Chapter 10 #2
Not in the show plan, but soon the house lights came on and the stage lights dimmed.
In the front row, Grandpa beamed at her, as did Mr. Anderson.
Maggie smiled at the sea of blue uniforms. “On behalf of the USO, I want to thank our cast, the city of San Diego, and the United States Navy.”
More applause, and Maggie drew a deep breath. “Now I have a Christmas surprise. In Twelfth Night, Viola was separated from her brother Sebastian, lost at sea and presumed dead. I’m sad to say our own Violet Lane lost her beloved fiancé at sea.”
Sad murmurs from the audience, and a pained gasp from Vi.
Maggie gave her an apologetic look and turned back to the audience. “I’m pleased to present Miss Lane’s very own Sebastian—Petty Officer Frank Sebastian. Mrs. Fernandez?” She nodded to Ria.
At the back door, Ria gaped at her.
“Frank?” Vi murmured behind her. “No, he—he’s . . .”
Carol flew to Vi’s side and wrapped an arm around her waist.
A comforting smile for Vi, and Maggie repeated her request. “Mrs. Fernandez?”
Still gaping, Ria opened the door.
Wearing his dress blues, Frank entered the theater with a questioning look for Ria.
“Petty Officer Sebastian, I have a joyous Christmas surprise for you.” Maggie gestured to Vi, slumped at Carol’s side.
Frank’s mouth fell open. “Vernice?”
“No.” Vi shook her head over and over. “No, he—he’s dead.”
Two lurching steps down the aisle. “Vernice?”
“Frank? You—you’re alive?”
Maggie stepped aside, her heart full. Now they’d run to each other.
“You’re alive?” Vi clutched Carol’s arm, and a strange note elevated her voice. Anger? “You mean to tell me you’ve been alive all this time?”
“I—I’ve been looking.” Frank’s arms rose, open, reaching. “I didn’t know where—”
“I thought you were dead.” Vi’s voice climbed, quaked. “Almost two years. I’ve been grieving all this time, and you—I thought you loved me.”
“Oh no,” Maggie whispered. This wasn’t supposed to happen.
“All this time.” Vi’s gaze swung to Maggie, her nostrils flared, and she shoved away from Carol and staggered backstage.
Gasps and murmurs filled the circular theater.
Maggie’s feet glued to the floorboards, her jaw drooped, her lungs failed to breathe, her heart—was it even beating?
“Vernice!” Frank darted down the aisle, then slammed to a stop. He glanced around the theater, where five hundred pairs of eyes pinned on him. His face stretched long, and he clapped one hand to his belly. Clapped one hand over his mouth.
Turned and sprinted to the lobby.
Breath seared its way into Maggie’s lungs. Was he going to be sick?
An appalled hush sucked the air from the theater.
Maggie couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. What had she done?
Now those five hundred pairs of eyes turned on her. Grandpa stared at her, aghast. So did Mr. Anderson.
What on earth had she done?
Prescott had wanted Maggie to realize she was wrong—but not like this. Never like this.
Maggie stumbled backward, bumped into his chest.
His hands rose to brace her—but stopped.
She spun to him. Her face . . . dissolved. She brushed past him and ran backstage.
The mumbles in the audience turned to rumbles.
“Press.” Albert tugged Prescott’s sleeve. “You’ve got to do something.”
What could he do? All he knew was he couldn’t leave the audience with a foul taste in their mouths, couldn’t let the cast’s hard work fall to pieces.
Praying for the right words, Prescott raised one hand to quiet the audience. “Gentlemen, I’m afraid that when show people are in the room, you have to expect the dramatic.”
A great quieting and relaxing settled in.
“That isn’t how we want to close this evening,” he said.
“We came together tonight to bring you Christmas cheer. For those of you who celebrate Christmas, this is a season to rejoice over the birth of our Lord and the wonders of his love. For those who don’t celebrate, it’s still a season of joy and wonder and love.
Would you please join me in singing ‘Joy to the World’?
A cappella,” he told the startled band director.
Prescott waved his hand like a choir director and launched into the carol. Deep, rough voices of men billowed through the theater.
Ria strode down the aisle, waving at him.
“Albert, can you lead?” Prescott whispered to him, and Albert nodded and took over.
Prescott met Ria at the corner of the stage.
With her dark eyes piercing, she stuck a piece of paper in his hand. “Frank and Maggie were supposed to dismiss the men to the buses.”
They were both gone.
“Read that from the stage.” Ria pointed to the paper. “One bus at a time. I’ll direct them out from the lobby.”
