"Hello?" Maura can hear that it is Angela that picked up. She links her fingers through Jane's free hand, willing the pianist not to lose her nerve.
"Hello? Is someone there?"
Jane licks her lips. "Hi." She says, and it seems to Maura that she has used much of her energy to make herself speak.
There is a brief pause on the other end of the line. "Janie?"
"Hi," Jane repeats, like she's stuck on repeat. Maura gives her a gentle squeeze. "Ma," Jane says, like she letting out a breath. "Hi Ma."
"What is it?" her mother asks nervously. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," Jane says, and Maura notices she's gripping the phone so tightly that her knuckles are white. She stands on tip toes so she can kiss the brunette's cheek.
"Breathe," she whispers.
"I called to tell you that I'm gonna leave the tickets at will call."
"Oh," her mother sounds dejected. "I'll let your father know he should pick them up."
Jane closes her eyes, shaking her head. "I left four, Ma," she says finally.
Silence. Jane pulls the phone away and looks at it. "Ma?"
"You left four?"
"Yeah. Well, five. There's one for Dave too."
"Five." Her mother's voice is flat with shock.
Jane rolls her eyes. "Yes, Ma. Five."
"And there's one…for…"
But Jane loses her patience. "Jesus. Yes. There's one for you Ma. I left a ticket for you, I'd like you to come. But you can do what you want. Give it to a hobo for all I care. God!" Maura squeezes Jane's bicep until she stops with the effort of someone trying to stop a semi truck from tumbling off a hill.
She sighs, rolling her shoulders, trying to relax them.
"I left a ticket for you and Pop and the guys at 'will call,'" she says, clearly trying to start over. "Curtain is at 7:30, and they won't let you in after 7:25."
"Okay," Maura hears Angela say quietly.
"I mean it, Ma," Jane says. "Leave Boston super early."
Maura hears Angela respond, her voice high and heavy, choked up.
"We'll get a hotel in the city for the night before."
…
Even years later, after the arrivals of their children and the waning of their careers, Maura will look back on this night as one of the most defining in her life. Jane plays the lead in to the song, a couplet of repeating notes, and Maura closes her eyes for half a second, realizing that she knows this dance better than any she's ever performed.
.
All of these lines across my face tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I've been
and how I got to where I am
But these stories don't mean anything when you've got no one to tell them to
It's true... I was made for you
All of them in their separate corners of the stage. Maura holds tight to the barre and runs through the basic warm up from all of her ballet classes, her technique perfected from months of practice. Jane's soft, modest, voice washes over her, and she listens to the way the pianist picks out each note deliberately. The way she means each word.
Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Susie in the shadows up stage, struggling through her own warm ups. They'd been adamant that she only think about the warm ups and not practice them at all in their rehearsals, and the non practice has paid off. Susie's movements look unnatural and uncomfortable as she struggles through each part, throwing furtive, anguished looks at Maura's perfect feet that seem almost genuine. Maura looks away and stares straight ahead, focusing on the off tempo beat of the music.
…
Bette produces the background soundtrack for their collaboration. Four days before Collaboration, she calls Maura into her bedroom to listen to the finished version. After George's departure, Bette had moved into the single. Maura hadn't objected, if gave them both more space, and they were closer for it. Not close, but closer.
Now Bette presses play on her computer, and the speakers on either side of the desk burst to life. Maura listens for a little bit, imagining the dancing and singing that she and her friends are going to do.
"It's beautiful, Bette," she says after a while. "Thank you for doing this."
Bette nods, her head still bent towards the music. "I only added drums. The rest is Jane…She's a prodigy, you know," she says after a beat. "You both are."
Maura shakes her head, confused. "What?"
"You and Jane," Bette clarifies. "You are both so fucking amazing at what you do. And together, you blow everyone out of the water. You know that, right Maura?"
Certainly she knows that about Jane. But there is something about hearing Bette speak about both of them, together, that makes Maura come out in goose bumps.
"I think this is what I'd like to do," Bette says, looking away from Maura's face like she's embarrassed.
