Reign (19 page)

The thing she did not expect to find was Dennis sitting in the office suite, laughing and talking animatedly with John Steinberg and an older woman she did not recognize. It was the first place she had gone on not finding Dennis in their apartment, and as she entered, Dennis was sitting on the sofa with the stranger, his back to Robin. John was the only one of the three to see her come in, and he wiped tears from his eyes and gave one final chuckle before he acknowledged her presence.

"Robin," he said, "welcome back. We're just swapping old war stories."

When Dennis turned, she knew that something had changed. He looked surprised to see her, but there was something else there, something that she did not immediately recognize because she had never seen it on Dennis's face before. He looked, she slowly realized, guilty. And when Robin looked in turn at the woman on the couch next to him (not touching, but
close
, yes, close), she thought she saw the same emotion (but less obvious, oh yes, this was a
cool
one).

"Hello, darling," Dennis said. He stood up, hugged her, and kissed her, but she was aware of a self-consciousness about his action, as though he wished he did not have to do so. Dennis was a marvelous actor, as she often told him, but she knew him intimately enough to know precisely when he was acting, and now was one of the infrequent times. Nevertheless, she responded to his kiss with more passion than she would have otherwise, pressing herself against him with the wary tension of an animal marking its domain against interlopers.

She broke away then, and looked at the woman. "I don't think we've met," Robin said, unable to hide the smugness in her tone, the subtext of
See? This is
my
man
.

Too smug
, Robin thought as John Steinberg leapt into the conversational breach like a handler separating pit bulls. "Of course. Let me make the introductions. Robin, this is Ann Deems, our new production assistant. Ann, Robin Hamilton, Dennis's wife, as you may have surmised from the warmth with which they have just embraced."

Was there a dig in that? Robin couldn't tell, but she didn't think so. It wasn't like John to bait her. Other than an ironic aside from time to time, he had never unleashed his witty but savage cruelty upon her. She realized that she must be looking for things to irritate her, and that thought made her even more irritable.

Ann stood up, smiled and nodded. "I'm delighted to be working here, Mrs. Hamilton. It's such a wonderful building."

"Oh, it's home," Robin said, trying to smile as warmly as she knew how. "And please, call me Robin."

"One big happy family, that's us," said Steinberg.

"I'm sorry I didn't come along to meet you," Dennis said, a hand on her shoulder. "I was feeling a little off today."

"You seem all right now."

"Yes, well, John wanted me to look at a few things here, and we got talking, and . . ."

"And," Steinberg continued, "laughter being the best medicine, we decided to set the lad right in time for your arrival home."

"Well, thank you. I appreciate it." She put her arm around Dennis's waist. "It was nice meeting you, Ann, but if you'll excuse us, there's so much that I want to catch up on with Dennis. All right, darling?"

"Sure," he said. "Let's go up. It's good to have you back again."

Is it?
she thought, but only smiled and left the room, Dennis following her.

When they were in their suite, the first thing she did was to hand him a script of
Craddock
and put the cassette they had made in New York in the tape deck. As the first song began to play, the composer's reedy but not unpleasant voice piping over her commanding piano playing, Robin sat next to Dennis on one of the sofas and put her arm around him.

They listened for a few minutes, Dennis nodding his satisfaction, smiling at the occasional lyrical
bon mot
. As the first song ended, Robin finally spoke. "Did you know her before?"

"Who?" He was good, but not good enough to fool her.

"Ann Deems. She seems very nice."

"Well, yes, I did know her, oh, years ago."

Robin felt something heavy in the pit of her stomach. "You never mentioned her before."

She felt him shrug. "Why should I have?"

"You seemed to be very friendly."

"
Jesus
, Robin! Is this an interrogation? I knew a lot of people before I met you!" He pushed her away, and with the action, all the anger seemed to go out of him, leaving him confused and pale. He shook his head, it seemed to her, as though he had no understanding of his previous outburst. "I'm sorry," he said. "I don't know what came over me . . ."

"No," Robin said, struggling to keep her own anger in check. "I don't either."

"I knew Ann . . . I knew Ann Deems when we started
A Private Empire
back in '66. We dated a few times, here in Kirkland, that was all. She applied for the job, she was qualified, she was hired — I didn't even know about it until later."

Robin knew she had gone too far. The jealous wife was a role she had never played before, and did not want to play, and she regretted it, as she regretted the hurt look on Dennis's face. Maybe she had been wrong about what she had sensed in the office suite. Maybe Dennis had just been surprised to see her, and she had imagined the rest. Robin could be very imaginative.

"I'm sorry, darling," she said, putting her arms around his neck and pressing herself against him. "I'm not jealous, really. I was just curious, that's all. I know that I have
no
reason to be jealous." She rubbed her hands down his back, cupping his buttocks. "God, it seemed like I was away from you a long time."

He was smiling now, his eyes halfway closed, and his own hands ran up and down her sides. She moved away from him just enough to allow him to caress her breasts. "I missed you too."

"Let's go in the bedroom," she whispered, following the words with a soft lick of her tongue just behind his left ear. She would make him forget that Ann Deems had ever existed.

Their lovemaking was impatient, urgent, and both reached orgasm quickly. After the final kisses, Dennis drifted to sleep, but Robin's thoughts were too full. She looked at the clock, saw that it was only two-thirty, and, although she knew she would have benefitted from a nap, arose quietly, dressed, and walked down the stairway to the second floor, from which she went to the mezzanine of the theatre.

