Diefenbaker took out his wallet and carefully removed a single worn photograph. It was an old, cheaply printed postcard, out of place in this obviously expensive leather wallet.
The black and white photo showed a smiling blonde girl wrapped in lace and feathers. She did look a bit like Laura; the round, childish face and slightly downturned eyes were close enough I could see why Jeffrey had made the mistake.
But it definitely wasn’t her, and without that makeup the resemblance would be totally gone. This girl looked like that ghastly retro poster I’d seen plastered outside the theater. If you made Laura up to look like this postcard and took a photo, well, the resemblance would be uncanny.
“I found her doing prep for a party,” Diefenbaker said, lost in his memories again. His eyes stared into the distance, dampening at the long-gone dream. “It was just like that day… Smiling girls, all so young and hopeful, their futures a blank page, the whole world in front of them. Meanwhile, I’d grown old, chained to this company and fortune and sense of decorum. I was crawling to my grave, wearing a mask with a phony smile on it. The day my father dragged me away and threw me into that limo, I was so envious of those girls. I hated them more than you can believe. All the women around me were hyenas panting after my fortune. I couldn’t stand it. I needed a girl like that. Needed the youth she had. The possibility. A future not yet written, that freedom, wings carrying her forward…”
“So why go and lock her up when you know it’ll just make her miserable?”
“I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “I think it was a form of revenge. Against all sorts of things. Against fate, I suppose. I know it wasn’t Laura’s fault, but when she smiled at me the same way that girl had, I knew I had to make her mine. I know it makes no sense. But I felt like her potential, her world, her future were all things that should have been mine. I couldn’t bear it. The girl who smiled at me that day got to have her future, while I was dragged away in a limo.”
To him, the chorus girl he’d seen as a boy was the same as Laura: a symbol of his shattered dreams and the misery that lay behind his mask. Laura had just been unlucky enough to resemble the girl in his memories, a girl whose name he’d never known.
Perhaps some would see his unhappiness as a luxury of the rich, but none of us lead lives filled only with joy. I could sympathize with living in a dreary reality far from what I desired. I’d been the same way, both before I’d found out I was a faerie and after.
Neither life had worked out as I’d hoped, but the world I lived in wasn’t that bad. My mother’s endless conversations weren’t exactly unbearable. The worlds I dreamed about didn’t exist, but at least I’d found a place and could work to make things better.
“Why not buy that theater and start a charity show?” The idea suddenly came to me. “Rookies who want a chance to shine, amateurs who want to show off the talents they’ve developed for fun, all up on stage. You could welcome walk-ins, let old people and children who can’t normally afford the theater in for free. Scouts looking for new talent will want to check it out. You’ll have huge crowds, and nobody will notice if one or two of the comedians are getting on in years.”
“You think?” Diefenbaker’s eyes sparkled. “You know, that just might work… The company can run itself without me, and I already bought the building.” Then a shadow passed over his face. “But what will people think?”
“To hell with it,” I said. This was a certain, effective “spell” I’d used ever since I was little: to hell with anything not worth fussing about. What other people thought was always at the top of that list. “Your father and grandfather ain’t around anymore, are they?”
“Naturally! They’re both long since six feet under. I…” His eyes widened, as if making a great discovery. “I’m free!”
“Then you’d better start getting ready. That place is a mess!” I stepped away from Diefenbaker, as he looked about ready to hop out of his chair and begin tap dancing. Before anything else, I remembered the big reason I was here. “That jewel you were going to give Laura. How did you come by it? My client wants to know just who managed to steal it from him. And why did you want to give it to Laura anyway?”
“Hmm? Oh.” He managed to pull his mind out of his glittering future, frowning. “Who was it? Hmm. Right. A lawyer, I think. One of my usual lawyers came down with the flu, and the one who turned up in his place brought the offer to me. Said it was a special necklace that could really develop an artist’s talents. You know, I don’t think I’d ever seen the man before. I normally wouldn’t pay any attention to such a suspicious proposition, but he was very convincing. And, truth is, Laura’s singing isn’t very good.”