The Final Act (10 page)

After they left the dress shop, they got serious about purchasing the necessities they’d intended to shop for. Stopping at a café for lunch, they chatted about their families and future plans, gossiped about the other cast members and talked about performing.

“I’m always so nervous in those few seconds before the curtain goes up. Sometimes I think I’m going to open my mouth and hurl instead of sing.” Elena took a bite of the hot fudge sundae they were sharing. “I could recite my lines, or anybody else’s, in my sleep, but even though we’ve done the show so many times now, I’m always afraid I’ll forget something or screw up one of the dances.”

“Dancing is the worst. I had tap lessons growing up, but I’m no professional dancer. I’m still amazed I got the role.” Gretchen dug her spoon into the brownie beneath the ice cream. “You never seem nervous. I thought it was just me.”

“Everybody is.” Elena gestured with her spoon. “Except maybe Michael, the ice man. I don’t think he feels anything. I always do some deep breathing before I go on. How do you cope with the pre-show jitters?”

Gretchen shrugged. “Guess I just hold my breath and jump.” She paused, then added, “Jake gave me Xanax. It takes the edge off when I get too anxious.”

“Really?” Elena had sometimes thought Gretchen seemed a little too peaceful pre-show as they waited in the Green Room. “But you don’t have a prescription for it?”

“It’s not like a street drug or something.” Gretchen’s tone was defensive. “It’s no different than taking a sleeping pill when you can’t sleep. Really, it’s no big deal, and it helps me stay calm so I can focus.”

“Okay.” Elena changed the subject, but wondered if she should be worried.

Gretchen’s frown smoothed as their talk turned to complaints about hotel living and wondering what accommodations on the road would be like.

After they finished at the restaurant, they headed back to the hotel. They were walking past an outdoor café when Gretchen suddenly stopped.

“Hey, there’s Michael.”

Elena looked up quickly, infuriated at the way her heart leaped at the mention of his name. It reminded her of the middle school crush she’d had on Bob Lemming. From sixth through eighth grade he was the sun to her satellite. The sight of him down the hallway at school made her chest ache and her breath catch. How annoying to be a prisoner to a similar boy-crush at age twenty-five.

Michael sat in profile to them at a little, umbrella-shaded table several yards away. He gestured as he spoke to his dining companion, the woman from the
Trib
who’d given
Transitions
that great first review. What the hell was her name? Sorenson. Jennifer Sorenson.

The woman laughed. The breeze whipped a few strands of hair across her face. Michael leaned across the table to tuck the lock behind her ear, then cupped her chin and kissed her. Sorenson kissed him back, resting her hand on his arm and practically falling off her chair in an attempt to get closer, the bitch.

Elena felt one of Spielberg’s gremlins rise inside her head, snarling and ready to spring forward and tear handfuls of honey-blonde hair from the reporter’s scalp.

“Oh!” Gretchen glanced at Elena, checking her reaction.

With every ounce of willpower, she fought to keep her expression neutral. “Looks like he’s a little busy.” She forced a smile and turned away.

Gretchen walked silently beside her for a few moments before she spoke. “Does it bother you?”

“Of course not! Why would I care who Michael is with? Why would I be remotely interested?”

“I don’t know. I thought… Everyone thinks you have a thing for each other.”

Elena snorted. “Everybody’s crazy. I don’t even like him. We have nothing in common. He’s annoying.”

She walked faster.

Gretchen lengthened her stride to keep up, her shopping bag bumping Elena’s leg.

“It just seems like you two are so—”

“It’s acting, just acting,” Elena said sharply. “This is a professional theater production, Gretchen. We’re not in some high school play. Getting involved with a co-star is for amateurs—and evidently for some Hollywood types, according to the tabloids.”

“Of course.” Gretchen fell silent again as they power-walked the rest of the way back to the hotel.

After parting from Gretchen, Elena would have given anything to retreat to the solitude of her own room and brood, but her roommate was there. Cara Patrick was a chorus member and understudy for both Elena and Trinka’s roles. She sat on her bed, painting her toenails. Heavy metal screamed from the stereo, filling the room with pounding, raucous noise.

