Page 3 of It's You
The ladies finished their silly dancing routine, and Darcy giggled and clapped quietly from her place in the wings. Her smile faded completely, however, when the music director played a short note on the harmonica. As the barbershop quartet hummed the first chord of “It’s You,” preparing to sing the sweet, old-fashioned love song, Darcy’s teenage heart clenched with yearning. It was the final time the boys wouldsing the song onstage, and she felt—desperately, unreasonably—that time was going too fast, that there should be a hundred more performances, that she needed more time to make him see her, notice her, want her. The quartet took a simultaneous deep breath, and she closed her eyes to savor their voices, picking through them for Jack’s strong baritone.
It’s you in the sunrise; it’s you in my cup.
It’s you all the way into town.
It’s your sweet, “Hello, dear,” that sets me up.
And it’s your, “Got to go, dear,” that gets me down.
The harmonies were so pure and true that tears pricked the back of her eyes, and a lump rose in her throat. She stood, hidden in the shadows, riveted on Jack’s strong, handsome profile, watching his lips, willing herself not to cry out to him. She felt an urgency to remember this moment so she could relive it forever. So that tomorrow night, alone in her bedroom, cold with gnawing emptiness, she could close her eyes and hear Jack Beauloup sing for her once again.
It’s you on my pillow in all my dreams.
’Til once more the morning breaks through.
What words could be saner or truer or plainer
Than it’s you, it’s you.
Yes, it’s you.
Oh…yes…it’s…you.
The audience broke into applause, and Darcy licked her painted lips, smoothing her dress. It was almost time for the next number, her first in Act II.
The quartet took their bows and separated to the four corners of the stage. As Jack approached her, she tried to catch his eyes, smiling at him as she did every night when he made his exit to the wing where she stood. Most nights, short of simply ignoring her, he seemed toavoid her as she would avoid something unpleasant that she couldn’t bear to see. Purposely looking over her head or down at the floor as he approached, he would pivot to take his place beside her for the few minutes before their entrance. Then he would offer her his elbow without looking at her, so they could step on stage together.
She sensed immediately that something was different tonight. As he crossed toward her in his candy-cane striped jacket and slicked-back hair, for the first time she could remember, he looked directly into her eyes. He approached her so purposefully that she blinked in surprise and stumbled back to give him room. He stopped where she had been standing a moment before, and they stood toe-to-toe, just a breath away from each other. He was taller than she, and her eyes leveled at his throat. Surprised by his nearness, she was distracted by the heat that radiated from his body, warming the skin of her cheeks. It was like standing in the sunshine on a chilly day.
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, and she lifted her eyes to his face.
His eyes.
Brown and shiny, they arrested hers, profoundly intense in the shadowy darkness. They were alive, with flecks of copper catching the dim light like smoldering coals. She stared, entranced, as they appeared to change from dark brown to something brighter, something warmer, feverish even, like orange embers stoked into golden fire.
Almost as though a spell was cast, Darcy was drawn into the vacuum of his gaze.
Real time stopped.
Sound ceased.
The stage, the other actors, her parents, and her brother in the audience…suddenly they were all a lifetime away. Everything but Jack faded into cold, gray, muted nothingness, leaving Jack almost unbearably vibrant. Her life—her entire world—held nothing except for the mesmerizing boy standing so still and serious in front of her.
Here is Darcy, and here is Jack, and we are the whole, wide world.
He brought his fingertips to her throat and pressed lightly on the pulse point, which raced and pleaded beneath them. His eyes, blazing with licking flames and primitive intensity, followed his fingers to her neck. She watched as they narrowed, his face twisting into a mask of horror and confusion, before widening with fury.
His face jerked up, his eyes golden and glowing now.
“Itcan’tbe,” he whispered, his voice anguished and gritty.
As he dipped his head to brush his lips against hers, her eyes filled with tears and fluttered closed. Her fingers curled into small, useless fists by her sides. He drew back for only a moment before she felt his lips on hers again. Stronger and more urgent now, he claimed her lips as his, tilting his head to seal his mouth over hers. An unexpected heat bubbled up from the depths of her body, radiating out from her middle until her clenched fingers relaxed. She leaned closer to him, her heart drawn, like a magnet, to his. Her heart sought the rhythm of his, only finding peace as she matched it.
I belong to you.
A wave of requited love overcame her, and a small, strangled sound rose from the depths of her being, through her lips, through his, swallowed whole by him. He gasped as though trying to get it back, to give it back to her. Breaking off their kiss, he pulled away from her roughly. Darcy opened her eyes to findhim out of breath, his chest heaving as though he’d just run a marathon.
“It’syou,” he murmured fiercely, his face astonished, uncertain.
