Chapter 1
Therese managed to get through just over twenty years without being stood up. She never imagined it’d be Angie Martinelli who would break that streak.
They were meant to have lunch during her break at the Times, but Angie hadn’t showed. Therese waited and worried and actually made herself late over it. Frankly, she’d expect this from Carol much more than Angie. Carol, prone to lateness and distraction beautiful and charming enough to get away with it. Angie though, Angie was punctual to a fault. Racing across the city and back for five auditions a day would do that, Therese supposed.
She called Angie back at the office, sneaking a moment of privacy after fetching coffee and layouts for her boss. Angie kept telling her it would get better, that paying her dues would pay off. Angie was on Broadway now, no longer auditioning for the bit parts and barely-livable wages she’d chased before Therese knew her. Therese thought of this often at work, used it to keep herself going.
The other line rang so many times she thought she’d missed Angie again. Angie did answer though. She sounded tired, worn. Angie could keep up with Lizzie and Rindy on their most rambunctious of days, better than anyone else. Including Steve.
Angie was horrified when Therese prompted her about lunch. She’d forgotten. Therese was relieved to hear she wasn’t sick, that Lizzie wasn’t, but that hardly dispelled her worries. Carol was far more likely to forget an appointment entirely, and that was rare even for her. For Angie it was unheard of.
Angie apologized. Over and over. Therese frowned as she listened to the sincerity of it, sincerity that sounded like more. She heard a crack in Angie’s voice, something that might come before tears and why in the world would Angie be this upset?
Therese told her several times that it was okay. She hadn’t gone out of her way, the restaurant was near her office, she’d still ordered, she wasn’t starving. She left out the part about being late, hardly noticing that her call was taking longer than she’d planned, that she’d be in trouble again if she wasn’t careful.
“I’m not angry,” she said honestly. “I was just worried.” She paused, debated whether she should say the next part. “I still am.”
She heard Angie sigh into the phone. There was the smallest of silences before she got any other response. “Nothin to worry about, kiddo. Honest.”
Angie and Abby (and dear God what had Carol been thinking letting those two meet?) both called her that, despite half-hearted protests from Therese. Angie in particular wasn’t that much older than her, Therese always said. But listening to Angie now, Therese felt very young indeed. Or maybe Angie just sounded older than usual.
“Honest?” Therese repeated without trying to hide her skepticism
“They’re closing the Peter Pan show. If Rindy wants to see it again, you’d better be quick.”
Since learning Angie was the star, Rindy had begged her way into another showing countless times. The free tickets from Angie helped with that. She’d joked that Therese and Carol must be sick to death of seeing her in that costume by now, reciting the same lines, singing the same songs. It wasn’t true. Yes Therese could probably recite the play from memory by now, but she was never bored. Angie made each performance its own, brought something new to each repetition. Her passion was just as contagious as that first night, when the three of them had watched Angie light up the stage without knowing what would come later.
Therese couldn’t believe all that was ending, not when every show she took Rindy to was packed, when the audience seemed to respond with such enthusiasm every time. She told Angie as much.
“You ever been to a TV studio?”
This was not the response she’d expected. “Not that I can remember,” she said like it was something to forget.
“You want to?”
“Want to what?”
“See a TV studio.”
Angie still sounded worn, not especially happy, though Therese sensed she was trying to hide it more now. Therese herself was just confused.
“Some TV guy got the rights to do Peter Pan. We’re shooting it live. Regular production is being shelved so we can prepare, figure out how it’s gonna go.”
Therese was momentarily speechless. “I…you’re going to be on television? Angie that’s wonderful!”
“Yup. Nothing confirmed yet, but there are whispers about the original show and the Tony’s. People are saying I might be it for best performance.”
Therese felt herself smiling, desperately happy for her friend. She’d smile wider if Angie didn’t talk about a Tony award as if it were a consolation prize, a nickel she’d found in the street after walking home in a downpour. “Angie, that’s amazing!”
“Mmm.”
“Peggy and Steve must be so proud of you,” Therese said carefully.
“Not unless one of them picked up long range mind reading powers. They’re gone.”
“Gone?”
“Working.”
“Oh.” Therese was no mistaking the edge in Angie’s voice, the bite lacing that one word. Usually Angie mentioned if one of them had left town. ‘Working’ was a catchall term for anything that was dangerous and classified and none of their damn business. “I didn’t know they’d left.”
“Yeah.”
“How long will they be, do they think?”
“Who knows? Until the job’s done.”
Therese swore she heard a sneer there, “How’s Lizzie?”
“Fine.”
“How are you?”
“Fine.”
“Oh.”
It was silent for a moment. Therese heard Angie sigh into the receiver. “Sorry, Shutter. Actors, we have these moods, you know?”
Therese wanted to tell her that photographers had moods too, everyone did. “It’s okay.”
“No, no it’s really not.”
Therese didn’t think Angie was talking about just this, this odd conversation. “Angie—”
“Sorry about lunch, doll. We’ll do it up right next time, I’ll make it up to you.”
“You don’t have to make up for anything.”
“Are you at work? You must be, it’s still early. Did you sneak off to gab at me on office time?”
