by Gigi Blume
An energy bar flew in my direction and landed on the cutting table in front of me. I blinked at it like it had fallen from the sky.
“Are you allergic to peanuts?” Will was several feet away, far enough to keep a safe distance.
“Um… no,” I croaked.
He didn’t say another word and turned away from me, placing himself at the farthest end of the room. I looked up to find everyone else with a similar bar, devouring them like manna from heaven and Will taking his seat, fishing another one from his Mary Poppins messenger bag. He was an overachieving boy scout. Did he have any burritos in there by chance? The stubborn part of me didn’t want to accept anything from him. It was counterintuitive to the sinister joy I got from loathing him. But hunger won out, and I ripped into the package, grateful for anything other than the hot sauce packets in Ari’s mini fridge.
I finally made my bed out of layers of crinoline and nineteenth century wool coats (probably from previous productions of Oliver or Jekyll and Hyde) and drifted off to a restless sleep. Caroline likewise found some coats for a makeshift bed while Bing and Jane shared the sofa. Will, as far as I know, stayed up all night. Maybe he thought I might bludgeon him in his sleep and decided to stay on guard. All I know is each time I shifted from sleeplessness or got up to empty my bladder, he was awake in his chair, reading or listening to music.
Somewhere after three in the morning, the tumult of what was arguably the worst day of my life caught up with me, and I fell into a hard and deep slumber. I only awoke when an abrupt jostling roused me from the weight of it and coming out of the haze of dreaming, I focused on the image of Charlotte shaking me like a sack of flour. Caroline, Jane, and Bing rose, having just awoken, and there in the threshold of that blasted door, stood the formidable Dame Stella Gardiner. She wore an amused grimace on her stoic features and leaned against the doorframe, fondling the keys on her forefinger. It took me a minute to register the scene before me, somewhat disoriented to my surroundings before a flood of realization washed over me, and the dreamy haze was replaced by a splitting headache.
Charlotte spoke, but I only caught a few phrases. Something about being worried I didn’t show up for work, not finding Jane or me at our apartment, and coming upon all our cars in the theatre parking lot. Stella must have been called at some point, but since it couldn’t be any later than six in the morning, I imagined she wasn’t amused by the early-hour disturbance.
And then I noticed with more interest than I cared to admit—and a good measure of relief—that Will Darcy was gone. He no doubt fled the moment Stella’s keys turned the lock.
7
Quetzalcoatl’s Hot Chocolate
Beth
The best part of Monday’s rehearsal was the absence of all the male members of our cast except for Bing. We were expected to learn the choreography for three pieces in the first act, which required only the Stanley Sisters and Frederic. I knew I couldn’t avoid Will entirely, but the reprieve of three days was like a mini vacation. At least it would have been if I didn't have to spend my every hour of freedom at the lodge. In consequence to missing my shift on Friday night, I was given the worst section in the restaurant and extra side work. I also had to pick up the Sunday Brunch shift nobody wanted. In short, I spent more on gas than I made on tips. Still, it was better than spending a weekend rationing energy bars between five people in a costume shop, two of which were Heathers to my Veronica Sawyer. I pondered whimsically who I could recruit for the character of Jason Dean.
All thought of poisoning aside, I did have to endure an entire day dancing with Caroline, but she was the lesser thorn in my side. In fact, I hardly noticed her presence. Of course, a day at rehearsal wasn’t complete without its weirder-than-fiction theatrics, and that came in the form of our replacement choreographer who was the most spectacular mixture of drill sergeant and drama queen on the planet. He was such an amusing study that I found myself watching him when I should have been dancing. He could easily put on a one-man show without even scripting it, and I’d probably pay to see it.
