The World is a Stage

by Tamara Morgan

  “Um, Miss Hewitt? Can’t you just get one of the other guys to kick him out?”

  “For crying out loud. This is what you do for a living—just get him out of my sight and make sure he doesn’t try to sneak back in. Do you want to be the one responsible for all the roofies he’s probably slipping into the punch?”

  Great. In addition to a mule and a pig, he was now a rapist. What kind of brownies had Peterson been eating, begging him to take on this woman? He liked a challenge, but this Rachel character was a hell of a lot more than that. She was a lunatic.

  “Actually, Ms. Hewitt, I mostly help people find their seats,” the usher squeaked. “I’m not qualified for this.”

  “Get him out of here, or you won’t be qualified to do anything remotely connected with the theater ever again.”

  Larson’s lower lip quivered.

  “For fuck’s sake. I’ll go. Don’t break the poor kid into tiny usher pieces.”

  Michael turned to Jillian and smiled. “It really was nice to meet you. I’m sorry to run off before I could give you those goat-wrangling pointers, but all you really need to remember is to go for the eyes.”

  Jillian smiled directly at Rachel and gave her shoulders a little shake, obviously feeling the triumph of his kindness and eager to flaunt it.

  No judgment. If ever a woman needed to be put in her place—a tight, cramped, uncomfortable hole where she’d be forced to smell her own shit—it was Rachel Hewitt.

  “It’s okay. Give me a call sometime,” Jillian added.

  “Hey, Larson—you want to walk me out? Make it official?”

  “Sure. Thanks, man. I’m sorry about before.”

  “You’re just doing your job.”

  Larson stood up a little straighter. Atta boy. A good three-fourths of confidence was just letting yourself feel it. For the rest, the kid would have to do a few thousand bench presses.

  “This satisfy you, Your Highness?” Michael smirked, turning back to Rachel. “Or would you prefer to get the cops involved? Maybe just the handcuffs? Some whips and chains?”

  He had the pleasure of seeing her turn on her heel and storm away, that ass making yet another grand departure to feast his eyes on. A righteous ass, that’s what it was, all mad and stomping and full of motion. He wondered if she did it on purpose.

  Still. Score. Michael O’Leary: One. Rachel Hewitt: Zero.

  He cracked his knuckles and allowed Larson to lead the way out the back door. He’d tell Peterson and Molly that he tried, but even Michael O’Leary had to know when to bow out of a fight.

  It wasn’t fear, of course.

  Michael just wasn’t keen on losing his balls.

  Chapter Four

  Cradle Will Rock

  In Rachel’s experience, early morning visitors to Evergreen Cemetery took the shape of one of two things.

  The first were one-half of elderly couples divided by fate. They were the little old men who’d lost their wives to breast cancer, the little old ladies mourning husbands taken by heart disease—coming almost every day, like clockwork, walking slowly and resting along the garden paths. It was as though a lifetime of saying “good morning” to the same person was an impossible habit to break, and there was no way for them to start their day without it.

  It wasn’t sweet, and Rachel wasn’t about to start cooing and clucking over their devotion the way Molly did. She didn’t approve of any kind of addiction that dictated a person’s actions so heavily. Caffeine. Alcohol. Drugs. Love.

  Especially love.

  The second types of visitors were runners, herself included. The gym was too confining, and Rachel much preferred the rustle of the barren tree branches and the crunch of her shoes on brown grass grown stiff and iridescent with cold. She wasn’t the only one. Nodding politely to a woman in a tracksuit, Rachel felt the rush that came when she finally hit her stride.

  Determination urged her to keep going, past the rows of somber headstones and sad elderly people until fatigue made it difficult to focus on anything but the movement of each leg. Forward, forward, always moving ahead.

  But she didn’t. She slowed to a walk and wrapped her arms over her stomach. It was fairly chilly out, the morning March air showing little puffs of her breath as she ran. Her body was an odd mixture of hot and cold, simultaneously covered with sweat and goose bumps. If she wanted to keep the adrenaline going, she needed to turn and run the rest of the way home.

  But she couldn’t.

