by Renee Roszel
DECIDING TO BE STUBBORN, that evening, they took separate cars to the rehearsal. Gina arrived first, and was greeted by Paul, who had lost out to Max Murphy for the part of the villian, Jud Fry. Gina tried to console him by telling Paul he could never play a character so dirty and twisted. “You’ll be much better playing the happy-go-lucky Will.” She added, “To be honest, I feel sure Max will do great justice to the vulgar Jud character.”
Paul’s cheeks pinkened. “I know why you’re irritated at him,” he confided. “He told me about seeing you—er—”
Gina threw up a halting hand, “Don’t say it! Good grief! How many people has he told?”
“Don’t know. Everybody, I suppose.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” She scowled. “Max is no gentleman.”
With a meek smile, he said, “Ol’ Max fancies himself a stud.”
“I gathered. He’s about as subtle as he is gentlemanly,” she declared. Looking around, she saw him lounging against the stage, smoking. An obvious bodybuilder, he was clad in a red muscle-shirt and tight jeans. Seeing he’d caught her eye, he winked and waved. Turning back to Paul, she protested, “I’ll have no trouble struggling with that conceited lug when he tries to kiss me in the play.”
Paul looked chagrined. “I have to admit that’s mainly why I wanted the part—to kiss you.” He blushed. “Sneaky, huh?”
She shook her head at him. “You’ve already kissed me. Remember?”
“Yes—I do.” The remark sounded wistful.
Gina was uncomfortable. “Well—you might really enjoy playing Iduna’s boyfriend.”
His eyebrows dipped as he considered that. “I suppose it’s better than nothing.”
Gina decided it was time to change the subject when Max sidled up, carrying a folding chair. Dropping it beside hers, he joined them. “Hi, Paul, pretty lady,” he said, his cigarette dangling from one corner of his mouth. Surveying her up and down with insulting thoroughness, he announced, “Lookin’ good.”
Gina ground her teeth. She’d had enough of this man’s leering and suggestive remarks. Vaulting up, she retorted, “Listen, Max, I’ve heard you told everybody about seeing me—er—unclothed. I think that was dirty pool, and you were out of line to do it!”
“Hey, sorry. I sure don’t want to hack you off.” With a contrite smile, he removed the cigarette from his lips and flicked ashes on the floor. “I’ll be a good boy. Forgive me?”
She eyed him with irritation, then said, “Promise me you’ll never mention that day again, okay?”
He took a long drag and half smiled. “Sure, sure. I’m darned sorry, Gina.”
Relenting a little, but knowing she would never completely trust Max, she offered, “Well—all right. After all, we will be working together in this musical.”
He grinned and stood, dropping his butt and crushing it beneath his boot heel. “That’s true. As Jud, I’m gonna be hot after your bod.” He laughed. “Talk about typecasting.”
“See! It’s remarks like that—”
He planted his hands on her shoulders. “Calm down. I couldn’t resist.” Winking, he said, “See you later, pretty lady.” With a disdainful half-turn he glanced down at Paul. “Makin’ your macho move, Romeo?” he teased.
Gina sat back down. Disgusted, she watched Max’s retreat, scoffing, “That man just oozes charm!”
Paul snorted. “Gets on my nerves.”
“Join the club.”
“Not that I’m dying to change the subject, but Idi’s pretty mad at you,” Paul confided. “She wanted to play Laurey awfully badly, especially when David got the part of Curly.”
Gina looked over at the beauty-shop owner, sitting silently, studying her lines. She was dressed in snug jeans and a close-fitting knit top. Unexpectedly their eyes met, and Iduna smiled, but there was no friendship in her expression. Gina turned back to look at Paul. “She’s not the only one who wishes she had the part. It’s going to be a royal pain for me.”
Gina didn’t see David come in, but she could tell when he did. Iduna and several of the other female cast members glanced up. Idi scrambled to her feet and hurried toward the door. Gina was near enough to hear her say, “Why, David Baron, it’s so nice to meet you.” The jeans-clad woman ushered him off, and Gina couldn’t hear anymore. It didn’t really matter, she told herself sternly. Nevertheless, several times she found her attention drifting away from what Paul was saying to notice Iduna chatting gaily away with David.
