A Husband for Beauty

by Lindsey Hart

  Leena whirled, anger building in her chest. She stalked up the stairs and stopped in the middle of the stage. People quieted around her as sets of eyes were slowly drawn her way.

  “I want to say something,” she announced loudly, barely keeping her tone from being sharp. “You were told this morning that Dallas would be taking over Howard’s role. No one voiced a protest then. If you have something to say about it, please do it now. This is our theatre, Dallas and mine, and I won’t have people whispering behind our backs or undermining the show. This is important to me. No, that’s not the right word. This show means everything to me. As you know, Dallas and I wrote it together.” She didn’t say anything more than that, but her voice conveyed the feeling behind her statement. “So, I’m going to ask again, does anyone have anything to say? You are more than welcome to leave if you don’t like my decision. No hard feelings and no questions asked.”

  A petite brunette, Shirley, an extra in one of the scenes, stepped forward. “It’s just that… we’re all trained actors. Some of us have spent years trying to get where we are. Howard was amazing. He was so good at what he did…”

  “I agree, he was good, but he wasn’t right for the role. I was the one who wanted Dallas to do this. He certainly didn’t volunteer for it.” She couldn’t tell them what she already knew. That at the heart of it, this production was about her and Dallas. It was their story. She’d rewritten that ending to save him. It was symbolic of everything he meant to her. She now knew it was the greatest gift she could give him, those notes, those words, torn from the depths of her heart. “Regardless, he is going to give it a try. I feel for this role, it is only going to be right if he’s the one doing it.”

  “No one has ever even seen him act though,” Shirley protested. “Or heard him sing.”

  Leena nodded. “I know. None of you have, but I’ve heard him sing.” Her eyes swept to Dallas, who stood stock still on the stairs, eyes locked on her, watching her every movement, taking in every single word. “That man is a genius. He’s sold music around the world. He’s had his works performed in Europe, Asia and North America. He’s won awards for his scores. All he knows is music. He is music. This is his work. Will you trust my decision and welcome him?”

  It took a minute, but finally, the stage was filled with nods and affirmations. A few smiles even graced the faces of some of the cast.

  “Dallas?” Leena turned, extending her hand. There were no musicians in attendance. They would come later after they’d ironed out the kinks on stage. There was a piano in the orchestra pit just in front of the stage.

  When she moved, walked over and joined Dallas again, he stood in the same place, unmoving, eyes blazing with uncertainty and possibly even fear. She wasn’t sure why he’d agreed to her somewhat wild, unconventional request. Maybe, somewhere inside of himself, he agreed with her. He knew that only he could stand up there with her, play the part that was always meant to be his.

  “Will you come with me?”

  He nodded. He followed her down into the pit, to the huge grand piano. The entire building was silent as Dallas sat. His hands rested on the keys, fingers still. Leena held her breath, hoping that just sitting at the piano, that just playing, wouldn’t send him into a tailspin. She knew how hard it was for him to come out at all, to face everyone, to do this for her.

  Is he doing it for me? Or is he doing it for himself? Maybe this was something he needed to prove to himself, a step he needed to take back onto a path he wanted to be on.

  “Will you play? Sing something. Anything,” she asked softly. She rested her hand on the piano’s smooth black surface.

  His hands paused on the keys and for a minute, Leena’s greatest fear was that he was going to say no, that he’d get up and leave. And that would be the end of her idea, the end of whatever irrational hope she held out that Dallas would one day know how she truly felt. She felt like he was walking in the right direction, slowly becoming aware, opening his eyes to see her for the first time.

  And then he played.

  His hands moved, flew over the keys. He chose a scene from that production; a tormented near-final scene before she’d changed the ending and given his character the happiness he deserved. He played, the music flowing, perfect, stunning, beautiful. He didn’t sing as she’d asked him to. He stopped, the notes still ringing through the empty house, flowing up to the rafters, swirling around all of them.