“Hey, buy anything fun? Any clothes I can borrow?”

“Not unless you want to share my underwear and socks.” Elena tossed her bags on her bed, sank down on a chair, kicked off her shoes and rubbed her feet. The loud music thudded in her head, making her tension headache worse.

She retreated into the only sanctuary available, the bathroom. The shower’s hot, stinging spray relaxed her muscles, but her mind was still in overdrive, contemplating Michael kissing the Sorenson woman. She’d told Gretchen it didn’t bother her, but of course it did. Elena tried to imagine some way she could have misinterpreted the situation, but the kissing was pretty self-explanatory.

She squeezed her eyes shut and lathered her hair.
Doesn’t matter. None of your business.
After rinsing her hair, she soaped her body and drifted into her recurring fantasy in which the bedroom scene in the play extended after the blackout. Michael continued kissing her, moving his mouth from her lips, to her throat, and then her breasts. His hand slipped between her legs and stroked her pussy.

Elena’s soapy hand followed the suggestion of her imagination, rubbing her clit in slow circles. She braced a hand against the wall of the shower, letting the water course over her, closed her eyes tight and concentrated on her daydream.

Michael kissed down her stomach to her crotch. His fingers brushed aside her curls and his breath puffed against her as his tongue dipped delicately in between her fold to taste her. Wet and hot, it lapped the length of her sex before focusing on her clit. He licked the erect bud until she trembled on the verge of orgasm.

Dream Elena gasped and rose to his touch while real Elena moaned and thrust against her hand. Tension built inside her, as she reached the best part of the daydream. From between her thighs, Michael looked up at her with those laser-blue eyes. Without his saying a word, she knew he was as infatuated with her as she was with him. There was no soft murmuring of her name, definitely no declaration of love, but she felt his passion was as deep and intense as her own.

The steaming water pummeled her back and her finger circled faster. The need for release rose inside her and abruptly burst, like an over-inflated balloon. Her hips jerked as she came. It was over too quickly, and was ultimately unsatisfying. Her pussy still ached to be filled, and she still craved the real thing instead of her own manipulation.

She lifted her face to the running water. This fantasizing about Michael had to end. She should go out and get laid. Next time Trinka begged her to go club hopping and man hunting with her, she’d take her up on the offer.

The rest of the afternoon before show time, Elena did laundry and wrote a letter to her mom. Putting words on paper avoided the misunderstandings that cropped up when they spoke to one another, when each woman read meanings into everything the other tried to express. She sat in the warm, sweet-scented laundry room listening to her clothes tumbling in the dryer and writing about how the production was going. She told about the Chicago museums, parks and shows she’d seen in her spare time and thanked her mom for coming to see her perform.

As she addressed the envelope, she thought of Michael with no relatives or friends there for him on opening weekend. She wondered what had happened between him and his family. Then she got distracted by the image of him kissing the Sorenson woman and another stab of jealousy shot through her. Elena crossed a T in her letter with an emphatic slash. Damn it! She had to stop dwelling on the man.

In the hallway on the way back to her room, she met Denny, who looked one hundred percent happier since Tom’s visit.

“Hi. How was shopping?”

“Good.”

“And our Gretchen?” He reached for the laundry basket to carry it for her. “Did you talk about what’s going on with her?”

“It’s Jake. She’s trying to figure out where they stand.”

“I don’t like him. He’s no good for her.”

“Are you her dad now?” They’d reached Elena’s room, and she pulled out her key.

“Well, somebody has to look out for her. She’s like frigging Pollyanna in the big city. She could get hurt.”

Elena quashed her own concerns about the Xanax. “Remember the dumb-ass stuff you did at twenty-one? We all have to live through it. Gretchen’s pretty level-headed. She’ll be okay.”

“I guess so.” Denny handed her laundry back. “But I’m still keeping my eye on her.”

He continued on his way down the hall, and Elena went into her room.

After putting her clothes away, she cleaned up her half of the room, which left Cara’s half looking even worse, and then took a taxi to the theater for the evening performance.

Following the bright, sunny afternoon, the weather had abruptly turned to cold, wet rain blowing in off Lake Michigan. The drenching downpour soaked her as she dashed to the back door of the theater and matched her sour mood.

