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"If you look and act like Joel, I'll be glad to see the end of you as well"

Oh, how could I say that to the man I loved? He shifted farther away, then refused to respond to my touch on his arm "Chris, I'm sorry I didn't mean that" My hand caressed his arm, then moved to slip inside his pajama jacket

"I think it best if you keep your hands to yourself I'ht, Catherine, and remember, when you look for trouble, you usually find it"

I heard a distant door close My illu on a robe, I slipped into Melodie's rooed the long trip froe to her bedroom Did she and Bart stop to embrace end kiss? Did they whisper love words they couldn't save for to? Faint hints of dawn approaching showed over the ri terribly i in the door of her rooh-heeled silver slippers in one hand, and in her other hand she held a small silver clutch

She was sixblack dress it was hardly noticeable She jerked when she saw me rise from a chair, then choked as she backed away "Well, Melodie," I said cynically, "don't you look pretty"

"Cathy, is Jory all right?"

"Do you really care?"

"You sound so angry with me You look at me so hard--what have I done, Cathy?"

"As if you don't know," I said to her with angry e the tact I'd intended to use "You slip out on a rainy night with my second son, and you come home hours later with red strawberry marks on your neck, with your lipstick smeared and your hair unbound, and still you ask, whathaveyoudone Why don't you tell mewhat you have done"

She stared at uilt, with shame, but there was some element of hope there as well "You've been likeas they pleaded for"Please don't fail me nohen I need a mother more than I ever have before"

"But you forget, I am Jory's mother first and foremost I am also Bart's mother When you betray Jory, you betray me"

Melodie cried out again, pleading with me to listen to her

"Don't turn away from me now, Cathy I have no one but you ill understand Certainly you of all people have to understand! I love Jory, I'll always love him--"

"And so you go to bed with Bart? What a fine way to show your love," I interrupted My voice sounded cold and hard

Her face lowered intoto me "Cathy, please Wait until you hear my side" Her face lifted, already stained with tears, black tears because of her mascara Somehow this served only to make her look more pitifully vulnerable "I'm part of the ballet world, Cathy, and you knohat that means We are the dancers who take music into our bodies and souls and make it visible for all to see, and for that we pay a price, a heavy price You know the price We dance with our souls bared for all to view and criticize if they will, and when the dance ends, and we hear the applause, and we accept the roses, and take the bows and the curtain calls, and hear the calls of bravo! bravo! finally we end up backstage to take off the makeup, to put on everyday mundane clothes, and then we know the best of e are isn't real, only fantasy We float on wings of sensuality so powerful nobody can realize as we do the pain of all that's so insensitive and cruel and brutal in reality"