Page 40 of Supernova

Ophelia gives a pleased smile. "That sounds like a deal to me. What will I need to do as your stage manager?"

Frankie points at a table on one side of the studio. "If you have a few minutes, maybe you can set your stuff down and I'll walk you through it now?"

Ophelia sets her purse and hat on the table obediently and turns to Frankie with her hands folded in front of her. "I'm all yours," she says.

Frankie barely sleeps on Saturday night. She tosses and turns and worries about her performance, getting out of bed more than once to consult her notebook. She's thinking of adding a section and taking out another, and at one point--maybe around two o'clock in the morning--she jumps out of her bed and wanders out to the kitchen, thinking of all the reasons she should cancel the event altogether.

"Hey," Ed says that morning, coming up behind Frankie as she stands at the kitchen sink, rinsing out a cup while her thoughts are somewhere else. He snakes his arms around her waist and holds her tight. "Are you ready for your big night?"

Frankie shuts off the water and wiggles her body in his grasp so that she can turn around and face Ed. "I'm nervous," she admits, putting her arms around his neck and burying her face in his shoulder. "Maybe this was a terrible idea."

Ed pulls back from her and looks into Frankie's eyes searchingly. "I think it's brave of you to get back on that stage and dance again. I mean, I don't know what the show is going to look like, but I have a lot of confidence in you as a dancer."

Frankie smiles, remembering the night that Ed came to see her show with his friend Rick after he'd hailed a cab for her on the street. "Thank you," she says softly, kissing him on the lips. "For always supporting me. I know I'm not the easiest womanto love, and when you married me, you married my loud, crazy Italian family, but I appreciate how much you give, Ed. I do."

Through the window over the sink, the sun is just starting to rise over the tops of the houses. The morning is already warm and pleasant, and the neighborhood feels still at this early hour. Frankie rests her head on Ed's chest again and closes her eyes. In just a matter of hours, she'll be on stage. Before the sun sets again, everyone will know who she is, for better or worse.

Frankie's heart flutters in her ribcage like a million tiny ballerinas doing out of syncjetesandpirouettes.

The low hum of conversation and anticipation fills the auditorium that night. Jo has done an amazing job spreading the word, and while the Performing Arts Center was willing to let them use the space without any expectation of anything but breaking even on the show, there are nearly two hundred people scattered in the seats facing the stage, and everyone is excited to see a former Rockette come out in her sparkling costumes as she high-kicks and dances around for their entertainment.

Backstage, Frankie is vibrating with nerves. She's dressed from head to toe in black, with a black beret perched on her head at an angle. Her long, brown hair is curled and cascading down her back, and she's applied red lipstick and drawn in her eyebrows.

"You look fabulous, Mrs. Maxwell," Ophelia says with excitement. She's still refusing to call Frankie by her first name, but at this point, Frankie is too preoccupied with the notion of the curtain going up to worry about it.

"Thank you," Frankie says, picking imaginary lint off the front of her black bodysuit. "Ophelia, have you double-checked the music? And talked to the lighting director?"

Ophelia, holding a clipboard in her hands, nods with nervous enthusiasm. "I have. Everything is good to go. We have about seven minutes until curtain, and I heard that there were over two hundred tickets sold."

Frankie tries not to double over at the way that number gives her stomach pains. "Oh," she says. "Over two hundred. Okay."

"You're going to do beautifully, Mrs. Maxwell. I know you are."

Just then, Ed appears backstage in a suit jacket and button-up shirt, face pink with pride and anticipation. He's holding a bunch of red roses. "Hi," he says to Frankie.

Ophelia ducks her head and disappears discreetly.

"Ed," Frankie says hoarsely. "I'm not sure about this." She shakes her head, eyes wide with fear. "I feel...naked."

Ed looks her up and down. "But you're not. You're fully covered."

"Not literally, more metaphorically. I'm about to go out there and throw the doors wide open in front of all these people."

"Frank, these are your friends. Jo is out there--and Bill. And all the other ladies and their husbands. Everyone is here for you."

Frankie reaches out for Ed's hands and grasps them as she nods. "I know. But there are a lot of people I don't know, and I'm not sure what they'll think of me."

Ed runs a hand over his head and blows out a breath. He clearly hadn't anticipated his wife being quite this nervous. "I think they'll see that you're a wonderful dancer, and they'll want to enroll their kids in your classes."

This pulls Frankie out of her head and she smiles at her husband. "You're right, Ed. If I do a good job, it's justadvertisement. I've got this." With a deep breath, Frankie hugs him tightly and takes the flowers. "Now, go out there and get your seat so that I can imagine you looking up at me. It'll make me less nervous to think that I could just see you if the lights went up." Frankie sniffs the roses and then pauses. "But the lights better not go up--that would be terrible."

"Everything is going to go off without a hitch," Ed assures her, waving as he walks over to the side of the stage. "Break a leg, sweetheart."

By the time the curtain goes up, the white backdrop is in place, and Frankie is standing in front of it with one hand holding her beret to her head, chin tilted down. Her high-heeled dance shoe is pointed, knee bent, when the spotlight hits her and the music swells. In an instant, she is out of her own head and inhabiting her body, letting herself move freely and without fear.

The first scene is one that had flowed from Frankie without hesitation when she started dancing again: it's her, dancing in a body conscious leotard and tights with her beret, doing the routine she'd done on stage at her Brooklyn high school when they'd put on a production of42nd Street. Frankie felt the smile come from deep within as she remembered that moment of complete joy and freedom. Her parents, sisters, and brother had all been there on opening night, and when the crowed had gone wild at the end of the show, Frankie had known that she'd found her calling; from that point on, all she wanted to do was dance. On stage. For an audience.

As she executes a series of spins now, face beaming, the light follows her, shining into her eyes and blinding her, which is just how she likes it. Of course it comforts her to think that Ed is right there within reach, but if she could really look out there and see his face, it would throw everything off. It would pull her away from the story she's creating with her body, and she doesn't want that.

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