by Karis Walsh
A twig snapped under her foot, and the woman whirled to face her.
“Hey. Sorry. I’m Arden. I work here…in the park, I mean. I was walking by and heard you…” Arden sighed. Smooth. She cleared her throat and started again. “I didn’t mean to interrupt, but you’re amazing. You transported me.”
She was rewarded with a smile that made her breath hitch in her throat. “Thank you for the compliment, but I haven’t really worked on the part yet.” The woman walked closer and held out her hand. “I’m Emilie.”
Arden shook her hand, her attention focused on the texture of Emilie’s skin against hers. She needed to get her imagination under control and to stop imagining Emilie’s hand moving over the rest of her body. Either get control or ask her out and make her daydream come true. “Are you playing Titania here in Ashland?”
Emilie frowned. “Yes. Among others.” She stepped away from Arden and sat down on the stump.
“Who else?” Arden leaned against the tree she had been hiding behind only moments before. She usually avoided all talk of the festival when she was with one of the company women she wanted to date, but she was fascinated by the expressions shifting across Emilie’s features, and she wanted to learn more about her. She seemed in control of her emotions when playing a part, but adorably transparent when she was being herself.
“I’m an understudy for the lead in Skywriting and the alcoholic older sister in Toxic. In the Shakespeare plays I’m Anne Page and Lady Anne. And please don’t make any jokes about getting the two Annes mixed up when I’m onstage.”
Arden laughed. “I wasn’t going to say a word. This is your first year at Ashland, isn’t it? I would definitely remember you if you’d been here last year.”
“Yes, it’s my first season here. Did my impromptu rehearsal in the woods tip you off?”
“No. You’ll see almost everyone from the company in the park at one time or another. They’re usually wandering around with faraway looks on their faces while they mumble lines from their scripts. You can’t miss them. Unless, of course, you’re doing the same thing. Then you might run right into them.”
“That’ll be a good incentive to memorize my parts quickly. So I can watch where I’m walking while I rehearse.”
“Well, you already know Titania, so you’re twenty percent there.”
Emilie stood, and Arden felt a sense of panic at the thought of watching her walk away. Foolish, since the town was small and they’d likely run into each other fairly often, but she didn’t want an opportunity to see Emilie again pass her by.
“If you’re looking for more advice about surviving in Ashland, I’d be happy to act as tour guide. I can show you all the hidden spots, take you to my favorite restaurants…” Arden’s voice trailed off when she saw the expression on Emilie’s face. She wasn’t sure what words Emilie would use to say no, but Arden could hear the word loud and clear in the silence.
“I’m sorry. I appreciate the offer, but I don’t think I’ll have time,” Emilie said, avoiding Arden’s gaze and frowning. “I just got a huge stack of scripts and schedules, and I don’t know when I’ll have time to breathe, let alone start dating.”
“Date? I didn’t mean to ask you on a date,” Arden lied. “I was only offering to show you around. Introduce you to some other locals. That sort of thing.”
“Oh, of course. I shouldn’t have assumed you meant…”
Arden watched a blush creep up Emilie’s neck and swore softly. She closed the distance between them and gently touched Emilie’s arm, quickly pulling back when she felt the temptation to linger. “I really was asking you out. I was just trying to save face when you turned me down. Don’t worry about it, okay? You’re going to be incredibly busy this season.”
Emilie put her hand over the spot Arden had touched, not like she wanted to rub it clean, but as if she wanted to hold something close.
“I wish I could say yes, Arden. You’re very…” Emilie paused and shook her head, changing the direction of her explanation. “I left acting a few years ago. My girlfriend at the time was offered a part with a touring company, so I went with her to Europe. It was awful. We fought all the time, and I felt I had lost everything that was mine, that made me who I am. I’m finally getting a little of it back. Acting has to be my priority right now.”
Arden nodded. If anyone had the right to use the I need time to take care of myself argument, it was Emilie. “That’s why I hate dating actors,” she said. “Their dreams usually eclipse your own.”
