Morning Song Read online

  As she looked at those clippings, familiar names and familiar places leaped into three dimensional life before her eyes—the hot lights, the smell of greasepaint and perspiration, the dusty boards, music swelling into the thunder of applause ... She could taste it, she could breathe it, she could feel strong hands about her waist lifting her high above the world in a triumphant turn, she could feel muscles straining in an ecstatic jete, the lines of her body moulded by the music and buoying her, for that one brief moment before her feet touched ground again, into the realms of immortality. And, uncontrollably, the flood of memories dissolved into tears, slow, sluggish, mournful tears which moistened her lips and splashed into her coffee, entirely unexpected, completely unpreventable.

  She felt a gentle hand upon her shoulder, then Shane was sliding into the booth beside her, drawing her head on to his chest, simply holding her, not saying a word. She felt foolish, but the tenderness of the gesture only increased the flow of tears. She wanted to lie against his chest and have him hold her for ever, to feel the softness of his shirt against her cheek and the heat of his body beneath, to sob all her heartbreak and disappointment into his strength, where it would be absorbed and disappear. But she tried to push away, scrubbing futilely at her wet face with the back of her hand and managed thickly, ‘Silly! I’m—getting your shirt all wet.’

  ‘I won’t melt,’ he assured her calmly, and gently drew her back to the warm, solid wall of his chest. His voice was like music. ‘Everyone is entitled to one long look back and one good cry. You go ahead and have yours.’

  She reached her arm up, her fingers curling against his shoulder, and felt his lips lightly brush her hair as the tears came, easy, without restraint, cleansing and refreshing. You’re here for me, she thought distantly, just as you’ve always been ... comforting me, encouraging me, holding me in a part of you and giving me hope ... just as you’ve always done.

  ‘Since I was a child,’ she began softly, ‘it’s all I ever wanted to do. The music was in my blood, the theatre was born into me. The bit parts, the scratchings and clawing for jobs, the bad reviews and the early closings ... I didn’t mind any of it. It was what I did. Oh, I had dreams of being a star, like everyone else, but it didn’t matter so much as long as I was dancing ...’ She closed her eyes against a fresh wash of warm tears, but Shane’s hand stroked her hair silently and it was easier to talk after a moment. ‘The show I was in—this last show—it opened on Broadway last month. I should have been there. I would have been there, only ...’ her voice almost broke. ‘Oh, Shane, it was so stupid, so unfair! I just fell. Right at the end of the performance in the second week of off-Broadway openings ... I was tired, I should have been more careful ...’ Her fist tightened against his shoulder as she struggled with the nightmarish memory. ‘Everyone falls, it’s no big deal, but—the minute I hit the boards I knew ...’ Her voice fell to a whisper. ‘I knew.’ It was a moment before she could go on, and then it was in a voice dull with shock and an overload of emotions. ‘The doctors—they did their best, but the knee had been injured too many times before and ... there just wasn’t much left to patch together, I guess. They kept telling me I should feel lucky that I would be able to walk and lead a normal life ... but I didn’t feel very lucky.’ Then she could do nothing but let the tears come, to lie against him and let the agony of failure and disappointment flood her. It was a long time before she could manage, with a shaky breath, ‘Oh, Shane! Does it ever get better?’

  ‘No,’ he answered quietly. ‘But after a while, it comes less often. After a while, you learn to bear it.’

  And somehow, sharing the pain eased the terrible hurt inside her, the yearning for what was so real she could almost touch it, yet so far away it would never be hers again. Because Shane, of all the people in the world, knew what she had lost. He had been there before her and now without even trying, was making the way easier for her, just as he had always done.

  The morning shifted in patterns of light and shade as clouds scuttled across the high window over the breakfast nook, and Lauren rested against him, drawing strength from him, feeling the growing process begin within her in ways as subtle as the silence, as impossible to define as the shadows which moved across them ... simply knowing that, because it was inevitable, she would learn to deal with her loss, and because the time had come, she could find a way to move on in her life. Feeling warm, protected, and good about herself. Feeling loved.

