Morning Song Read online

  MORNING SONG

  Rebecca Flanders

  Shane was obviously very miserable

  I believe that’s one of the things we’re supposed to have in common, he’d said—and it was.

  When Lauren’s dancing career ended abruptly with a fall, she seemed to have nothing left to live for. Then she met Shane Holt.

  She had worshiped the singer from afar for years, but in person he was rude and pompous--and suffering from a past he wouldn’t talk about. And yet he was trying to get close to her. If only there weren’t so many barriers keeping them apart ...

  CHAPTER ONE

  Lauren Davis watched the headlights of what must have been the sixth car pull into the circular drive below and then dim, and she shuddered and stepped away from the window. A few friends, Marie had said. She had already counted eighteen laughing, well-dressed people getting out of their cars and going into the house, and the party had not yet really begun.

  The last thing Lauren felt like tonight was a party, and she had protested as much to Marie. She had only arrived at Marie and Marvin Van Fossen’s Colorado home this afternoon and she still was not quite certain what she was doing here. She was certain that she was in no mood for socialising, as Marie should know very well.

  She was ashamed of the small sense of resentment she felt rising for her host and hostess. Van and Marie had gone beyond the call of duty for her in the last few months and she should have been grateful. Van had flown to New York less than a week after Lauren’s surgery—though how he had found out about it Lauren still did not know—and had visited her every day in the hospital. He had tried to cheer her with commonsense advice and small talk and had even, without her asking, known exactly what things to bring from her apartment to make her hospital stay more comfortable. He tried, in his very low-key way, to convince her that her life was not over simply because her stage career was. Of course he had not succeeded in that: he simply did not understand.

  With a martyred sigh, Lauren wandered over to the mirror and took a long hard look at herself. She was appalled. Why had she never noticed before how much weight she had lost? She was wearing a plum-coloured sweater which she had intended to match with a long grey skirt, and panties, and her reflection in the mirror looked emaciated. Her thighs were no bigger than a child’s, and as she lifted her arm to brush her honey-coloured hair the sweater rode up to reveal the sharp point of her hipbone. Even through the wool sweater she could see the outline of fragile ribs and her chest was as flat as a boy’s. Self-consciously, she brought her hand to her breasts and wondered how she could have possibly ignored how awful she looked before tonight. The semi-circular scar on her knee was purplish-red and huge, and she refused, she absolutely refused to go to a party looking like this.

  She drew on a robe and went over to the bed, curling her legs beneath her and propping the pillows behind her shoulders. She felt relieved, for now she had a concrete excuse to give Marie. She reached for her cassette player and felt an unfamiliar sense of contentment steal over her as she prepared to indulge herself in that last fantasy she had left, music.

  For the past ten years she had sought solace and found her greatest pleasure in the same way. Van had known exactly what she needed most while she was in the hospital, and on his first visit had brought her tape player and her Shane Holt tapes. Throughout those nightmarish days she had only to press a switch and through the music a man she did not know spoke to her and comforted her, and seemed to understand her better than she did herself. She had sublet her New York apartment when Van insisted upon carrying her off to Colorado for the winter, and the only thing she had saved from the remnants of her past life was her collection of Shane Holt tapes. She put one into the machine now and leaned back and closed her eyes, letting the music and the lyrics carry her once again into a world outside herself.

  But the respite was all too brief. There was a sharp rap on the door and Marie came in.

  Lauren gave a sheepish grin as she switched off the tape player. ‘I tried to tell you,’ she explained before her hostess could say anything, ‘I really don’t feel like a party.’

  Marie, with her hands on her black velvet-clad hips, demanded, ‘And why not?’

  Lauren shrugged uncomfortably. Obviously, this was not going to be as easy as she had planned. ‘All those strangers—I just feel awkward, that’s all.’

  ‘This, from a girl who’s faced an audience of over a thousand almost every night of her life?’ exclaimed Marie in disdain. ‘Sheer nonsense! I’m warning you, young lady, I won’t take no for an answer, so you may as well get upand get dressed or I’ll come over there and do it myself.’

