Dorothy on the Rocks (37 page)

“Thanks. You were great.”

“You too,” he says.

Charles and Chad find me and gush and gush. And Patty and Jim gush and gush. Friends are so nice to performers, especially when the performer is also in mourning. I decline their invitations to go out. I'm too spent. And besides, according to Goodie, I'm pregnant. Oh my God. What if it's true?

“Well,” Patty says. “We'll be at the Westside Diner if you change your mind. I'm starving and I love their tuna melts.”

“Thanks, I'll see.”

“Fantastic,” a voice booms. “You sound fantastic.” It's Bob Strong. He gives me a big bear hug. “Oops, careful,” he says. I hear a muffled bark from the bag Bob has slung over his shoulder. “I snuck Piper in for the show.” A little head pops out of the bag
and licks my face. “Piper loves live music,” Bob says, cooing to the dog. “Don't you. And he thought you were terrific.”

“Well, thanks, Piper,” I say, scratching his head. “I know poodles have very discriminating taste.”

“Absolutely,” Bob booms. “We've got to run. We're seeing another show downtown. You were swell, Maggie. Really swell.”

“Thanks, Bob . . . and Piper.” Bob zips Piper back in the bag and off they go.

I go to the dressing room to change. I pack up my things and on my way out stick my head in Sidney's office.

“Great show, this was a great warm-up for the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth,” he says. “Call me on Monday. I want to talk about a regular night for you if you're interested.” He hands me an envelope with my pay.

“Thanks, Sidney,” I say.

I go back in the room to thank Billy. He is resetting the lights and the sound guy is checking the microphones. The next show is at ten o'clock.

“See you soon, Billy,” I say.

“You too. Great show,” he calls from his ladder in the middle of the room.

“Thanks.”

I walk out through the bar, which is now mobbed with the usual Friday night crowd. I push through the throng and make my way to the exit.

“Maggie,” I hear someone say. I turn around. It's John Eremus. That blush starts up my neck again.

“Hello.” I smile at him and he smiles back.

“You sounded great,” he says.

“Thanks,” I say. He is looking at me with that unsettling look again. John Eremus is a very attractive man, I realize. He is maybe fifty years old, close to my age actually. He's wearing a gray sports jacket and white shirt with an open collar. His greenish brown eyes are deep pools of warm water I could easily step into and that is what is so unsettling. “Can I buy you dinner?” he asks.

“Sure. I guess,” I say.

“All right.”

“Yeah, that would be nice.” We walk out into the warm evening. “There's a nice place on Forty-eighth Street. It's Italian, excellent pesto,” I suggest.

“Sounds good,” John says.

We get to the restaurant and are shown to a table in the back. It's an old favorite of mine, nice place, not too noisy, not too crowded.

I order the pesto rigatoni and John gets the linguini with clam sauce and a beer. I stick with Diet Coke.

“How are you doing?” I ask.

“All right,” he says. “It's tough. I talked to the doctor who treated Jack in the emergency room. He said probably nothing could have saved him. He was dead in less than two minutes. He could have been in the hospital and they still couldn't have saved him. It was a massive hemorrhage. Congenital. A time bomb.”

“Did they say what caused it at that particular moment?”

“Not really. They say it could have happened at any moment. At a certain point, when the artery walls are that compromised, it can be the next cup of coffee or the next belly laugh or the next intake of breath. It's a crapshoot, Maggie.”

“It's amazing anyone makes it out alive,” I say.

“No one makes it out alive, Maggie, that's the point,” John says.

“Oh, right.” I blush slightly and take a big sip of the Diet Coke
the waiter has placed in front of me. I wish it were something with a stronger bite.

“Have you always sung?” John changes the subject.

“Yes, I guess. My mother had a lovely voice and I would sing with her when I was small,” I say, remembering my mother sitting on my bed singing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” with me. “Then, when I was about ten years old this acting company came to our church and performed a musical version of
St. Joan of Arc.
It was wonderful. And the two actresses stayed at our house that night. My mother let me stay up late and we all sat at the kitchen table. The actresses drank scotch and smoked cigarettes and talked in these wonderful throaty voices. They told stories and my parents laughed and I laughed and I knew right then that my dream was to be onstage and to sing.”

“Here's to dreams,” John says picking up his glass of beer.

“Here's to a whole river of them,” I say picking up my Diet Coke, tears filling my eyes. And suddenly I remember the man in my recurring dream the last time I dreamed it, when Jack was sleeping beside me. It wasn't more than a couple of weeks ago. I was standing at the edge of the abyss and from nowhere came the man who reached out his hand. It was an older version of Jack. My God, I think, it was John Eremus. Every hair on my head begins to tingle. Oh, my God.

“What is it?” John asks.

“What is what?” I ask back.

“You look a little shaken,” he says.

“I am shaken,” I say. “These are shaky times.”

“Yes.” John drops his eyes. “Yes they are.” He moves his food around on the plate for a minute. “The Yankees are really kicking ass this year.” He launches into the safe world of sports talk.

“I know,” I say. “Did you see the game last night?” And just like that we are in the lifeboat of small talk and managing our way safely through the meal.

John insists on driving me home. Before I get out of the car I say, “I sat across from you at the monastery, in the meditation hall. Did you know that?”

“You're kidding?” he says. “At the last retreat?”

“Yes.”

“I didn't see you, but then I don't look around much during those things. I try to stay focused.”

“It was my first time,” I say. “All I did was look around.”