  At last she stirred, and reached for a paper napkin to dry her face. She ventured a glance at Shane, and a little smile. He responded by stroking her hair, once, and saying seriously, ‘You know this is the worst place in the world for you to be right now, don’t you?’

  She was startled, puzzled. ‘What—’

  ‘In Colorado,’ he explained, ‘with winter coming on. Under Van’s protection. Isolated, with too much time to think. You need to be in New York, looking for work, getting your life back together.’

  She shook her head slowly, balling up the damp napkin. ‘I—don’t think I’m ready for that yet.’ Again, the pain began to swell. ‘Performing was my life,’ she said intensely, unconsciously tightening her hands into double fists. ‘I never wanted anything else, not ever. It was more than just a job—like being a secretary or an accountant—it was a gift, a calling, it made me feel ... special.’ She looked at him. ‘Chosen. When I was dancing ...’ Now her eyes took on a dreamy look, an anxious look not too far from wistfulness. ‘It was as though, for a time, I could live out every fantasy man has ever had and share them. I was in another world, I was—invincible, immortal, I could bring dreams to life, there was nothing I couldn’t do.’ Her eyes were shining now as she focused on him. ‘And there’s a kind of magic to the theatre, knowing that you hold the fates of hundreds of people in your hand for two hours out of their lives ... you, all alone on that stage, are going to manipulate them, make them laugh when you want to and cry when you want them to and determine whether they leave you happy or sad or—disappointed. Oh, it’s scary. But it’s compulsive. And when it all works just right, when the rapport is there, when they love you ...’ She broke off, recalling suddenly to whom she was speaking, and her smile was slightly embarrassed, but mostly grateful. Because he really did understand. ‘But I don’t have to tell you. You know what it’s like.’

  He had been watching her with an intense, very absorbed expression, but now his features relaxed slowly into negligence; he lifted one eyebrow slightly. ‘No,’ he admitted, and he got up from the table. ‘I hated performing.’

  For a moment Lauren was actually speechless. She watched him cross the room towards the coffeepot, and her head was reeling with a dozen impressions, none of them concerning herself. Abruptly, she forgot her own needs and yearnings in the collage of memories of his one performance she had witnessed ... The composure, the earnestness, the strength with which he reached out and captured the audience, the magic he worked from the stage.

  ‘But—’ She started to say, ‘you were so good at it!’, but that was only stating the obvious. She changed it to simply, ‘Why?’

  Shane refilled her cup and his own, answering, ‘It was life on the road, mostly. Missed meals, no sleep, forgetting what city you’re in and sometimes what state ... loneliness, stage fright, too many empty rooms and empty faces ...’ He glanced at her, and a slightly embarrassed smile touched his face as they both realised at once that he was quoting from one of his songs. He left the coffee pot on the table and went to the refrigerator for cream. ‘It wasn’t for me,’ he finished, with his back to her. ‘I couldn’t handle it.’

  But Lauren wondered if the real reason was not the fact that he blamed the rigours of performing for the failure of his marriage, and that he was using guilt as an excuse for doing what he was meant to do ... as a sort of punishment. She asked softly, watching him, ‘Why did you stop writing?’

  His eyes were lowered as he poured a measure of cream into his cup; she thought he would not answer. Then, straightening up to return
the cream to the refrigerator, he said simply, ‘I don’t know where all the melodies went.’

  ‘Have you even tried?’

  She felt his tension as he returned to the table. His eyes were veiled and she could sense imminent withdrawal, perhaps, even anger. But she remembered Marie’s advice—that if you wanted anything from Shane, you had to push. And she wanted to put an end to the reserve he held against her, the barriers he kept forcing between them. She was willing to push for it.

