"
Mmm
. Fate," Dennis said. "Kismet, I suppose, that brings two people together." He paused. "Accidents." Their eyes locked and they looked at each other for a long time. Ann tried to keep the tears from forming, but felt them begin to pool, and looked away, blinking savagely.
"Let's have dinner tonight," Dennis said. "The Kirkland Inn still gets fresh seafood every day." He smiled and touched her hand. "You always liked their seafood."
Ann looked at his hand on hers and thought how natural it seemed, how right, even though so many years had passed since she had last touched him. "I don't know," she said. "I don't know if that would be such a good idea."
"I don't know either," he replied. "All I know is that I'd like to have dinner with you, talk with you some more. Just talk, that's all. It's been so long."
"Maybe too long," she said, still watching their hands together.
"Maybe." He took his hand away. She almost grasped it, but restrained herself. "Let's consider it an employer-employee interview then. Professional down the line. No touching, except a warm and dry handshake. Is it a deal?"
Finally she looked up at him. He was smiling gently, and she realized she could not say no. "All right. It's a deal." Then she smiled. "Boss."
Dennis laughed. "I can pick you up at your home."
She began to agree, then remembered Terri. "No. Thank you, Dennis. I'd really rather drive myself."
"You're sure?"
"I'm sure. Shall I meet you here or at the inn?"
"Well, since we're being professional, how about the inn? Say seven-thirty?"
"That's fine." They did not kiss, did not touch when they parted. He called Sid, who took her back to Steinberg's office, where she received Donna Franklin's smiling congratulations, filled out the necessary employment forms, and was told to report for work at nine o'clock on Thursday morning.
As she sat behind the wheel of her car and pulled the door closed, she realized what a terrible mistake she had made, not only in accepting the job, but in coming to Kirkland in the first place. She should not have seen him, should never have seen him again, because, damn it all to hell, she still loved him, and could see in his face that he still loved her, and while one part of her brain reveled in that fact, another part agonized over it, because Dennis was
married
, wasn't he? He was a married man, with a wife who loved him and who he no doubt loved too. And now Ann had become part of the equation simply by reappearing, or at least she thought enough of herself to imagine she had.
But what if she was kidding herself? What if Dennis's reaction had been due merely to nostalgia for simpler and happier times?
Oh Jesus. Jesus, there was too much to think about, too many possibilities, too great an assortment of emotions on both their parts to come to any conclusion. She didn't know what he felt, what he thought. All she knew for sure was that she still loved him, and she knew that through her twenty-two years of marriage she always had. Through all the years she was loving Eddie — and she had loved Eddie — she was loving Dennis as well, and if that sounded impossible, it was nonetheless true. Who the hell knew what love was anyway?
Oh,
goddammit
, who the hell knew
anything
?
She gave into it then and cried. She cried for Eddie and for loving Dennis and for herself, and when she had finished she started the car and began to drive home, remembering the day she had first met Dennis Hamilton in the coffee shop of the Kirkland Holiday Inn. She had spilled a tuna salad sandwich on him.
~ * ~
"Oh God . . . oh God, I am so sorry, there was butter there, and I stepped in it, and . . . oh God, all over your sweater . . .”
"It's okay . . .”
"No, wait, let me get that bread . . . oh yuck . . . Look, I'll just go back in the kitchen, get a towel, some cold water —"
"It's okay, really." The young man smiled at her. "There's just one problem," he said, and pointed to a large blob of tuna salad in the vicinity of his stomach. "Didn't I ask you to hold the mayo?"
She laughed, just a little, and as his smile grew broader and he began to laugh as well, she laughed harder, an embarrassed, half-crying laugh, shaking her head at her own clumsiness. "Watch," the young man said. "Magic." He tugged on the sweater at the neck, something her mother had always taught her not to do, pulled it up over his head, and removed it, turning it inside-out in the process. "Voila! All gone."
"I
am
sorry," she said again. "Please, let me have it cleaned."
"Well, all right," he said. "On one condition, and that's that you return it to me over dinner."
Yes
was on her lips, but she bit it back, remembering who the boy was — an actor who was rehearsing for that new musical at the Venetian Theatre, one of those rare and frightening beasts her mother had warned her about, and even her father had viewed with minor alarm. But, on the other hand, he was so darn cute, and that smile was enough to light the main street of Kirkland. "I . . . I don't know . . .”
"We don't have to eat tuna salad, you know. And we don't have to eat here either."
"Well . . .”
"And I'll bring you home safe and sound, I promise. Untouched by human hands."
Once again she gave an embarrassed laugh.
"'You pause, madam,'" he said. "'Do you find me repulsive?'"
She gave him a quizzical look. "What?"
"It's from the show. Now you say, 'Not at all, sir. I shall be happy to accompany you.’”
"Oh, that's what I say, huh?"
"Well . . . I'd
like
you to." He leaned toward her and grinned. "And shall I tell you why?"
"Why?”
"Because I've been wanting to get a chance to meet you, and I can't do that if all we're saying is 'Would you like more coffee,' and 'Miss, may I have the check now.' In fact, I have a confession to make."
"What?"
"I put that butter on the floor on purpose so you'd slip and spill something on me.”
“You didn't!"
"No, I didn't. But I would have if I'd thought of it." Ann laughed again, but there was no embarrassment in it this time.
That evening over stuffed flounder at the Kirkland Inn, the young man, whose name, Ann learned, was Dennis Hamilton, told her that he was enjoying the meal more than any other he had had since rehearsals began. "And you know why? I didn't think so, so I'll tell you. It's because you're the first normal person I've met since this whole thing started."
