Chapter 26
Chapter 26
Years had passed since Ellie had entered the gated compound in Edge of Woods, an area of Long Island between Southampton Village and North Sea. Towering deciduous and evergreen trees encircled the lime-washed brick house, centered within an exquisitely manicured lawn. Over a century old, it was a rare survivor, an old-money, old-fashioned residence that hadn’t been razed and replaced by a monstrosity of a modern mansion.
Her father-in-law’s hair had turned silver and his face and neck were thinner, though tanned from the summer sun. Releasing her from a surprisingly tight hug, he said, “Delighted to see you again.”
“Good to see you, Mr. Colman.”
“Henry, please. We’re glad you were able to come so soon. Your flight was on time? I hope you didn’t encounter any traffic jams on the expressway.”
“No.” She might have been talking to Daddo. Travel details, traffic report. She guessed he was about to mention the weather.
“Fortunately, the humidity has receded—you’ve arrived on the best day we’ve had all week. Up north in New Hampshire you must have been spared the misery.”
“We did have a muggy spell.”
“Leave your bag right here, and Faye will take it up to the guest quarters.” After hesitating, he added, “We didn’t know whether you’d wish to stay in Harry’s bedroom. Lana’s on the terrace. If you want to freshen up before joining us, the powder room is there.” He pointed at a door down the hall. What will you have to drink?”
“A glass of white wine would be perfect.”
The downstairs bathroom was papered with fern leaves on a cream background. Examining her reflection in the gilt-framed oval mirror hanging above the sink, she decided she looked not bad for someone whose journey had included one hour driving, forty-five minutes in the airport, over an hour in the sky, and ninety minutes in a chauffeured car. She freshened her lipstick and ran a comb through her hair.
Before opening the door, she whispered, “Help me, Harry.”
The kitchen layout was unchanged, no walls had been removed to open it up or enlarge it. She stepped through French doors to the brick-paved terrace adjacent to the swimming pool. Henry rose from his chair and presented her wine. Lana, stretched out on a lounger, wore a cotton tunic over her slacks and dark glasses despite the afternoon shade.
“Don’t get up,” said Ellie, leaning over to give the older woman a semblance of an embrace.
Lana removed her sunglasses. “Splendid to see you again. Your parents are well? And your brother and sister?”
Ellie sat down in a vacant chair, wondering if this was a hallucination. The Colmans’ cool politeness was replaced by genuine warmth.
“Everybody’s fine. Mom and her sister are busy running their dance academy and teaching. At this time of year, my father spends part of the week on the seacoast. He has a saltwater fishing license and a fancy boat and claims to be retired. Liam’s not convinced. He manages The Shamrock, but Daddo is still actively involved. Marie’s in Boston, doing her best to keep us all alive as a medical researcher.”
“They must be happy you’re home. For how long?”
“I return to London in ten days, to start rehearsals for a play. A debut drama written by Gil Cooke, Harry’s roommate at Juilliard. You must remember him.”
“When did he find you?” Lana asked.
Ellie’s arm froze before her wineglass reached her lips. “Find me?”
“Whenever he telephones, he asks us about you. At Christmastime. On Harry’s birthday.”
Henry added, “When he requested contact information, I sort of fibbed and said we didn’t know anything. It didn’t feel right to give out your parents’ number or address.”
During the years of Stella Nue-ing around the world, cocooned by tight security protocols, she’d been shielded from casual contact with faithful fans and obsessed weirdos. But not at the smaller, intimate Archway Cabaret, where Lisa the stage kitten had delivered Gil’s unsigned note.
He’d never mentioned his conversations with the Colmans, or any prior efforts to track her down.
“We’re serving crab cakes for dinner,” Lana announced. “They came from the market, pre-made. Faye bought a fish stew as well. And she’ll make a tossed salad. We rely on her for an evening meal if we have company. I take care of the simple ones. Toast and eggs, or cereal in the mornings. Sandwiches for lunch. I don’t see very well. Macular degeneration.”
“Is there a cure for it?”
“None,” Lana replied, “although more effective treatments have been developed. I don’t drive. I’m thankful to have ebooks, with type I can enlarge. Audiobooks are a godsend.”
“I know what you mean,” Ellie told her. “Traveling so much, I appreciate the convenience and portability. But I prefer print books.” She glanced at Henry. “You have lots of them, I remember.”
“In the evenings I often read to Lana. Our tastes in literature are different. She’s expanding my horizons.”
“Tomorrow morning,” Lana said, “I’d like to show you items that were Harry’s. We wondered if you might like to have some of them.”
After all this time, she marveled, they’re offering keepsakes?
“The hammock is gone,” she realized.
“It became an eyesore,” Henry told her. “At our advanced age, getting into it was no easier than climbing out.”
