CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Storm
Theo
I became CEO of Darcy Entertainment six years ago, making this my sixth gala where I opened the show. I could remember each speech. I never questioned what my speechwriters prepared, and I sure as hell didn’t stick around for the whole thing. Anywhere was better than here, but today there was no place I’d rather have been. My tie was straight and my hair combed. I stood on the corner of the stage, fixing my cuff links. I wanted to give a good speech, and in the back of my mind, I heard Felicity telling me not to bullshit it. This morning we had done nothing but talk. It had been completely uneventful yet satisfying, leaving me even now going over what she thought I should say. Part of me wondered what the hell had happened to me? Who I’d been a few weeks ago, and who I was at this very moment, felt light years apart. And it was all because of Felicity Harper.
“Ladies and gentlemen, Darcy Entertainment CEO and Hollywood director, Theodore Darcy,” the announcer said, and on cue, I walked onto the black-and-gold stage.
The lights were so bright I could barely see the people in the audience or the teleprompter, but I didn’t care. Stepping up to the microphone, waiting for the thundering round of applause to lessen, I stood with my hands behind my back and leaned forward to speak.
“It was Plato who said that music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything. Aristotle believed the aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things but their inward significance. My grandfather, who most likely stole this from some other wise man, said to me the greatness of the arts come from its ability to move even the coldest of hearts. Hearts like mine. I grew up in Hollywood, saw everyone and everything imaginable. So moving me is damn near impossible, or at least I believed so until I met a young musician and dancer who, just a few short weeks ago, spent her mornings pouring coffee, her afternoons as a janitor for high school students, and her nights as a credit card call operator. Tonight she dances for all of you and serves as reminder that talent lurks in the most common and unexpected of places, that what we do and create is not just for ourselves but those around us. That the arts are undoubtedly beautiful.”
The applause I got now made the applause I’d received at the beginning seem almost pitiful. The lights dimmed as I walked offstage, the camera no longer focused on me.
“What happened to Violet?” my mother hissed, taking my arm in shock and confusion.
No one but the dancers knew about what had happened with Violet. Everything was riding on this one moment. I never got nervous over anything, yet for the first time in my life, my palms were sweaty.
Felicity
9:45 p.m.
“Felicity, breathe!” I was in the wings, and Walt was holding on to me.
“I’m going to screw this up. Go get Melrose—”
He shook me. “Please don’t make me smack you right now.”
“Walt, I can’t do this. It’s crazy—”
“My brother just went on camera and told the world you moved his heart, and if you back out now, he’d be completely embarrassed. Hell, someone people will call him a flat-out liar.”
I knew he was saying it to get a rise out of me, but it was also true, and I didn’t want that. But I also didn’t want to screw up in front of everyone.
“Dance for yourself, Felicity. Screw everyone. If you mess up, fuck it—just dance again,” he said as if he could read my mind.
Dear God, it’s Felicity. I know I don’t talk to you, like ever, but please, please, do not let me screw this up. When the lights dimmed, I took a deep breath, fighting the urge to puke. Hands shaking and head spinning, I inhaled deeply. Melrose came up beside me, her red hair pulled back. She gave my hand a tight squeeze before letting go and running out onto the dark stage.
There was no going back now.
Theo
It looked like the dancers were caught in whirlwind, they glided so easily over the stage. The women were dressed in long, flowing white dresses, while the men’s pants were made to be loose as well. Felicity’s music opened up the scene like the calm before a storm. The sound of the wind pushing the dancers on their tip toes from one edge of the stage to the other. Over and over their bodies spun, as if they were caught up in the wind and being lifted off the ground. Two dancers met in the middle, and they leaped into the air hand-in-hand, legs together to the other side of the stage.
There was crash of thunder, then darkness, and when the light appeared, so did Felicity, dressed in the same flowing dress as everyone else, only black, her honey-brown hair down. She took one step forward, then two, then ran to the front of the stage, the back of her dress rising in the simulated wind, the music quickening.
She spun and spun and spun, to the point where I couldn’t even see her face clearly. She had become the storm.
“Wow,” my mother said beside me, clapping her hands along with a few others. “She’s good.”