“That's strange that we were there together,” John says. “You know I got a call the last day about Jack.”

“I figured that. I didn't find out until I got back to New York.”

“Of course,” he says, looking at me and then dropping his eyes to study his hands.

“Odd, isn't it?” I say in barely a whisper. “I couldn't believe it when I saw you at the funeral. I thought it was you, and then when I noticed your limp, I was sure.”

“That's right,” he says. “I wasn't wearing my leg at the monastery.”

“Well, not while you were sitting zazen. You were so still, so serene.”

“Oh, God,” John says. “If I could go back to that week before this nightmare happened. If I could have been with Jack when it happened maybe I could have . . .”

“Saved him,” I say. “I know. But you couldn't have.” I put my arm around John and he moves into it.

“Spend the night with me,” I say quietly into his ear. We park the car and go up to my apartment without a word. When we get
inside I don't even turn on a light. I walk to the bedroom and turn down the sheets. We lie down together fully clothed and pass the night in each other's arms. And at some point we sleep.

The next morning I get up first. John is turned on his side. His artificial leg is leaning against the bed. He must have removed it during the night.

“Nifty isn't it?” John asks. He is leaning on his elbow watching my reaction.

“Yeah, looks like a pretty high-end model,” I say. “Do you want coffee?”

“Please,” he answers. “What's the eye patch?” he asks, nodding toward my glittered eye patch that's lying on the bed stand.

“Oh, that,” I say. “I hurt my eye and had to wear it.”

“I like the glitter,” he says.

“Well, I was playing Snow White at the time.”

“In a dark time the eye begins to see,” he says, gazing out the window, and I can see his face has clouded over. A dark time indeed.

“It's a line from a poem. Theodore Roethke,” he says, his voice a whisper. I walk over and sit next to him. We don't talk. We just gaze out the window onto the garden in the courtyard.

“I'll put the water on,” I say and John nods.

I go the kitchen and to the bathroom. I splash water on my face and brush my teeth. By the time I come out, John is in the living room and has reattached his leg. I make the coffee while he uses the facilities. Mr. Ed looks at me with his cocked head.

“What in the world is going on?” he arfs.

“I don't know,” I say in a hushed a tone. “Don't judge until you've walked in my paws.”

John comes out of the bathroom and we drink our coffee.

“I have to get back to Queens. I'm having brunch with my sister's family. Would you want to join me?”

“No, but thanks,” I say, feeling awkward.

“What do you say we go to a Yankees game sometime?” John asks.

“Sure,” I say. “Maybe . . . I don't know. It feels so . . .”

“Look, Maggie,” he says. “I know this is awkward.”

“Let's not say anything right now, okay? Let's not talk about this for a while. I need to . . .” I don't finish the thought. I can't because I don't know what I need, or maybe I'm afraid of what I need.

“All right,” John says. He puts on his jacket and moves to the door. “But I'm going to call you. And we are going to talk at some point.”

“Okay. At some point.”

“Goodbye, Maggie,” John says and kisses me on the cheek.

“Goodbye,” I say and put my arms around him and we hug for a long moment, and then part.

“I'll be seeing you,” he says, going down the stairs and looking up at me.

“Not if I see you first,” I say and smile, and John smiles back. Then I turn quickly and walk back into my apartment. Damn. I bite the inside of my cheek and close the door gently.

I drink another cup of coffee and look out my window. Old Mrs. Vianey is sitting on one of the benches, feeding the pigeons. I take Mr. Ed out to the park. We walk over to the Great Lawn and plant ourselves on a bench.

“Life is funny, isn't it Ed?” I say. “Life is damn funny.” Mr. Ed curls into my lap, and I think about what Dorothy says at the end
of
The Wizard of Oz
movie—something about backyards and finding your heart's desire.

“Anything is possible, Mr. Ed,” I say, looking across the ball fields and down to the Central Park South skyline. “It's an awfully big backyard.” Mr. Ed cocks his head and nods in doggie agreement and then smiles his Westie smile. I breathe in and out and think about nothing, nothing at all, except this moment right here, right now.

Heartfelt thanks to
The Wizards:
Judy Hansen, Chuck Adams, Bob Jones, Algonquin Books, Marly Rusoff & Associates, Inc.
The Scarecrows:
Bruce Ackland, Peter Cabot, Robert Cary, Chuck Young.
The Good Witches:
Kathleen Frazier, Patty Kraft, Nancy O'Hara, Clare Veniot, Holly Webber.
The Flying Monkeys:
Lesley Burby, Celeste Carlucci and Jeffrey Klitz (xox to Bella, Sophia, and Juliette), Beth Chiarelli, Carol Coates, Toby Cox, Terri Eoff, Julie Halston, Sharon Hershey, Nancy Johnston, Lianne Kressin, Jane Michener, Rob Newton, Brian O'Neill, John Rowell, Sandy Winner.
The People of Oz:
Kay Rockefeller and the Traveling Playhouse, Rumble in the Redroomers, Thursday Writer's Group, Boogieland and the Gang, Suter's Marching Band, the Ladies in Kids and all the folks at the Eighty-second Street Barnes & Noble. And to Douglas Anderson,
The King of the Forest,
may you rest in peace.

Published by
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Post Office Box 2225
Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225

a division of
Workman Publishing
225 Varick Street
New York, New York 10014

© 2008 by Barbara Suter. All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on experience, all names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available for a previous edition of this work.

E-book ISBN 978-1-56512-647-3