"Produce music. Take all the parts and make it fit together, like a puzzle."
This is the first confession that Bette has made to her. Maura stares at her roommate.
"You'd be really good at it, I think, what you've done with these individual tracks is wonderful" she says finally. "Bette-"
"I applied for a single," Bette says abruptly. Maura blinks.
"Huh?"
"For next year. I applied for a single. I should have told you that was my plan…but I…I thought you'd be-"
But Maura laughs. She laughs and leans forward to hug Bette around the neck. When she pulls back, the other girl is staring at her, cheeks flushed red.
"Oh, Bette," Maura says, still laughing. "I put in for a single too."
…...
Nearby, at the piano, Frost is approaching Jane, trying to get her to look at him, trying to nudge her off the piano bench. Waving his hand in front of her face. That she manages to keep playing the intricate piece is impressive enough, but when she begins the next phrase, she stands up while playing, turning her head away from Frost, and by default the keys.
Barry redoubles his attempts to reach her.
I climbed across the mountain tops ("Jane")
Swam all across the ocean blue ("Jane, look at me.")
I crossed all the lines and I broke all the rules
But baby I broke them all for you
Jane steps away from the keys at the same moment that Susie takes her hand off the barre, turning fully away from it and closing the difference up to the piano. Jane ghosts her fingers over the guitar that leans against the piano's side, and then spins around and slams the cover of the piano shut. The jointed fallboard makes a snap. snap. in perfect sync with Jane's voice, adding the anger she wants.
Oh, because even when I was flat broke
Maura has half a second to marvel at Barry's directorial vision for this production, watching as he follows center stage, picking up the guitar.
You made me feel like a million bucks
You do and I was made for you
Frost offers Jane the guitar and her voice fades as the background music swells. Jane throws the guitar strap over her shoulder, and rises to meet the instrumental interlude, fingers moving over frets with the same practiced ease that they had just flown over ivory keys.
The audience bursts into applause, but it peters out quickly as Jane steps back and Susie and Frost step forward. Susie looks miserable.
Frost grabs her hand. "But your voice," he says, giving the impression that they have been caught on stage in the middle of a conversation.
"Leave it," Susie says. "I'm supposed to dance."
"Look me in my face and tell me that." Frost says. "Look at me and tell me that you don't feel strong and powerful and bad ass when you're singing. Tell me it doesn't outweigh dancing by about a million and I will never mention it again."
Susie turns to look at Frost. She can't tell him that.
He holds out his hand, and when she takes it, he leads her over to the piano, grabbing the microphone on the end. He holds it out to her, and when she hesitates, he steps closer to her.
"Don't be afraid," he says, and even though every person in the auditorium can hear him, it is as if he's speaking only to Susie. "Don't be afraid."
The musical interlude is ending. Maura sees Jane pull the guitar off and tap Frost on the shoulder and thrust it at him, angry.
Maura steps away from the bar as Susie lifts the mic to her mouth. Her voice begins quietly, but there is no mistaking the strength.
You see the smile that's on my mouth
It's hiding the words that don't come out
This is Maura's dance.
It's the moment when she is alone, center stage, and all eyes are on her.
She looks out over the dim faces of the audience, trying to put a name on her emotion.
And all of my friends who think that I'm blessed
They don't know my head is a mess
She does a third arabesque to a arabesque croisee en pointe and turns in, hiding her face. She switches feet and does it again, all indecision.
She tries to remember the way she'd felt, rolling her suitcase into her dorm room for the first time. She tries to remember the way her heart had felt, when she'd heard Jane playing piano for the first time.
She pushes herself up on point and her hands come up automatically, and she thinks about standing outside Jane's dorm room, listening to the pianist play her broken heart out in a song.
and as she pulls up and sets herself for her pirouettes, sees Barry pulling Jane forward, pushing her in the direction of the dancer.
