Playing With Her Heart

by Lauren Blakely

  As I walk away, my lips feel bruised and so does my heart, especially when I hear him turn up the music now that I’m gone.

  * * *

  Over the next few weeks, I devote my energy to running every morning, learning lines every afternoon, and forgetting about that kiss every night.

  I shelve it away in my kissing files that contain folders for real kisses, staged kisses and mistake kisses. This one was the latter, and it’s one that I won’t make twice. Especially when what I really want, what I’ve always wanted, what I simply know has to be right for me, is turning that staged kiss with Patrick into a real one.

  CHAPTER 6

  Davis

  The cast is gathered on folded metal chairs in the rehearsal studio in midtown, not far from the theater district. The windows look out over Broadway, five stories down, as cars and cabs scream by. The sun beats through the glass, warming the studio more, even though the heat is already rasping through the radiators. It’s January, but it’s hot in here and I’ve rolled up the shirtsleeves on my white button-down shirt.

  “There will be no Broadway spectacle to fall back on. There will be no dancing paintbrushes or flying monkeys. I’m not going to ask anyone to fly in on cables from the balcony and perform aerial sequences,” I say, like a football coach, giving the inspirational go-get-em team talk before the season starts. I stand at the baby grand rehearsal piano, the music director at the bench, the choreographer leaning against the bright white wall on the other side of this room. I take a beat, survey the wide-eyed talent and the jaded veterans that fill the chairs. But even the vets, even those who have amassed fat bios and credits they can pick and choose, have their eyes on me.

  Except Jill. She’s staring hard at a point behind my head. She hasn’t once made eye contact.

  I’m fine with that, though. I’ve been spending even more time than usual at the boxing gym, and more than an hour a day of hard hitting has helped erase the memory of that morning in my office when I couldn’t resist kissing her, when I had to know how her lips tasted. The answer? Sinful. So I’ve tried to blot out the way she responded instantly to my touch. I have no room in my head or my heart for anything more with an actress. Not after the way things ended with Madeline, when she left with barely a goodbye.

  “The key to this show is you,” I say, pointing at the crew with both hands as I spread my arms wide, as if I could encompass them all. “We succeed and we fail based on what happens between all of you. Crash the Moon is a story about passion and creativity and the limitless bounds of desire, both in art and in love. It’s about one young woman’s artistic and sexual awakening. It’s about a jealous man and an intense love, and it is very physical, and what’s going to make people not want to leave to take a piss during act one, to make them race back during intermission, and then get them cheering and shouting at curtain is what you—”I stop and point to all of them, to the whole cast, from the chorus members to the supporting actors to Patrick, Alexis and Jill “—bring to the stage.”

  Alexis sits in the front row, kicking one high-heeled foot back and forth, showing off bare legs even in the winter. She takes pride in dressing like a starlet, and kudos to her—she’s got some Marilyn thing going on with a white swirly dress and pinned-up hair. My eyes stray to Jill once more, and my mind wanders in spite of myself. How I’d love to see her in a low-cut white dress and stilettos. Dresses that offer so much access. Dresses that can be bunched up easily for doing things behind closed doors, or in alleys, or in stairwells. Dresses that shield what you do with your hands under tables at expensive restaurants.

  Her hands slipping beneath her skirt as I give her my directions. Hiding what she’s doing beneath that fabric as I deliver the instructions on how, when, and where to touch. I’d take a swallow of red wine, another bite of the steak, acting as if I’m enjoying my meal, when what I’m really enjoying is letting her know precisely how I want her to get herself off as I watch the expression on her face change.

  I clench my fists once to extinguish these thoughts.

  “And if you can’t handle that, if you’re too afraid, or if you’re a precious flower or a fragile thespian, then now would be the perfect time to leave.” I walk away from them, heading straight to the door. I yank on the handle, pull it open and gesture to the exit, inviting the weaker of them to go. “If you can’t leave your goddamn hearts hanging out and beating, then you should go. Because you don’t belong here. If you’re staying, then you better be prepared to slice open a vein and let it bleed on stage. Because I will accept nothing less.”

