Protecting Emma

by ML Michaels

  ***

  A few hours later Claire found herself positioned before yet another stage. This time, however, she was collected, in charge and totally in control. Lucky her.

  “Duke, please listen to me. The line reads, ‘What light through yonder window breaks?’ Not ‘I just broke yawls’ window,’” she insisted, standing as she did to address the tall lanky young man who stood stock still before her at the center of a modest, narrow stage that served as the centerpiece of the equally modest and narrow Genoa Playhouse. “Now let’s run the line one more time please.”

  Duke Lansky, a striking blond man of 20 who looked even more striking sans the deep set dark circles that currently underlined his wide blue eyes, shook his head in response to her request.

  “Sorry, Teach,” he yawned, adding as he fixed her with a drowsy smile, “I indulged in a killer kegger party last night and stayed out a little later than I’d planned.” He paused here, adding with a shrug, “I just can’t focus on becomin’ your Romeo when I have to read my lines through beer goggles.”

  Standing from her seat front row center at the Genoa Playhouse—or as front row center as one could get, she mused, in a converted grocery store warehouse that now boasted six uneven rows of plain wooden chairs—Claire threw aside her script and heaved a resigned sigh.

  “First off Duke, I’m only your teacher Monday through Friday—when you take my drama classes at Genoa Community College,” she reminded him, holding a single firm finger up for emphasis. “During the weekends I assume the role of director at the Genoa Playhouse. And presently my work here, indeed my entire focus, revolves around our big fall production of ‘Romeo and Juliet.’ This is a focus that is currently taking me away from my daughter, who is waiting for me right now, as we speak, at home with a sitter,” She paused here, adding as she inclined her head sharply in the direction of her blanching, reddening leading man, “And this is precisely where your focus should be, at this very moment.”

  Biting his lip in an acute show of discomfort, Duke took a deep, sustaining breath as he agreed, “You’re right, and I’m sorry. Let’s try again.”

  Claire thought a moment, then shook her head.

  “Thanks for the offer, Duke, but I think that it might be a better idea for us all to take a nice long break,” she conceded.

  With these words she turned finally to face the Juliet of her production, a tall, slender young lady whose long cinnamon brown hair and wide dark eyes seemed all too familiar at this moment.

  “Is that acceptable to you, Charlotte?” she asked her, adding with a gentle smile, “You’ve been doing a great job today, so I’ll leave you with the final decision.”

  The girl smiled.

  “Yes, let’s take a break,” she agreed, adding as her beam turned downright cryptic, “If nothing else, it will give me the opportunity to give you some really good news.”

  Claire nodded.

  “Hey, if anything I could use some good news right now,” she revealed, adding as she beckoned her forward, “Lay it on me.”

  Charlotte clasped her hands together, most literally taking the stage as she declared in an amplified tone that Claire figured could be heard by canines in neighboring counties, “My brother is coming to town!”

  Claire froze in her place, her smile dissolving as she considered these words.

  “Your brother Shawn Sullivan?” Duke asked. “The movie star?”

  Claire rolled her eyes. “No, her brother Shawn Sullivan the apprentice plumber,” she deadpanned with a sniff.

  “Hey Teach, I’ll have to come up with one liners like that in our Wednesday morning improv class,” Duke said with a chuckle. “There’s only one Shawn Sullivan. He’s a Hollywood superstar, he’s da man!” he proclaimed, adding with an affirming nod, “And da man is coming to see the opening night of our production of Romeo and Juliet!”

  Charlotte nodded.

  “That’s right, Ms. Vincent,” she proclaimed, adding as she made a broad gesture in Claire’s direction, “As you no doubt remember, Shawn played Romeo back in college—and weren’t you his Juliet?”

  Claire shook her head, running her fingers through her short stock of thick ebony hair as her blue eyes took a self-conscious walk down the length of her short, curvaceous form.

