© 2012, by Susan J. Charles. All rights reserved
Edited by Holly H. Hart

At the end of our Sea Gals personal appearance, Terri came up to me. “Jessica, I’ve been thinking about a project and would like you to be a part of it.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“I want to get some of the better girls together and put on a show, a benefit for the Children’s Hospital.”

”Count me in,” I said immediately. “I’ll do anything I can do to help that facility.“

Terri was going to choreograph the show and had some ideas for places we could hold it. I volunteered to make some calls. I found a theater not too far from the hospital that could handle a stage show and large crowd. When I explained what we were trying to do, they agreed to let us use the venue for cost.

Then the work began. Terri not only talked to the Sea Gals, but also other entertainers in the area. Even some of the football players who stayed in the area during the off-season wanted to help. With all the talent, we came up with a spectacular variety show.

It turned out that Terri wanted me to be the headliner in a modern dance number. Then she dropped the big bomb.

“Sing?” I said. “I can’t sing. No way!”

“You can and you will,” Terri said. “You have a great voice. I’ve heard you singing along with lots of songs at class and on the sidelines at the games.”

“But, I haven’t had any voice training,” I protested.

“Sometimes, that’s a good thing,” she said. “Just sing in your natural voice and everything will be fine.”

So I found myself spending almost all of my free time learning a complicated dance routine and the music and lyrics to “Hey, Big Spender.” The words were modified a bit so that the song became a plea to donate to the hospital.

By the time the show was coming up, I was in the best shape I’d ever been in my life. It is really difficult to dance an athletic number by itself, but when it is combined with singing, it becomes a real art form. I had to be in good enough shape to not huff and puff as I moved and especially not when I was singing. No wonder so many singers lip sync their dance numbers at their concerts.

Then, when I had all that down, Terri came up with another surprise. I had sounded so good with my song, that I had been elected to take the lead in the grand finale number. This one wouldn’t involve as much dancing, but I had to carry the end of the show.

Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have really pissed off the karma gods.

To make it worse, I thought the finale number was weak. It just didn’t have the “punch” I thought the show needed to end on, especially if we were really asking the audience to help us help the Children’s Hospital.

Then, I had an idea. I didn’t want to sound presumptuous, but I remembered a song that I thought would be better.

It has started one day when Deanna was especially frustrated at her session at the clinic. I’d been there to help for most of her sessions, except when I was away for my own hospital stay. Today, things weren’t going well. She was hurting and angry that she couldn’t do the things that she felt she should be able to do. Things that had come so easy before the accident.

By the end of the session, she sat sobbing uncontrollably in her wheelchair. “I can’t do it, I just can’t do it,” she wailed. “I’m useless and I am going to stay that way!”

I tried to comfort her. I pointed out how far she had come and how much more she could do now than she had been able to do when she started physical therapy. But she felt like she’d hit a wall and wouldn’t be able to do any more than where she was at that point. I tried to tell her that there was always hope, but ended up suggesting she sleep on it.

That night, I thought about what she’d said and found I could identify with her. When I’d been in that dark place as Mark, I hadn’t had any hope. I couldn’t even conceive that hope was possible. And yet, now my life was so much wider, so much more open to possibilities than I’d been able to imagine at that point. When one is in that dark place, he or she thinks nothing will ever change. Yet life is all about change. It is always changing. If we can just hang on a little longer when we feel so down, things will change. And we can make them change for the better. My life is proof of that. All we have to do is reach out.

And, words started coming to me. I hurried to grab a piece of paper and pencil to get them down. They were the words I would say to Deanna. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I started to hear a tune as I put down the words. I don’t claim to be a songwriter, but somehow, my desire to help Deanna came together as the words and music I wrote that evening.

When Karen and I were little, Mildred had insisted Karen take piano lessons. Naturally I had been a part of them too, although I hadn’t done any playing in years. But Karen had kept up with playing and had a keyboard in her apartment. I crossed the hall and asked her if I could borrow it.

Once back in my apartment, I began to strike the keys. C,D,E,F, E,E,D,G. Then I repeated the pattern starting with G. It sounded right and I sang as I played the first notes, “Look up in hope.” It sounded right and I kept on.

I was up half the night finishing it. The next day, I took the keyboard with me to see Deanna and played my little song for her. As I ended it, she was in tears. “You wrote that for me?”

“I think I wrote it for both of us,” I replied. “I know what it’s like to be down too, but I lived beyond it and found a whole, wonderful world. A world that has a big part called Deanna. And I want--no I know--that Deanna will find out how wonderful it is too, if she only hopes.”

I reached out and gave her a big hug. She, in turn, promised to keep hoping and to keep working.

“I will get better,” she stated.

That was my song. And, considering the reason all the children were in Children’s Hospital, it seemed appropriate.

So, I pulled Terri aside and played my song on the piano and sang it to her.

She liked it, but said it needed a last verse that invited everyone to join in the hope. She hooked me up with the musical director of the show, who agreed to orchestrate the song. Terri and I worked on the words to the last verse. With some work, my song became the new finale.

At last, the big night was here. I was scared. Especially since I’d gotten tickets for Ken and the girls. Karen and the others from the office were also there. Steve and Madeline were also coming.

I was dressed in a satin leotard that was very high cut on the sides and very tight in the crotch. Underneath, I was wearing fishnet stockings that did great things to my legs. They were the kind that had soles in the bottoms. I’d tried a cheap pair at one rehearsal and found that the strings of the netting really cut into the bottoms of my feet. I lasted about three minutes before I had to take them off.

I had on three-inch patent leather pumps that further helped the shape of my legs. On top, I had a formal white shirt with bow tie and a formal tux coat with tails. You’ve seen the outfit in lots of movies. But I still felt great in it. I even had the top hat.

