Maddy’s shoulders tense. “She certainly seemed to.” Her gaze cuts away and she winds the cord of headphones around her forefinger. “But now. . .” The wire drops as her posture slumps. “God, Cate, I don't know what to do. Hellsworth thinks the mystery singer’s me and I can't carry a tune to save my life!”
I wince and lean in for a quick hug. “Maddy, I'm so sorry. This whole mess is all my fault. I'm the one who turned the radio back on when Addie was singing. She did it because she thought we were alone. I was so tired of her hiding her talent. I guess I went a little overboard.”
She pulls away and offers an indulgent smile. “It’s okay, Catie. I understand.” Then she pauses, clearing her throat and shifting from foot to foot. “Well, not totally, but still.”
I sigh. “Thanks. And don’t worry about Helmsworth. We’ll figure something out.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Like what? If I tell the truth, she'll kill us both, and if I don’t . . .” She shakes her head. “The audience doesn’t want to hear me sing.”
I whack her arm as she sticks out her tongue. “Please. You may not sing, but you’re so close opening your own studio.” I nudge her shoulder. “Don’t shortchange yourself.”
Her cheeks pinken and her eyes find the floor. “Thanks,” she mumbles. “Unfortunately, that won’t help us with the Bitch of Broadway.”
My lips press together in a grim line. “I know.”
She locks our gazes. “So, what are you going to do?”
“Honestly?” I sweep my hair back into a ponytail before letting it go again. “I have no idea. But I'm going to start by talking to my girlfriend.”
Maddy arches a brow at the turn of phrase, but I brush past her before it has time to fully register.
Lyssa’s hand is warm as we make our way down the hall of the building. “Are we going to see Addie.”
I smile at her, heading for the elevator. “Yes, sweetie, that’s exactly where we're going.” I hit the button and we step inside. “Three.”
She nods, then jabbing the button with the pad of her thumb. A wide grin splits her face when it lights up and emits a satisfying ding.
I pull her back, in case we make a pit stop along the way, and wait with bated breath for the elevator doors to open again.
We step out into the hall and turn down the right corridor. I keep track of the numbers on the wall until we reach a charcoal gray door with a gold plated 312 outside. Drawing in a breath, I steel my features and march forward, Lyssa skipping along beside me. There's no telling how she will react, but no matter what, I intend to get to the bottom of this today. I raise my hand and let two hollow, rhythmic knocks ring out, then step back. Minutes pass, but the door doesn't open.
I curl my fists at my sides and close my eyes, opening them when a tiny hand tugs at the hem of my skirt.
“Mom?”
“Yes, baby?”
“Why isn’t she answering?”
I squat to be closer to my daughter’s level, chancing another glance at the door. “Well, honey, maybe she’s not home.” It's a stupid excuse, considering it's not even 9 a.m. on a Saturday morning and we don't have to be in until two.
Lyssa’s face falls. “But we haven’t seen her in forever!”
“I know, baby, I know.” I give her a short hug and shoot daggers at the entrance over her shoulder, willing it to fall open.
Dang it, Addie, why are you so hardheaded?
I knew I shouldn't have brought Lyssa with me. It's not like I thought this would go any different. I did try to leave her with Megan, but she overheard me talking on the way out and insisted she tag along. They should invent some sort of immunity potion for puppy dog eyes.
Wait a minute!
“Hey, Lys?” I whisper in her ear.
“Yeah?”
“Why don't you go knock on the door? Maybe she'll open it if you do it.”
Lyssa springs away. She raps on the wood ten times in succession and then calls out, “Addie? Are you home?”
My shoulders shake as I muffle a laugh behind my palm and beckon her to step back before she disturbs the other neighbors. “Okay, missy. That’s enough.”
Lyssa pouts and crosses her arms. “I guess she really isn’t home.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose and let out a long exhale. Maybe sending my kid to blackmail my girlfriend into seeing me wasn't a good idea. “Honey, maybe she’s still sleeping. It's pretty early in the morning. Let's go have some breakfast, and then we can come back.” I turn away, pulling her along with me. As I step down the hall, the lock of the door clicks. I turn around as a bleary hazel eye peeks out through the crack.