  “Nope. Our drama teacher asserted that while I had the acting chops to play Juliet, I lacked the incredible all natural beauty required for the role. Nice of him, no? So I played the nurse,” she revealed, adding in a softer, more reflective tone, “I guess that, in a way though, I was his Juliet. We dated for more than a year.”

  Charlotte nodded.

  “I remember this,” she agreed, adding with a sly grin, “And although his shooting schedule prevents my bro from making it home that much, he is always asking about you. Every call home, every e-mail, he never fails to mention your name.”

  Claire looked at the girl for a long moment, biting her lip hard as she processed these words.

  “OK then,” she said finally, heaving a resigned sigh as she collapsed on the surface of her hard wooden chair. “So now I need a break. A long one.”

  ***

  He still saw her in his dreams.

  It had been a full three years since Shawn Sullivan had seen Claire Vincent, his old college sweetheart who—in reality—was so much more.

  Throughout the course of their drama studies at Genoa Community College, he had co-starred with Claire both in class skits and full scale scholastic productions. And through every rehearsal, indeed every performance, she always pushed him to be his best never refraining from giving him tough but constructive advice, tempering her blunt words with equitable praise on those rare occasions that he did indeed get something right.

  Off stage, the two became fast friends, and eventually, they embarked on a red-hot affair that surprised his friends to no end.

  “Everyone expected me to date the cheerleading captain or homecoming queen,” he reasoned, “Not the cute, curvy book worm and junior feminist who schooled him on the better plays of Lillian Hellman.”

  Somehow, though, the pair simply clicked, reveling in each other’s company as they caught all of the latest movies at their local theater and renting the classics through Netflix.

  “Although despite being avid and self-admitted drama nuts,” he reflected with a smile, “It was just a mite difficult to concentrate on the show when you’d far rather be kissing, necking, and—ahem—other things.”

  When they weren’t focusing on the afore mentioned—ahem—other things, the couple made grand plans to run off to Hollywood after graduation and worked together to develop film and theatrical projects as a full-fledged creative team.

  “She would write and direct, and I would act,” he recalled. “Just like everything about us, our plan was just about perfect.”

  Yet despite the spirit of fun, romance and—ultimately—passionate intensity that permeated their relationship, Claire seemed to undergo a bizarre transformation as the date of graduation approached. Suddenly she became distant, breaking planned dates and avoiding intimacy at all costs.

  Then, finally, she bid him goodbye, sending him off to Hollywood on his own and without his treasured partner.

  Three years had passed since that sad, confusing time, and for Shawn Sullivan, those years had passed in a virtual whirlwind of glamour, excitement and unbelievable success.

  After being discovered one day on the sun kissed shores of golden Malibu Beach, Shawn had been cast in a small supporting role in a low-budget action movie. He then scored a leading role in another indie production, appearing in numerous plays, commercials, and industrial films in the process.

  Then a year ago shortly after hiring a high profile talent agency, Shawn had signed a contract to appear as a supporting player in three big budget beach movies, the first of which—Heat Wave—had just been released.

  Yet even as he filled his days with film and photo shoots, auditions and media interviews, Shawn sometimes paused late at night to
travel back in time in his mind to simpler, more relaxed days, spent in the company of his best friend and most ardent lover.

  And now, as his tall muscled body lay naked and entwined in the sleek silk sheets that lined the bed of his upscale loft apartment, he thought of the magical woman who had filled and changed his life. He pictured her bright blue eyes and her beautiful ebony hair. He heard her strong, throaty voice and felt her tender touch.

  And when he felt the presence of a feminine hand as it grazed his bulging shoulder, moving back and forth in a massaging motion that roused him slowly but surely from the ethereal realm of slumber, he hoped fervently that the hand belonged to the greatest and most literal woman of his dreams.

  And then he opened his eyes.

  Suddenly his sleep-blurred vision brimmed with the unsettling image of bottle blonde hair, mascara laden eyes, and a pair of patently fake breasts that—given its current and most direct proximity—just might pop his eyes right out from his head.