The vast auditorium was empty and quiet, dimly lit by recessed lights at the sides of the ceiling. Robin thought she could hear music playing, but the sound was so elusive that she could not determine its origin. From the mezzanine, she walked up toward the top row of the balcony, a trip she took several times a day, often in exercise clothes. There was nothing better for the legs, she had been told, than to climb long flights of stairs at a brisk clip. Now, however, she wanted to ascend to have a place to think, an aerie from which she could theoretically look down, godlike, on the world below. She did not like what she saw.

Rather, she did not like the drama her imagination constructed, the impending romance played out upon the screen of her mind.

It was romance and imagination that had drawn Robin McKenzie to the theatre. It was the closest she could come to living in the fantasies she imagined. And finally, one of those fantasies had come true — that elegant, exciting fantasy of the chorus girl marrying the star. But now, a fantasy far more pure was coming to light.

A lost love had returned.

It was absurd, she told herself. It was like being jealous of her own mother. For God's sake, the woman had to be in her forties. What could she offer Dennis?

And the answer came. While Robin could offer him only the pale substitute of her own youth, Ann Deems could offer him the emotions he had felt when he himself was young. She could restore the feelings of his youth, of the times when he was innocent and truly happy. Robin found no reassurance in the fact that what she had to offer was truth, and what Ann Deems had was illusion, for from the first time she had met him, Dennis Hamilton had always chosen illusion.

It was not until the second week of rehearsals for the 1981 revival of
A Private Empire
that she had even set eyes on Dennis Hamilton. The chorus had, by that time, set all their work in the production numbers, and the time had finally come to fit the principals into the mob scenes. That morning, Quentin Margolis had entered the Broadway Arts rehearsal studio with Dennis and Naomi Weiss, the Austrian film actress who was playing
Lise
, the female lead, and several of the principal players. Robin had never seen Dennis in person before, although she watched the film version of the musical every chance she got. To her, at nineteen, Dennis Hamilton was a man dreams were made of, and, from the age of twelve on, she had watched all his other movies as well, whenever they appeared on television. So now she looked on him with the eyes of impressed youth, and he was well worth looking at. At 34, he was trim, muscular, and handsome, and there was no gray in his red hair. The frown lines on his forehead were deep for his years, and, noticing that, Robin fell into the attitude of worshipful solicitude that would permanently mark her relationship with Dennis.

But he did not notice her. Not once did she find him looking her way. Rather, his interest was divided between the mechanics of the rehearsal and Tanya Pearson, another dancer whose face and form were abetted by what Robin considered to be a severe overuse of makeup and a blatant underuse of rehearsal togs. She looked, one of the gay singers remarked, like a Republican's wet dream.

If that was the case, Dennis Hamilton was a Republican. Tanya Pearson was the most artificial looking woman in the studio that day. Even Naomi Weiss (who left the show two months after the opening, unable to deal with what she felt to be Dennis's turbulent ego) couldn't hope to compete with Tanya's studied theatricality. During the breaks, it was Tanya to whom Dennis spoke, and, by the end of the day, touched, with a gallant arm thrown comradely around her shoulder. Robin assumed they became lovers, but was never sure. In any case, Dennis tired of her quickly, and Tanya followed in Naomi Weiss's footsteps several months later.

Despite Dennis's apparent predilection for bimbos, Robin was still very happy to be working in his company. He was not one of those irritating actors who she had already come across in her brief career who began to get into character a long time before they ever step on stage, becoming withdrawn and frequently obnoxious. In contrast, Dennis could go from an animated conversation about films, politics, or baseball directly on stage and be completely in character in an instant.

Of course, in a way Dennis was never
out
of character. In public and in rehearsal, he acted like an emperor, and it was being able to see behind that fa
ç
ade that finally endeared him to Robin. She was perceptive enough to know that what she and the rest of the world was seeing was not the real Dennis Hamilton, that beneath the guise of imperiousness was just another frightened human being who needed love like anyone else.

It was not, however, until the show went on the road that she began to actually get close to Dennis. Until that time, she wasn't even certain that he knew her name, although everyone else did. Robin was funny and thoughtful, and helped keep the company at ease. It was she who remembered everyone's birthday, who posted photos of celebrities with humorous typed captions or word balloons on the cast bulletin board, who was always the first to welcome a new chorus member into the dressing room. She was, in short, everyone's friend, and it was only a matter of time before she became Dennis's as well.

The first time he talked to her at length was on Robin's twenty-first birthday, when they had already been on the road for a year. They were playing Seattle, and Robin had brought in several boxes of doughnuts and placed them on a table outside the chorus dressing rooms. It was a half hour before curtain and Robin, having come early, was already in costume and makeup. She was just placing the napkins when Dennis came up to her, also ready for the performance, and asked what was the occasion.

"My birthday," she replied, somewhat embarrassed.

"Your birthday?" Dennis said in the patronizing voice he used with the dancers. "And how old is our little girl today?"

"Twenty-one."

He looked surprised. "Really? I don't mean to offend, but I thought you were older. You've been in the show since the beginning, haven't you?"

"Yes, but I was only nineteen then."

"A lucky lady to get such an early start."

She thought about it before she said it. "And lucky to get in this show too."

He cocked his head. "Lucky? Why?"

"I've always admired your work."

"Ah! Not only is she pretty, she has good taste as well." He chuckled self-deprecatingly. When he stopped, the soft smile remained. "Robin, isn't it." She nodded. "You're the one who puts the funny pictures on the board?" She nodded again. "You've got a wonderful sense of humor. Where were you when we needed more jokes in the script back in '66?"

Now it was her turn to smile. "In nursery school."

"
Ooo
." He winced. "Did I say sense of humor or acerbic wit? You make me feel old."