Lynn had meant to keep her word, that much was clear to Blanche. But the actress simply would not stand for the young woman missing out on the party because of her. So when the third young man came to ask Lynn for a dance, his nervous expression betraying his fear of the same kind of refusal his two braver friends had received, Blanche intervened just in time and accepted the boy's offer on Lynn's behalf before the girl could open her mouth.
Watching her young friend laughing as she twirled around the dance floor, Blanche smiled to herself. It hadn't taken long for her to admit that, against all odds, Bill and Lynn had been right and she had enjoyed the evening immensely. It had been decades since she had been to a party, and although she had never given them enough thought to really miss them, she did remember now why she and Jane had been to so many in their youth.
Blanche had spent the better part of the evening chatting with numerous people ranking from costume designers and light technicians to actors and producers. To her surprise she found that she was not unknown to them—in this company she was known as Bill's frequently mentioned friend and in some cases even as a former actress. Shockingly, not one person mentioned Jane or Blanche's latest abduction, and Blanche had to wonder if Bill hadn't lectured the whole company beforehand on which subjects could and which should not be discussed with Miss Hudson.
The man himself was currently dancing with one of the young actresses from his movie, while Margaret was chatting away at the make-up department people's table. As a new dance began, Bill sought out his wife, and Blanche was reminded of the last time she had danced—as she allowed herself to call that scene on Hillside Terrace a few months ago. And not for the first time that evening Blanche felt utterly and ridiculously blessed to have such wonderful people as Lynn and the Carrolls in her life.
"Excuse me, Miss," a pleasant voice addressed Blanche, and she looked up at a young man who had approached her table. His face seemed familiar to Blanche, which led her to believe he must have been an actor. "May I have this dance?"
Blanche gaped at him in dumbfounded surprise, wondering first if the young man was aiming at a cruel joke and then if it was possible that he had not noticed the wheel chair under her wide skirts and behind the table. "No, thank you," she eventually replied, offering the man a polite smile and a graceful way out of the embarrassing situation.
"Are you sure?" he asked, gesturing with merry ease towards the dance floor. "It'll be fun," he promised with a roguish grin.
Blanche's eyes were drawn momentarily to Lynn's graceful figure gliding across the room. "I can't," she stated blankly, hoping with all her might that the well-meaning but oblivious boy would leave her be.
The young man laughed with airy mirth. "Well, I'm no Fred Astaire myself, but I've never let that stop me."
Blanche inhaled sharply and her brow puckered in a prelude to uninvited tears. "I mean," she elaborated in a strenuously even tone, "I can't as in I am not able to." She didn't look up at the young man until she was certain she had regained her composure, and once she did, she instantly wished she had thought of a fib to present the boy with instead.
He looked completely mortified after his eyes had travelled down to register Blanche's chair and back up to the woman's face. "I am so sorry, Miss Hudson," he said, the optimistic lilt draining from his voice as he realized whom he was speaking to.
Blanche shook her head dismissively. It was silly of her to get so emotional over something as trivial as this after all these years. "It's all right," she told the young man in a warm tone. "Even if I cannot accept," she added with a smile that mimicked the innocent mischievousness of her youth, "I'm flattered to have been asked."
"And now if I may ask William Carroll to step up here please," the director-turned-master-of-ceremonies called from beside the grand piano. "Come on, Bill, we all know the ladies have been waiting all night for this moment." The crowd broke into tumultuous applause, and Margaret, who had perhaps had one drink too many, chortled with unrestrained amusement at their friends' enthusiasm.
Blanche turned sharply to look at the man sitting across the table form her. For the past half an hour various members of the cast and crew had been entertaining the crowd by performing everything from magic tricks to arias. Bill stood with a bashful smile and for a moment caught Blanche's gaze before walking over to the front of the room.
"Thank you," he gave a little bow. "Now, at the risk of appearing arrogant, I do remember some of you saying you enjoyed hearing me sing. So that's what I'm doing up here." He placed one hand on the piano and gave the little man at the keyboard a ready nod.