  I hold the door open and wait, though I know they won’t leave. None of them want to. Still, they need to know how serious this is to me. They also need to know they’re not in charge. Some of them shift in their chairs, glance at each other, peek at the door. I shut the door hard, the snap of it echoing in the rehearsal studio. This place is pristinely quiet now, punctuated only by their breathing.

  “So you’re all here,” I say as I return to the front of the room, the soles of my shoes sounding on the freshly polished hardwood floors. I stop and face them again. “You are here because you are the best. But that’s not enough anymore. Being the best got you here. I’m going to get you the rest of the way and, on opening night in eight weeks, I want the audience to feel every ounce of your pain, every molecule of your passion. Is that clear?”

  Alexis raises her hand. Odd, because I wasn’t expecting a verbal response. Nor did I want one. “Davis?”

  So, fine. There’s one actor who calls me by my first name. I let her get away with it because there are only so many battles I want to fight with Alexis. I save my energy for the bigger ones.

  “Yes, Alexis?”

  “I think I speak for all of us when I say this is going to be the greatest show Broadway has ever seen.” Then she rises from her seat, turns to her cast mates, encourages them to stand and begins a round of cheers and clapping. Some stand, some stay seated. Some cheer, some don’t. I glance briefly at Jill. Her hands are resting in her lap. She’s looking down at her feet now, but then she lifts her face and her beautiful blue eyes meet mine for the briefest of seconds. Maybe even a millisecond, but it’s as if the room goes silent and she’s the only one I see. I want to stalk over to her, kneel at her feet, cup her face in my hands. Feel her melt into me again. Kiss her neck, taste her skin, trace the hollow of her throat with my tongue. Hear her gasp again.

  I remind myself that I don’t date actresses. I don’t develop feelings for them anymore. Except, there’s something about her—her humor, her toughness, her vulnerability, her beauty—that has already latched onto the fortress around my heart, threatening to undo me.

  Against all my better judgement.

  I wave off the clapping. “Enough.”Alexis is about to open her mouth, but I hold up a hand. “Let’s get to work.”

  And so, our first rehearsal begins.

  * * *

  As soon as I see the pinstriped suit I groan. Don is waiting outside the rehearsal studio the next morning. The billowing trench coat makes him look even more like a two-bit mobster, and the bluetooth headset that dangles from his ear completes the douchebag look. He glares impatiently at his watch, but I’m not late for a meeting with him because I don’t have a meeting with him. In fact, I’m early and the cast isn’t due for another hour but the stage manager, Shannon, and I are scheduled to review the songs and scenes we’ll be rehearsing today.

  I brace myself for whatever unpleasantries he’s come to spew as I walk to the revolving door. He holds up a hand.

  “Davis,” he says in a voice that grates on me.

  “Don.” I stop walking. A cold wind whips past us and Don shivers, pulling his coat closer.

  “We need to talk.”

  “Ah, my four least favorite words. What is it, Don? Make it fast, since Shannon and I have several songs to run through in the next hour.”

  He clucks his tongue. “It’s come to my attention that you might be being a little harsh wi
th your cast.”

  I laugh instantly. Oh, this is brilliant. This is better than I could have imagined as the raison d’etre for him showing his face this fine morning. “Oh really? We have a tattletale in our midst already?”

  “No,” Don lies. “But I’d like you to be a little nicer. Maybe tone it down a bit,” he says and demonstrates by pressing his palm downward.

  “I should let the actors be in charge? Perhaps they can set the call sheet too? Maybe even handle the blocking, the staging, and also direct themselves?”

  “Of course not. But I hope you understand that actors can be sensitive artists. And when they think you’re kind of mean –“

  I cut him off. “Kind of mean? Is that the sixth-grade level we’re playing at? Let me guess. Alexis has your ear and said I was a dick when I told them to leave if they couldn’t give it their all?”

  Don affixes his best poker face. “I’m not naming names,” he says, but it doesn’t take a genius to know Alexis is the narc. I knew that woman would be trouble from day one.

