The Daddy Audition

by Cindi Myers

  “What friend?” Annie asked.

  Again Tanya exchanged looks with her mother. Help! she silently pleaded. Ruth shook her head. Tanya was on her own.

  She couldn’t lie to her daughter, and hedging would probably only make the girl question her further. “I was with Jack,” she admitted.

  “Did you see Nugget?” Annie asked.

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Do Jack’s parents live in town or in the mountains?” Annie asked.

  His parents? With a start, Tanya realized Annie had assumed Jack lived with his father and mother, the way Tanya lived with her parents. She didn’t bother to correct the assumption. “Jack’s parents have a house in town,” she said. “I’ll show it to you sometime. Now hurry up and finish breakfast. We need to get the rest of the items on your school supply list.”

  “But Grandma and I already got those last week in Gunnison.”

  “But you didn’t get a backpack, did you?” That argument won, Tanya and Annie headed out.

  This late-summer Saturday, the streets of downtown Crested Butte—all six blocks of it—were filled with shoppers and sightseers enjoying the sunshine and balmy temperatures. But a sign in the window of Mad Max’s Snowboard Shop reminded everyone that the first snows were only a few weeks away.

  After Annie chose a backpack and a pair of pink tennis shoes from Mommy and Me, and Tanya treated herself to a lightweight sweater from Beyond, they headed to the Chocolate Moose for a treat.

  “What have you chicks been up to this morning?” Angela greeted them as they entered the shop.

  “We’ve been buying stuff.” Annie plopped into a chair at one of the candy store’s round café tables. “Can I have a chocolate shake, Mom?” she asked.

  “You may have a chocolate shake.” Tanya met Angela at the front counter. “And I’ll have a mocha and one chocolate truffle.”

  “One truffle? You must be feeling reckless today.” Angela scooped ice cream for Annie’s shake. “Where did you and Jack disappear to after the play last night?” she asked.

  Tanya shook her head and sent a warning look toward Annie, but the little girl had already overheard. “It was too late for Mom to drive home, so she spent the night with Jack,” she said.

  Tanya cursed her flaming cheeks. Angela laughed. “Isn’t that nice,” she said.

  “Yes. It was very nice,” Tanya said stiffly.

  “Oh, I’ll bet it was!”

  Tanya glared at her friend, but Angela only grinned and turned to the shake machine, humming under her breath. Tanya joined Annie at the table. “I don’t think you should tell anyone else I stayed with Jack last night,” she said.

  “Why not?” Annie asked.

  “Because it’s none of their business,” she said. She cleared her throat. “Some people would be upset that I wasn’t at home with you.”

  “But I was asleep. And Grandma and Grandpa were there.”

  “Yes. But still…better not say anything. At school next week or anything like that.”

  Annie shrugged. “Okay.”

  Tanya slumped in her seat. She’d accepted that being a single mom would present special challenges, but she’d never imagined the complications dating would add to the picture.

  “Mind if I join you?” Angela delivered their drinks and Tanya’s truffle, along with a chocolate-chip cookie for Annie, and pulled a chair to their table. “This is the first chance I’ve had to sit all morning,” she said.

  “It won’t be for long, I’m afraid,” Tanya said, as the bell attached to the shop’s door jangled, signaling the arrival of a new customer.

  “Don’t get up, Angela.” Casey Overbridge swept into the shop. “I only came in to speak to Tanya for a moment.”

  “Hi, Casey.” Tanya greeted the assistant marketing director for the Crested Butte Chamber of Commerce. “What can I do for you?”

  “I came to ask you a favor.” Casey took the fourth chair at the table.

  “What kind of favor?” Tanya sipped her coffee.

  “As you know, Vinotok is only a few of weeks away,” Casey said. “I was hoping I could talk you into taking the role of the Harvest Mother.”

  “What’s Vinotok?” Annie asked.

