by Karis Walsh
Arden pulled back slightly and rested her forehead against Emilie’s. She put her free hand on Emilie’s waist, keeping Emilie’s hand firmly in her other one, and felt the rapid movement of her rib cage match the overheated rhythm of her own breathing. Emilie was going to rip out her heart and take it with her when she left, but she had managed to dislodge ideas and possibilities in Arden’s mind, and they had a life of their own now. They weren’t going to go away.
She tried to speak, but her voice caught. She cleared her throat and tried again. “We should catch up. The tour is probably over.”
“Screw the tour,” Emilie said, but she stepped away from Arden with a sad-looking smile. Her cheeks were flushed, and she dropped her gaze to Arden’s lips before meeting her eyes once more. “But you’re right. We should go.”
Arden followed her through the maze of tunnels, holding on to the memory of their kiss and refusing to let herself wish for more.
*****
Emilie hurried through the catacombs, her fingers still woven together with Arden’s. She couldn’t look back yet, because if she saw Arden’s face, her lips, she would have to shove her against the gray cement walls and kiss her again.
The route through the tunnels was familiar to her now, and the twists and turns had been learned as surely as Emilie’s lines. She figured Geoffrey and the tour group were in the wings now, looking out on the Elizabethan stage, and she let muscle memory propel her forward while her heart and mind flew back in time and place to Arden’s kiss.
Emilie had been aroused—she wouldn’t have expected anything less from being held in Arden’s embrace—but the kiss had surprised her, too. Arden always seemed strong, physically and mentally, but her lips had yielded to Emilie’s with a softness that made Emilie ache inside. And when Arden had taken her hand…
Emilie tripped on the staircase, and Arden immediately was there to steady her. Even that practical touch carried a dimension of tenderness with it, bringing them to a level of intimacy Emilie had never experienced before. Arden’s hand intertwined with hers had made her feel the same way, as if Arden was offering and asking for support and a different kind of closeness, even while their bodies were tangled in a kiss that was startlingly, absolutely driven by physical desire.
She came to an abrupt halt once they were close to the stage, needing a little time before they returned to the tour. The heavy velvet curtain brushed against her arm, shielding them from the group and muffling Geoffrey’s resonant voice. Arden came close behind her, wrapping her arms around Emilie’s rib cage and nestling their hips together. Emilie dropped her head back onto Arden’s shoulder.
“Are you okay?” Arden asked, so softly that Emilie wasn’t sure if she heard her, or if she just understood the pattern of Arden’s breath against her neck.
Emilie nodded, rubbing her cheek against Arden’s as she did so. She inhaled the mixture of Arden’s sweet scent and the chalky, backstage smell of the theater. She was better than okay as long as Arden was close, but the feeling was fleeting. It had to be. The kiss, the connection—those were things that belonged in the shadows behind the scenes. Emilie’s real life had to take place in front of the curtain.
She twisted her head a little until she was able to reach Arden’s mouth with her own. The kiss this time was delicate, lingering. No clashing tongues or roaming hands, but even so, Emilie felt a reverberation shudder through her body. Her arms rested on top of Arden’s, and she squeezed them closer in a brief hug before she broke free and walked onto the stage.
Chapter Twelve
Two mornings later, Emilie was awakened by the shrill chime of her phone. She considered ignoring it since she’d had both a performance and the first rehearsal for Richard III yesterday and was exhausted, but her half-awake mind thought it might be Arden calling her. She smacked her hand across the bedside table until she found her cell, and she pulled it under the covers with her. If she was going to talk to Arden, she couldn’t think of a better place to do it than snuggled deep in her bed.
“Hello?” She had tried clearing her throat first, but her raspy voice left no doubt she’d been asleep only moments before.
“Emilie Danvers? This is Joanne at the OSF office. A ten a.m. call has been issued for Skywriting.”
