She picked up her cell phone and punched in Gran-Gran’s number. When her grandmother’s sleepy voice came on the line, Tangie realized she must be in bed.
“Gran-Gran?”
“What, honey?”
“Did you forget something?”
“I don’t think so.” She gave an exaggerated yawn. “What do you mean?”
Tangie shivered against the cold, and Gregg pulled off his coat and draped it over her shoulders. She turned to him with a comforting nod as she responded to her grandmother. “I mean, you left me here.”
“Oh, that.” A slight giggle from the other end clued her in immediately.
“Gran-Gran, what are you up to?”
“Up to? We were just tired, honey. We’re not spring chickens, you know. Gramps has to be home to take his blood pressure medication at a certain time every night.”
“He took it before we left. I saw him with my own eyes. And besides, I was only in the choir room fifteen minutes,” Tangie argued. “I thought you were waiting on me.”
“We started to, but then I noticed Gregg’s car was still there, and he lives so close and all. . .”
“Gran-Gran.” Tangie shook her head. “You’re up to tricks again.”
“Me? Tricks?” Another yawn. “What do you mean?”
“Nothing. Just leave your granddaughter stranded in the cold on a winter’s night. No problem.”
Gran-Gran laughed aloud. “I daresay that handsome choir director will bring you home. And I’m sure there’s a heater in his car. So, don’t you worry, honey. Just enjoy your time together.”
Enjoy our time together? Yep, we’ve been set up, all right.
As Tangie ended the call, she turned to Gregg, trying to decide how to tell him. Thankfully, she didn’t have to.
“They left you?” he asked, his brow wrinkled in concern.
“Yep.” She turned to face him with a sigh. “I don’t believe it, but. . .they ditched me.”
***
Gregg couldn’t help but laugh at the look on Tangie’s face. “So, we’ve been set up.”
“Looks that way.”
“Someone’s doing a little matchmaking.”
“Gran-Gran, of course. But I didn’t think she’d go this far.”
Gregg reached to take Tangie’s hand. “Oh, I’m not complaining, trust me. This is probably the first time in my life I’m actually thrilled to be set up.”
“R–really?” Tangie’s teeth chattered and he laughed.
“Let’s get you out of the cold.” He walked over to his car and opened the passenger side door. She scooted into the seat and smiled at him as he closed the door in the most gentlemanly fashion he could muster. Then, he came around to the driver’s side and settled into his own seat. Turning the key in the ignition, a blast of cold air shot from the vents. “Sorry about that. Takes awhile for the air to warm up.”
“Good things are worth waiting for,” Tangie said, giving another shiver.
He looked her way and smiled. “Yes, they are.”
Their eyes met for another one of those magical moments, one that set a hundred butterflies loose in his stomach.
Gregg finally managed to get a few words out. “I. . .I guess I’d better get you home.”
They made the drive to Tangie’s grandparents’ house and Gregg pulled the car into the driveway, his nerves a jumbled mess.
Tangie smiled at him as he put the car into park. “Thanks for the ride. Sorry about all of this.”
“Oh, I’m not, trust me.” Gregg watched as she opened her door, but then stopped her before she stepped out. “Hey, can you wait just a minute?”
“Oh, sure.” She looked at him with that piercing gaze, the one that made him a bumbling schoolboy once again. She pulled the door shut, then turned back to him. “What’s up?”
“I, um. . .I just wanted to say something about the other night when I, um. . .”
“Ah.” She smiled, suddenly looking like a shy kid. “That.”
“Yeah, that.” He looked down to hide the smile that threatened to betray his heart. “First, I was out of line.”
“Oh?” She sounded a little disappointed.
“Yes. I feel like I took advantage of the situation. But”—he looked at her—“I’m not sorry I did it.”
In that moment, the tension in the car lifted. Tangie’s voice had a childlike quality to it as she whispered, “I’m not sorry, either.”
At once, Gregg felt as if his heart might burst into song. Maybe even another Gershwin tune. She wasn’t sorry he’d kissed her. That answered every question.
