Standing behind the curtain with eyes closed and head bowed, Phian listened. Sweet piano music filled the air over the murmur of dozens of people in the ballroom beyond. The small woman wore an elegant black gown, sharply contrasting her ivory skin. Her white hair hung past her waist in a loose braid, with carnations threaded through it, red on top, then yellow, green, and cyan, with blue on the bottom. Her heart tried to jitter, hop, and melt all at once.
She clutched the curtain. “This is beautiful,” she muttered, softly enough to not be mistaken for addressing anyone but herself. “Make sure they see that.” Performance mode was on. She flashed a reassuring smile to her two assistants, and strode onto the stage to polite applause.
The stage projected out into the audience, ending in a semicircle. A microphone was waiting for her at the end. Surrounded by folks holding champagne flutes and in suits and dresses often much fancier than her own, she wrapped her hands around the stand, and spoke soft and low.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. It’s wonderful that you’re all here in this magical time. It’s time for me to introduce you to two friends of mine.” At that, a large screen behind her and over her head flicked on, showing a hospital room. Two smiling old women were there, one lying in a bed with an IV drip and a nasal cannula. The other was in a wheelchair beside her, and firmly they clasped each other’s hand. “Marilyn...” The woman in the wheelchair waved as Phian named her. “...and Angela Schutz.” The woman in the bed raised her free hand, flapping her fingers up and down.
“Marilyn and Angela have been together since 1956. After many years of love, they were finally married in 2009. For much of their lives, they had to hide, or pretend they were something they weren’t.”
As she spoke, she listened to the props being moved around behind her. Penny wore a red dress with a tight top and voluminous, ruffled skirt, with light brown jaw-length hair and light tan skin. She brought out three tables one by one, two and half feet wide and about a foot across, with a padded, round notch each in the front. Jean was in a sleek black one, shimmering an iridescent blue where it caught the light, black hair in a low, broad loop bun with sides curling around before tucking in. She followed Penny, placing a one foot cubic box on each table, with an open bottom and front flipped up. A chair each was placed under two of these tables, then together they brought out a three foot wide table with another box and three one-foot square blades on it.
Phian’s voice and eyes picked up in excitement as a string quartet joined the pianist. “They told me that now that they can do so without fear, they want to shine!” Angela patted Marilyn’s hand with her free one, looking into her eyes with the biggest of smiles. “They want the world to know how much they love each other! They also told me…” her voice dropped to a careful murmur. “...they want to dance again.” She started to step away to the side of the stage, where Penny and Jean had begun to set up hospital curtains, then halted, and leaned back to the microphone with a sly smirk. “Oh, and I know local favorite topics include the weather and your health, but let’s save the latter tonight.”
A soft chuckle rolled through the crowd. The music picked up as she strode toward the back of the stage, sharing another soft smile with her assistants. Penny stood with her hands folded, attentive, but not alert, with a faint hint of a grin. Jean stood the same, with nervous grin and faint blush, eyes sparkling with anticipation. A doctor stepped to the middle of the TV screen, a nurse stepping in from either side to flank him. “Ready, Doctor Hughes?” Phian called.
“Ready!” the doctor replied.
She took ahold of the curtains on the stage. “Three! Two! One!”
The music halted as the nurses pulled curtains, hiding everything from the camera, then Phian flung the ones on stage open, revealing all five people from the hospital room, complete with all the needed equipment.
The music started up again. The audience applauded, and the applause redoubled as the curtains on the screen pulled back to show the room empty, slowly trailing off again as the performance continued. The TV then turned off and withdrew into the ceiling. The medical staff stepped to the back corner of the stage, out of the way, and the two elderly stars of the show smiled and waved.
Marilyn kissed Angela and gave her hand a squeeze before parting from her, wheeling over in front of the narrow table with the vacant space underneath. She backed into it, resting her neck in the notch, sliding her head into the box. Penny gracefully took her place in one of the chairs, sitting with her legs crossed, hands folded on one knee. Jean took the other, sitting forward for one last glance at Penny before sitting back rigidly.
Phian became a whirlwind of motion. She swept up two of the blades, then pirouetted to in front of Marilyn, flipping the front of her head box shut as she passed. There were a few gasps as she deposited a blade through her neck. Perhaps not everyone in the audience was fully prepared. Perhaps not everyone had been told what this was.
With practiced grace, Phian tilted the box as she lifted it and swept it aside, carrying it to the end of Penny’s table in a way that would feel like gravity remained comfortably downward, leaving a vacant space over the elder’s shoulders. She flipped this box closed as well, and flicked the second blade into its slot. She placed a hand on either box, and glided them both to the left, Penny’s head moving to the edge of the table, and centering Marilyn’s over Penny’s body.
