by Gigi Blume
“I just want you all to know,” she began with her regal English air, “that even though I’m technically the owner of this pile of bricks…” She waved her hand around, indicating the theatre. A flutter of chuckles accompanied her pause. “…we are all in the same boat together. By the way, I’ve seen the designs for the actual boat, and we’ll be packed in quite cozily. So wear deodorant.”
This earned her more laughs, and she smiled with that famous glow she was known for. It wasn’t a trick of good lighting or the magic performed in the editing room. That glow was all her. She was radiant. I noticed with awe how incredibly electric the room became simply by her presence. But she didn’t strike me as one of those old-timey movie stars who expected everyone to grovel. She cracked jokes and exchanged hugs with the creative team. Fitz said something in her ear, and she laughed with an easy mien, squeezing his shoulder in genuine camaraderie.
This was her tribe, I thought wistfully. I’d observed it in many celebrities and Broadway stars. There was always that group of people who, sharing the toil of one’s life work, became more than friends. It was like a club one could only join by doing brilliant things. I wanted to be a part of it. I was a part of it. It could be my tribe, too.
Admittedly, I still felt like a voyeur, waiting for the other shoe to drop. It reminded me of that time my uncle snuck into the U2 concert by simply walking through the stage door with the crew. He’d described how he watched the entire show from the wings, and nobody said anything to him. He did that three times. But on the fourth attempt, part of the security staff stopped him for not having a lanyard.
A lanyard.
So he pretended he was lost. No big deal. I wondered how many rehearsals I could realistically attend before people noticed I didn’t belong. I’d have to act confused and claim I wandered in there by accident, thinking it was a Pilates studio. I did a quick perusal of the other actors to see if any of them had lanyards or name stickers. Nope. So far, so good.
Stop freaking out, Beth. They want you here. You’re good enough. You can do this.
As if on cue, two men walked into the rehearsal studio riding on the wake of Stella’s limelight. It was as though, true to a stage performer’s instincts, the applause drew them there like moths to a flame. Everyone was dazzled by their presence as the two men shook hands with the directors but I was decidedly not dazzled at all. I was way past dazzled. One could say I was unimpressed. Annoyed, even. Because one of those men was the rude (and admittedly gorgeous) guy from the green room.
Even though he was casually dressed, there was something about him, something in the atmosphere surrounding him that declared, “Is it great to see me or what? I’m rich and important. Be impressed.”
It must have been an effective device for him. Nobody seemed to mind that he walked in late. I noted with some amusement that if you’re going to be late, you might as well make a memorable entrance, and the way that man sauntered into the room, I’m sure it wasn’t easily forgotten for anybody present that day. My heart sped up just a little as he passed by me on the way to his seat. The molecules in my personal space were disrupted in the ripple he caused. I had to blink a few times to shake it off. Was that how it would be, working with this man for the next few months? My temporary lack of composure made me angry with myself.
Cole introduced the two men as having come straight from the U.S. tour of Something Rotten. This was met with some oohs and aahs by all of us nobodies in the cast. I admit, it piqued my attention. I had the Broadway cast album on my playlist, and I knew all the songs verbatim.
“You might recognize Will Darcy from the popular Fast and Dangerous franchise,” Cole announced. “He’ll be our Pirate King.”
Will Darcy. I should have known. Action-hero arms. I’d never seen any of those lame movies but I knew his name. I’d have to be living in an Amish commune not to. He was the son of Martin Darcy, Hollywood old-timer and recipient of countless zealous fangirls before fangirling was even a thing. My mother was the president of the Martin Darcy club back in the day.
Cole likewise introduced the other man although with a little less fanfare. His name was Bing, and he had the part of Frederic. His features were exactly what a male romantic lead should be. He was lean with the muscles of a dancer, an almost-boyish, handsome face, and the most charming smile I’d ever seen.
