He'd have to keep his temper under control somehow. His relationship with his daughter was too important to jeopardize, and he had a feeling these next few months would prove very trying indeed.
The old theater in Fullerton had once housed vaudeville, then shown movies for nearly half a century. Now, as the whine of electric saws and the thump of hammers from backstage attested, it was being converted into a home for Alfonso's company.
Kerry propped her feet on the back of the next row and watched the dancers move through their class. They weren't in rehearsals yet and the practice rooms were torn up by carpenters, so the stage was their only place to work out.
Even in leotards and leg warmers, these were clearly superior dancers. Much as she'd enjoyed working with her cast from Romeo and Juliet, and much as she looked forward to tonight's opening, Kerry couldn't help noting the difference.
Especially Larisa. She moved with such authority and grace, every line complete, every turn of the head deliberate. The other dancers weren't quite so stellar but they had the polish and poise that came from experience with a serious ballet company.
What on earth was she going to do? She still hadn't come up with even a glimmer of an idea for a new dance. True, she hadn't said yes yet, but she knew that even if Alfonso wanted to hire another choreographer, he probably couldn't afford to.
Besides, he didn't need some mediocre work cranked out by a choreographer more interested in the next TV special. He needed something spectacular to make the critics sit up and take notice.
The class was over. The performers bowed to Alfonso and wandered off, except for Larisa.
She waited quietly until the theater was empty. Guiltily, Kerry realized she hadn't been noticed here in the back, but she waited to see what would happen.
Larisa rose on point, struck an attitude, then burst into a series of pirouettes across the stage. She wasn't so much dancing as exploding with energy and the love of movement.
Every muscle in Kerry's body responded with the desire to join in. She could feel herself lifting away from the pain, becoming airborne and free, flying through time to a realm where fantasy blended with reality. When Larisa leaped through the air, so did Kerry.
The realities of everyday life fell away from her. Here in the kingdom of the dance, she could move among myths and magic; she could be a swan or a doll or an ice queen brought to life. Anything was possible.
The stage filled with ghostly dancers, an exotic medley in strange costumes. Biblical figures, cats and spirits sniffed around one another, snarling and pouncing and then bounding away.
Music. There must be an orchestra hiding somewhere, because Kerry could hear it clearly. Wonderful swelling music with a modern beat driving its unabashed emotionalism. And then a parting of the chords to reveal a piercingly melancholy tune, slow and haunting.
Larisa danced on, her outburst of energy channeled now into a delicate adagio.
What was this tune running through Kerry's mind? Who were the costumed dancers she'd just imagined?
She closed her eyes and listened to the melody play. Moonlight, no, midnight, something about midnight...
She jerked upright. It was Andrew Lloyd Webber's music she'd been hearing, the theme from Cats. And those people—she identified them now. Characters from Jesus Christ Superstar and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Phantom of the Opera and Evita. All on the same stage.
They represented the spirit of the dance, the blending of myth and history and reality. Creatures spilling beyond their creative boundaries and taking on a life of their own.
Larisa had slipped from the stage. Looking around, dazed, Kerry realized she was alone in the theater. But not alone at all! She could still see those dancers, her dancers, a cat flirting with a pharaoh, a twisted phantom executing a duet with Evita Peron.
She had it!
Out in the lobby, where the bare floor sported traces of sawdust, she found Alfonso drinking a cup of coffee.
"I just had an idea," Kerry said. "I think it'll work."
For a moment, Alfonso's expression was blank. Then understanding dawned. "You'll do it, then?"
"I'll do it," Kerry said. She couldn't wait to start.
Chris had never been a big fan of Shakespeare. The only productions he'd seen were on television, tedious affairs with heavily costumed actors who spoke in gobbledy-gook.
This Romeo and Juliet was different. He couldn't quite put his finger on what made it so fresh and so touching. Maybe the sincerity of the actors, or the way they used their bodies to mime out their meaning so the archaic language became comprehensible. Perhaps it was because the production was set in the 1920s, an era he could appreciate better than the Renaissance.
