Tread the Boards (A Rivervue Community Theatre Romance, #1)

by Nikki Logan

  ‘Not planning on laying down in front of the bulldozers?’

  ‘Oooh. Now there’s an idea.’

  His laugh sounded like her favourite coffee tasted. ‘I wonder if Lexi knows what a loyal stalwart she has hidden away in the basement.’

  ‘I’m sure she does. She’s the same as me.’

  ‘No wonder I like her so much, then.’

  The flippant comment should have feathered up and away but, instead, it morphed into a kind of sexy smoke, swirling around them, clouding them in together. The more it eddied the thicker it felt, and her chest tightened in response.

  It was almost a chore to tear her gaze away from his.

  ‘Here you go,’ Lincoln said, placing their meals down in front of them and reeling her attention back to the table.

  It took a full thirty seconds.

  ‘Enjoy.’

  Chapter Eight

  Okay, something was definitely up. Bruce’s eyes weren’t the only ones turned her way as Kenzie walked from the backstage doors towards the front of the theatre. She hadn’t drawn this much attention since the very first time she’d coloured her platinum hair with her trademark splash of iridescent watermelon.

  Ever since auditions finished, everyone had moved into second gear staging Larrikin in record time, and she’d been no exception. But having Dylan onboard had not only halved her workload, it had doubled her pleasure. How had she never noticed before how insular she’d become down in Props HQ? It was more than a little unsettling to discover. Had she just talked herself into calling it ‘solitude’ instead of what it probably was—loneliness.

  Bruce’s speculative stare evolved into a full double thumbs up from his position high on the tallescope. He looked so chuffed for her it was hard not to respond, so Kenzie gave him a bright, single thumb in response.

  If Phantom had been with her, his tail would have been wagging double time with all the ‘goods’ going around.

  As she passed through Rivervue’s foyer on her way up to Lexi’s office she squeezed past a gathering around the public noticeboard. She threw them a smile and hooked the lower balustrade to slingshot herself up onto the stairs.

  ‘Congratulations, Kenzie,’ Leesa Harold from Harold’s Hardware called out.

  That brought her swift jog to a halt. ‘For what?’

  All three of them turned to look, then. Leesa was most befuddled of all. ‘For Mary.’

  The expectation in all their gazes swivelled her feet and she trod back down the steps towards them and the casting list Lexi had posted earlier that morning. Already her mind was going through all the Marys in Brachen and trying to decide which of them was coup enough to be getting excited over.

  And why they were congratulating her and not Lexi for said coup. Or … you know … Mary, herself.

  Lexi always started revealing the promo poster on the casting announcement and so the burnt umber and the bold, blokey font saying ‘LARRIKIN’ was the first tease of its design. Enjoying the little internal quiver of things getting real for this production, Kenzie dropped her eyes a little to the casting outcomes.

  || Ron de Vue – Toby Adams (young) / Mitchell Rainer (teen) / Richard Yeates (adult) ||

  Kenzie sighed. Just one more lead for Yeates to skite about, but super exciting for young Toby. He was a hard worker and a great little talent; he deserved this chance. She just hoped that working closely to Yeates wouldn’t rub a bunch of bad onto a good kid. Dylan couldn’t have hoped for the lead so, hopefully, this wouldn’t be bad news for him. Maybe he scored a different part?

  Her eyes drifted to the other characters, looking for his name.

  || Mary Devon – Emma Conroy (young) / Vanessa Carpenter (teen) / Mackenzie Russell (adult) ||

  Wait, what?

  ‘So excited for you, Kenzie. I had no idea you’d auditioned.’

  Uh … Leesa wasn’t the only one.

  ‘What?’ she said, aloud.

  ‘I didn’t even know you acted,’ a younger man said.

  ‘I don’t.’ She gritted her teeth as she turned back for the stairs. Either Lexi had made a printing error or something was off. Her legs flew her up to the mezzanine level that held the creative director’s office, Rivervue’s tech control room and an old storeroom.

  ‘I didn’t audition,’ she wasted no time saying as she burst into Lexi’s office, unannounced.

