by Mindy Klasky
Ryan stared at the stage, at the stark wooden boards broken only by the scattering of chairs. The directions were the heart and soul of his script, the harvest that he’d sown with his software package, years ago, before he’d decided to go to Burkina Faso, before he’d ever dreamed of writing Fanta’s story. The directions were the remnant of the time he’d spent with Pam, the time he’d spent creating his software masterpiece. They were the fruit of all his wishes.
But in the intervening years—and in the past ten minutes—Ryan had learned a valuable lesson. From his genie, from mine, from the entire notion of a staged reading, he’d learned the art of compromise.
“Let it go, Hal.”
“But—” I couldn’t help interrupting.
Ryan shook his head. “Let it go. Maybe Becca can write something for the program, an insert that explains the traditional Burkinabe dances, describes their importance to Fanta and her people. That way, the audience will know about them, even in this setting. And when the play is fully staged, other directors can draw on the specifics I put into the script.”
Hal looked at me. “Becca? Can you write that?”
“Of course.” Hal had asked the question, but I gave my answer to Ryan. I wanted him to know that I understood the concession that he was making. “We can work together to come up with something appropriate.”
Hal nodded tersely. “Okay, then. Kira, let’s get everyone onstage. Let’s start from the top and make it perfect—those Yale folks will be expecting a lot tomorrow.”
Yale Drama. My alma mater. I wondered whom I’d invited for the preview. There’d be time enough to find out later.
As Kira summoned everyone to their chairs, Ryan and I moved to the center of the house. An expectant air drifted over the theater as we took our seats. There was a shuffle of paper as actors thumbed to the front of their scripts. I caught my breath in the endless moment before Fanta delivered her first line.
“When I was a little girl, I thought I’d marry a king.”
The accent was perfect. Fanta sounded like she’d lived her life in Burkina Faso, like she’d never even heard of the island of Jamaica.
I couldn’t help myself. I turned my notebook pages as quietly as I could, searching for an explanation. It took me halfway through the script before I found what I was looking for. Again, my handwriting was familiar, was perfect, was mine. But I had no idea when I’d written the note. Accent coach, it said. And underneath that, Teel. And a 212 telephone number.
With a sad certainty, I knew the number would be disconnected if I phoned now.
But what did that matter? I’d obviously brought in the help that Fanta needed. Affordably, too. Without the need for a Popcorn King stipend.
I sat back and enjoyed the rest of Fanta’s introductory lines. It wasn’t until she reached the end of the first scene, though, that I realized Ryan had stiffened beside me. He was leaning forward in his chair. His fingers dug into his armrests, and he caught his lower lip between his teeth.
And then I understood what he feared.
Anana’s first scene. I took an instant survey of the familiar actors’ faces. There was someone new up there, someone I had overlooked in all of my surprise, in all of the changed events.
She was younger than Teel had been. Deep lines ran between her nose and her mouth, but her forehead remained smooth. Silver whispered at her temples, but she had no hint of my genie’s regal halo. She held herself stiff in her chair, her backbone rigid, her neck proud.
And when she spoke, her commanding voice carried to the last row of the theater. She drew every eye in the house. She captured every ear.
She wasn’t Teel. She didn’t read Anana’s lines with the identical energy, with the exact same meaning, the by-now familiar grave vigor. Instead, she presented a new interpretation of a matriarch, a new view of Ryan’s core vision.
She wasn’t Teel, but she was superb. She was Anana.
I felt Ryan relax beside me. I heard him draw a full breath, and then another and another. I watched him sink back into his velvet chair, relax into the play, into the poetry of the lines, into the beauty of the reading.
The cast worked through the first act, then plunged directly into the second. The dream sequence was haunting, mysterious. What it lost through physical staging, it gained in the actors’ careful attention to every single word. Ryan’s lines resonated like ancient songs, thrumming deep inside my heart. When Fanta delivered her final, fractured words, I realized that I’d been holding my breath, poised on the jagged edge of creative perfection.
Hal held the silence for a full measure. Another. Another. And then he jumped to his feet. “Excellent, people! Excellent job! Ryan?”
I watched Ryan pull himself upright. He took his time, studying the entire cast, meeting the eyes of each actor in sequence. “Thank you,” he finally said. “Thank you for giving voice to my words. Thank you for understanding what I was saying, for preparing to share it with others so perfectly.”
There was a flurry of chatter after that. Hal delivered his inevitable notes. Kira reminded everyone to arrive early the next night for a round of group warm-ups. One actor asked Ryan about motivation for a single obscure line. Three women cornered me, wanting to know if I could do yet more research about haggling in African markets.
Before we knew it, though, everyone was collecting their belongings. Scripts were shoved into backpacks. Empty coffee cups were tossed into trash cans. Laughing instructions were issued to the first people who left, requests to save tables, to order drinks. The Pharm would soon be filled with our boisterous cast.