Emilie laughed. “Should I feel insulted, or happy that you understand me?”
“Just happy, I hope,” Arden said. They were silent for a moment, and she felt a sense of companionship take the place of the awkwardness she had been feeling moments before. It took a moment before she could identify what she was feeling as relief. She wouldn’t have to lose Emilie at the end of the season if she never had her in the first place. “You’re the one who turned me down, so you have to finish your sentence. I’m very…what?”
Emilie paused. “Adequate looking.”
“Sweet talker,” Arden said with a burst of laughter.
“I am, aren’t I? I was going to say nonrepulsive, but I thought I’d put a more positive spin on it.”
Arden took a small spiral-bound notebook out of her pocket and turned to a blank page. She wrote her name and number on it and gave it to Emilie.
“In case you need a friend,” she said, surprised by how much she hoped Emilie would contact her, even though the romantic relationship wasn’t going to happen.
“Thank you,” Emilie said, folding the paper and slipping it in her pocket. “I just might.”
Chapter Five
Emilie gripped the hand rests of her chair while the company’s wig maker, Velda, raked her hands through Emilie’s hair and muttered comments to her assistant, who wrote down everything she said in a notebook. Even with the pain in her scalp to distract her, Emilie’s thoughts wandered back to Arden and the secluded area of the park where they had met. Arden’s hand on her arm had been soft and comforting, and Emilie imagined how gentle it would be as it sifted through her curls. Not like this demon woman, who seemed determined to make Emilie bleed before her appointment was over.
“Your hair. It curls very much.” Velda spoke with a heavy accent that Emilie guessed was Eastern European, but she couldn’t place it specifically. Probably because of her increasing headache. “And is thick.”
Emilie would usually consider those phrases to be compliments, but Velda’s voice seemed to convey her opinion that Emilie had grown her hair like this on purpose, just to spite her.
“It was thick,” she said. “But I think you’ve pulled half of it out.”
Velda poked her on the shoulder. “You. Sh.”
She continued to describe every last cowlick and slightly uneven portion of Emilie’s hairline to her assistant. Then she turned Emilie toward the mirror again. “We make you wigs that move like your real hair. You will forget is wig while acting. Now I show you how to braid for putting under bald cap.”
“Thank y—ouch!” Emilie gasped as Velda started separating strands and weaving them into a tight braid. She scrunched her eyes closed and held her breath until the worst of it was over, then she forced herself to look in the mirror. She’d need to be able to copy what Velda was doing if she wanted her wigs to fit properly. “I look like I just had a face-lift,” she said, gingerly touching her stretched forehead.
“I know. You’re welcome.” Velda coiled her hair and fixed it with at least a hundred bobby pins. She handed Emilie a mirror and turned her chair around. “You do exactly like this every performance.”
Emilie used the smaller mirror to peer at the back of her head, where her hair was pinned into an intricate pattern to keep it as flat against her head as possible. At least she didn’t see any blood dripping down her neck. “Can you draw a diagram for me?”
“You remember and do it right. Now the bald cap, and we measure.” She stretc
hed a flesh-colored cap over Emilie’s head and used an adhesive to blend the edges onto Emilie’s skin.
She grimaced at her reflection. She had worn stock wigs in plays before, but had never had one made specifically for her. She should appreciate the hours Velda and her staff would devote to each wig. She would, as soon as the pain eased a little.
When Emilie had seen wig fitting filling a three-hour block on her schedule, she had figured she would probably be waiting during most of the time. She hadn’t realized she would be in this chair for all three hours, enduring the various torture devices Velda had tucked in her smock. Who knew a flimsy little tape measure could hurt so much? If Emilie had any secrets to tell, she’d be spilling them right now. If she’d known she was going to die during her wig fitting, she wouldn’t have turned down the chance to go on a date with Arden.