  To her relief, he appeared in the mood to make some sort of compromise. He only replied lightly, ‘You ask too damn many questions, you know that?’ And he took his coffee over to the window, turning there to look at her. His expression was relaxed, but there was wariness in his eyes. Lauren remained firm, demanding an answer with her silence, and at last he admitted, ‘No, I haven’t tried. I haven’t wanted to.’

  ‘But why?’ she insisted. ‘Shane, your career was just at its peak. You were a top recording star, you didn’t have to leave it all. How could you turn your back on it?’

  He sipped his coffee calmly, but she could tell he was forcefully restraining emotion. ‘In the first place,’ he replied patiently, ‘I was hardly a top recording star. As a matter of fact, one very good reason I stopped recording was because I lost my contract.’

  She stared at him. She knew enough from Van to realise that studios did not release their artists without a very good reason—greed on the part of the performer being the most common. She could not believe that Shane had ever been greedy, and she knew his last album had been his biggest seller, and all she could manage was, ‘How?’

  He looked at her for a moment as though debating whether or not to answer. When he did speak there was an odd tone to his voice, almost a challenge, and she knew he was very near the end of his patience. ‘You noticed, no doubt,’ he said drily, pretending casualness as he sipped from his cup, ‘that my nose has been broken. It happened in a bar-room brawl with two of the studio’s top executives and my producer. I don’t remember much about it, but they tell me I acted like I was out to kill somebody. I was lucky nobody brought charges, I guess, but the studio didn’t need too many more reasons to get rid of me.’

  He was watching her closely for a reaction, his eyes narrowed as though daring her to challenge his story. Lauren’s reaction was utter astonishment; it was all she could do to keep from bursting into laughter. Shane Holt, attacking three men in physical battle? It was absurd. This was the gentle dreamer, the weaver of magic, the poet and the scholar. That he would ever do such a thing was beyond all imagination, and she wondered why he had told it for the truth.

  She said, meeting his eyes evenly, ‘I don’t believe you.’

  His eyes grew hard. He replied briefly, ‘I know you don’t.’ And he drained his coffee cup.

  She continued easily, even though her heart was pounding with the sudden increased tension in the room, ‘Anyway, you could have gone to another studio, gotten a better contract. That’s no reason.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Lauren,’ he burst out impatiently, ‘let it go, will you?’ He strode across the room to place his cup on the counter, and in the few minutes his back was turned to her he seemed to struggle to regain control. In a moment he said, more calmly, ‘Look, I was just another top-forties artist, no more. I never had a number one hit and I never would have. I never sold a million copies of anything. I never won an award. I have a mediocre voice with a one-octave range, I play a passable guitar and pretty fair keyboards, but beyond that I could be anybody on the street.’ Now he turned and looked at her. ‘No one misses my music,’ he told her flatly. ‘There are a dozen new ones just like me hitting the charts every month. There was nothing special about my music, it didn’t irrevocably alter history or change anyone’s life. It—’

  ‘It changed my life,’ Lauren interrupted softly.

  The moment between them was poignant; it throbbed across the distance between them with challenge and meaning. But beyond the softening flicker of surprise in his eye was caution, denial, and sadness. And there was heaviness in his voice as well as wariness in his face as he said, ‘That’s all I mean to you, isn’t it? That’s all you see in me—what I was, or what you thought I was. Just words and music.’

  ‘No,’ she insisted earnestly, rising. ‘It’s what you are, what you could be again.’ She reached him; she placed her hand lightly on his arm. ‘Shane, I know you. I know you couldn’t just walk away from your gift, any more than I could from mine. And I care about that, not only because of what you’ve taken from all of us who loved your music, but because of what it’s doing to you. Don’t you see—’

  ‘Damn it, Lauren, you don’t know me!’ he exploded. He jerked his arm away abruptly and turned to grip the kitchen counter, his back stiff. ‘You don’t know me and you never will, and how dare you presume to judge me! Can’t you get it through your head that I don’t want your help and I don’t need your interference? It’s none of your goddamn business!’