As I watched order return from the controlled chaos of the reading, my cell phone rang. I excused myself from Ryan and stepped into the lobby to answer. With a sinking feeling, I recognized the phone number before I said, “Rebecca Morris.”
“Ambrose,” came the hangdog reply. I braced myself for more bad news, for more interference from Dean, for more deflating of my dreams, just when I thought everything was finally going perfectly.
“Good evening, Detective.” I tried to sound professional.
“Miss Morris, I just wanted you to know that we’re closing out our file on Mr. Marcus.”
I stared at the phone, wondering if it had somehow been broken in the electric jangle of Teel’s magic, if it had somehow been destroyed by the current that had passed through it, around it. “Excuse me?” I asked.
He sighed. “We’ve completed our investigation, Miss Morris. We’re turning everything over to the prosecutor.”
“Prosecutor? But what good will that do, if Dean is in Russia?”
Another one of those monumental sighs preceded Ambrose’s announcement. “Miss Morris, Mr. Marcus is en route to the United States as we speak. My men are waiting to take him into custody as soon as his plane touches down at JFK.” As if for good measure, he added a “Miss Morris.”
“But why would Dean come home?” My head was reeling. Was this something else my former, despicable boyfriend had somehow worked out, just to make me miserable? After all these months of my building my own life, of my working through the problems that Dean had left behind, was he coming back now, just to spite me? “What could he possibly want from me now?”
“Nothing like that, Miss Morris.” Another gust from Ambrose, as if a hurricane were swelling in his chest. “Let’s just say, Miss Morris, that once an embezzler, always an embezzler.”
“Dean tried to steal from someone else?” I was incredulous. What could he need more money for? He had millions to spare, if he just kept a low profile and parceled it out on vodka, babushka women, and balalaika song.
“Miss Morris, we find that’s often the case with criminals, especially when they spend as much time as Mr. Marcus did, structuring his theft from the Mercer.” Ambrose sounded so sad that I actually wanted to comfort him, wanted to tell him that it would all turn out okay.
“But who did he steal from?” I was so confused. “And why is he coming back here?”
&nb
sp; “Let’s just say that the Russian mob is a lot less understanding than the U.S. court system. Sometimes even a prison starts to look like a good, safe place to be. For a thief.”
For the first time ever, Ambrose forgot to call me Miss Morris. And for the first time ever, I heard a smile in his voice, just a grim hint of one.
Dean had bitten off more than he could chew—way more. I could only imagine the people he had made angry. I could only begin to picture shadowy underworld bosses, slinging back shots of vodka as they ordered Dean’s head on a platter.
Dean was coming home. He was going to face the music here.
“Will he be forced to make restitution?” I asked, thinking of the Mercer, of all the trouble he had caused.
“Miss Morris, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We’ll need you to testify against him.”
We were back to our usual formality, I noted, but I could hardly care. My own smile threatened to make my cheeks ache. “With pleasure, Detective Ambros. With extreme pleasure.”
He told me more details, about Dean’s flight, about how he would be taken into custody. Someone from the prosecutor’s office would contact me. I’d likely provide a deposition, at least at first. There’d probably be a plea somewhere down the road, hopefully sooner, rather than later. Dean would definitely serve some jail time. And, yes, he would be required to make restitution, to the extent that he still had his ill-gotten gains.
I didn’t absorb everything that Ambrose said, all the details of how the criminal justice system would work. All I knew was that at long last, I was vindicated. Dean Marcus would be brought to justice. He’d be forced to pay for what he’d done to me, to the Mercer.
As Ambrose hung up, I couldn’t describe how I felt. Once upon a time, I’d been angry about Dean. And embarrassed. And deeply, terribly sad.
But now, I felt…relieved. I’d escaped Dean before he could truly, irrevocably hurt me. He was a thief and a liar and an idiot, too—he’d gotten greedy, and now he had to return home, to pay the piper.
For all practical purposes, I never needed to deal with Dean again. Ambrose and his ilk would dot i’s and cross t’s. And then Dean would be out of my life forever.
Forever.
I tested how that felt, rubbing my emotions across the discovery, like a tongue across a chipped tooth. It snagged a little, as I remembered how foolish I had been, how trusting, way back when. But I already knew I’d get over that. I’d forget it. I’d forget Dean. I practically had already.
Squaring my shoulders, I headed back into the theater.
Hal had already headed back to his office. There’d be time enough to tell him the good news, time enough to let him know that the Mercer’s coffers would likely be restored, at least in part.
Kira was pulling the onstage chairs back to their proper places, preparing everything for the next night. Still a little dazed by Ambrose’s call, I floated over to Ryan. He continued to be gripped by the play’s spell, by the power of the reading we had witnessed.
