Wish Upon a Star (30 page)

I took Dani’s index card from my pocket. No time like the present.

A block from Timothy’s building, I ducked into a little bakery. Cup of Gold, said the sign over the door. I’d walked by it a dozen times before, but I’d never set foot inside. Three people stood in line in front of me. Three people, giving me time to think. Time to change my mind.

I set my teeth and stepped up to the counter. Two red velvet cupcakes. Two cups of coffee—one black, one fortified with sugar and cream. Two napkins. A box, complete with a bow.

Timothy’s building didn’t have a doorman. Someone was leaving just as I arrived. I smiled breezily, as if I belonged there. I waited for the elevator, taking care not to look in the mirror that hung beside the mailboxes in the lobby. The last thing I wanted to do was stare at myself.

Fourth floor. To the right. Third door.

Knock.

“Erin!”

He opened the door on a chain. In the spare seconds it took for him to close it, to slide the chain, to open it again, I tried to parse his tone of voice. Was he pleased to see me? Or was that pure shock in his voice? Certainly, it couldn’t be anger?

“Erin,” he said again, when the door was open. “Are you okay?”

Of course. He must have thought that something terrible had happened, after my avoiding him for three weeks. “No,” I said, and then I shook my head. “I mean, I’m fine.” Wonderful. I was getting this conversation off on a great foot.

After a long pause, he said, “Come in.”

The place was small, but light streamed in from two large windows. A tiny kitchenette gleamed to my right. We were standing in the living room. A door to the left showed a bedroom, and I could just glimpse a rumpled navy comforter sprawled across the mattress.

Fighting an involuntary blush, I extended my peace offering of food and drink. “Coals to Newcastle, I guess.”

“Coals are always welcome,” he said, but his voice was wary.

A newspaper draped across the small dinette table in the corner. “Please,” he said, gesturing me toward one of the two ladder-back chairs. “Have a seat.”

I was glad that there was someplace to sit, other than the couch. I didn’t think that I would trust myself to go on with this, otherwise. Not after the last time we’d sat on a couch together. Timothy swept away the newspaper. He collected two plates from his kitchen. He looked a question toward me, and I nodded, to indicate that he should open the box. “Red velvet,” he said. “My favorite.”

“Wonderful!” I said, but my voice sounded fake to me. Staged. As if I were reading a bad script. I reminded myself that I’d come here because I wanted to know more about him. My plan was working perfectly so far.

I looked around the room. Everything was crisp. Clean. The furniture was tailored, the colors subdued. Bookshelves lined the opposite wall. A blue-and-white abstract print was framed above the table where we sat. I looked at it closer, recognizing the signature in the bottom right corner.

Timothy Brennan.

“It’s a blueprint!” I said, honest surprise breaking the brittle varnish in my throat.

He shrugged. “It was my thesis project. To get my architecture degree.”

“You’re an architect!”

“Was,” he said. “Or I thought I would be, anyway.” He leaned back in his chair, stretching his legs in front of him with a predator’s restlessness. “What’s this all about, Erin?”

I blushed.

Everything had made perfect sense inside my head. I’d come over here. We’d eat breakfast together. I’d get to know him better. I’d fill in some of the blanks, get answers to all the questions that swirled inside my head. I’d lay the groundwork for some future friendship with him. For something more, possibly. Probably. Hopefully. Down the line.

I’d forgotten one little thing, though. He had no idea what I was planning. From his point of view, I’d avoided him for three weeks. I’d brought him to my home, then thrown him out, and then ignored him for nearly a month.

Did he think that I was trying to seduce him now? Did he think that I’d changed my mind about our Fourth of July fireworks? That I was determined to pick up what we’d left off?

Well, was I?

Oh. I had to say something.

“I don’t know you,” I said. When he frowned, I hurried to add, “I mean, I like what I
do
know about you, but that’s all professional. That’s all work. I don’t know where you grew up. I don’t know if you have any brothers or sisters. If you had any pets when you were a kid. What your favorite color is. I don’t know you. And I want to. Um, know you.”

It sounded a little stupid when I phrased it like that, but Timothy relaxed a little in his chair. His voice was deceptively mild as he asked, “And then, what? You’ll compare all that to Teel’s life? You’ll add up the totals, and then you’ll get back to me with a final decision?”