  “It’s a fall festival here in Crested Butte,” Casey explained. “There are activities all week, then on Saturday night, there’s a play in the street and dancing. At the end there’s a big bonfire in which everyone burns a figure called the Grump, which is stuffed with everyone’s complaints and grievances.”

  “Isn’t the Harvest Mother supposed to be pregnant?” Tanya asked.

  “Yes, but I couldn’t find a real pregnant woman to take the role, so I thought you could wear a pillow in your costume.”

  “As long as we make sure people know it’s a pillow,” Tanya said. “I don’t want any rumors started.”

  “Now why would any rumors start?” Angela asked with exaggerated innocence.

  “I promise to squelch any and all gossip,” Casey said. “The role itself doesn’t require a lot of rehearsal. Part of the fun is the chance to ad-lib.”

  “She’s good at that,” Angela said.

  “And I was hoping you could convince Jack to play the Green Man.”

  Tanya laughed at the idea of Jack covered in green body paint. “Why Jack?”

  “I thought it would be really cute to have you two take the roles since you’re a couple. It kind of lends another layer to the performance, at least for the locals.”

  After last night she couldn’t very well deny they weren’t a couple. Not that she wanted to—the idea sent a warm tingle through her. “All right, I’ll ask him.” It would be fun to work on the play together.

  “Great!” Casey looked relieved. “I asked Max first, but he’s always complaining about how, ever since we got married, I’m always roping him into doing crazy things for the Chamber.”

  “Is the Green Man really green?” Annie asked.

  “Yes,” Tanya said. “He looks sort of like the Jolly Green Giant.”

  “Why is he green?” Annie asked.

  Tanya looked at Casey. “I think he’s supposed to represent the Earth and all green and growing things,” she said. At Annie’s skeptical look, she held up her hands. “Hey, this story was made up over twenty-five years ago. I have to work with what they give me.”

  “Who plays the Grump?” Annie asked.

  “The Grump is made of paper and wood,” Casey said. “He’s hollow so he can be stuffed full of paper onto which people have written their grumps—their complaints or bad things they wish would go away. Then the whole thing is set on fire after the play.”

  “Cool!” Annie said.

  “So do you think Jack will do it?” Casey asked.

  “I don’t see why not,” she said. And if he was reluctant, she could have a lot of fun persuading him.

  SINCE PARTING from Tanya Saturday morning, Jack had done his best to play it cool and not crowd her. His feelings for her were so intense he felt the need to rein them in to avoid scaring her away—or to avoid making a fool of himself by revealing more than he should. The adult Tanya wasn’t any easier for him to figure out than the teenage version had been, but this time around, he was determined not to screw things up.

  He took her arrival at his job site Monday afternoon as a very good sign. “I brought lunch,” she said, holding a large paper bag aloft.

  “I’ll be right down.”

  He might have set a new speed record for descending from a roof. She picked her way through the construction debris and met him at the bottom of the ladder. “It’s great to see you,” he said.

  Her smile made him feel as if a whole school of trout had taken up residence in his chest, swimming around crazily. “I thought I’d surprise you,” she said.

  “That’s the kind of surprise I like.” He started to pull her close and kiss her, then remembered the audience of workers who had fallen suspiciously silent. “Go ahead and knock off for lunch, guys,” he called over his sh
oulder.

  “Where should we eat?” she asked, looking around at the stacks of lumber, overflowing construction Dumpster bins, and jumble of tools.

  “Why don’t we move over here to my desk?” He led her to the shady spot where he’d parked his truck, and swept a roll of plans, box of nails, hammer and knee pads from the tailgate. “Have a seat,” he said.

  Laughing, she sat and arranged the contents of the lunch bag—sandwiches, chips and cookies from Sunshine Deli—between them. “Is ham and cheese still your favorite?” she asked.

  “You remembered.”

  “I remember a lot of things about you.” She winked, a gesture that would have rocked him back on his heels if he hadn’t already been seated.

  “Do you have a little time off now that the play is finished?” he asked as he unwrapped his sandwich.