Lyssa breaks from me and races backward. “Addie!”
Addie shuts the door and undoes the chain, swinging it open in time to catch my daughter as she leaps into her arms.
“Oof!” She staggers under Lyssa’s weight and I can't keep the sneaky smile off my face at her dumbfounded expression. “Lyssa?” she asks. “What are you doing here?”
“Mom brought me!” she chirps, pointing down the hall before resting her head on Addie’s shoulder and wrapping her arms about her neck. “She wanted to talk to you. And I missed you!”
Addie’s brow furrows as she steps one slipper-clad foot outside and cranes her neck. “Catie?”
With a meek wave, I slink into her line of sight. “Hi.”
Her eyes flash and her features harden. She sets Lyssa on the floor before glaring up at me. “What is this, some kind of ambush?”
I move outside her door with my arms crossed. “And if it is?”
“Whatever,” she scoffs and inches the door shut, but I use my foot as a doorstop.
“Are you still mad? Even after what happened the other day?” A hot coil of desire rears in my gut upon recalling the kiss, but I squelch it with a gnash of my teeth.
“After outing me online? You bet your ass I’m mad.”
I roll my eyes. “You did that yourself a long time ago. The first time you kissed me.”
“This is different and you know it.”
I wave a hand and plant the other on my hip. “You can't tell me singing in front of a crowd is harder than admitting to an entire high school class you're gay!”
Addie’s mouth falls open and her eyes bug. Lyssa whimpers from her spot between us.
Down the hall, a door creaks and someone calls, “Hey! Take it inside, you two. People are trying to sleep in here!”
Addie gives them a low grunt. “Mind your own business.”
“Love to,” the man shoots back. “But I bet they can hear you two squawking a floor away.”
Addie grumbles, but takes me by the wrist and pulls me inside. Two doors slam and the sound reverberates through my skull. While I wait for my ears to stop ringing, Addie tells Lyssa to go in the living room and watch something. Then she drags me down the hall toward the guest bedroom.
She stomps inside. I shut the door behind us and wait a few moments in tense silence before whirling on her.
“Why do you have to take everything so personally?”
“That’s you, not me,” Addie retorts, eyes blazing.
I shake my head and sink down on the bed. “You think I wanted that recording to go viral? I didn’t!”
“Well then, what did you want, Catie? Everything you’ve done has been to humiliate me!”
“You? What about Maddy? Making her lip-sync?”
Addie freezes. Her skin turns ashen. “How did you . . .”
“Well you weren’t going to tell me!” I whip out my phone and shove it between her eyes even as sweat beads on my forehead. “Ten missed calls, Addie! And God knows how many texts!” Flinging the cell on the bed, I throw my hands up. “I had to find out somehow!” I shriek. “What were you thinking?”
Her posture deflates as she slumps against the wall. “I, I was getting to it.”
“Yeah? When? Opening night?”
She looks up guiltily, and I gape at her.
“Seriously?” I blow out air and run
a hand through my hair. “You’ve done some pretty messed-up stuff before, but I never thought you would sink this low.”
Her spine straightens and she slams a hand on the dresser, making me jump. “Shows how much you know.” Her voice cracks and she spins away as a lone tear trickles down her cheek.
A lump rises in my throat and my hands shake as I twist them together. Addie’s shoulders quake with silent sobs and an iron fist squeezes my heart. But then I remember what led us here. Springing from the bed, I take her by the shoulders and force her to face me, standing on my tiptoes so she has to look me in the eye.
“What the hell, Cate?”
“If I can get back in that stupid bubble after everything, you can sing again.”
Addie shrinks under my gaze. “Yeah?” She spits. “And have you gotten back in the bubble?” A misty film still clouds her eyes, but slowly it’s fading away to power the death glare accompanying the venom coating her question.
Setting my jaw, I dig my heels into the floor, unblinking. “No,” I admit tersely, “but I’m not going to stop trying.”