  Lauren knew she was not being fair to Marie, and this was certainly no way to express her gratitude for all that Marie and Van had done for her over the years. The two families had been friends almost since before Lauren was born, when Van had produced a record by the orchestra of which both Lauren’s parents were members. When an automobile accident had taken Lauren’s parents when she was twenty, Van and Marie had stepped naturally into the surrogate role, comforting, supporting, seeing her through the worst. They attended all her openings and made certain she never lacked for anything; they loved her like a daughter, and Lauren returned the affection. Now that tragedy had struck Lauren again they were here to stand by her and offer all they could to ease the pain. Even though their efforts were in vain, Lauren knew she could have at least made an attempt to show them that she appreciated their concern.

  Lauren got up with a sigh. ‘None of my clothes fit,’ she complained. ‘I don’t have anything to wear. I’ll feel stupid and tongue-tied, and I’ll ruin your party.’

  To prove her point, she stepped out of her robe and held up the skirt she had intended to wear with her sweater. It did not take more than a glance to notice the uncomplimentary effect of the outfit, but Marie looked her over critically. ‘Perhaps,’ she decided tactfully, ‘sweaters aren’t the most flattering thing for you right now. I’m sure you have a pretty blouse somewhere ...’

  Lauren gave a helpless little laugh as Marie began rifling through her closet. She pulled out one of Lauren’s favourite blouses—a white chiffon spangled with gold. The full sleeves were three-quarter length, and the deep lace inset trimmed with ruffles hid the most obvious defects of her figure. Marie chose a pair of wool slacks in a rich cranberry colour—they hung on Lauren, but they were the newly fashionable baggy style, so it was not noticeable. Marie hurried along the dressing process, complaining, ‘I’ll have you know I’m a very good hostess, and everyone loves my parties. This is the first time in my life I’ve ever had to practically drag two of my house guests by their ears to one of my parties, and I’ll tell you right now, I don’t much like the feeling!’

  Lauren pulled back her hair with ivory combs and tried to hide her pained expression with a rather false smile. That was another thing that had intimidated and disappointed her about this trip. She had accepted Van’s invitation because a few months in his secluded mountain home had sounded like exactly what she wanted—isolation, privacy, no demands and no pressures. She had forgotten that while Van’s home was secluded it was hardly isolated, and rarely did more than a week pass at a time without house guests. She should not have been surprised when Marie had told her as soon as she arrived that she would be sharing their hospitality with another friend of theirs for a few days. Lauren had seen no sign of the other guest during the afternoon, though, and, if Marie’s statement about his reluctance to attend the party could be given any credence, perhaps he was just as anxious to preserve his privacy as she was hers. She hoped so. The party was bad enough; she did not think she could bear to try to make small talk with a stranger for days at a time. When she was finally downstairs, Lauren discovered she had
been right; she did feel awkward and shy in a room filled with strangers. Although everyone to whom she was introduced was very polite, she found her usual gift for witty conversation had suddenly disappeared. Most of the guests were friends and associates of Van’s from the music business, a lively group whose company Lauren would have usually enjoyed. But tonight she did not have anything to say, her mind was a blank, and she was relieved when her new acquaintances made polite excuses after a few moments and left her alone. She felt as though everyone noticed her limp, and the more she tried to hide it, the worse it became. She wished she had worn more make-up, a different outfit ... she wished she had stayed in her room.

  A nice-looking young man to whom she had been introduced only a few moments before came over to her. ‘The lady looks like she could use a drink,’ he smiled, and pressed a glass into her hand.

  Lauren could not hide her surprise over the fact that he had returned, and she accepted the glass with murmured thanks.

  He continued to smile at her. ‘So what are you doing standing over here all by yourself? A pretty girl like you can’t be shy.’

  ‘I—I’m not much for parties,’ Lauren replied, keeping her eyes on her glass. She wished he would go away.