I grasped his hand and led him out of the magic cave of the theater, into the lobby. Like a man waking from a dream, Ryan reached out and touched the stark poster for the show. For his show. Our show. “However long the night,” he said, “the dawn will break.”
I laughed, thinking how appropriate the words were, especially in light of Ambrose’s call. Ryan’s smile, when he turned to me, was brilliant. His fingers tangled in my hair as he pulled me close, and I felt his laughter through his chest, down his arms. His lips on mine were teasing, playful, and I lost myself in the sheer joy of success.
“We did it,” he whispered. “We actually, finally did it.”
“I know it’s not what you planned,” I said, when I could think coherent words past the distracting things his lips were doing to the pulse point in my throat.
“Plans,” he murmured. “Who needs plans?”
“Especially when you’ve got a genie or two to pitch in.” We both laughed at that, only to be startled into silence when the door to the theater opened.
“Okay, you two,” Kira said. “Out of here. I need to lock up.”
“Are you coming over to the Pharm?”
“I’ll probably stop by later. John is going to meet me here in about ten minutes.” John. Her husband. The man she’d met in Minneapolis, when Teel had been her genie.
I started to tell her what Teel had just done, how he’d shaped my last wish. But before the words were out of my mouth, I realized that they’d only lead to questions—questions about Ryan, about how I could discuss a genie in front of him, about Jaze, about the four wishes Ryan had spent before I knew him.
It was easier just to say good-night. Easier to take Ryan’s hand in mine. Easier to walk out the door of the Mercer.
I stopped dead when I saw the carpet of crocuses underneath the plane trees. I’d forgotten about Dani’s handiwork, about the Gray Guerillas. The purple and yellow flowers were just starting to close in the twilight. Seeing them reminded me that I never had gotten my omelet for lunch. I was suddenly starving. “I need something to eat before we head over to the Pharm.”
“There’s a Popcorn King on Fifth. I hear they have some great snacks.”
“Bite your tongue!”
“Or we could just go home,” Ryan said. “Order something in for dinner.”
Head home. To my apartment, the perfect one with a view of the river, with the sparkling lights of New York City displayed like candles on a cake. The one that had plenty of room for two people to share, for two people to build a life together in the chaotic, demanding, insane, perfect world of New York theater.
“What were you thinking?” I asked. “Chinese? Indian?”
He shrugged and wove his fingers between mine. His hands were warm, filled with promises, as we started the familiar walk back to the Bentley. “I don’t care,” he said. “You decide. Your wish is my command.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Creating a book is a lot like staging a play. Many people envision an author working in solitude, creating books without assistance from anyone else. In the real world, however, authors rely on dozens of people to transform the stories inside their heads into real, finished books.
In creating this volume of the As You Wish series, I am deeply indebted to a trio of dramaturgs who responded to my emergency plea for information about their daily jobs. Akiva Fox, Sarah Wallace, and Miriam Weisfeld went above and beyond the call of duty, sharing details of their working lives, offering advice on professional ethics in the theater, and telling entertaining story after entertaining story. The D.C. theater community is incredibly lucky to have these smart, funny, and dedicated dramaturgs. Any inaccuracies about real-world dramaturgy are my sole responsibility.
During the “rehearsal process” for this novel, Bruce Sundrud provided invaluable notes, pointing out linguistic and logical flaws, even though I forced him onto an impossibly tight timetable.
The “running crew” for this production included my agent, Richard Curtis, who continues to provide his unique blend of compassion and common sense, often at odd hours of the night and on weekends. As always, the incredible people at Harlequin/MIRA Books have been instrumental in the completion of this book: Mary-Theresa Hussey and Elizabeth Mazer lead the way, but they represent dozens of hard-working souls, including but by no means limited to Alana Burke, Valerie Gray, Mary Helms, Amy Jones, Tracey Langmuir, Don Lucey, Margaret O’Neill Marbury, Linda McFall, Diane Mosher, Emily Ohanjanians, Marianna Ricciuto, Lola Speranza, Malle Vallik, Stacy Widdrington, Amy Wilkins, and Adam Wilson. Once again, I offer special thanks to Margie Miller, for her incredible work on the cover design for this series.
Additional backstage support came from my family, the ever-enthusiastic Klaskys, Fallons, Maddreys, and Timminses. My husband, Mark, deserves an Oscar, Tony, Emmy, and every other award I can think of, for his constant, unwavering support of me and my writing career.
Of course, no show is complete without an audience—the readers
of this book. I look forward to corresponding with you through my website at www.mindyklasky.com.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-5168-1
WHEN GOOD WISHES GO BAD
Copyright © 2010 by Mindy L. Klasky.
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