“Teel!” My genie’s name shocked me.

“Isn’t that what’s going on here?” Timothy’s voice was steady, but there was a jagged edge beneath his words. “I saw the two of you, that night you all came into the restaurant, with Amy and Justin and Shawn.”

“That night—” I cut short my protest.

“And he comes by the theater often enough. Takes you out on breaks. You talk to him, all the time.”

“There’s nothing going on between Teel and me.” I wanted to look away. I wanted to chew my lip. I wanted to cross my fingers and make some idiotic schoolgirl wish—”Just this once”—to make things easy and comfortable and familiar.

“Right. I guess the coffee down at the corner is just better than what I provide?”

I blushed and scrambled for an explanation. “He’s a friend. It’s hard to keep in touch with friends when a show is going on.”

Timothy sighed. “I might have believed you, a while back. I might have believed you when you stopped by the restaurant after I stayed up all night reviewing Amy’s plan. When we went up on the roof together. When you brought me back to your place.” He had to stop, to clear his throat. “But Erin,
three weeks
. You’ve avoided talking to me for three weeks. I’m not going to compete in some beauty contest with Teel. I’m not going to beg for your attention. That’s not a game I’m comfortable playing.”

“There’s nothing going on with me and Teel!” I said. I couldn’t believe that my wonderful get-to-know-you conversation was snagged here. I looked Timothy in the eye and said, “This isn’t about Teel. None of this has ever been about Teel.”

He held my gaze. I could hear him breathing. I sensed that he was measuring me, testing me, and I had no idea what else I was supposed to say. “Timothy, you have to believe me. Teel isn’t my boyfriend. He never has been. He’s my—”

Genie. I wanted to say genie. I wanted to say it; the word was right there, the two syllables hovering on the tip of my tongue.

But I couldn’t. Just like I hadn’t been able to tell Amy about the magic lamp, all those months ago, when I stood in Becca’s kitchen.

Frustrated, my eyes filled with tears. Timothy noticed, just as he had that night in my apartment. Just as he had in the shadows, as we lay on my couch. This time, though, something inside him hardened. His face turned to stone. “Right,” he said. “Whatever.”

He stood and walked to the door, opened it. The hallway outside was empty. “Thank you,” he said, making the two syllables sound impossibly formal. “Thank you for stopping by.”

I didn’t know what else I could say. I didn’t know what else I could do. I took my cup of lukewarm coffee and walked out into the hall.

Three days later, I made my way to the theater. At the drugstore next to the theater, I stopped and splurged on junk food—a bottle of full-test Coca-Cola and a sleeve of four Reese’s peanut butter cups. The snack food of champions, I told myself.

I wasn’t going near the catering table. I couldn’t imagine talking to Timothy ever again. Not after that disaster in his apartment.

I needed sustenance, though. We were about to undergo our final dress rehearsal. We were running
Menagerie!
from start to finish, making every possible effort not to stop. We were using all of the lights. All of the sound cues. All of the costumes. Our entire orchestra was going to be there, for as long as we needed them, even though their union demanded overtime pay after three hours. All the understudies were going to watch, silent, from the back of the theater. Ken wasn’t going to use us; this was the last chance for all of the stars to master their roles.

Final dress rehearsal.

Previews would start the following night, would run for two weeks, while we tested the show in front of live audiences. Critics would be out there, judging our creation. And then, the show would open officially, and
Menagerie!
would climb into the stratosphere, ride Martina’s television fame to join the ranks of the world’s most successful musicals. I could only dream that we would run as long as
Cats,
as
Phantom of the Opera,
as
Les Misérables
. If we ran for twenty years, Martina
had
to move on to something else, didn’t she? I
had
to have a chance to perform onstage, at least once. Didn’t I?

Shawn was waiting for me in the back of the theater. He’d brought three bottles of VitaminWater, the pink kind, and a bag of red licorice twists large enough to feed the entire population of Canada.

“Going for the hard stuff, I see,” he said, nodding toward my own snacks.

“It’s going to be a long day,” I answered.

Ken interrupted before I could say anything more, summoning everyone to the stage, cast and crew. When we were all assembled, all eagerly awaiting words of wisdom from our fearless leader, Ken called into the wings, “Timothy? Can you join us for a moment?

