Читать книгу Romance Backstage - Kim Shaw - Страница 14

The Show Must Go On

“All right people, here’s the story. The doctors say that Parker’s stable right now, but it’ll be a while before they figure out what condition her heart is in. She’s out—indefinitely.”

A collective gasp spread around the stage. The cast had been riding high for the past couple of weeks. The show was a complete success and for many of the young cast, this was a first-time experience that defied all of their expectations. It was the stuff dreams are made of and none of them had any intentions of waking up anytime soon.

“So, here’s the thing. Marcella and Vivian, I know you’ve both been working with Parker, studying her lines and dance numbers with her. However, I’ve decided to try someone else out in lead for the next show.”

A hush fell over the cast. The performers glanced from one to another, wondering if anyone knew what was going on. Barkley was a man who bore a reputation of being a master at casting and directing. He’d been known to take apart and reassemble show casts hours before the curtain rose if he deemed it necessary, all in the name of creating the best musicals to ever play on any stage, anywhere in the world.

“Now, I don’t want anyone to get nervous or concerned. You are a marvelously talented cast…each and every one of you. I’ve watched some of you really come into your own on that stage over the past few weeks, and I’d like to think that I’ve had something to do with that. So if you’ll trust me enough, I think we’ll create some real magic here.”

The tension in the room eased ever so slightly, as each person dared to take a breath.

“Raven,” Barkley said, turning to face her.

Raven started at the sound of her name and immediately the tension returned to her body.

“Raven, I’d like to try you out in the role of Selma.”

“Me? But…but—”

“Didn’t you initially audition for that role?” Barkley said, his piercing gray eyes trained on Raven’s stunned face.

“Yes, yes I did. From the moment I heard about the part, I wanted to play Selma so badly it gave me chills just thinking about it,” Raven admitted.

She was oblivious to everyone in the room with the exception of Barkley. She could not believe that after all these weeks had passed, she could still feel not only the burning desire she’d experienced for the role of Selma, but the sting of rejection she’d felt when she hadn’t made it.

“Has that changed?” Barkley asked.

Raven shook her head, not trusting her voice to utter the word. She held her breath, scarcely daring to even consider the possibility that what was happening was actually real.

Barkley leaned closer to Raven, reaching out to take both of her hands in his. He squeezed them firmly.

“And you know the lines, don’t you?”

Raven stared into Barkley’s expectant face.

“Every word,” she admitted.

“Hello, Selma,” he said.

Raven let the air escape her lungs until she was empty of it and of all the doubt she’d been holding on to. She returned Barkley’s squeeze.

“Why, hello, Mr. Groove Man. How ’bout you and I show these lead limbs how it’s done down here?” Raven replied in a slow Southern drawl. Her Selma was right on point. The room burst into applause as Barkley pulled Raven to her feet.

“All right, ladies and gentlemen. Let’s do it,” Barkley said.

The crew assembled onstage and for the next three hours they reworked The Salon with Raven as the lead.

“He’s a very nice young man,” Lorraine said.

She pulled another piece from the china cabinet and slid it between two squares of plastic bubble wrap.

“Huh? I’m sorry, Mom, what did you say?”

Raven was distracted and had been all afternoon. It was Tuesday and she was using her day off from the show to help her mother pack for the move. The majority of her parents’ belongings would be picked up by a moving truck the following week. They would fly down to Florida with just a few suitcases. It was hard for Raven to believe that this was actually happening. But the closer the day came, she found herself wrought with conflicting emotions. She was happy that her parents were getting the chance to live out their dreams and to enjoy their retirement together in a beautiful, warm climate.

Her father had put thirty years in with the City and at sixty years old, he was still a healthy, active man. It was her father’s dream to leave the cold, crowded City of New York and spend the rest of his days fishing, swimming and wearing plaid pants and polo shirts; it was her mother’s dream to grow old with her husband, wherever he resided. Raven could just imagine the two of them having the time of their lives in the sunshine state. However, she could not help but feel abandoned at the thought of them leaving her behind. Ironically, that feeling also came with a sense of déjà vu. Even though she was far too young to remember her birth mother, she’d always carried with her a sense of being a castoff. The knowledge that she had been adopted into a loving home did not erase the conflicting understanding of the fact that she had been discarded by her biological parents.

For a fleeting moment, Raven considered making the move with them. As quickly as that thought entered her mind, she dismissed it. Even if she were serious about moving to Florida, there was no way her parents would allow it. They knew how much a career in dance meant to her and New York City was the best place to launch that career. Raven comforted herself with the knowledge that they’d already promised to keep a room ready for her whenever she wanted to visit.

“I was just saying that I think Dru Davis is a very nice young man. He’s well-mannered…just an extremely likeable person. Is he treating you well?”

“Yes, Mom…he is. Dru’s great.”

“He’s a couple of years older than you, isn’t he?”

“Four. But trust me, he acts like a big kid sometimes,” Raven said, amused.

“But your father says he’s a smart businessman, working with his dad. Seems like he’s got a great career and future ahead of him.”

“Yeah, he knows a lot about show business. I’m learning from him, but sometimes I’ve got to reign him back in. The other day he was hinting at me doing some studio work. Telling me about some music producers he knows—”

“Studio work?” Lorraine asked, confusion ringing clear in her voice.

“Yeah, like cutting an album or a demo or whatever. I don’t know.”

“And what did you say?”