“Got it, thank you,” Emilie mumbled before hanging up. She sighed. A double disappointment. First, it hadn’t been Arden. And second, now she was too awake to burrow back for some much-needed sleep. She flipped onto her back and stared at the ceiling, wondering how much concern she should be feeling about her unconcealed hope that Arden had been on the other end of the line.
They hadn’t mentioned the kiss, but it had somehow woven itself into Emilie’s mind. In her dreams and daydreams, she was never as quick to move away and return to the tour as she had been in the tunnels. If Arden kissed her again—or if she kissed Arden, which was a distinct possibility—she doubted she’d be as determined to put distance between them. She was losing sight of the reasons why she needed to hold herself apart from Arden.
Was this a dangerous path, or was it safe? She was getting comfortable here. Excited to play Lady Anne, and settled in her routine performance as Titania. Maybe she could add a little romance to her life without jeopardizing her career goals…
She flung the covers back and rolled out of bed. She might be in the frame of mind to think it was okay to want more out of their relationship, but she couldn’t just consider her own point of view. Arden had been very clear about her unwillingness to get too attached—no matter whether her actions betrayed her true desires—and she had confided in Emilie about the reasons why. Emilie felt a fierce need to protect her newly restarted career, but somewhere along the way she had developed an even more pronounced need to protect Arden’s feelings.
She couldn’t make the decision to either pursue Arden or to resist her attraction based on her needs alone. Arden’s were as important—or more so—to her. Emilie wouldn’t add her own name to the list of people who had left Arden behind, and she knew all too well how challenging it was to be brought along as a passenger on the quest for someone else’s career goals.
Emilie tied a robe around her waist and stumbled into the bathroom for a reviving shower. She didn’t have to worry about a relationship right now since she had another full day ahead, and she was relieved to focus on activities instead of emotions for a while. As soon as she was shocked awake by the cold water, she walked into town for a bagel and a latte before she headed to the theater. She had been booked to the gills already, with performances and rehearsals and fittings, but she hadn’t realized how many unexpected appointments came up during the season. Costumes needed to be resized or changed, wigs needed to be ratcheted even more tightly onto her poor scalp, and new lighting or sound cues needed to be learned.
And even though the directors moved on after rehearsals ended and performances began, each show’s stage manager was responsible for the continuing production. Emilie had already been called to a few of these last-minute rehearsals, like the one she had this morning. This one wasn’t a surprise, given the high-profile new play and the complex staging in the small theater.
Emilie paused outside the door to the Thomas Theatre and drained the last drops of her coffee. She hitched the strap of her backpack, heavy with its stack of scripts and notes for each play, higher on her shoulder as she pushed through the glass door. A few of the cast members were already there, chatting in groups of two or three as they waited for the morning call to start. She walked up behind Elizabeth and Rick, ready to join in their conversation.
“What better way to sabotage the play? Wait until after the opening, so the comparison is—Oh, hey, Emilie. How are you?”
“Fine, thanks. And you?” Emilie hesitated just inside the door as Elizabeth stopped midsentence to greet her. Everyone else in the cast had turned in their direction. All of a sudden, Emilie didn’t feel anywhere near fine.
“I’m good. Looks like we’re about to get started. See you insid
e.”
“Okay,” Emilie said weakly, even though Elizabeth and Rick had already moved away. The others began to drift toward the doors leading to the stage, and Emilie hesitated, torn between following them and fleeing the building. She swallowed. She was just imagining the strange looks everyone had given her, wasn’t she? She would walk onstage, and Gemini would be there, flipping her hair over her shoulder and looking smug right before she gave her usual flawless performance. Business as usual.
Emilie walked down the short aisle to the stage, where the cast—minus Gemini—was gathered. She dropped her backpack on one of the seats and joined the others, sitting a little apart from everyone. She felt a growing coil of tension forming in her stomach, and she wished she hadn’t eaten an entire bagel with about a pound of cream cheese on it. Stage fright was usually reserved for performances, not for rehearsals.