  A tall man with dark hair turned from his position opposite Lexi and eyed her curiously. He pushed to his feet, murmuring, ‘We can finish this later.’

  He straightened, tugged on his suit coat and excused himself. Clearly, he recognised a pending meltdown when he saw one.

  ‘We’re not done with this, Mark,’ Lexi said tightly to his retreating back. ‘Did you think it would be that easy?’

  ‘Nothing ever is,’ the man sighed. ‘As I’m sure you intend.’

  Lexi’s pretty eyes narrowed at his back until he was gone from view, then she took a moment to refocus them on her new arrival. She puffed out a breath. ‘What’s up, Kenz?’

  ‘I didn’t audition for you,’ Kenzie repeated.

  But the creative director was obviously well used to prima donna hissy fits and didn’t miss a beat. ‘Not directly, no.’

  ‘Not at all, Lexi. I don’t audition.’

  Lexi had known her too long to misread her growing tension as actual anger. ‘I don’t know why. You’re fabulous.’

  ‘Because I’m on props. I’ve already started gathering for Larrikin.’

  Lexi’s body was far more relaxed than her eyes. ‘You can do both if you want.’

  ‘I don’t want to do both. I didn’t audition.’

  ‘Well, you kind of did. Indirectly. And once seen …’ Lexi shrugged.

  … cannot be unseen. She knew. It was one of her own favourite sayings. And as she stood there befuddled, a few things dropped into place.

  Kind of did. Indirectly.

  ‘You’re talking about Dylan’s video?’

  ‘You’ll make a perfect adult Mary,’ Lexi hedged. Keeping herself just out of the firing line.

  ‘Dylan was supposed to make a perfect adult Ron,’ she urged.

  Lexi leaned forward at her desk. ‘It’s bizarre to hear him speak, isn’t it? Love the accent. But I don’t think he’s castable. You saw the audition, performance is very definitely not his bag. He might need to stick to being dark and mysterious. Oh! Or he could take over for you on props.’

  She knew what Lexi was doing; stalling … hedging … while she wore down Kenzie’s umbrage. Keeping things light rather than letting them escalate.

  God, she hated being managed.

  Kenzie planted both her hands flat on Lexi’s desk and leaned on them. ‘It’s not my thing either.’

  ‘Beg to differ, Kenz. I chose you for Mary, fair and square.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you were the best,’ Lexi shrugged. ‘Perfect look. Perfect age. And you’re a great visual match for Emma Conroy who’s the young Mary. I’m so angry that you’ve been under my nose—under my feet—for so long. If you hadn’t auditioned, I’d still have no idea what we had mouldering away down there.’

  ‘I didn’t audition!’

  ‘So you keep saying.’

  ‘I’m waiting for you to acknowledge it, Lexi!’

  ‘This is theatre, Kenzie, not a court of law. Does it matter how I discovered you? Or just that I have?’

  Discovered. Like she was some kind of prize. Her heart hammered at how trapped she suddenly felt. And how alive.

  ‘I don’t want to have to resign from Rivervue.’

  Lexi’s brow wrinkled. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, why would you? If you truly don’t want to do Larrikin, I’ll take you out. You’re a volunteer, not an indentured servant.’

  Relief flooded her arteries, chasing away all the heaviness but sweeping away with it the burbling vitality that she was steadfastly ignoring. It felt a bit too good. Like a drug.

  ‘Okay, then. Take me out.’

/>   Somewhere deep inside her a bright, glittering light extinguished.

  Lexi’s slim arms crossed. ‘If I do, you’ll have to tell me why.’

  She sagged into the chair opposite Lexi’s. ‘I’m not a performer.’

  ‘Apparently you are.’

  ‘I don’t do that, Lexi. You know I don’t.’

  ‘I know you never have. But now I’m wondering why, when you’re so good.’

  Her first instinct was to lie. Just to say whatever Lexi needed to hear to take her off the casting notice. But creeping in behind it was a different kind of instinct. A flickering kind of curiosity.

  Was she good? She loved performing scenes to her mirror, to Phantom, to the various pets captive in the holding cages at the clinic. How might it feel to perform them for real? For an audience?

  How would it be to actually know?

