Pulse: A Stepbrother Romance (17 page)

“You’ll do great,” I said. Leah shook out her hands and bounced around to loosen up. “I’ve been right there with you all this week as you ran lines, and you haven’t made a single mistake. More than that, you brought Annie alive right in front of my eyes. You are magnificent.”

It was like watching a boxer warm up for a sparring session, the way Leah danced around the room, rolling her shoulders and moving her arms around. Any second now, she would start shadowboxing.

“It’s not me I’m worried about,” she said. “What if the play itself is a disaster? John is certain it’ll be a failure.”

She’d told me about the script writer. I hadn’t met him, but he sounded like he was an interesting fellow.

“You’ve done everything you can,” I said as I stepped forward and put my hands on her shoulders to calm her. I looked into her eyes. Those brilliant green eyes. “All you can do now is act the shit out of your part, no matter what else happens onstage.”

“I know.” She nodded and took a deep breath. All the nervous energy disappeared as though she sucked it back into her. I’d seen nothing like it. “I know. It’s time to put on a show.”

“I’ll be right there watching.” I leaned forward and kissed her, soft and light since I didn’t want to throw any distracting thoughts into her head just before the play started.

She didn’t let me pull back when I intended to, grabbing hold of the back of my head and pulling me deeper into the kiss. I growled and barely prevented myself from burying my hands into her hair and ruining the work of the makeup crew over the past hour.

“Thanks,” Leah said when we parted. “I needed that. How’s my makeup?”

“Perfect.”

“Okay. It’s time to shine.” She smiled. “That’s what Dad always said every time I performed. It didn’t matter how important it was, whether I practiced lines in front of him after dinner at night or if I was about to lead a school production. It’s time to shine.”

“You shine brighter than anyone I’ve ever known. Now go knock ‘em dead.”

With one last squeeze of the hand, I left her to go find my seat.

Theater had never been one of my interests. In fact, this was the first time I’d ever been in one. I expected it to be more like a movie theater, but the way it was set up made more sense, with the balcony over top.

Leah had gotten me a seat at the front of the balcony, off to the side. It was a good seat. I had a great view of the stage, and it wasn’t too elevated that the sets looked unrealistic.

People streamed in shortly after. The theater wasn’t too large—intimate was a good word. There were enough seats for a few hundred people.

Only a quarter of the venue had people in the seats with ten minutes to curtain. Just before the time struck, a flood of stragglers swept through the doors. Some of them wore clothing that wasn’t appropriate, as if they’d been swept in off the street.

Maybe they had.
It was like an airplane—empty seats wouldn’t gain the production anything. Selling tickets at half price just before the show started was better than not selling them at all.

The lights dimmed, and I stopped worrying about the audience so I could sit back and enjoy the play.

At least I could partake in my favorite activity—watching Leah be passionate about something. Her character was a passionate woman, and Leah fit the role to a “T”. She was also in almost every scene, so she never had a long break. The number of costume changes she pulled off in a short time was astounding.

And all the cast members standing backstage are probably getting an eyeful.
It almost made me wish I’d volunteered to help her change, both so I could watch and to fend off what I imagined to be a horde of horny arts students.

As the first act got underway, one thing became clear—Leah hadn’t been overstating her fears about the cast’s talents. I had gone over the script almost as much as Leah, playing the opposing part in every scene. I couldn’t help but mouth the words along with whatever actor played opposite her.

The words didn’t always match.

It was usually small things, a turn of phrase that made little difference and the rest of the audience couldn’t possibly notice.

Every once in a while, it was something major.

Are you kidding me?
I raged inside my mind as the man playing the duke failed to point out the stable boy’s absence. It was a non-event right then, but that little clue was the only piece of evidence that would guide an observant audience member toward the correct, logical conclusion of the act. Without it, the culmination of the final scene would be random and out of nowhere without a proper setup.

“My lord,” Leah said on stage. “Does it not appear that one of our party is absent?”

She caught it.
Of course she would. And she knew as well as I did how important it was.

The actor was caught off guard by the sudden departure from a script he did not fully remember.

“Um, it does?”

She pointed to the hole in the lineup of minor characters around them. “Our stable boy is missing!”

The duke snapped out of it and put his hands on his hips. “Yes, of course! Men, find out where the stable boy went. We must stick together now. I fear the worst is upon us!”

It was a close call, and my admiration for Leah doubled.

That girl knows how to think on her feet.

She wasn’t in the clear yet, though. The number of mistakes only grew larger as time went on, some of them egregious enough that the small audience couldn’t help but notice.

The first act drew to a shaky close, and a spattering of applause greeted the closing of the curtain.