“I can do that. Thanks, Ria.”
Prescott returned to finish the third verse, then he stepped to the edge of the stage. “Thank you, everyone. Good night and Merry Christmas.”
The cast bowed, and the curtain lowered behind him.
“Please listen for your bus to be dismissed. If you arrived on bus one, please head to the lobby. Follow Mrs. Fernandez.” He gestured to Ria, who waved from the back door. “Everyone else, please remain seated.”
In the front row, Mr. Curtis pushed himself to standing and hobbled to the stage. “Prescott!”
“Yes?” He squatted down.
The older man’s brown eyes pierced even more than Ria’s. “Go after Maggie.”
Prescott suppressed a grimace.
“She’ll need to talk to someone.”
Not him. Prescott raised one hand to tell Mr. Curtis to wait. He rose, dismissed bus two, and squatted again. “She won’t want to talk to me.”
White eyebrows lowered. “I heard her crying last night.”
Prescott’s grimace broke through. “We argued.”
“Regardless, she needs to talk, and you’re the best one.”
“I can’t go into the women’s dressing room, and the ladies will do a much better job of listening to her.”
“Not the dressing room. The Lily Pond.”
“The Lily Pond?”
“She always said it’d be a dramatic place for a good cry.”
Prescott had heard her say that very thing. He stood and called for bus three.
“If you won’t go,” Mr. Curtis said, “I will.”
In the pouring rain in the blacked-out night? “No, you can’t go.”
“Then you will? Thank you. That’s my bus.” Mr. Curtis took Mr. Anderson’s arm and made his way down the aisle.
Prescott’s jaw fell open. He couldn’t go to Maggie. Why should he? Let her cry alone. She’d rejected his advice and hurt two friends. Why should he help her?
“Bus four.” A niggling sensation clawed in his gut. What was it he’d said to himself last night? About refusing to turn his back on her?
He hadn’t done so. He’d come to the show and performed his best.
Was Mr. Curtis’s request any different? Asking Prescott to lay aside his pain and help someone?
But Maggie had hurt a lot of people.
“Bus five.” The lines of “Joy to the World” repeated in his head. The world had received its King—and crucified him. Yet Jesus showed mercy.
So should Prescott. He groaned and kept dismissing the sailors.
Two trucks would arrive at ten thirty to take the cast to the streetcar terminal. If nothing else, Maggie needed to be on that truck, or the USO would be in trouble with the Navy.
After the last sailor left the theater, Prescott shoved through the curtain and went to the men’s dressing room. He ignored the chatter, removed his jerkin so the velvet wouldn’t be ruined in the rain, changed into street shoes, and put on his coat and hat.
Outside, he charged forward, his head low, his hat a shield against the rain. Through the overcast, an almost-full moon barely illuminated the path through the arcade in front of a Spanish Colonial building and across a plaza with raindrops plinking on the pavement.
At the end of another arcade, he reached the Lily Pond. Maybe Maggie wouldn’t be there. Then he could say he’d done his best and leave.
Close to the Botanical Building, a walkway divided the upper and lower ponds. A hunched figure sat on the railing.
Prescott grumbled. “All right, Lord. Since this is your idea, let me know what to say.”
As he came closer, the Botanical Building emerged from the mist of rain, long and domed like a railroad station. The rain would be pelting through the thin redwood laths forming the roof.
As he reached the walkway, the sound of weeping beat out the sound of raindrops pummeling his hat.
Prescott leaned back against the broad railing, several feet from Maggie.
Her head jerked up. “Oh no. Why’d you come? To lord it over me?” Only distress distorted her voice, not anger.
Prescott didn’t intend to talk much. Mr. Curtis had instructed him to listen. “Your grandpa told me to come. Besides, you have only forty-five minutes to catch your ride home.”
“I’ll walk home.” Her voice wavered. “I deserve it.”
Sighing, Prescott crossed his arms and tucked his hands under his armpits to keep a little dry. He was in no mood for more theatrics.
“Go ahead,” she cried. “Say, ‘I told you so.’”
He shook his head. He didn’t need to say it.
Her back and shoulders curved low. “You should say it. You were right, and I was wrong. Horribly wrong. I wanted a spectacle, and oh, I got one. A spectacular fiasco.”
Raindrops created little spouts as they hit the pond. He didn’t want to look at Maggie. Certainly didn’t want to feel sorry for her.
“Poor Vi,” she said with a sob. “Poor Frank.”
At least she hadn’t said, “Poor me.”