get another chance. Her duet with Bucky Lee
Denton is hot, and--"
"She will perform when she is ready," Dr.
Howler replied frostily. "We cannot rush the
process. Grief is a very personal thing.
Everyone has their own schedule."
Lorna nodded.
"I will prescribe a mild sedative for when
she needs to sleep. Part of her problem is
sleep deprivation. I will return tomorrow. Good
day, Mrs. Bailey."
With that, the doctor gave a brittle smile,
collected her bag, and walked out the front
door. Lorna fell into a leather chair and
looked at the mantel, the music awards
twinkling in the afternoon light. With a defiant glance
in the direction of the ashtray, she lit a
cigarette.
It tasted damn good.
Chapter 21
For the first time in her entire career, Deanie
Bailey was paralyzed with stage fright. The sounds
of the audience filtered backstage, a deafening,
distorted neon nightmare. Thousands of voices
roared across the arena, calling to her as one giant
beast.
"Dean-ie! Dean-ie!"
Their voices grew louder. The stomping and
clapping seemed to march up her spine.
As a show-business veteran with years of
hard-won experience, Deanie did the logical
thing when faced with such a reception: She decided
to flee.
"Now, now," shouted Nathan Burns,
gripping the arm of her sequined gown. "They are
all calling you because they like you, Deanie.
Not because they wish to harm you. In fact ..."
Deanie tuned him out. After his lengthy stay at
the Betty Ford Clinic and extensive
psychotherapy, she was now witnessing the dawn of a
kinder, gentler Nathan Burns, full of
New-Age wisdom and homilies.
He no longer wore an Erich von
Stroheim costume, instead opting for more of a
love-beads and tie-dyed look. He was
universally acknowledged to be more than a little
unstable. But since her decision to return to the
stage, he was the only one who seemed to understand
her. He had been drunk and crazy, she had
only been crazy, and together they had reached an
unspoken agreement: They were allowed to wig out, but
only in each other's company.
"Do I look all right?" She tugged at the
midnight-blue gown, sleek as if the silk had
been poured on. It was over a year since she'd
faced an audience, and her heart was pounding in
unison with the audience's chants.
"You look incredible, Deanie. And as your new
manager, I must say this was a brilliant move
on your part to open your world tour at Wembley.
You're a star now, ever since that Bucky Lee
duet. Those last four hits of yours have left
poor old Bucky Lee green with envy."
The crowd stomped even louder, vibrating the
backstage area with terrifying thunder.
"They've forgiven you for your nervous breakdown,
my dear." Nathan continued as if the crowd had
been a faint murmur. "I believe you knocked
Princess Diana off the front page of the
Mirror."
"Poor thing." Deanie grinned. The lights
dimmed, and the audience hushed as one, as if a soft
blanket had silenced them, row by row.
Her name was announced, strange-sounding as if it
belonged to someone else, echoing in the vastness of the
arena. The spotlights darted as her band took the
stage, and for a moment she thought of other darting blue
lights, pulsating in a prism.
Not now. She couldn't think of him now.
Nathan gave her a gentle shove. She
walked across the stage.
Was this real? The stadium vibrated with shouts,
her name reverberating to the rafters with inarticulate
and furious cheers. The white-hot lights blinded
her, and she stopped, shaken.
What was wrong? She had played
hundreds of gigs, thousands of them.
But that was before. Before the thought of an empty
hotel room at the end of a performance could cause
her knees to buckle. Before she realized the
adoration of an audience was a mechanical,
hollow parody of real love. Before Kit.
The bass player handed her the guitar, and she
looped the strap over her shoulder. Then all was
silent. Thousands of people, on the edge of their seats,
peered at every move she made. She could hear the
vague whir of the cameras.
"Hey," she said, mentally kicking herself for
sounding so frightened. "Um, it's great to be back
here in England."
Wild applause, more hoots.
"Um, some of my best friends are English," she
added. The audience went nuts, leaping to their feet
and cheering.
In her mind, she thought: My best friend is
Then, without waiting, she nodded to the band. With the
resounding hum of her guitar, they began the
performance.
And it was extraordinary. It was as if she had
always played to a house of forty thousand. The songs
felt right, her voice had never sounded better.
The band played brilliantly, not just hitting the
notes but putting character into every phrase, subtle
nuances that could never be taught but must be felt.
They seemed incapable of blundering, and every note was
unadulterated magic.
Then something strange happened.
She paused between songs, reaching for a glass of
water on a stool. As she sipped, her eyes
wandered to the audience, where a beam of light traced
back and forth with frenzied precision. She saw the
usual sights from the stage: the eyeglasses
reflecting their piercing glare, stray glitters of
jewelry, rolled-up programs being used as
fans, random flashes of movement.
And off to the side she saw Kit.
Choking on the water, she gasped. The bass
player reached over and slapped her on the back,
but still she coughed.
"Don't drink the water here!" someone in the
audience shouted. "It's not safe!"
Oh dear God, she thought. She was going to wig
out right on stage.
She looked back to where she saw the man
earlier, and he was gone. No one was there.
She had imagined it all, just as Dr. Howler had
said she imagined Kit.