Beside him, Melanie's fingers drummed restlessly on the arm of her seat. What was wrong with her? Usually she loved any sort of cultural event.
Perhaps she was just waiting for the ballroom scene. Chris hoped the problem wasn't anything more than that. He was tired of her preoccupation with Jamie, tired of seeing the boy's hostile face confronting him in his own living room.
The dance scene started.
Almost at once, the audience broke into applause, aroused by the energy of the music and the verve of the performers. Every twist of the Charleston was greeted with cheers and clapping, and when the scene ended, the entire theater rose to its feet. Even Melanie joined wholeheartedly in the ovation.
But afterward she sank back into her distracted state, reacting only during the bedroom scene when Juliet pleaded with Romeo not to leave. Even Chris found himself affected by it.
His thoughts veered away from his daughter to his own tentative relationship with the first woman he'd cared about in years. Why did it seem as if something was always pulling them apart? Why did their moments together feel stolen, surreptitious, as if they were defying some mysterious fate that wanted to separate them?
She wouldn't stay forever here in Brea, he knew. Not Kerry, with her dreams, her beauty, her sophistication. She belonged in the inner circles of creative artists, somewhere like New York. With a man who owned his own tuxedo and knew all about paintings and music and dance. Damn the man, whoever he was.
Finally the last sad scene ended. Applauding, Chris had to admit he'd enjoyed the performance more than he'd expected, at least when he'd been able to concentrate.
"Kerry said she'd meet us backstage," he reminded Melanie.
Wordlessly, she paced toward the back of the theater. Chris wanted to ply her with questions: Had she enjoyed the play? What had she done at school today? What was she thinking about? But he dreaded the annoyance that would flash across her face. He'd seen it too often these past weeks, as if he were a buzzing pest disrupting her train of thought.
What was happening to his daughter? Was there anything he could do to stop it?
The theater's cramped backstage overflowed with actors and visitors. It took close to ten minutes to make their way down the main hall to the dressing rooms.
"Kerry Guthrie?" he kept asking. Fingers would point, although not always in the same direction.
Finally he saw her, darting out of the women's changing room. She wore a midnight-blue jumpsuit. Her new curly hairstyle fell loose around her neck, damp at the edges, and her cheeks were flushed.
Melanie perked up. "Good going," she called to her teacher.
Kerry came to greet them, with a hug for each. "Did you think it went well? One of the dancers nearly missed her cue. Did you notice?"
"No." Chris felt rather stupid. To him, the performance had looked perfect.
"Good." She beamed at them both. "There's a cast party in half an hour at the pizza place next door. You're both invited."
As Chris was accepting, Melanie said, "I can't. I'm meeting Jamie."
"You're what?"
"You heard me, Dad."
He wasn't sure which upset him most, the rudeness of her response or the fact that, without consulting him, she'd set up a late-night date. "Now, look here—"
"No, you look," she snapped. "I wanted to see Kerry's production. That's the only reason I came. I don't see why I have to hang around any longer."
"Excuse us," Chris told Kerry. "Would you?"
Clearly troubled, she nodded and pointed out a convenient exit.
In the parking lot, Chris confronted his daughter. "I haven't objected to your seeing so much of Jamie—"
"Oh, yes, you have. Every time he comes over you glare at him as if he were an insect. His mother doesn't treat me that way!"
"Don't change the subject." He didn't want to let the argument slip away from him. "We're talking about your making a date at eleven o'clock on a Friday night without consulting me.
"So?" Melanie challenged. "What do you think we do, go roll around in the bushes? Don't you trust me, Dad?"
"Of course I do." But did he? "It's Jamie I'm not sure I trust."
"He thinks I'm special. He'd never do anything to hurt me.”
"Not intentionally, maybe." Chris wished he could be sure of that. "What do you do at this hour, anyway?"