  “Shawn!” the being piped up now in a squeaky voice, adding as she threw her arms around his shoulders and straddled him between the sheets, “Last night was simply AWESOME!”

  Forcing a faint smile, Shawn wrapped his arms around the woman’s waif like waist and graced her with a halfhearted hug, all the while staring deeply into her eyes as his psyche was plagued by a single probing, compelling question regarding the woman in his bed.

  “What in the blazes is her name?” he mused.

  Shawn vaguely remembered meeting the woman last night at a Hollywood bar where he signed an autograph she had requested. She then rattled on for a quarter of an hour about how his performance as Lifeguard Sam in the cinematic opus known as Heat Wave was likely to net him a surefire Oscar nomination.

  “And just what name did I sign on that autograph?” he wondered now, struggling to remember the identity of the woman who had spent all night in his bed.

  “So Shawn,” she prattled on now, collapsing on top of him as their limbs entangled in a dry, somehow passionless tangle. “I’ve been invited to a big party in the Hills next weekend that is sure to draw a lot of big time agents and casting directors. Wanna come with?”

  Shawn shook his head.

  “Sorry—um—Babe, but next week I’m jetting back to my hometown in Genoa, Florida, to see my little sis star in a community playhouse production of ‘Romeo and Juliet’,” he revealed.

  His anonymous bed partner rolled her eyes, running her fingers through her peroxided locks as she considered his words.

  “Sounds absolutely thrilling babe,” she deadpanned, plopping her head down on his hard massive chest as she let loose with a long, frustrated sigh.

  Shawn chuckled.

  “I know, right?” he agreed. “After spending three years in LA, I can’t wait to go back to driving two lane roads and observing that good ol’ 45 mph speed limit—all the while lingering behind a senior citizen whose left hand turn signal seems to blink interminably,” he paused here, adding in a softer, more reflective tone, “Still, we all gotta go home sometime. And I do really look forward to seeing my folks, my old friends, my drama teachers…. And, of course, I cannot wait to see my little sis in the role of Juliet. I played Romeo myself back in college, so that play has quite a bit of sentimental value for our family.”

  The woman looked at him for a long moment, then rose from the bed.

  “There’s a girl back home, isn’t there?” she asked him, tone almost accusatory as she reached for the messy pile of clothes that lay sprawled at the end of the bed. “She’s the real reason that you’re going back, isn’t she?”

  Shawn made no response and instead turned over in bed and threw his silky covers clean and clear over his head, wondering why some random one-night stand just had to be so darned perceptive.

  ***

  There were times, Claire Vincent observed, that it really paid to regard the world through the eyes of an innocent child.

  Once again seated in the front row of the Genoa Community Playhouse, she watched with a gentle smile as April, her precious 2 1/2-year-old daughter, took the stage.

  The blue-eyed, cinnamon-haired tot roamed with a wide and wonderstruck gaze across the fully decorated stage that was comprised of lush emerald-hued faux foliage, a cardboard facsimile of a cobblestone road, and an overhead balcony fixture of fake ivory marble.

  Yet in April’s eyes, these fairly rudimentary set pieces represented a new and very mystical other world, one that she explored with a broad smile as she raced with frenzied steps down the length of the fake cobblestone centerpiece.

  Following in her wake was a giggling Charlotte Sullivan, who engaged in an impromptu game of hopscotch with the daughter of her watching, smiling director.

  “It’s a good thing for me that the beautiful April was too busy watching Doc McStuffins to audition for our little play here,” she observed, adding with a mock sigh, “She would have beaten me hands down for the role of Juliet, no doubt!”

  Claire chuckled.

  “Well maybe someday,” she agreed with a wink, adding more seriously, “At the present time, though, you happen to be doing a beautiful job with the role.”

  Charlotte beamed.

  “Thanks Teach, that is, Madame Director,” she acknowledged Claire’s praise with a pretty blush. “I’ve dreamt all my life of playing Juliet, especially after seeing my big bro in the role of Romeo, all those years ago.”