  ‘Well, I know just the cure for that.’ He took her arm. ‘Let’s dance.’

  She shrank back in a quick rush of alarm. ‘N-no,’ she stammered, casting frantically about for some means of escape. ‘I—don’t dance, I—’

  He laughed and tightened his persuasive hold on her arm. ‘Come on, sweetheart, you can’t pull that on me. Marie has already told me you’re a professional dancer, so let’s get out there and show them how it’s done.’ He tugged on her arm. ‘Let’s boogie!’

  She pulled her arm away. Her heart was pounding and her cheeks were red, but she managed with as much dignity as possible, ‘I can’t dance: I—had an accident. I ...’ her voice sank to almost a whisper, ‘can’t dance.’

  He looked at her for a moment as though she had suddenly turned into a freak before his eyes, and to her shame she felt angry tears sting her eyelids. She looked up at him defiantly anyway, and hated the look of embarrassment and annoyance that came over his face. ‘Okay, baby, pardon me for asking.’ There was a hint of sarcasm beneath the defensiveness in his tone as he turned away. ‘All you had to say was no, you know,’ he shot back over his shoulder, and Lauren watched him push his way through the crowd with a sense of overwhelming despair.

  What was she doing here in the midst of all these people, the gaiety, the artificial brightness, the laughter and the music ...? She did not belong here. She was a cripple, a freak, and had she really thought for one moment that ‘nice’ young man would understand? No, these were the Beautiful People, the whole and healthy good-time people, and anyone and anything less than perfect was repulsive in their eyes. She did not belong here.

  She edged herself into a corner, out of sight and she hoped out of mind. She sipped her drink and watched the activity around her. Once this had been her world, but it was no longer. Had Marie really thought this would make her feel better? Not one person in this room had anything more important on his mind than who he was going home with, and a chasm as wide as the Grand Canyon separated Lauren from the rest of them. They had never known fear or despair or the aching emptiness which dawned with every new day. They had never seen their dreams crushed to rubble or faced a future devoid of promise. They did not know, not one of them, what it was like to lose in a gamble with fate.

  She was just weighing her chances of making a discreet exit by way of the stairs when Van spotted her and waved. Her spirits sank as he came over to her.

  ‘Come on,’ he insisted, taking her arm, ‘there’s someone I want you to meet.’

  ‘Do you mean there’s someone I’ve missed?’ she sighed, and he laughed good-naturedly as he led her across the room.

  They approached two men in conversation—at least, one of them was in conversation. He was an older man, balding and a little paunchy in an outrageously printed silk shirt with a heavy gold chain about his neck, and his thin voice raised in disgust and recrimination reached Lauren long before they were close enough to be introduced. ‘I tell you, man, it baffles me, I mean really baffles me. You want to try to explain it to me one more time? You want to try to explain to me how those six-figure royalties just turn you off and how the thought of a gold record makes you sick to your stomach? How you never really liked all those gorgeous broads crawling all over you and your fancy sports cars and that swinging pad you used to keep in N.Y.C.? Whatever happened to that Lamborghini you were going to buy, anyway? I tell you, man, I just don’t understand it ...’ The voice became a whine. ‘We had some good times together, you know what I mean? Some really good times. And so now what are you trying to be, some kind of Messiah or something? I mean, it’s your own trip, man, but how about remembering your friends on the way? We could have it good all over again ...’

  The man he was addressing was younger, dressed in jeans, a white turtleneck sweater, and a blue corduroy jacket. His eyes were very cold and his face was hard. He said quietly, ‘Why don’t you go to hell, Marty?’ Lauren would have liked at that moment to discreetly walk away, but Van felt no compunction about breaking into what was obviously a personal and potentially explosive argument. He said cheerfully, ‘Are you still giving our boy a hard time, Marty? I’m going to stop inviting you to my parties if you don’t lower the volume on your hard sell!’