The conversation shifted in to areas common to wealthy people. The real estate market, the preference for new construction over existing houses, and the poor manners or blatant obnoxiousness of inconsiderate beachgoers and boaters. After the older couple excused themselves to change for dinner, Ellie made a brief excursion through the property, walking from the pool house across the grass, past immaculate perennial beds to the shadowy coolness beneath the fir trees. She remembered Harry pointing out the place where he’d built forts with his friends. Two large tree trunks formed a natural proscenium for staging plays.
Entering the house, she went upstairs. She opened the door to Harry’s room. The furniture was the same but personal items had been removed. They had shared his bed for a full week when the ballet company was on summer hiatus and his parents had been on a Danube River cruise. Staying at a house with a large yard and a pool had been a welcome change from his dorm room and the tiny Manhattan apartment she shared with her ballet colleague Melinda. They ate takeout pizza on the terrace and attended a play and visited a beach but didn’t swim because of reported shark sightings. One night, Harry grilled steaks but was so preoccupied and jittery that he almost burned them. She discovered the cause of his uncharacteristic nervousness when he proposed to her. During a make-out session. In the hammock.
On the train, returning to the city, they planned a speedy wedding in the nearest accessible New Jersey location. The following weekend they went to Weehawken with a hastily obtained marriage license, overnight bags, and the requisite two witnesses. Melinda, her bridesmaid, had smuggled Ellie’s Swan Lake Polish princess costume out of the CIB wardrobe room. Harry’s best man was a castmate from the spring production at Juilliard.
Looking back, she was astonished by her readiness to become a bride at seventeen. She’d had few life skills after spending most of her years in a ballet studio. Harry, mature for his age, educated in the best schools, supported by trust funds that spewed out money, was better prepared for the responsibilities that came with marriage.
After the seafood dinner, Henry invited Ellie to join him and Lana in the formal living room. The silent audience for their conversation consisted of family members whose portraits decorated the wood-paneled walls.
“Last year we sold our Barbados property. Air travel has become so fraught, and in recent years our enclave there has changed a great deal. We’ll continue living in this house as long as we’re able. Because we would’ve signed it over to Harry, Lana and I hope you might want it.”
She examined the two expectant faces before formulating a response. “I’m already part owner of a seasonal lake cottage. A house in the Hamptons would require a lot more attention. And maintenance.”
“You might find it convenient,” Lana said, “if you return to New York to work.”
Living there, or here, without Harry was as unappealing a prospect as living in London without Dan would be. Imagining her existence as a Broadway or Off-Broadway performer gave her no pleasure. The professional theatre world was populated with an infinite number of aspirants and very few successful ones. The leading role in a London play would enhance her resume, but it couldn’t ensure future success on this side of the Atlantic.
Mustering a smile, she told them, “This conversation seems premature for a healthy couple in their sixties. During dinner you described your activities—the golfing and pickleball and chess nights. You’ll be enjoying this lovely home for decades.”
Henry cleared his throat. “That’s our hope. Losing our son at such a young age is proof that nothing can be taken for granted.”
In what Lana referred to as the morning room, two flat cardboard boxes waited for Ellie on the glass-topped coffee table. Light poured from the picture windows behind the sofa where she sat, spilling onto a pale floral rug in the middle of the tiled floor.
“If you want to look at the contents without me here, I don’t mind.”
“Please stay.”
Her mother-in-law’s diamond rings glittered as she placed a hand on one box. “Childhood mementoes. His summer camp name badges. Certificates from the tennis tournaments and archery competitions. Newspaper clippings.”
Ellie removed the lid and picked up a file folder. The articles about Harry’s high school plays and sports achievements were illustrated with photographs she’d never seen. Sorting through loose papers and documents, she recognized a narrow oval emblem hovering above several typed paragraphs of type. It was his acceptance letter from The Juilliard School.
If not for this, she realized, we wouldn’t have met. Or married.
Opening the second box, she found a DVD sleeve marked Much Ado About Nothing. She held it up. “Have you watched it?”
“A few times. Not recently.”
Here were playbills from the Shakespeare comedy and A Streetcar Named Desire. Beneath them she saw a cellphone with a coiled charging cable, an older model he’d probably used in high school. At the hospital she’d received the one she knew so well, full of photos and their messages and his saved webpages. She stared down at the printout of Bare with Me. “I didn’t know he sent you my student thesis.”
“He was as proud of your hard work researching and writing it as he was of what you achieved at City International Ballet. He never told us why you left.”
“Frustration. Impatience. Unhappiness. As you know, there’s no effective antidote for grief. I couldn’t go back to CIB, so I accepted the offer from Ballet Bruxelles. Living in a different country was sort of therapeutic. I liked working for Mireille Charpentier, and Rafe Lawrence was there. After he retired from dancing and took an administrative position in London, I stayed on for one season more. Then I came back home.”
“And your early interest in burlesque led to the surprising career shift.”
