Playing With Her Heart

by Lauren Blakely

  I sigh heavily, then march up the steps and knock on the door.

  “Alexis, we need to finish up. I know you can do this. I have absolute faith in you.”

  She opens the door and peeks out, and in a meek voice she says, “You do?”

  “Yes, you’re Alexis fucking Carbone, for God’s sake. Everyone loves you. Now let’s finish the rehearsal.” I offer her a hand, but instead she flings her arms around me, clasping me tight.

  “Thank you. Thank you for believing in me, Davis.”

  She lets go and flashes me a smile, and as she does I can smell whiskey on her breath. I roll my eyes when she looks away. She heads down the steps holding the railing, descending as if she’s some southern belle at a debutante ball, waving to the cast on stage waiting for her. Then the heel of her shoe hooks into the metal on one of the steps, and in an instant her leg is bent, and she’s grabbing at the railing, but missing as she tumbles in a wild mess down the stairs.

  The entire theater turns starkly silent for one brief moment, then the quiet is broken with a deafening wail that rings through the house. I rush down the steps and Shannon races to Alexis as the star of the show clutches her knee, shrieking.

  An hour later, Shannon calls me from the hospital to tell me Alexis has a torn ACL and will be on crutches for four to six weeks, and out of commission for even longer.

  I find Jill in her dressing room, chatting with Shelby and looking at photos on their phones. I don’t smile, I don’t laugh. I’m not glad that Alexis is hurt. But, it feels a bit like payback, and a lot like karma for Alexis.

  I rap my knuckles against the doorframe. Jill looks up. “It appears you’ll be opening the show, and starring in it, too, for the foreseeable future.”

  Her eyes go as wide as saucers, and she tries to hold back her glee with little success as I tell her what happened.

  “Is she going to be okay?” she asks, and I’m proud of Jill for having the common decency to ask.

  “She’ll be fine in time. As for now, the show must go on.”

  Jill

  I can barely eat the next day, I am so aflutter with nerves. But I force myself to finish off a piece of toast, and Kat brews me tea.

  “I believe it’s the drink of choice for all the superstar sopranos,” Kat says as she hands me a mug.

  I take a deep breath, and it’s probably the fiftieth or the five hundredth I’ve had to stop and take today to quell the butterflies. I always knew it was a possibility that I might go on, but I figured it would be a night here, a night there. Not opening night. I drink the tea then grab my purse and head for the door.

  “See you after the show? You’ll come backstage, right?”

  “Like I would miss it for anything.” She rolls her eyes. “Get out of here. And I’d tell you to break a leg, but somehow I don’t think that’s the right thing to say at the moment.”

  I reach for the door handle, then stop, and turn back. “Kat?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I love you. I just wanted to say it.”

  “I know, silly. I love you too. I’ll be in the third row, and I will be your biggest fan.”

  “Bye.”

  Then I leave and I take the subway, because I always imagined when I went to work in my first starring role that I’d take the subway, I’d emerge from the New York underground into the neon and lights and noise in Times Square, and I’d walk purposefully to the theater, head backstage, get into costume and do a few quick warm-up vocals.

  So that’s what I do. As Shelby and I run through our exercises I am jittery, I am jumpy, but I am also confident. I’ve been ready for this since before we even started rehearsals. I know Ava, I know this show inside and out.

  I don’t take over Alexis’ dressing room because that would seem a bit rude. I stay with my chorus girls, because I am still a chorus girl. I’m just the lucky one who gets to swoop in at the last minute.

  At six forty-five, Davis comes by to wish us good luck. He is business-like and professional, and that’s what I would expect.

  “You’re all going to be great,” he says to the group of us, and then tips his forehead to me, then the hallway. I stand up, and join him in the hall.

  “Do you remember what I said the first night I rehearsed you? How I wanted you to be able to blow the audience away?”

  I nod. “I remember everything about that night.”

  A smile plays on his lips. “Me too,” he says in a sexy voice then he returns to his directorial one. “I told you I wanted them to melt for you. To fall for you.”

  I nod, eager to hear what’s next.

