A/N: I still own nothing. Everyone you recognize belongs to Joseph Moncure March and Michael John LaChiusa. The long-awaited appearance of Jackie and Queenie. ("Dead poet's honor" is completely anachronistic, but it's staying.)

Several notes of explanation: (This is part of a much longer project under the working title Stable Things). Eddie and Madeleine have a sort of "backup" agreement with each other, since Madeleine wants to have a child. Her mother was gay, and her parents were friends who had the same sort of arrangement. Hence their scene later in this installment.

In another segment, it is explained that "Sunday Mornin' Blues" (which, incidentally, is property of Walter Marks), is Queenie's old standard, hence why she's pissed at Kate for stealing it.

In yet another segment, Sally's story is that she was a nurse during WWI. She came out of it with very severe PTSS and a morphine addiction. Hence her crazy.

***

Bring it on, boys, the audience cheered. It was lucky they suspected as little as they did. Vaudeville was a largely respectable crowd. At best, one of the pair had been picked up in the street while the other was sleeping with the headliner. In the Bowery they knew better. Either way, Eddie ushered his charge through the backstage, into the wings. The brothers D'Armano faced them from stage left, one of the first on the program. A back-handed compliment, like the center stage girl in a chorus line, but they would take what they could get.

Kate Shoshina, the headliner, was on at midnight. Madeleine True, hurrying forward with her brown overcoat over her arm, placed herself deliberately close to the sightlines at stage left. She looked at Oscar Calighieri, matching his lover to the thread and waiting for his cue, and laughed. "Sunk to new depths you have, loverboy."

They clapped even as the boys counted off. Oscar smiled, Phil took no notice. "Late again," whispered Madeleine. They clapped as the song finished. Oscar took a four-bar encore and they laughed. Phil bowed stiffly, like a marionette, and took his leave. He was a small, dark, unpleasant-looking man. Professional to a fault, and caring nothing for the praise when he knew the result was imperfect. He was friendlier without the smile on his face that signaled danger.

He tried to shoulder Madeleine aside, out of the sightlines, into the wings. Madeleine stepped aside, seized his collar with both hands, lifted him a few inches or so off the woodwork, and moved him past her. Phil stumbled, casting her a furious look. Then he checked himself, turning toward the opaque curtain and storming off, snapping his fingers as he went. Oscar gave Madeleine a sorry, what-did-you-expect sort of smile, gave her a fleeting wave, and went behind the backstage curtain. From where she stood, Madeleine saw him greeted by the girl and her sister. He took the girl's hand and kissed it. Mae, vaguely jealous, stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. He took it, and graciously, but blew her a kiss instead.

There was a man in the front of the house, on the aisle, clapping with vague derision while a woman beside him whistled. Blond hair, dark suit, contrasted with the white dress of the woman who leaned back to kiss his jaw. Madeleine's breath came out in a hiss, Jackie…

There was a ringmaster man, with his wife the beautiful statue, which the woman in white cheered ironically. There was Isaac Greene-angel's accordion, and there was a young girl Suzanne's age, who borrowed her brother's suit for impersonations, holding an imaginary glass. Then there was Her Honor, presented as such by the emcee. She Who Is…Kate Shoshina. The woman in white jeered good-naturedly. Kate's deep, curled lip was all the retort she needed. Purring, she ascended the piano.

The dusky introduction music sent a cool stir through the audience. The woman in white's scarlet mouth worked a moment in silence, and then thinned to one, furious line of recognition.

"The Sunday mornin' blues," Kate's voice wandered, like the music, disregarding the listeners, but hooking them in. They would follow her, "Ain't nothin' as bad as the Sunday mornin' blues. When Saturday's child must pay her dues…" Her voice was the trumpet, the piano, the drifting chords. She had her debts to pay.

"Night, you thought you could win, but then mornin' came in, sayin' 'Baby, you lose…'" It wasn't until the bridge that the woman in white needed restraint, but clearly Kate Shoshina noticed. Leaning back on the piano, she flipped her fingers under her chin, languidly enough to be considered a kiss by her admirers, and a curse to her rivals. She was in no hurry. Madeleine smiled, knowing this look across the floodlights would not be the end of it. "It's funny, it's really funny, how in the moonlight every dream seems real. But when it's sunny, I tell ya, honey." There was a sharp pause. Unknowingly, her eyes found Suzanne Greene-angel. "You wake from the dream…" And then to all the world, all the stage, giving voice to a clawing dream, "And begin the nightmare!"

Deep in the distance, the audience saw a figure in black, aimless and wild, and beautiful.

"Happy Sunday mornin' to you." Dry, grim, abrupt, a moment of silence, then she lowered her head into the spotlight. She snapped her fingers. The piano, the trumpet picked up. And she flew. The audience roared. The woman in white stamped her foot to the beat, vowed revenge, poured her heart out into the music. She dragged Jackie's arm around her when they started to chant her name, saying 'I know a better way'.