“That’s right. I developed my Stella Nue act at a New Jersey cabaret, and with help from friends expanded it into a show that we could take on the road. After conforming to all the restrictions of ballet, I was in complete control. Although I eventually discovered a downside to my success.”
“You do seem to have a strong aversion to it,” Lana observed.
“I haven’t stopped dancing,” Ellie said. “I take daily class at British Ballet Theatre, where Rafe is artistic director. He wanted to hire me as a soloist, but I’d already agreed to do Gil’s play.” Hearing the break in her voice, she paused. “After all these years, I have a chance to prove that Harry was right. He believed I was destined to be an actress.”
“Did he ever tell you how I got my name?”
She shook her head.
“My father adored the movie star Lana Turner. According to Henry, my remote connection to a Hollywood glamor queen caused our son’s obsession. I hope you’re as passionate about acting as Harry was. If not, you might someday feel as trapped as you did in ballet and burlesque.”
Ellie reeled from the brutal truth of that statement.
“Henry and I wonder if you’re seeing anyone.”
“I am.”
“Gilbert Cooke?”
“A different Englishman.”
“Yesterday, I didn’t speak as frankly about him as I wanted to. Henry calls me a worrier and accuses me of creating worst-case scenarios. But I know he shares my concern about Gilbert’s determination to contact you. He never explained why. If he wanted you to perform his play, he should’ve said so.”
Ellie wouldn’t upset Lana by voicing her own doubts about his motives, or reveal the outrageous untruths he’d told Dan. “Except for Harry and me, he didn’t have any other friends at Juilliard. That’s probably why he wanted to get in touch.” Reverting to a happier subject, she said, “The man I’m seeing is a corporate executive I met shortly after arriving in London. Even though we don’t have much in common, we’re very compatible. But his father doesn’t like me. Dealing with that—again—is difficult.”
“Henry and I never disliked you, Ellie. We weren’t able to know you very well, because your dancing took up so much of your time. Harry shouldn’t have waited so long to tell us about the marriage. We would have preferred that he complete his college degree first. But we saw how happy he was.”
“Dan tells me not to fret, that his dad just isn’t well enough acquainted with me yet. I hate being the cause of tension between them.”
Lana leaned forward. “It sounds like your Dan has made his choice. Harry, who made the same one, wouldn’t want you to be alone. Neither do his parents.” With a brisk nod, she said, “Now, about shipping these items to you. Where should we send them?”
“The lake house. I’ll write the address for Faye.”
Lana stood and moved to the window to tweak a fold in the striped curtain. Turning around, she asked, “Is there any chance your play might transfer from London to New York?”
“None at all. It’s a four-week run. At a minor theatre.”
“I wish we could see it. Perhaps after it closes, you’ll reconsider turning down that offer from the ballet company. I can’t help thinking that’s where you belong.”
Until this moment, Ellie had never detected any similarities between Harry’s mother and hers.
The constant motion of passing pedestrians, the hum of voices, the beeping from electric carts, the strange overhead lighting and industrial carpeting underfoot, instilled a reflective mood. An open book rested on Ellie’s lap, unread, as she pondered recent conversations. Like the chorus in a Greek play Harry had performed, the most important and influential people in her life chanted in unison, all of them urging her to resume her ballet career. Mireille. Rafe. Anya. Mom. Lana.
Accepting Rafe’s invitation to join his world-renowned company would allow her to remain in London. She could move from the studio, where she felt so safe, and onto the stage, to perform favorite roles and meet the challenge of new ones. After turning down the soloist position, she’d pushed away her regret and pretended to herself that she was content. Now, caught up in her airport epiphany, she sensed the awakening of a long-dormant desire to display her talents and find out how far into the future they would carry her. Dan—and his father—could watch her dance. Her status within BBT might prove to Sir Terence that she was a respected and respectable artist, worthy of his son’s love.
Which, she reminded herself, she already was and had been all along.
She felt no remorse about extricating herself from Fractures in the Heart. Gil’s untrustworthiness, as revealed over the past few days, was another compelling reason to do so. He’d told Dan falsehoods about her husband and her and their marriage. He had concealed from her his determined efforts to obtain her contact information from the Colmans. After she dropped out of the production, she wouldn’t have to see him again.
Rehearsals hadn’t started yet. The director could easily re-cast Lyla. Cait Murray represented dozens of experienced, prominent actresses who could better serve as a foil to Lucas Daltrey. His wife Caroline ought to be a prime contender.
Sorry, Harry.
Ellie’s fellow passengers in the lounge swarmed in the direction of the uniformed man at the check-in desk, who must have just announced the pre-boarding process. Ignoring the mix of humanity that would share her flight to Manchester, she dug into a pocket for her phone.
Swiping through her list of contacts, she pressed Rafe’s photo.
Your favorite sylph, she typed, has decided to return to her glade.