"My next song," she said, leaning into the
microphone, "seems appropriate. Hope you
all agree."
She then performed the most perfect rendition of
Patsy Cline's "Crazy" that anyone had ever
heard.
The show lasted another two hours, passing in a
complete white-hot blur. Time seemed meaningless
as the songs and audience became one. Three
encores later, when she finally left the stage, the
audience and Deanie and her band were exhausted,
limp with relief and deliriously happy.
Nathan presented her with a sloppy, alarmingly
friendly kiss. The record company executives
declared this would be her next album; the performance had
been recorded for the purpose.
Anonymous hands clapped her back, sending the
remaining sequins on her costume scattering to the
floor. She signed every bit of paper shoved
into her face by autograph hounds. The flashing
lights made her dizzy, spots dancing before her
eyes. Nathan fielded questions, requests,
demands. Everyone was ecstatic.
A panic began to rise in her throat at the
frenzy. And she had to be alone.
Her dressing room backstage was thick with
flowers, some still boxed, others in massive
arrangements. The sounds of the audience leaving the
arena were mercifully muffled; distant laughs and
shouts and the grating scrape of garbage cans as the
crew cleaned up.
Nathan followed her into the room, beaming,
holding a bottle of champagne and a single
flute.
"Here, Deanie," he said, popping the cork.
"This is for you."
Sighing with exhaustion, she accepted the glass
and watched the bubbles float to the top. Some
seemed to swirl like propellers, twisting their way
through the pale froth. Propellers reminded her of
Kit, his love of flying, the way he ...
Stop! She was not to think of him. Dr. Howler
explained how the mind could do astounding things, such as
allow people to walk over hot coals without being
burned, or cure an incurable illness. In her
case, she was cured ever so briefly of
loneliness.
Then what about her knowledge of Tudor
England, and the very real duke of Hamilton, and the
photograph of the RAF pilot that sat at that very
moment on her dressing-room table?
Dr. Howler had an explanation for that as
well. Somehow, during Deanie's trip
to England, she had come in contact with the information. It
was completely logical: She was at Hampton
Court filming a video, she had taken a tour
of the palace and even purchased a guide
booklet. She had met a man named Neville
Williamson who provided a charming, magical
tale of pure love.
Under the stress of the filming and her first big
chance, combined with the very real career threat posed
by Bucky Lee Denton, she had retreated into a
world of her own, a time and place where she would feel
more in control.
Then she had invented Kit, her dashingly handsome
duke. He became her fantasy hero, rescuing
her from danger as no flesh-and-blood man ever
had. Deanie's imagination had endowed the
fictitious Kit with all the qualities she had
desired in a man, and even a few irritating
And then she saw the photograph of the equally
handsome--and dead--RAF pilot, and somehow she
combined the two fantasies. A brief glimpse
of a forgotten pilot, and her mind took off.
Deanie grasped the champagne flute with
firm hands and took a swig, downing half the
contents in a single swallow.
But Dr. Howler's fine logic had not been
able to explain the clothing she was wearing when they cut
her from the maze, or how her hair could have grown
by inches in a single afternoon.
Or how she could recall every detail of her
imaginary Kit, from his strong arms that could suddenly
turn gentle to his crooked bottom tooth.
She could still feel the texture of his hair, the
few gray strands only visible in the sun.
Could anyone imagine the wondrous man who was
Kit?
There was a sharp knock on the door, and she
jumped, the straggling blue sequins on her gown
rattling with the movement.
"Come in," she said, not really meaning it.
A polite guard poked his head into her
dressing room, sniffing at the overpowering scent of
flowers.
"Excuse me, Miss Bailey, but
there is someone here to see you. Says he is a very
old friend of yours."
Deanie sighed and took another sip of
champagne. The last thing she needed was to make
small talk with someone she knew from her past,
probably high school.
Nathan glanced at her, then shook his head
toward the guard. "No, sorry. It's out of the
question. Tell them she's too exhausted, but if they
leave their name and address we'll make sure
to send a personally autographed picture."
"All right," said the guard. "Oh, wait a
minute. He wanted me to give this to her. Said
she would know what it meant."
Nathan shook his head even as Deanie shrugged
weakly and reached for the envelope.
"Thank you." She smiled to the guard.
Something in her stomach lurched as she touched the
envelope. Her name was written in a strong,
bold hand across the top.
"Mistress Deanie."
Nathan was beginning to chatter about the flowers, but
all she could hear was the blood whooshing through her
ears. Her fingers trembling, she eased open the
paper.
Inside was a small square of whitish cloth.
She knew what it was before she turned it over. It
was a clumsy attempt at needlepoint,
speckled with brown spots that resembled blood.
To most people it was just an amateurish depiction of a
blob with wings, a bug or a bird.
Or an airplane.
She gasped and rose to her feet, sending the
crystal flute crashing to the floor.
"Christ, Deanie! That's Dom you've just
spilled, not Andre. A few months ago I would
have licked it off the floor, glass and all."
Nathan then looked at her, her pale face and
white lips. "What's wrong?"
