“Taylor.” The voice was distant. “Taylor, please wake up.” The bed started shaking.
I sat up straight and looked at Clare. “Is it time?” I asked her, energized like I hadn’t been asleep less than a minute before.
“No, honey,” she said. “Unfortunately, it’s not.” She laid her head back down on her pillow. I noticed that her face was red.
“What’s wrong, Clare?” I begged leaning over her.
“My back hurts, my feet hurt, and I feel like I’m going to explode.”
I sighed and touched her hair gently. “Do you want anything?”
She nodded. “An inducement.”
“Aw baby I’m so sorry!” I hugged her sympathetically. “It’ll be over soon I promise.” I gently rubbed her large stomach with my free hand. “You’re getting low,” I commented.
Clare nodded and shifted up on her pillow, arching her back quickly. “I know.”
“It shouldn’t be too long now,” I told her putting one hand on her cheek. I smiled softly. “I’m guessing in a few days I’ll be sitting by your side holding your hand as we look at these two beauties from the outside.”
“I hope you’re right,” she told me. “I really hope you’re right.”
I laid back down on the bed and put an arm around her shoulders. “I know I’m right.” Clare did her best to laugh at my joke but it fell flat when she grabbed my arm tightly and made a pained expression. I sat up quickly. “Are you sure those aren’t contractions?”
“No,” Clare said, shaking her head, her face drifting back to normal. “I’m positive.”
“Should I take you in to the hospital just to be sure?” I leaned over her again and gripped her hand tightly.
“No, Taylor.” She smiled at me and touched my cheek with the hand that wasn’t clasped in mine. “You can sleep honey.”
I settled back down on the pillow and turned my head towards my wife. “Think these kids will be procrastinators when they get out of there?”
Clare laughed softly. “I hope not.”
“They’re already late.”
“By a week,” Clare sighed.
I smiled reassuringly at my wife and kissed her fingers. “How about this? Let’s talk about something other than the twins and how they have stayed in there longer than they were supposed to, and let’s talk about something else. A watched pot never boils.”
“I’m not understanding you here, Tay.”
“Maybe if we talk about other things for the next few hours they’ll come out.”
“I like that idea.”
“I figured you would,” I chuckled. The two of us sat in silence for awhile, both knowing the other was awake but not knowing what to say. I reached over and stroked Clare’s fingers. “Hon?”
“Hm?” Clare sounded content. Some of the pain must have eased up. I continued to massage her hand gently and took a deep breath, knowing it was time to bring up an issue I hadn’t wanted to discuss until after January 20, the babies’ due date.
“Say, hypothetically speaking, that you and I were driving in Manhattan and when we drove through Times Square you looked up and saw my face on a billboard.” Clare didn’t speak. “Are you awake?” I whispered softly, lowering my voice from the normal volume it had been seconds before.
“Yes,” she responded in a normal voice. “I’m just wondering if you took ‘Confusing Pills’ this morning.” She turned her head towards me. “Are you guys getting a billboard in Times Square for the new album?” She sounded excited. “You are going to sell so many albums that way!”
“No, Clare, wait a sec,” I interrupted. She stopped speaking and I could see her looking at me through the darkness with a puzzled look in her eyes. I swallowed hard. “What I mean is, what if I, not the band, had my face on a billboard in Times Square.”
“I’d be scared,” Clare joked. “Your big head on a big billboard, nightmares!” She teased.
“What I’m really trying to say is...” I chickened out again and looked for another way to tell her what I wanted to say. “What if under my face on this billboard were the words, ‘Broadway’s The Phantom Of The Opera welcomes Taylor Hanson as The Phantom starting from May first till-’ whenever the end date would be.”
My sentence hung in the air, unanswered for a few moments.
“Jordan, are you trying to tell me that you are going to be in a Broadway play?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
My wife didn’t answer again. She turned her head forward and starred off into the darkness for a few minutes. Then she started laughing.
“Hey! That’s not fair!” I whined. “You don’t think I can do it.” I dropped her hand.
She turned back to me and shook her head, touching my chin lightly, “no honey, it’s not that at all!”
“What is it then?” I grumbled. My wife didn’t have faith in me and that was enough to tell me that it was a stupid idea. I shouldn’t have even considered it.
“I never knew you were interested in acting professionally,” she continued.
“Neither did I...”
“Where did this come from anyway?” She questioned.
I cleared my throat and told her what had happened with the Broadway executive at the Thanksgiving Day Parade in November. “He said I have to tell him by February if I wanted to take the part,” I finished. “I wanted to tell you sooner but it slipped my mind- kind of.”
“I think you should,” Clare said firmly.
“W-what?” I asked. Was I hearing right?
“Yeah, I definitely think so,” my wife went on, “I understand where Mr. Jerichs is coming from. Casting you as the lead male would probably bring in a lot of your fans. Plus, if you do a good job, which I am confident you will, the critics will rave about your performance and more people will want to come in to watch it and see if you are horrible or not.”
I chuckled, “great way to put it, Dear.”
“Are you going to tell him ‘yes’?”
“I’m not sure. I ought to discuss it with my brothers first.”
Clare ran her finger up and down my cheek. “Whatever you decide to do will be perfect,” she assured me. She lowered her voice, “If you decide to take the part your daughters and I will support you even if you get bad reviews.”
I grinned and grabbed her finger with my hand, holding it to my face. “You’re not mad at me?”
“Why would I be?”
“It’s your dream,” I confessed, “not mine. My dream is happening; I have a beautiful wife, soon-to-be four gorgeous daughters, a dog, a horse, a band, and I own my own record label... you’re the actor, not me.”
“I haven’t thought about my old dreams in ages,” Clare assured me. “Besides, being backstage waiting for my husband to finish a show is just as good as doing it myself. Then I get to tell everyone, ‘the star of the show is my husband’ and all the girls backstage will hate me.”
“What will I do about touring though?”
“Celebrities don’t really do shows for more than a few months,” my wife explained. “You’ll do your time, bring in some money for charity and the show in general, box office sales will skyrocket and then Hanson will tour.”
I nodded and yawned. “I love you, Clare, but I’m so dead tired.” I wondered if she knew that I wanted to change the subject. It was true that it was Clare’s dream to be on a Broadway stage, it definitely wasn’t mine. I wanted to help out Mr. Jenks and the idea of having a part in a play actually did give me a thrill. Music would always be my passion, and at first I thought playing a role with a script wouldn’t do anything for me but something had definitely changed. I wanted to do it and it actually scared me.
“You have to wake up early to go to the store,” Clare giggled bringing me back to reality.
“SuperBowl party time,” I said with a grin. I turned on my side. “Need energy for that one!” I tried to stifle a yawn but it didn’t quite work out that well. “Who ever would have thought the Jets would make it to the SuperBowl in our lifetime?”
“Not me,” Clare volunteered.
I closed my eyes and yawned again. “Shush,” I told her. “You’re mean.”
Clare laughed and patted my arm. I lifted it and allowed her head to rest on my shoulder. I settled down on my back and her head slid onto my chest. Somewhere in-between softly humming a tune into my wife’s hair and two in the morning I fell asleep, dreaming that I was sitting on a stage with my two brothers, playing an acoustic set in front of an audience with five beautiful girls sitting in the front row smiling at me. I kept waving at them and they would get excited and call out, “Daddy waved! Daddy waved!” Their faces beaming at me through the bright light; my wife and my four baby girls.