.
How does he not recognize me? Why should he? I’m sure he had more important things to think about. Like the pain in his broken body. One kiss would be meaningless to a big city guy like him.
“You were blond in my dreams,” he says in a gravel rich voice.
“Oh, sorry about that,” I say with a grin.
“No I mean literally. Christ, I never thought I’d see you again,” he says, his voice choking a little. “I’ve been hunting for you everywhere.”
“You have?” I whisper. Should I mention the number of times I’ve found myself walking down the street where he landed, stupidly hoping for a repeat performance?
“Our meeting was so rudely interrupted and you didn’t give me your number. It’s been like chasing that girl in the fairytale that vanishes at midnight.”
“Cinderella,”I say. “Although these days it would more likely be Tinder-ella. You read fairytales?”
He laughs and takes my hand, making goosebumps rise all over my limbs.
“What are you doing here?”
“You never told me your name.” I blurt out at the same time, just in case he’s magicked away again. “No you said when I asked.”
“Noel,” he says, grinning.
“How seasonal. Were you born at Christmas?”
“July,” he says. he’s not releasing my hand and I’m in no rush to remove it from his solid grasp. My entire body is tingling standing beside him here and I love the way he holds on to me, like he too doesn’t want to lose me again.
“My grandfather was from Dominica. I was named for him but somehow Noe got changed to Noel on the paperwork and I was stuck with it.”
“It’s nice,” I say.
“Hard to put up with the taunts this time of year,” he shrugs. “So Lana ballerina, what are you doing here?”
I’m about to come clean about being a dancer in a famous show. I don’t think Noel is a groupie hunter. But before I get a chance, a young nerdy looking guy comes over, waving urgently.
“Mr Hastings, you need to come to the house phone, they’re looking for you,” he says tensely, then; “It’s your wife.”
Noel looks at him with an exasperated look then back to me. Before I listen to any excuses, I snatch my hand away from his grasp and run from the room.
6
Noel
“Lana, wait,” I shout, not caring that I’m attracting attention from some of the potential clients at the event, or the others, who smirk without managing to hide it.
I’m more concerned about going after Lana and getting her back, than hearing whatever the latest crap from Samantha is. I can be sure it’s gong to be something designed to piss me off regarding our daughter, Halliday. Either I don’t take her enough or I can’t have her on the weekend I’ve arranged. Whatever it is I know Samantha is using our daughter as a pawn to get back at me.
Before I can go after Lana, to explain to her that I’m divorced, if that was what spooked her, I’m drawn back to the urgent phone call. I’d briefly forgotten that I’m hampered by a plaster cast on my leg and not even remotely likely to catch up with a nimble girl making an escape. All I can do is wait for her to calm down and return.
“Mr Hastings please come,” the nerdy assistant pleads, “they said it was very urgent.”
“Yeah, it’s always urgent,” I bark. I scour the room for Lana one last time but she’s gone, probably hiding out in the washroom.
“Okay, let’s get it over with.”
I’ll take the call and then find her. I know she’ll hear me out when I explain everything to her. She’s the type of girl I can tell anything and she’ll hear me without blasting off into the stratosphere. I already heard more about her than I’ve ever listened to from any other woman.
But what lousy timing. I’m granted a second chance with the most perfect girl I’ve ever seen and our connection is yet again severed by unfortunate circumstance. And I can’t see how I could have screwed it up any worse. Starting out with not recognizing her- the girl I’ve been dreaming about for weeks. And not getting the chance to tell her that her wooly hat was the cause of it. Seeing her again here had me off my game, discombobulated with desire.
I grab one of the crutches leaning on the bar, only one. I hate being hampered by this injury. I hop quickly across the wooden floor, following the assistant.
“This is Noel Hastings,” I say as soon as I pick up the phone.
“Mr Hastings, Detective Unger here, we’re going to need you to come pick up your daughter, Sir.”
His restrained tone sends the hairs on the back of my neck to attention. I know something’s gone badly wrong.
“What’s happened?” I demand. “Tell me now.”
“Your wife was in an accident,” he says.
“Ex-wife, I correct him. “Fine I’ll be right there, Where are they?”
“Your daughter is with a social worker here at the precinct.”
“Why isn’t she with her mother at the hospital?”
“I’m afraid your wife, ex-wife, didn’t make it.”