  She fell back, hurt as though physically struck, aching and confused. The moment she had thought to capture between them had shattered like glass, too fragile to withstand the impact of the violent emotions she had roused. She wondered if it would ever be repaired, and the worst of the pain was that she did not think so.

  Shane said roughly, not looking at her, ‘Why the hell don’t you get your own life straightened out before you start interfering in mine?’

  For a long moment, silence throbbed between them, aching and cold. Lauren could see the anger and the struggle within him in the squared lines of his back, his tensely hunched shoulders. She could hear it in the soft rush of his breath. But if he regretted any of what he had said, he would not let her know, and the yearning and sorrow within her gradually began to build into something more—a stubbornness to match his own.

  At last she said quietly, lifting her chin a fraction and squaring her shoulders, ‘Thanks. I think I will.’

  And she turned and left the room.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  For the next two weeks Lauren and Shane maintained their distance carefully, almost warily. On fair mornings they walked, he held her hand and they talked sporadically, always about neutral subjects. Occasionally she would glance up during the course of her day and find him watching her, and sometimes the expression in his eyes was patiently amused, other times it was serious, as though he were on the point of an apology or a personal discussion about the unhappy changes in their relationship. Lauren always thwarted any such overtures, however, and he fell back without resistance, waiting.

  She was guarding her emotions much more carefully these days. Foolishly, she had allowed herself to forget who Shane was, and who she was. She had tried to bring the fantasy to life, and to get closer to him than he would allow, and that had been a mistake. As he had pointed out, she had more pressing things to concern her at this point than what he chose to do with his life—primarily, what she was going to do with her own.

  She launched on a determined programme of self-improvement. One day while shopping with Marie she secretly purchased a leotard and fell into the morning ritual of limbering, warm-up, and yoga exercises which had been a part of her life for so many years. The results surprised her, not only in improved muscle tone and a healthier appearance, but in increased energy and self-confidence. She was doing this for herself, not because she had to or expected approval from anyone, but simply because she cared about herself for the first time since the accident. She knew she would never dance again, she had accepted that and was not maintaining false hope or encouraging fantasies in that direction. But all her life she had been in peak physical condition, and she wondered now for the first time if letting herself go in those first months after the accident had not contributed more than she realised to the depression.

  During one four-day weekend Van had the house filled with guests again, and while Lauren found it much easier to mingle and get to know the party, it was Shane who generally found an excuse to be
otherwise occupied. Constantly, executives and technicians from Van’s Denver studio were wandering in and out, and Lauren found the exposure to new people stimulating and exciting. She was beginning to feel more like herself. Shane accompanied Van and some of his colleagues on a three-day fishing trip, and other than that, he kept mostly to himself ... and Lauren had the feeling that, while all of these welcome, growing changes were taking place within her, Shane was quietly observing her, saying nothing, giving her space.

  She found herself sleeping less, rising earlier, just as she had been accustomed to doing all her life. Often she was awake before anyone else, and had an hour or so alone in the kitchen with a cup of coffee, watching the sun rise and feeling peaceful. But one morning, though, she came downstairs to the aroma of coffee, and found Shane in the kitchen before her, standing at the window. His voice floated softly across the dimly lit room to her; he was facing the window and completely unaware of her entrance.

  ‘Hello, bird,’ he said. ‘You’re looking good this morning. What are you still doing here this time of year, anyway?’

  Lauren brought her hand to her mouth to cover a delighted smile as the object of his address, a small brown bird perched on the sill, cocked his head intelligently and gave a few staccato chirps.

  ‘Hmm,’ replied Shane thoughtfully. ‘I know what you mean. Well, life is rough all over, isn’t it?’

  The bird, perhaps suddenly noticing Lauren’s presence, chirped again and flew away. Shane turned and saw her, but his grin was more surprised than embarrassed. ‘Aha,’ he said, coming over to her. ‘Now you know my fault. I talk to animals.’