I could tell by the way she looked at me that Avril knew she lived a blessed life. I listened for her secret. “Harper, think about it. There’s always something to do in New York. We’re actresses, the most coveted job in the world, and I’m totally in love. You’ve already got two out of three. You just need to find someone who loves you. It will change your whole outlook.”
“I have a confession to make,” I said. “I signed up for LoveSetMatch.com, but I’m not sure it will work the same. It only gave me two matches.”
“Harper, you have to give the whole process twenty-four hours to sort your information,” Avril said, laughing.
“You mean there’s more than just two?”
Avril rolled her eyes. “Yeah, they give everyone a couple of matches the first day just to show them how it works. Give it a day or so and you’ll start getting the good ones.”
Jon rejoined us, and we skated off as a group. After a few times around, watching other couples falling, and falling in love, on the ice, I split off on my own. But a half hour of skating and watching Jon and Avril circle the ice hand in hand was enough for me. I navigated the icy rink a few more times, then turned in my white rental skates. Ben had asked everyone to be at the theater by four, and even though I wouldn’t be performing, I wanted to focus on opening night.
“Hey, are you finished already?” Jon and Avril skated up to me on the lacing platform. I stood up, back in my church flats.
“I thought I’d go to the apartment. Do you know when you’ll be back?” I asked, careful to keep from letting slip Avril’s alter-identity.
“We’re going to skate a little more, and then go uptown for a late dinner. Why don’t you come along?”
A late dinner? I wanted to ask if she’d forgotten about something. A premiere?
“You go ahead,” I said. “I’ve got something to do this afternoon.”
“I’ll let you two say good-bye. It was nice meeting you,” Jon said, practicing his backwards moves, shifting into the tide of skaters, careful not to bump into anyone before stopping in the center of the ice.
Avril looked to me for confirmation.
“You do remember the opening, right?” I asked.
“I’m not that lovesick, Harper. Not yet anyway.”
She pulled her pink cell phone out of her coat pocket and glanced at the hour. “It’s still early. Call time is hours away. See, Harper? It all fits together. One thing into another. All you have to do is go with the flow.”
Smiling her happy-girl smile, Avril twisted the blade of her white skates and pushed off against the ice in a smooth arch, gliding away from me like a beautiful bird into the arms of her love.
Back in our warm apartment, I boiled water in a stainless-steel teakettle at the stove. I’d intended to brew blueberry tea but dumped in a package of hot cocoa powder instead, swept up in a sudden craving for sugar.
After whipping up a tuna salad to go with the hot chocolate, I carried my late lunch over to the alcove and carved out a resting place for my bowl.
I restarted Avril’s computer and nibbled on lunch while the site ran me through its page prompts, entering my user name and password. Once my personal page uploaded, I was astonished at what greeted me:
NEW MATCHES: 14
A wave of optimism akin to finding a buried treasure swept over me. I double-clicked on the first match to investigate, feeling weirdly excited and curious.
Match 1 was a twenty-four-year-old NYU grad student named Mark and resembled a high-school freshman who’d just gotten his driver’s license. I read through his profile sheet, reminding myself that this was a time to remain open minded. Within minutes, it was obvious that Mark from NYU was probably better off being LoveSetMatched with someone else.
Match 2 was a thirty-eight-year-old architect named James. Currently city of residence? San Diego, California, a mere ten states and three thousand miles away from the island of Manhattan. His stat page indicated he was the father of two young sons, five and six. I scrolled further down his profile page until I found a section titled “My Story” and read the heartbreaking tale of losing his wife to breast cancer.
Tears welled in my eyes. I hadn’t expected to actually feel anything at an online dating site beyond attraction to the opposite sex.
I clicked on James’s photo tab and studied his collection of family pictures. Snapshots of himself with the boys, a family portrait that included his beautiful wife, and finally one of James standing alone with the Pacific Ocean at sunset behind him. The emotion I felt was empathy, not desire. I clicked back to his family photos and looked into each set of eyes, the younger boy with sandy blond hair, the defiant older brother looking so much like his father. I said a quiet prayer that God would give them whatever they needed to make their lives whole again and went back to surfing my matches. It was too much sorrow.