"We used to dance together, me and her." Mae would tell the girls backstage, claiming credit in self-justification. All assumed it was Kate's fame, not Mae's disgrace that separated them. It didn't matter, really.

None of their crowd went nearer to Kate Shoshina in early morning than the ominous, ten-foot circle that had formed around the dressing room. The woman in white had gone behind the woodwork to claim what was rightfully hers. But,

"A song does not belong to the singer. The singer belongs to the song." This came from Madeleine, who marked the barrier with folded arms and a smile. Between acceptable and unacceptable. Unashamedly so. Kate's voice was a low cat's growl, her guest's voice grew shriller and shriller with every passing word. Their argument was the sound of chaos, all contrast. No conventional beauty. Eddie reached through the bystanders and took Nadine's arm. She turned to him.

"I want to see."

"Trust me. You don't."

There was, of course, another reason why he was anxious to go, but Mae was not watching him. She had just seen Jackie in the wing, watching the fight with dry interest, waiting for the woman in white.

The three of them left Madeleine by the curtain of the dressing room, likewise listening to the fight with a base interest in how Kate Shoshina looked when she was angry.

***

"Who's Jackie?" It was the next question she asked Madeleine True when they spoke.

Madeleine choked, got up, went to her storage. Flatly, she told the girl over her shoulder, "There's no liquor in the universe strong enough for this conversation." Not to say she didn't try, "Out of sheer, self-loathing curiosity, why do you ask?"

"No reason."

"Uh-huh." Even deeply skeptical, she wouldn't ask. She knew the caregiver she was dealing with, "Hopefully, love, you'll never have to meet him. If you do, just keep your mouth shut. If he's got no audience he'll soon leave you alone."

"But who is he?" characteristic persistence.

To tell the truth, I'm not eager to find out. "He used to perform with your sister. He's got a sheet of broken hearts a mile long. All that gives him satisfaction in this life is to spread mayhem and loss. I'm serious, Nadine," for the girl had opened her mouth to speak, "you don't want to know any more than that. Just steer clear. We'll all rest easier for it."

Poor child. She thought again as she left Nadine to her silence. Unsatisfied, but safe yet. Sheltered.

***

If Jackie lit up after the sex, it meant he was staying, at least for a little while. It meant Oscar could touch him, put his head on his shoulder or his leg on his. He'd been told by lovers before Jackie that he was too much like a woman. Nonetheless, he took the cigarette he was offered.

"You and your scathingly brilliant ideas." He said to him one afternoon. Phil was at the theater, negotiating the lease of a piano they could never afford. It made him feel important, to bargain. "You always wind up getting me in trouble."

"No, I've got it this time, I promise." Dangerous words, from his mouth.

"You and your promises…What time is it?"

"Let me worry about that. Fair warning. Dead poets' honor."

"What?"

"Forget it." Stroke of a flame in a silver lighter. "You could get him drunk."

"The man takes up half the fuckin' room without trying, how many shots do you think we'd need before he couldn't tell me from Shiva? A few hundred, maybe? I ain't the time or the patience to put that scheme in motion. Not to mention the money, 'cause we're not talkin' the cheap stuff, we're talkin' hard-core diamond-in-the-rough liquor."

"I'd love to see you act on a selfish impulse once before you die. Just once is all I ask."

"And what?" A smile, a breath of smoke, "End up like you?"

A smile, quick, vague offense. "There are worse ends you could meet. If you don't, you might discover you haven't lived at all."

"True enough." A pause, smoke filling the breath between thoughts. "Why are you helping me, again?"

"What did I just say?"

"What about Phil?"

"What about Phil? He'd fuck Queenie if she'd let him. More importantly, so long as Burrs wouldn't find out. He can't exactly blame you. Come on, just put it in motion, no collateral next time."

"Meaning you'd fuck me for free if I got Eddie Mackrel to fuck me?"

"Meaning I'd fuck you for free if you made the offer under false pretenses. You see, then the acceptance is immaterial. You have the thrill of the lie and the thrill of the fantasy itself. It's a very powerful aphrodisiac."

"Mmm." There was a brief lull, when Oscar considered coming home to him after such a meeting. He said something he imagined was very deep then. "Sometimes, I think the point is just to get out alive."

"Vain and hopeless hero's quest, darling. No one ever gets out of love alive."

"Were you always this cynical?"

"Only since I started fucking Phil. If I can be of any help in your latest escapade, do let me know. I'd be a wonderful distraction."

"He'd kill you."

"Oh, ye of little faith." Snapping the lighter closed, he got up from the shared bed. Oscar rolled over into where he'd lain. He knew he was going to meet Phil, though he didn't say as much.

***

Hold me…Sally had disappeared that morning, with the handful of money Madeleine would have used to buy her morphine. She could guess where she had gone, but not when or if she would come back.

