Wish Upon a Star (35 page)

Again, I found my serene smile. “I’ve got it, Ken,” I said. He hollered for the other actors, and we ran the scene. I tried not to be offended by his amazement, by his pure and utter shock that I had the scene down cold. He had us continue through our paces, linking up spoken scene to spoken scene, skipping over the song and dance numbers in between.

I was warmed by the applause of my fellow actors as Tom delivered his final line. They all stared at me, obviously astonished by what we had accomplished. Yesterday’s disastrous rehearsal was rapidly becoming a distant memory.

The choreographer grabbed me next. He led all of the dancers through a vigorous warm-up, starting out with stretching exercises, leading into some aggressive form of yoga. We finished by going through the show’s most challenging combinations. Of course, with my Teel-backed abilities, I had no problem with that part of the show.

Nor with the singing that we did after that.

Acting, dancing, singing—I’d dashed through all of my onstage obligations. I had clearly surpassed everyone’s expectations—the cast was virtually humming around me as we wandered back to the dressing rooms. Rumors started to percolate about reviewers in the house, about journalists waiting to write about our creation.

The stage manager announced, “Half hour,” warning us that we only had thirty minutes before the show began. I called out, “Thank you!” automatically, falling back on the etiquette of years of doing plays.

I knew that I should take this last snippet of time to review the script, to walk through the blocking, to test myself one last time.

But I didn’t need to.

I was ready to go onstage as Laura Wingfield. I was ready to star in
Menagerie!

I left the dressing room and went backstage, savoring every minute of this incredible night. I stood in the shadows behind the set, listening to the growing hum of the audience filling the house.

“There you are!” I jumped at the voice, whirling around even before the exclamation had faded away.

“Shawn!” My fellow understudy stood in the shadows. A bouquet of long-stem roses sprayed across his arm, gigantic petals of pink and yellow and peach giving off a fragrance so powerful they might have been dipped in air freshener. “What are you doing here?”

He sashayed forward and kissed me on the cheek. “Mmm,” he said. “Lavender.” I probably blushed, but my cheeks were invisible in the dim light backstage. Shawn thrust his magnificent roses into my arms. “You know I wouldn’t miss your debut, sweetie!”

Those tears that had plagued me earlier in the day were suddenly close to the surface again. “Shawn—” I said, but my voice broke.

“Now, stop it. The
last
thing you want is to ruin your makeup.”

I attempted to smother my emotions by burying my face in the flowers. “These are amazing,” I said. “You shouldn’t have.”

He tucked a rogue spray of baby’s breath back into the arrangement. “I
shouldn’t
have been such a bitch yesterday.” He rolled his eyes in exaggerated condemnation of himself. “I just couldn’t believe that
you
had done what we’d talked about so many times before. You had the courage to get rid of Martina, and I’m left standing in the wings!”

“Shawn, you know that I did nothing of the sort!”

His smile was wicked as he shook his head. “Of course not. My lips are sealed.” He mimed turning a key in a lock.

“Shawn—” I started.

“Hush, sweetie. Congratulations. I know you’re going to knock ’em dead.”

I swallowed hard. “Thank you. Let me just go put these in water.”

He took the roses back from me. “I’ll take care of that for you. What else are we understudies good for, on opening night?”

“Shawn—” I began again.

“Hush,” he said. He danced three steps toward the dressing room before he turned back. “And, Erin, sweetie? Break a leg!”

I started to protest, but he only laughed. The old theater good-luck mantra would never be the same for me. I settled for shaking my head and sighing as my partner in crime—or at least backstage gossip—disappeared around the corner of the set.

Before I was truly ready, the stage manager called all of us actors to our places. The house lights dimmed, and the audience grew quiet. The house lights went out completely, and we actors quick-walked to our spots, striking our poses for our opening scene.

And then the curtain rose.

My first lines were waiting for me, like old friends who were thrilled to learn that I had finally come to visit. My body remembered where to move as I spoke. Instinctively, I mastered when to look back at my fellow actors, how to share the scene with them.

