Freezing a moment, an expression, a mood. She could practice with her phone camera, just play around. She’d walk around the neighborhood in the morning before she headed over to NYU to orient herself a little.
When her phone alarm sounded, she snatched it up.
“Curtain.”
She imagined the curtain rising on the stage in San Francisco, the lights, the set.
“Break a leg, everybody.”
She tried to occupy herself with more research, just couldn’t. She could hear the opening act, the notes, the beats, the dialogue, the voices.
Did the audience laugh here, applaud there? Were they charmed and engaged?
She imagined the whirl of backstage, the costume changes, the warm-ups, the rush to hit the cue.
Rising, she checked the locks, lowered the lights before going into her bedroom. To try to counteract the anxiety in her stomach, the not knowing, she rolled out her yoga mat, started a relaxation session.
She’d have relaxed more, she could admit, if she hadn’t kept checking the time, but she got in thirty minutes.
Trying to stretch out the time as she had her body, she changed into a tank and cotton sleeping shorts, did a long, involved skin care routine.
Made it to intermission.
She switched on the television, flipped through stations until she found a movie in progress. One with car chases and explosions to take her mind completely out of musical theater.
Apparently, the yoga worked better than she’d realized, as she dropped off as Matt Damon’s Jason Bourne disposed of bad guys.
The phone popped her awake. She scrambled for it, and the remote to turn off the TV. “Noah.”
“I woke you up. I knew I should’ve waited until morning.”
“I told you I’d mess you up if you did. I’m awake. Tell me.”
“Some kinks we need to work out.”
She could hear the noise, the voices, the buzz, buzz, buzz in the background. “Tell me,” she repeated.
“It was awesome.” The wondering laugh came through, warmed her. “It was freaking great. Full house, standing O. Twelve curtain calls. Twelve.”
“I knew it! I knew it! I’m so happy for you.”
“We have to see what the reviews say. Jeez, Cate, you should’ve heard the house explode when Lily came onstage. Your grandfather was out front. He’s coming to the cast party. I miss you.”
“I miss you, too, but I’m so happy for you. All of you.”
“Feels like the best night of my life. Go back to sleep. I’ll text you tomorrow.”
“Go celebrate. And when you have your smash opening on Broad-way, I’ll be there.”
“Counting on it. Night.”
“Night.”
She put the phone on the bedside charger, hugged herself. Smiling, she snuggled in, drifted off. When the phone signaled again, she sighed into another smile. “Noah,” she murmured when she answered.
“You didn’t do what you were told.”
The robotic voice shot her up in bed. “What? What?”
Music now. An iconic voice asking: “Are you lonesome tonight?”
Vises closing down her lungs as she fumbled for the light, wheezing as her eyes darted around the room.
Her mother’s voice, whispering: “You’re alone.” Static, a change in pitch. “You can’t hide!”
In a panic, she scrambled out of bed, fell to her knees.
Music again, the upbeat, cheerful sound turned to terror. “Hold on. I’m coming!”
A horror-movie laugh, the kind of greedy laugh that rose out of dark basements, through graveyard fog.
When the phone went dead, she burst into tears.
She didn’t just change her number, she trashed the phone, bought a new one. She struggled over whether or not to tell anyone. Opening night loomed, so the timing couldn’t have been worse. But in the end, she told Noah.
They sat in Café Café, his hands gripping hers. “It happened before?”
“Back in L.A., last winter. It was a recording. I mean, this one was different, but they’re recordings.”
“Why didn’t you tell your dad before?”
“Noah, I’ve told you how he gets, how he worries and tries to basically throw a force field around me. And I thought, really thought, it was just some jerk playing a nasty game.”
“But now it’s happened again. We’ll go to the cops.”
“I trashed the phone,” she reminded him. “Part of the panic, and stupid, but I trashed it. And what would they do anyway? It wasn’t really a threat.”
“Trying to scare somebody is a threat. Do you think it’s your mother?”
“No, not that she wouldn’t do something, but I don’t think she’d have used her own voice. In the first, I know it was from a movie she did. I’m betting this one is, too.”
“Cate, they knew you were alone.”
“Yeah.” She’d had time to think, time to calm and think. “I told you how it works with me. There have been a couple of squibs about me living in New York with G-Lil, even something about me registering for classes at NYU. The out-of-town opening got a lot of play, so . . .”
“You have to tell Lily. I’ll go with you.”
“What? Now?”
“Now.”
“I don’t want to upset her, and she can’t—”
Noah tossed the coffee money on the table. “If you don’t tell her, I will.”
That flipped a switch. “That’s not right. It’s my business, my decision.”
He simply rose, took her hand to pull her to her feet. “You’re going to have to deal with it.”
Furious, she argued, demanded, threatened, but didn’t budge him an inch on the fast walk to the condo. Those golden eyes she loved stayed hard, his face implacable.
Lily’s reaction didn’t make things better.
“Son of a bitch!”
Fresh from her massage, still in her robe, Lily swirled around the living room.
“The second time? And you didn’t tell me.”
“I just—”
“There’s no ‘I just.’ ” Her eyes narrowed as she caught the resentful look Cate tossed at Noah. “And don’t you take it out on him. Noah’s done the right thing.”
