Wishing in the Wings (13 page)

Good fortune strikes people in different ways. Some scream in happiness. Others start to cry. Still others stare in amazement, their jaws slack as they try to grasp the import of ordinary English words. I’d seen all those reactions and more, in all the years I’d watched actors read casting lists, discovering that they were going to be in the shows of their dreams.

Ryan, though? His reaction was totally new to me.

He hung his head, as if I were chastising him. He caught his lower lip between his teeth, sighing deeply, drawing out his exhale for so long that I actually worried he might grow light-headed.

“Ryan?” I finally said. “Are you okay?”

He ran a wiry hand through his hair as he looked up, fortifying himself with another one of those mammoth breaths. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m fine…Becca. Thank you. Thanks for coming all the way over here to tell me.”

Okay… So that hadn’t been exactly the response I’d anticipated. But what did I know? What did I know about coming back to the States after two years abroad? About creating art based on that foreign experience, about building characters out of whole cloth, about relating the horrors and joys of real lives to an audience who had never even dreamed such people could exist?

So Ryan wasn’t howling with joy. Why had I even expected such a boring, customary reaction, knowing the extraordinary story he had to tell in his play?

I pitched my voice low, almost as if I were comforting an injured animal. “You’re welcome. I’m really looking forward to working on this show. However Long is just…amazing.”

He raised his fingers to the neck of his shirt, tugging like a little boy made uncomfortable by his Sunday best. “Thanks,” he said. “Um, would you like to come in?”

“That would be great.” I felt a little awkward as he stepped aside, like I was back in elementary school, going to a birthday party at a classmate’s home. We were like kids who had been coached on all the right words to say, but neither of us was actually comfortable with the social niceties.

Ryan’s apartment was much smaller than my own. I found myself in a combination living room, dining room, and kitchen. A wooden workbench was pushed up against one wall, laden with potting soil and trowels beneath purple grow-lights. A folding screen cut off the other half the room, forcing a loveseat and a rocking chair into close proximity. A twin bed peeked out from behind the screen, knotted sheets and blanket tangled on the floor at its foot, as if its occupant—Ryan, I assumed—had spent a restless night. A door to my right hinted at a bathroom; one to my left opened onto a single dim bedroom. The entire place was dark, even though the curtains were open, even though early-afternoon sun was shining on the street. A quick glance out the window confirmed that a brick wall was less than an arms-length away.

So. This was how the Bentley looked for people who didn’t have a genie at their beck and call. I supposed that I should be grateful Teel had swung her magic, getting me the river-view apartment I’d so greedily demanded. I felt vaguely guilty, though, as if I’d taken something that should have belonged to Ryan.

“Can I get you a cup of tea?” Ryan asked after my inspection spun out for a little too long.

“That would be great!” I could hear too much enthusiasm in my voice, and I warned myself to tone things down.

“English Breakfast all right?” Ryan asked, rummaging in the kitchen. “I have a pot made.”

“That would be grand.” I made a face at myself, because I sounded stupid. Grand. Who talked like that? Ryan pretended not to notice, though, turning his back to take a small carton of cream out of the well-stocked fridge.

I thought of my own kitchen, larger and brighter and much more bare—at least until I got my first post-Dean paycheck. “Thanks,” I said, as Ryan passed me a mug. He gestured, and I followed him over to the tiny dining table in the common room. He took the seat closest to Dani’s workbench.

“So,” he said, adding cream to his own mug after waiting for me to do the same. “What do we do now?”

“We’ll announce the new play on ShowTalk and in conventional media. Auditions are in nine days. After rehearsals start, Hal will want you there full-time. New plays develop better if everyone is totally committed from the start.”

Gee. I made it sound as if I’d launched dozens of new plays before. The casual observer would never realize that I was making everything up as I went along. Except that bit about Hal wanting him there. Hal always wanted playwrights present. The Mercer would have done a lot more Shakespeare, if only Hal could have figured out a way to bring the Bard back from the beyond.

“So that’s it?” Ryan sounded skeptical. “I just sit around for a week, waiting for things to get moving?”