  “Oh, I have plenty of paperwork to do and a new exhibit to plan for the Center for the Arts—that’s part of my job, too, not just the Mountain Theatre.”

  “It’s a shame to have to be inside on a day like today,” he said. Behind the condos, the mountain slopes were painted with the gold of turning aspen amid the deep green of pines and firs. The air was crisp and this morning there’d been frost on Jack’s truck.

  “I do have a nice view from my office window,” Tanya said. “And as you can see, I’m not chained to my desk.”

  “I’m glad you decided to share lunch with me,” he said. “I was going to call you this afternoon, see how you were doing.”

  “Okay. I’ve been feeling a little restless lately—anxious to find a place of my own.”

  “I could go with you to look at some,” he said. “If you wanted someone to check out the plumbing and wiring and stuff. That can be a problem in some of these hundred-year-old houses.”

  “Thanks. I might take you up on that offer.” She sighed. “There’s another reason for my restlessness, too. Annie started school this morning. That always makes me feel a bit at loose ends.”

  “What grade is she in this year?”

  “Second. She was excited about starting a new school. A little nervous, too, though she saw some girls she knew on the playground this morning and that helped put her at ease.”

  “She’ll make lots of friends here. That’s one good thing about going to school in a small town.” He still had good friends he’d first met on the playground at Crested Butte Community School.

  “I swear, walking into the building this morning, it was as if nothing has changed.” She smiled. “I have so many good memories associated with that place. That’s one of the reasons I came back here—to give Annie those kind of experiences.” She crunched a potato chip and looked thoughtful. “Growing up in a small town—or even the same neighborhood of a big town, I guess—everything is familiar,” she said. “You get to know people and they know you. That kind of security really allowed me to blossom. It gave me the confidence to go out into the wider world.”

  “And it showed me how to build the kind of life I wanted right here at home.”

  She nodded. “You’re right. Everybody takes a different path. And obviously that wider world wasn’t as wonderful as I’d anticipated.”

  What had happened to her in Los Angeles? he wondered. Was it really only the end of her marriage that had made her seek refuge in the life she’d left behind, or had something else hurt her? “You did a lot of good things while you were away,” he said. “How many girls could have gone straight from acting in high school plays to starring in a hit show?”

  “A daytime soap opera isn’t exactly a hit show,” she said. “Soap operas are the romance novels of the television world—popular with viewers, but they don’t get much respect.”

  “Still, you were performing for millions of viewers every day. That’s the big-time in my book.”

  “Maybe so, though it wasn’t exactly a straight path to fame. I did a lot of hokey commercials and walk-on parts in sitcoms before I landed the role of Caroline.”

  “But it only took you a couple of years to go from a nobody to a star in a regular series,” he said. “I’m betting that’s pretty fast, even by Hollywood standards.”

  “I guess so. Maybe too fast.” She peered into the chip bag, then crumpled it. “When I first arrived in town I was young and naive and enthusiastic,” she said. “Rejection didn’t bother me, and every little job was another step up the ladder. Then Penrose Valley was canceled and I took a couple of years off to be with Annie and the next thing I knew, I didn’t have a career anymore. Rejection was harder to take after that. Stuart and I split not long after that. I toughed it out for six months or so, but one day I woke up and realized everything I’d once loved about L.A.—the energy and competition and independent spirit—was now just making me miserable. I wanted to take things slower, to be with people who knew me, people I could count on to be there for me and Annie.”

  “We all need a place like that,” he said. “That’s what home is all about.”

  She looked away, blinking hard. Was she crying? He was unsure whether he should try to comfort her or let the moment pass.

  “There’s certainly no home quite like Crested Butte,” she said after a moment.

  She was smiling again, and if the expression was a little forced, he gave her an A for effort. “I’d forgotten how much I missed all the crazy celebrations and unique traditions the town has,” she continued. “Things like Vinotok at the end of this month.”