  One hundred and seventeen rows back from the entrance. Eight places in from the path. The grave to the right of it had a little cherub sculpture that always seemed to Rachel to be too sickly sweet for the rest of the simple rectangle plaques. Someone showing off. Cemeteries were the worst for that.

  A huge spray of pink carnations, still fresh and wrapped in green tissue paper, were placed on the headstone, and the grass clippings and debris had been wiped clear of the markings.

  Baby Hewitt

  March 22

  Rachel reached down and placed her hand on the chilly headstone, holding it there until she could no longer feel her fingers.

  And that was it. That was all she had to offer. One whole year had gone by, and she still couldn’t find any words to describe the way this cold slab of marble made her feel.

  “I didn’t think you’d remember.”

  Rachel wrinkled her nose and blinked a few times before turning to answer her sister. “Well, you were wrong.”

  Molly blew her nose into an already decrepit-looking tissue and came in for a hug.

  Rachel winced. “I’m super sweaty.”

  “Geez, Rach. Like I care.”

  Part of the reason she’d come so early this morning was to keep things simple. Get in, get out. Avoid messy displays of emotion. But Molly must have been walking on the far side of the cemetery—she did that sometimes. Usually Rachel remembered to keep an eye out for her.

  Her sister’s arms tightened, and Rachel relaxed a little, letting Molly add to the dampness on her shoulder with a sudden rush of tears. She ran her hands over her sister’s hair, up and down, tugging through the curls as she went. It felt awkward at first, almost like petting a dog, but she soon gave in to the rightness of it.

  No matter what else happened, they still had each other.

  Rachel wished she didn’t have to make a conscious effort to remind herself of that simple truth, but she did. Every day was an affirmation. Every day was her proof that the sacrifice was worth it.

  “She’d be one today,” Molly eventually said, her voice thick. “A whole year.”

  “No. She wouldn’t.”

  The words were automatic, a knee-jerk reaction to a situation that was well outside Rachel’s comfort zone. She was no good at this kind of thing—the laying bare of emotions. The finding a way to talk about what happened.

  Molly was good at that. Their mother, once upon a time, had been good at that.

  Molly jerked back as if Rachel had punched her, so she tried again, feebly. “I just meant that she wouldn’t have been born in March. You know. If Justin hadn’t… If you hadn’t…”

  “Don’t, Rachel. Please stop.”

  Rachel tried reaching for her sister to resume their hug, but Molly shook her off, stepping back and crushing a few of the carnations under her heel. “You don’t really get it, do you?”

  “I’m trying, Molly. I really am.” And she was. She’d never tried so hard at anything in her whole life. “I know I don’t always have the right thing to say, but—”

  “That’s just it,” Molly said between sniffles, looking down at the grave with a kind of tenderness that made Rachel shift uncomfortably. “It’s not about you.”

  “I know it’s not—”

  Molly held up her hand. “See? You know. You try.”

  Rachel stood there, her mouth wide open, her mind at a complete blank. Why couldn’t she think of a single sentence that didn’t start with “I”?

  “For once, it would be nice if we could keep
you entirely out of the conversation. Today. Just for today—that’s all I’m asking. Yep. Molly is weak and useless and has bad judgment in men. Yep. Molly killed her own baby.” Her eyes filled again. “Can you just allow me the luxury of not feeling guilty for twenty-four hours so I can be sad?”

  “I didn’t mean to say it like that.”

  Molly let out a scream, one so loud the groundskeeper walking by asked if she needed some help. With gritted teeth, she offered the man a light pleasantry, wishing him a good day and even calling him by name.

  Rachel wasn’t fooled. There was nothing light or pleasant about her sister in that moment. But she knew better than to try again. Clamping her lips shut, she did her best to stand there, silent and strong or whatever it was Molly wanted her to be.

  “Please go away. I know I owe you a lot, but I can’t really look at you right now. I just want to be alone.”

  Gone. Molly wanted her gone.

  “Sure thing.” It was shameful and weak, but she wanted herself to be out of there almost as much as her sister did. It was too hard, seeing the baby and Molly like this—the only way they could ever be together. “Will I see you? I mean, will you be home later today? Before work?”