There was a beat of cosy hushed silence, the air dense with anticipation, before the pianist's fingers touched the keys and a well-known melody wafted through the room. Blanche felt a momentary acute tension in her body and her hand flew up to her mouth, for she felt a sudden unreasoning urge to cry. Bill's words crashed right through the old protective shield around her heart and Blanche shuddered with an overwhelming surge of emotions.
Goodbye, no use leading with our chins,
this is where our story ends.
Never lovers, ever friends.
Blanche was forced to blink her eyes rapidly in order to hold back the tears that started shamelessly gathering in them. It was beyond ridiculous of her to allow herself to be affected so by a simple song, all the more because he was not singing it to her. Bill's eyes were fixed upon his wife next to the actress. Blanche had never before harboured even the slightest twinge of jealousy towards Margaret—after all, there was no reason she should—and she couldn't comprehend why she was hurting now. This song was meant to lighten the guests' mood.
I wish you bluebirds in the spring,
to give your heart a song to sing.
Getting lost in Bill's captivating voice, Blanche closed her eyes for a while and when she raised them to the man's face again, she realized with heart-stopping surprise that he had turned to look at her. Blanche found herself having trouble breathing properly, but it didn't matter one bit to her. Bill's warm eyes were full of tenderness as he sang to the woman who had only ever had time to love one man in her life and who had no idea how much more she really deserved.
And then a kiss,
but more than this,
I wish you love.
Although Blanche was openly staring at the actor now and failed to notice anything else any more, her cheeks had suddenly become wet and the shaky hand she had raised to quivering lips was holding back faint sobs of repressed rue.
My breaking heart and I agree
that you and I could never be,
so with my best, my very best, I set you free.
She felt the agonizing grip around her heart clench tighter when she thought of how different her life would have been if it hadn't been for Jane. She had never had a reason to truly hate Jane and most definitely not for the accident everyone had accused her of, and over the years she had comforted herself with the thought that there couldn't be anything wrong with a life that's spent with a loved one. Ever since they'd started living apart, however, Blanche had secretly started to see everything she had been missing out on. And the more she thought about it, the more she regretted having wasted to many precious years behind that grim grillwork at her window on Hillside Terrace.
I wish you shelter from the storm,
a cosy fire to keep you warm.
She recognized Lynn's small and soft hand that clasped hers on her lap, and she clung blindly to the girl's oblivious strength, seizing her immense happiness and gratitude for having so many dear people in her life now in a weak but studious smile.
But most of all,
when snowflakes fall,
I wish you love.
"Can't you stay for a little while longer?" Bill spoke against Blanche's ear as the actor steered her through the corridor towards the entrance hall. "I've been meaning to talk to you all evening."
Blanche shook her head, gesturing meaningfully towards the pair walking ahead of them. Lynn was very nearly dragging her feet along with Margaret clinging to her arm for support. "We're all tired, Bill," she replied. "You can talk to me now."
"Or we could all have lunch together tomorrow," Margaret offered over her shoulder.
"Oh, no, I can't," Lynn piped up instantly. Then in a small tone she added, "I've got a date."
Blanche looked up at the young woman in delighted surprise, hoping to catch her gaze. "You do?"
Lynn shrugged nonchalantly without revealing her face, which the older woman believed could easily have been more than a little bit flushed at the moment, to Blanche. "Yeah," she confirmed lightly and then pointed at the cloakroom that had come into their view. "Come on, Margaret. Let's go and get our coats."
Blanche watched the tipsy pair hurry down the corridor, happily thinking back to the numerous different young men she had seen dancing with Lynn this evening, one of whom must have captured her attention long enough to score a date. She remembered well the few times she and Lynn had talked about men and how each time the girl had childishly and categorically protested against the idea of dating. Bill's voice brought her out of her musings.
"When I heard that Lynn had been looking for ways to cheer you up, I got this brilliant idea," he told her conspiratorially. "Do you remember what we were talking about that day before you were… taken away?"
