"But it might be less than an hour," Henry pushed, knowing he sounded too desperate, but unable to help himself.
"Your guess is as good as mine," the man said. His radio crackled again, and he stepped away to speak to someone.
Henry groaned and got out of the car so he could pace away some of his nervous energy. The rest of the students trickled out, and Kent walked over to talk to the border patrol agent.
He needed to call Tessa, tell her he was trying to get there, that he was on his way. Do something. She'd looked forward to this road show for months, had worked so hard on it, and he was the prince! They couldn't do the road show without him. "Does anyone have service out here?"
All of the students pulled out their phones, but shook their heads. Henry paced up and down the dirt road. Somehow, someway, he’d get there. He was not going to let Tessa down.
Chapter 44
"Where is he?" Tessa vented to her roommates. Addison peeked around the side of the curtain, where the cultural hall was teeming with loud people, chatting while they waited for the road show to begin.
"Still not here," Addison confirmed, giving Tessa a sympathetic frown. "Maybe you should try calling him again."
"I get sent to voice mail every time. Either his phone is turned off or his battery is dead." Or worse, he was avoiding her phone calls since she'd never responded to what he’d said. After talking to Logan, she'd thought of nothing but Henry and Chelsea and used her roommates to analyze every interaction she'd ever seen them have. Addison and Layla had convinced her to spend a fortune on tickets to the last University of Arizona football game to give to him after the road show, saying it was her turn to make a move. But now he wasn't even going to show.
Layla and Addison shared a sympathetic look. "We'll check the parking lot." Addison tugged Tessa's pony tail when she walked by. "It's going to work out. Remember that."
Tessa swiped at the tears on her cheeks. She didn't have time for emotion. It would only cloud her judgment and she needed to think. Deep down, past the anger and the regret, what she felt most for Henry's absence was fear. Even if he were angry with her, the Henry she knew would never blow off something like this. Logan had told Layla that Henry went on a field study trip in Nogales. What if something had happened to him? There were all kinds of deadly animals in the desert: mountain lions, rattle snakes, poisonous spiders and even a coyote or javelina could do some damage if they felt threatened. Not to mention drug smugglers that crossed through those areas.
Her mind went wild with possibilities until she thought she'd go crazy.
At once, she smelled her mom's familiar perfume before arms wrapped around Tessa from behind. "I hope you don't mind that we sneaked back here, but we wanted to say hi.”
Her dad glanced around at the chaos of young adults running backstage in costumes, wielding props. Someone from another ward ran past wearing a leaf-covered wrap around his waist, calling out Tarzan-style, bumping into Tessa in the process. He apologized before continuing across the stage in a similar fashion. "Are you sure you're safe?" her dad asked, his eyes narrowed at the Tarzan offender.
"Dad." Tessa managed to smile. "I'm so glad you guys came." It meant a lot to her that they'd come to support her, even if she knew she was only minutes away from withdrawing their play from the road show line-up.
"We wouldn't miss it," he replied. The overhead lights turned on and off a couple of times, a sign for everyone to get quiet. "We'd better get back to our seats. Break a leg!" Her dad kissed her on the cheek, took her mom's hand, and they left the stage.
Stress piled upon stress, weighing her down. Her phone rang with an unfamiliar number as the MC got on stage to welcome everyone to the road show. She sent it to voice mail and stuck it in her purse when Layla rushed backstage, out of breath.
"I've got bad news," she said.
"Henry's not coming," Tessa guessed. They were going to have to cancel after all. How could they put on The Anura Prince without a prince? The ward would be disappointed, plus everyone who had put in so many practice hours. Bishop had placed unfounded trust in her ability to pull this off.
"He's not here. But Jenkins is."
Tessa closed her eyes. It was like her brother had a sixth sense for when she was about to fail. Now he'd have one more example of her quitting, and no matter what she did, he'd always hold this over her. And as much as she wanted parents who believed in her, this could taint their perception of her. Even more important, it would taint her perception of herself.