“I told him that I was absolutely not interested in become a pop singer. I mean, come on now, Mom. I’ve got a great voice for what I do, but I am not the next Beyoncé. And I have no desire to do that.”

“Sounds like Dru thinks differently.”

“Dru’s just like this bundle of ideas and energy. No sooner than he’s doing one thing is he thinking about the next thing. We’re at a movie and he’s thinking about dinner afterward. We’re eating dinner and he’s scheming on—”

“Your dessert!” Lorraine chimed.

“Mom!” Raven said, smacking her mother’s thigh playfully as both women laughed.

“Well, I’m glad to see you’re having a good time, sweetheart. You’ve always been so serious…so focused. Not that that’s a bad thing. But with your father and I headed down to Florida, it’s comforting to know that you’ve got someone in your life who brings a smile to your face.”

“Oh, please, Mom. You and Dad will be so busy surfing and skinny-dipping, you won’t even be worrying about me,” Raven joked.

“I don’t know about all that.” Lorraine laughed, swatting Raven with a roll of plastic. “You just remember, if you need anything, anything at all, you pick up that phone and call us. You hear?”

“Yes, Mom. I’ll be fine, don’t worry.”

Raven leaned over and kissed her mother on the cheek. They continued their work in silence for a few moments, Raven wrestling with her thoughts. Finally, she allowed the question that had been plaguing her for weeks to come to the surface.

“Mom, what can you tell me about…about her.”

Her voice was slightly above a whisper. Raven averted her mother’s gaze, choosing instead to focus on the crystal glass she held in her hands. The room was silent, even the rustle of plastic wrap ceased as her mother looked up toward the ceiling, down at her hands, everywhere but at Raven. Long minutes passed in which the years of unspoken truths were crushed together until they disintegrated.

“Raven, where is this coming from? Why are you asking this now?”

“I’ve wanted to ask for a long time. I just didn’t know how you’d react,” Raven admitted.

Lorraine rose from her perch on the top of the stepladder she’d been sitting on. Raven, who was seated on the hardwood floor, looked up at last as her mother came to rest beside her.

“After all these years…I just thought that you would never ask. I guess I just hoped you wouldn’t.”

Lorraine’s voice was strained, as was her facial expression. Raven looked at her mother, noticing the fine lines that had creased themselves into the corners of her eyes and around her mouth. At fifty-nine, Lorraine had aged well. Like her husband, she was healthy and in very good shape. In fact, it was only during moments of stress that she looked a day over forty-five. Raven hated being the cause of any strain or anxiety, but she could not help her desire to know about her past.

“I’m sorry, Mom. Lately, I’ve just been filled with so many questions. I feel like…like I’m missing something…like I’m incomplete. I just want to get some answers, so that I can move on with my life.”

Lorraine sighed heavily. She reached out and picked up Raven’s hand, holding it in both of hers.

“You have beautiful hands,” she said. “Graceful, dainty hands. When you were a very little girl, you always wanted me to paint your fingernails. You’d come into my bedroom, stick both of your fat little hands in my face, wiggling those chubby fingers and say, ‘May I have some colors, Mama?’ And you would sit there, still as a statue while I painted your nails. Then you would blow on them until your puffy little cheeks ached.”

Raven held her breath now, waiting, anticipating what she was about to hear. She didn’t say anything, understanding that her mother needed to tell things in her own way and at her own pace.

“I don’t want to see you get hurt, Raven.”

“Mom, I’m a big girl. You don’t have to worry about me,” Raven said.

“I know you’re a big girl now. Shoot, I’ve been watching you grow for the past twenty years,” Lorraine said, sighing again.

“By the time you came into our lives, I’d begun to think that I’d never get to be somebody’s Mama. I was quickly approaching forty and we had been trying for so long…”

Lorraine patted Raven’s thigh.

“All right, I’ll tell you everything I know,” she said at last. “It’s not much…but I guess you have a right to know.”

Lorraine paused again. She had been backed into a corner, blindsided by a day that she should have known would come eventually. She and Allen had talked about this early on, when Raven was younger. As the years went by, they convinced themselves that she was satisfied with the little bit they had told her as a child. She was their child, plain and simple, and nothing before that mattered. They’d believed that and up until this moment, Lorraine had had no reason to think that would ever change.

“Your father and I didn’t come to the decision to adopt very easily. I mean, we both loved children, and when it didn’t happen for us, well…let’s just say that adoption is a scary undertaking.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, in life, there are no guarantees. You can be blessed with children or not. You can lose your children in a heartbeat to illness, accidents…crazy people. But with adoption, there’s an even greater risk. The big B—birth parents. We were afraid that we’d grow to love our child and then poof, one day…”

“Mom, I’m not going anywhere. You and Daddy are everything to me…No one could ever get in the way of that. I just—” Raven sighed.

There was an uncomfortable silence that hung in the air like a cloud waiting to burst. She hated causing her mother any uneasiness, but at the same time she needed to do something to quiet her own anxiety.

“Your mother’s name is Monica Calloway. You lived with her somewhere in the Bronx until you were two years old. Along with a few sheets from the adoption center and your birth certificate, that’s all the information on your mother that we have. She terminated her rights, and we never had any contact with her.”

“And that’s all you know?”

“That’s it, Raven. I never needed to know anything more. You were a healthy, happy little baby, and from the moment your father and I met you, you were ours. That’s it,” Lorraine said, her voice trembling beneath her words.

“Thank you, Mom. Thanks,” Raven said.

She squeezed her mother’s hands.