She cocks her head and puckers her lips as they part. I give myself a silent pat on the back for knocking her off her game. “Y-you’re not?”
I let my lips morph into a tentative smile and lessen the grip of my fingers on her shoulders. “No. Lyssa needs this. I need this.”
“What for?” Addie asks. A note of curiosity creeps into her voice. My smile widens.
“Because I need to prove to myself I can.” I let go of her shoulders and exhale through my nose. “Look, I know it must be hard to imagine singing again after you quit.”
She throws her hands up. “Catie, it’s not—”
“All I ask,” I say, “is that you try.”
“What do you mean?”
I wrap my fingers around her hand. Her head snaps up, but then she flips her hand over and laces our fingers together. “I want you to promise me something. I’m not going to let my fear of falling take over, if you stop letting your fear of singing control everything you do.”
She yanks her hand back. “It doesn’t—”
“Addie,” I cut in. “Can you truly tell me if we found each other right when the accident happened, you would’ve been an assistant director?”
“It's a respectable job.”
“Of course it is. But is it what you dreamt about? Is it what you want for your future?”
She looks off into the distance and balls the plush of her house robe in her hands, fingering the embroidery of her name over the left pocket. Right over her heart. She hangs her head and lets her long brown hair fall over her face. I cup her chin in my palms.
“It's okay to be afraid, you know.” I whisper. “I’m scared shitless every time I get in that bubble.”
Her lips quirk. “Don’t you mean shootless?”
I shake my head. “Shut up.” She snickers and I shove her. “The important thing is I don’t let it stop me. And you shouldn’t either.”
The brief air of brevity surrounding her falls. Her eyes plead with me like a wounded puppy. “I don’t know.”
“Just try,” I implore, cupping her cheeks. “Please? For me?”
Her gaze is guarded as she loses herself in a memory somewhere over my shoulder, but finally, in a whisper so soft it could be mistaken for wind, she croaks, “Okay. I’ll try.”
Green paint stains my trembling fingers as I smooth my thumb over and over the slim piece of clear adhesive tape—the barrier between my secret and the rest of the theatrical world. Shallow breaths rattle in my chest and the room tilts on its axis. Pale hands wrap around my wrist and draw my fingers away from her forehead. Maddy’s eyes bore into mine and I swallow against the dry heave convulsing in my throat.
“Adaline, relax! It’s taped. Any more adhesive and I'm going to turn into a human roll of packing tape.”
Packing tape! “That’s it!” I slip my headset over my ears, the cord of my body mic colliding with the plastic band over my head, and put my hand to the earphone. “Sam, do you guys have—”
“No!” Maddy glares and yanks the headphones from my ears, slamming the off button so hard it almost doesn't pop all the way back out.
“Hey!” I turn it on again. “What was that for?”
She grabs my arm and pulls it forward, forcing me to stumble a few steps closer until I smell Altoids on her breath as she snarls. “In case you've forgotten,” she spits, giving me a withering stare over the rims of her round glasses. “I'm the one who has to impersonate you on stage. If anyone should have license to freak out right now, it should be me.”
For a few seconds, the only sound in the dressing room is our raspy, rapid breathing in tandem with one another. An anvil clatters in the pit of my stomach. My hand falls and my cheeks burn, all the bravado zapped from my frame as if I've been electrocuted.
Dammit. When did I become so selfish? Here I am losing my shit when I should be groveling. Nobody else would have been willing to take my place like this. Not that she had a choice after what Hellsworth said, but still.
“You’re right.” I sigh, then walk over to her vanity, which is scattered with green-tinted brushes and makeup containers in various shades of emerald. Picking up the knitted blue hat from where it lies next to the steamer, I wipe my left hand across my cheek as one loan tear leaks out, then turn and settle it atop her wig.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I'm not sure how I'm ever going to repay you for this. Except thank you like twenty thousand times.”
Maddy snorts and squeezes my shoulder. “Oh, believe me, you'll have plenty of time to figure that out. Besides, this is for the dress rehearsal, right? It's not like you're going to make me do it for the real thing.”