“There’s nothing you can do about it,” Cate began.
“You have no idea what I can do when I have to do it. But I can’t do a damn thing if I don’t know. I’m responsible for you, my girl. I don’t give a single cold damn if you’re eighteen or a hundred and eight. I’m responsible. And the first thing we do is report this to the police.”
Panic wanted to rear back. “Would you wait a minute, please?” The fury flying off Lily burned so hot it took genuine effort for Cate to step to her. “What happens then? I got rid of the phone. I can admit that was stupid, but it’s done. I tell them what I remember about the calls. Then what?”
“I’m not the damn police, so I don’t know then what.”
“I can figure out part of it. I file a report, and the report gets out. That’s a little feast for the tabloids. Then it’s public, and how many other calls do you think I’ll get once it is?”
“Son of a bitch!” Robe flapping, Lily stalked to the terrace doors, threw them open. Stalked out.
“Happy now?” Cate tossed at Noah.
“It’s not about happy, don’t be an idiot. She’s pissed because she loves you. So am I. So do I.”
“That doesn’t help right now.” Though it did, more than a little. Gearing up, she walked outside.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I didn’t tell anyone the first time because I knew Dad wouldn’t let me do the movie, and I wanted it. I needed it. He wouldn’t have let me.”
“Probably not,” Lily muttered.
“I didn’t say anything at first about this time because, G-Lil, you’ve got opening night.”
Lily whirled around. “Do you think a play’s more important to me than you? That anything in this world is more important to me than you?”
“No. It’s the same for me. There was press about my mother getting out, about me, about the new project when the first one happened. And there’s been a little about me going to NYU just recently, and all the interviews she’s doing about her wedding. Somebody took a shot.”
“She could have done it herself. I wouldn’t put it past her.”
“She could hire better.”
The sun, as fiery as Lily’s hair, shot light over the river, bounced it off steel and glass.
“They’re recordings, G-Lil. I know a recording when I hear it. The overdubbing, the really crappy splicing. She has plenty of money now to pay for quality, and this isn’t.”
“That doesn’t make it better.”
“But I can’t stop living my life because of it. I hate the way it makes me feel when it’s happening, but I can’t stop living my life.”
Lily walked back into the shade, sat, drummed her fingers. “No one wants that, Catey. You have a point about the police. This time. If it happens again, we do this differently. You keep the phone, call the police, give them the phone, and let them do what they do.”
“All right.”
“For now, you’ll write down whatever you remember from both calls so we have a record, if we need it. You’re going to call your father and tell him.”
“But—”
“No.” Eyes glittering, Lily shot up a finger. “That’s absolute. What we’ll call unhealthy communications happen to people in our line of work—and you were in our line of work. But he needs to know. Then you’ll make up with your boyfriend, because he did the right thing, and he did it out of love and concern.”
“I don’t like the way he did it.”
Lily arched those eyebrows. “Enough to kick him to the curb over it?”
“No.”
“Then go make up—get that done. Then have him get me—and himself—a nice cold Coke. We’ll sit out here while you deal with your daddy. I’ll back you up there,” Lily decided. “Bring me the phone after you’ve gotten things started.”
With no way out, she went back inside where Noah waited. “I don’t like the way you did this.”
“I got that.”
“I need to be able to handle my own life, make my own decisions.”
“This is different. You know it’s different, but you’re still too twisted up about it to admit it.” He walked to her before she could snap back, put his hands on her face. “I can’t stand seeing you twisted up. I can’t not do anything when you are.”
He brushed his lips over hers. “You’re going to be less twisted up now that she knows.”
“Maybe, but now I have to tell my father, and that’s going to be a mess. She said to get some Cokes and go out and sit with her while I call my dad.”
It was messy, and upsetting, and ultimately took that dose of Lily to close it off. But the worst Cate feared didn’t happen. She wasn’t ordered to come back to L.A.—an order she would have refused. And she had yet another chance to live her life.
Before opening night came final dress and a theater filled with the energy of family and friends. Cate had her first experience watching it all full out—lights, music, sets, costumes—in a theater jammed with people who wanted nothing more than the success of their loved one on the stage.
She met Noah’s family, and that felt like another major step in her life.
On the preview night, the one critics attended, she stayed backstage. Critics and press meshed together. She didn’t want to chance taking the spotlight off her grandmother, her boyfriend.
Still, she agonized with the cast in the wait for the early reviews, celebrated with the raves.
With Monday’s dark theater, she took an early dance class with Noah, and he went with her to tour the campus she’d attend at NYU.
“It’s so big,” she said as they walked to the subway. “And that’s just part of it. It feels overwhelming.”
“You’ll do fine. Better than fine.”
Together they walked down the steps to take the train uptown.
“Private school, tutors.”
“Poor rich white girl,” he said, which made her laugh and give him an elbow jab.
“It’s the vastness, I guess.” They moved through the revolving gate. “And so many people. Even summer courses are going to have a lot of students. The advantage to that,” she added, pulling out her Metro-Card, “is being able to more or less disappear. Change of Scene’s coming out in a couple weeks. The rest of the cast is already starting the circuit.”