  “What is it you want me to do differently?”

  “Be nicer, okay?”

  “Honestly? You came here to tell me to play nice?”

  “Yes,” he mumbles.

  “And, if I’m not the complete doormat you want me to be are you going to pull that whole—wait—how did it work? Oh, right. That routine where you threaten to pay my exit clause?”

  “Davis,” he says, and deliberately tries to soften his voice. “I never did that.”

  I step closer to him, pointing my index finger in his lying face. “You did threaten to can me. And you won the first time. But if you keep coming around here, telling me how to run the show, then I’ll walk. Got it?”

  He gulps, and says nothing.

  “Am I clear? If this keeps up and you show your face every time Alexis cries wolf, I will leave and then you can go find a new director. Because I won’t have this kind of questioning.”

  He swallows again. His eyes look like those of a dog admonished. Then he nods.

  “Good,” I say, then return to my best gentlemanly voice. “Now, if you’ll excuse me I have a show to run.”

  I push hard on the revolving door, head into the lobby and press the elevator button. I don’t look back. I force myself to keep my eyes fixed on the elevator doors.

  When it arrives I step inside and let out the breath I’ve been holding. I run a hand through my hair. I try to shove off all the nerves I’m feeling right now, because I hate it when I have to act.

  I had no choice. I needed to get him off my back, so I bluffed. I played pretend. Because the truth is, I’d never walk. I’d never leave this show. He’ll have to throw me out kicking and screaming. I am madly in love with Crash the Moon. I love this show so much it hurts, and I swear it has nothing to do with the stunningly gorgeous and talented understudy who will walk into the rehearsal studio in sixty minutes.

  Alone last night, I tasted her lips again. Claimed her mouth with mine. Laced my fingers through hers and pressed her up against the wall, so she couldn’t move, and she didn’t want to, because of the things I made her feel, and say, and scream.

  Sixty minutes and counting…

  CHAPTER 7

  Jill

  It has to be fate.

  What else could it be when the subway doors rattle open and Patrick steps inside at the next stop after mine?

  He’s so handsome I have to catch my breath. It’s like looking at a Monet; he’s beautiful in the way that only masterpieces can be. I grip the pole and I can literally feel a rush of warmth expanding from my chest all the way to my fingertips. I am fluttery being near him, and when he locks eyes with me a spark of recognition flares.

  “Hey there,” he says, his eyes smiling.

  “Hi,” I manage to say, hoping it doesn’t come out in a breathy whisper that reveals all the years I’ve longed for him.

  “You’re in the show, aren’t you?”

  “Chorus. And understudy for Ms. Carbone.”

  “That’s fantastic,” he says and his smile lights up the train. “Is this your first show…?” He pauses and waits for me to say my name.

  “Jill. Jill McCormick.”

  “I’m Patrick Carlson.”

  I laugh nervously. “I know who you are.”

  “What did you think of yesterday’s rehearsal? Of Davis’ patented first day speech?”

  I don’t want to talk about Davis with Patrick. I’ve filed away all thoughts of my director that are less than professional. “It was great. Like it was scripted in some intense sports movie,” I add, though there’s a part of me that feels sordid for discussing him at all with Patrick.

  The train shakes as it slows into the next stop and I grab harder onto the pole otherwise I might bump into him, and if I did that, I’d probably shiver and shudder and blabber on about how he got me through many lonely nights full of self-loathing. How the possibility of him started to heal all the dark places in my heart—places where I hated myself.

  Patrick tilts his head to the side. “You know, you look familiar. And I don’t mean because of rehearsal. But I feel like we’ve met before.”

  I blurt out the truth. “We met when you did Guys and Dolls. We talked and sang a few lines together.”

  His eyes widen, and a huge grin plays on his lips. “Holy crap. That was you? Of course that was you. That was a blast.” Seeing his gorgeous features brighten as he remembers that moment fondly makes me want to bounce on my toes and punch a fist in the air. Praise the Lord—Patrick remembers me. “We did a hell of a duet, didn’t we?”