  He leans into me, brushes his lips on my forehead. “You’ve got this, Jill. They will. They will fall for you.”

  “Thank you,” I say, feeling warm and glowy from both the kiss and the praise.

  “I’ll see you after. We’ll go celebrate.”

  “Of course. But you might have to come to the cast party because, you know,” I say teasing him, “I gotta hang with my actor peeps.”

  “I would be honored.”

  Then he heads down the hall on his way to find Patrick and give him a pep talk. A few minutes later Shannon knocks on the door to tell me my brother is here.

  Even though I saw Chris a few days ago, I still jump into his arms.

  “Hey, little sis.”

  “Hey, big pain in the ass.

  Then I turn to meet McKenna and she’s so pretty and has the coolest dress on—a rockabilly number with dog prints on it. “I’ve only seen you in your Helen video. I can’t believe I’m finally meeting you. You’re even hotter in person.”

  She blushes. “Stop that.”

  “No, seriously. I can’t believe my brother snagged a total babe. How did you trick her, Chris?” I say, teasing him. Then I lower my voice and whisper to the woman I’m pretty damn sure is about to become my sister in law-to-be in a few minutes. “I’m so glad he found you. He’s mad about you.”

  “The feeling is completely mutual.”

  I offer to show them the stage, because that’s all part of the plan Chris and I drummed up in Bryant Park. Then I smack my forehead. “I forgot something in my dressing room. I’ll be right back.”

  I head for the wings, but I can’t resist watching Chris get down on one knee to propose, and it makes my heart soar when she says yes. I want to clap and cheer and run over to them. But it’s their moment, so I let them have it, even as I grin like a crazy person from my private little hideout spot.

  “Okay, let’s clear the stage now,” Shannon says. They walk off stage, holding hands, with McKenna giving Chris kisses all over his cheeks as they go.

  “You guys are the best,” I say, and give them both huge hugs before they head for the lobby. I return to the dressing room, where I touch up my makeup, making my mascara pop even more, and then applying lipstick and lip liner. Shelby smooths out my hair for the first scene, pulling it back into a simple ponytail and spraying it.

  “I can’t resist being the hair stylist,” she says happily.

  “I love it,” I tell her.

  Then all of the chorus girls in the dressing room do a few quick yoga stretches to loosen up. When we’re done, Shelby grabs my arm as if she forgot something. “We need to go say hello to the ghost,” Shelby says excitedly.

  “You’re right! We have to.”

  We rush down the red-carpeted hall, pop backstage and wave grandly to the pretend ghost of Hammerstein in the balcony, since he’s only here on opening night. I peek at the audience members filing into the theater, thrilling at the sight of them taking their seats, opening their Playbills and seeing my name in the white slip of paper that was inserted into the programs tonight.

  At tonight’s performance, the role of Ava will be played by Jill McCormick.

  I take my place in the wings. Shelby grabs my hand hard and squeezes it. “You’re going to be great,” she whispers.

  I nod a quick thanks and when the overture fades, I make my entrance to the stage in front of
the packed house at the St. James Theater for my first performance ever in a Broadway show.

  It is electrifying.

  I spend the next two and a half hours singing and acting and crying and fighting and kissing and falling in love with Paolo. Because that’s who Patrick is to me. I leave myself behind, but this time it’s as it should be. This is when I can forget who I am and become someone else. Because this kind of pretending is what feeds my heart and my soul as I become this broken down character who somehow finds a way through her pain and loneliness to the other side.

  When we sing the final lines in the final song, and then fall into each other’s arm for a last staged kiss, I feel as if I am flying. This is the highest high, and the purest joy I’ve ever felt—performing and doing what I love with my whole heart.

  The curtain falls, and Patrick grabs me for a bear hug. It is a friendly, affable embrace, and then he high fives me. “I knew we would be great together on stage,” he declares with a fist pump.

  “It was amazing,” I say with a grin as wide as the sky, and maybe that’s how Patrick and I were meant to be together—as actors, playing parts, and making the audience believe. Perhaps, that was always what was in the cards for the two of us.

