there's a togetherness here, and I'd like you to be a part of it. I do love you, you know -'
'Come on, Dad…' He felt embarrassed. He could not remember his father telling him that, although he was sure that he must have, years ago.
'I do, Evan. I only ever wanted what I thought was best for you. Maybe I made mistakes -'
Evan laughed uncomfortably. 'Maybe is right.'
Dennis turned pale at the rebuke. 'I never meant to hurt you.'
'Dad, you never hurt me. I mean, I always knew you had my best interests at heart. Damn thing is, most of the time you were right.' He shook his head slowly. 'The service was one of my mistakes.'
'How could you know that asthma would kick up?…'
'It wasn't just asthma…' Evan's voice trailed off as he remembered the humiliation of standing in front of his squad, trying to speak, to command, the terrifying inability to fill his lungs with air, while the others watched with a mixture of bemusement, pity, and contempt.
'What, Evan?'
He heard his father's voice as if from far away, and twisted his head as if to clear it of the memories. 'Nothing. Never mind, nothing important.' He stood up and began to move around the room. He felt like a caged animal, and knew he must look like one too. 'I can't stay here, Dad. Thanks for the invitation, but I can't.'
'Why not?' Dennis's voice was pleading. It was a sharp contrast to the father he had known before, the father who would not have accepted an answer that did not please him, and it nearly weakened Evan's resolve.
'It… the time's not right, things, the situation, I just.. . need to be by myself,' he said weakly.
Dennis sat there, his eyes large with sorrow. 'Stay the night,' he said at last. 'Have dinner. Stay the night, maybe longer. Could you do that?'
'I… I guess so, yes.'
'If you need money -'
'I don't.' It was true. The severance from the Corps would see him through for a few months.
'Well… if you do, ever…” Dennis left it unfinished. 'We have a guest suite down the hall. You'll be comfortable there… for as long as you like.' Evan didn't like the implication.
'Just for tonight,' he said.
~* ~
After Sid helped him get settled in, Evan decided to take his suggestion and inspect the building complex. Evan had liked exploring theatres ever since he was old enough to walk. He liked the quietness of them, the emptiness of the vast spaces. Most of all, he liked the absence of people.
He had been exposed to crowds ever since he could remember, and he had hated them, had seen them as a protoplasmic mass with bulging eyes and reaching arms, shaking papers like guns toward his father and him, wanting autographs, a word, a handshake, as though celebrity was something contagious, and fame could be spread with a touch. His father never understood Evan's aversion to the mob, those adulatory throngs who treated Dennis, that strong and distant man whom he seldom saw, as a king. He merely accepted the acclaim and the flattery as due him. And, like a king, he had not so much fathered Evan as commanded him.
As the years passed, Evan grew used to obeying. His favorite times were when he was alone, when the crowds were dispersed, when the boarding school term was ended and he was home in the house in Beverly Hills with just his father and, best of all, Sid. It was Sid who made life with his father bearable, who acted like the brother or close friend Evan never really had.
Evan did not remember his mother, who had killed herself when he was two. She had at least had the good sense to send the toddler to stay with friends before she had downed her Seconal-Drambuie cocktail. When he went to live with his father, he had had a nanny, despite the fact that Dennis was not working with any regularity. As soon as he was old enough, he went away to boarding schools, and saw his father only on holidays and during the summers. The revival of A Private Empire took place the same year that Evan entered puberty, the result being that just when he needed a father's guidance and advice most, his father disappeared almost totally from his life.
Although his marriage to Robin initially brought Evan and Dennis closer together, they split apart, seemingly irrevocably, when Evan announced his plans to go into the Armed Forces the summer after his high school graduation. Dennis had insisted on, indeed ordered him to go to college, but instead Evan, on his eighteenth birthday, enlisted in the Marines.
Dennis had gone into a rage that promised to be perpetual, and Evan now wondered just what had happened over the past year or two to make his father so tractable. He thought it might be giving up the Emperor that had done it.
Damn the Emperor anyway, Evan thought savagely. That absurdly melodramatic personality had controlled his father's life, and Evan was delighted that it was finally gone. There had been so many times in the past when he had felt that he was not talking to his father at all, but to that damned character he had created. Evan had not seen A Private Empire on stage since he was thirteen, and had seen the movie only one time. He could not bear it.
Now, as he stood in the first row of the orchestra, he pictured his father in front of him dressed in that red costume with all the epaulets and the ribbons and the medals, and the thought made him nearly as sick as had his feeble attempts to command his squad. He closed his eyes for a moment to drive away the dizziness and the nausea and restore his breathing, and, while his imagination was in darkness, he heard a voice.
'What are you doing here?'
Startled, Evan opened his eyes and twisted around. A girl was standing halfway up the aisle. He could not see her face in the semi-darkness, but her form was slim and elegant, even in the loose-fitting pants she wore.
'Do you belong here?' she said, and advanced toward him into the light so that he could see her. Her features were small but beautifully made, and reminded him of porcelain faces, white and pink and delicate.
'I… I'm sorry,' he said. 'I'm, uh, Evan. Dennis's son.'
'Evan,' the girl repeated thoughtfully, then asked, somewhat sharply, 'Are you an actor too?'
He laughed at the suggestion. 'God, no. No way.'
Her head tilted, and he could not shake the sensation that he was being studied as if under a glass. 'Stage fright?'
How the hell did she guess that? he wondered, and then realized that his unease was all too evident. If he was this uncomfortable with one stranger, how could he ever have functioned before an audience? 'You got it,' he said.
'I'm Terri,' the girl said, coming down the aisle and holding out her hand. 'Terri Deems. I work with Marvella.' He took her hand and held it for a moment. It was cool, and her grip was firm. She shook it, then broke the contact, and smiled at him for the first time. 'So, are you going to be here for a while? Or just visiting?'
'I'm… not sure.' He grinned. 'I may stay a little longer than I'd thought.'
Already Evan was wondering what the duties of an assistant stage manager were. He was as immediately and irrationally attracted to Terri Deems as his father had been attracted to her mother a quarter of a century before.
Scene 13
Evan Hamilton's decision to remain at the Venetian Theatre was not based purely on his fascination with Terri Deems. Other inducements offered over dinner that evening were Robin's maternal urging, Sid's desire to catch up on the events of the past years, John Steinberg's assurances that Evan would be of great value to the company, and Dennis's diffident and chastised manner.
It was a novelty to Evan to have his father actually sit and listen and pay attention to what he was saying. What was even more seductive was the impression that his father was actually concerned about what Evan thought on certain subjects. It may, he considered, have been illusion, acting only, but Evan believed that his father had never before felt him important enough to even act for.
By the end of the evening, Evan accepted the blandishments of his courtiers, and agreed to remain. Curtis Wynn was called from his suite, introductions were made, and a date was set between the two for breakfast the following morning. Evan went to sleep that night thinking of Terri Deems and his father, hoping that he could grow closer to both of them.
~* ~
The next day was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and Curtis Wynn awoke early, showered, shaved, and
