Spellcrossed (20 page)

His expression was completely neutral as he took in the new desk and the landline phone. Then two small furrows appeared between his brows. I realized he was frowning at the laptop. His laptop.

“I’m sorry. I meant to tell you we were using it. Reinhard found it in your armoire. And since we needed a computer for the office—”

“Of course.”

“I’ll just use mine. It’s no big deal to carry it back and forth from the house.”

“No, keep this one. At least until the season’s over. I only used it to watch movies.”

“What are you talking about?” Daddy demanded.

Frantically, I tried to recall whether we’d had a personal computer when he lived in Wilmington. If so, it would have looked nothing like the laptop. Would he freak out if I showed him its features—or guess that it had required decades to invent them?

“What computer?” Daddy insisted.

I gave the laptop a tentative pat.

“That’s a computer? I thought it was a hot plate!”

Relieved by his reaction, I said, “They’ll probably add that feature to the next model.”

“But where’s the screen? And the keyboard?”

I opened the laptop, and he gasped. When the wallpaper came up with its photo of Stonehenge, he gasped again.

“I was there. I saw that. What are all the little pictures around it?”

“You click on them to open the program you want.”

“Wait—the stuff at the bottom just disappeared.”

“It’ll come back if you move the arrow down there.”

As I skimmed my fingertip over the touchpad to demonstrate, he said, “Let me try.”

Still dazed by his enthusiastic acceptance of all the technological changes, I eased aside. Finally, I could do something for him besides buying clothes and food.

He guided the arrow along the icons at the bottom, crowing with delight each time a descriptor popped up.

I smiled at Rowan. “It might take a little while to print out that schedule.”

Rowan tensed. At first, I thought he was upset with me. Then I realized Daddy had fallen silent.

He was staring at the screen. In the bottom right-hand corner I saw a tiny beige pop-up field with the day of the week, the month, the date—and the year.

Oh, God…

Rowan gripped Daddy’s shoulder. Daddy shook him off impatiently and pointed a trembling forefinger at the screen. “Is that the year? Is that
this
year?”

As I nodded miserably, Rowan steered Daddy over to the wooden chair near the file cabinet and eased him onto it.

“Twenty years,” Daddy whispered. “I thought five, maybe. Ten at the most.” His gaze slowly focused, and he glared at Rowan. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought it might be…unsettling.”

“No shit, Sherlock!”

When Rowan’s hand settled on his shoulder again, Daddy leaped up with such violence that his chair toppled over. “Stop calming me! Just for once, let me
feel
!”

He backed into the file cabinet. Then the anger left his face and he slowly slid down its smooth wooden side and sank onto the floor.

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Reinhard and I had gone through the theatre, taking down wall calendars, dated notices, anything that might set Daddy off. The rest of the staff had been warned to keep their organizers and datebooks under wraps. But I had been so eager to prove how knowledgeable I was that I’d forgotten the fucking date popped up when you passed the arrow over the time.

Daddy’s shoulders began to shake. Only when he looked up did I realize he was laughing. A hoarse croak of a laugh, but not the tears I had expected.

“Twenty years. And except for that…” He nodded at the laptop. “…everything looks the same.”

“Communications technology changes very quickly,” explained Rowan, who didn’t even have a phone in his apartment.

“What else has changed?”

This time, Rowan deferred to me. “There are mobile phones now that fit into the palm of your hand. And flat screen TVs. And something called the Internet. It’s this big global network…thing. You can send messages and watch movies and order stuff from stores and play interactive games and—”

“Show me.”

I spent the next hour teaching him the basics and conducting a whirlwind tour of the last twenty years. Daddy hurled questions at me and I fumbled for answers, painfully aware that I knew more about Tony Award winners than the events that had shaped and shaken my world.

“A black dude?” he exclaimed. “Was elected President?”

“Mixed race, but—”

“Next you’ll be telling me Arnold Schwarzenegger is Secretary of Defense.”

“No. But he
was
Governor of California. And Jesse Ventura—the wrestler? He was Governor of Minnesota.”

Daddy burst out laughing. Real laughter this time—the same exuberant bellow I’d heard last night.

“Jeez, when it comes to crazy, this world has the Borderlands beat by a mile.”

At some point, Rowan left. I suppressed my guilt at ignoring him and vowed to make up for it at dinner.

With only minutes before rehearsal began, I said, “You know, you can find other things on the Internet. Old TV shows, old friends…family…”

My heart pounded like a rabbit’s as he scrutinized the screen. Then his face lit up and he began to type.

“Over two million results!” he crowed.

He was so absorbed in his findings that he never even noticed when I walked out.

I’d hoped—no, I’d expected him to search for me or Mom. But after so many years apart from us, so many years without even knowing if we were alive, what was he most eager to find?

Ms. fucking Pac-Man.

The best part about working with magical people is that you never have to tell them you’re upset. It’s also the worst part because you can’t hide anything. My little ups and downs generally passed unnoticed, but any major emotional roller coaster drew them like bears to honey.

So naturally, just when I needed to ride out this roller coaster, Rowan, Reinhard, and Alex all converged on me in the stage right wings. And naturally, I took one look at my three bears and burst into tears.

They clustered around me, offering masculine comfort and soothing magic. When I explained what had happened, Alex suggested Daddy might have needed some sort of distraction after the shock of finding out how much time had passed. Reinhard observed that he was unready to deal with the guilt of deserting his family.

Rowan demanded, “So he searches for some woman instead?”

I had to laugh. Alex joined me. Even Reinhard’s lips twitched as he enlightened Rowan about arcade games and the true identity of Ms. Pac-Man.