The number started out with a dark stage. I was standing at the top of a staircase when the spotlight hit me. I started singing and descended the stairs into a crowd of men that included some professional dancers and some of the football players. I moved and swayed, covering the stage with my dance steps. I rubbed myself up against some of the football players in an over-the-top parody of flirting. At one point, I jumped into the air, to be caught and lifted up by two of the dancers. Then two of the football players grabbed hold of my legs and moved so that I was doing a splits in the air. I almost felt like a Thanksgiving wishbone being pulled apart. Thank God I was completely healed! I also had to balance myself as they carried me around the stage. Actually, it was a good stretch for me and it got me ready for my big jump and splits at the front of the stage at the end of the number.

There was a thunderous applause. I was overwhelmed at how much they liked me. I took several bows and pulled the two football players who had carried me around the stage to the front to share in the applause. Finally the curtain fell.

Then I got to wait in the wings until the final number. Again the stage was dark. It was also bare. All the props had been cleared off. The melody of the final song began and I walked to the center of the empty stage, a spotlight following me. Then I began to sing.

“Look up in Hope,
And things will get better,
Look up in Love,
And there’s nothing you can’t do.

Join us in Joy,
We’ll do it together,
We can remake
the world on our own.”

As the second verse started, other members of the cast joined in, walking from the wings. Soon the entire cast was on stage. The words “Reach Out In Hope,” flashed across a screen that had dropped down in back of us, followed by the rest of the song. As we came to the words, “Reach out your hand,” the entire cast joined hands and the members on both ends of the stage moved down the stairs on the sides and reached out to join hands with the audience. Soon, everyone in the theater had joined hands and was singing. When we came to the last line, we all raised our hands in triumph.

What I hadn’t noticed, as I raised my voice with all the others, was that a beautiful little redheaded girl with several bouquets of roses in her lap was being wheeled onto the stage. As we finished the song, the wheelchair stopped several feet from me and Deanna stood up and slowly walked from her chair towards me. She gave a bouquet to Terri and to the other principals in the show, ending up with one to give to me. I smiled at her through my tears, accepted the roses and gave her a big hug.

“I get to go home next week,” she told me. It was only when I heard her voice echoed that I realized my mike was still on and had been picked up and amplified her words throughout the theater. I picked her up and faced the audience.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” I said. “This is my dear friend, Deanna. I met her over a year ago, at the Children’s Hospital. Her body had been horribly mangled in a terrible traffic accident. Today, after a lot of very hard work on her part, I was surprised to see her walk across this stage. There was a time when neither she nor I would have thought she would ever be able to do that.

“Thanks to the doctors at the hospital and the people at the Hospital Rehab Clinic, you all saw what she can now do. This is what your being here tonight and your contributions accomplish. You all make it possible for Deanna and all the other children at the Hospital and Clinic to look up in hope. They, and I, thank you.”

“Thank you,” Deanna added.

It seemed like the applause would never stop. I took Deanna over to introduce her to Terri and explain how this was all Terri’s idea. But I found out that they already knew each other. When Deanna heard about the show, she wanted to be a part of it somehow. Ken had called Terri and Deanna’s appearance on stage had been Terri’s idea. I wanted to brain her for surprising me like that.

“The look on your face when Deanna walked up to you was priceless,” Terri said laughing, “Your words were so much more wonderful than anything that could have been scripted in advance. They were the perfect ending to a perfect show.”

As I walked with Deanna back to her wheelchair, what she’d said finally registered.

“You’re going home next week?” I said. “Oh, Honey, that’s so wonderful!”

“I can hardly wait,” she said. “I’ll still have to come back once a week for a while, but I’ll be home!”

Just then Ken and Sarah and Millie came up and I got a big group hug.

“You were so beautiful,” Millie yelled.

“And so graceful,” Sarah added.

“And your speech at the end was wonderful,” Ken added quietly.

I don’t know what it was, but Ken and I had grown increasingly shy around each other over the past few weeks. But I wasn’t going to let that stop me.

“Listen,” I said. “In celebration of Deanna’s coming home, can I cook you dinner?”

Naturally, all the girls were in favor. While they didn’t say it loudly, Sarah whispered to me, “That would be great, we’re so tired of Daddy’s cooking.”

I smiled, and made sure I knew the day and time. Ken assured me that I wouldn’t be needed at the Clinic, so we made arrangements for me to meet them at their house. It turned out that Deanna’s favorite meal was roast beef, with mashed potatoes and peas, so I said I could make that. I’d bring all the food, so Ken could concentrate on making all the arrangements for getting Deanna home.

“But I reserve the right to prepare a gourmet dessert,” I cautioned. “By the way, you were going to clean, weren’t you?”

Ken turned a little red and mumbled something about “not enough time in the day...”

I smiled and told Sarah and Millie that I’d be arriving early that day and that as soon as they got home from school, they were going to help me clean their house.

“In the meantime, you two are going to pick up all your things and get your rooms in shape,” I said. “We won’t have time to do everything in one day, so you have to get your house ready for me to clean.”

I promised that if they did a good job, according to my inspection, we could also make cookies when we finished cleaning. That seemed to be a motivator.

As Ken hustled the girls out the door, I turned and saw Cindy and Jake standing in the wings.

“Jessica, you were magnificent,” Cindy said. “This was such a wonderful idea. The next time you girls want to do a benefit like this, let me know. My agency will do all your publicity for free.”

I thanked her for such a generous offer.

“Why don’t we meet for lunch?” she asked. “Are you open on Tuesday?”

We made arrangements to meet in a restaurant at the Fish Market. She gave me a hug and left. I finally got to go to my dressing room.

Next: Jessica and Cindy have lunch and Jessica gets a surprise.