He was fresh faced and eager looking, and if my accurate judge of character gave me any clue (and my judge of character was always impeccable), this guy was just as thrilled and surprised to be there as the lowliest of the lowly chorus boys. He’d just come from a national tour, yet he was humble and unassuming. Also, he didn’t have a lanyard.
It was a comfort, and I reassured myself with the idea of holding my own amongst these seasoned professionals. My imposter syndrome was on a need-to-know basis. I decided I wasn’t one of those who needed to know.
You’re good enough. You can do this.
I repeated the affirmations in my mind all throughout the morning, pushing aside self-doubt and the nagging nostalgia of old habits. Things I could hold on to. Kansas was easy. Kansas was comfortable. Oz was scary and massive and overwhelming. But it was also magical. It was home. I glanced at my surrounding friends. Lydia the scarecrow and Jane as Glinda the Good Witch. Was I Dorothy or the cowardly lion? Neither, I decided at last. I was the freaking tornado, fools! And I was ready to blow everyone away.
But first I had to pee. I knew I shouldn't have had that cold water.
I had to go so bad after holding it all morning I ran as fast as I could down the hall—only for my face to slam right into Will Darcy. His pecks might as well have been a cement wall. I was surprised I didn’t hear my bone crack. My hands flew to my nose at the hot, burning sensation creeping through my blood vessels.
“You don’t seem to know the meaning of personal space, do you?” he snapped.
“You’re a bottomless bucket of charm,” I said all muffled through my hands.
Probably a poor choice of words because now all I could do was imagine the man in front of me bottomless, and my cheeks flushed monstrously.
Picture him with bird legs. Big arms… itty bitty legs.
Bird legs, pecks of steel. My eyes began to water from the pain. “Is my nose bleeding?”
He huffed with a look of utter annoyance and lifted my hand from my face. His touch was a firework—as though he held the very flames of hell in the palm of his hand. And if I wasn’t convinced before, there was no doubt that Will Darcy was the Devil in blue jeans.
He recoiled from me like I was the one burning him and not the other way around. Probably a side effect of coming into contact with good, wholesome folk. What would happen if I squirted him with holy water?
“You’re not bleeding,” he sneered, taking one swift assessment of my choice of clothing. And with a grunt, he hurried away.
After break (and a good pee) I immediately searched for Jane before rehearsal could resume. I wanted to tell her all about my encounters with Will Darcy. But she was floating in some weird cloud of euphoria. As it seems, while I was being scrutinized by a cocky movie star, she was quite happily getting acquainted with his friend.
She flipped through her script, not really looking at it, the side of her lip curling slightly. Bending her head closer to her binder, her buttermilk locks covered her face, but I could still see the flush of pink overcome her cheeks.
“Spill it,” I said. “I want details.”
“Nothing to spill.”
“Liar. I can see your face.”
Jane’s face flushed deeper, but she tried to stifle a smile as she tilted her head, turning to face me. I rarely saw her in such a state unless she liked a guy.
“So, what’s he like?” I pried.
“He’s nice.”
Apparently, she considered this description sufficient enough. Getting information out of her was like reading Proust’s In Search of Lost Time from start to finish within one lifetime. She wasn’t much of a talker. In
short, after some probing and unabashed bribery concerning ice cream, the little I could extract from her was that he was a very polite, gentlemanly sort of fellow. Her words, not mine. The girl watched too much Masterpiece Theatre.
But after a long day of rehearsals, I conceded that, true to Jane’s nineteenth-century description, he really was a polite, ‘gentlemanly sort of fellow.’ He was all smiles all the time. Everyone was smitten by him.
But his friend Mr. Action Flick, I’m sorry to say, didn’t disappoint in the boorish department.
My assessment of his character was spot on, and everyone in the cast soon discovered he was the most ill-mannered, self-centered, arrogant man ever to be birthed from the bowels of Hollywood.
2
Loathe Pie
Beth
The first few days of rehearsals were a whirlwind of arpeggios and pitter-patter tongue twisting, glorious Gilbert and Sullivan nonsense. Fitz wasn’t at all easy on us. He expected perfection, and after losing all sensation in my lips for an hour, I was about to shove the many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse up his modern major falsetto.