She peeked out the curtain while the MC had everyone laughing and scanned the crowd for Jenkins, finding him right in the front, sitting next to her parents. He sat back in his chair, his arms folded, his legs spread wide like he owned the whole aisle, and had a bored expression on his face because he was too cool for cheesy MC jokes. The MC announced the first road show. It looked like they were doing some sort of Tarzan meets the Garden of Eden. Tessa moved away from the stage just before the curtains opened.
Clearly, Henry wasn’t coming and she had a choice. Quit or make this happen.
Jenkins' version of Tessa would quit.
But the real Tessa, the person she was trying to become? She was going to make this happen, no matter what.
She marched down the back stairs of the stage and found the classroom where her crew was waiting for her. Before she could lose her nerve, she went to the bin and donned a suit coat and tucked her hair into a bowler hat, and stepped onto a chair, put her fingers in her mouth and let out a shrill whistle. Everyone quieted right away for once.
"Henry isn’t coming."
This announcement made everyone erupt into more whispers and questions.
"Where is he?" Chelsea asked.
Tessa knew it was petty that she felt a sense of satisfaction that Chelsea didn't know where Henry was. Chelsea wore a pink sequined dress, looking gorgeous and like everything a princess should be, but maybe she didn't hold the prince's heart like Tessa had once believed.
"He took his students out to the desert for a field study and we can't get a hold of him."
The talking started again, so Tessa waved her arms until they stopped. The room grew quiet enough to hear the loud clapping and cheering for the first show. The MC announced the second one. There were five road shows total, and Tessa's was last. Her stomach flipped. She didn't have much time to pull off her plan, and maybe it would be a disaster, but they had to try.
"So what then? It's over?" Chelsea asked before Tessa could speak.
"Not if we don't want it to be." Tessa took a deep breath. "I’ll play the prince."
Chelsea laughed and a few other snickers followed, but when Tessa didn't join, the laughter died. "You're messing with us, right?" Chelsea asked.
"No. I'm the only one who can do it. Unless someone else has the lines memorized?" She scanned the group, hoping she was wrong and someone had taken it upon themselves to memorize the prince’s lines, but everyone shook their heads. "Okay. I wrote this play, so I'm the one who has to do it."
"You're a girl."
It took every ounce of willpower Tessa had not to roll her eyes at the obvious statement. "I'll put my hair in a bun and stuff it all in a hat. With the lighting and people so far away, it’ll be okay." She hoped. If not, they'd at least be memorable.
Chelsea folded her arms with a scowl. "I'm not doing this with you."
"We don't have a choice." Tessa needed Chelsea to go along with this plan for it to work. She couldn't play both the prince and the princess. "Please, Chelsea."
Everyone turned to look at Chelsea, the entire road show resting on her. She folded her arms against them, and Tessa knew she wasn't going to be able to convince her to go on. "The only reason I did this was for Henry. I'm not going to go out there and humiliate myself."
The rest of the road show crew begged Chelsea to change her mind, but she was unmovable. Tessa sat in the chair she'd been standing on, the fight bleeding out of her. From the cultural hall, the audience clapped and che
ered, and the MC announced the third road show. As much as Tessa didn't want to do it, it was time to withdraw.
Chapter 45
Henry's truck tires squealed as he swerved into the parking lot, throwing all of the students in his truck against each other. "She's still not answering?" he asked, frustrated. It was almost eight o'clock. It would be a miracle if he made it in time for the road show, so it was a good thing he believed in miracles.
"It's going straight to voice mail now."
He raced around the parking lot, not finding any open spots, so he pulled into a loading zone.
"Uh, you can't park here," one of his students said, but Henry ignored him. They followed Henry out of the car, all of them grinning too much for how serious this was.
Kent's van came next, pulling up behind them. While waiting over an hour for the road to open up, they’d all had plenty of time to watch Henry pace and listen to him talk about the road show and Tessa. In the end, it was decided that Henry needed to go straight to the church if he was going to have any chance of making it. Kent wanted to follow to offer moral support and also because the students had become invested in Henry's love life.
