Premiere: A Love Story (4 page)

“Goodnight, Dad.”

Chapter Four

T
he next morning, Sam arrived early and sank into the rich gold upholstery of seat BB4 in the dark theater. She tucked her legs to the side. She had not slept well, or at all for that matter, and the paper cup of strong black tea warming her hands provided little comfort. She had climbed to the balcony, to the power position of the theater, hoping for some clarity. She wasn’t sure what to do, if she could even move.

The smell of fresh paint and sawdust ushered in the start of a new production.
Beginnings are always so wonderful
, she thought.

She leaned toward the front edge of the wrought iron balcony and saw two young actors, center stage, in animated conversation. A wash of warm light bathed them, blurring their features and making them almost dreamlike.

Her mind drifted from the list of props and supplies she was supposed to discuss with Peter to the magnet on her refrigerator affirming: “Everything happens for a reason.” Peter was back, she had seen him, danced with him, and survived. He had not come home for her, but to save the theater he loved. That was the reason, nothing more.

“Could we get some of the main scenery pieces out here for the first act?” called a voice from below.

It had been four years since Peter had thrown away a lifetime of friendship and everything she had ever imagined love was supposed to feel like. He could have called, should have called, but never did. After about a year, Sam stopped crying and decided never to be a fool again. She had rebuilt her life, a life that was working now, and she desperately needed it to stay that way.

She could see the designers moving boxes around the stage to simulate what would evolve into scenery. Sam normally loved the early days of a production. Correction, she still loved the early days of a production. Any minute now her shit would fall together, and she’d be down there. She was just waking up, reviewing her notes, whatever she could come up with, that was why she wasn’t moving.
Good girl, you keep telling yourself that, honey.

“Good morning, Peter,” Spencer, the director, called from the stage.

Spencer’s dirty blonde hair was long, but pulled off his face by a cheap rubber band. He wore glasses that spent more time in his hand than on his face. Spencer spoke in a calm, coffee-shop voice, most of the time.

“Julie left you a copy of the notes from yesterday’s read-through,” he continued while moving a box upstage.

“Morning,” Peter said, walking toward the stage.

Sam’s eyes found Peter at the sound of his voice. God, that voice crawled into her. Even when he was younger, it had been deep, raspy, and sexy—before she ever knew what that meant. She watched him pull the beat-up leather bag off his shoulder and put it into a seat. Peter continued toward the stage, rolling the sleeves of his shirt right above the elbows. He wore jeans. She found herself noticing his dark hair again. A memory of what it felt like to run her fingers through his wet hair and the citrus smell of his shampoo filled her mind. It was so unexpected, she physically jolted.

“I’m thinking we need to start by running the dream scene again and figure out what’s missing?” Spencer queried, hopping off the stage.

“Sure, we can start with the dream,” Peter said while flipping through a few pages of notes, adding, “Did you meet with Gordy last night about the light cues for that scene?”

As both men looked toward the lighting booth, Sam inched further down in her seat to be sure she wasn’t seen.
What am I hiding from now? Absurd
, she thought.

“We did meet and I think they’re done. I’ll ask him to at least hit the major cues while we’re working the scene. Give me twenty minutes, I’ll get him away from the doughnuts, and we’ll get started.”

With one more labored push, Spencer paused to wipe his forehead, exclaiming, “Aw, Christ, where’s the guy that’s supposed to help me move these damn boxes?”

“Getting old, buddy?” Peter laughed and turned back toward his seat.

“Sam?” Spencer moved to the end of the stage, holding his hand up to block the light.

“Sam, are you out there?”

The jig was up, as her grandfather used to say. Sam stood up, threw her tea out, and leaned over the balcony.

“I’m here, Spencer. Be right down.”

As she walked toward the lobby, Sam dialed Chris, their set design intern, to see if he was going to be on time.

Sam knew Spencer Asher and liked him. He had started as an actor in a few of the early one-acts Peter had put on while they were all at UCLA. He assisted on Peter’s first full-length play before graduation, but she didn’t know he had followed Peter to New York. Spencer had married recently; when he had arrived in Pasadena, she had taken him to lunch and learned that Peter had spent last Christmas with him and his wife at a cabin in Colorado. They were friends. Every time Sam thought of the pieces of Peter she no longer knew, it hurt.

Sam walked down toward the stage and saw Peter standing in the aisle, rubbing the back of his neck. Telltale sign he was stressed or nervous, or both. Sam hoped she was the cause of at least some of that stress. It took her mind off her own scratchy, sleep deprived eyes. She could do this. She was an adult and the assistant creative director of the Playhouse. The silliness of long-ago love was over, she had a job to do. Sam fixed her eyes on the stage, breezed past Peter, and walked right to Spencer.

“Here, Spencer, I’m here. I called Chris. He’s your guy for moving the set pieces. He’s just pulling into the parking lot, so leave those, and we’ll get them moved for you. What else can I help you with?”

“Great, thanks Sam.” Spencer looked at his notes. “Hey, Peter. Peter?”

“Uh, yeah sorry. What’s the problem?”

Peter was distracted by something on his phone, but he was now standing in the aisle, and looked up. Spencer jumped down from the stage and walked toward him. Sam followed, trying desperately to look at anything and everything except her past—her older, more stubbled, more rumpled, and sexier past—now standing casually in front of her with a pencil in his mouth.

“Do we know where we want the swing set yet? Sam says we’ve got it backstage, but I’m not sure we ever decided if it was going to be in front of the scrim for Act I or behind. I can just tape it off for now, but if it’s ready we should probably get it out here.”

“I thought we decided it would be behind the scrim for Act I, and then we’d bring it forward at the last scene change before Act II?”