My gut wrenches. I can’t bear to hear this.
“And Halliday?”
“Your daughter is fine, she wasn’t with her mother at the time.”
Thank fuck.
I replace the phone and grab my coat from the cloakroom. On the way out I scan around the party, praying I’ll see Lana to let her know why I’m leaving, get her number for later.
But she’s nowhere to be seen and I can’t leave Hallie sitting alone with s
trangers a second longer than she has to. I have no choice but to hop out onto into the snowy cold and head downtown. I did manage to leave my card with the assistant, telling him to give the extra one to the bartender. I tipped him a twenty to tell the amazing girl why I had to leave.
I grab a Lyft downtown and find my baby at the precinct.
“Daddy, that’s my daddy,” she shouts as soon as she sees me hop in. She climbs down from the chair they have her sitting on and her little legs run across the squad room to throw herself at me. I lift her up in one arm and she clings to my neck.
“It’s okay sweetheart, I’m here. I’ve got you.”
“Can we go home now, Daddy?”
It suddenly hits me how much my life is now about to change permanently.
“Yes Baby. Let’s go to Daddy’s house.”
I can’t get Lana out of my mind but my days are suddenly filled with making room in my life for a five year old little girl I’ve never spent more than a weekend with until now. My office is moved to a corner of the living room and I hire a guy to paint the room pink. He’s halfway done with the edging when Hallie comes striding into the room.
“Daddy, pink is so over,” she says.
“That’s my girl,” I say, leading her out of the room before the painter has a meltdown. “Walk your own path.”
“Is that what Mom’s doing?” she inquires with a little frown. It’s the first time she’s asked directly about her mother since the funeral service.
“Do you miss her?” I ask.
I’ve been advised to make a ‘safe space’ for her to verbalize what she’s feeling. She’s hardly said a word to anyone but me since I told her her mother isn’t coming back.
“I guess. But she was always making her own path without me. I would have liked it more if she took me along instead of leaving me with babysitters so much.”
“I’d have liked that too,” I agree. Considering I paid enough alimony for Samantha to stay home and care for our daughter. “I promise I’ll include you on all the things little girls would enjoy.”
“Oh that’s okay daddy, I know you have man things to do all day.”
“Nothing is more important to me than you Baby.”
I’m relieved she’s talking again but that was a one-off. Hallie goes back to her silent world and after a couple of weeks I’m certain I need to take her for therapy as soon as the holidays are over.
In an effort to get her interested in something, I take her to a Broadway show. I spend the entire time scouring the stage looking for Lana under the make up and costumes. Now that I have a child, my night life is curtailed completely. I spend the evening alone after putting Hallie to bed. Alone aside from those fantasies of Lana dancing naked around the couch and my bed. I lie back and pull my throbbing steel pole out of my pants. The woman is driving me insane.
I have no sitter for Hallie and the agencies are all booked for the Holidays. I stay home from work and to keep us entertained, we go to a show every afternoon. I’m obsessed with ticking off every Broadway show until I find the one Lana’s performing in.
Hallie nods that she’s having fun but still doesn’t say a word. One day when the snow has stopped falling, the crowds in Times Square are thicker and there are no seats to be had at any show.
“It’s okay Daddy, we can go to a movie unless you have to get back to work,” Hallie says.
I realize she hasn’t seen my work. I’ve seen my own show so many times, the thought of sitting through it never occurred to me.
Bad dad.
The lobby at the theater is the most frantic space. With only a week to Christmas, it’s impossible to score a pair of tickets to the Spectacular.
“Sorry there isn’t a single free seat,” the girl at the box office simpers at me. “Not even the house seats.”
Then I get an idea. Although I’m not sure it’ll go over well.
“How about we go watch from the wings?” I ask my daughter, trying to make it sound special.
Hallie’s nose crinkles adorably. I feel bad that Hallie has put on a new party dress and is carrying a tiny beaded purse for her afternoon at the theater with her dad.
“No? You don’t want to watch from backstage?”
Once she understands my meaning, her face lights up. I really have to remember to use age-appropriate words for a five year old.
She nods vigorously. “Yes please. I want to see the minipigs.”
“How do you know there are minipigs?” I ask.
She points to a huge poster in the lobby. Back to saying nothing again.
“I’m not really supposed to allow non-performers in during the show,” the backstage doorman shakes his head.
