His legs were longer, and she had to trot to keep up, her feet stinging with blisters.
On the street, Charles stepped back so Eleanor could hail the cab. She gave Don’s address and they drove west, through the park. “It’s the ending, Eleanor. It’s not right. It’s never been right.”
Charles tapped his knee with the heel of his hand. “What if the point isn’t to get the audience to accept Luke and Molly together—but to get them to want them to be together?”
“I’ve been saying that.”
“So what if Luke and Molly don’t end up together?” Charles held up a hand before Eleanor could interrupt. “If they end up together, plenty of people start imagining their babies, a white woman shacking up with a black man—it’s too much for their delicate little sensibilities. But what if we show them the reverse? Show them what their hatred does? Instead of showing a world where they can be happy, we give them the world as it is.”
Eleanor watched the trees outside her window. “So we let the audience have the easy way out?”
“No. I think that’s where we’re stuck. Don wants to let the audience have it easy, wants Molly and Luke to be happy, no problems, wouldn’t that be nice? Most of the audience says hell no, and the rest get to go home happy in the knowledge that the world isn’t such a bad place after all. I say, we show those people the exact world they created, the world they defend every time they protest outside our theater or plant a gun backstage. We show it to people, as it really is, and we make them regret it.”
“But that’s the world they want,” Eleanor said. “Those people who boo us, who leave after the love scene.”
“And we’ll be giving it to them,” he said. “The other way, we impose our morals on them. This way, we show them—really show them—who they are.”
Eleanor felt swelling in her throat. “Show the world as bad as yesterday?”
“The point now isn’t to write a hit, Eleanor. The point is to tell Molly and Luke’s story.”
The trees were blossoming in the park. She closed her eyes against the pink and green racing past the cab windows. Molly and Luke’s story. Gwen had been saying the whole time that, in this life, they wouldn’t have the story Don was giving them.
“Don says they have to be together, to give the audience a relief.”
“That’s nonsense.” Charles’s fist pushed his cheek up to his eye, in the unself-conscious pose of deep thought. “Don’s got his own business to work out, and that’s why he wants them tied up, safe and happy.”
Eleanor felt a roll of anxiety, then certainty, hard and true as a pebble. “I think we can persuade him,” she said. “But he might be resistant.”
Soon, the cab reached the other end of the park, and they were pulling over.
* * *
Don wore no shoes when he answered the door. The exhaustion had added years to his face. She remembered the hard panic she’d felt onstage, when she did not know where he was. “Did you get out all right?”
“I managed.” He took in her body, checking for injuries, running his gaze over Charles.
“Don, you could have called.”
“Harry told me you were safe.”
She hadn’t been home to answer, but Don’s response confirmed he hadn’t tried.
“You have no idea how sorry I am that this happened,” he said. “I never imagined anything like this. Whoever did it was sick.”
His apology chafed at her, even though he seemed sincere.
“We had to go to the jail,” Eleanor said. “Harry was there.”
“He told me.”
“Why weren’t you?”
Don looked away. Eleanor took a step forward, toward the door, but Don did not move aside. She felt a flash of fury.
Charles cleared his throat. “Gwen gave birth to our son last night.”
Don looked up at that, something like concern in his eyes. “What?”
“She went into labor after she fell in the crowd outside the theater,” Charles said.
“Early labor,” Eleanor said. “Don, she could have died.”
Charles held up a hand. “We’re calling him Jimmy.”
“Congratulations,” Don said, before turning to Eleanor. “I understand you’re angry. But this wasn’t my fault.”
A flurry of comebacks appeared in her mind.
“You should go,” he said. “People have been lining the sidewalks. They’ll recognize you.”
“Too late,” Eleanor said. “We passed them on our way in.” This time, the crowd had felt more curious than angry; the group was made up of protestors, supporters, and nosy people who wanted to catch a glimpse of Don the morning after his first failure. Eleanor and Charles had pushed through the gatherers without raising their heads or answering questions.
Charles stepped forward. “We have to talk to you, Don.”
His knuckles tightened on the doorjamb. “I’m not in the mood for company.”
“Are we really company?” Eleanor asked.
“Yes.”
She blinked, smarting.
The elevator bell rang. Don stood up straighter, his eyes going wide.
“Eleanor, Charles, look—”
The doors opened. Freddie came out, holding a bundle of newspapers, a bottle of liquor, and a pizza box. Eleanor stared. He wore a cotton shirt and jeans. He met her eyes, then looked away.
For a long moment, no one spoke. Eleanor looked between the two men, trying to piece it together. Freddie was just a dancer. What could they possibly be working on?
“I got the papers,” he told Don. “It’s still everywhere.”
She already knew the answer when she asked the question. “Why are you here?”
A vein in Don’s temple popped out. At first when she looked at his eyes, their pupils dilated, she thought he was angry, but then she saw the tension in his neck and realized he was terrified.
“Last night was difficult,” Freddie said, looking between them. “Don wanted some company.”
Charles took the paper from Freddie, shook his hand. “You all right?”