Match 3 had already logged in and checked out, assessing my worth as a fixture in his world and finding me lacking. Melvin, a forty-seven-year-old civil servant from St. Paul, Minnesota, had closed out our match. True love lost before its chance to bloom. I noticed the “Close Out Match” tab at the bottom of the page, returned to Match 1 and closed it, then made my way down the list of fourteen.
I moved the mouse to click on Match 4, but slipped and clicked 5 by mistake. Roger was a forty-two-year-old firefighter from Cleveland, Ohio, who’d posted a picture of himself in a blue T-shirt and pants, standing with the guys in front of the company’s red fire truck. The photo made me laugh. I could imagine Roger as the last single guy among a group of married firefighters. By the grins on the other men’s faces, it looked like they meant to do something about Roger’s singleness: one less fire to put out.
The rest of my first matches fell into categories of once, twice, or thrice divorced and just-could-tells. I closed most, if they hadn’t reached the same conclusion already. They all seemed like good guys, but with the exception of Mark, the student from NYU, they all lived far away.
Avril had asked me if I were open to a real relationship. Sometimes I’d settle for a cup of coffee and an hour of good conversation, or maybe a few laps skating around Rockefeller Center. But what I really wanted was for God to package up my soul mate and stamp “overnight airmail delivery” on the box.
There’d be no love connection today. I slouched down in the cushioned chair and slid the mouse over to log off LoveSetMatch.com, then realized I’d missed Match 4. A sudden chill prickled up the back of my neck. I wanted Match 4 to be someone special. I whispered a small prayer, then doubled clicked the tab.
Bachelor #4 turned out to be yet another ineligible long-distance single. Luke was a thirty-four-year-old bush pilot living and working in the wilderness of our nation’s forty-ninth state. I shook my head, laughing at the lunacy. Didn’t I just pray for closer? Luke couldn’t be farther away if he lived on the seventh ring of Saturn. He listed himself as never married, no children, and employed full time in the lumber industry.
Luke from Alaska was a flying lumberjack.
Wow.
I shut off Avril’s computer, even less impressed with my second encounter with good old LoveSetMatch.com. What a waste of time. I’d set my hopes too high. But instead of whining, which is what I felt like doing, I found myself kneeling beside Avril’s desk as clouds outside parked in front of the sun, dimming both the living room and the alcove. I closed my eyes and prayed for James in San Diego, and his two boys.
My gosh, surely it was better to have never loved than to go through the loneliness, find true love, and then lose it. I prayed for Roger and the firefighters, pals who only wanted the best for their friend. I prayed for all the lonely singles in the world, including me. I prayed for every woman seated at the dinner table across from an empty chair, and for every man sleeping in a half-full double. I even prayed for flying lumberjacks.
It was quie
t in the small office, as it had been in the Chicago church chapel when I arrived before anyone else and waited for Bella. There my prayers had always centered around me. I was poor and broken, my reservoir of strength like three copper pennies rattling around in the bottom of a mason jar.
“Please help” was the only prayer I’d memorized, and that only because I’d said it so much, with “save me” coming in a close second.
I took a long, hot shower and dressed for the theater. This was the night. One of the students at church had mentioned seeing an advertisement for Apartment 19 in the New York Times, along with a story in the Theater section. I still hadn’t asked about ticket sales. Could we sell 702 tickets tonight for an Arthur Mouldain drama no one had seen in thirty years? I hadn’t a clue. I was only sure of two things: I wouldn’t be acting at the Carney Theatre on opening night, and when my thirty-first birthday arrived in three weeks, I would still be alone.
~ Eleven ~
The three-sided marquee in front of the Carney Theatre dazzled West Forty-fourth Street with its wide backlit panels framed in oversized blue and yellow bulbs. From the opposite side of the street I read the name of the show in black letters that looked three feet tall.