I shook my head, and I fortified myself with a sip of tea before answering. “No, you’ll need to meet Hal and the rest of the Mercer staff. Of course, you already know Jenn. And, um, me.” I was delaying telling him the bad news. I was pretty sure that Ryan wouldn’t be thrilled with his first true assignment, to get However Long on its path to production. “We do have one more real project, though, one we should get started on right away.”

He stared at me, waiting for me to elaborate. His eyes seemed especially dark in the dim apartment; they glowed like melted charcoal briquettes. I’d already grown accustomed to his too-long hair; my fingers had almost—almost—forgotten that they wanted to brush it off the back of his neck. When I continued to hesitate, he said, “I’m not going to like this much, am I?”

“It’s not terrible,” I assured him. “It’s actually one of my favorite parts of the job.” I paused a moment, so that my enthusiasm could soften him up. “I’m going to need your help finding a sponsor for the show.”

“A sponsor?” He sounded like a new arrival in America, a person just learning our language.

“We had one all lined up for Crystal Dreams. The Narcotics Awareness League was going to underwrite the entire production, make media buys, host the opening gala. But they won’t support However Long.” I saw him start to frown, so I turned up the wattage on my own smile. “Sponsors choose their shows really carefully. It’s a huge financial commitment for them, and they want to make sure that they get as much good publicity as possible.”

“Publicity! But they’re sponsors. For the arts!”

I smiled wryly. I had been that naive once. Dean had trained that out of me, ladling his grim money management over my enthusiasm. I consciously set aside thoughts of everything else Dean had taught me, about business, about self-interest. I explained, “They still need to get something out of the deal for themselves. Our sponsors love the Mercer’s upscale audiences.” Ryan started to splutter, and I hurried on. “But they also want to feel good about what they’re doing. That’s why I want them to meet you. I want them to understand what you saw in Africa, what the Peace Corps taught you.” He began to relax, lulled by my explanation. Chalk up another one for the dramaturg’s inherent skills as psychologist. “I already have some great prospects lined up,” I assured him. Well, I’d thought about a few possibilities. Okay, I’d thrown together a short mental list as I hurried over to tell him the good news.

“Like?” he asked.

I didn’t want to get his hopes up too high. But he smiled—that sweet boyish smile that made a little part of me melt inside—and I couldn’t refuse to answer. “Like the International Women’s Union,” I said.

“You think they’d be interested in my play?” His eyes grew large, and I resisted the urge to cross my fingers in hopes that I could make the sponsorship come together.

“We can’t know until we ask,” I said firmly. “And I have other ideas, as backups. So it’s a deal? You’ll do it? You’ll go meet sponsors with me?”

He shook the hand that I extended. Once again, I felt the hint of calluses against my own pampered fingers, a silent reminder of the hard work that he’d put in half a world away. “It’s a deal,” he said.

Both our mugs were empty. I’d run out of excuses to stick around. Reluctantly, I stood up. “I know you’re going to jump online now,” I said with a laugh. “Log in to ShowTalk and learn everything you can about the Mercer.”

He looked up at me sideways, suddenly lapsed back to boyish shyness. “Actually, I already checked you out.”

“You what!” Something about his tone said that he had checked me out. Not just the Mercer.

“I logged in to ShowTalk last night. After we talked.” At his confession, one of my cursed blushes flooded my cheeks. I could just imagine what he’d typed after he’d helped me with my stubborn lock. I’d accepted bribes on the show, he would have told everyone. I’d stumbled home drunk. “Hey,” he said, as I fumbled for something, anything to say. “Relax. There were just a few of us online that late.”

Yeah. Like that made me feel any better. “It’s just…last night, I was sort of… I…” What? I was just drinking myself into oblivion because my love life was in the toilet? Because my career was landing beside it? Because… Why had I been downing those Godmothers?

“You what?” He saved me from myself. “You had a really crappy day, starting out with an incredibly pushy playwright cornering you at the office to give you his play? And then you found out that your…your director of finance had walked off with a quarter of your theater’s budget? And half of New York’s theater community was writing about you on ShowTalk? And somewhere along the way, you learned that you had a gaping hole in your schedule because of some legal whatchamajig?” His gaze was serious, and his lips quirked in a sympathetic smile.