  “Ah, yes. The Slovenian Harvest Festival, Crested Butte–style.”

  “The Chamber has asked me to play the role of the Earth Mother this year.”

  “But isn’t she supposed to be pregnant?” Representing fertility, abundance and whatever other meaning the scriptwriters could cram in there each year.

  “I did point that out, but Casey assured me I could use a pillow.”

  “I may have to come downtown just to see that.” Though the thought of Tanya really pregnant made his insides go all wobbly again.

  “You can do better than that,” she said. “I’m hoping you’ll agree to be the Green Man.”

  An image of the Jolly Green Giant knockoff flashed into his head, complete with green skin, tights and a fig-leaf loincloth. “Not me,” he said. “You couldn’t pay me enough to put on that getup.”

  “Oh, come on, it’s not that bad.” But her laughter did nothing to persuade him.

  “It is that bad,” he said. “The only thing worse would be to play Sir Hapless.” This errant-knight figure was supposed to represent technology, battling the forces of nature. To emphasize his luckless life, the costume designers had long ago decreed that the character would wear a pastel doublet and ridiculous pointy shoes. “At least the guy in the dragon costume can hide his identity.” Yes, there was a dragon, too, though Jack had forgotten what the beast represented.

  “I think it would be fun if we did it together,” Tanya said.

  “I can think of a lot of other things we could do together that would be more fun,” he said.

  “If I can pretend to be pregnant for this play, why can’t you cover yourself in green paint?”

  “I always thought the Green Man was silly. I mean, they couldn’t even bother to give him a name, just ‘the green man.’”

  “What’s wrong with being silly?” she asked.

  “I stopped doing silly when I was about eight years old.”

  “It might do you some good to loosen up a little.”

  Was she saying he was uptight just because he preferred real life to playacting and wanted to maintain his dignity? “Sorry to disappoint you,” he said. “But I can’t do it. Why don’t you ask Zephyr? His ankle’s healed up and he’s a real ham.”

  “Maybe I will.” She sighed, clearly disappointed. “It would have been much more fun to do it with you, and I really don’t see what the big deal is.”

  He didn’t see why she was making such a big deal about him taking the part. And he was disappointed that she didn’t seem to want to see things from
his point of view, though he decided to drop the argument before they both said things they might regret. “I promise to be there to cheer you on,” he said. That was a role he was more comfortable with—standing in the audience, applauding her efforts and staying safe in his comfort zone.

  Chapter Eleven

  Tanya had been sure the guy who’d endured drama club as a teen to be with her wouldn’t hesitate to take the Green Man role to partner with her for the Vinotok celebration.

  So much for thinking she really knew Jack. Judging from his reaction, she might have been suggesting he dance in the street naked.

  Apparently his sense of self-importance had defeated her sense of fun in that wrestling match. While Tanya appreciated that acting allowed a person to move beyond the restrictions of her own personality, the attraction was lost on Jack.

  She shared her dismay with Casey and Angela over margaritas and enchiladas at Donita’s Tuesday evening. “He wouldn’t even consider the idea,” she said. “I’m sorry, Casey.”

  “I’ll just tell Max he has to do it,” Casey said.

  “And that works?” Angela asked.

  Casey grinned. “Oh, I have my ways of persuading him.”

  “Cheer up,” Angela said. “Jack is still a great guy. Not everyone is interested in being an actor.”

  “I guess not.” She took a long pull of margarita. “And it’s not like I want to get involved with yet another guy who thinks I’m his competition.”

  “Is that how your ex saw things?” Angela asked.

  “Pretty much. At least at the end. He left Penrose Valley after a couple of years to ‘pursue other options.’ After he was nominated for a Daytime Emmy that first year, he thought directors would be lining up to hire him to star in their movies, but that didn’t work out. Then the show really took off and all of a sudden I was bringing in more money than he was and people started recognizing me when we went out. He couldn’t stand it.”

  “You never have to worry about that from Jack,” Casey said.