“I’m usually the most predictable guy on planet Earth,” he said. “But that kiss. . .”
She grinned. “Was unpredictable?”
“To say the least.” He paused a moment. “It was downright impulsive. And it totally threw me.” He couldn’t stop the smile from creeping up. “In a good way, I mean.”
“It feels good to be unpredictable every now and again, doesn’t it?” She giggled, and he thought he might very well go sailing off into space.
Yes, if felt good. Mighty good. In fact, he could go on feeling this good for the rest of his life. “I want to say one more thing. I had a great time singing with you tonight. I felt like our harmony was. . .”
“Amazing?”
“Yes.” He smiled. “Sometimes life does surprise you, doesn’t it? And how interesting that two very different people could sound so totally perfect together.”
“Mm-hmm.” Tangie sighed. “Just goes to show you. . . We have to give things a chance.”
“Yes, we do.” He smiled, thankful she’d given him the prompt for what he wanted to say. “And that’s really what I wanted to ask you. . .if you’d be willing. . .to give a boring, predictable guy like me a chance.”
“You mean unboring and unpredictable, right?” Tangie grinned, her eyebrows elevating mischievously. “I think you’ve crossed the line into a new life, my friend.”
“You—you do?” Gregg never really had time to add anything more than that. Tangie’s lips got in the way.
FIFTEEN
Rehearsals for the children’s production began the last Saturday in February. The children gathered in the sanctuary and, after a quick prayer, were immediately divided into two groups—singing and non-singing. Gregg took the vocalists into the choir room to practice and Tangie worked with the actors and actresses. For weeks, she’d planned how the rehearsals would go, had even mapped them out on paper, accounting for every minute of time. But now that the moment had arrived, things didn’t go exactly as planned.
For one thing, several kids were missing.
“Where’s Margaret Sanderson?” she asked, looking around.
“Margaret’s not going to be in the play,” a little girl named Abigail said. “She’s really mad.”
“Oh?” Tangie forced herself not to knee-jerk in front of the kids, though everything inside her threatened to do so.
“She wanted to get the main part.” Abigail shrugged. “But she didn’t.”
“All parts are equal in this play,” Tangie explained to the group. “There’s a saying in theater: ‘There are no small parts, only small actors.’ In other words, whether your part is little or big isn’t the point. It’s how much effort you put into it that counts.”
“Well, she’s not going to put any effort into it, ’cause she’s not coming,” Abigail said.
Tangie’s mind reeled. She’d specifically asked Margaret if she would be willing to accept any role she received and the little girl had agreed. And now this? We’re not off to a very good start, Lord.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of Gregg’s brother, Josh, as he swaggered up the center aisle of the church. Tangie glanced at the clock. Yep, just as she thought. He was ten minutes late. Looked like he wasn’t taking his role very seriously, at least not yet.
He drew near and whispered, “Sorry I’m late,” in her ear, then muttered something about his mom not feeli
ng well. Tangie softened immediately. “Ah. Okay.”
After a few seconds of glancing over her notes, she began to call the children to the stage. “Missy, you stand over here. Kevin, stand over there. Cody, take your place upstage right.”
“Upstage right?” He gave her a funny look, and she pointed to the spot where he needed to go.
Once all of the players were in place, Tangie clapped her hands. “Now, let’s do a quick read-through of the first scene. Starting with the narrator.”
She looked center stage, remembering Margaret—the narrator—was missing. “Hmm. I guess I’ll read the narrator’s lines.” She began to read, but off in the corner one of the boys distracted her. Tangie stopped and looked at Cody, who’d just punched Kevin in the arm. “Cody! What are you doing?”
“He called me a chicken.”
“Well, you are a chicken,” Kevin said with a shrug. “Aren’t you playing the part of a chicken in the play?”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I want to.” Cody groaned, his hands still knotted into tight fists. “My mom is making me do this dumb play just like she made me do the last one. I’m going to be a lousy chicken.”