The audience was with me from the very beginning. I heard them gasp at one cutting line, laugh at a touch of comic relief. The applause after my first song shook me to my toenails—I’d never realized how powerful the ballad could be, how much empathy it could evoke from the crowd. I froze in the spotlight, accepting the adulation, preserving that long, perfect moment before the play moved on.

As the spotlight went out, freeing me to dart offstage, I sneaked a glance into the audience. Impossibly, I could see Amy and Justin sitting in the very front row. I was astonished to realize that Teel was beside them, fully decked out in his doctor persona. I wondered how the house manager had found him a seat, how the ticket had become available, but I didn’t have long to dwell on the problem. I glanced to Teel’s left, looking for Timothy, but he wasn’t there. I looked to Amy’s right. No Timothy there, either.

The edge of my elation frayed.

Before I could wonder what had happened, before I could worry that Timothy had somehow missed the show, the door opened at the back of the theater. Over the orchestra pit, across the audience, with the stage lights in my eyes, I couldn’t begin to make out who slipped into the house. I only caught a glimpse of an usher’s flashlight, of some late-arriving patron being whisked to the side.

There was someone else, though. Someone who didn’t seek a seat in the crowded audience. Someone who stood just inside the door, perfectly still, silhouetted against the cool, blue light of the lobby, in the heartbeat before the door whispered closed.

I knew that shape. I’d seen it first, in the courtyard of Garden Variety. I could almost smell the Earl Grey tea that Timothy had drunk that night, the first time that I had entered his restaurant domain.

Timothy was in the theater. He stood at the back of the house, eschewing a seat, but he was there. To see me. To support me. To watch me play the role of my life.

The audience’s applause had faded. The stagehands had changed the set; I was supposed to be offstage, in the wings, listening as Amanda and Tom fought another of their endless scorpion battles. Any instant now, the lights would come up, my mistake would be revealed. One of the stagehands hissed my name; she beckoned toward me from the shadows offstage.

I shook my head to clear it, casting off the sudden, choking joy that had rooted me to my spot. Timothy was there. And the play must go on. Tennessee Williams’s tragic words flowed into another musical number.

The next two hours flew by. I wanted the play to last forever. I wanted to be on that stage, wanted to feel Laura’s strangled emotions, wanted to convey her hopeless passion, forever and ever and ever.

But the finale came all too soon—the song, the dance, the cathartic liberation inside Laura’s tortured mind. Before I’d fully absorbed the fact that the show was ending, I stepped forward for my bow during the curtain call. The entire cast was clapping behind me, breaking decorum to congratulate me for the job that I had done. The curtain came swooping down, and I was mobbed by my fellow performers. Ken joined the chaos, actually jumping up and down in his excitement. Everyone was quoting lines from the play, reciting stage directions, recounting every single second of the instant classic we had just performed.

“Erin!” Amy’s voice cut through the clamor. I ran toward her, throwing my arms around her, laughing and crying as she told me how wonderful all of us had been.

Justin gave me a tight hug and said, “Aunt Erin, that was the best play I’ve ever seen.” His eyes were huge as he made his pronouncement, and I didn’t have the heart to point out that it was also the only play he’d ever seen.

Dr. Teel stepped forward, a grin lighting up his face, accenting his salt-and-pepper hair. It would have been the most natural thing in the world for me to let him hug me, to let him kiss me, to let him deliver another one of those soul-searing lip-locks that had confused me in the past.

I stepped back smoothly, though, settling a hand on his arm. To anyone else in the room, it would look like I was greeting a friend, a little overcome, perhaps, by the intensity of the acting experience I’d just completed. Only a flash in Teel’s eyes let me know that he recognized something else, that he understood more about the gesture. He knew that I was making a statement. That I was declaring a path for myself.

I made myself laugh, and then I looked behind the three of them. “Where’s Timothy?” I asked.

Amy’s frown disappeared almost before it could place a divot between her eyebrows. “Timothy? We haven’t seen him. Our bus was late getting to Port Authority. We only got to the theater about two minutes before the show started.”