Stella introduced Colin Hunsford in the morning with a short announcement and quickly left the rehearsal studio. The man sashayed before us for a long, silent minute as if to survey what he had to work with. He didn’t seem pleased with what he saw until his eyes fell on Jane, and then only gave a little nod of approval. He spent the next three quarters of an hour showboating his accolades and why he was more qualified than our previous choreographer, or anyone else in his acquaintance for that matter, with the exception of his mentor whom he was sure to name-drop throughout the day whenever an opportunity arose. I’d never heard of her. A sneaky Google search on my phone while he ranted on came up with pages of information on Catherine de Bourgh, apparently a world-renowned dancer in her time and founder of the Rosings Institute of Dance. The most current photo I could find was of a majestic, slender woman in her sixties or seventies. Her silver hair was tied into a fierce, yet elegant bun, and she was celebrating the debut of one of her star students.
After some of the oddest warm-ups in the history of dance, Colin taught the choreography for Climbing Over Rocky Mountain. He pranced to the center of the room and flicked his hands in the direction he wanted us to go.
“All right!” he chirped with a clap. “We will start with a sashay from stage left, go into three pirouettes on pointe, and then I want you to break off into the lines which I will now place you in.”
“On pointe?” cried Caroline. “We’re dancing on pointe?”
Colin swooshed his long, flowy scarf and snapped his head over his shoulder sharply in her direction. It was quite fabulous in a Nathan Lane in Birdcage sort of way. “Daaaahling,” he oozed, “of course you’ll be on pointe. This song is a classic ballet showpiece. Haven’t you listened to the D’oyle Carte soundtrack? The flutes, the staccato trills. It begs for sissonne and temps levé sauté. In 1978 the great Fordyce Ballet Company performed a musical rendition of The Tempest entirely on pointe.”
He then waffled on for ten minutes about the Fordyce Ballet Company and how every dancer should study the principles of their training philosophy.
At length Holly spoke up. “But we didn’t audition on pointe.”
Colin’s perfectly sculpted eyebrows arched into his hairline. “What? That’s preposterous. No wonder the old choreographer was replaced.”
“He had a family emergency,” offered Lydia.
“And what is your name, love?” Colin asked with interest.
“Lettuce.”
Colin ran his eyes up and down over her body and strutted around her, making a complete circle. I found it a little amusing that Lydia calling herself Lettuce didn’t faze him one bit. Maybe he didn’t hear what she said? He stopped in front of her, resting one hand on his hip and the other on his chin.
“Hmmm,” he resounded. “You have a lovely long neck. Graceful arms.”
“Uh… Thank you?” she squeaked.
“I’m making you dance captain.”
Her mouth fell open. “But I’m not a ballerina.”
“You will be once I’m done with you,” he said as he strutted back to the front of the room. “I want everyone to bring pointe shoes tomorrow. Today we will make do with demi-pointe.”
More than a few groans and shared expressions of confusion followed. I was sure the only one trained on pointe was Jane, and she wasn’t even in this scene. I certainly didn’t own pointe shoes, and I was willing to bet Lydia didn’t either. I was already calculating how many sprained ankles there would be by the end of the week.
Colin shooed everyone back in place and pointed to Lydia to front the line. He assumed fifth position and demonstrated his most elegant port de bras. He counted and sashayed. Everything he said was in rhythm. “Ready? And, one two three four five six seven eight. Everybody, follow Lettuce.” (Apparently, he did hear her call herself Lettuce after all.) There were a few snickers from some of the girls. He sped through, ignoring them. “Sashay, sashay, and turn, turn, tur
n, relevé, don’t forget your port de bras. Again.”
And again and again and again. Poor Lydia was on the spot, and Colin lavished her in equal measures of fury and praise. Any time we couldn’t get a port de bras or jete perfectly, he’d scream, he’d cry, he’d use his scarf as a whip and smack us with it until we got it right. However, when we were on it, he’d fall to his knees and kiss the floor.
“If you had been wearing pointe shoes,” he said to Lydia, “I’d kiss your feet. As it is, I will defer my raptures until tomorrow and content myself with kissing the ground you walk on.”
This well-meant but slightly creepy compliment found Lydia, who loved attention from any human of the male variety, embarrassed. She shifted her wide eyes around the room and shrunk back into the folds of the other girls like a shy schoolgirl.