Lendon Grey, the stage manager, finally arrived. He looked harried, with handfuls of notes and his shirt half untucked, but he always looked like he was mid-anxiety attack. Emilie squinted in his direction. Did he seem more nervous than usual today?
“I’m sure most of you are aware of this by now, but Gemini called this morning. She’s unable to perform for the rest of Skywriting’s run because she was injured in an accident.”
He spoke the words injured and accident with as much emphasis as if he had made frantic air quotes around them. Emilie was still processing the news, and coming to the conclusion that Gemini had managed to get herself out of her contract, when she realized what it meant for her.
“Emilie will play Cassella tonight.” He finally looked in her direction. “We don’t have time for a full rehearsal, but we’ll run through a few key scenes. Emilie, you’re comfortable with your lines and with the board?”
Emilie nodded. She knew her lines, of course, but her throat was too constricted for her to be able to speak. The board was the list of costume changes behind the scenes of each of the plays. They were color coded by time, and listed in order. As Titania, she had a few changes with plenty of time before she had to get back onstage. As Cassella, she had numerous changes, often with less than a minute to accomplish them. The tight schedule didn’t allow for any running to the bathroom and being sick.
She managed to find her voice, but in it she could hear how uncomfortably she wore this character. Cassella was complex and uncertain, tortured by the loss of her child and tormented by an undisclosed mental illness. Emilie had been mesmerized by the challenging book when she had first read it. Cassella was the epitome of an unreliable narrator, and the reader was never quite sure what was real and what wasn’t. The mystery of what really had happened to her son plagued Cassella as she struggled with the dysfunctional relationships in her life, with homelessness, with institutionalization.
Emilie didn’t have any way of connecting with her, try as she had over the weeks since she had first learned she would understudy the role. And her relief when Gemini had seemed resigned to stay with the company and fulfill her contract had been immense.
But now Emilie had to find some way to redeem herself and bring this award-winning book to life on the stage. She had the part down cold—even if she forgot the lines before going onstage, she was sure they’d come back to her as soon as she moved into the first scene. But they were only words if there was no power and engagement behind them.
This role more than any other made her doubt her ability to act. She could find Anne Page’s naïveté and stubbornness inside herself, not too deeply buried under her everyday personality. She could be a fairy queen, playing in the forest and having adventures. She could understand Lady Anne’s grief and her survival instincts, and draw on her own inner sense of poise and grace—even if they weren’t qualities she was convinced she exhibited on a daily basis. But acting was a hell of a lot more than isolating aspects of her own personality and wearing them publicly for an hour or two. And Cassella seemed determined to laugh at her efforts—with that eerily cackling giggle Gemini had perfected—and make her want to run away from the challenge.
Emilie stood in the space that represented the therapist’s office at the institution and performed the scene in which Cassella flipped through imaginary pictures of her lost child, feigning with the therapist and dodging the truth about the boy’s death. She moved to the right places, said the right lines, but that was about all she could say about her performance.
Too many if onlys got in her way. If only she was more talented. If only she could access some inner Cassella and channel her for just a few more months. If only Gemini had quit earlier, giving the festival management time to find a more suitable replacement…
Emilie stopped midstep as the last thought filtered through her mind, joining with the snippet of Elizabeth’s conversation she had overheard. Gemini had quit at the perfect time to get vengeance on the company that had refused to let her out of her contract. She had been a huge hit on opening night and had left on short enough notice that the company had to let Emilie play the part. Everyone had seen how she performed during rehearsals, and they were all aware of what Emilie had hoped was a secret known only to her—that she was going to be a major disappointment. An embarrassment to the company. Gemini had used her, and Gemini’s brilliance would shine even brighter, as Elizabeth had said, when her performance was compared with Emilie’s.
She stumbled over her words for a few lines before she caught the thread again and continued. Lendon didn’t even comment on her lapse of concentration. He just sat in the front row of seats with a resigned look on his face.