Two minutes. That must have been why the house manager gave my third ticket over to Teel. But I knew I’d seen Timothy at the back of the house. I was certain that he’d been there.

I glanced around, feeling helpless. I didn’t have a chance to worry about Timothy for long, though. Actors swirled across the stage, crushing my family and Teel close. All of a sudden, someone announced that we were going to meet at the bar around the corner—everyone was going for a drink. Amy and Teel agreed to come along; Justin was excited at his chance to be with us grown-ups. I suspected that ninety-five percent of his enthusiasm stemmed from the fact that it was several hours after his bedtime. The other five percent grew out of anticipation for the inevitable maraschino cherry that would adorn his Roy Rogers drink.

I excused myself to wash my face, to change into street clothes. Every step I took toward the dressing room, I was stopped by another person associated with the show. Their giddiness was contagious—I was laughing like a starling by the time I grabbed my tote, by the time we all finally swarmed down the sidewalk.

Teel ordered a round of drinks for everyone. I saw him extract a billfold from the pocket of his impeccably tailored jacket. I suspected that the wallet was empty before he reached in, but he managed to manifest several large bills to underwrite his largesse.

I didn’t waste time, though, worrying about the counterfeit nature of genie money. Instead, I raised a glass with my fellow actors. I laughed about our success. I toasted Ken, and the choreographer, and the ghost of Tennessee Williams.

And I almost convinced myself that I wasn’t keeping an eye on the door, wasn’t waiting, hoping, praying, that Timothy Brennan would come join in the celebration. He didn’t, though. Not even after I phoned him again. Four times, before the night was through. Timothy Brennan was nowhere to be found.

THE NEXT MORNING, I pulled myself out of bed just before sunrise, and I immediately fired up my computer. It took me about thirty seconds to scout out early reviews of the show. The big names—the
New York Times,
the
Washington Post
—they wouldn’t get their notices up until the following week.

But there were plenty of other comments out there. My first stop was ShowTalk. I logged in automatically, just as I did every day, to check on gossip, to get ideas for new auditions. That morning, though, I was typing with my eyes closed. I was terrified to see what my fellow professionals had thought of
Menagerie!

Fortifying myself with a deep breath, I forced myself to look at the computer screen. And there it was, in black-and-white, comment after comment after comment—they loved the show. They loved the show, they loved the concept, they loved the execution, and most of all, they loved
me
.

I caught a little shriek at the back of my throat. Obviously, I wasn’t quiet enough, because Tabitha came galloping into the room to see what potential prey she had missed. I scooped her onto my lap and continued reading through the pages.

Several people mentioned that I’d been a last-minute fill-in, an understudy called up on the last possible day. A few folks said that they couldn’t tell, that they’d never seen a blockbuster musical preview so strongly. One person, who was destined to become my best friend forever, said that I was the best thing onstage in New York the night before, in a straight play or a musical, on Broadway or off.

I blushed. And I kept on reading.

Other sites were complimentary, as well. The play had a way of reaching out and touching people, of raising up lifelong memories of being an outcast. Almost everyone who posted talked about a time when they’d been marginalized, when they’d been excluded from some group that had meant the world to them. People waxed eloquent about their own tangled family relationships, about challenges they’d faced with parents and siblings who just hadn’t understood. They reminisced about their past loves, their failed romances.

Menagerie!
was real. It worked. Even with Martina-inspired tweaks to dialog,
Menagerie!
grabbed its audience members, and refused to let them go. And I was part of the reason why.

I read until eight o’clock, until I could head out to Garden Variety, track Timothy down in person. I was worried about him, worried about how he had completely disappeared.

Once I had set aside the dreamy aftermath of Internet theatrical success, I barely had the patience to wait for the Bentley’s elevator. Out on the street, people were stirring—the city was waking up for a hot summer Friday. I could already feel the heat rolling off the black asphalt of the street; it was going to be a scorcher before sunset.

Nevertheless, I walked toward Garden Variety as fast as I could, stopping just short of breaking into a run. I smiled when I got to the sign that pointed down the alley. It looked like an old friend, like a welcoming hand, beckoning me in the right direction.