She wasn’t just good, she was amazing. She was the only one I could see. The whole point of the dance was that she was the storm terrorizing the other dancers. A dark smirk crossed her lips as she leaped beside them while they danced. She mirrored their steps perfectly, better than them, and in the process pushed them slowly toward the edges of the stage so she could command the middle. Each time a dancer came close, she circled around them, getting in their faces, as if to taunt them, and each one of them would back down. It was all part of the villain she was playing on stage. The rivalry in dancing, the sport of it all, was all part of the piece Walt had put together.
Finally having the center to herself, she performed better than I had ever seen her. But most of all I couldn’t look away from the smile on her face. It was all about her until the rest of the dancers came rushing back, surrounding her. She spun one way and they spun another. They closed in on her like walls trapping her in the middle. She stopped glancing around them as they slowly creeped up on her with no escape… but to jump over.
It was the hardest move in the whole piece. I found myself sitting up. Come on, Felicity.
She backed away slowly, almost fading into the background, then charged the line, throwing herself over their heads.
Shit. She’s too high. She’s not going to make it down well.
Even my mother gasped, because for split seconds, it looked like she was flying. But she came down perfectly.
My jaw dropped, and everyone applauded as if it were over, but they kept going.
“Did she have a wire?” Arthur whispered, leaning over Lorelai to talk to me.
I shook my head. No, it had been all her.
Finally, all the dancers were behind her, and their feet moved so fast it was hard to believe. Like a swarm of bees or a parade of drums, they were all in sync.
The music stopped once again, and Felicity held her position, smiled for the audience, and then ran to the back of the stage with one final leap before disappearing for a few seconds. When she returned she had changed, now wearing shorts, a black shirt, and another shirt around her waist. On her feet were sneakers and thigh-high red socks.
She walked upstage as if she were on a catwalk. Then she clapped twice for the music to change. Two of our R&B and hip hop artists came out from the sides of the stage. The dancers behind her had changed as well.
I’d had no idea she was doing this number.
All the soft gracefulness was gone. Now she danced hard and fast. She shook her shoulders, bending down to the music, her waist twisting at the same time.
Holy shit was all I could think when our eyes locked and she gave me a small wink. I wanted nothing more than to grab her and take her in every possible way. She and a few of the other dancers even jumped into the audience. I didn’t even realize how strongly I was fixated on her until someone accidentally stepped on my shoe. Everyone was up on his or her feet. Even my parents.
She’d done it.
Getting up, I squeezed past my parents. Buttoning up the top of my jacket, I headed toward backstage. I grinned when I saw how alive everyone was, cheering her on. Shaking my head at them, even though I couldn’t help the smile from my face, I met up with Nolan, who gave me the large bouquet of roses and a bottle of water.
“Am I a genius or am I genius, brother?” Walt clapped his hands together over his head, dancing his away over to me with the fattest grin on his face. “We did it!”
“No, Walt, you did it. You are a genius,” I admitted, giving him his five minutes of praise.
“I wish I could say it was all me.” He smiled. “But it was all her.”
The routine came to an end. I wished she’d get a chance to stop and accept applause, or have people throw roses at her feet, but it wasn’t that type of event. So she wouldn’t get them on stage, but the moment she stepped behind the curtain, everyone applauded.
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Thank you,” she gasped between breaths, standing straighter. “Thank you all so much.”
She put her hands on her face the moment she saw the flowers and cried so hard her body shook.
“You were amazing,” I said, giving her a small hug.
She pulled her hands from her face, her eyes red, taking a deep breath and accepting the flowers from me. “Thank you, Theo. For everything, thank you.”
“Didn’t I tell you? You never have to say thank you to me.”
Before they could speak, someone clapped even though everyone else had stopped by then.
We both turned to see Violet standing there in a dark purple dress, her dark hair pulled back. “You were great, Felicity—”
“Thank you, Violet.” Felicity turned to face her. “Coming from you, it means a lot.”
“You have to forgive me. I just never thought someone like you could ever pull something like this off, but then again your mother was Amelia Ford.”
I didn’t know who that was, but a few dancers seemed to. They gasped, their heads snapping to Felicity, who stared at Violet in shock.
Violet took another step forward. “Your real name is Felicity Harper Ford, isn’t it? Daughter to New York Governor Daniel Ford.”
“Stop,” Felicity said, glaring at her.
But Violet didn’t stop. “I should have known. You look just like her!”
“Violet, that is enough. You need to go,” I said.
She laughed, shaking her head at me. “She’s been lying to you this whole time, Theo! She isn’t some struggling twenty-something. Her family is loaded! But that isn’t the even the icing on the cake.”
Felicity started toward the exit.