“Not a scratch,” he said. “Gregory turned an ankle on the way out, so he can’t dance for a while, but that was the worst of the damage.” Freddie approached Eleanor and laid a hand on her arm. “Are you all right, Eleanor? I couldn’t find you after. You look pale.”
But Eleanor couldn’t respond to him. She didn’t want to cry, and in the effort not to, laughed. How different all this had been from those dreams, how much more complicated, how much crueler. She had come to New York in love with the beautiful shows; she expected the people behind them to be just as perfectly crafted, sparkly, accomplished. They were certainly as fascinating, but at every turn, she felt she’d miscalculated. More than anything, she felt stupid. Don had never been anyone but who he said he was.
Charles cleared this throat. “Don, we’d like to speak with you about the show.”
Don shook his head, but Charles met his eyes. Then Don dropped his hand from the door and stepped back.
He didn’t invite them into the studio. Freddie slid the pizza onto the coffee table in the living room, and Eleanor, legs still weary, slid right down onto the floor with her back to the couch. Charles sat beside her, resting his elbows on his knees. Don stayed by the front door, his arms crossed over his stomach.
“We want to do the show one more time.”
Don swore under his breath.
Freddie’s eyes flicked between the three of them. “I’m going to make some tea.” He went to the kitchen; Eleanor heard cabinets opening. He knew where to find the mugs.
Don picked up a newspaper, emblazoned with Charles brandishing the gun, his eyes turned toward the ceiling in horror, Eleanor’s arms wrapped around him, her mouth twisted in a scream. He dropped the paper on the ground. He picked up another: Charles, in handcuffs. He dropped
it. Another: the crowd, rushing through the theater, beneath a headline:
INTERRACIAL SHOW ENDS IN BLOODY MAYHEM
“Bloody?” Eleanor said through her teeth.
Don dropped the paper, reached for another.
“Stop this.” Charles took the papers and threw them aside.
“I’m ruined,” Don said.
“Enough,” said Eleanor. “You aren’t ruined. You’re Don Mannheim. You said you wanted controversy. Here we are.”
“You’re only ruined if you let them ruin you,” Charles said.
“So you two came here with a brilliant idea for a hit?” He walked past them toward Sullivan the turtle, his eyes on the glass tank. Someone had supplied him with fresh lettuce. She wondered if it was Freddie.
“We know how to end the show,” Charles said. “End it with the truth.”
Don laughed. “The noblest of artistic pursuits.”
Eleanor wrenched herself from the floor and took him by the arm. “Don Mannheim. Enough of this self-pity. Last night was horrible. It was a tragedy. But it’s not just your tragedy.”
“It’s my show, isn’t it?”
She pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth before she gathered herself enough to respond. “No.”
The teapot whistled from the kitchen. Don tensed, as if just remembering Freddie was there. “You won’t say a word about him?” he asked, nodding to the next room.
Charles shook his head, but, returned to this subject, Eleanor felt a rise inside her. Before she could stop it, she blurted, “Don, you used me.”
Sweat shone on his brow. “You can’t tell anyone.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Her voice broke, but she went on with red cheeks. “I would have gone with you to the theater, to dinner, anywhere. You could have told me.”
“Eleanor, do you understand? This is my career. This is my life.”
Eleanor looked at him. Her heart was broken, no matter how stupid she had been to allow him into it.
Don reached over and took her hands in his. He’d touched her like this before, and she went back through her memories, coloring each touch with platonic feeling. “Eleanor, right now, I’m a genius. If this gets out, I’ll become the ‘homosexual composer.’ I’ll be good—for a fag.”
She blinked away the tears in her eyes.
“I told you not to want me.”
Eleanor felt humiliated. She sat on the couch, took her head in her hands. She was too exhausted; her tears flowed. Charles was watching, but instead of feeling embarrassed, she felt strong. She knew he wouldn’t laugh at her. “Don, I thought we were friends.”
Don took her chin in his hand. “I never lied to you. I do care for you.” His voice was very quiet. “I have come to care very much.”
He ran a finger under her chin, along her neck—those long fingers that had produced all those pieces that changed her life. She found she still felt a protective compassion for him, for those musicals that had raised her.
“I won’t tell a soul,” she said.
He nodded solemnly.
“So this is why you wrote the show, then?” Charles asked. “Forbidden love?”
Don looked at his bookshelf, the scripts and awards and framed programs on the walls. “What I told Eleanor was the truth. I’ve never been in love. I wanted to feel it. And writing the musical, I finally did.”
Charles joined them on the couch. “So you needed Molly and Luke to be happy.”
Don jerked his head to the side.
“It’s all right,” Eleanor said to him. “You said I knew Molly as well as you. Doesn’t Charles know Luke just as well?”
“You knew what it would feel like for Luke,” Charles said. “The fear, the hiding, the shame of pursuing something the country thinks you aren’t good enough for, of rejecting everyone you’re raised beside. It’s incredible, Don. I never saw the two things together, before, but I see it now.”