"Well, of course," Blanche replied, tilting her head to the side, directing her words towards Bill. "It was your picture, wasn't it?"
"That's right," Bill agreed, pulling her chair to a stop once they reached the entrance hall. "Now that it's finished, I've signed on to a new project."
Blanche turned towards him with a wide smile as Bill walked around her chair and in front of her. "Why, that's wonderful, Bill! Heavens," she mentioned with an air of dreamy recollection. "I had forgotten things were so hectic in the business."
"Oh, that they are," Bill assured her with a similar look of nostalgia on his face, possibly drawn back momentarily to a time when the both of them were a part of this frenzied life. The approaching clicking of heels erased the expression and he grinned as he was handed his camel coat. "Thank you, ladies. Anyway," he continued, turning back towards Blanche as he pulled it on, "this new project is a crime flick."
Blanche wrapped her mink coat around her shoulders with Lynn's silent help. "Do they still make those?"
"Sure they do, my girl," he nodded, entwining his arm with Margaret's but making no further move to leave. "And get this, the widow of the murder victim is in a wheel chair."
The full heavy meaning of Bill's words came crashing down over Blanche as she realized with suffocating knife-like clarity what her friend was going to say before he did. Her head started shaking of its own volition and her hand rose in an empty gesture of defence.
"I've arranged for you to play her."
Blanche wasn't sure if her breathless but determined, "No," ever left her lips as she stared up at the actor as if he were a madman.
"The director took my word for it when I promised him you were still just as good as you were back in the old days." He paused for a moment, looking around himself, at his wife, who looked as though she thought he was a saint, at Lynn, who had clapped her hands over her mouth in amazement, and finally at Blanche, whose stricken face he only now noticed. "Now, it's a small part, but I'm sure you would love it," he added in a remarkably weaker voice. "That is, if you want to, of course."
Blanche almost felt sorry for the man now that he had realized his surprise might not have been the most pleasant one. On one hand, she had dreamed countless times of her work; on the other, she had never deluded herself with the idea that anyone would want to see a cripple like her on the screen, especially not an old one. Now that the chance was offered to her on a platter, however, the idea seemed even more ridiculous and pathetic than ever before. She lowered her eyes from her old screen partner's well-meaning face with a hollow sigh. "Oh, Bill," she said quietly, images of running from set to set flashing rapidly through her mind, "I couldn't possibly."
"But it would be fantastic!" Lynn squealed next to her. The young girl couldn't possibly have imagined what a cruel world the motion picture business was, how utterly humiliating it would be for Blanche to show herself in her miserable condition to all of the outwardly flawless people of the cinema, how unbearably envious it made her feel deep down when she was faced with that endless youth, vigour and beauty of them all.
"It's just two scenes, Blanche," Bill told her, crouching in front of her and catching her look again. "That's only a day of shooting." He offered her a warm and encouraging smile, a confident pleased glint in his eyes. "You said you wanted to smell the sawdust again."
With a hopeless dejected smile Blanche shook her head again, praying that just this once the actor's devious charm wouldn't sway her. There was no doubt that working side by side with the dear man would be a heavenly experience, as it had always been. Blanche would probably even enjoy the work itself, although it had never truly been a great passion of hers, more of a means to an end—to make a living, to escape the suffocating shadow that her sister's early talent had cast over her existence and at first, she was ashamed to admit, also to hurt Jane. Blanche had never had a chance to really bid goodbye to this part of her life, and it would certainly bring her some peace of mind to do it now.
Blanche closed her eyes to block out the actor and his inconceivable offer. "Bill, I… I can't act," she said gently, her voice trembling with regret. "Not any more." She couldn't even muster up enough talent to lie and say she simply didn't want to do it. "It's been far too long."
To Blanche's surprise, Bill chuckled. "That's nonsense, my girl," he told her in a tone of sincere conviction, grasping Blanche's hands gently. "Talent's something you can't lose."