“We’re going to see it.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” She hunched, wiggled her shoulders as if shaking off an itch.
“No way out.”
They waited on the platform with two women, one with a round-cheeked baby in a stroller. They spoke rapid Spanish while the baby gnawed ferociously on an orange teething ring. Nearby a man in a business suit used his thumb to scroll on his phone. Beside him, a short, squat man in baggy basketball shorts polished off a slice while bopping his head to whatever played through his earbuds.
The air smelled of the pizza, baked-in sweat, and someone’s overdone onion rings.
“It ended up being a pretty crap part of my life.”
Noah just trailed a hand down her arm. “Another reason we’re going, so you can see how good you are even through the crap parts. We can catch a matinee.” He took her hand as the thunder of the approaching train swelled through the tunnel.
The doors swooshed open, and people piled out, people piled on. “How about we hit the park?” He tugged her toward seats. “We can do the stroll-in-the-sun thing, grab a couple street dogs.”
And keep his mind off tomorrow night. Opening night.
“I like the sound of that. I can drop the backpack off at the condo, change into stroll-in-the-sun shoes.”
He looked down at his own beat-to-shit Nikes. “I could use some new shoes.”
“We can add shopping to the stroll.”
He shifted his gaze over. “How many shoes have you got?”
“Irrelevant,” she said primly—so primly he grinned and kissed her.
They talked about potential shoes, strolls, maybe hooking up with some friends, maybe just going back to his place, since at least one of his roommates had an afternoon audition, and he thought the other one had a shift at his day job.
Living life, she thought. No ugly calls, no pushy press would stop her.
“We combine,” she decided as they walked from the elevator to the condo. “Your place first, especially if it’s empty, because that just never happens. Then the stroll, shoes to follow so we’re not schlepping bags.”
“Maybe.” He slid his hand down her hair as she got out her key. “Or maybe we’ll never get out of my place.”
“You would think that.”
Laughing, a little starry-eyed, they walked in.
“And here she is!”
Hugh stepped in from the terrace, absolute delight on his face as he opened his arms.
“Grandpa. You were supposed to come tomorrow.”
She dropped her backpack on the floor, hurried forward for the hug.
“We decided to surprise you and Lily, and maybe catch you with some dancing boys.” He gave her a kiss on both cheeks, looked over at Noah. “And we did! The juggler with the very talented feet.”
“Yes, sir, thank you. Noah Tanaka.” He shook Hugh’s hand. “I can get more dancing boys on a couple minutes’ notice.”
Hugh let out a laugh, slapped him on the back.
“It’s fine, Lily. I’ll be fine.”
Cate’s head swiveled at the voice. “Dad.”
She bolted to him, squeezed as tight as she was squeezed when he lifted her off her feet.
“Let me look at you. Pictures and Skype aren’t the same.” He drew her back.
However skillfully he masked it, she knew him too well and saw the worry.
“I’m fine, Dad. More than.”
“I can see that. I’ve mi
ssed you.”
“I missed you, too. We were all set for tomorrow. Having a late lunch, a fancy one, here before Lily had to go to the theater. Then we’d walk over and slip in the stage door.”
“We’ll do that, too. Dad and I decided we’d take more time, surprise you.”
Lily looked straight at Cate. “Surprise. Aidan, this is Noah, he’s in the chorus.”
“He’s not going to stay there,” Hugh commented. “Boy’s got presence.”
“It’s great meeting you, Mr. Sullivan. Both of you.”
“Nice meeting you. Is this your first time on Broadway?”
“Actually, my third. I only put one in the Playbill because the other shut down after ten days. But . . . I should . . . take off.”
“We’re taking our two best girls to lunch,” Hugh put in. “Why don’t you join us?”
“Oh, well, thanks, but—”
Shit, Cate thought, shit. Take the next step.
“Lunch sounds great.” Reaching out, she took Noah’s hand. “Noah and I, we’re together.”
She saw surprise flicker over her father’s face, and maybe a little distress. “I’m going to take a minute. New territory for me. ‘Together’ means . . .”
“Dad, I’m eighteen.”
“Right. That happened. Well, it seems lunch is now required. I need to spend time grilling Noah.” He made a warning sound, pointed at Cate when she opened her mouth to object. “My job. I’m just figuring out how to do this part of it. Lily, you said your place for lunch is only a few blocks away.”
“That’s right. A very pleasant walk.”
Aidan gave Noah a wide, toothy smile. “For some of us.”
Later, when she walked with Noah to the corner—in the opposite direction of her family—she covered her face with her hands.
“I’m so sorry!”
“No, it’s cool. It’s weird, but it’s cool. Maybe a little scary at first. No, a lot.”
He swiped a hand over his forehead as if swiping off sweat.
“So you know how he said he had to figure this part out? Well, he’s a fast study, your old man. He practically twisted my life story out of me before we got to the restaurant. And he’s all ‘What’s next for you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Ah, ah, I want to move up to principal dancer, and speaking roles and, okay, I want to headline. I’ll work for it, but I want to headline.’ ”
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