“R-right.” I manage a weak half-smile.
After Maddy sang for me the first time, Hellsworth and Neal convinced Donna to share the role for the sake of publicity. Our run would comprise eight performances per week for three months. Ninety-six shows in total. They scheduled “me” to lead eighteen of them.
That doesn’t sound like a lot. At least, not in comparison to about a hundred. For me though, it might as well be eighteen thousand. After hours of begging and bargaining and a decent chunk plucked out of my savings to go toward her studio, Maddy agreed to step in for the dress rehearsals, but that was as far as she would go.
“Once the audience shows up,” she had said, “it’s all you.”
Sweat beads the back of my neck and my palms begin to itch.
Tell her. Tell her I can’t do it. But I don't. I promised I’d take over, so that’s what I have to do. It’s smarter anyway, because the last thing we need is to incur the Bitch of Broadway’s wrath in front of a live audience.
My iPhone blares. Slipping it out of my pocket, my eyes go wide. “Crap.” I hurry to situate the headset and wait for my voice to crackle over the loudspeaker. Per Hellsworth’s request, I’m now doubling as a second stage manager. “Five minutes to curtain everyone. Five minutes.” A sharp tick echoes in my ear as I click the speaker off and turn toward Maddy.
If it weren’t for the three layers of green makeup, I'm sure her face wouldn't have any color, but she presses her shoulders back and sets her jaw “This is it.”
My pulse roars in my ears. Amazingly, my words are strong and clear. “You got this.”
“We,” she corrects, a flicker of nervousness dancing in her eyes. “You’re not going to bail on me now, are you?” Her brows wrinkle. It's meant to be a joke, but I can’t help the jolt running through me. I thought singing from backstage would make it easier, but the butterflies are as bad as they've ever been. I force myself to stay instead of dashing off to upchuck in the bathroom and give her a thumbs-up, hoping she doesn't notice how I've yet to stop my hands from quivering.
“Never.” Again, perfectly smooth. My mouth is better at faking it than I am.
Maddy nods. “Good.”
My alarm goes off again and I switch the headset back on. “Places everyone. Top
of act one.” Then I power it down as Maddy double-checks her mic is indeed off. Before she hurries away, I mouth, Break a leg.
You too, she mouths back before disappearing down the hall.
I flick the switch on my own body mic, put the headset on and plop in her wheelie chair, my eyes glued to the monitor above her mirror as the resounding opening chords shake the walls of the dressing room and a boa constrictor coils around my stomach.
I’m the worst.
The first act goes well. Surprisingly, suspiciously, ridiculously well. It still takes two hours longer than it should and every time Hellsworth bellows for the production to screech to a stop my heart catapults in my throat.
This is it. I squeeze my eyes shut until dark spots flash in front of them as she stalks up onto the stage. She figured it out. We're both screwed.
Strangely enough though, that never happens. She has fuckloads of criticism for everyone. Even a few acting pointers for Maddy and pronunciation notes for me, but I don't miss any cues and as many people as she scolds, she doesn't question Maddy’s lip-syncing. By intermission, we’re both still in one piece. Though a nasty migraine pulses through my temples and threatens to turn the edges of my vision fuzzy.
Nonetheless, I breathe a sigh of relief as the stage blacks out at the end of “Defying Gravity”. My stomach hurts, but I'm not sure if that’s from performing for six hours straight after not exerting myself like this for so long or the stress. The worst part is, I don't even get the chance to enjoy myself. I'm too busy worrying about forgetting something, or Maddy fucking up the words.
I shiver. My blood curdles like spoiled milk. I’ll have to play along even though I can't see her lips and then we’ll be fucked. Not to mention, I still have to juggle managerial duties on top of everything else. I spent so long holding the speaker to my left ear, half of my brain working like a stage manager and the other half attempting to fill the Wicked Witch's shoes. I’m pretty sure I have whiplash and carpal tunnel.
How the hell am I going to keep this up?
Mic off, I slump back in the chair, resting my head in my hands. Maybe if I can get a few minutes of peace and quiet.
Duet Rubato Page 28