APARTMENT 19
starring Helen Payne
Two newly potted trees decorated the Carney Theatre’s front doors like bookends on either side. When I crossed the street, I saw that someone had power-washed every speck of dirt and stuck-on chewing gum from the sidewalk for twenty feet in either direction.
Entering the house through the main lobby, I pushed down the bottom of my theater seat and eased myself quietly into it. Even two hours before opening curtain, a controlled frenzy of activity and excitement crackled in the air.
Helen Payne brought her yapping Pomeranian out from backstage, adding to the chaos. It yammered in her arms like a stuffed toy in a battery commercial. Helen was wearing a long mink coat like I hadn’t seen anyone wear before. It was shiny, like it had been freshly oiled or whatever they do to make mink shine, and black as shark’s eyes.
At Helen’s side stood a tall, manly-looking businesswoman. Her hair was short and silvering at the temples, and her face was cold and tight, as if cracking a smile wouldn’t so much warm up her face as tear it. She wore a dark pin-striped suit over her thin, masculine figure, and her briefcase was more of a boxy attaché case than a lady’s business satchel. When Ben noticed the two women had emerged from backstage, he climbed the temporary house stairs to greet them.
“I think you’re wanted backstage,” I heard someone say, and turned to see Mark Blane going over every detail of his stage design. The sleeves of his white shirt were folded to his elbows, and he glanced at me for a second before returning his stare to the set.
“Thanks.”
I moved to the front of the theater and climbed onto the stage to search the greenroom for Tabby. I overheard some of Helen’s and Ben’s conversation as I passed by.
“Ben, you know my agent, Maureen Burns,” Helen said. I shot my eyes in their direction just long enough to see Ben, dressed in blue jeans and tan L. L. Bean jacket, take hold of the woman’s skeletal hand to shake it as if she were royalty.
I expected the greenroom to be chaotic, but it was dead calm. Even Tabby treated the cast as if she were only there to serve … well, direct and serve. I waved to her, a casual check-in that seemed all that was required of me. According to my contract, I was obligated to stay backstage in costume until the start of the second act, then I was free to go. On opening night, of course, there was no way I was leaving.
Beneath the calm, there was an electricity buzzing between cast and crew members as they shared rumors about who would be in the audience. Critics from every New York paper; Sean Connery, who was in town; and maybe even the mayor.
I walked to the makeup room at the end of the hallway where our makeup artist, Laura, was working on Avril. A second artist, Tina, arranged her three-tiered makeup case while waiting for her first actor. A long mirror covered the length of the wall in front of them, encased in warm, bright makeup lights. Avril closed her eyes while Laura sprayed eye shadow on with an air compression applicator.
“I’m glad you made it,” I said.
“Was there ever any doubt?” Avril’s grin was half obstructed by Laura’s arm.
“Good evening, girls. Are you ready to put on a show?” Helen asked as she entered the room, sans the dog, the mink coat, or Maureen Burns. She sat in Tina’s chair. Avril, who loved show business, was ready.
“Why, Ms. Payne, we’re ready to put on a double feature: Apartment 19 and West Side Story as an encore.”
“You know, girls, I was in the original Broadway production of West Side Story.”
“You’re kidding,” Avril said, coming to life in the makeup chair, entering Ms. Payne’s domain with ease. Tina swiveled Helen’s chair into position in front of the mirror. Helen’s dark eyes focused forward until it was obvious she could see only herself as she spoke.
“Oh yes, Winter Garden Theatre 1957. I was a dancer in the chorus. It was an unbelievable show. Jerome Robbins was absolutely brilliant, a true genius. Every actor in New York wanted a shot at that production. I got a call from my agent that they were looking for dancers and I waited in line almost four hours for a chance to audition. They’d rush us onstage in groups of thirty and teach us the dances to see who could learn them fast and do them right the first time. I never wanted anything so bad in my life as a part in that play, and when auditions were over I left Philadelphia in shambles—that’s where they held auditions. I was angry with myself for not having done a better job, but the next day they called me.”