Somehow, she made it through the rest of the rushed rehearsal. All she wanted to do was run home again and climb under the blankets, back where she had been cozy and happy with fantasies of Arden to keep her warm. She wanted to find the real Arden, not her daydream version, and tell her what had happened, but she didn’t have time. Maybe after the rehearsal for Richard III. Before tonight’s performance of Skywriting. Emilie stopped on the Bricks, tempted to run down the stairs leading to the park.
Maybe Arden was planning a tour of Europe and would ask Emilie to leave with her. Tonight. Emilie laughed weakly at her own joke, glad she at least had a little of her sense of humor left. She wouldn’t run away this time. She was humiliated and scared, yes. But she would stay and play Cassella. As long as the company would let her.
She turned away from the steps and went into the Bowmer Theatre instead. She hadn’t gotten halfway to the stage before Geoffrey reached her and pulled her into a tight hug. Great. Any hope that no one outside the cast of Skywriting knew about the Gemini drama was dashed.
“You’re going to be spectacular as Cassella,” he said, gripping her upper arms and looking her in the eyes. “Don’t let her theatrics spoil the theater.”
Emilie shook her head. “Don’t pretend I can play this part anywhere near as well as she did. I’m sure you’ve heard all the juicy rumors about how poorly I’ve done Cassella in rehearsals.”
“I don’t pay attention to rumors, darling. You have a great chance here. It’s the part of the season, and any dirty gossip is the result of jealousy.”
“I’m the first to admit that I suck in the role, and I’m not jealous of me.”
“Stop,” Geoffrey said, with a sharper edge to his voice than she had heard before. “Don’t waste this opportunity because you feel sorry for your little self. You were given the understudy role because they believed you could play the part well, if you had to take over. So step up and do your job.”
Emilie opened her mouth to speak, and then closed it again. When he put it that way, she could see how ridiculous she was being. She sighed, releasing some of the tension building inside her. “Ouch,” she said. “Are you getting into character for today’s rehearsal?”
He smiled. “Yes. Geoffrey would let you cry on his shoulder. Richard would call you out and not let you get away with any poor-little-old-me crap. I thought he’d be a better motivator.”
“Right. I can see the business cards now.
Richard III, motivational speaker. If you can dream it and can kill enough people, you can achieve it.”
“Bullet point one—think positive, or I’ll throw you in the tower,” Geoffrey said in a booming Richard voice.
“Okay,” Emilie said. “On the positive side, expectations of me are so low, all I need to do is stand onstage in the correct costume, and everyone at the festival will celebrate my massive accomplishment. I’ll be performer of the year.”
“Bullet point number two—lose the sarcasm, or I’ll have you beheaded.” Geoffrey laughed as they walked down the stairs and joined the rest of the cast. His friendship and frank talk had helped pull Emilie out of a pit, and she rallied herself for the rehearsal. Lady Anne was a part she could play with confidence. She had been looking forward to this play, and since they were still blocking out the scenes, she didn’t have to prove herself right now—as long as she paid attention and read her lines on cue, she’d get through today without any problems. She thought of Arden and the park, and imagined herself standing among the trees with only an audience of one. The one who really mattered to her. She lost herself a few times in the character, and the director seemed pleased with her performance. Maybe she’d be able to do the same thing tonight, with Cassella. A moment or two of truly feeling the part might lead to more moments in the future. Until she could get through the entire play.
Emilie stepped outside after the rehearsal and checked her watch. She still had over three hours before she had to check in at the Thomas Theatre and start getting into the matted hair and ragged clothes she’d wear in Cassella’s first scene. The story was told in a series of flashbacks, and she would return to the first costume several times during the night, switching to less grimy outfits as the earlier parts of her history were shown. Cassella’s character arc followed a downward trajectory, but the play didn’t unfold in a linear way. She had played the part all the way through before, but never with the added stress of clothing changes to accompany the personality changes.