  The one called Marty managed to look disgruntled and despairing at the same time. ‘Why don’t you try to talk some sense into him?’ he demanded of Van. ‘A whole life shot down the tubes, and does he care? Not him, no sir. And what about me?’ he demanded plaintively of the man in jeans. ‘Do you know what ten per cent of nothing is? Nothing, that’s what.’ He threw his hands up in the air at the stony lack of response and walked away, muttering something about ‘gratitude’ and ‘loyalty’.

  ‘A discontented ex-manager,’ Van explained to Lauren, and drew her forward. For a moment he paused, almost as though for dramatic effect, and there was a hint of an excited secret in his voice as she said, ‘Lauren, this is Shane Holt. Shane, this is the girl Marie was telling you about, Lauren Davis. Since you’ll be sharing the same roof for a while, you should get to know one another.’

  Lauren looked at him. A year ago she would have fallen to her knees and worshipped the very ground on which this man walked—even six months ago she would not have been ashamed to admit that she was stricken with a very adolescent case of hero-worship. For Shane Holt was no ordinary man; he was not even an ordinary hero.

  During the height of his career he had been billed as a soft rock singer by some; a pop artist by others. Actually, he was a folk singer in the truest, most basic sense of the word. The songs he wrote told the story of everyday life wrapped into universal themes with a brilliance the greatest novelist or poet who had ever lived could only envy. He sang of the innocence of childhood and the beauty of growing old, the poignancy of first love remembered, the simple harmony of death. He sang about life on the road and the dark, lonely thoughts that haunt the midnight hours. With words and music he painted unforgettable portraits of slices of life rich with meaning—the fisherman bringing in his haul on a cold, stormy day; the father and son walking quietly through autumn woods; the mother waiting patiently for her children to come home. His gift of language and rhyme was extraordinary, almost in the calibre of classical poets, and his style was unmistakable. Lauren knew that he had a graduate degree from Princeton and was a Rhodes Scholar, and that he had gone into music against the will of his family, but other than that little was known about him. He kept his private life very private. Perhaps it was his genius and his background which set him apart in the music world, but to Lauren it was something more—a sensitivity, a rare quality of understanding life in all its beauty and expressing that understanding with the precise words and melody which made it real.

  He had produced three albums in five years,
and from each of them he had no fewer than four singles to make the top twenty on the popular charts. Strangely, none of his songs ever climbed above twenty in popularity, but they hovered at that number and fell slowly. He was not really a teen idol—in fact, his following, according to one music magazine, had been almost cultish in nature—and he made no effort to compete with the flash-in-the-pan hard rock tunes which were constantly bombarding the charts. His songs rose with dignity above the trash, held their positions solidly for a respectable lifetime, and then faded just as gracefully from the public ear. Even though he had not made a recording in almost five years, his songs were still considered classics. Lauren discovered something new in them every time she listened.

  She had seen him only once in concert. He had held the audience mesmerised in his spell for over two hours while he told his stories and painted his pictures in song, and at the end she had thought the building would collapse under the wild thunder of endless applause. Her own hands had hurt from clapping and tears were in her eyes as Shane Holt got up quietly and left the stage. Throughout the performance he had not said a word, but let his music speak for him. Yet he had touched his audience in a way Lauren had never dreamed possible. It was the best show she had ever seen.

  At that time his dark blond hair had been worn below his shoulders and he had a full blond beard. She was not surprised that she had not recognised him now. The beard was gone, and his hair seemed darker in colour, almost brown, clipped just above the collar and swept to the side. There was something different about the eyes, too, which were a foggy hazel colour, and about his face. But Lauren had only seen him that once, and from the distance which separated the stage from the third row orchestra, and she could not be sure what, exactly, it was about his appearance which seemed to be disappointing.

  ‘I hardly think that’s necessary,’ he was saying to Van now, ‘as I won’t be here long enough to need to get to know anyone.’ His eyes flickered over Lauren once, without interest, and then away. ‘I’ve already stayed longer than I planned.’