Showbiz, A Novel (26 page)

Scene 40

             
Margolies tried Candace again as he walked into the
Olympus
theater. He’d started thinking of it as
his
Olympus
theater, since he intended for the show to run for a very long time. Not only did he want the show to run forever, but he actually needed it to in order to earn back the massive up-front capital he’d raised to get it off the ground. He couldn’t take any chances with the whole critic debacle.

             
He hadn’t heard from Candace in a few days. He was antsy to get an update. He knew that she’d been spending the week working with her staff on the online voting, and he wanted to make sure there wouldn’t be a glitch in their plan once Reilly’s review came out.

             
Olympus
had taught him that technology could be his Achilles heel. He didn’t want to take any chances. At least he was feeling good today.
Olympus
had made it through the first two weeks of previews with surprisingly few stops.

             
Of course, most of his shows didn’t have to stop at all during preview performances, but considering the enormity of what they were trying to do and the new technology, he felt like it was a success. The audiences seemed to be enjoying it in the theater. Although he would have liked the online chatter to have been a little nicer the past couple of weeks.

             
The early previews of a Broadway show were always populated with chat room folks and bloggers. They hadn’t been very generous to
Olympus
. Then again, he thought, it’s not like those losers will be buying full-priced tickets, anyway.

             
He slid into a seat at the back of the house in order to oversee the crew and technicians run the trouble spots until they went smoothly. He expected the show to run all the way through that evening. He never knew when someone from OSHA safety board or the union reps would come through, and he needed them to see for themselves that everything on the show was working and safe.

             
He crossed his hands behind his head and leaned back. He was starting to feel like his old self again. Ticket sales were strong, thanks in large part to massive amount of press they were getting. Most of the coverage revolved around the “can he or can’t he?” pull of the largest show ever attempted on Broadway. Audiences loved that kind of thing and couldn’t resist seeing for themselves. A good thing, too, because with astronomical weekly running costs, he’d need to move a lot of full-priced tickets in order to pay back his investors.

             
A momentary dark cloud passed across his otherwise sunny mood. He didn’t like having to answer to his new investing contingent. They were staying too close, breathing down his neck. He’d known they would be, but he had hoped they’d trust that he knew what he was doing.

             
He relaxed again. It would all work out. Reilly’s guaranteed rave review on opening night in three weeks would seal the deal–and he’d be back on top!

Scene 41

             
Scarlett sat staring glassy eyed out the window of her apartment. It crossed her mind that if she didn’t get up soon, she might fuse with the chair. On the other hand, that would be okay. She couldn’t think of one good reason to ever get up again.

             
She heard her phone ring in her purse by the door for what seemed like the millionth time in the past twenty-four hours. She marveled that it hadn’t run out of batteries. She didn’t need to look at it. She could guess who was calling—Reilly. He might as well give up. He was the last person she wanted to talk to.

             
She should probably at least tell the Jeremys or Lawrence that she was sick. Or at least give them some excuse for why she had been a no-show at
Swan Song
the previous night. Maybe she wasn’t technically sick, but she was heart-sick. That was the worst kind. They would wonder why she had stopped showing up to the theater with only a few days left before opening night. She slumped further in the chair. At least she’d run out of tears.

             
How could someone have it all one day—a good job, a great boyfriend, a Broadway-bound show—and nothing the next? She wondered again and again. And a bigger question plagued her: How could everyone outside her window be going about life as if everything was normal, when her whole life had shattered to pieces?

             
A knock on her door interrupted her pity-party reverie. She registered the interruption briefly but chose to ignore it. There was no one she wanted to see. Another knock, louder that time, soon turned to pounding.

             
“Scarlett, are you in there?” Lawrence’s voice. “Scarlett?”

             
She half-heartedly turned her head to the door, debating whether to call out a response. She idly wondered how he had gotten in the front door. One of her neighbors must have let him in.

             
“Scarlett? We’re all worried about you.”

             
“Go away!” she yelled toward the door. Her voice sounding raspy after a full day and night of crying and not speaking to anyone. She knew she needed to get her butt in gear and salvage what she could of the situation. She had always prided herself at responding well in a crisis. But this one-two punch of bad news had really thrown her for a loop.

             
“Thank god you’re alive. I thought I might have to tear hungry cats off your body.” His attempt at a bad joke fell flat.

             
She turned back to the window, prepared to wait him out. He knew she was alive, and she saw no reason why he couldn’t leave her alone. Forever.

             
“Scarlett? Bad joke, sorry. Will you please let me in?” He waited. “Scarlett?”

             
“No!” she yelled toward the door.

             
“I’m not leaving until you let me in.”

             
She sighed and got up. “I’m fine. Go away.”

             
“You don’t sound fine.”

             
“I’m not dressed,” she said, looking down at the ratty robe she wore over nothing but cutoff sweat shorts.