“Again,” he’d say. “Take it from the pickup to measure one hundred and twenty-six.”
It felt like one hundred twenty-six pin pricks in my lips. Might as well have gone to the dentist.
I did have to admit this was what I signed up for. But I was so freaking tired.
I worked a hodge-podge schedule at Lucas Lodge, a swanky establishment on Santa Monica Boulevard, owned by the father of my childhood friend Charlotte. I couldn’t tell you what his concept was when he first opened the lodge, but it turned out to be an eclectic mixture of sports bar, gastro pub, teahouse and a novelty dining experience. All the staff was required to wear renaissance costumes in varying degrees of historical accuracy. We wore name tags that labeled our rank in the Lucas Lodge realm. I was Lady Elizabeth, my friend was Princess Charlotte, and we were all to address her father as Sir William Lucas. We could never abbreviate it by calling him Sir or even Sir William or heaven forbid Mr. Lucas. We were to use his complete title every time we mentioned him or spoke to him.
It was, perhaps, the closest my friend’s father could get to performing. Charlotte mentioned once her father was a frustrated actor in his youth but inherited the restaurant before she was born. He transformed it into his own creation and became quite successful despite himself. I think it was part accident, part dumb luck, and part location being situated close to several studios and talent agency offices. It was also less than a mile from the Gardiner Theatre.
During the 90210 heyday, Aaron Spelling brought an entourage of Hollywood gatekeepers for lunch, and the rest was history. Now, we got a handful of celebrities and big shot producers every week.
Night shifts at the lodge took their toll, and I didn’t have time to memorize the gazillion lyrics by the next day’s rehearsal. (Even in the shower) So now, I felt Fitz’s laser eyes burn holes in the top of my head as I tucked into my sheet music. It was probably my imagination, though. Then I noticed one of the pirates across the room. His mouth moved, but he didn’t even make any attempt to pretend to sing the right lyrics. It looked like he was repeating watermelon, watermelon over and over again. I leaned over to Jane and whispered, “Who the Zuco is that guy?”
Jane laughed. She knew I didn’t like to cuss. Instead of curse words, my thing was to replace expletives with characters from musicals. This was my Grease day.
“That’s Denny,” she replied. “He’s Cole Forster’s nephew.”
I furrowed my brows and stole another glance in his direction. “He looks like he’s auditioning for Bad Lip Reading.”
I couldn’t help staring. It was like watching Milli Vanilli in a train wreck. My mouth might have been hinged open with incredulity. Crazy Lips Denny shifted his gaze toward me and locked eyes with mine, giving me a sly wink. Ugh, Rizzo! My face went hot, and embarrassment flushed over me. Goodness, he thought I was checking him out. I didn’t find him remotely attractive. Then, trying to avert his stare, I turned my head only to see Will Darcy giving me the stink eye, unabashedly staring me down. What was his deal? Was he making a mental list of the many cringe worthy facts about Elizabeth Bennet? I had to tear my eyes away before he also thought I was into him.
Ugh!
Lydia, who sat next to me, coquettishly smiled in Denny’s direction and dramatically crossed her legs so her skirt could inch up a little. Holy Rizzo and Frenchie. Now all the guys in the cast would think we were a couple of boy-crazy psychos. That wasn’t the way I’d hoped to make my professional debut. I grimaced and buried my face deeper into my sheet music.
“I’d like to be conjugally matrimonified with that guy,” Lydia chimed between stanzas. “Well, not the matrimonified part.”
Typical Lydia.
I rolled my eyes at her lyric quoting and snickered. “Musical theatre boys are a special breed, Lydia.”
“It’s Lettuce, thank you,” she corrected. “And I’ll bet my bra that one is straight.”
“You don’t wear bras.”
“Shhh. Spoilers.”
She shrugged and scanned the room. “Who do you think we’ll be matched up with?”