"Talk," Melanie said. "What do you and Kerry do?"
Chris had to fight off the instinct to tell her it was none of her business. "Kerry and I are adults."
"So Jamie and I don't have any rights because we're kids?" She bristled with resentment. Whatever had he done to deserve it? Was it wrong to worry about your only daughter?
"Of course you have rights, but I have the responsibility of making sure you're safe," he said as calmly as he could. "It’s not easy, Melanie."
"First you wouldn't let me go to New York because I didn't have enough normal teenage experience. Now that I'm getting it, you don't like that, either," Melanie pressed on. "I'm tired of having you breathing down my neck all the time."
"Compared to a lot of parents—"
"Oh, save it, Dad!" To his surprise, he saw tears in her eyes. From frustration? Disappointment? Yet he'd been trying his best not to stifle her.
"Melanie, I don't understand—"
"There's Jamie!" With that cry, she took off across the parking lot, not even pausing for a backward wave.
Chris stood by the exit door feeling torn and a bit lost. What was he supposed to do, abdicate his authority over her? Tell her to go amuse herself at all hours with a boy who would probably abandon her if she ever got into trouble?
Stalking back into the theater, he tried to drag his emotions under control. Fortunately, when he spotted Kerry, she was engrossed in conversation with a couple of her dancers and only acknowledged him with a smile.
They walked over to the pizza parlor together, Kerry bubbling with high spirits. Chris kept his mouth shut to avoid dampening her evening.
"I'm nattering away, aren't I?" she said as they entered the restaurant. "Something special happened to me today."
He focused on her, registering that her enthusiasm stemmed from more than the success of Romeo and Juliet. "Oh?"
"I was watching Alfonso's company work out, and I got this tremendous idea for a ballet," she said. "After all the agonizing I've done, there it was, playing itself out in front of me."
Chris tried to imagine how that could happen. He couldn't. "The only thing I ever saw playing itself out in front of me was a crime scene."
Her open laughter soothed some of the turmoil in his heart. "You have a way of putting things into perspective."
As they waited to order pizza, he said, "I wish I could be inside your head, just for an hour or two. So I could understand how things look to you."
Thoughtfully, she responded, “And if I could see through your eyes for one day, think how much better I'd understand you, too."
As for his daughter, if he could see from her point of view, would it all make sense? Would he then be able to restore the happy companionship they'd shared until recently?
As they approached a long table with their soft drinks, a group of theater people shifted to make room for them, and there was no more chance that night for intimate conversation. By the time the party broke up at one o'clock, they were both too exhausted to do more than kiss good-night and drive home in their separate cars.
It was nearly two when Melanie came in. Chris, watching the news in bed, stifled the impulse to call out and ask where she'd been.
He didn't suppose she'd tell him, anyway.
Listening to the familiar sounds of his daughter in the bathroom preparing for bed and realizing that he hardly knew her anymore, Chris could see that something had to give. They couldn't go on this way, sniping at each other, both feeling wounded and misunderstood. Some people might recommend therapy, but he suspected Melanie would resent the idea, and he didn't particularly like it himself. He'd always felt that he ought to solve his own problems.
Which left—what?
He was beginning to wish he'd given Melanie permission to go to New York. Not that she would have left yet, but with that destination fixed in mind, maybe she wouldn't have been so eager to take up with Jamie.
Still, perhaps she was right. Perhaps she deserved more trust and independence than he'd been willing to allow.
The solution that came to him made Chris drop the remote control onto the floor. He had to get up and search for it to mute the yammering of the news anchors, so he could think this through.
If Melanie moved in with Kerry for a while, it would remove the immediate conflict. He would also have a chance to see how well she functioned without his direct supervision, since that had been his main concern about letting her trek off to the other coast. Kerry would make an excellent chaperon, and the two were already friends.
He knew that, even if it was only for a few weeks, he’d miss his daughter terribly. But she wouldn't be far away.