She dressed in her costume and applied make-up, the routine distracting her from dwelling on Michael and the reporter. She didn’t see him until they were onstage.

It was easy for her to play Kathleen tonight, delivering the barbed banter with an angry edge and tense body language. But as her character grew softer, revealing her true feelings, the acting grew harder. Elena’s jealous gremlin was back, rattling the bars of its cage. By the time she had to kiss Michael, she was tight-lipped and stiff.

He pulled back from the kiss, looking at her with a quick, puzzled frown before leaning in and trying again. On the second kiss, Elena wrapped her arms around him and molded her body to his with a possessive air.

Backstage after the scene, Trinka whispered, “I liked the new bit with the hesitation. It really heightens the tension.”

The second act began.

Elena was onstage in the middle of another intense dialogue with Michael when a loud crash and a cry came from backstage. She glanced toward the sound, but resisted turning her head, keeping her focus on Michael and finishing her line.

After the blackout, she rushed backstage to find out what had happened. Her heart pounded as she saw Trinka lying on the floor with Gretchen crouched on one side, holding her hand, and Kurt Peters on the other.

“She fell from the upper tier of the set. Her leg might be broken. Ambulance is on its way,” Logan whispered. “Cara’s getting in costume now.”

Trinka lay only feet from where the action still continued onstage. Her teeth were clenched on the sleeve of her shirt to keep from crying out. Tears trickled from the corners of her tightly closed eyes.

Elena started to squat next to Gretchen, ready to offer what comfort she could to her friend, but Austen, the SM assistant, moved her along with a hand at her back.

“We’re going on. You have to get set for the next scene.”

Michael took hold of her hand and guided her to stage left where they had to make their next entrance. His hand gripped hers and gave a comforting squeeze as they stood waiting for their cue. He leaned to murmur in her ear, “She’ll be okay.”

Elena nodded. Far away, she heard the faint wail of a siren. The ambulance must have arrived in the rear alley for her to be able to hear it through the thick theater walls.

Before the next scene started, Austen announced to the audience that Cara Cunningham would fill the role of Jen for the remainder of the second act.

Elena barely had time to draw breath before her entrance, and the rest of the play passed in a blur. The company sang the final reprise of “We Are All” with as much joy as they could muster under the circumstances.

Michael stood behind her with his arms wrapped around her. His solid body at her back sent comforting warmth through her as they sang together. She clung to his arm, a little longer than was necessary after the lights extinguished.

With a quick squeeze and a kiss to the top of her head, he released her, and they separated, going to opposite wings to await their curtain call.

The lights came up. The audience rose to its feet with a roar of approval and resounding applause for the company for carrying on through the crisis.

Elena pasted a bright smile on her face and ran out from the wings to take her bow.

Entr’acte: Management

“You’re the director. Of course I respect your right to cast the show.” John Billings’ voice was smooth and calm as though he were reasoning with a child.

Phil grimaced into the phone.

“But this is a golden opportunity we can’t pass up,” the producer continued. “The show has had a very successful run in Chicago and received great reviews, but having a name performer on board as you start the tour will help ticket sales. I want you to use Renée.”

Billings was right. A name actor would help promote the production, but Phil made a last plea on Cara’s behalf.

“I understand the business aspect, John. But the point of casting unknowns was to give the ensemble an authentic feel. This company is very close. Cara Patrick is part of the team. She’s great in the part, and I’d much rather promote from within and hire a new understudy than bring in an outsider to fill the Jen role. I don’t want to upset the balance.”

There was a pause. When Billings spoke again, his voice was much cooler, a stern rather than benevolent father. “I understand your feelings, and respect your right to make the final decision, but management
strongly
suggests you use Renée Bullard.”

The polite words appeared to give him an option, but Phil knew the moneymen had made a choice. People like Billings remembered directors who caused trouble, and Phil had to look ahead to his involvement in future productions. Besides, Renée could be a big draw. She’d already filled the role of Jen on Broadway for several years. Phil could cast her, and know she would perform flawlessly. It was just a question of how she’d mesh with the rest of the cast.