  “I’m not sure why we haven’t been offered a recording contract yet,” I say.

  He laughs, and it’s such an incredible feeling to have made Patrick laugh. “We should rectify that, don’t you think?”

  “Absolutely.”

  He’s flirting with me. I can’t wait to tell Kat that we’re having a movie moment, that we’re connecting like the leads in a romantic comedy do. Soon, we’ll be making the audience swoon and say aw.

  “Why don’t we come up with some numbers and put together a demo for the record labels? We’ll do all the great duets in musical theater history. ‘You and I’ from Chess. ‘Light my Candle’ from Rent,” he says, and I love that he’s cleverly rattling off the best love songs, and I’m about to toss in “You’re the One That I Want” from Grease when something shifts in his expression. He furrows his eyebrows together. “Wait a second. You’re the one who sent me flowers, didn’t you?”

  My face flames beet red as the train crawls into the theater district. Forget our movie moment. Now he’s going to think I’m a stalker creep.

  “Yes.” I look down, out the door, away from him.

  “The flowers were beautiful, Jill,” he says as we reach our stop. The doors open and he guides me out, placing his hand on my back protectively, as if he’s shielding me from any rushed, frenzied New Yorkers who might bump into me. Crowds press around us, the sardine-like pack of New Yorkers in the morning racing to work.

  “Thank you,” I mutter.

  “Hey.” He stops walking before we reach the turnstiles, tugs me away from the crowd to make me look at him and meet his gaze. “I loved the flowers. They lit up my dressing room at the Gershwin. And I wanted to respond in kind. I wanted to say yes. But I was involved with someone and, besides, I knew you were in high school. And I didn’t want to do anything inappropriate.”

  I gulp, crowds fanning out around us. He’s a gentleman, too. Now I know the reason he never responded to the flowers. He could never break my heart. He was kind then, and thoughtful, always a good guy.

  I needed a good guy after all that went wrong with Aaron. After all those things he said and did and wrote when we broke up. The notes and the letters and the pleas. I’ve kept them locked up in a wooden box by my nightstand, but they seep in and out of my life at the most inopportune times.

  “That’s okay. It was just a fun thing to do. I’ve admired you for so
long,” I say as he holds out his arm, letting me pass through the turnstiles first.

  “And now we’re acting together. Perhaps it’s fate.”

  My heart skips all its beats. It’s fate he was on the subway. It’s fate we’re in the same show. It’s fate I saw him in Guys and Dolls. Because back then my life was falling apart. Back then, my heart was splintering into a thousand shards, and nobody knew why because I never told anyone. When I was seventeen everything changed, and I kept it all to myself. Rather than open my mouth and tell someone—my mother, one of my brothers, one of my friends—running became my therapy, acting my salvation, Patrick my pure, unbroken heart.

  I could never be with anyone else and so I haven’t. I’ve been completely alone since Aaron. No one but me has touched me. Because no one else has given me what this man has. Love that doesn’t hurt.

  I need to find the perfect way to make this real with him.

  * * *

  I do lunges as Kat packs. She’s heading to Mystic tomorrow to see her parents, and to be feted at their gift shop where her necklaces have been selling like crazy. She invited me to go with her and I want to be there, but rehearsal lasts until six and her party is at seven, so there’s no way I can make it. She graduated from MBA school a few weeks ago, and her Kat Harper necklaces have become amazingly popular and are now carried in boutiques and in the fancy Elizabeth’s department stores around the country. She’s running her jewelry business full-time, and planning a summer wedding in Mystic where she and Bryan first met.

  Yeah, she’s kind of sickeningly happy.

  She considers a purple scarf with white stars, looping it around her neck and pouting at me like a glamour queen. “What do you think?”

  “Oh, darling, purple is so your color.”

  “You really can’t leave rehearsal early?” She tosses the scarf on top of her other clothes. I switch legs and do more lunges. I rarely sit still.

  “Have you met Davis Milo? If you’re late, he paddles you.”

  She laughs. “Really? Got a BDSM director there, do you?”