I decided to match that smile, so that I didn’t cry. “Whatchamajig,” I said. “You’ve really got a way with words.”

“Good thing I decided to write plays for a living.”

I laughed at his disarming reply. “Thanks,” I said. “For the tea and, um, everything.”

“Any time.”

I thought about my empty kitchen. “You probably don’t want to say that, with me living just across the hall.”

He shook his head and crossed to the door with me. “And what are the odds of that?”

Of course, I couldn’t tell him about Teel. My throat would close up, just as it had when I’d tried to tell Jenn about my genie. I shrugged, and muttered something inane about coincidence.

When Ryan reached across me to open the door, I could feel the heat of his body, rising through the sleeve of his sweater. For one crazy second, I pictured myself leaning closer to him, feeling that energy far more up close and personal.

Of course, I stopped myself. Getting involved with Ryan Thompson would be absolutely insane. He and I had to work together for two long months. Life would be crazy enough, bringing his play to fruition. Our relationship needed to stay strictly professional.

Nevertheless, Ryan seemed to have sensed my thoughts. He tumbled back into his awkwardness, hunching his shoulders and sliding his hands back into the pockets of his jeans. “Thanks for coming by, Becca. For giving me the good news in person,” he said. “I appreciate it. Really.”

“You’re welcome,” I said.

I thought about hugging him goodbye, but we really didn’t know each other well enough for that. I would have offered to shake hands, but that seemed too much like the way to conclude a business meeting, too formal and distancing for the rapport we were going to need, so that we could build our production. I considered leaning in and kissing him on the cheek, but I wondered if he would try to kiss on both cheeks, if they even did that in Africa, like they did in Europe. I settled for coughing a little and saying, “You’re welcome,” again.

And then I scurried into my own apartment.

I should have gone straight back to the office. But it wouldn’t hurt for me to take a short break at home, to see how the place looked in full daylight.

Just as I closed the door behind me, my cell phone rang. I fished it out of my bag and stared at an unfamiliar 212 phone number. Curious as to who’d be calling me in the middle of the work day, I hurried to answer before the call could go to my voice mail. “Hello?”

“Miss Morris, this is Detective Warren Ambrose. I’ve been assigned to the Dean Marcus case, and I wanted to follow up with you about a few things.”

Great. Hal had told me that he’d given the police my phone number, but I’d hoped that they would never need to use it. I could hear Detective Ambrose swallowing a yawn before he continued, “Miss Morris, we’re looking into some data that we found on Mr. Marcus’s computer. What do you know about his plans to visit Russia?”

Russia. Dean had never mentioned Russia. As far as I knew, he might never have heard of the country. “Why would he go there?”

“Were you aware of his plane reservations, Miss Morris?”

“No, I—” All of the air was forced out of my lungs. “No,” I repeated.

“Miss Morris, did you know that he obtained a visa to travel to Russia?”

“No,” I said again. And suddenly I wondered how many other things I didn’t know about the man I’d dated for the past three years. “But he’s there now?”

“So it seems, Miss Morris.”

“But why Russia? That doesn’t make any sense at all.”

“It does, Miss Morris, when you realize they don’t have an extradition treaty with the United States.”

The words settled into my belly like a frozen stone. Dean’s theft from the Mercer wasn’t some momentary lapse of judgment. He had planned this whole thing for a long time. He had completed the appropriate paperwork. He’d engineered the perfect escape. He’d never planned on coming back, never planned on explaining to me, never planned on telling me why he’d done everything that he’d done.

Ambrose tossed more questions at me, remaining completely formal, always saying “Miss Morris” this and “Miss Morris” that. I answered without really hearing myself.

Part of me was braced for truly difficult questions. How had I ended up with a condo in the Bentley, fully owned, one hundred percent paid up? How was I living in the lap of luxury when my bank account had been emptied by the guy who was now Russia’s newest, biggest fan?

But those issues never came up. Apparently, Teel’s magic protected me, covered for me, explained away the biggest gap in my changed state.

No, I just needed to tell Ambrose about how I had not had any idea that the man I’d dated for three and a half years was a lying, cheating, cowardly, thieving (even from me!) felon. Easy, peasy.