             
“Nothing I haven’t seen before, Gorgeous,” he said, obviously encouraged that she was at least responding to him through the door.

             
“I said go away.”

             
“Well, that’s not going to happen. I’m prepared to wait for you to change your mind.”

             
She could hear what sounded like his back sliding down the door as he sat on the floor outside her apartment, presumably to wait her out. He wasn’t going to give up, she realized. Fine, she thought, if he wants to subject himself to my misery, that is his problem. What do I care? He’d hear about it soon enough, anyway, once the bad review hit. At least he could take his money and dump it into something else.

             
She didn’t care. She had been so sure she could find her place on Broadway, become a player in the business she had loved her whole life. She had thought she could play the game, gave it her best shot, and still had come out a loser.

             
She wrenched the door open, and Lawrence, who had been leaning on it, flopped into her apartment. He looked up at her, upside down from the floor.

             
“Good to see you, Gorgeous.” He flashed her his best smile.

             
She turned around and shuffled back to her chair.

             
Lawrence got up off the floor and dusted himself off as he came further into her tiny studio apartment, closing the door behind him.

             
“So this is where you live?” he said, looking around at her three-hundred square feet of Broadway show posters, unmade Murphy bed, and cluttered excuse for a kitchen. Not surprisingly, they had never spent any time there; Lawrence’s penthouse was the more appealing and infinitely more spacious option.

             
“I didn’t know you had my address,” she said, her curiosity trumping her silence.

             
“I had to track it down,” he said, clearly proud of himself. “Turns out it’s not so hard to track down the one and only Queen Colleen in San Francisco. Your brother gave me your address.”

             
“You remembered my brother’s drag name?” At the moment, it didn’t seem at all strange to be sitting in her bathrobe, talking to Lawrence about drag queens. Now that was an idea. Maybe she would move back to the Bay Area and produce drag shows at Castro dive bars. It cheered her up momentarily.

             
“It’s not something one easily forgets. Besides, I was happy to hear that you had told your brother, or should I say, ‘sister,’ about me.”

             
“Brother. Get over yourself,” she said, but she had to admit that he was starting to improve her spirits, and she could see that he knew it.

             
“Now that I’m here, will you tell me what’s going on? We’ve been worried about you. It’s not like you to not show up at the theater.” As he talked, he slid her chair around, with her in it, to face the bed. He took a seat on the edge, amid the tangled knot of sheets and pillows.

             
“I don’t even know where to start.” She crumpled over, ending up with her head between her legs, feeling pathetic.

             
“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do.” He pulled her to her feet. “Get up. We’re putting you in the shower.” He half-walked, half-dragged her limp body toward the bathroom.

             
“What’s the point?” she whined.

             
“The point is that you’re a mess, and we need to get you sorted out so you can tell me what’s going on.”

             
“Put me down,” she said half-heartedly.

             
“Fine. But I’ll be waiting right here.” He set her down on the nearest surface he could find, which happened to be the closed toilet seat. He turned on the shower and got the temperature just right for her.

             
“Now get in.”

             
She sat there, slumped on the toilet. Not as comfortable as her chair, she thought, but it will do.

             
“If you don’t get in, I’m going to put you in.”

             
That got her attention a little. “
Fine
!” she said with frustration. “I’ll do it. Go away.”

             
“I’ll be right outside,” he said, closing the door behind him.

             
She had to admit the steamy air felt good on her dry, scratchy eyes. She gingerly peeled off her robe and shorts and climbed in. She washed her hair and brushed her teeth. She was starting to feel somewhat closer to human again. She wrapped a towel around her hair and was about to put her ratty robe back on when she realized just how much it had started to smell. Before she could put it back on, an arm shot through the bathroom door with the purple satin fur-cuffed robe that Colin had given her.

             
She slipped it on. The satin and fur felt good on her skin, but one glance, even through the fogged-up mirror, confirmed that she looked ridiculous. She came out of the bathroom and struck a diva pose.

             
“Ah, that’s more like it. You look like the Broadway producer you are…or soon will be!”

             
That sent her in a downward spiral again. She threw herself on the bed and put a pillow over her head.

             
“Was it something I said?” he asked, peeking under the pillow.

             
She squeezed her eyes shut. “Oh, Lawrence...” she said, though it just came out as muffled syllables. He came around to the other side of the bed and sat down. He lightly stroked her back with one hand and pried the pillow off her face with the other.

             
“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong? Is it Reilly?”

             
“Ding, ding, ding. Ten points for you.”

             
“Did you guys break up?” he asked.

             
Scarlett didn’t sense even a hint of triumph in his voice. He really was a good guy. Maybe he was getting more mature at fifty, she thought. “If only that was the worst of it.”

             
“Do you want to tell me what happened?” he asked again, gently.

             
She rolled onto her back and looked up at him. “I can’t.”

             
“What do you mean you can’t?”

             
“It’s too terrible. And anyway, I promised I wouldn’t.”