“Okay, everybody,” Fred shouted. “Let’s get this show on the road.” He clapped his hands for attention. “First up, I need Laurey and Curly.”
The scene with David and Gina went more smoothly than she thought it would. There had been no physical contact, but quite a bit of high temper had been required. Curly expected Laurey to go to the barn dance with him, and Laurey didn’t like being taken for granted. Had that hit home! Gina had had a ball being belligerent and defiant. She didn’t know if it was her acting ability or her need to snipe at David that made the scene go well, but Fred had nothing but compliments for them when it was over.
The dancers were now working out choreography, and Gina was enjoying a soft drink with Paul, but she couldn’t help but notice when Iduna grabbed David’s hand, drawing him into another conversation.
“What are you looking at?” Paul asked, his tone leery. “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said.”
She jerked around to face him. “I have, too. You were talking about—about—the next scene.” It had sounded more like a question than a statement.
He shrugged it off. “Never mind. Probably my paranoid imagination.”
Gina found herself looking reluctantly around for David. He’d moved, but not far from Iduna. He was lounging against a wall, clad in those infernal tight jeans and a red flannel shirt, talking to her.
“What do you think she’s up to?” Gina asked, indicating Idi with a nod.
Paul chuckled wickedly. “What do you think? And the kinkier the better.”
Gina stared covertly at Idi and David. The striking brunette began to toy with a button on his shirtfront, and Gina felt a shaft of malice run up her spine.
“What are you thinking, Gina?” Paul prompted. “You’ve got a terrible frown on your face.”
She pulled her gaze away from the cozy couple to glance at him. “Thinking? Me? Nothing at all,” she quipped, trying not to dwell on David and his companion. It wasn’t her business, after all—or, at least, it soon wouldn’t be.
He eyed her doubtfully but didn’t express his thoughts. “So, do you want to run over this scene?”
She nodded, not really interested. For some reason, a hard, unhappy knot had formed in her stomach.
“Or would you rather run over Iduna?” he asked, drawing her gaze from the page.
“What did you say?” Gina knew she couldn’t have heard him right.
10
“Gina,” Paul prompted quietly, “you either have to give him up or take him back. Being jealous when you profess to want to be rid of him isn’t very rational.”
Gina’s lips dropped open in surprise. “Jealous? Me?” she protested. “And just who am I supposed to be jealous of?”
Paul shrugged. “Iduna, would be my guess. She’s the one who’s trying to undress your husband.”
Gina sniffed scornfully. “I couldn’t care less. Let’s get to work on that scene.”
He eyed her critically for a moment, but she pretended not to notice as she flipped through her script to find the right page. She was having just the tiniest bit of trouble with some nagging resentfulness toward Iduna. Why, she couldn’t fathom. After all, she didn’t want David. She supposed her discomfort at seeing him flirt with another woman was out of force of habit more than anything else. One just couldn’t sever ten years of emotional ties as if they were a piece of twine. She felt sure that once David was back in Boston and out of her house, she would be able to forget him completely.
“Because, you see,” Paul went on
doggedly, “if you’re still in love with him, then maybe I’d better give up on you.”
Gina was startled by his directness, and cast him an anxious look. “I’m certainly not still in—” She faltered. “Okay, maybe I still have some feeling for him, but he knows the reason I’m leaving him isn’t because I don’t care about him. It’s because—Well, you know.”
Paul sat back in his folding chair and crossed his arms before him, eyeing her silently. When he finally spoke, he asked, “And he refuses to make any compromises to keep you?”
Gina sighed heavily. “David has a commanding personality. His idea of compromise is letting me go and then coming with me! In the final analysis, he gets his way. That’s no equal relationship, Paul. That’s a dictatorship. Nothing positive can flourish in an atmosphere like that.”
“So, you’re saying you don’t mind Idi’s attentions to him?”