Let’s hope this gets better.

Come on, Liam.

I maintained my pose as the boy—only a year younger but so much more immature I couldn’t think of him as a man—struggled to remember his line. He stared at my face, terror showing as he realized that the words wouldn’t come.

For fuck’s sake.

“Don’t you love me, Drake? Aren’t I woman enough for you? I thought you would take care of my husband for me so we could be together forever! Was that all an elaborate ruse so you could kiss me in the courtyard? You’re no better than a common scoundrel!” I improvised, throwing my handkerchief at his face.

“Ah, Annie, you’re the only one I want. You know I would do anything for you!”

Close enough.

I swept across the stage, putting on false hysterics for the audience as I berated Drake for not looking out for my interests. That he was the fifth man I’d so accosted in the play was part of the fun, as was the fact that none of them knew about each other.

At least, not yet. That’s coming up, though.

Getting to the end of the play had proven an ordeal. A masterpiece like the script as written deserved to be made into a spectacle, a wonderful night of storytelling and acting.

It was instead a travesty.

I’d failed John. I’d promised him I would make this a night to remember, and our praises would be sung in the papers. That he would get the recognition he deserved for such brilliant and clever writing.

I tried to ignore the couple in the middle of the orchestra seating who got up and headed for the door during Liam’s next set of lines. The audience had dwindled ever since midway through the first act, and now that the play was close to being over, only a fraction remained.

Part of the problem was the sheer length of the play, but it was good enough it shouldn’t have mattered. No, the real issue was that the cast wasn’t engaging enough. I tried to make up for it, but despite being in every scene, there was only so much I could do.

The scene ended, and I left for the final costume change.

“Good, good,” Joseph said, swigging from a small flask that had come out before the opening scene of the night. John had been right all along about him. “Good job, everyone.”

The disinterest affected everyone. It was obvious in the expressions of the cast standing around waiting for the massive confrontation of the final scene.

“Shouldn’t you be doing more than that?” I asked him. “You know, directing or something?”

He swung the flask back and took another long drag of whatever harsh alcohol was inside. The smell of it singed my nostrils when he belched.

“Hey, princess, you may think you’re on the up and up, but I’m a seasoned director. Don’t think you know more about this business than I do. Just because you’re the star doesn’t mean I don’t have my shit handled. It’s not my fault that this lot can’t act to save their lives. Besides, with your name attached to this train wreck you aren’t ever going to have another shot at fame.”

His words were like a slap to the face.

“You coward,” I said, pointing my finger right in his face. He had trouble focusing on it. “Just because you’ve ruined your reputation and your life doesn’t mean the rest of us have to follow you off the cliff.”

I turned to the rest of the cast.

“I know we’ve had a tough go of it tonight. It’s natural to be nervous and even forgetting a line happens to the best of us.”

Someone to my right muttered, “It never happened to you.”

That threw me off my stride. “Well, I… I practice hard, and I got lucky. The point is that we still can end on a high note. This last scene is the most important one, and we can still nail it. It’s the one we spent the most time on in rehearsal, and I know everyone knows what they’re doing. Just pretend that this is another practice, and there’s no one out there watching.”

“There
is
no one out there watching,” said Doug, dressed in the stable boy’s outfit. “They’ve all left.”

It was hopeless. I’d lost them. It was time to go back out.

“Please, can we all just put everything we have into this last scene? We have to get through this, and it’s all over. Let’s at least give ourselves a reason to hold our heads up after this.”

I didn’t know whether I’d reached them or not. Despite the showing so far, I had faith that everyone had at least some talent or enthusiasm left in them. I’d seen it in rehearsals, and I knew that if everyone pulled together, we could knock the scene out of the park.

It was a disaster.

The final scene was a perfect representation of the script itself—many-layered, very clever, and a delicate balance of elements that when done well would be the perfect end and bring hordes to their feet in applause.

By the end of the scene, it was all I could do not to run off the stage and cry.

I held it in and finished the last few lines. When the curtains closed, all I felt was relief. There was near silence on the other side, and the curtain boy didn’t bother opening it back up for bows. The cast already peeled off to backstage.

It’s finally over.

I knew it might be bad. I didn’t in my worst nightmares imagine it could be that awful.

That’s it. I’m done.

I’d thrown myself into the play with reckless abandon, sacrificing schoolwork, family time, friendships, and parts of the college experience for what? So I could be a laughingstock and forever have this shameful experience under my belt?

What was it John said? Life is just a series of experiences. Good and bad are a matter of perspective and frame of reference.

It was hard to see how I would ever look back on this one and label it anything other than bad.