“What?”
“Matched up with,” she repeated as if I didn’t speak English. “You know… the Stanley sisters all get matched up with pirates and cops in the end. You’ll probably get matched with the Pirate King. That’s the way they usually do it.”
I kinda knew that. The delicious Kevin Klein played the Pirate King in the movie with Linda Ronstadt. He was sublimely dashing in an Errol Flynn kind of way, and he kissed every single one of the Stanley sisters. Especially Edith. Images of swashbuckling pirates in billowy, open-chested shirts danced in my head like sugar plums. Merry Christmas to me. I amused myself with that thought for maybe three seconds then shook it off when I remembered the uncivilized ogre playing the Pirate King in our production. I stole a quick glance at the movie star to remind myself of my dark and dismal fate and was horrified when his eyes glanced up and caught me staring.
Great.
I’m a professional, I’m a professional, I’m a professional.
I sunk my face deep into my sheet music as though it were the most interesting thing in the universe. As Fitz worked with the tenors on their harmonies, I did my best to look busy.
Avoid contact with every single person here. That was my new motto.
“Oh, gag me,” Lydia exclaimed.
“What now?”
“Kate’s already got her claws in the Pirate King’s britches.”
Lydia already had an intense loathing toward Caroline, the actress cast as Kate, who twirled her hair and laughed as she took the empty seat next to Will. He wasn’t laughing, though. He wasn’t even smiling. Nevertheless, I found it hilarious he had a clingy groupie in Caroline.
I didn’t particularly hate Caroline. More like felt sorry for her. Let’s just say Caroline was the type of musical theatre performer to look down her nose at any play that the actors didn’t break into spontaneous song. She would erect shrines to the genius of Andrew Lloyd Webber, Steven Sondheim, and Lin Manuel Miranda. But Neil Simon? Lame. August Wilson? Loser. Shakespeare? Imbecile.
In other words, people like her didn’t get straight plays. They wore leotards and character shoes e-ver-y-where, usually had a full face of makeup at rehearsals and would cling to the male leads like sequins on Liberace. I was being generous by calling her an actress. Plus, she was a first-rate snob. When she found out I worked nights as a server, she flipped her hair and laughed. She actually flipped her hair. Mean Girls style.
“Is there something wrong, Miss Bennet?” Fitz bore his icicle eyes on me. His eyes were a remarkable shade of arctic blue. He reminded me of 1995 Hugh Grant but more intense. An angry Hugh Grant.
Every set of eyes in the room swooshed in my direction. Most looked surprised, Will’s looked annoyed.
“No, I’m fine,” I said.
“Are you sur
e?” asked Fitz. “You weren’t singing.”
Oh snap. The sopranos were supposed to join in. I could see Caroline’s smug grin in my peripheral vision. She nudged Will with her elbow and said something snarky out of the side of her mouth. I could feel the weight of his intense stare. A wave of burning humiliation washed over me. I may have momentarily blacked out. Why was Fitz singling me out? Crazy Lips Denny wasn’t even facing the piano. He had somehow migrated behind Fitz to sit on a stack of eight chairs with his legs dangling. Lydia was chewing gum for crying out loud. The accompanist looked irritated. Furthermore, everyone stared at me, probably annoyed to have the song interrupted.
Mr. Action-Flick Darcy couldn’t be bothered to take part in any of the lowly ensemble numbers—obviously. He must have had a direct line to Gilbert and Sullivan, channeling their spirits through the divine talent bestowed upon him from heaven on high. He snorted, got up from his chair, and left the room.
Fitz, unfazed by this display of Hollywood entitlement, awaited my reply. I swallowed hard and looked down to my music. There were so many words!
“Uh.” I shifted in my seat. It squeaked. “It’s just…” I already regretted the words before they came out of my mouth because it was a stupid, small, trivial thing, which didn’t justify the interruption. But I was now the subject of everyone’s dog stare and rather than reveal the true reason for my distraction, I blurted, “There’s a typo.”