She shot David and Iduna a piercing glance. “I wish Iduna luck. But I figure she’ll end up running for her life, too, when she finds out she’ll lose every shred of her free will in the trade.”
Paul made a sound—whether of disbelief or satisfaction, Gina couldn’t tell. She turned to face him again. “What was that for?”
He smiled at her with a mixture of affection and worry. “Now, for the big-money question. Is there hope for me?”
She stilled. Why did she suddenly feel desolate and cold? At least for now, there was no hope at all for Paul. Trying to be diplomatic, she touched his hand fondly, murmuring, “Give me some time. After all, I’m not even divorced yet.”
They were interrupted when Fred called for the next scene. Gina and David were both in it, so she patted Paul’s hand and left him sitting there. “See you later.” With a brief smile, she hurried to the front of the auditorium.
Still stark and devoid of scenery, the stage was strewn with a few props to assist in these first, rough rehearsals. There was a sawhorse, a stool and two scarred wooden chairs. Fred was moving things around and calling out, “And this sawhorse will represent the front of the barn. Okay, we’ll need to get Curly and Laurey familiar with their dance, but for now, they can walk through it. After that, we’ll do the scene where Jud confronts Laurey behind the barn. Got it?”
Gina and David were suddenly face-to-face. His nostrils flared as he took her determinedly in his arms for the dance. He seemed angry. Was he angry with her? After his little “unbutton-my-shirt” episode with Idi, David had some nerve to be angry with her!
“Did you and Paul have fun?” he probed roughly.
She was confused. “Fun? I don’t understand. We were running over a few lines.”
“Do you hold hands with everyone you run over the lines with?”
She shot him a glacial stare. “Do you allow all second leads to unbutton your shirt?”
His lips twisted sardonically. “Feeling insecure?”
“Insec—Not on your life!” she retorted, her cheeks going hot. “And, I’d appreciate it if you’d keep your conversation limited to the scene we’re doing.”
“Whatever you say, my love,” he taunted, his voice deceptively gentle. “Can you two-step?”
“No. But then, neither can you.”
“What makes you think that?”
She grew wary. “Don’t tell me you did the solo two-step at London’s Harthrow Gentlemen’s Academy, too?”
“All right, I won’t.” The slow twisting of his lips sent a shiver of apprehension up her spine. Maybe he really could two-step. After all, he did spend the first ten years of his life in Texas—two-stepping country. She swallowed, wondering what she was in for.
Marjorie began to play “Territory Folks Should Stick Together,” and what was supposed to have been a walk-through, turned into a full-fledged hoedown. Gina was shuffled and pranced backward all over the stage, struggling as well as she could to keep up with the unfamiliar Western dance. Her troubles were compounded since David insisted upon molding his hips and thighs into hers.
When Marjorie’s accompaniment came to a stop, Gina was a nervous wreck. David had managed to bump and grin his erotic message into her lower extremities and, frustrating her beyond good sense, had made her feel weak all over. How she hated his ability to know a woman’s sensual breaking point and exactly how to achieve it!
She forced her memorized line from between clenched jaws. “Get away with you, Curly. I saw you eyein’ Gertie!” Her nerve endings sizzling from his carnal sabotage, she shoved harder than necessary to remove herself from his embrace. A milking stool happened to be directly behind David, and Gina’s push made him stumble backward into it, and he toppled. In what seemed like slow motion, he plunged off the front of the stage.
Gina saw him disappear below the footlights and gasped. Hurrying to the side, she dropped to her knees and cried, “Oh, my Lord, I’ve killed him!”
He landed on his back and lay ominously still. A frightening few seconds passed before he shook his head and came slowly up on one elbow.
“David, you’re alive!” Gina cried, clambering down to take him in her arms. “Is anything broken? How are you feeling?”
He lifted his pained gaze to her and queried sarcastically, “Was it good for you?” It came out in a half groan.
Gina frowned, fearing he’d addled his brains. “I—I don’t understand.”