"What do you mean, normal? Dull?"
"No, no, not at all. I mean
beautifully, charmingly
normal. Have you ever been involved with theatre? Professionally?"
"No."
"Me neither. Not until this show, anyway. Oh, I did a lot of stuff in high school, and I busted my hump working in a summer theatre to get my Equity card, but all did on the stage was serve a drink in Act Two and say, 'Would you care for another, sir?' But anyway, everybody in this business is slightly crazy."
"Present company excluded?" she asked.
"Of course. All the women are so self-centered you can hardly talk to them —that is, if there was anything besides performing that they
could
talk about — and the men are all gay. Well, most of them anyway. Couple of guys — Sid and Harry — they're straight."
"Gay? You mean homosexual?" Ann was shocked, but hoped she didn't look it. She hoped in vain.
"That surprise you? It did me. Hey, you'd be surprised how many guys in theatre and movies are. I mean, the stories I've heard, some of the names, the guys who are famous for being such big . . .” He searched for a word. ". . . studs, pardon my French, well, they're absolute flaming faggots when nobody's looking."
"God, that's amazing. Like who?"
"Aw, I don't want to say, I mean, some of it might be just talk. But whether they're straight or gay, the guys are just as into themselves as the girls are.”
“So what's this show all about?" Ann asked.
"It's a musical about this young emperor who falls in love with this girl who isn't a princess or anything, and he wants to marry her, but his nobles don't want him to, so they have her killed."
"
Ooo
. That's a little extreme, isn't it?"
"Well, it's all done behind his back, but he finds out about it, and there's a big duel at the end with this imposter the nobles have tried to put in his place, and it turns out that the emperor decides never to get married and let his line die out. See, that's the revenge on the people who wouldn't let him marry the girl he loved."
"Oh, that's kind of a different ending. How did you get in it?"
"There was an open audition, so I took my brand new Equity card and went and sang a song. Then they had me come back to read and sing for Ensley and Davis. You know who they are?"
"Sure." Ann's parents had taken her to New York to see
All For the Best
when she was in ninth grade, and she had seen the film versions of
Wandering Wind
and
Calahan's
Folly
and owned both soundtrack albums. "So you really sang for them?"
Dennis nodded. "Danced too, though they didn't think much of my dancing."
"But you got the part."
"
Mmm
-hmm."
There was a pause while the waiter removed the soiled dishes. Then Ann asked, "So what do you do? Serve drinks again?"
He gave a short, uneasy laugh, and for a moment she was afraid that he had no lines at all, but was just a singer in the chorus. "No, no drinks. I get to do a little more this time."
"Oh, well, that's good. Who do you play?"
"The Emperor."
It took a few seconds for her to realize that he was being serious. "You have the
lead
?" He looked down and nodded. "My God, that must be . . . exciting.”
“Try scary."
“Why?”
"Because the people who aren't counting on me to sell their million dollar show are hoping that I'll screw up." He shook his head in frustration. "It usually takes years to get somewhere in this business, and that's what I expected to happen too. I thought my voice would get me through a few years of chorus jobs while I took enough dance so that I didn't stumble around on stage too much, then a few speaking roles, maybe the hero's comic relief friend, and then, if the gods smiled, actual leads by the time I was in my thirties or forties."
Ann was beginning to see. "But it happened a lot faster."
"Did it ever. This is a part every young performer in New York wanted, and I —literally — just stepped right into it." He sighed. "As a result, an awful lot of people don't like me very much."
He sat there quietly for a long time until the waiter brought them coffee and asked if they wanted dessert. They didn't, and the waiter left. "It's a drag," he said finally. "I don't feel as though I'm really into the part. I mean I read fine during the auditions, and I was okay during the first week in New York. But everyone got so . . . bitchy. They treat me like this incredibly lucky
jerk
. Hell, I don't feel like an emperor at all."
Ann thought for a bit, took a sip of coffee, then spoke. "Maybe you shouldn't try and feel like the emperor. Maybe . . . maybe you should just
be
the emperor."
~ * ~
(
At a window high up in the building, THE EMPEROR stands, looking out onto the parking lot from which Ann Deems is driving away.)
I want her. And I will have her. I'll have her crying, screaming, kneeling to me. Kneeling to her emperor. I'll have her bleeding.
"Looking back," said Dennis Hamilton to Ann Deems as they sat at the same table as they had on their first date, "I think I owe it all to you."
"Owe what?" she asked. She was wearing a teal sweater dress with a long, rust-colored wool challis scarf. The diamond studs in her ears sparkled in the candlelight. Her face, Dennis thought, looked untouched by the years, as smooth as a child's in the gentle, golden glow.
"I owe you my career," he answered, smiling at her quizzical look. "Don't you remember the first time we ate here? I was bitching about how I didn't get any respect, how everyone was hoping to see me wind up flat on my face, and you told me not to try and feel like the Emperor, but to
be
the Emperor. And after I dropped you off I went back to my room and I thought
damn it, she's right
. I didn't have to feel like royalty as long as I could
act
like it. And I knew I could do that, and from that day on, at the rehearsals, I did."
Now Ann was smiling too. "I do remember."
Dennis looked down into his wine glass. "God, I was scared, though. But I figured I had nothing to lose."
"And that was when you told the stage manager to get you coffee."
A look of astonishment came over his face. "I told you about Pritchard?"
"You told me everything then. And I remember I was so proud of you. It's silly now, but it was a turning point for you in that show."