  Her beam dissolving quickly at the mention of Shawn. Claire cleared her throat loudly as she considered the words of her star.

  “Well it wasn’t all that many years ago,” she deadpanned, adding as she crossed her eyes to comical effect, “Our version, after all, did come out quite a while after the Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey film in 1968 and even postdates the Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes remake in 1996. Just barely, in your eyes I’m sure. Of course, to a college freshman, any film or play production released before 2005 is a golden oldie—one that likely should come complete with whimsical title cards and a nostalgic score performed via pipe organ.”

  Charlotte chuckled.

  “True this,” she proclaimed, once again showing off her chronological age to downright adorable effect. “And speaking of your Romeo—well as it happens, we will be hosting a welcome home dinner for the one and only Shawn Sullivan next Friday at my parents’ house.” She paused here, adding with arched eyebrows, “We do hope that you’ll be able to make it. I’m sure that Shawn would love to see you again, and of course, meet April.”

  Claire ducked her head, pretending to study her scripted copy of Romeo and Juliet as her wayward thoughts wandered once again to her real life Romeo.

  Suddenly she pictured Shawn standing tall and proud at the center of that stage, his deep sonorous voice delivering the words of Shakespeare in grand, unmistakable fashion, his bronzed skin and boundless dark eyes shining in the glow of ethereal stage light, his every flawless movement and graceful gesture captivating his audience.

  Herself included.

  “I’m sorry, Charlotte, but I doubt seriously that I’ll be able to make it to your dinner party,” she said finally, adding as she hoisted her script up between them. “Since next Saturday is our opening night, I’m afraid that I’ll be busy here until late Friday evening, blocking scenes, adjusting set pieces,” she paused here, adding with a teasing grin, “You know, all of those boring little details that you glamour-puss acting types don’t have to worry about—capiche?”

  Charlotte thought a moment, then shook her head.

  “No actually Ms. Vincent, I don’t capiche—at all,” she admitted, folding her arms before her. “And neither does my family. And neither does my brother.” She paused here, adding as she pinned the quiet director with a slow, sad frown, “Shawn really cared about you. And when you broke up with him, telling him in no uncertain terms that you wouldn’t be accompanying him on that big Hollywood trip that the two of you had planned since you were kids, you really broke his heart. It hurt all of us.”<
br />
  Claire sighed.

  “I know, Charlotte, and I’m sorry,” she told the girl. “When you get older, though, you’ll come to understand that—well—life just gets complicated sometimes. At times your dreams take a back seat to life—and you realize that what you want to do has to give way to what you have to do.” She paused here, adding with a belabored sigh, “At first it feels like you’ve had to give up a plum leading role for a lame supporting part. Then, though, when you start to play that part, you realize that it just happens to be the role of a lifetime, the part you were born to play.”

  Charlotte had heard enough.

  “So you really prefer hanging around this old place to a Hollywood film career?” she asked, making a broad gesture around the small, dusty theater that would house that weekend’s production. “You turned down the love of your life, a man who many women would kill and die for, so you could spend the rest of your days teaching and directing community theater productions of ancient William Shakespeare plays?”

  Claire shook her head.

  “For your information, Charlotte, my daughter is the love of my life. After her comes my students, yourself included. Believe it or not, I didn’t exactly have to compete against a broad and dynamic young talent pool to snare the job of drama prof at Genoa Community College, or for that matter, the role of head director at the city playhouse.” She paused here, adding in a determined, amplified tone, “This dingy, apparently unimpressive little playhouse stayed open and operational because of me. And I’ve seen a number of my students go on to Miami, to Hollywood to Julliard; and every time that they come home, they thank me for giving them the skills and tools that got them there.”

  Charlotte nodded.

  “Well Shawn may not have been your student, but he did learn from you. He admired you. He loved you, Ms. Vincent,” she insisted, adding as she inclined her head sharp in Claire’s direction, “And now you won’t even take an hour or so to come across town and welcome him home?”