His gaze—severe—raked her stricken face. “Dammit, Gina, I’ve put up with a lot from you, lately. Will you never stop and think before you act?”
“But David,” Gina countered weakly, shocked by his outburst, “you must realize this was an accident.”
“Like hell,” he growled. “You keep playing your games, and you’re going to get someone killed.”
Several of the cast members who’d gathered around began to murmur uncomfortably as David shrugged to a sitting position.
“Don’t you talk to her that way, Baron,” Max interjected acidly, barreling to the front of the crowd.
David squinted up at the redheaded man but said nothing.
“David, please,” Gina pleaded. “I didn’t deliberately—”
Raising a hand to his head, he retorted, “Tell it to somebody who gives a damn.”
Fred had come over and knelt beside David to examine his injury. “Doesn’t look too bad, Curly. Calm down. You’ll be okay.”
Several of the other cast members moved to help him to his feet, all suggesting he needed to relax, and that everything was going to be all right.
When David was standing, flanked by several concerned people, he shifted his broad shoulder so that he could glare down at Gina. “I’d appreciate it if you could restrain yourself in future from these juvenile dramatics.” Fury darkening his tone, he chided, “Try to grow up.”
Gina was so stunned, she could only sit mutely, unable to defend herself.
Iduna appeared suddenly, carrying a plastic bag of ice. “Don’t excite yourself David. I’ve had Red Cross training.” Taking his arms, she assisted him to a bench near the wall. Settling beside him, she placed the cold pack on the back of his head and situated herself so that he could rest against her shoulder. “Anything you need, you just let me know.”
Though her legs felt weak from fright over David’s public scolding, Gina began to struggle to her feet.
Paul came to her rescue, helping her to stand. “You’re pretty shaken,” he said. “Let’s get out of here. Fred would understand. You need to get away for a while.”
She shook her head. “No, thanks, Paul.” Though the idea of escaping and comforting herself with Paul’s supportive company and a hot-fudge sundae seemed inviting, she knew she couldn’t do it. She wouldn’t run out on her responsibilities here, or the rest of the cast, no matter how hard David had made the job of staying. “Excuse me—Paul. I should apologize,” she murmured, her words shaky.
“I ought to punch him out,” snarled Max.
Gina shook her head at the man. “Leave it alone—everybody.”
“You, too, Gina. You have nothing to
apologize for,” Paul protested weakly, but she was already moving away from him.
On quivering legs, she forced herself to walk over to where David was sitting. Meeting his indignant stare bravely, she offered, “I know you’re in pain, David, and I’m sure when you feel better, you’ll realize I would never wish injury on you. Still, I’m sorry for causing your fall.” She turned her back, and with as much dignity as she could muster, marched stiffly away from him.
David focused a brooding gaze at her retreating form. His head throbbing unmercifully, he grimaced at the realization that he’d made a first-class ass out of himself and completely underestimated his wife. Looking around, he saw that more than a few people were staring openly at him, horrified at his nasty treatment of Gina. He groaned, furious with himself. Taking it wrong, Iduna began to fuss with the ice pack. She couldn’t know that his distress had been because he’d acted like a bastard, rather than anything as trivial as a near concussion.
Just who was the childish one this time, Baron? he berated himself harshly. As Iduna cooed and simpered near his ear, David made a silent promise. Gina would get an apology at the first possible opportunity—as soon as he could stand up without feeling dizzy.
Gina didn’t stop walking until she’d gone up onto the stage and retreated behind the curtain. She wanted to hide. No, she wanted to die. How could David have done that to her? How could he have treated her like a naughty child? Feeling shamed, she hugged herself, stifling a mortified shiver. Could she ever face these people again?
There was a tap on her shoulder. Startled, Gina twisted around to see Fred Potter standing there, a regretful smile lifting his lips. “It’ll be okay, Laurey,” Fred assured her. “People lose their tempers and say things they don’t mean. Just forget it.” With a comforting squeeze of her arm, he added, “I think getting back to work would help get everybody’s mind off it. Why don’t we do that scene with you and Jud, if you wouldn’t mind.”