I overheard her tell Holly later that day that she wouldn’t be purchasing pointe shoes just to spite Colin and his overzealous foot fetish.
It was mid-day when we finally broke for lunch. Most everyone went to the juice bar down the street, but I had packed leftover mac-n-cheese that I shoveled in my face in forty-five seconds flat. With time left to spare, I wandered the scope of the theatre, inhaling its essence, letting the ghosts of shows past seep into my skin. A theatre was a magical place, and there was nowhere else I felt more at home than within the dome of its shelter. I loved the smell, the texture, the sounds of the building itself even when it was resting from the bustle of performers.
The stragglers that stayed behind for lunch remained in the green room or the rehearsal studio, and since nobody was in the house, the theatre was dark. I felt like a voyeur, running my hands along the velvet-backed seats as I made my way down the aisle. How many patrons had sat in those seats over the years? What stories they could tell of entertainments long ago enjoyed, faded laughter and echoes of applause. Such history was etched within the walls, along the proscenium and upon that stage. Such a beautiful stage!
I glanced around the enormity of the theatre. Not a soul in sight, not on the stage, not in the tech booth high above the balcony, not in the orchestra pit. I was alone. Yet there was an awareness that tickled the back of my neck as I stepped onto the stage as if I were passing some invisible border. It wasn’t as though I was restricted to enter that magical realm—after all, I would be performing in a few, short weeks. But somehow, it was as if the stage were my lover, and I wasn’t to cross its virgin threshold until our wedding night. There was only one thing to do. Only one thing in answer to my fantastical little musings.
Tap dance.
If there were one thing musical theatre performers couldn’t resist when presented with the broad, beautiful surface of a stage, it was tap dancing. Flaps, shuffle off to Buffalo, pullbacks, time steps, you name it. We loved to tap. It was an addiction, like dollar slots for grandmas or Starbucks for basic white girls. I was always that annoying person, tapping down the aisles of the supermarket, at the DMV, at the museum—anywhere that had a floor that went click, click, click at my footfall. A stage? Well, that was tap Disneyland. The surface was sooo satisfying—like protruding veins for nurses or clickable plaque for dental hygienists. I had to get my fix.
I began with some flaps, just to get accustomed to the resistance my Converse All Stars gave on the floor and made a mental note to bring my tap shoes (along with pointe shoes) the next day.
I transitioned into the time step and before I knew it, my feet were flying, doing paddles and syncopated digs. I was in tap heaven. Tappity tap, tap.
And for my big finish, the Bombershay Broadway!
I supposed I liked this step because of the name. Also, I had a thing for traveling steps. I could make an entrance or even a memorable exit doing the Buffalo or Bombershay Broadway. Like at the convenience store after getting my change. Just shuffle on out of there. Or at the bank. A spank step and twist ball change and a see ya later!
The whole human race needed to learn to tap. It would achieve world peace.
So I was doing my Bombershays, imagining myself in A Chorus Line or Thoroughly Modern Millie, when the rubber soles of my Converse caught on the floor, or my feet, or the laces. It happened in a millisecond, but I was flying through the air, trying to flap my arms as if that would help, and crashed onto the hard plane of man flesh. My first reaction as I fell was to grab onto something to get my bearings. My hands instinctively reached out and clutched onto the closest thing they could reach, and oh man, they were rewarded with miles and miles of muscle attached to long, sinewy arms.