I tried not to stare as Timothy stepped onto the stage. I hadn’t seen him since Sunday. He didn’t look toward me at all, but I couldn’t tell if that was coincidence or calculation.

Ken bounced over to Timothy and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “You are a god among men.”

Timothy shrugged, obviously uncomfortable with being the focus of everyone’s attention. “I should have done it sooner. I don’t know why I didn’t think of reaching out to the west coast importers. They have more direct lines than anyone here in the east.”

“No,” Shawn said beside me, finally realizing what they were talking about. “He couldn’t have…”

Ken overheard and contradicted. “He did. Ladies and gentlemen, our own Timothy Brennan has laid in a month’s supply of Lucky Red Dragon! Let’s all give him a hand.”

Everyone cheered. Martina, who was holding court at the front of the stage, raised an iridescent green bottle. A bright crimson dragon was splayed across the label, thin as a worm. Chinese lettering blazed across the bottle, picked out in gleaming gold.

Ken reached out to shake Timothy’s hand. “Thank you,” he said.

Timothy headed back into the wings, and Ken returned his attention to all of us. He reminded us that he had faith in us. He told us that he knew we could bring
Menagerie!
to life. He told us that he didn’t believe in those old theater maxims, that a terrible rehearsal meant a great opening night. He said that we were going to have an amazing rehearsal, and tomorrow would be a fantastic first night of previews.

“Okay, folks,” he wrapped up his pep talk. “Let’s take it from the top, in half an hour. Full costumes, full makeup. Make it perfect!” Ken was bouncing on the balls of his feet as he finished. I wondered if he’d had springs installed on the soles of his shoes. He had more energy than any five other people I knew. It was a good thing. This show would have drained a lesser man.

The cast exploded into a flurry of chatter. As Shawn and I began our retreat to the back of the house, we passed Martina. She had struck a pose by the footlights, showing off her emerald soda bottle to a group of admirers.

Okay. I didn’t think that anyone on the show still admired Martina. Some of the dancers, though, clearly thought that she could get them a shot at Hollywood, at one of those dance competition shows. Either that, or they just enjoyed passing time with someone who was so clearly inferior to their own professional skills.

In any case, Martina had an eager community of listeners as she expounded on the drink in her hand. “It was an energy drink before there were energy drinks. It has ginseng
and
twelve secret herbs and spices.”

Great. She could read the seven English language words on the bottle. Ten, if you counted the drink’s name.

Martina’s braying laugh grated on my nerves, and then I heard her shout, “Well, we wouldn’t be cutting things so close if that caterer had done his job. Idiot! It’s not like I was asking for anything difficult.”

I stopped in my tracks.

I knew that I should just shrug off her words. I knew that there was nothing I could say that would change her, that would turn her into a different person, into a kinder woman, a gentler soul. She had insulted Timothy before, though, and I
still
felt guilty for saying nothing that time. If I stayed silent now, I was agreeing with her.

And I did not agree with Martina Block. I did not agree with Martina Block about anything.

I pivoted on my heel and faced her directly, even though I was outside the privileged circle of her onstage fan club. “His name is Timothy Brennan.”

“What?” she asked. As she had in the past, she stuck her neck forward as she addressed me. She narrowed her eyes until she looked like a myopic stork.

“The caterer’s name is Timothy Brennan. And you
did
ask for something difficult. You asked for something almost impossible.”

Martina glanced at the bottle in her hand, shrugging as if it were a common Mountain Dew. “And who are
you,
to tell me what’s difficult and what’s not?”

Blood rushed in my ears, so loudly that I couldn’t hear the titter of the crowd’s reaction. I blinked, but I couldn’t see anyone around us, any of the cast and crew. I only saw red, a wall of fury, of hopeless, helpless rage. A tiny corner of my brain remembered that I should walk away. I should stay silent. I should let Martina wallow in her conceited ignorance.

But I couldn’t. I couldn’t back down again.

“I am Erin Hollister,” I said, and each word was steady, even, razor-sharp. “I am your understudy. Just like I was when you didn’t know me last week. Or the week before. Or eight weeks ago, when we started working on this show.” I thrust out my hand and repeated, “Erin Hollister. Pleased to meet you.”