  “No. Eric invited me over for this afternoon.” She said it as a challenge. A dare.

  Rachel clamped her mouth shut again and flipped the volume on her iPod—the Bitchin’ Workout Mix—as high as it could go.

  Running and loud music were all that was left to her. She wasn’t allowed to scream her frustration into the air like Molly, and her own inadequacies as a human being meant she could never find a way to give voice to all the things she felt.

  Don’t go, she wanted to plead. Don’t let that man do what the others have done. Use your brain for once. Use it for the four-months-too-early child frozen in the ground.

  Her sister’s judgment in men was awful. Not just break-her-heart awful, but break-her-bones awful. Break-her-body-and-her-spirit-and-the-tiny-little-soul-growing-inside-her awful.

  Rachel couldn’t understand why Molly kept turning to the same type of guys, why she kept turning into the same type of girl with them. She was irrevocably drawn to bad boys, and no amount of begging and pleading on Rachel’s part could change her mind or give her the backbone she needed to stand up to them. And the worst part was, she expected Rachel to do nothing more than stand by and watch her make the same mistakes again.

  Didn’t her sister have any idea what that did to a person?

  This new guy, Eric, was the poster boy for everything that wasn’t good for Molly: big and mean and much too old for her. And his giant Nordic demon of a friend wasn’t helping matters any. Brainless brutes, the pair of them, targeting Molly because she was sweet and trusting and completely clueless when it came to guys like them.

  As Rachel made her way along the trail out of the cemetery, one of the little old men raised a hand in farewell, his papery hand cheerful despite the fact he hunched over the grave of a wife gone ten years.

  Add it to the list.

  Caffeine. Alcohol. Drugs. Love. Men.

  Rachel didn’t need any of it. Especially that last bit.

  “Nope. No way. No how. Never again.”

  Michael tested his leg before lifting the empty wooden keg. So far, so good. Other than a tightness along the back of his knee, he was fine. With a roar, he hefted the barrel so it was level with his chest and started running, making it a good fifty feet through the shorn field before turning around and heading back.

  “Good speed on that one, Mikey,” Julian said. Then he promptly stepped up and beat Michael by at least ten seconds.

  “Show-off,” Michael said with a laugh. “I was hoping all that sitting for magazines in your underwear you’ve been doing now that you’re some fancy Scottish Games mascot would slow you down. Some guys have all the luck. You’re up, Peterson.”

  “Won’t you even think about it?” Peterson stretched his arms and bent at the knee to get his arms around the full width of it. The barrel wasn’t in the lineup of their usual tricks—the hammer throw, the caber toss and the weight over bar—but it was one of the events in the upcoming Top Warrior Race.

  Also, it was really fun.

  “Wait—wait.” Michael paused, watching Peterson make his round, the barrel falling to his feet about halfway so that he had to resort to a roll for the rest of the lap. That was ten points off. Already, Peterson was slipping.

  “Okay. There. I thought about it.”

  “And?”

  “Still no.”

  Julian laughed as he watched the way Peterson’s face fell. “I still don’t understand how you could have failed that bad, Mikey. What exactly did you say to this woman?”

  “It wouldn’t have mattered. I was full of compliments and charm, but she was wound up tighter than a nun’s habit—and a hell of a lot less fun to talk to. I think Peterson is trying to have me killed. Oh, I’m sorry. Not Peterson. Eric. He goes by Eric now.”

  Peterson flipped him the bird before leaning heavily on his barrel, the bottom of it digging a circle into the hard-packed dirt. “It’s only for a few weeks. All you have to do is show up and volunteer to be a bouncer with me. You saw those ushers Dominic hired—there’s no way they could stop some jerk trying for a little more than a peep show.”

  It was true. But Michael was not a man to stick his nose in other people’s business.

  “Come on,” Peterson persisted. “They could use the help. I could use the company. And Molly says you’re the perfect distraction.”

  “More like the perfect sacrifice,” Michael said. “Why should I be the moving target for that woman’s rage while you and your girlfriend go make out in all those dark corners backstage?”