  ‘What if Larrikin’s no good?’ she evaded.

  Lexi snorted. ‘It’s a Draven. Who gets to debut in a Draven?’

  ‘Exactly,’ Kenzie pressed. ‘We all know what Draven does. How controversy follows. Do I want to be in the play that has something potentially controversial to say about Brachen’s hero?’

  Yes. Yes, she did, actually. No-one was more perfect to be that particular harbinger. This town was unlikely to have a single soul in it who wanted more to have some home truths about Ron de Vue exposed.

  Except maybe her nan.

  ‘I’ll give you act two right now.’ Lexi didn’t miss a beat, reaching into her top drawer and lifting out a sheaf of bound pages. ‘To help you decide. And come to the first reading on Wednesday night. See how you like it. If you don’t enjoy it, I’ll swap you out there and then.’

  The director’s words were a kind of seduction. As were the fresh pages she waved.

  ‘But you can’t dick me around, Kenz. If you decide to sign on after the read-through, that’s it. You’re in. It wouldn’t be fair to everyone else to pull out later.’

  Everything in her said ‘don’t’. Every part of her that had grown up a Russell. Every bit of her that believed performers were unreliable and self-centred and dangerous. But only part of her was a Russell, and the part that wasn’t wanted to know what it was like to sweat under the heat of a follow-spot, and to improvise madly when she lost a line and found it again, to stand on Sofia’s dressmaker’s box and have some phenomenal costume fitted exactly to her, to experience the breathless thrill of a first dress rehearsal.

  And to absorb the silence of a spellbound audience.

  Was it time for the part of her that had always wanted to stand on stage instead of lurking below it?

  She reached forward and toyed with the edges of Lexi’s latest script pages. If nothing else, it was a chance to read act two before everyone else. To see where Draven was taking this. And turning up on Wednesday night was a chance to see how the other half lived for a few hours. Turning up didn’t mean she had to take it any further.

  Turning up just meant she was open to it.

  And it wasn’t like she had anything on that night.

  ‘You’re taking a risk. Casting an unknown in something this important. In Rivervue’s swansong.’ Lexi gave her the look as she went on. ‘I know, I know, proposed swansong.’

  ‘We’re not exactly the Royal Shakespeare, Kenzie. And you’re a quick study. I saw the magic on that video. You can do this.’

  She could. But should she? With so many reasons not to?

  ‘I’ll come on Wednesday and let you know on Thursday morning. Is that enough time?’

  Lexi smiled, far too pleased with herself. ‘I can make that work.’

  On a suspended breath, Kenzie’s fingers curled around the script and dragged it slowly towards her edge of the desk. So why did it feel so much like it was dragging her towards a precipice?

  Chapter Nine

  ‘Pleased with yourself?’

  A very scowly Kenzie threw a script segment down on the ornate mirrored dresser she usually performed to. Her partner in crime. Used heinously against her to perpetuate a fraud.

  Dylan could play this a number of ways, but he went for direct. She’d always been straight with him.

  ‘You don’t have to walk through the door, Kenzie. But if it wasn’t open you wouldn’t have the choice.’

  ‘Choice.’ She eyeballed him pointedly. ‘Interesting concept.’

  But he knew that face. The pinch around her pretty eyes. He’d been that face so many times as something or someone had forced him out of the places he felt most comfortable and safe.

  ‘Okay, yes. It was dirty. I accept that. But you were too good to leave squirrelled away down here.’

  ‘First “mouldering”, now “squirrelled”. Is that really what people think of me? This is my place. My place.’

  ‘Are you angry at my presumption? Or anxious for what you’re taking on?’

  After all, she’d walked in with a script. Though one glance told him it still wasn’t the full Larrikin script. So Lexi was sticking with her plan to release it in parts. Even to the performers.

  ‘Maybe I’m just pissed at you for putting me in the position of having to choose.’

  ‘Between the shadows or the footlights?’

  Her mouth half opened to protest, except she closed it again as the metaphor’s aptness sunk in.

  Yeah. Metaphors were kind of his thing.

  She sank onto the bed edge. ‘I was doing just fine, Dylan.’

