Chapter 5-4
1052 Words
Bill watched Perrin work. He worried about exposing the kids to her, but he shouldn’t be. He’d also “exposed” them to every woman at the opera, both the full-timers and the artists who came in on a freelance contract for just one opera then moved on. Several had made him offers and he’d been tempted more than once, at least for a couple nights of no-strings s*x. But he’d never figured out how to actually date with the kids around. They knew his schedule as intimately as he did. Aunt Lucy’s on show nights and the occasional crisis at the opera, but nothing else. Evenings were their family-together time.
So, why was he worried about Perrin?
He’d watched her with his kids and she was great. Better than Nia or Jerimy or a half-dozen of the others at the opera? Maybe, maybe not. But they appeared comfortable around her.
Jaspar thought it was all just a lark. He’d giggled when Perrin had measured him, though she’d let Bill do the in-seam measurement while the two girls tactfully were busy down at the other end of the room. He’d eaten so much pizza that Bill was afraid he’d be sick, but instead he finally settled at one end of the worktable with a book of Kipling’s Captains Courageous that he had to read for school.
Tammy was a different matter. There was something between her and Perrin, something that he hadn’t seen happen. It was like two matadors dancing about a ring with no bull present. Testing each other cautiously yet on the same side. Tammy had followed Perrin around and watched everything she was doing, asking a lot of technical questions along the way. Bill had no idea she’d picked up so much from Jerimy and the others in costuming.
Perrin slowed down enough to show her what she was doing, but wouldn’t let her sew. “No, not the machines. These aren’t like home sewing machines. Maybe I can teach you some other time if it’s okay with your dad.”
When Tammy had complained, Perrin hadn’t turned for Bill’s support. She stepped right up to the plate, much like a good parent would.
“You can try the Singer Featherweight some other day.”
Tammy’s, “Oh man! That’s so lame!” groan only elicited a smile from Perrin.
“That’s my first sewing machine. I bought it for myself with my own money and taught myself to sew on it. Good clothing isn’t about cool machines. It starts here,” she tapped Tammy’s chest over her heart. “Later it goes here,” she tapped Tammy’s head. “Figuring out how to build it, that’s the easy part.”
Easy part. Bill remembered Jerimy’s comment about the construction of the Empress’ costume, that even seeing the finished gown he wasn’t sure how it had been done.
Perrin had pre-built both of the children’s costumes she’d shown him yesterday. Just yesterday? Didn’t the woman ever sleep?
Now she trimmed, pinned, and seamed with an easy assuredness in her own skills. No sign of the sad waif. And with shedding the leprechaun blazer, she’d also shed most of the eccentric crazy-girl.
In the wake of their departure they’d left a very pleasant woman with a crazy hair dye-job. And a very competent one.
It took less than an hour for both costumes to come together. He was shooed to the far end of the studio and forced to sit with his back to them for the final fitting. He’d seen the clothes all evening on the worktable, he didn’t know what the big deal was. But by then she had both kids on her side, and Tammy gave him one of her, “Don’t be a dork!” looks. He finally complied.
For lack of anything better to do, he began reading the Kipling. He’d forgotten the story. Two young boys, one arrogant and lost at sea, another raised on a Gloucester fishing vessel working the Grand Banks. And how the boys grew into men. He really wasn’t ready for Jaspar to be doing that, not anytime soon. No more than he was ready for Tammy to grow into a woman which was happening much faster. She—
“Okay,” he jumped when Perrin spoke close beside him.
He started to turn, but she stopped him with a quick hand on his cheek, exactly where she’d placed it yesterday as they kissed. They shared a look that proved he wasn’t the only one who’d been thinking far too much about that moment.
“Close your eyes.” He did, though reluctantly. It was the first excuse he’d found to be this close to her all day. She took his hands and guided him to his feet and back down the workroom. He squeezed her hands in his, an unobtrusive enough gesture. She stumbled. Using their shared grip, he had to steady her as she continued to lead him. He liked having that effect on her.
“Okay, are you ready?”
He nodded.
She let go then gave him permission to open his eyes.
There Jaspar stood, not merely as he’d been drawn. He’d become the youthful promise unfulfilled by the Tragic Prince. He was still so pure, hope for the future brimming over with energy and life. The contrast on stage would be shocking when the boy entered in Act II Scene II. The Prince would be abruptly diminished in the audience’s eyes, because here, embodied in Bill’s ten-year-old child, was everything the Prince had been given as a birthright but been unable to attain.
And then a young woman stepped from behind the screen. Her dark mane of red hair swept up off her shoulders. Her dark eyes watching him with a frankness and a knowledge that no child could possess. There was a tragedy about her, as if she understood her elder brother’s failure where the younger did not.
The clothes revealed nothing beyond her sweet shoulders, nothing except the promise of everything she was to become. It would be she who survived the ultimate tragedy. She who carried on to become the next Empress. This was not some young girl, this was a young woman, a woman just born from the child she’d been and discovering her own power.
“Tamara?” he managed only a whisper. He hadn’t called her by her given name since the day the woman who had given it to her died. But this was no young Tammy.
Her smile bloomed.
His children hooted, “Oh, we got you, Dad. We got you so bad.” And the two operatic figures dissolved back into his children as they threw themselves into his arms.
All Bill could manage was to hold them both tight and kiss them atop their heads.
When at last he looked up to thank her, he saw that Perrin had left the room.
- Writer