  Leena realized there were tears on her cheeks. Dallas stood, clearly ready to leave. She couldn’t let him do that. She couldn’t let him go. This was the way she wanted to reach him, the one way she hoped that he’d finally understand. Through music.

  “Don’t go,” she whispered as she brushed past him. She grazed his hand, the warmth of his knuckles with her fingers as she sat.

  He stared at her, frowning, eyes locked on her face. She adjusted the bench quietly, bringing it closer. And that was when she stunned everyone.

  No one knew she could play, not even Dallas. She just knew, as she somehow understood the most elemental functions of objects, that she was a pianist. Or at least, she could have been.

  She started as her hands hit the keys. Touching them brought back a flurry of memory, like a door had been opened or the floodgates of a dam had finally burst and poured forth. Her mother, bent over her, telling her that if she didn’t practice, she’d never be anything at all. The lessons, always the lessons. She’d wanted to go out and play with friends, but her mother drove her forward. Forward. Harder, always more.

  As the first notes poured forth, Hannah’s face appeared. Hannah as a young girl, twelve maybe. She met her at her piano lessons. Hannah was going out as she was coming in. They’d hit it off, talked for a few minutes and knew right away they wanted to be friends.

  Her fingers flew, creating the music, not as Dallas did, not with the heartbreak or the sorrow, not from the depth of her soul, but from somewhere close. She played perfectly, too perfectly, while Dallas played with a passion she couldn’t match.

  She recalled Hannah, telling her she wanted to sing. That she felt she’d gone as far as she could with piano and that she longed to be an actress in a big city like New York. She wanted to be trained by the best. Her parents found Dallas, because he was the best, not only in Boston but in the entire country, as far as everyone was concerned. He was eccentric, his house dark and creepy. He was demanding, harsh. There was something wrong with him, Hannah as a fifteen-year-old girl had said. She pled with Leena to go with her, so she wouldn’t be so afraid. And she had. She was intrigued.

  Her hands flew, her fingers caressing the keys, bringing forth life, her creation, the gift of her heart that she’d given to Dallas in hopes of saving him after Hannah died.

  She knew then, with certainty, that, she loved him. She’d loved him from the minute she met him. He looked so lost, so alone. He’d hidden his heart, his fears, his feeling behind the music, cloaked himself in the shadows of his home, as if he didn’t go outside, he didn’t have to feel.

  She finally glanced up, into Dallas’ face. He was turned towards her, his lips parted in shock. His eyes were clear, astonished, fascinated, held in rapt attention. She’d never told him, never even hinted at the fact that she could do so much more than sing.

  She kept playing, playing in hopes that Dallas would sing. And finally, finally he did. He shifted so that he was neither facing her nor the stage but staring out at the empty house. He closed his eyes and rested his hands on the piano. His beautiful, rich tone filled up the entire auditorium. It was entirely captivating and enchanting. She didn’t have to look at those assembled up on stage to know that there wouldn’t be a dry eye as Dallas sang out his anguish and his pain.

  No one knew it, but he was telling them, letting them in on his private grief. Except right then, it felt like just the two of them. Dallas with his eyes closed, his face a mask of pain, voice filling up the entire place, taking them all to another plane of existence. And her, with tears trailing down her chee
ks, her hands moving flawlessly over the piano, bringing it to life.

  When Dallas stopped, and her hands stilled, the silence that swirled around them was deafening. Dallas finally opened his eyes and when those ethereal, burning grey orbs met hers, she understood that a shift had occurred. She’d opened herself completely, taken him inside her heart, let him into her soul. He was there already, but now he knew he was there.

  Leena finally looked towards the stage. There were tears glistening on a few faces. Others stood with their mouths hanging open.

  And Dallas, because he was Dallas, simply walked away from her, out of the pit and down one of the aisles. She watched him go, frozen in place, until he disappeared out of the auditorium.