The doors of the church opened. Chelsea walked out wearing her princess costume and looking gorgeous as usual, except for the scowl on her face. It transformed into a smile when she saw Henry, though her nose wrinkled in disgust when she got closer. Someone whistled under his breath. "Is that Tessa?"
"No. I'd put money on that being Chelsea," another student whispered back.
Henry closed his eyes, wishing he hadn't divulged so much personal information in his moments of panic.
"You're here." She came close, but stopped short of touching him, then took a step back. "Did you come straight from camping?"
"I had to. We ran into some problems, but I'm here now." He looked over her shoulder, but saw nothing but an empty foyer. "Where's Tessa?"
Chelsea rolled her eyes. "Probably in there canceling the road show. You would not believe what she tried to pull when you didn't show up. She got all dressed in the prince outfit and thought she could play your role. Ridiculous right? Not to mention, completely inappropriate."
He could hear the muffle of a deep voice speaking through a microphone, but couldn't make out what was being said. After a moment though, the doors to the cultural hall opened and people poured out.
"Stop them!" Henry yelled to the students, who looked bewildered at first, but then moved as a line toward the doors to stop people from leaving. Everyone was left confused, and any other time Henry would have laughed, but he knew he had seconds to salvage this for Tessa.
"Come on," he said, taking Chelsea's hand. "If we run, we can tell everyone to sit back down and put our show on."
Chelsea yanked her hand from his and wiped it on her dress in an absent gesture, like she hadn't even noticed. But he had. "No, Henry. You look nothing like a prince, and I won't humiliate myself."
He didn't have time for this. Once Chelsea’s mind was made up, he had never been able to convince her otherwise.
"Go home, okay. Shower." She coughed like the smell of his several days unshowered body was too much for her. "Shower twice. Then come over and we'll catch a movie."
He glanced down at his arm and saw an ant climbing in the wrinkle of his long-sleeved shirt. He'd known since her return that Chelsea wasn't right for him, a fact never more apparent than now. He'd been a fool to let her even have a foot hold in his life and an even bigger fool to give her more than a second of his time out here when he really needed to be with Tessa.
"We're done. Forever." He didn't give her a backward glance as he raced past her into the church, though he thought he heard one of his students say, "Burn."
People at the doors talked over each other, but he yelled for everyone to go back to their seats. When they wouldn't listen, he raced down the hallway and to the back entrance of the stage, came onto the stage and grabbed the microphone from the MC who had let it dangle down by his leg while he talked with one of the bishops about what was going on at the door. He had seconds before he and his students were kicked out of the building.
"Everyone take a seat please!" His voice boomed over the room, quieting everyone. "There’s one more road show! The best one. And you don't want to miss it."
He scanned the room and finally saw Tessa, her eyes wide and red, like she'd been crying. She was standing with her parents and her roommates, off to the side of the room, but Jenkins was making his way toward her. Logan took Jenkins’ arm, stalling him, and Tessa jogged toward Henry, looking at him like she was seeing a ghost. Almost everyone else slowly made their way back to their seats, aided of course by his students not letting anyone leave.
"Where have you been?" Tessa took in every inch of him, from his filthy clothes, sweaty body, and the bugs crawling on him. He wished he could read her mind.
"We got delayed. I got here as quickly as possible." He held his breath, wondering what her reaction would be when he asked. "Chelsea is gone. If you can play the princess, we can still do this."
She shook her head, deflating some of his hope. "It's too late. People have left." She swept her hand over the room where everyone, though blockaded into the room, hadn't taken their seats yet. They chatted and played on their phones, but they were not in a mental place to watch another road show.
"If we can get them to sit and listen, will you do it?" Henry asked, desperate. He felt like everything hinged on this road show. Tessa had been let down so often in her life, and he wasn't going to be another person who showed her she wasn't worth turning his life upside down for.