Kevin began to squawk like a chicken and before long, everyone was laughing.
“Hey, at least you’re not one of the singing rabbits like me,” one of the other boys said. “Can you imagine telling your friends at school you have to wear rabbit ears in a play?”
“Yeah? Well what about me? I’m a sheep,” one of the little girls said with a sour look on her face. Everyone began to baa and before long, the stage was filled with squawking, bleating, squealing noises representing the entire animal kingdom.
Finally, Tangie had had enough. She felt like throwing her hands up in the air and walking away. If she felt this way on the first day, what was the week of performance going to be like?
A shiver ran down her spine as she thought about it. One mountain at a time, Tangie. One mountain at a time.
***
Gregg sat at the piano, playing a warm-up for the children in the choir. As they “la-la-la’d,” he listened closely. They sounded pretty good, for a first rehearsal. One or two of the kiddos were a little off-pitch, but this was certainly better than the Christmas production. Tangie was right—it worked out best for the non-singers to take acting roles. That way, everyone was happy. Well, mostly. Some of the boys still balked at the various roles they’d been given, but they’d get over it. In time. With therapy. Perhaps before they went off to college.
Out of the corner of his eye, Gregg saw someone come in the back of the room. Margaret Sanderson. According to his schedule, Margaret wasn’t supposed to come to the vocal room for another half hour. Perhaps she’d missed the memo. He paused as she approached the piano.
“My mom said I should talk to you.” She pushed a loose blond hair behind her ear.
“Oh?”
Margaret crossed her arms at her chest and glared at him. “She’s mad.”
“Ah ha.”
“Really mad.” Margaret began to tap her foot on the floor.
“Margaret, I’m sorry she feels that way.” Gregg lowered his voice. “But this isn’t the time to talk about it. Perhaps you could tell your mom that I’ll be happy to meet with her after we’re done with the rehearsal.”
Margaret sighed. “I don’t think she’ll come.” She shuffled off to the side of the room and took a seat, a scowl on her face.
Wow. Tangie was right about that one. The child did have some major attitude problems. Even more so when she didn’t get her way.
The rehearsal continued with few mishaps. Afterward, Margaret’s mother met with Gregg in the hallway, voicing her complaints, one after the other.
Gregg did his best to stay cool. “Mrs. Sanderson, I’m sure you can see that we have a lot of talented children in this congregation.”
“Humph.”
“And we did our best to put the children in the roles where they could grow and develop.”
“How is playing the narrator going to help Margaret develop? There’s no vocal solo. We’re talking about a child with an extraordinary gift here, one who’s going to go far. . .if she’s given the right opportunities.”
“Actually, she does have a solo in the midst of the group numbers. And the narrator threads the show together, after all. Margaret is onstage more than any other character, in fact. So, in that sense, I guess you could say that she’s got the lead role.”
Mrs. Sanderson’s face tightened even further—if that were possible. “Mr. Burke, you and I both know that Margaret should have been given the role of the littlest lamb, the one with the beautiful solo. Instead, you gave it to an unknown.”
An unknown? Was she serious? These were children.
For a moment, Gregg had the funniest feeling he’d slipped off into another galaxy, one where determined stage mothers ruled the day and lowly music directors became their subjects. Only, he didn’t want to subject himself to this madness—not now, not ever. He immediately prayed that the Lord would guard his tongue.
“Mrs. Sanderson, I’m sorry you and Margaret are disappointed, and I will understand if you withdraw her from the play. However, I want you to know that we’ve prayed over these decisions. At length. And we feel sure we’ve placed the children into the roles they have for a reason.”
The woman’s countenance changed immediately. “So, this is God’s doing? Highly unlikely. The God I serve doesn’t like to see church folks embarrassed. And this play is going to be an embarrassment to our congregation, just like the last one.”
Hang on a minute while I pull the knife from my heart, and then I’ll respond. Gregg exhaled slowly. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Then he turned to her, determined to maintain his cool.