She put her palm over her stomach as Velda spun her chair around. Emilie had been feeling queasy all week, since her meeting with Jay. She was overwhelmed and exhausted. Her last play had been at a well-respected theater, but the atmosphere had been much more casual than what she was experiencing in Ashland. Rehearsals for two plays had already started, and the third would begin the day after tomorrow. She’d be required to have all three parts memorized by next week, including the blocking and stage directions she’d been given already.
As usual this week, whenever she felt ready to hyperventilate, she mentally retreated to the place in Lithia Park where she had stood on a tree stump and spoken Titania’s words. Arden had told her that she felt transported, and Emilie had experienced the same thing. Not because of her impromptu performance, but because of meeting Arden. She had been funny and honest and real. Not to mention beautiful. Tall and athletic, with a graceful way of moving around the trees and close to Emilie. She had seemed at home in the woods, with her thick chamois shirt and those jeans with the muddy knees and the sexy way of hugging her thighs. She seemed confident enough to fit in anywhere, though. Emilie’s daydreams had put her in a dark bar where soft dance music played and the two of them swayed together, and on a red carpet with Emilie on her arm and a black tux outlining her curves and muscles. Or naked, in—
Emilie grabbed at her stomach again as Velda spun her in the opposite direction. She wasn’t going to complain this time, though, since she had needed to have her mind spun back to sanity. Arden was tempting, but Emilie couldn’t give in to temptation right now. That’s what had gotten her in trouble before, although Emilie wasn’t sure if it had really been Leah who had tempted her away, or if it had been a sneaking sense of relief because she was scared to try to be a professional actor and fail…
She pushed aside her thoughts of Arden and her past and let her throbbing scalp keep her centered here in the present. They needed five stiff foam molds of her head for her plays, plus an extra one, “just in case,” as Velda had said. In case what, Emilie wasn’t sure. Whenever Velda turned her attention to the molds and away from wielding the tape measure, Emilie watched the procedure with fascination. Exact replicas of her bald-cap-covered scalp were created and marked, and every measurement was precisely replicated on her and the wig head. Where Anne Page’s bob should cross her jawline, how long the first wave of Titania’s hair should be, how high Lady Anne’s bun should be placed. Even the hairstyles from the modern plays were carefully marked on the wig heads before a single strand of hair would be sewn into a wig.
Finally Emilie was released from the chair of horrors, and she tried to unpin her braid as she walked to her next appointment. She had half of her hair released—and probably reduced to a frizzy mess—by the time she walked into the costume fitting area.
“Oh, my,” a booming voice said from behind her, “looks like you just had a visit with Velda.”
Emilie turned and faced the tall man who was lounging just inside the costume room. He looked as if he had been carefully posed there by a fashion photographer, with his hands in his pockets and one ankle crossed over the other. He was wearing a pink-striped shirt under a navy V-neck sweater and dark denim jeans.
“How could you tell?” Emilie asked, looking at her handful of bobby pins as if they couldn’t possibly have given her away.
He gestured toward her hair. “Well, that gave you away. Good luck getting a comb through it ever again.”
“I feel like every strand was strip-searched,” Emilie said, pulling at more pins and trying to dislodge the heavy braid.
“At least you’re not crying. I was in tears after our first session last year. Here, let me do that.”
He put his hands on Emilie’s shoulders and turned her around. She felt a tiny bit of pressure release with every pin he removed.
“You’re Emilie, aren’t you? I’m Geoffrey. I’ll be your Richard III in one play, and your druggie cousin in Toxic.”
Geoffrey Cranston. Emilie had heard of him, of course, but she’d never seen him act. Now she’d be sharing a stage with him. She hated the part of herself that didn’t believe she belonged there.
She shoved the remaining bobby pins in the pocket of her jeans and faced him again. “Thank you. And nice to meet you.”
“You, too.” He waved when one of the costume makers called his name. “Must go. But I’ll see you at rehearsal on Friday. And Jay wants me to teach you newbies how to lead tours. We’ll meet Saturday at noon, in the courtyard in front of Carpenter Hall. ’Bye.”