“You were at Juilliard until you had a breakdown!” Violet yelled. “Just like your mother. What did she have? Oh, that’s right. Schizophrenia!”
The roses I had given her slipped from her hand, and there were tears in her eyes.
“No….” She shook her head.
“You have it too! You went crazy. They say you got into a car accident and thought you hit your own mother. They found you holding onto yourself, crying ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry….’”
“I hit someone and went to juvie,” Felicity yelled back.
“Juvie?” Violet laughed. “Since when is Golden Crossroads Hospital a juvenile detention facility? It cost two grand a night, and you were there for three years. You’re really insane, aren’t you?”
Felicity stood there for a second, her mouth open, and looked around in confusion, tears rolling down her cheeks.
“You’re wrong,” she stammered before running.
“Felicity!” I started to race after her, but Violet clenched on to my arm.
“Let her go!” she yelled.
I pulled away from her so hard she stumbled backward.
“DO NOT EVER TOUCH ME!” I hollered in her face.
“Theo, she’s insane, like medically—”
“The only insane person I saw here tonight was you! You’ve always been selfish, Violet. But I didn’t realize you were cruel too. What did this serve, embarrassing her in front of all these people? What do you get out of it other than being a fucking bitch who still can never dance?”
She looked to me like I had slapped her. “She was lying to everyone.”
“The only thing we ever cared about was her dancing,” Walter said. “And she never lied about that.”
“Violet, get the hell out of my building. Don’t contact me or my family or anyone else close to me. You are not welcome. You are nothing,” I said to her before leaving to chase after Felicity.
The first place I went was her dressing room, not bothering to knock before entering, but it was empty, her bag still on the counter. I heard beeping from her old cell phone.
She had one missed call from Rosemary—I remembered her from the diner. But that wasn’t the strange thing. When I flipped open the phone, it took me to her caller ID list. There were calls to me, Rosemary, her boss Manny, but the calls she’d made to Cleo and Mark hadn’t lasted more than three seconds.
I dialed Mark. “The number you’ve reached is out of service. Please hang up and try again.”
I dialed Cleo. “The number you’ve reached—”
I moved to her text messages and wished to god I hadn’t.
Cleo, I’m sorry, okay? Please come tonight?
This service provider cannot receive texts.
Ha, yes, I’ll finally drink again with you. I had them reserve a seat for you and Mark.
This service provider cannot receive texts.
Just be happy I got you these seats, and it’s not the opera. There is no skybox.
This service provider cannot receive texts.
“Umm… sir?” The event coordinator was at the door. “Are you all right? Your eyes…”
I glanced in the mirror and sure enough, there were tears streaming down my face. Other than the sting in my eye, I couldn’t feel it. Wiping my eyes, I nodded. “I need you to check if two reserve guests came in,” I said sternly.
“Names?” she said, typing on her tablet.
“Cleo or Mark….” I glanced at the phone to see their last names. “Owens.”
“Sorry, sir, neither of those two people has checked in yet.”
I nodded. Cleo and Mark weren’t real people. They were hallucinations that Felicity truly believed were only her friends.
She was schizophrenic.
****
“Her real name is Felicity Harper Ford,” the man beside me repeated, placing the background check I had done on her so long ago in front of me. “Her mother was Amelia Ford, a very famous dancer in New York and abroad. She suffered from schizophrenia and died of a heart attack when Ms. Felicity was a child. Her father remarried about six months later, and she pretty much lived a regular life. She focused on her music and dance. Then one day, while out with her friends, they got into a car accident. Ms. Ford had a breakdown on the side of the street. She kept screaming for someone to call the police, that they’d killed her. There was no one there. They ran into a light pole. Her father sent her to Golden Crossroads Hospital, where she stayed until she was eighteen. She took part of her inheritance and then disappeared. She’s drained most of the money from her bank accounts, spending it on clothes. Oddly enough, a few of them were men’s clothes. It’s like she’s throwing out money with one hand and then working to replace it.”
“You can go now,” I told him, leaning into the backseat of my car as he opened the door and exited.
I thought of everything she’d told me, how hurt she was about taking someone else’s life, and none of it was true. Not because she lied but because she had honestly believed that was her story. That meant she’d been alone for almost a decade, talking to herself or her hallucinations, and no one had realized because no one got close enough to her to know something was off.
“Sir, where to?”
It was a simple question, the answer more complicated than I could even imagine.