Mulling the idea, he finally admitted what scared him most about his changed relationship with his daughter: the possibility that if she became infuriated enough, Melanie might run off with Jamie. It wasn't something he’d ever, in the past, have thought his daughter capable of, but these days he wasn’t sure.
As for staying with Kerry, it might revive Melanie’s interest in going to New York next summer. She hadn’t mentioned that in quite a while.
Chris leaned back against the pillows. He'd never questioned that he was capable of raising his daughter properly, certainly doing a better job than Lou. Now he wondered. Perhaps Melanie needed a woman’s understanding.
He hoped Kerry would agree.
Chapter Twelve
Gazing around her living room filled Kerry with dismay. She understood that Chris was letting Melanie do everything her own way, from packing to moving, but the place looked as if a hurricane had hit it.
Melanie's idea of packing revolved around the toss-and-carry method—toss her clothes into Jamie's car and carry them into the house.
Cosmetics and beauty aids had been thrown carelessly into one suitcase. The only thing that kept them from rattling and breaking was a large plastic cleaner's bag full of air that Melanie had wedged inside to take up the extra space.
To complicate matters, Melanie acted as if she were moving in permanently. She'd brought along every ratty old stuffed animal she possessed, along with yellowing stacks of dance magazines, a complete collection of Nancy Drew mysteries and a huge, cracked beanbag chair that wouldn't fit in her bedroom and looked atrocious with Kerry's antique-style furniture.
Kerry sighed. She had promised Chris to take his daughter for a month, and she did like Melanie. It was just that she'd grown used to her orderly, solitary existence, and now it had been invaded.
As she stood trying to figure out how to persuade Melanie to put the beanbag chair in the garage, Jamie panted in under the burden of a large box marked "Costumes."
"She's only going to be here for a month," Kerry couldn't help remarking.
The boy peered sweatily from beneath the load. "I know. The chick's gone crazy."
Those were more consecutive words than Jamie had addressed to her in all the months she'd known him. "I guess she likes
to have her things around her," Kerry said.
Melanie staggered in, toting a huge, drooping fern. "Where can I put this?"
"How about the backyard?" Kerry said. "The light in here is murder on plants."
"The backyard?" Melanie shifted the heavy plant awkwardly to one hip. "Put Audrey II in the backyard?"
Kerry eyed the fern. It bore no resemblance to its man-eating namesake from Little Shop of Horrors. "If you don't, you'll have to buy Audrey III pretty quick."
"Oh, all right," the girl grumbled, and staggered out, leaving a drift of potting soil on the carpet.
By the time everything had been stashed, it was nearly dinnertime. Kerry hauled her aging vacuum cleaner from the closet. "You hit the living room while I make dinner, okay?"
Melanie made no move to take the vacuum. "I didn't realize you expected me to be the cleaning lady."
Jamie poked his head out of the kitchen, a soda in hand. "Are you kidding? Look at the mess we made."
Angrily, Melanie kicked at a torn page that had fallen from one of her magazines. "We don't have to clean it up now. I'm hungry."
"Ground rules." Kerry felt as if she were walking on eggs, but she refused to be intimidated. "I'm glad you're here, Melanie, and I can tolerate a certain level of mess, but I don't want my stuff damaged. That dirt is going to get ground into the carpet if it isn't vacuumed now, and I didn't sign up to be your cleaning lady, either."
"You're not my mother," Melanie snapped.
Even allowing for the fact that Melanie had had an exhausting day, this wasn't an auspicious start. "That's right," she said. "I'm your landlady. If I were your mother, I might give you a break. But you want to be treated like an adult, so I'm treating you like one."
Melanie's mouth was already open to protest when Jamie intervened. "I'll run the vacuum." He thumped his can onto the counter.
"It's not your problem," Melanie said.
"Then quit acting like a baby and clean up after yourself."
By Leaps and Bounds Page 16