The unexpected laughter eased the pain a little. Blocking Scene 4 forced me to focus on something else. By the time our staff meeting rolled around, I was able to turn the whole incident into an amusing anecdote. I didn’t fool anyone, of course. Maybe that was why they agreed to invite Daddy to perform in the Follies.

After the meeting, I pulled the box containing Rowan’s keepsakes out of my bedroom closet. It was the first time I had opened it in more than a year.

I set aside his script of
By Iron, Bound
, his battered copy of the 1836 edition of the
McGuffey Reader
, and the equally battered diary in which he’d recorded his first thoughts and feelings. Then I unearthed the slim leather-bound journal he had kept during my season at the Crossroads. I flipped through the pages until I found the passage I was seeking.

“Jack Sinclair. Now there’s a pathetic imitation of a man. Charming, yes. And clever. About everything except himself. But completely self-absorbed. And arrogant and superior. Always making excuses for his failures.”

Those bitter words filled my mind as I trudged up to Rowan’s apartment after rehearsal. Daddy’s enthusiastic greeting surprised me. I was even more surprised when he asked about my day.

I glanced at Rowan, wondering if he’d coached him. But Daddy seemed genuinely interested so I started talking about the show. He loved the idea of the magical garden and nodded thoughtfully when I explained its themes of healing and transformation. But he was more interested in the characters. At one point, he exclaimed, “I’d be great for Archibald!” And immediately began reminiscing about some of the roles he had played.

Rowan was very quiet during dinner. But as he walked me to my evening rehearsal, he said, “Be patient, Maggie. And don’t expect more than he can give.”

I nodded wearily. “Did you tell him to ask about my day?”

Rowan hesitated. “I told him he should have thanked you for teaching him. And that he should think more about other people’s feelings.”

“So should I.”

“What do you mean?”

“I ignored you to show Daddy how to use the Internet. Like father, like daughter.”

“Hush.”

“I’m sorry.”

This time, he hushed me with a kiss. Then he asked, “Did you ever read my journals?”

Surprised by the sudden shift in the conversation, I said, “The one from my year. And the early ones. But once people I knew began showing up…it just made me uncomfortable.”

“Then you never read about your father’s season here?”

I shook my head.

“Maybe you should.”

I’d deliberately avoided reading that journal. I’d come to terms with my past—and my father—and saw little benefit in picking at those wounds. Daddy’s return had pretty much ripped off the Band-Aid. So instead of going straight to my bedroom, I climbed the stairs to the attic.

Each spring, Hal and I sorted through the costumes and set pieces we might want to use during the upcoming season. The only other time I’d ventured there was when I’d helped Reinhard carry up the five boxes containing the rest of Rowan’s journals.

I opened the door and groped for the light switch. A single naked bulb blazed to life over my head. I made out the shadowy forms of sheet-draped furniture. Garment bags hung like corpses from the rows of clothes racks. It looked much spookier at night than it had during the day and I was glad I didn’t have to rummage around to find Rowan’s journals; the boxes were only a few feet from the door, as carefully labeled as the boxes of props nestled under the eaves.

I opened the one on top and easily found the journal from Daddy’s season, its first page inscribed with the year in Rowan’s neat handwriting. As I straightened, I bashed my head against a slanting roof beam and got a faceful of cobweb.

Not an auspicious beginning.

I retreated to my bedroom, clutching the journal in my left hand and massaging the top of my head with my right. I sank into Helen’s rocking chair and turned on the light, wishing for some of her calming energy. Then I took a deep breath and opened the journal.

I knew Daddy had arrived only days before Midsummer to begin rehearsals for the second show. Oddly, neither Rowan nor my mother had ever mentioned that it was
Camelot
. Now, I learned that he had played one of the knights defeated by Lancelot in the joust.

I skimmed the pages, seeking other references to Daddy, and winced when I found them.

“Jack was quite good at the read-through, but clearly disdainful of his cast mates.”

“Jack took me aside to suggest that he take over the role of Arthur. The man has ballocks the size of basketballs and an ego to match. Yet underneath it all, his insecurity throbs like a heartbeat. He is so eager for me to like and respect him, but fails to see that his behavior accomplishes just the opposite. Still, these are early days. And my perceptions are always suspect at Midsummer.”

I turned the page and braced myself for a description of Daddy’s encounter with Rowan’s clan. Instead, there was only a hastily scrawled word:
“Disaster.”

Ragged edges were all that remained of the next three pages. Perhaps Rowan had decided it was too dangerous to leave a record of the incident. The next entry—dated three days after Midsummer—said only:
“It is done. And if we watch him carefully, all may yet be well.”

Every entry for the rest of the season contained some snippet about my father. Reading between the lines of Rowan’s cryptic entries, I pieced together his transformation from the dazed man who had rejoined the company to the hard-working one who enjoyed the fellowship of his cast mates and put so much of himself into the character of Billy Bigelow: the fear beneath the bravado; the doubts beneath the swagger; the desire to make amends to his wife and child.

Rowan’s last entry for the season read:

“Met Jack’s wife. I had hoped that seeing the show—and seeing how it has changed Jack—might reconcile her to his long absence. But she eyes both of us with suspicion, unable to accept his transformation and unwilling to exonerate me for luring him away.

Perhaps she’s seen Jack’s chameleon act too often to trust his latest incarnation. And perhaps she is wise. Whatever else I accomplished, I did not change Jack’s nature. Once he leaves, his dissatisfaction with himself and his life might resurface.

I hope I’m wrong. Mostly for the child’s sake. Such a pretty little thing, with that shining cap of bright red hair. And clearly her father’s daughter. She was practically falling over from exhaustion until he appeared. Then her face lit up and she cried, “Daddy!” And from the look on his face and the way he swept her into his arms and spun around and around with her…yes, I think I’m right to hope.