"Okay," she said, then to his surprise, she threw her arms around him in a tight hug. "I'm so glad you're okay."
Henry wrapped his arms around her, fully conscious of how gross he was, but loving the feel of her in his arms.
"Get everyone in their seat, and let’s do this," Tessa said, with that determined expression he'd come to recognize and love over the last few months. She let her hair down from the hat it had been stuffed in and rushed off the stage toward a few crew members he recognized.
The MC came over and Henry handed him the mike. "Can you help me get everyone back in their seat for one more show?"
"I'll try," he said. "Everyone, there is one more road show. Please take your seats."
Henry held his breath, but ever so slowly, people made their way back to their seats, aided by Kent who flashed the room lights on and off, which quieted everyone significantly. Kent gave Henry a thumbs up, and then led the students away from the door to some empty seats in the back. They were an interesting crew of individuals—dirty, tired, and loved studying insects as much as he did—and right then his heart warmed with gratitude to have them in his life. He rushed back stage where Logan chucked a clean shirt at his face. Henry grabbed it, confused.
"It was the best I could do on short notice."
Henry decided not to question this nice version of Logan, pulled his dirty shirt off, and threw on the clean shirt.
"Thank you," he said.
"I didn't do it for you," Logan said, giving someone behind him a wink, and then strolling down the stairs. Henry turned around to where Tessa stood, still wearing his prince outfit, but she had placed a tiara in her hair.
"Ready to do this?" she asked.
"More than you know."
Chapter 46
Tessa peered around the curtain, overwhelmed at the crowd waiting to watch them. It was almost sad to think this was it, the last time they'd perform this road show she'd written, which had changed her life. When Bishop had called her into his office and asked her to do this, she'd wondered why he'd want her to do it. She’d never shown any potential for leadership, couldn't get people to follow her, and didn't even know what she wanted with her future. In four months, she'd learned more about herself doing this road show than she had in three years of college. For the first time in a long time she felt strong, capable, and wanted.
Henry squeezed her hand as
the curtain parted. Jenkins stood off to the side, talking to Logan, but reluctantly made his way back to his seat once the MC announced the title of their road show. Satisfaction swelled in Tessa's chest with the realization that she was done being the girl who tried to be what everyone else wanted her to be. She had her own dreams and goals, and she'd be happy spending the rest of her life chasing after those. And if she proved her brother wrong every step of the way, even better, but it wasn't about that anymore. It was about proving to herself she could do this, because if she believed in herself, it didn't matter what anyone else thought.
"I now present to you: The Anura Prince—LDS Style." The MC said it like a question, but then recovered and waved his hand with a flourish before he stepped off the stage to the weak applause. No one wanted to be there. Mentally, they were on their way to get treats from the kitchen, and she’d waylaid them for another lame road show.
The choir sang a ditty about how the prince was cursed, to the tune of "Give, Said the Little Stream," and a few of the audience members chuckled. Henry hammed up his part, putting more into his acting than he usually did. He even had her giggling when he spun around in a circle and fell into a heap on the ground after the "witch” cursed him.
Too soon it was her cue, and she went onto the stage, her heart pounding when she realized how many people were watching them. Her mind blanked on the script, and the audience laughed when Henry popped his head out of the side and stage-whispered, "It's a lovely day to break a curse and fall in love with a frog!"
She pointed at him sternly. "As a general rule, I avoid cursed men. And frogs." She turned to the audience. "But I do drop by to visit my dad at work after not seeing him for three years."
The man playing her dad appeared, and they hugged. He whispered her real line, and she was able to get her train of thought back on track. They breezed through the play, with Henry causing everyone to laugh with his unscripted antics. He was in a mood she'd never seen him in before. Light and carefree. Usually he appeared as though he was thinking of heavy things, even when he smiled, but it was like he'd set aside those heavy things for the night, and Tessa was caught up in the magic of it.
One Little Kiss (Christian Romance) Page 23