At the same moment, as I slid down to my utter humiliation, my face found a place to burrow and stifle a scream. I found myself in the peculiar position of staring straight into the midst of a dark, olive-skinned set of abs. Also more muscles. A pair of strong, sure hands reached behind me and before I could be completely devastated by a crash to the floor, they scooped me up and held me close to their owner’s chest. It was indeed a fine chest, but what was more fascinating was the set of perfectly white teeth smiling down at me, attached to what could only be described as the most perfect face imaginable. It was almost unfair how perfect it was, so beautiful it might not have been real. His skin was a golden brown, a natural tan made even more bronze by the effects of the sun as was evident by the whips of blond invading his chestnut hair. A long, straight nose dipped down, pointing to lips full and plump and rounded with a single dimple on his left cheek. But what most arrested me in that moment were his eyes. Lord in heaven, those eyes! I cannot guarantee a little drool wasn’t dripping on my chin, but while the rest of this Latin demigod was carved from Quetzalcoatl’s hot chocolate, those gorgeous eyes were blue-green, like the ocean in Cozumel, and they looked at me like I was the last piece of flan. I felt gooey and soft. I probably wouldn’t have protested if he were to request a taste test.
“Do you often lose your balance, or just enjoy attacking the floor?”
The demigod speaks!
He set my feet gently on the floor and held me at arm’s length, his hands still searing into the small of my back.
“Oh, uh.” My mouth might as well have been stuffed with cotton balls because he rendered me speechless with his shirtless, golden torso and the swagger of a caliente surfer dude.
At length, I managed to say, “I was doing a gravity check.” I tapped a foot on the floor. “Yep. It works.” I was such a dork!
He smiled and generously chuckled at my dorkiness. His lips curled as he said with a shrug, “Here I was hoping a beautiful woman was finally falling for me.”
“Um…” I croaked. Was he flirting with me?
“I’m Jorge.”
Wow. He pronounced his name with a soft roll of the tongue. Also, he was so gorgeous, my IQ dropped several points.
“Hor-hay,” I repeated. “Is that spelled with a… W-H, or just an H?”
“With a J.” He laughed. “That crazy Spanish language, always mixing up consonants.”
“Right. I knew that,” I said with a nervous laugh. “How annoying.”
“That’s what I’ve always thought.”
“Is it short for something?”
“Spanish consonants?”
“Your name.”
“No… just Jorge.”
“Oh, yeah, of course. Duh.”
His eyes smoldered, surveying me from my toes, lingering on my hips and teetering from my face to my chest in unveiled interest.
“I’m Beth,” I blurted. “That’s short for Elizabeth. Some people call me Lizzie. Actually, only my parents call me Lizzie. So just Beth.”
He was silent, just looking at me with his head tilted to the side like he was trying to figure me out. It made me a little uncomfortable, and when I’m uncomfortable, I talk way too much.
“I thought I was alone. If I had known you were here, I would have never… I mean, I didn’t mean to disturb your work. Do you work here? What do you do? I’m an actress. I’m in the cast of Pirates, but we’re still using the rehearsal studio. Are you building the set? It must b
e hard to erect something like that. It’s really big!”
One brow shot up on his remarkable face, and he let go of me, stepping back an inch. I immediately felt the cool air on my back where his hand had been, oddly missing the contact. But then he enclosed his hand on mine and nudged me softly toward the wings.
“It is really big,” he said with a wink. “Would you like to see it?”
I nodded furiously and followed him backstage, passing a forest of trellis and scrim. I looked up to the fly system. It was so high, it made me feel small. He took me past counterweights and pulleys, through the crossover behind the scrim and into a large, cool room smelling of sawdust and fresh paint. I loved that smell. It reminded me of building sets in high school and college to fulfill my tech requirement.
Jorge led the way with his arms stretched out.
“And this is where the magic happens.”
He spun around to see how impressed I truly was, and it hit me. This guy was smooth. Real smooth.
“Oh, I get it,” I said, shaking one finger. “You’re good, I gotta hand it to you.”
“What?”
“I almost fell for it.”
“Fell for what?” he whimpered. “I don’t understand.”
“Come on. Look at you. No shirt. Low-fitting jeans. You appear out of nowhere with your ripped abs and foxy simper and bring me to ‘where the magic happens.’ Oh, pah-leez. That line must work on lots of girls.”
He looked at me, marveling my words for a long, still moment, and he appeared so out of sorts, I suddenly regretted my verbal diarrhea. But then he laughed, and I regretted opening my mouth at all because it sounded so ridiculous once the words were out there, hanging between us.