  She quickly stood and instructed the cast to start rehearsing. She promised she would be back shortly. She turned and followed the same path Dallas had just taken. She still couldn’t remember anything, but the wall in her mind was beginning to crumble. She could literally feel it getting weaker and weaker and she knew with every fiber of her being that Dallas was the one who held the key to unlock it completely.

  CHAPTER 11

  Leena

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me you could play? It’s been years… years! How did you even remember that you could?”

  After leaving the auditorium, Leena caught up with Dallas as he tried to escape into the studio. She’d gripped his hand boldly and stared into his eyes. They’d stood like that for the span of a few long heartbeats. When she’d gently guided him down the hall into her apartment instead, he hadn’t refused.

  Leena stilled, her hands still busy cutting up the lettuce she’d chosen for a salad. It was the least she could do. She liked the mundane task of making lunch. It was something to occupy her hands with while she tried to sort out the wild jumble of thoughts and emotions tumbling through her mind and heart.

  She’d put the kettle on to make tea and its sharp whistle punctuated the stillness. She set the knife aside and poured steaming water into two mugs. She’d found honey and had it ready this time. Not sugar.

  “I… I don’t know,” she said softly. She pulled out the tea bags and stirred honey into Dallas’ tea. “I don’t know why I never told you and I don’t know why I remembered that I could. It just seemed the right thing to do at the moment. You were going to leave. I couldn’t let you leave.”

  “You should have let me.” Dallas sat uncomfortably on the antique settee in her small living room. It faced the kitchen and looked like it had never been sat on once. Unlike his apartment, hers was spotless. There was no piano in hers, no musical instrument of any sorts. Hers just looked like a normal home.

  Also, unlike his place, her bedroom was off to the left, separated by a door. The kitchen and living area stood separately, the bathroom off to the right. Everything was neat and compartmentalized while his was open. She wondered if during the renovation, she’d had that door put there, those walls erected or if it had already been there and she’d chosen to just go with the existing floor plan and make it work.

  “Why? I didn’t want you to leave. I wanted you to stay.” Leena set down the steaming mug in front of Dallas on the small dark coffee table. “Don’t drink that yet. It’s really hot.”

  Surprisingly he rolled his eyes. He looked so well put together, in a fresh set of dark jeans and a black cotton dress shirt, the sleeves rolled up to the elbow, that she would never have guessed that just a few days ago he’d been too weak to even stand up.

  Thinking of him that way made her think of him lying next to her in his bed, waking up tangled together. She’d loved the weight of his legs on hers, the heat of his body, the press of hard muscle into her softer curves. Her face heated and she turned, forcing her mind back to the methodical job of preparing their lunch.

  “You were amazing. Your voice… you’re the only one who can play that part, Dallas. It was meant for you. It was written by you, about… about us.”

  “Which the world doesn’t have to know.”

  “They won’t. It’s just as moving as everything else you write. No one would know it was personal.”

  “Everything I write is a part of me.”

  Leena picked up the knife and continued cutting. She made quick work of the head of lettuce and set it in a large bowl. She moved on to the rest of the vegetables, cucumber, tomato, peppers.

  “I know.” She didn’t look up. She felt Dallas’ stare on her, hot and intense. “You have such a gift. I wanted the world to hear it, just once. Your music is incredible. You’ve given that part of yourself away and you’ve touched so many people. I… you’re right. Howard wasn’t right for the role. It’s you. It’s always been you and only you. You know it too or you wouldn’t have shown up today.” She did look up then, challenging him. He finally looked away and she knew she was right.

  “I… I don’t know if I can do it. All those people staring at me.”

  “It’s a musical. They come to see people perform. It will be fine.”

  “And if I make a mess of it?”

  She shrugged. “Who doesn’t screw up? People forget lines all the time. I’ve sung the wrong parts before, I’m sure. The people around us are professionals.” Her lips quirked up in a smile. “You know, in case you missed that this morning.”

  “How could I?”

