Fate's Embrace Ch. 18 - Epilogue

Epilogue

Jenny got her job back at Max's as did Joe, Gene agreeing reluctantly to have him work busboy on weekends with an occasional filling in during the week. This allowed Joe to go up to Barrytown midweek to help Gabby with the programs for the group show. Unfortunately George Quasha wasn't interested in publishing Joe's book, but Joe ended up working with Susan to print the long poem for Carol's show on homemade pressed sheets to be sold at the shows. Both Joe and Gabby enjoyed their time together on the too small bed in the basement room next door.

He did get three of his recent poems published in more prestigious magazines than his first poem had been in. The weird one with haikus beside sonnets he'd shown to Carol to perhaps create a new performance piece. She was interested, but the long piece took her focus.

The group show went well with a nearly full audience attending both shows, even with the neophyte Joe in two of the pieces, one of which, Jenny's, ended up getting the greatest response.

Jenny and Joe took the weekend off from Max's for the group show. They didn't take time off again until the fall when his collaboration with Carol went on a lengthy tour at some pretty prestigious theaters including the Guthrie thrust stage in his hometown, ending with a weekend at BAM in Brooklyn close to New Years.

There hadn't been the suspicious goings on in mansions until the East Coast stretch, the troupe staying mostly in hotels like rock stars. In Lincoln they stayed at Carol's family mansion, and in Minneapolis Carol and Jenny stayed in his family's home. The three shared a bed throughout that part of the tour. None of the swapping beds happened. A horny Sue Anne would occasionally get an afternoon tryst or a post show tryst, but Joe ended those latter nights in bed with his two loves. Sue Anne and Connie would do guest spots at strip clubs in some cities and make extra dough finding johns at the clubs.

When the show came to San Francisco, Joe and Lindy got reacquainted. She'd visited him in New York after she graduated from Bard and before she headed out to the West Coast, spending the night with him in his bed, Jenny staying with Carol, Jenny of course agreeable and Carol surprisingly accepting, in fact becoming friends again when the four hung out together. Lindy had given Joe the address of her new company and they had exchanged letters and she invited Joe to her rehearsal which Joe found exhilarating. Jenny enjoyed it too, Joe inviting her, and gave him a kiss and left him with Lindy afterwards and he slept with Lindy throughout their stay. It was more a mutual enjoyment of their bodies and the sex than any reigniting of their relationship, with no sadness at their parting, just promises to keep in touch, which they did.

The collaboration between Joe and Carol continued with the haiku/sonnet poem for their next major show, this time as just part of the program, albeit the featured part. Three other pieces were involved with three other choreographers from the troupe, one of them Jenny. Carol only directed them to be multimedia. In Jenny's case it was a film Joe made essentially about their fated meeting from a poem Joe began writing soon after the encounter with both her and Carol. The soundtrack was his recitation of the poem and the dancing mirrored the film but more abstractly and emotionally, the three of them performing the dance.

The other two, probably for the best, didn't include any recitation. One, by Giovanni, was a sort of reenactment of Warhol's factory, the Warhol character, an actual artist, at the center, creating actual art, while the troupe performed the weird actions of his followers. A band played at the corner, a sort of Velvet Underground type band at their most drony, the viola player bowing endless notes. It ended with the artist being shot and everyone but the murderer collapsing.

Milly choreographed the final piece, drawn from her life, her hippy parents becoming junkies, her grandparents either reluctantly raising her or reluctantly pushing her away, with the home movies her father had shot once more incorporated.

The troupe continued for years, Jenny, Joe and Carol the only constant. It ended with Mark getting busted on a sting and the whole house of cards went up in flames. The revealed corruption touched many, though the bigger they were, the less they fell. Perhaps the embarrassment kept things from going public, and money could be used to let most slip through the cracks. The only ones really to get the full consequences were Mark and Stella.

Carol managed to slip through somewhat unscathed, pleading ignorance, but the support for her troupe ended. Joe, who had returned to school and had finished his PhD at Columbia, accepted a position at a small college in New Hampshire as a teacher of film, his filmmaking becoming better known than his poetry though he did publish three books of poems.

Jenny joined him and they finally got married, Jenny becoming pregnant not long after. Though they'd played dangerously with conception early on, thankfully it never took, she'd have had an abortion if it had, and she'd been on the pill for years, getting off it when they decided to finally tie the knot. She started a dance school for the small college town, getting some of her students from the bigger city nearby.

Carol floated around for a couple years, drinking a lot, doing coke a lot, ending up at her home mansion and drinking even more until her father sent her to Hazelden like he had for his wife, as much kicking her out as getting her fixed.

She was sober by the time she arrived in New Hampshire where her former lovers took her in, surprisingly, for her, happily. Within a year she got a position as dance teacher at a university in the nearby city having to commute but she didn't mind, because she felt so at home with her lovers. Eventually Jenny's little dance school became a dance company, regional at best, and many of the dances they performed were choreographed by Carol.

Since the wakeup call of Joe's OD, neither Jenny nor Joe ever used heroin again, nor anything else except for the post work drinks and frequent smoking of marijuana. That continued in New Hampshire, mellowing out with a nice wine and a joint at the end of the day except when Jenny got pregnant twice of course, a couple of adorable girls. Carol joined them in these relaxing imbibing. She'd been a drunk for a couple of years, but it had been more about a deep depression than her being an alcoholic. She didn't need to keep drinking until she was drunk. She'd drank before, even got drunk from time to time, but it never had taken her over, become necessary, except when she felt she'd lost everything, feeling worthless. Now she felt loved and welcomed into a loving life. Dancing or being in charge was less important, to the point she got pregnant too, twice, two adorable boys. Joe got himself snipped after the last so that the ladies could enjoy him without rubbers or the pill.