“Do you know who I am?” I demand, pulling rank.
“Yes Mr Hastings, but not even the President is supposed to go back there during performances.”
“Please man, there aren’t any seats,” I plead, then under my breath I mouth, “my daughter just lost her mother.”
“Well, I sure am grateful to you Mr Hastings,” He says. I can see he’s relenting. I would never have played that grateful card but if he wants to, I’ll take it.
“Sure, go on then.” I see that like most people, he can’t resist how cute Hallie is. She’s the most undemanding child, seeming to accept whatever comes without throwing a fit like I see other kids around town doing for the tiniest thing. Aside from having to stay home all day and neglecting the business, this dad thing isn’t as tricky as I’d pictured.
“But don’t let the stage manager see you or she’ll have my nuts,” Brad says as we mingle into the crowded backstage. “For the squirrels,” he adds, remembering there’s a child present.
I see Hallie’s eyes stretch into golf balls as she takes in the proximity of the stage. It’s so cute to watch another human being, one so small, having an experience for the first time ever.
“Did you do this, Daddy?” she murmurs, placing her tiny hand in mine
“Ah, well..”
Hmm, I don’t want to spoil the magic of the illusion. It would be like telling her the Santa Claus she’s watching in his cave doesn’t really exist at all.
“… you can’t actually see that from this special angle we’re at.”
That part is true at least. The digital illusions my company creates are viewed from out front. We’re still working on the full surround experience for a venue this size.
A tiny gasp beside me alerts me to the fact that Hallie has discovered something new to enthrall her. I follow her gaze and my own intake of breath must be heard throughout the auditorium.
7
Lana
Something pulls my eyes away from staring straight ahead into the wings like a magnet drawing iron filings. I see him standing stage right, from the opposite end of the line of forty identical girls. He’s unmistakable, his gorgeous face would be a huge distraction in any circumstance. Add the obvious bright red cast on his leg and there’s no doubt it’s Noel.
My heart skips a beat or ten and that causes me to miss a tap beat by a nanosecond. It was nothing. I’m sure no one in the audience noticed but that booboo in a syncopated tap routine like we’re doing now, could have thrown off the entire line. At the very least made me look like a complete idiot to the thousands of faces gazing at us. There’s no room for the tiniest mistake.
Get it together
I’m a professional performer in every pore and not even the return of the man of my dreams is going to wreck that.
My neighbor, Randi, feels my pain I guess, because she gives a squeeze at my waist where she has her arm around me. We’re joined at the hip, literally. It’s how we communicate so as to move in unison. We aren’t forty girls in a dance number, we’re one living, moving line.
Randi is on the end and I’m only one away, almost on the end of our line of girls, each wrapping arms around the next one, until our bodies are lined rib to rib. This is partly because I’m the newest girl in the troupe - many of the dancers come back to th
is show year after year. It’s also because I’m a little shorter than the others. So the choreographer creates an optical illusion by placing the tallest at the center, moving out to the shortest at the edge and that makes it seem as though we’re all the exact same height.
My heart is racing hard and it has nothing to do with the routine which isn’t strenuous - yet. We’re still just tap tapping faster and faster- the same rhythm my heart’s running.
What’s he doing there in the wings? The backstage area is crowded with hundreds of hands and dressers during the show. We’re all on strict orders that no friends, or anyone not in the show, is allowed to be here. He’s staring hard right at me and that makes my skin tingle further. But I’m sure he doesn’t recognize me again, not under this make up and costume. Maybe the costume isn’t much of a disguise, seeing as it’s a red strapless minidress designed to highlight our long legs. But we’re still a line of girls that look as identical as they could make us.
After a torturous length of time that seems much longer than the two and a half minutes of the number, we move as one, shifting stage right into the wings to thunderous applause. Each girl smiles her brightest and gives it everything until she’s in the wings. Then we each release the act like we’re dropping a coat to the ground. Then comes the furious quick change for the next number.
“I’m sorry,” I hiss at Randi. “Thanks for averting a disastrous domino affect.”
“Not a problem,” she grins. “Happens to all of us.”
I know she’s being kind. In a very short time all the girls, especially the ones sharing dressing rooms and dancing beside their neighbor have become besties. There’s no jealousy, or bitchiness about men, but that may be because we’re too busy to even think about them.