It was why she came to Eddie's house at some obscene hour in the spring morning. He was still awake, a pack of cards spread onto the table, the girl asleep over her hand, he watching her and looking through her. Madeleine knocked only once, her whole body against the wood door. She was drunk, and Eddie knew it, though not many others would have.

"What's she doing there?"

"She won't wake up." He assured her. Madeleine pitched forward over his chair, hands clenching at the back of it, forehead against his jaw. "She's gone." She whispered, "Fucking Christ, she's gone…she gone…" She struck her fist against his knee.

Maudlin Madeleine, Burrs had called her once, drunk, clear-sighted, in a moment of cruelty, sugar sweet, sell her cunt for a dime on the street. Maudlin Madeleine, hands can't be beat, beggin' for love like a cat in heat… Madeleine, swaying, had gotten up from the floor where she lay with a woman, a one-night stand, and decked him out flat. Burrs, head spinning and dizzy from the blood, had just lain there and laughed. 'Crazy fucker. Never liked him.' She shrugged, and, her girl falling asleep, Madeleine had nudged her awake and left with Eddie, trusting her to come to her senses before long.

This was years ago, before Eddie and Mae were together, when she was just 'some broad, blonde, voice got on my nerves'. He tried to remember her as brash and swaggering and truly careless. But now she was careless in love, and it was killing her. Two of a kind, you and me, he'd told her, and it was true again.

"She been gone awhile?"

"This morning…no…no…" She grabbed his shirt with both hands, "Eddie…it's a year now…it's five years…ten…Christ I wish she hadn't gone…I swear she'd 'a never come back like that…"

He'd never met her, the girl Madeleine loved. She made sure of that, cared for her in secret. Restive, last night, Madeleine had covered Sally in her coat, kissed her eyes, but Sally had beaten her back, stayed silent as though listening to a command and then murmured, 'Yes, sir…'

"Eddie…" she pleaded, holding onto his shirt in desperation, "Eddie, I knew her before the war. And when she came back she left me…but I saw her again a year ago, and everything was wrong…and I just wanted her back, you know? I wanted to…I wanted to get her back like I knew her…" She dropped her head against the back of the chair. "I can't sleep."

"C'mon, sit down." He took her shoulders.

"Eddie, I want a baby."

"Shhh. C'mon, that ain't gonna fix anything."

"I want a baby. I'll always have somebody to go home to."

"Have a drink. Let's have a drink…" It was the only way to deal with her when she was this far-gone. Give her something familiar, and let her sleep. Madeleine sank to the floor and inched closer to the girl, asleep on the floor. She reached out and rubbed her back in a gentle circle. She looked up at Eddie, who was nudging her with his foot, holding out a glass of gin. Her voice sounded broken.

"Ah, lemme take her, Eddie."

"Mad."

"She's almost grown but I'll be good to her…" she lifted Nadine off the table and laid her head in her lap. She stroked her hair and gazed down at her face wistfully and looked, for a moment, the perfect mother. Nadine, in her sleep, clutched Madeleine's legs. A perfect daughter. Perfect. It made Eddie burn.

"Don't make it sound so simple, Mad, she's got people lookin' for her…"

"Who?" And now she sounded angry, with tears in her voice. "Got any letters? Any follow-up? Anyone coming to your door saying you ain't allowed to raise this child? If anyone cared they'd've come already, they sent this girl to Manhattan and left her here to die…"

"Shut up."

"Eddie," she was getting fraught. Frantic. Grasping at straws, at words, at anything. "Eddie, she doesn't owe you anything more than me…"

"Shut up."

"She doesn't and you know!" She started then, because Nadine was stirring. Madeleine stroked her hair feverishly, trying to calm her back into sleep. "She won't until you leave that shitrag she calls kin and you call your wife." By now Nadine was awake, hands on Madeleine's leg as Madeleine put her arms around her. Eddie would have hit her, were he anything but sober. He held off. Madeleine stood, slowly. Their fighting dissipated into curses, and she soon left. Nadine, making her choice as soon as Eddie lowered himself to threats, followed her.

She came back, of course, late in the night. Shaking him half-awake, wild-eyed, telling him there was a man in the street who'd asked her price. She'd run as fast as she could, all the way home. She cried into his chest where he lay, his arm trapped under her sister's scant waist. She pulled his hand into her hair. "She's kind to me. She's teaching me music." she protested, gently. Eddie traced the new, clean plait in her neglected hair. She looked over at Mae, who breathed heavily on her side of the small bed. Then, quietly, "Don't leave her. Oh my God, Eddie, don't leave her." She sank down against the window-sill, then, and fell asleep. And he knew, clearly, he couldn't, without knowing, clearly, if she'd meant Madeleine or Mae. He would let her think it was for her, because of her, that he made the choice.