And as she drove through the night, the headlights of cars cutting across her vision, she thought of what it would be like to go to bed with Dennis, and as the lights streaked by, she thought of the last time she had gone to bed with Eddie, and in her mind Dennis's face became her husband's, and the dead weight of her husband became Dennis, and by the time she turned into the long driveway that led back to her home, she wondered for the hundredth time if she could sleep with any man again, but thought that if one existed who could make her forget, it would be Dennis. How sad, she thought, when Dennis was what she needed most to forget.
Terri was sitting in the den watching a Tracy-Hepburn movie on the large screen television when Ann walked in. The girl glanced away from the screen just long enough for her to take in her mother's appearance, then looked back at the four foot tall Tracy giving a towel-clad Hepburn a rubdown. "Well," she said dryly, "and where have we been in our sexiest dress?"
"It's not sexy," Ann said.
"Look in the mirror and tell me that, O mother of mine. Your boobs are displayed to their best advantage."
"What there is of them." Ann walked to the sofa where Terri was reclining and sat on the arm. "How would you like to work for a living, daughter dear?”
“Doing what?" Terri asked disinterestedly.
"Being an assistant to Marvella Johnson."
For the first time since Eddie's death, Ann saw the girl's stoic sarcasm replaced by youthful excitement, and felt a thrill run through her that she was actually doing something that made her daughter happy. "Marvella Johnson? Are you kidding me?"
"Dead serious. I followed your advice and went job hunting myself today. At the Venetian Theatre."
Terri's face grew solemn once more. "So that's it. The old boyfriend." She made a strange noise, half-snort, half-laugh. "I'm surprised you came home at all tonight. Or was Mrs. Hamilton there to put a damper on things?" Ann stood up, walked to the television, and turned off the power. "Hey, I was watching that," Terri said.
"Well, you're going to watch me now – or at least listen to me. Dennis Hamilton was a friend of mine, yes, a long time ago, but he's married now, and that's all we are – friends. I've never slept with the man and I don't intend to. Now that's none of your damned business, but you seem to think it is, so that's why I'm telling you, to set the record straight."
She came back, sat on the arm again, looked down at her daughter. "Dennis is a good man, and I'm going to be working at his theatre on his project. When I told him about you, he said that Marvella Johnson needs an assistant and told me to invite you to apply for the position. I've done that. I'm going in to work on Thursday, and if you want to come along, fine. If you don't, that's fine too. Frankly, I'm getting to the point where I don't give much of a damn what you do. Goodnight." And she left the den without another word.
Left alone, Terri looked at the doorway through which her mother had passed, then at the blank screen of the huge TV. In a way that she could barely admit to herself, she felt jealous of her mother, for both the things she had and the things she had not had.
Men were not part of the equation. Terri had had men, and in abundance. In college, sex had come easily and, for the most part, happily to her. It was also carefree, for she carried her own condoms, and would not consider sex without them. Her partners were willing to trade off increased sensitivity for ease of access, so Terri was seldom left wanting sexual companionship.
What she was left wanting, however, was romance, something with which she believed her mother had lived all her life. Ann had told her long before about having known and dated Dennis Hamilton, although she had never given her any details. Around this skeletal framework Terri had constructed a legend. She had seen the film version of A Private Empire, and had even seen Dennis in the New York revival back in 1982. She remembered her father telling her mother that they should go backstage, that Dennis would surely remember her, but Ann refused. At the time, Terri thought it was because Ann had made the whole story up, but later realized that seeing the two men she loved together would have been too difficult.
So, through the years, Terri thought about her mother and Dennis Hamilton, about their young love that, on her mother's part at least, she knew had lasted. And as that love became less of an unattainable dream and more of an attainable ideal, so Terri's anger and jealousy grew toward her mother. Now, with the knowledge that they had seen each other again, she was torn between the joy she knew she should feel for her mother, and the jealousy that was the reality. For Ann to have two romances in her life, while Terri had never come close to even one, seemed selfish in the extreme, and Terri, despite Ann's best efforts, had been raised by a spoiling and doting father to be as selfish as possible.
What Ann had, Terri wanted, and, if it could be gotten, she would get it. When Thursday came, she would go with her mother, she would meet Marvella Johnson, and maybe, just maybe, she would meet Dennis Hamilton too.
Terri got up from the couch, went over to the wall full of videotapes, and took A Private Empire from its storage box. Putting on the earphones so her mother would not hear, she began to watch the film.
Dennis Hamilton really had been a beautiful young man, she thought, and wondered what changes the intervening years had made. She wondered if he was still handsome, then looked more closely at the perfect face of the bearded young man that filled the screen, and felt sure that he was.
She would like working for Marvella Johnson, she thought. Yes, she would like everything about the Venetian Theatre.
Everything.
Scene 8
Donna Franklin liked everything about the Venetian Theatre too. Everything except Abe Kipp and going to the fourth and fifth floors by herself. She didn't know how Marvella was able to live there alone. She did have Whitney, but in a few weeks, perhaps, the girl would be gone, and Marvella would have that suite and those long halls all to herself – and to Abe Kipp's ghosts.
Not that that would bother Marvella. Though at times she played the comic darkie, it was only in a way that poked fun at the old, tired, white man's stereotype, never at herself or her race. In truth, she was the least superstitious person Donna had ever met. Her imagination was bounded by fabric and sketches, and had no room for ghosts.
Donna didn't believe in ghosts either, but there was something about the upper floors, the fifth floor in particular, that poured tension into her like a stream of ice, and caused the pressure in her bladder that had always been the physical manifestation of Donna's anxieties. She thought the feeling was due to knowing that the place had once been a hospital, where people had suffered and died in pain.
Shaking the thought from her mind, she continued down the hall. After all, she was on the fourth floor now, a floor that was already occupied by Marvella and Whitney, and would soon be the temporary homes of others as well. The presence of people here would surely banish whatever theatrical or medical spirits still remained.
She paused where the hall turned, and examined the two doors at right angles to each other. One would be Dex Colangelo's suite, the other Quentin Margolis's, when the two men came down to Kirkland for the rehearsals of whatever show was chosen. Today Donna was to examine the rooms and determine which should be bedrooms, living rooms, kitchenettes and the like. They had been only dorm rooms for the orphan school years before, as had the suites on the third floor. But walls had been battered down so that the dozens of tiny, individual rooms (little better than cells, Donna thought) had become the spacious and elegant suites in which they all now lived. She unlocked the door on the left, turned on her flashlight, and entered.