“Helen, you’ve done it all,” Avril said, getting up from her makeup chair, brushing away the smallest flecks of powder.
“Not yet, I haven’t,” Helen said, her voice steely with determination. “There’s plenty more I have in mind to do. You just watch me.”
Avril’s dark brown wig made her look barely old enough to drive. Above Avril’s eyes, Laura had applied a shade of sky blue eye shadow so thick even the back row would notice she was new to town, or presumably new to applying make up.
Laura joked, “You were really beautiful, Avril, before I started working on you.”
“Sounds like something Hollywood would say,” Avril retorted. Laura unsnapped the apron from Avril’s neck, revealing her costume. I shook my head, marveling at the look of her. Brown hair, thick blue eye shadow, New-York-City-here-I-come wardrobe. She was a completely different person.
“Is that you?” I asked, standing in the doorway.
“It’s all me. Like the wig?”
Avril went into her worried and bewildered character, Roxy Dupree.
“I didn’t mean to break the vase, Miss Bradford! Honestly, I was only trying to help!”
She broke character and smiled at me, trying out her Roxy look in the mirror one more time.
“I love this character,” she said. Avril and I left the makeup room and walked down the hallway, on our way back to the greenroom.
“Is Jon coming to the opening tonight?”
Avril bit her lip. “I still haven’t told him about the show.”
“Avril …”
“I know, I know, I will soon. It’s just that things are going so well. It’s a small thing. It’s silly, I know, but I’ve waited for so long to tell him that it’s really starting to feel like a secret I’m keeping.”
“But you are keeping a secret from him.”
Avril stopped in the hallway, looking pouty as her Roxy Dupree.
“Oh, I know, and it’s not a big deal, but every time I’ve tried telling him about my career, I worry he’ll say, ‘Why didn’t you just trust me enough to tell me this?’ and for that I don’t have an answer.”
Helen’s dressing room door had been opened
, every lamp and overhead light switched on bright. Bouquets of red roses were lined up in crystal vases across the counter, doubling in the mirror’s reflection. I saw Helen’s mink coat dangling from a special hanger on the tall wardrobe rack as we passed by, and then the face of Maureen Burns appeared in the doorway, larger than life, and even scarier up close. She locked eyes with me, never moving a muscle in her cold pale face. Her unexpected emergence imprinted an image of the woman in my mind, like the lingering ghost of a flashbulb.
“In the beginning I didn’t know him well enough,” Avril continued. “Now too much time has passed. That perfect moment to be up front with Jon about who I really am came and went without my even noticing it.”
“You need to just fess up and take your lumps,” I said. “After meeting Jon today, I think he’ll understand. You can’t keep your work a secret forever. Besides, he’ll probably be delighted to learn he’s dating a TV star, and he’ll understand why you were so hesitant to tell him.”
My role in the show that night was to be little more than a fly on the wall, so once in the greenroom with the others, I gave Avril the space she’d need to be ready to perform. I stood instead near Harriet, who was breathing in and out like a woman in labor. She and I made eye contact.
“I always get nervous before a show,” she told me.
One of the tech assistants came back to place an almost-undetectable performance microphone on Avril’s ear and weave its thin cord inside her costume while Phyllis knelt behind her tucking the audio battery pack into the folds of her costume.
“Well, she’s here,” Ben announced, entering the greenroom.
“Who?” Tabby asked.
“Elisa Mouldain. She’d hinted that she might attend our premiere, but I thought it was just a courtesy comment,” Ben said. He looked nervous, and for the first time, I felt anxious too. Having nothing to do only added to my anxiety.
“If Elisa Mouldain’s out there, Ben, we’ll give her the best show in New York.”
Everyone looked up to see Helen Payne step into the greenroom, decked out in her costume—beige leggings, traditional skirt and vest, royal blue, and her hair bound up in pins and spray.
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