  He rushes off to stage left, I head to stage right, and we wait in the wings. I am still riding on the adrenaline and I probably will be for years, as the audience starts cheering and clapping when the curtain rises again. The chorus members rush out to take their bows. Then the supporting actors and featured stars make their way, one by one, to the front of the stage.

  The notes to our signature song flood the theater and I beam at Patrick as we rush out and meet in the middle. He grasps my hand, and we head to the front of the stage and take our bows together.

  In the audience, I see Chris and McKenna, Kat and Bryan, Reeve and Sutton, and I wave to them all. The cast links hands together for one more bow as the cheering grows even louder, and we gesture to the orchestra in the pit who played the beautiful score.

  Finally, the curtain falls, and I am overcome with emotion. Fat tears slide down my cheeks, but they don’t last long when Shelby jumps in my arms.

  “You were absolutely amazing! You broke your Broadway cherry! And you did it in a big way!” she says, and I stop crying tears of happiness because now I am laughing. We return to our dressing room, and I’m still floating on this magic carpet ride of the most amazing night of my life as I change out of my costume, pull on jeans and a sweater, and sweep my hair into a loose ponytail.

  My friends all stop by for congratulations, and then it’s time to hang with the cast.

  “Ready for Zane’s?”

  “Yeah, let me meet you there,” I tell Shelby, then pop out of the dressing room to look for Davis. I head down the hallway, but I don’t see him anywhere, and even when I peek at the empty stage he’s nowhere to be found. I hunt around more, and finally I leave the stage when I see a handful of people lingering in the now empty seats.

  There’s Davis’ lawyer, Clay, as well as a man in a sharp suit and a woman in black slacks. They look cool and business-like, and Davis is holding court with them. He’s leaning against one of the chairs in the front row, his long legs stretched out as they chat.

  They must be the Twelfth Night producers, and there’s a part of me that kind of likes watching him, unseen, as he conducts business and is wooed by the financiers of the theater world who want his talent, his vision, his eye. My lips curve into a grin—that’s my man over there, and everyone wants a piece of him, but I get to have him.

  A woman walks down the aisle, and I tense. The last time I saw her was at the gala. Only it’s not Madeline. It’s Joyelle Kristy, the actress who was interested in Twelfth Night. She joins the crew, and I tell myself not to be jealous because this is his job, and he will work with many beautiful people over the years, just like my job is sometimes to kiss men on stage and I did that tonight.

  But she smiles at him, and it’s so unlike the way Madeline looked at him. Madeline was all distance, but Joyelle has this happy, buoyant vibe around her that I almost can’t quite put my finger on. Then, it hits me. She looks like me when I first learned I was cast. Like me, she’s throwing her arms around Davis, gripping him in a huge hug, and he responds by hugging her back and smiling.

  I step back, nearly stumbling. That’s how he treated me outside Sardi’s. He’s interacting the exact same way, and seeing the two of them unleashes a new feeling in me, a foreign feeling. Something I haven’t felt before because I haven’t loved like this.

  The fear of us unraveling.

  He sees me in the corner of the theater, untangles himself from Joyelle, and gestures to them that he’ll be right back.

  “You were breathtaking,” he says when he reaches me.

  “Thank you. What’s going on?”

  “The Twelfth Night producers are here.”

  I nod a few times, trying to prepare myself for what I know is coming. Him leaving. “So you’re taking the job in London?”

  “Yeah, I am. But you knew I was leaning towards it.”

  “And Joyelle? Is she Viola?” I ask, my body flooding with worry that this most wonderful thing could fall apart when a new leading lady walks onto his stage.

  “Hey,” he says running his thumb along my jawline. “She’s just happy she was cast.”

  “Right,” I say with a nod. Just happy she was cast. Like I was, and I can see it all unfolding again. He’ll be in London, away from me and working with her. She’ll have late nights with him. She’ll have private rehearsals with him.

  “I better let you finish your meeting,” I say, as my heart starts to race at a frantic pace, like it’s trying to escape from my chest.

  “I’ll see you at Zane’s.”

