Beneath The Skin (A College Obsession Romance) (80 page)

“Dessie,” he sings through the noise of the crowd.

I hug him, squeezing so tight it hurts. “Thanks for coming, Dad.”

“Wouldn’t have dared miss it, sweetie,” his voice empties into my ear, strained from how tightly we’re hugging.

My mother’s locked into a conversation with Doctor Thwaite, her voice as loud and sparkly as her dress. She has a hand lightly affixed to her chest as the other waves in the air in time to her endless speech.

On the other side of the Doc, I belatedly notice my sister. She’s blindingly beautiful in her glittery skintight dress, which looks like it was cut directly from a block of diamond.

“Cece?”

Her smile is tight as a vise when she bends into me for the world’s stiffest hug.

“Well done,” she moans into my ear in that perfect English dialect. The way she says it, it’s like she’s commending a toddler for scribbling a circle with orange curlicues around it and calling it a lion.

“Thanks, Cece,” I say anyway. “I didn’t realize you all were coming.”

“Of course. And,” she adds with a lift of her eyebrows, her dialect still unbroken, “I do expect you to get your tush on a plane and see me when
my
show opens.”

Pleasantries and congratulations and thanks are shared over and over as members of the crowd slowly make their way around, whether by kindly asking my mother for an autograph or by complimenting my performance. With each thanks, my heart swells bigger and bigger.

“It is quite loud here, isn’t it?” my mother notes to me before she even offers her own congratulations. “Do you think we could move into one of the back hallways where it’s a touch quieter?”

Of course I oblige, because that’s what anyone does when Winona Lebeau asks for something. Doctor Thwaite bids them a farewell and a safe flight home before the four of us slip into the hallway that leads back to the dressing rooms, classrooms, and offices.

“Dessie,” my mother finally says, bending to give me a little kiss on either of my cheeks. “You sweet thing. Have you conquered your little pond yet? It’s such a delight to see you on that stage.”

She is so artful at coupling a biting, backhanded compliment with an actual one. “I didn’t find this pond to be all that little.”

“It’s a decent place to grow into the shark you need to be for when you come home and try your hand at more professional endeavors,” my mother clarifies helpfully, tapping on her phone. “Oh, Geoffrey, Lucille won’t be able to make the appointment tomorrow.”

Cece sighs at our mother—even her
sighs
are English. “Quit trying to force poor Desdemona into doing something she doesn’t want to do. There’s room for all sorts of actors in this world. Some like the bite and the fight of the north. Some like the calm and the palms of the south.” She smirks cheekily at me. “I came up with that one on my own.”

I bite my lip, unsure whether this is a fight I want to pick or not.

Then my dad says something unexpected. “I think what your mom and sister are trying to tell you, sweetheart, is that you did a very fine job tonight, and you should be damn proud of yourself. And,” he adds, throwing an arm around me and yanking me into him for a side-hug, like I’m the son he never had and just won the ballgame, “I appreciate you, Dessie. I’m alive and I want to appreciate every little moment while I’m able to.” He kisses the top of my head. “Job well done.”

I survey the expressions of my mother and sister. For this brief moment, my mother’s still gripping her phone, but her eyes are on me, and my sister’s wearing that annoyingly tight and uncomfortable smile, but she also seems to look upon me with a sweetness that’s so rare, I thought she outgrew it at age ten.

“Thanks,” I tell them. “All of you. It means so much, really, truly. Oh, Mom,” I blurt suddenly. “You got a program, right?”

She pops open her purse and fishes it out. “This thing?”

Yes, that folded piece of nothing-paper
. My mom’s so used to the professionally printed playbills that she likely hasn’t seen a folded paper program since 1996. “Can you do me a favor?” I ask her. “Sign your name on it, then write, ‘To Victoria,’ and put something inspiring. It’s for my hall mate.”

She smirks knowingly, then takes out a pen from her purse and scribbles dramatically on the paper. When she hands it to me, the front reads:
To Victoria, something inspiring. A friend of Dessie’s is a friend of mine. Winona Lebeau
.

I smile, clutching that program close. My mother’s sense of humor is still alive after all.

“I really wish we had more time, you sweet thing,” murmurs my mother, “but the car and driver are waiting outside for us to catch the red eye back to New York. Your sister and I are heading to London Monday and have so many things to get done this weekend before we set off, but we couldn’t
bear
to miss your opening night.”

“I know,” I mutter miserably. Funny, I was dreading them coming, and now I’m dreading them going.

“We will see you soon for winter break,” my father murmurs quietly to me, “and I do promise, I won’t meddle. No special treatments. If it’s your wish to stay here at Klangburg, you have my support.”

“Thanks,” I say back, unable to help the feeling that something is missing from this whole pleasant experience.

“Geoffrey, we’ll miss our flight.”

“Oh, honey,” he sighs with mock annoyance. “Can’t we waste a few more dear minutes with our daughter?” He brings me in for another tight hug, then says, “And do give my props to the lighting designer.”

I smirk into my dad’s chest. “He took off back to New York with his tail tucked, I’m afraid.”

“The
other
lighting designer,” he amends.