Her mouth worked, but no sound escaped. Then she
croaked, "Guard." Softly at first, then
louder. "Guard!"
The guard returned. "Yes, Miss
Bailey?"
"Please, please send him in," she rasped,
her voice dry. The guard nodded and left,
closing the door.
Deanie's knees gave way, and she felt
behind her, blindly grabbing a chair.
This was impossible, she said to herself,
sinking into the hard folding chair. Kit never
existed. She imagined it all.
There was a single knock on the door, and
Deanie turned. Her heart literally stopped;
she felt her entire being pause, as if waiting
to decide whether or not to continue existing.
Slowly the door opened.
And there he stood.
A small sound came from her throat as she
saw him, her heart now pounding so loudly she thought
it would shatter her soul.
"Kit," she breathed.
He stepped thr
ough the door, his very presence
resounding in every corner of the room, filling the
empty spaces with his vitality. He was her
Kit, his shoulders broad, his stance solid and
proud.
Instead of a plain black doublet he wore a
tweed sports jacket with khaki slacks and a
slightly rumpled button-down shirt. She
saw him take a deep breath as he stared at
her, the incandescent depths of his eyes searing through
her.
"I thought you were dead," she said, her voice
cracking into a sob.
"So did I," he whispered, his throat working,
his jaw tight with emotion.
horseshoe-shaped arrangement. "Goddamn, they
must have thought this was a horse race," he muttered
to himself. Then he looked up at Deanie. "Should
this stuff be divided between a children's hospital and
nursing home? The usual?"
Deanie did not respond; her eyes were
locked on the tall dark-haired man in the
doorway. Nathan looked between the two, and an
uncomfortable feeling prickled his thick skin.
"What happened?" She spoke as if in a
trance, and only to the stranger. Nathan frowned.
It was as if he didn't exist.
"We were separated in the maze, Deanie, but
we did travel together. It worked." Kit's words
were terse, his teeth clenched.
"Why ... where ..." She closed her eyes,
unable to think clearly with him so near. His shirt was
open at the throat, and she saw his sun-darkened
skin, the sprinkling of dark hair she knew was just
under the cloth. How well she knew the feel and
scent of him, the muscles on his chest.
She folded her arms and opened her
eyes. "Where have you been? Why didn't you let
me know? Oh Kit, I thought ..."
"Shh." His voice was deep, resonant.
He reached toward her, his long, strong fingers
open, then pulled back. The gesture was so
swift she thought she had imagined it.
"I tried, Deanie." His accent was still bent
by archaic vowels, intonations that had been lost for
centuries. "I tried to reach you at your hotel,
before you left England. But they would not let me. I
cannot say that I blame them."
Then he smiled, and she felt as if the wind
had been knocked from her chest. His smile, the
crooked bottom tooth, the cheeks kissed with his
glorious dimples, elongated, strong. His
eyes crinkled at the corners.
"They did not truly think me mad until I
expressed a rather firm desire to see you."
Distractedly, he pushed a wayward thatch of
hair from his forehead. "You see, the mere utterance
of your name transformed me from a rather pathetic
out-of-work actor into a dangerous stalker."
Her mouth dropped open, and he continued. "I
tried to find you, but London had changed so--more in
the last fifty years than in the previous five
centuries."
Nathan Burns snorted, but they ignored
him.
"Oh, Kit. No one told me. Then what
happened?"
"Well, when I tried to find you, I must have
seemed a bit disoriented. So they put me into a
very nice suite. I believe they called it a
ward." He gave a small chuckle, but it was
painful, bitter. "I shared the ward with a
fascinating young man who firmly believed he was
Bette Davis."
"Bette Davis?"
"He was quite good, actually. But the poor chap
tended to refer to her later films, always reminding
me to "fasten your seat belts, it's going to be
a bumpy night," whatever the bloody hell that
was supposed to mean. Then he'd puff on
imaginary cigarettes, proclaiming the place a
dump."
"Oh," she said, stunned.
"Yes, well. They gave me some marvelous
medication and took copious notes whenever I
babbled, which was often. They interrogated me, asked
me questions I couldn't possibly know the
answer to, like the first moon walk, for Christ's
sake, or Jodie Foster."
"Kit."
He straightened. "You were wonderful tonight,
Deanie. When I met you before, I had no idea
... well. I didn't understand. You tried
to tell me about all this." His hand opened and quickly
closed. "I didn't understand."
She said nothing. A thousand thoughts tumbled through
her mind, but she said nothing.
"Well, once again I seem to be babbling,"
he said, as a strange, hooded expression
crossed his features. "I'll not keep you any
longer, Deanie. You have all of this--you don't
need me puttering about as a reminder of a time when you
almost met with disaster. I shall let you go to be
embraced by, well, your fans."
He gave her a curt nod and turned, reaching
for the doorknob.
"Kit!"
He paused, his back toward her.
The finely tailored sports coat seemed
to expand as he drew in a deep breath. "Yes?"
He still did not face her.
"Where are you going? Where are you staying?"
The dark head, a mass of glossy, unruly
waves, dropped forward, as if he had suddenly
become very tired.
"I am going to my sister's." His voice was