Angie’s voice held something of the usual teasing and it made the worry knotting Therese’s body loosen slightly, even as she blushed at being caught.
“Get your cute little ass back to work before the meatheads find you. And don’t tell Carol what I said about your ass, Carol’s kinda scary about you. I’ll make up for lunch.”
“Ange—”
Angie hung up on her.
“We were in the neighborhood,” Carol said the next day, laden down with two bags of groceries while Therese carried another.
“In the neighborhood,” Angie echoed. “Have to drive over an hour to get to Jersey from your neighborhood, Jersey.”
“And now we’re in the neighborhood. Did you think we weren’t going to celebrate your accomplishment?”
Angie gave Therese a look. Therese returned it with a shrug and a smile. “You did say you’d make up for lunch. Let us make you dinner.”
Before Angie could say anything, Lizzie was at the door, ducking past Angie to throw herself at Therese. “Auntie Carol, Aunt Therese!”
Therese hugged Lizzie as best she could with her free arm. “Hey, sweetheart.”
“Where’s Rindy?” Lizzie asked, looking past them toward their car as if they might’ve left her friend there.
Carol smiled softly. “It’s a weekday, Rindy’s still with her daddy, her grandparents.”
“Oh,” Lizzie said, face falling momentarily. “But you can still play with me, right?”
“If your mama lets us in, says it’s okay.”
Angie rolls her eyes at Carol’s smile. “Come on, baby. Quit choking the life out of Aunt Therese and let’s help with these bags.”
The resulting yell of delight was ear-splitting.
“Dirty play, Jersey,” Angie said, taking one of Carol’s bags and one from Therese as Lizzie ran off to ‘get ready to help in the kitchen.’ “Using my kid against me.”
“I’ll use whatever works when you stand my girl up and forget how to use a phone,” Carol said lightly.
“Your girl?” Therese repeated, not sure if she was touched or mortified.
“It won’t do to forget the little people, Miss Martin, at least ‘til you’ve actually got that Tony.”
Angie rolled her eyes again. “Don’t call me Martin in my own home, Carol. And if you mess up my kitchen, you die.”
“Noted.”
Therese chuckled at the banter, the use of Angie’s stage name. Another reason she and Carol hadn’t known right away about the connection to Peter Pan.
Therese found herself checking around as she walked the familiar rooms, sweeping them with her eyes. She didn’t know what she was looking for, didn’t find it either. Nothing seemed terribly out of place or unkempt. If Angie was down (and hadn’t she mentioned something called ennui and “getting a little blue sometimes?”), it didn’t seem to be affecting the house, or Lizzie.
By the time Therese entered the kitchen, Lizzie had pulled herself onto a stool there and was talking a mile a minute while sifting through the contents of the bags Angie put down.
“Did you bring anything good? Mommy and Daddy left forever ago, but they always bring me something back.”
Angie gripped one of the bags a bit too hard, causing a small tear. “They’ve been gone a week, not forever,” she said. “And if they bring back more of those chocolates, no inhaling the whole box again.”
“Are they bringing the chocolates back, Mama?”
Lizzie practically bounced in place and Angie tweaked her nose gently. “Maybe, maybe not. Your guess is as good as mine, sweetheart.”
Therese glanced at Carol, wondering if she was imagining that edge of something in Angie’s voice. She wasn’t, judging by Carol’s look.
“I hope you’re not planning to make Italian,” said Angie. “If you show up unannounced and take over my kitchen thinking you’re going to make Italian—”
“Chicken pot pie,” Carol said, then asked Therese cut up some vegetables for her.
Angie muttered something unintelligible, apparently out of threats for the moment.
“There’s wine in here somewhere,” Therese said, rooting through one of the bags. “If you’re interested.”
“Why not? Nothin says I can’t drink.”
“Can I have some?” Lizzie asked.
“Of course. You can have all you want of this wine right here.”
Angie went to the fridge and pulled out a pitcher of something that looked like lemonade.
Angie’s less than hospitable mood thawed slightly as the minutes passed. She apologized again about yesterday afternoon and Therese waved it off. Still, it felt odd sitting down to eat with just Angie and Lizzie.
“Well, to you,” Carol said, raising her glass in Angie’s direction. “To all your well-earned success.”
“Congratulations, Ange.” Therese smiled, clinking her glass with Angie’s.
“Is this because Mama’s getting on TV?” Lizzie asked, using both hands to touch her cup of lemonade to their wineglasses.
“It’s because we haven’t heard from you two in awhile, and we missed you,” Carol said.
“And yes, because Angie’s going to be on TV,” Therese added.
Angie rolled her eyes while helping Lizzie cut her chicken. “Don’t even try with that one. She couldn’t be less star-struck if she tried.”
“Are you gonna be on TV with Superman, Mama?”
Angie smiled, sighed. “No, munchkin. I already told you, Superman isn’t usually part of the Peter Pan story.”
“But Peter’s not usually a girl and you’re in it,” Lizzie pouted.
“I’ll meet with the producers once we get going and see what I can do, okay munchkin?”
“’Kay.”