  “Well, they won’t let anything happen. We just all go on like it’s part of the show. No one ever knows.”

  “What if I can’t?”

  “You could this morning. I’ll be there with you almost the whole time. And you’ll have others if I’m not there. You won’t be alone.”

  He considered that, and she knew what a step forward it was for him. He’d never told her that he wanted to venture out, out into the world, into life, for the first time in a very long time, but she sensed it was also a reason he was doing this. It wasn’t just for her. It wasn’t just because it needed to be done. It was for him, a way to mend some of the wounds in his soul. A way to move forward, to break the hold of the past and the hold fear had on his life.

  I don’t want to be like this anymore. That’s what he’d said, sometime in the course of that night. She knew exactly what he meant. She couldn’t imagine having to live like he did. She’d tried to help him the only way she knew how, but she doubted she’d been very helpful at all. Maybe she’d just prolonged his agony by making it possible for him to remain locked away and concentrate on his work.

  “Dallas, I-”

  “What were-”

  They spoke at the same time. Leena bowed her head and swallowed back an apology she didn’t even know was appropriate. She waited for him.

  “When did you learn to play? Was it your parents or did you want to? You are… so very talented.” The words were like a warm caress. Dallas’ praise was so meaningful, so tender, so very intimate that Leena shivered.

  “I don’t know. I just had this memory when I was playing. It was my mother. She was always pushing me. She wanted me to learn. She wanted me to be great. I can sense it. It was probably a huge disappointment when I told her that I wanted to be an actress, although I can’t remember that. I just sense it too.” Her hand stilled on the tomato, the juices making her fingers itch. “What do you know about my parents that I don’t? Why haven’t they called? Why didn’t they come to the hospital?”

  Dallas’ lips pressed into a thin line. He picked up his tea and sipped at it loudly. Finally, he spoke, but he still couldn’t look at her. “I don’t know anything about them. I never met them. We never really talked about our families.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because my family-well- they don’t deserve to be talked about.” He swallowed hard. “The only person who ever supported or helped me was my mother and she’s long gone now. And yours… I know your parents didn’t approve of you marrying me. You didn’t speak to them much after that, or even before. I don’t know why, but I know it truly ended when we started this.”

  She wanted to ask him about his family, why he
said what he had and what had happened to his mother, but she kept the words locked inside. She could hear the pain in his tone and she didn’t want to be salt in his wounds. If he wanted to tell her one day, he would.

  “They didn’t approve…” She went back to slicing up the tomato and added it to the lettuce. “That sounds about right.” She had a flash of memory, soundless, of her mother yelling. She could tell she was yelling, because her face was red, her eyes wide, her lips moving. “You’re right.”

  “Do you remember?”

  “Not exactly. I just get these pictures sometimes, or little scenes, little snippets. It’s annoying. Like seeing a second of an entire movie and being left to wonder about the rest.”

  Dallas sighed. “Of course they didn’t want their daughter chained to someone like me. Someone who doesn’t even go outside. It was probably also the fact that I’m almost twelve years older than you.”

  “What?” She’d never thought about their age. Despite the way he ignored his own health, Dallas, when he’d slept and eaten, looked young. It was amazing how he could just rebound like he did. His physique was definitely that of a man half his age.

  His lips quirked up in the shadow of a smile. “Yes. I knew you didn’t remember that.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Hardly. But to them… it could have been an issue.”

  “I don’t even know their number. I looked through my phone and it’s not in there. I remember their names, strangely enough. John and Eliana. There were no mom or dad contacts so then I tried their names. I don’t have them in there. I even tried looking them up online. I didn’t find anything.”

  Dallas’ swallow was audible. “I think that… that maybe it was mutual, the parting. I’m sorry, I never asked you.”

  Dallas apologizing? The words were so shocking. She knew for a fact he’d never said that word to her before. Sorry. She knew it the same way she just knew about all the other things that she remembered.