Outside the theater in New Haven, people were milling under the lights of the marquee, the women all dressed up in mink and high heels. I’d never seen such glamour. I could pick out the ones who had driven up from Manhattan, and they were so perfect I almost lost my breath. I felt very Rhode Island, and was embarrassed that I’d ever imagined anyone ever saying, “Who is that beautiful red-haired girl in the blue dress?”
Delia moved stiffly through the crowd, the tickets held tight in her gloved hand. “Follow me and don’t get lost,” she instructed.
We pushed through into the lobby. It was smaller than the glittering palace I’d pictured. My nose filled with perfume and hair spray, a delicious smell.
“Wait, Delia! Can’t we —”
“Let’s find our seats. We don’t want to miss our curtain.”
“But it’s only a quarter to.”
“Shh!”
We were up in the balcony, high up, but it didn’t matter. Delia sat the way she always did — straight, her spine not touching the chair. She looked below to where the audience was beginning to file in. I craned my neck, picking out the most elegant dresses.
The lights dimmed and the music began with a swell that felt like a wave against my body. Tears instantly spurted to my eyes and ran down my cheeks. It was a waltz, but like no waltz I’d ever heard.
It was all up there, everything I knew and everything I didn’t know yet. Love and lies and cruelty and beauty, and the music that could be like a bruise way deep inside. When the curtain thundered down for intermission, I couldn’t speak for a minute.
“What do you think will happen?” I asked Delia. “Why is Billy Bigelow being such a louse when he loved Julie so much?”
“Love isn’t enough, I guess,” Delia said.
“Sure it is,” I said. I couldn’t understand a world where it wasn’t.
She stood up. “It’s not over. Let’s go hear what everyone says in the lobby.”
I trailed after her, the music still in my head.
“I think the show is a hit,” Delia murmured, her gaze darting around the lobby. Her cheeks glowed pink from excitement.
Through the crowd I spotted Nate Benedict. It had been three years since I’d seen him last, but I couldn’t mistake his profile with the flattened nose. He stood with that same small woman in a tweed coat with a brooch of red stones. They weren’t talking to each other, the woman looking down at her program while he scanned the lobby. I would have taken him for one of the crowd from Manhattan if I hadn’t known him. His gaze moved past us, then snapped back.
Delia touched her hair. “Well, he’s seen us. We have to say hello now.” She linked her arm with me and brought me forward, almost pushing me. “Hello, Mr. Benedict.”
“Hello, Miss Corrigan. Angela, you remember Miss Corrigan? My wife,” Nate said to us. “And this is Kitty, isn’t it? All grown up. Are you enjoying the play?”
“It’s so sad,” I said. “I thought musicals would be cheerful. Especially one with a carousel in it.”
“Yes, you’d think so, wouldn’t you?”
I hummed the tune of “If I Loved You,” then sang a few lines. I couldn’t remember the dates of the Revolutionary War or one scrap of geography, but I could remember a song. “Isn’t it romantic how he sings that she’ll walk away in the mist, and she’ll never know how he feels?”
“But she doesn’t walk away,” Delia said. “She stays. That’s her mistake.” She wasn’t under the same spell I was, that was clear.
“I have a headache.” Mrs. Benedict hadn’t even looked at us. “I want to go home now.” Without waiting for a word from her husband, she pushed through the people in the lobby.
“Ah,” Nate said. “It appears that there will be no second act. Here.” He handed me a box of mints. “But they’re yours.”
He bent down then, right at my eye level. “I think the lesson of the play is that we can’t always have what we want. Maybe it’s good that you learned it now.”
He moved off through the crowd, out toward the doors to the street.
“What did he mean?” I asked. “And wasn’t she rude? She must have felt really sick. Do you think she had to throw up?”
Delia turned abruptly. “Let’s get back to our seats. Hurry up now, you don’t want to miss the opening number.”