  “I already explained it, Mikey.” Peterson looked pained. “Molly’s sister is crazy overprotective, and she’s hell-bent on getting me out of the way. Apparently, she’s the sort of woman who will hire a private investigator…and dig up enough dirt to bury me alive. Molly says Rachel’s done it before.” His voice lowered. “You know I can’t risk stirring that up. Not with Sammy and Pris at home.”

  It wasn’t fair, and Peterson was all too aware of it, the bastard. He wouldn’t even look Michael in the eye.

  They were none of them saints, but Peterson’s sins ran a little bit deeper and darker than the rest of theirs. Michael didn’t know all the details, but there had been something across state lines in Idaho a few months ago involving Peterson’s brother, Nick, and a bar fight that sent a man to the hospital for weeks. If he remembered correctly, no arrests had been made, but not for lack of trying.

  He’d have to ask Peterson about that later.

  “Molly and I just need you to distract her sister,” Peterson added. “Keep her occupied until I can find a way to win her over, explain away a few things so she won’t turn around and go batshit crazy all over my life. Please, Mikey?”

  “This girl means that much?”

  First Julian, now Peterson. His bros were falling, one by one.

  Peterson nodded, and Julian clapped him heavily on the back, sharing a look that seemed a lot like a giant pussy whip dipped in romantic comedies and trimmed with lace.

  Turning to Michael, Julian added, “How bad can it be? All you really have to do is be nice to a woman who, according to Peterson here, is pretty fucking hot.”

  Michael perked up a little. She was pretty fucking hot. He wasn’t going to lie—he’d much rather sleep on a bed of nails with that Jillian woman than poke Rachel with a stick from a distance of a hundred feet, but he could still appreciate the finer points of a well-built woman. And it had been fun making her so angry the muscle along her temple looked like it was going to explode.

  He gave it one last try.

  “But volunteer for a naked Shakespeare play, Peterson? For a woman who wants to eat my soul and shit it out in bricks? I do have a reputation to uphold.”

  Not to mention a lively interest in keeping all his favorite parts intact.
<
br />   Julian laughed. “What reputation? This is the first time I’ve seen you near a field in weeks, and Kate says you never called back that friend of hers she set you up with. What else have you got going on right now?”

  “You can tell Kate it was not my fault,” Michael said mulishly. “That woman she set me up with only wanted me for my body. I refuse to be treated like a piece of meat.”

  He got the obligatory laughs, glad when the men’s conversation moved in the direction of an action flick they’d all been to see the day before. The sad truth of it was he wasn’t doing a whole hell of a lot of anything right now. A gentle workout that didn’t strain his knee. Food. Sleep. Repeat. A few more weeks of this and he’d be begging for a woman to spit in his face and trample him in stiletto heels.

  “You’ll do it, right?” Peterson asked later as they packed up their stuff, ready to call it a day. Michael wanted to go out for beers, but Julian had a date, and Peterson had mumbled something about a babysitter and exorbitant rates. “They’re starting the tryouts for Antony and Cleopatra next Monday. Dominic already likes you, and we can offer to do it for cheap. Please? I need this.”

  Michael sighed. “Yeah, man. You know I’m there.”

  Peterson grinned.

  “But I refuse to wear one of those pointy hats.”

  “Of course.”

  “Or tights.”

  “I’m pretty sure bouncers don’t wear costumes.”

  “You better hope you’re right, Peterson.” With those weird theater people, Michael wasn’t taking any chances. “Or I’m making you eat the tights. After I wear them.”

  Chapter Five

  An Ass-Head

  Rachel loved the first day of a new play.

  Because the Shakespeare After Dark production catered to a rather debauched crowd, it showed only four nights a week, which meant it could be a year-round production and not strain the actor’s limits. They mixed up the shows every couple of months to keep things fresh.

  Hamlet had gone well, aside from the debacle the other night, and the next show they were doing was Antony and Cleopatra, one of Rachel’s favorites. She was a shoo-in for the lead role. Sexy Cleopatra. She could totally pull that off.