A swish forward while pulling the blade and setting it aside while flipping up the front of the box set up for Phian to recede like a wave as she dropped to one knee, bowing, and held out a hand, suddenly still as a statue. Tan hand gripped red-skirted leg, right hand snapping to her heart. The strings held out the note and the piano faded slowly as everyone gave Marilyn a moment.
A moment she took. Everything was subtle. A slow inhalation. A deeply touched smile. A slow exhalation as she blinked away tears. Her grip on her leg tightened, and flexed the muscles in them as if reminding herself how.
Marilyn took Phian’s hand, and they rose together, slowly at first, but then the elder gained confidence. Springing upright, she turned a slow, careful circle while passing the magician, which nonetheless caused the bottom of her skirt to flare, and swish around her as she stopped toward the front of the stage, arm raised boldly above her, to reinvigorated music and ecstatic applause.
The two bowed to each other, and Marilyn folded her hands over her heart as Phian slipped away to continue the trick.
Sweeping up all there was of Penny as she passed, Phian placed her on the bigger table. She stood aside as she flipped it open, so all the audience could see her still faintly grinning face. She slipped around behind her, retrieving the last box and blade as she did, and swept over to the side of the bed.
Though Phian and Angela exchanged smiles, the music became low and dramatic. One nurse stepped up close by the other side of the bed, while the other stared closely at the heart monitor. Angela pulled out her nasal cannula, and slightly lifted her head. Phian wasted no time slipping the box over it, and depositing the blade.
Swiftly she swept to the opposite side of the stage, placing the box on the end of the table where Jean waited, and flipped her head box shut. Again like a wave she rocked to retrieve the blade from the middle table, spinning it on the tip of her finger before jamming it into place. With Phian remaining behind the props and the women within them, this time it was Marilyn who stepped before them as the magician swept Jean’s head aside, and Angela’s into its place.
As Phian swept the blade back out and the box open, the music fell soft and quiet again, emphasizing the second moment of stillness. Phian plucked Jean from the table and softly retreated. She set her down beside Penny, flipping her box open, leaving all eyes on the old lovers.
It took a moment which seemed to drag out for ages, but finally Angela sat forward, reaching up to take Marilyn’s hand. Her other hand kept a grip on her chair as she began to stand, still uncertain. The action, slow and smooth, became graceful when she did let go, and stepped up against her wife, both wrapping an arm around the other. A fluttering applause spread through the audience.
Phian slipped past the embracing pair to retrieve the microphone, catching snippets as she did.
“It’s the same dress I wore for our first dance,” Angela murmured. “Look at you,” she laughed with some embarrassment. “I’m as underdressed now as I was back then.”
“You look as radiant as you always have,” was Marilyn’s reply.
Cool. Controlled. Phian’s smile never shifted.
She plucked the microphone from its stand, and carried it over to the nearest nurse, rhetorically asking “How’s her body?” and turning the mic to her.
She cast an anxious glance across the audience at the expectation she speak, but leaned into the mic and stammered out. “Sh-she’s fine. It’s like she’s sleeping.”
Phian gave the nurse a smile and nod in thanks.
At this point, Marilyn and Angela had begun to turn, and the music started to rise again. After a full rotation of this slow dance, Phian commented, “I’m going to have to ask the band to take a break. We’ve prepared a little playlist from here.” She then flicked off the mic. It wouldn’t be needed anymore.
As the strings set down their instruments, it was quiet for only half a second before Why Do Fools Fall In Love poured from speakers in the top corners of the room. Having fully reminded themselves how to move, the pair began to dance in earnest now, fast and energetic on strong, youthful bodies.
Her part done, Phian pulled the first chair back, and took a seat beside Jean. The two heads were whispering between themselves, and a little tear had leaked onto her cheek.
Phian took them both in turn by the jaw, slipping them out of their boxes to sit on the velvet tabletop with no barriers between them.
The playlist used some of the Schutz’s favorite songs as a starting point, but there hadn’t been nearly enough to fill the evening, so they’d left the rest up to Phian’s judgement. Penny had placed one request for Heaven Is a Place on Earth, and the magician could think of few songs that felt more right, so she placed it second, for the couple’s transition from being watched on stage to being part of the crowd. There were also frequent breaks to return to the live entertainment.
When the song changed, Penny and Jean exchanged grins, and giggled. Was there an ulterior motive, there? However, the guests of honor descended with bright, shining smiles, and the crowd still felt the same. If there was a private joke at play, it was fine. Tonight, everything was beautiful, and there was nothing but love.