“The world makes you earn your happiness,” Don said. “Only the purest can indulge.”
“Put that onstage,” Charles said. “Don, the audience doesn’t want a fantasy. Put in everything you know about the world, everything you know about love.”
“I know nothing of love.”
“That isn’t true,” Eleanor said. “You’ve been trying to write something you don’t know. Your experience of love hasn’t had the happy ending. Why are you writing that?”
Don sat up but did not speak. His face moved through reactions, some of which made her furious even if she had expected them: laughter, affront, condescension. But Eleanor waited. She banked on the fact that he would not be able to resist the possibility, however small, of success. Slowly, he faced them. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
The Finale
Chapter Twenty-Four
I already wore my good dress on Sunday,” Rosie said, a line between her brows. “You’re telling me I’ve got to rustle up something else?”
“I need to know someone in the audience is rooting for us.” Eleanor threw dresses from her closet onto the bed. “We’re throwing a party after the show. Maybe a funeral. But we’re going on tonight.”
“I can’t go. I have nothing to wear.”
“You can wear any of these.”
Rosie’s eyes went round. She pulled the cherry-red dress Eleanor had worn to the investors’ party from the bottom of the pile. She held it in front of her like it was a dance partner. “I want.”
Eleanor laughed as Rosie hugged it to herself. “It’s yours. I never want to see that dress again.”
“What will you wear?”
“I have an idea. But you’re going to need to help me.” Eleanor pulled a garment bag from the hook in the closet. “We’ve got an hour before rehearsal. If I promise to love you for the rest of my days, can you make magic happen?”
Rosie’s mouth dropped open. “Mr. Rabinowitz—”
“Thinks you have the flu,” Eleanor said. “I already called.”
“You manipulative little monster.”
“How often do you get to go to two Broadway performances in one week?”
Rosie rolled her eyes. “So what are you wearing? Does it have pleats? Pleats take ages.”
Eleanor turned away from Rosie so she wouldn’t see her friend’s reaction when she unzipped the bag.
Rosie’s gasp told her all she needed to know.
“Eleanor, no.”
“I need to make an entrance.” She posed enough to make Rosie smile. “Please?”
Rosie was shaking her head. But, trouper that she was, she waved a finger up and down Eleanor’s body.
“Strip, and put that on. I have pinning to do.”
* * *
Most of the rehearsal was between her, Charles, and Harry.
When Harry read the script, he looked to Don. “This is brilliant, Don.”
Don said nothing. Eleanor fumed, but it didn’t matter; even if Don was too proud to correct Harry, they’d already called the lawyers and her name was being added to the contract and the program, albeit in very tiny font. Charles hadn’t wanted recognition, afraid of looking as though he’d manipulated the situation in his own favor. But he’d insisted at least one of them get credit. The knowledge that her fingerprints were on a real musical touched a deep part of herself. She felt a balance between her past and present, as though she had been preparing her entire life for that night’s performance.
Eleanor had seen Harry create a stage picture before, but never so quickly. He snapped his fingers as he read the script, thinking. After about five minutes, he turned to the stage manager.
“Light the front whites,” he said, gesturing to the line of lights hanging over the top of the stage. “No spots. Clear the set midway through the riot scene. I want a clean stage.”
Eleanor waited as he gave directions for the s
ound balance and then shaped the ensemble in a crowd upstage so everyone was visible. He didn’t have time to try options and trusted his first judgment. Eleanor let herself be awed by him; throughout this process, he had put the work first, every time. He placed Molly’s mother downstage from the rest, so she was singled out.
“Luke and Molly, center,” he said. Eleanor took her place on the ground, center stage.
They ran through the beats of the scene. It was an easy scene to add in, technically, as it had no singing or movement. The cast made their way into this frieze during the riot scene and held their places until the end of the show. One by one, they walked offstage. Harry gave them all numbers, and the cast led themselves off. They marked it, then Harry dismissed everyone save Charles and Eleanor.
“Eleanor, your part is easy,” Harry said. He turned to Charles. “Are you up for this?”
Charles said nothing, just nodded.
“All right then. Let’s run it.”
Despite everything that had happened to him in the past two days, Charles was a professional. All his lines were memorized. He delivered them without affect. Eleanor aimed her face upstage so no one would see how he brought her to tears.
When he finished, Harry walked up to him and placed his hands on Charles’s shoulders.
“Marvelous.”
They ran it again, for good measure, then broke for an hour.
Eleanor returned to her dressing room. Rosie was there, holding the garment bag.
“You owe me,” Rosie said.
“I already gave you my boyfriend.”
“You can make that joke exactly one more time before I pull out your hair.”
She hung the bag on the back of the door and came up to Eleanor, placing her palms on her face. “I’m so proud of you. You’ve really done it now.”
Eleanor looked away. “The show’s going to close.”
“You’ve fallen in love with a hundred shows that barely played a week on Broadway,” Rosie said. “All those recordings, all those scripts you read. It doesn’t need a long life, just one performance.”
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