Peter put the pencil back in his mouth, and his eyes flicked to Sam making breathing difficult yet again. Thank God she didn’t need to say anything.

“Right, right. We did say that. Okay.”

Spencer turned to Sam, asking, “Sam, can we get it moved onstage? Wait, you know what? Is it too late to get it put on wheels?”

So much for silence.
It was time for Sam to find her words. She took a breath.

“Actually, it’s already on casters. We can leave them on, even see if we can have set design put on a false front.”

Spencer smiled and put his arm around her.

“I love this girl,” he said, kissing her forehead.

Sam knew her face flushed, but there was nothing she could do.

“Hell, have you guys even seen each other yet?”

Spencer looked back and forth between Sam and Peter.

Peter smiled and replied, “We did. Saw each other at the fundraiser last night. Sam, it’s good to see you again.”

Sam did not smile.

She nodded, however, acknowledging, “Peter,” before looking back at Spencer, continuing, “Okay, so I’ll have them pull the swing set out and,” looking over her shoulder, and finishing with “it looks like Chris is getting everything else in place.”

“Okay.” Spencer looked confused at Sam’s sudden chill.

But she just kept moving. She had to. If she stopped for too long, if she lingered, everyone in the whole theater would see her hands shaking.

“Let me know if you need anything else,” Sam said as she hopped up onstage to take care of the swing set and get as far from Peter as possible.

Sam pushed through the curtain and stood up against the cool concrete wall backstage.
Damn him!
Wait, she had no right to damn him. This production would bring in enough publicity and money to keep the theater in the black for a few seasons. She should be thanking him, but the pain was sharper than she had anticipated. In the dark, she closed her eyes.

The Playhouse’s creative team had accepted Peter’s gracious offer without so much as a full read-through. That was unheard of, especially in a town like Pasadena, where keeping up appearances was as important as breathing.

“You’ll be taking most of this one, Sam. I’ll always be here, but you know Peter and the director. So no biggie, right?” Candice had proclaimed months before while smashing her lipstick-rimmed cigarette into the owl ashtray on her desk.

“I’ll need you to take notes at the production meetings, monitor rehearsals, and report back any resource needs, that sort of thing. Peter is footing the bill for the entire thing, but we need to make sure we’re on top of everything so money is not wasted. We may even need to pitch in if need be.”

No biggie? I
’
m pretty sure this is the biggest biggie
, Sam thought at the time, but of course she was the logical choice. It was a great opportunity. Sam had accepted the assignment with a smile.

So why, she mused, was she so stupid, heart fluttering, stuck? More importantly, at the age of twenty-eight, in her hometown, in her theater, why the hell was she shaking and avoiding him? She would have to talk to him eventually. They would be working together for the next few months. He was saving their ass, right? Sam let out a slow breath. She would be professional, cordial even.
It
’
s been four years, Sam. You were kids, get a grip!

Peter flipped through the notes from the read-through, one hand still rubbing the back of his neck. He tried to put her out of his mind. Those jeans, the slight shake in her voice, the smoldering hatred she tried to mask behind a professional facade. It was all there, even the lips. He needed to focus.

Writing, going to New York, had made Peter his own man. It freed him from the shadow of his parents, his tragic little story. Peter was always good with words. Sam used to tell him that he single-handedly saved her grades during freshman and sophomore English. It surprised no one when Peter became a playwright. He was sure this town would always see him as that awkward high school kid who put on the neighborhood talent show. The kid whose life seemed pleasant enough until the day his father blew his brains out.

Mrs. Fillmore, their plump music teacher whose hairline receded unusually far for a woman, had once cornered him at Junior Assembly and whispered, “Peter dear, you’ll really need to develop some confidence if you ever hope to marry or make any money.”

Peter was able to laugh, thinking about it now, sort of. This town had always underestimated him, so when his mother called to tell him the Playhouse was in trouble and might close its doors, he made excuses and then hung up the phone. He was successful in New York. In Pasadena, he was some poor rich kid with a dead dad and a mother who lived in a bottle.

Being that kid—coming back to be him—was the very last thing Peter wanted to do. Yet he loved the Playhouse. It had been his shelter when the storm hit. It was a beating heart when his simply stopped. That’s why he had called his mother back that same night and told her he would do whatever they needed. He couldn’t lose the theater as well. It would break Sam’s heart and he had already done that once.

Sam was everywhere while he was writing this play. He knew on some level that his therapist had yet to tackle that he would one day share it with her. Sure, it would generate revenue for the theater, but the play was for her. It was all the things he couldn’t say. At least what he had finished so far. He still had to write the ending. For the first time in his career, he was stuck. There was still plenty of time. He wasn’t worried yet. Maybe being home would jog . . . something.

When he had spoken to the board and offered up his play to help them fend off bankruptcy, he had been so resolute. He knew it was the right thing to do, but that didn’t make it easy. Maybe, as his friends in New York had said, he was returning home a wild success so he could swoop in, save the day, and prove he was now “the man.” He honestly had no idea, but looking at the stage now, Peter definitely didn’t feel like “the man.”

The play,
Looking In,
was a coming-of-age story about three friends growing up in a small, affluent community. Peter smirked thinking about it now. Not exactly original, but in public he would only own up to it being semi-autobiographical. He had written a couple of endings, but none had worked. He knew he could make something up, he had tried, but most of the play was so honest and organic that any ending he attempted to create fell flat.

Peter moved to his seat and added too much sugar to his coffee. Candice, the tall, leggy blonde, head of the theater, had told him Sam would be managing the production. Peter had nearly fallen off his chair during that videoconference. He had heard from Grady that Sam was now the assistant creative director, but given their history, he was surprised she wanted anything to do with this particular project. Maybe she didn’t have a choice.