No, they don't know who I really am
And they don't know what I've been through like you do
She comes out of them perfectly, and the audience cheers. Her body is liquid. There are tears in her eyes. Susie is singing directly to her. Maura looks at them. They don't know her. They don't know her like Jane does. Each of Susie's lyrics is pounding through her body. She turns from the audience. She stumbles and almost falls.
Jane catches her hand.
Jane pulls her upright.
Maura understands. In that moment. How to dance the music.
And I was made for you...
They've reached the part that Jane is the most nervous about. The part that she and Maura have practiced endlessly, going over and over each step, until they are so in sync that Maura can see Jane move without looking at her. She steps up to the brunette as the music builds, and behind them, she knows that Frost is helping Susie up onto the back of the piano. She can hear the audience gasp as one, and she knows that that Frost has pulled Susie's practice skirt off of her, revealing the form fitting pants and tank underneath.
Maura turns to face Jane.
The pianist's diaphragm is working hard, expanding and contracting rapidly, but her shoulders remain relaxed. She looks at Maura like she's never seen her before. Like she's so special.
It's a rehearsed look, a planned one, but it still gives Maura chills.
Susie's voice begins again, filling them up, filling up the whole hall with a full, warm, unwavering sound. She builds the line on itself, gathering strength, and when her voice breaks perfectly, deliberately,beautifully, on the fourth word of the line, both Maura and Jane start to dance.
All of these lines across my face
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I've been
And how I got to where I am
They could be mirrors of each other. When Maura turns away, feigning fear and uncertainty, Jane steps behind her, hands and arms ghosting behind the dancer's as they reach out and back. They are away from each other for the space of a second, when, as Susie builds to the last line in the stanza, they turn from each other and spin, Maura up on the toes of her pointe shoes, Jane still a couple inches taller, both jazz shoes pointed like she's been doing it her whole life. The audience pulls in an audible intake of breath, but Maura knows that it is not because of her. It is because behind them, Frost is climbing the freestanding ladder up to the catwalk. The spectators rumble with laughter, and they know it is because he has turned to look at them over his shoulder, and that he has flashed them a grin.
But these stories don't mean anything
Susie's voice is loud, ripping at the words the way love is ripping at Maura's heart. She turns back and Jane steps away from her, four steps. Five. Six. Two more and she'll be on mark, perfectly on mark.
From the high beam above the stage, a spotlight fractures the muted light of the stage. It is Frost, aiming the heavy beam at them from the rafters, bringing it all together. It glints off Maura's outfit, and even over Susie's vocals, she can hear the audience's awe.
She runs at Jane's back. It only takes two steps for her to hit her sprint.
if you've got no one to tell them to.
At the last moment, when it looks like they will collide, and all of this will be for nothing, Jane turns.
And Maura leaves the ground.
Susie hits her note. Strong and clean and pure.
It's true…That I was made for you.
The moment seems to stretch on for hours. Jane knows how long Susie can hold the note, and her arms don't shake as the seconds stretch on. She knows what they look like, in the spotlight dead center stage. Maura's arms back like she's taken flight.
She is confident, when she spins her overhead, in perfect time with Susie's words, and she places Maura gently down, on the tips of her pointe shoes, just as Susie ends the line.
Maura feels Jane's hands ghost around her waist as she spins twice and ends up with her eyes on Jane.
Susie slips into falsetto.
Oh, yeah well it's true
that I was made for you.
Jane kisses her. Just a little one. Maura's eyes close. Her head falls into the bend of Jane's neck.
The entire stage goes black.
…
…
When the lights come up. The crowd is on it's feet. Maura is still looking at Jane.
She is supposed to turn out to the audience. To take Frosts hand on one side and Jane's on the other, and bow her head in acknowledgement to the pounding of feet and whistling and yelling. She is supposed to search out her mother and father in the crowd, supposed to wave at them and blow them a kiss.
She doesn't.
She stares up into Jane's face, and she can't even hear the roar of the audience.
The pianist is looking back at her, and Maura can think of nothing else besides the day she first laid eyes on Jane Rizzoli. Yes. It is just the same, except this time, Jane leans down and kisses her gently.
And Maura stops breathing.