Left alone, Terri looked at the doorway through which her mother had passed, then at the blank screen of the huge TV. In a way that she could barely admit to herself, she felt jealous of her mother, for both the things she had and the things she had not had.
Men were not part of the equation. Terri had had men, and in abundance. In college, sex had come easily and, for the most part, happily to her. It was also carefree, for she carried her own condoms, and would not consider sex without them. Her partners were willing to trade off increased sensitivity for ease of access, so Terri was seldom left wanting sexual companionship.
What she was left wanting, however, was romance, something with which she believed her mother had lived all her life. Ann had told her long before about having known and dated Dennis Hamilton, although she had never given her any details. Around this skeletal framework Terri had constructed a legend. She had seen the film version of A Private Empire, and had even seen Dennis in the New York revival back in 1982. She remembered her father telling her mother that they should go backstage, that Dennis would surely remember her, but Ann refused. At the time, Terri thought it was because Ann had made the whole story up, but later realized that seeing the two men she loved together would have been too difficult.
So, through the years, Terri thought about her mother and Dennis Hamilton, about their young love that, on her mother's part at least, she knew had lasted. And as that love became less of an unattainable dream and more of an attainable ideal, so Terri's anger and jealousy grew toward her mother. Now, with the knowledge that they had seen each other again, she was torn between the joy she knew she should feel for her mother, and the jealousy that was the reality. For Ann to have two romances in her life, while Terri had never come close to even one, seemed selfish in the extreme, and Terri, despite Ann's best efforts, had been raised by a spoiling and doting father to be as selfish as possible.
What Ann had, Terri wanted, and, if it could be gotten, she would get it. When Thursday came, she would go with her mother, she would meet Marvella Johnson, and maybe, just maybe, she would meet Dennis Hamilton too.
Terri got up from the couch, went over to the wall full of videotapes, and took A Private Empire from its storage box. Putting on the earphones so her mother would not hear, she began to watch the film.
Dennis Hamilton really had been a beautiful young man, she thought, and wondered what changes the intervening years had made. She wondered if he was still handsome, then looked more closely at the perfect face of the bearded young man that filled the screen, and felt sure that he was.
She would like working for Marvella Johnson, she thought. Yes, she would like everything about the Venetian Theatre.
Everything.
Scene 8
Donna Franklin liked everything about the Venetian Theatre too. Everything except Abe Kipp and going to the fourth and fifth floors by herself. She didn't know how Marvella was able to live there alone. She did have Whitney, but in a few weeks, perhaps, the girl would be gone, and Marvella would have that suite and those long halls all to herself – and to Abe Kipp's ghosts.
Not that that would bother Marvella. Though at times she played the comic darkie, it was only in a way that poked fun at the old, tired, white man's stereotype, never at herself or her race. In truth, she was the least superstitious person Donna had ever met. Her imagination was bounded by fabric and sketches, and had no room for ghosts.
Donna didn't believe in ghosts either, but there was something about the upper floors, the fifth floor in particular, that poured tension into her like a stream of ice, and caused the pressure in her bladder that had always been the physical manifestation of Donna's anxieties. She thought the feeling was due to knowing that the place had once been a hospital, where people had suffered and died in pain.
Shaking the thought from her mind, she continued down the hall. After all, she was on the fourth floor now, a floor that was already occupied by Marvella and Whitney, and would soon be the temporary homes of others as well. The presence of people here would surely banish whatever theatrical or medical spirits still remained.
She paused where the hall turned, and examined the two doors at right angles to each other. One would be Dex Colangelo's suite, the other Quentin Margolis's, when the two men came down to Kirkland for the rehearsals of whatever show was chosen. Today Donna was to examine the rooms and determine which should be bedrooms, living rooms, kitchenettes and the like. They had been only dorm rooms for the orphan school years before, as had the suites on the third floor. But walls had been battered down so that the dozens of tiny, individual rooms (little better than cells, Donna thought) had become the spacious and elegant suites in which they all now lived. She unlocked the door on the left, turned on her flashlight, and entered.
The smell of old plaster and damp wallpaper hung heavy in the air, although in the flashlight's gleam the place looked clean enough, the rubble of the pulled-down walls removed, the dust swept away. To Donna's left was a windowless room that she thought could serve as a kitchen/dinette. She turned to the right and walked down a narrow hall, from the end of which daylight was coming, to find two more rooms, the first with windows at the far end only, which would make a decent bedroom, and the second with windows on two walls, which would be perfect, she thought, for Dex's living room, since there was plenty of space for a piano. The bath could go wherever the existing plumbing system allowed. Donna jotted down a rough layout on her clipboard, then capped her fountain pen and turned to walk out.
She had not taken a step before she knew that someone was in the suite with her. The door, which she could see from where she stood, was closed, and she was sure she had left it open so that the light from the hall would help illuminate the interior. Also, she thought she detected the steady sound of someone breathing, normally the quietest of sounds, but terribly loud now in the deathlike stillness of the dark rooms. Whoever it was, she thought, didn't care if she knew he was there or not, and she wasn't sure if that made her feel more or less comfortable.
Donna stood there for what seemed like many minutes, her flashlight dark. Then she decided that this standoff, if standoff it was, had to end, and she called out, with more courage than she felt, 'Hey, who's there?' It could, after all, be Harry Ruhl, who would probably be more scared than she was.
After a moment's silence, the answer came. 'Me.' And Donna breathed a sigh of relief, recognizing the deep, warm voice of Dennis Hamilton.
' Jesus, Dennis,' she said, as she flicked on her flashlight, 'you nearly scared the hell out of -' But her words choked as the light shone on his face.
It was Dennis, but it was a far different Dennis than the one she expected to see. There was nothing soft and vulnerable about this face that stared at her out of the darkness, nothing yielding about those eyes that caught the flashlight's glare and turned it to red. The eyes were those of a cat, the face that of a wolf, and Donna found she could not speak. Never before had she felt so hunted, as though she were nothing but prey for the man who stood before her.
It took her a moment to realize what he was wearing, and had it not been for the shining gold buttons she might not have noticed. It was his uniform coat, the uniform coat that he had worn in innumerable performances as the Emperor Frederick.
~* ~
(THE EMPEROR wears not only the coat, but the jodhpurs and boots as well. The saber hangs by his side.)
THE EMPEROR
Did you find the bedroom?
DONN
(Slowly) Yes… the second room.
THE EMPEROR
Let's look. Let's look… together (He begins to move toward her DONNA turns her back on him, as if with great courage, and leads him into the room. Sunlight is shining through the dusty windows.) Dexter will like this as a bedroom.
DONNA
(Self-consciously) You're in costume.
THE EMPEROR
I am.