  “Yeah,” I reply, but I feel completely unmoored as he walks away and rejoins the people he’ll be working with next as he moves on from me.

  All along, I thought I’d be the one to hurt someone. I’d avoided relationships for that reason. But Davis has my heart, I’ve given him my most valuable possession, and now he can hurt me too.

  I grab my coat and leave the theater, the heavy stage door clanging shut behind me. I button my coat, and head out to Forty-Fourth Street, and am shocked when there are audience members waiting for me, asking me to sign their Playbills. It’s thrilling, and I sign several and pose for a few photos too, but inside I am awash in stupid worry.

  That doubt escalates as I flash back to all the days and nights we spent together. To all the things he said. To how he plays actors like instruments to get the performance he wants. From Patrick to Alexis to me, he knows all the right notes to hit, and he plucks them perfectly, creating the masterpiece he wants from the tools we give him. Ourselves.

  Memories collide with each other.

  Davis telling Alexis she was his first choice.

  Davis coddling Patrick with niceties.

  Davis working me over, bit by bit, night after night to get me to be his best Ava. He knew what Alexis was like. He might not have known she’d break a leg, but he knew I’d have to go on, and he made sure I was ready. Then it hits me, like a punch in the gut. The way he talked to me that night at the studio—do you sing to the wall, do you sing to the floor—it’s no different than how he dirty talked to me in the restaurant the night I got off for him.

  I lean against the wall of a nearby apartment building and wrap my arms around myself, as if that can somehow protect me from all these images smashing into my brain and pricking at my heart. I can see him and Joyelle in London, alone in the theater after hours, rehearsing, running lines, digging deep for emotion, connection, passion. I know far too well how easy it is to get swept up. It happened to me. It happened to him.

  It happened as he turned me into Ava. All along I never saw that my relationship with him mirrored Paolo’s and Ava’s. But he broke me down to get the best performance from me, as Paolo does to Ava. As Davis will do to Joyelle. The young, gorgeous, talented actress who is
next in his employ, and I can’t stand the thought of losing him to her. To anyone.

  I start walking again, but I’m wrung dry and worn out, and as I enter Zane’s I want so desperately to recapture the way I felt many minutes ago on stage, as well as the way I felt all the days before. But it’s hard to grasp onto what’s real because now I’m sick with worry that the one real thing could slip from my fingers. That he could be far away from me and forget all that we shared.

  Inside Zane’s, I do what I’ve always done. What I’m used to. I shuck off the past. I ignore all the things that hurt, that don’t make sense, that I don’t know how to deal with, as I grab a beer and join Shelby and the others in round after round of endless opening night toasts. As the minutes turn into an hour and he still doesn’t arrive, my heart is a brick inside my chest, and I wish I could rip it out, and replace it with a mechanical one, because I think I’d be better off that way.

  Better off like I used to be.

  Then, like I’ve been slapped stupid, I pick myself up. Because I wasn’t better off. I was acting all the time. I was living a life of pretend. But then he came around, and with him there was never any faking, there was never any make believe.

  I rewind to the night in my bedroom when he listened to me, and he helped me, and he saw me through.

  I flash back to the direction he gave me at our first private rehearsal: “But then she transforms. Love changes her. Love without bounds. Love without reason. She becomes his, and that changes her.”

  How I loved the sentiment, how I felt it ring true in every cell in my body, how I longed for it to take shape in my life. I can picture the next scene, I can hear the music swelling, the orchestra growing louder, because this is the moment in the show when the heroine has to face all her fears.

  For better or for worse, I need to know.

  I grab my coat, my purse, and leave Zane’s. I won’t sit here and mope, and I definitely won’t walk away from this man without trying to protect what’s mine with every ounce of my heart and soul.

  Davis

  The meeting is taking forever, and I am antsy and eager to leave. But Clay has made it clear that the producers—Tamara and Carter Shey—like a casual, family atmosphere. They want a director to be involved, to chitchat, to engage in long, deep discussions about Shakespeare. So I hold my own, sharing some of my vision for Twelfth Night, and how I want to bring a new take to one of the Bard’s most popular plays.