My forehead screws up in confusion.
Clayton?
But before I’m able to ask the question, he pulls away and my mother and sister are given room to float forth for their stiff farewell hugs and birdlike kisses. Then, not two moments later, I’m standing outside the glass windows and waving goodbye as they disappear into the night like three peculiar ghosts, my heart heavy and my eyes suddenly deciding they want to spill all that emotion I was supposed to have onstage.

A pretty chime from my pocket startles me, disrupting the calm of the night breeze. I look down at the screen.

SAM

sorry i didn’t see you

after the show.

we waited around for a bit

but you were with your family.

thank you for the tickets.

tomas is cool, i guess.

we are at the dorm.

please knock if you come back.

i think he might kiss me.

i dunno.

I giggle, staring at the text. I’m so happy for Sam that I could cry.

I’m a second from putting my phone away when suddenly it starts to ring. I stare at it defiantly. Someone’s calling me? Who the hell uses phones anymore to actually
call
someone? I bring it into view and find my dad’s headshot staring back at me.

I bring it to my ear. “Did you forget something?”

“Your mother was in such a hurry to leave, I did forget something. It was something I wanted to tell you.”

I hear my mother scoff at him in the background. “I wasn’t in a hurry,
Geoffrey
, but if you’re just so desperate to miss our flight …”

“What’d you forget to tell me?” I ask, pressing through my mom’s fussing.

“I had an experience in the bathroom at intermission,” he says.

I wince. “You guys had Tex-Mex for lunch? Am I sure I want to hear about this?”

He guffaws through the phone, deep and heartily. “No, sweetheart. Marv took us out for a nice dinner before the show. My experience involved running into the fellow who ran the lights and, apparently, finished the job that Kellen did not. I got to brush up a bit on my ASL, which I hadn’t used since Great Aunt Esther passed away.”

I was so young when she died, I forgot that she was deaf.

“Seems we’re all skilled in the business of not appreciating what we have when we have it,” he remarks. “Fine-looking young man. He had quite a lot to say about what he thought of
your
talent. I didn’t know you’d taken to singing again in your spare time, sweetheart.”

I clutch at my chest.
Clayton and my dad …?
“I have,” I confess. “I go to a local hangout and … and there’s these musicians …” I swallow. “He told you about that?”

“He’s quite a fan of your music, even without being able to hear it. That’s quite a feat, if you ask me!” he adds with a laugh. “You know, the Lebeau talent can come in many forms. I don’t think we’ve had a singer in the family since your late grandmother. Oh, the set of cords on that powerhouse of a woman. Dessie,” he murmurs over my mother scrupulously directing the driver in the background, “regardless of its form, you have a voice, and you belong in the Theatre world. Whether you act, or sing, or do it all, you have a spot on that stage, sweetheart.”

Tears have a whole new reason to touch my eyes now. “Thank you.”

“Anyway, that young man’s got it right. I might add that he has a strong artistic voice himself, if that act three was any indication. Marv ought to know the lighting talent that’s hiding under his nose.” My dad sighs happily into the phone, then says, “Stay safe down here in Texas, sweetie. We’ll call you later when we land.”

“Love you, Dad.”

“Don’t ever say I pulled a string. You earned and
owned
that stage tonight, sweetheart, and you’ll own the next.” Then, after that, silence.

I hug my phone for a moment before finally putting it away for good. I take a deep breath, trying to push away the image of my dad and Clayton sharing a bathroom bonding experience. I could almost laugh, if I weren’t feeling so strangely brokenhearted.

When I push back into the theater to get my things, I find the lobby cleared except for two or three stragglers who are laughing loudly and chatting with Eric. He turns around and calls out, “Are you hitting up the
Throng
tonight, D-lady?”

I shake my head no. “Opening night wore me out,” I say lamely. “I think I’m just gonna head back to my dorm room and interrupt my roommate trying to make out with a bassoonist.”

He winces disappointedly. “Maybe tomorrow night, then.”

“Great job tonight,” I reiterate before pushing into the hallway.

Only three people are left in the dressing room by the time I return. I pack away my makeup and stow all my things into the cabinet above my station, figuring it to be safe there for tomorrow night’s show. With a smirk, I drop by the costumes rack and find Victoria’s crew apron hanging there. I roll up the autographed program and stash it into the apron pocket; that’ll prove to be a most welcome surprise.

Then, I give my tired face one last, long look in the mirror before dismissing myself from the room with an unsatisfied sigh.

Whipping around the corner, I make my trek down the long hall to the lobby, only to find it completely empty now. Even Eric and his friends have taken off. I stare at the vacant chairs for a while, lost in the memory of how noisy and awful it was just thirty or forty minutes ago.

Why does the silence feel so much louder?

“Dessie.”

I turn. Clayton stands there by the auditorium doors dressed in his crew blacks: a black t-shirt that pulls across his chest, black slacks that hang loose at his hips, and a pair of black boots that give his feet such a dominant quality. He wears a leather cuff around one wrist, too, which I notice when his hand goes up to the wall, bracing himself as he leans against it.

And my eyes meet his, dark and focused on me as if he’d been watching me all night. Well, he had been—from the lighting booth.

“Clayton,” I return.

“If your parents could hear you sing,” he says, shaking his head. “If they could see what you do to a room full of people with that beautiful voice of yours …”

“You ran into my dad in the restroom.”