“’Bye,” Emilie said weakly. The tours had sounded like fun before she had realized how stuffed her schedule and her brain were going to be. She wasn’t sure where she’d fit all the new lines she needed to learn.
She was called soon after Geoffrey, and she stood on a short pedestal for over an hour in her underwear, while every single inch of her body was measured and analyzed. If she hadn’t been so relieved to have costume fitters who didn’t share Velda’s masochistic tendencies, she would have been mortified by the experience. As it was, she turned and moved and raised her arms like a doll when told to, while her mind tried to process everything she needed to do.
She shouldn’t add more to the list, but she needed something other. Something outside the theater and the festival. She thought of Arden’s phone number, sitting on her bedside table where she had placed it last week. Had she really meant it when she offered friendship? Would Emilie be able to resist the attraction she felt—especially when she was weakened by self-doubt and the obsessive desire to run away from all of this?
Maybe, maybe not. All Emilie knew was that she wanted to see Arden again. For a few brief minutes with her, Emilie had felt relaxed and complete. Not lacking or frazzled. She deliberately kept her eyes away from the mirror, while her fast-food-padded waist and hips were measured, and let her mind wander back to the sanctuary of the park.
*****
After her seemingly interminable appointments were over, Emilie tied her hair in a loose braid—Geoffrey had been correct, and Velda had somehow rendered it impervious to a comb—and walked to the park. She decided to let fate decide if she should see Arden again instead of calling her, but since she worked at the park, Emilie was giving fate a fighting chance.
She only had to walk the winding circuit of the park twice before she found Arden bent over the bench of a picnic table, as if she was looking for something underneath it. Emilie tried to look anywhere besides Arden’s shapely rear end, and she cleared her suddenly dry throat to get Arden’s attention and make her sit up. When that failed, she reached over and tapped her on the shoulder.
Arden yelped and hopped off the bench, making Emilie leap away in response.
“Shit, Emilie. You scared me.”
“Me, too,” Emilie said. She sat down at the table while she waited for her heart rate to return to normal. “Are you always this jumpy?”
“Not usually,” Arden said, sitting next to her. “I thought you were someone else. Someone who tried to put a spider down my shirt today.” She waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “Long story about a viburnum. Luckily, he was scared of the spid
er and dropped it before he got too close to me, but I have a feeling he’s going to try again. So, what’s up?”
“I came here to ask you if the offer to be my local guide still stands, although now I’m wondering if it might be dangerous to stand too close to you if there are insects involved.” Emilie’s doubts about whether she should have sought Arden’s company rather than avoiding her disappeared in an instant. Arden was playful and had a life outside the festival with friends—albeit rather suspect ones if they were in the habit of flinging spiders at her.
Arden grinned. “I doubt any of them will be venomous, so you’ll be fine. And I’d be glad to show you around.”
“Great,” Emilie said. She hesitated, then decided to speak her mind. Arden seemed to be the type who would appreciate clarity up front. “But I still mean what I said last week about not getting involved with anyone right now. Especially now, since I know how crazy this season will be. I really could use a friend, though, if you’re willing.”
“I am.” Arden fidgeted with the silver wolf-shaped zipper pull of her vest. “It’ll be good for me, too. I sort of have a habit of getting involved with actors and, obviously, it never ends well. You can be my buffer. If other company members see us together, they’ll assume I’m off-limits, and I’ll be saved from myself.”
Emilie wondered why Arden’s relationships obviously failed. She had mentioned the pitfalls of dating actors when they first met—in a joking way, but with a hint of unhealed pain behind her statement. “It’s a deal, then. No…kissing. Just friends.”
She had been about to say no sex, but that only made her think of Arden naked and tangled in the sheets with her. Emilie felt the warmth of a blush spread across her cheeks.
“No kissing,” Arden said, holding up her hand with an expression of deep seriousness, like she was making a vow. She flashed an impish grin that immediately called an image of Puck from A Midsummer Night’s Dream to Emilie’s mind. “Unless, of course, you need to run lines. I’d kiss you if it was in the script. For art.”