“I’m not saying we’re perfect, and I certainly can’t guarantee this show will be any better than the last one. I can only assure you that we prayed and placed the children accordingly. Again, if you want to pull Margaret from the play, we will miss her. But we will certainly understand.”
At this point, he caught a glimpse of Tangie coming up the hallway. She looked as exhausted as he felt. Mrs. Sanderson turned to her, an accusing look in her eye. “We all know who’s to blame for this, anyway.”
“W–what?” Tangie looked back and forth between them, a shocked look on her face. “What am I being blamed for?”
“You know very well. You waltz in here in those crazy clothes and with that ridiculous spiked-up hair and stir up all kinds of trouble. Obviously, you need glasses.”
“G–glasses?”
“Yes. Otherwise you would have already seen that Margaret is the most talented child in this church.” Mrs. Sanderson grabbed a teary Margaret by the hand and pulled her down the hallway, muttering all the way.
Tangie looked at Gregg, her eyes wide. “Do I even want to know what that was about?”
“No.” He gestured for her to follow him into the choir room, where they both dropped into chairs. “Let’s just say she was out of line and leave it at that. And I also need to say that you were right all along about Margaret. Though, to be fair, I can’t really blame the child when it’s a learned behavior.”
“Right.” Tangie nodded. “I’ve met so many drama divas through the years. . .they’re getting easier to recognize. Still, I can’t help but think Margaret is supposed to be in this play. The Lord wants to soften her heart.”
“Sounds like He needs to start with her mom.”
Tangie gave Gregg a look of pure sweetness and reached out to touch his arm. “Let’s pray about that part, too, okay? I honestly think God has several plans we’re unaware of here. Putting on a show is always about so much more than just putting on a show. You know? God is always at work behind the scenes, doing things we can’t see or understand. We see the outside. He sees the inside.”
Gregg took her hands in his and sighed. “Tangie, you’ve managed to sum up so many things in that one statement.”
“What do you mean?” She
looked puzzled.
“I mean, man looks at the outward appearance. God looks at the heart. He’s not interested in the clothes we wear—colorful, outlandish, or otherwise.”
“Hey, now.”
Gregg chuckled. “You get what I’m saying. He’s too busy looking at our hearts. And you’re right. He’s working behind the scenes. I know He has been in my life. . .ever since you arrived. And now you’ve made me look for the deeper meaning, not just in a kids’ play, but in my own life. That’s one of the things I love most about you. You always look for deeper meaning in everything.”
Almost immediately, he realized what he’d said: One of the things I love most about you. Wow. A slip of the tongue, perhaps, or was Gregg really starting to fall in love? Gazing into Tangie’s eyes, he couldn’t help but think it was the latter.
SIXTEEN
On the Monday after the first rehearsal, Tangie went to work at the bakery. The place was buzzing with customers from early morning till around eleven. Then things began to slow down.
“People like their sweets early in the morning,” Tangie observed, pulling an empty bear claw tray from the glass case.
“And late in the afternoon. The after-school crowd can be quite a handful.” Penny wiped her hands on her apron, then leaned against the counter and took a drink from a bottle of water.
“How are you feeling, Penny?”
Penny shrugged as she went to work putting icing on some éclairs. “Chemo’s making me pretty squeamish. I’ve lost ten pounds in the last three weeks alone. And I want to pull this wig off and toss it across the room. Makes my head hot. And it itches.”
Tangie offered up a woeful smile. Penny’s last statement confirmed a suspicion she’d had all along. So, she did wear a wig. The hair seemed a little too perfect. But if anyone deserved to look extra-special, Penny did. Especially now.
Tangie paused to whisper a little prayer for her new friend. Penny had made it clear how she felt about the Lord, but that didn’t stop Tangie. She’d started praying daily about how to reach out to her. What to say. What not to say. She didn’t want to get in the way of what God might be doing in Penny’s life. Use me in whatever way You choose, but help me not to overstep my bounds.
Love at Center Stage: Three Theatrical Love Stories Page 11