  Everything in him wanted to slide down next to her, to throw an arm around her and lend her his strength. But that would likely start something he wasn’t in any position to finish. And he had to remind himself that he was still lying to her about Draven too.

  ‘If “fine” is good enough for you then knock yourself out. But if you maybe want “great” or “fabulous”, then you give this a shot. Because that’s all this is. A shot. The world won’t end if you decide not to do it. It’ll just go on as before. And you just go back to being an observer.’

  Her intense stare wavered, grew tired. ‘How can I? I’ll always know this was there. And that I didn’t go for it.’

  ‘So go for it. At least then you’ll know if you like it or not.’

  Her voice grew small. ‘What if I love it?’

  ‘Isn’t that a good thing?’

  ‘No. Not always.’

  He pulled an ornate footstool over and perched on it right in front of her. ‘Why? What is it about you especially that means you can’t have the thing you love?’

  A hundred things warred in her expression. How could such a young woman have so many conflicting emotions?

  ‘My family,’ she began. ‘They don’t … love the theatre.’

  ‘They don’t have to. But you love it. And you’ve been doing it a while now so I’m going to assume that they know where you go every day.’

  Her hands flapped at her side. ‘That’s down here. Out of sight, out of mind. They can forget what I do when I’m down here.’

  And so can she, maybe? ‘Why do you care?’

  Her brows drew closer together. ‘Because they care. And because they’re my family.’

  ‘Are they from some kind of religion?’ The word tumbled off his lips as he thought it.

  At last, that drew a laugh from her. ‘We’re not a cult. We’re just Russells.’

  ‘And Russells have some kind of perpetual fear of carnies?’

  Her watery smile broadened. Dried a little. ‘Dylan …’

  ‘I’m trying to understand, Kenzie, but it’s a little weird.’

  ‘Not for us. We’re farming people originally. We have jobs and mortgages and real-world expectations. We’re not costumes and stage cues and—’ she grappled ‘—method.’

  ‘Forget Method. You can be Meisner.’ He placed each word as carefully as footfalls in a minefield. Counting on humour to disarm this whole situation.

  She didn’t laugh. But she didn’t escalate, either. ‘Can you just accept that my family isn’t into the theatre and that me s
tepping on stage will hurt them?’

  Not would. Not might. Will.

  Kenzie had already decided. Did she realise?

  ‘I’ll help you. We’ll work out what to tell them. How to tell them.’

  If there was one thing he was good at, it was words. How to use them to influence people. He’d built a lifetime career out of it.

  ‘You make it sound like a coming out, Dylan.’

  He shrugged. ‘You’re one thing to us and another thing to your family. Don’t they deserve to know the real you?’

  ‘What if vet tech Kenzie is the real me? What if theatre tragic Kenzie is just kidding herself?’

  ‘I haven’t seen you outside of here but I’m a big fan of this Kenzie. She seems pretty real to me.’

  And kinda gorgeous.

  And pretty grounded.

  Her head dropped while she thought about that. ‘It’s going to hurt them.’

  Why, for crying out loud? What was the big deal here? It was just a hobby. But he knew her well enough to know she wasn’t doing this for the sake of theatrics. Something in her family made all of this hard for her. She was lying to them. And probably to herself. No wonder she was in pain.

  He hated being the one to be causing that. ‘Then we do it gently.’

  ‘We? Did you just invite yourself along to my coming-out party?’

  He chuckled. ‘Hope they like mime.’

  Her own tinkly laugh brought him back from the place where he was beginning to fear he’d done more damage than he ever meant. Or would ever want to.

  ‘They really don’t.’

  The Russells intrigued him. Not because he thought that every family on the planet had to enjoy theatre, but because they had to know what it meant to their girl and wouldn’t they have made a slight effort? For her sake?

  Silence stretched its sinews comfortably until Kenzie finally broke into it.

  ‘Richard’s playing Ron de Vue.’ Her nose crinkled prettily.

  The thought of Kenzie and the narcissistic actor working so closely together got thoroughly under his skin. But, then, he also knew what was coming and Yates didn’t.

  He grunted. ‘Speaking of method … He shouldn’t have any problems portraying de Vue the show pony.’