“Superman?” Therese echoed, trying not to smile.
“Uh-huh,” Lizzie said, nodding hard as Angie sat back in her own chair. “He’s on TV and he gets bad people and he’s a hero and he flies!”
“Your mama flies too,” Carol pointed out. “Peter Pan’s always flying.”
“That’s why he should be in Mama’s show!”
“I finally get a lead where there’s not a man hogging all my thunder, and my own kid wants to change that. Of course.”
“Your parents are heroes too,” said Therese, pausing in thought between bites. “Isn’t that other show on around the same time as Superman? Cap—”
“Captain America Adventure Hour,” Lizzie finished without missing a beat. “Mommy and Daddy won’t let me watch it, or hear it on the radio. Mommy says it’s sac…sacro…”
“Sacrilege,” said Angie. “A woefully inaccurate portrayal of events that paints those involved as ridiculous, cartoonish figures.”
“That,” Lizzie said, accidentally smearing gravy on her face. “That’s what Mommy says.”
Therese frowned. “Cartoonish figures? Isn’t that show an actual—”
“A real cartoon? Yes, yes it is. Peggy thinks it’s slander.”
“But Mommy’s not here.”
Angie put a hand to her heart, made a show out of checking the room. “So she isn’t. Wipe your face, kid. If you’re going to manipulate me, you’re not gonna do it while wearing your dinner.”
Lizzie wiped her face, managed to make the mess worse, and gave her mother a pleading, doe-eyed look.
Muttering something in Italian, Angie used her own napkin to clean Lizzie up. “You can watch the show tomorrow if you finish all your supper tonight.”
“Really?”
“Really, really. If you finish everything Aunt Carol made for us.”
Lizzie nodded and said thank you to everyone, including Therese who hadn’t done more than cut a few vegetables. To make up for this, she insisted on cleaning up after dinner (though Lizzie’s plate was remarkably clean already).
“If you insist,” Carol said, pressing her lips to Therese’s hair.
“I can help!”
Angie looked at her daughter. “You do realize I already said you could have the forbidden fruit.”
“Huh?”
Angie shook her head. “Shutter, you good watching her for a bit?”
“Always,” said Therese.
Angie smiled her thanks, addressing Carol. “Come on, Jersey. You and me have business upstairs.”
“I thought you didn’t smoke,” Carol said, lighting Angie’s cigarette anyway.
They were on the balcony upstairs. The door was half-open and she could hear Lizzie and Therese puttering around in the kitchen if she tried.
“I smoke on special occasions,” Angie corrected, repeating what she’d told Carol when they first met.
“And this qualifies?”
“Shouldn’t it, my TV debut and all?” Angie asked, exhaling a ring of smoke into the night.
Carol hummed, noncommittal. “You also said smoking’s bad for your voice. Yes, I do pay attention. So, since you’ll be taking the national stage in a few months, I have to wonder about the timing.”
Angie exhaled again, resting an arm across the balcony railing.
“Is it because they’re gone?”
Angie’s laugh wasn’t the usual one. “Those two bein gone is hardly a special occasion.”
“My mistake.”
Carol waited, lighting her own cigarette and banking on Angie’s general dislike of silences. She shouldn’t have been surprised when that got her nowhere, This wasn’t an Angie she knew how to deal with it. “We just worry,” she said finally. Then, softer, “Them being gone doesn’t mean you’re alone.”
Angie sighed, toyed with her cigarette without looking at Carol. “Peggy got shot a few years ago, After Steve thawed out, before Lizzie. Did we ever mention that?”
“You didn’t,” Carol replied, stating what they both knew. “I’m sorry.”
Angie shrugged. “Hazard of the job. It’d happened before then, during fighting time with Steve and the boys, but this was different.”
“Different like worse?”
“Different like worse. Guy shot her twice, right before she was supposed to take a meeting in D.C. Unconscious for days, whole thing was touch and go. Steve and I camped out at the hospital, Howard threatened to burn it down if she died.”
Carol tried to imagine Therese like that, Rindy. It hurt too much. “Who shot her? Why?”
“Those answers are above civilian clearance level. But Sousa—another guy at SHIELD, he briefed us when we got there—Sousa said something about a metal arm.”
Unsure what to say to that, Carol chose silence.
“Anyway. They never caught him, but Steve promised me he would. Idiot.”
“And that’s what he, what they’re doing now?” Carol guessed, a sick feeling settling in.
“Yup. He almost killed her last time, so sure, let’s try that again.”
Carol reached out, squeezed Angie’s free hand over the railing. “It’s different though, isn’t it? They must be more prepared this time if they’re the ones going after him. And Steve’s with her.”
Angie made a rough noise in the back of her throat. “Yeah, great, Steve’s with her. Because that solves everything. Steve’s the idiot who crashed into the ocean and disappeared for three years, I’m sure he’ll keep things under control.”
“Angie…”
“Steve’s not the only one with her, Carol.”
Before Carol could ask, Angie snuffed out the rest of her cigarette against the railing. She’d smoked down to the filter and turned slightly to face Carol better.
“Peg’s pregnant. Light me another, wouldja Jersey?”