by Mindy Klasky
“Maddy Rubens, Jules McElroy, this is Drew Myers.” Jules offered her hand, which Drew took distractedly. He was busy watching me move across the room, into the kitchen.
It was times like this that I really wished I could have a drink. A stiff one.
Maddy said wryly, “We’ve met before.”
“I—I don’t remember,” Drew said, barely managing the social nicety.
“Death of a Salesman,” she said. “You were Happy.” He blinked at her, clearly having trouble processing the conversation. “I designed the lights. At the Orpheum.”
Drew suddenly nodded. “I remember! I remember the show! But we had a terrible stage manager.”
Maddy sounded personally offended. “David Epstein is an excellent stage manager!”
“He’s not Kira.” Drew whirled toward me, a sappy smile painted across his face.
Maddy snorted. I could tell she thought Drew was drunk. I couldn’t really blame her. Maddy said pointedly to Jules, “I have to get up early tomorrow.”
“Oh!” Jules said. “I have an early day tomorrow also.”
Well, no wonder my housemate was relegated to roles in industrial films. She sounded so stiff that no one could ever have believed her.
Maddy said to me, “You’ll be okay?”
“Yeah. I’ll be fine.”
With one more exchange of meaningful glances, Maddy and Jules went back to their respective bedrooms. Drew looked at me expectantly. Okay. So I couldn’t offer him a drink, courtesies of my stupid allergy. Even I wasn’t enough of a caffeine fiend to mainline the stuff after midnight. Tea. We could have a nice, soothing cup of herbal tea.
Still trying to figure out the right thing to say, I dug around in the kitchen cupboards, coming up with a pair of chamomile tea bags. I felt Drew watch every move I made, as I filled the kettle, took out two mugs, two spoons, two paper napkins. I lit the burner and put the water on to boil.
“Honey?” I asked, and he nodded, as pathetically eager to please as a puppy. I quickly clarified, “I mean, do you want honey in your tea?” Disappointed, he shook his head. “Drew—” I started to say.
“Kira—” he began at the same time. “No. You go first.”
I wasn’t even sure what I wanted to tell him. It wasn’t like I could say, “This is all a mistake.”
I didn’t know that it was a mistake. Sure, Teel had obviously had a bit of fun, granting this last wish. He’d indulged his sense of drama. He’d twisted my wish in a way I hadn’t anticipated, turning my words upside down in ways that weren’t quite fair.
But it was entirely possible that this story could still have a happy ending. After all, Shakespeare himself had written about just this situation. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the fairies play tricks on the humans, making lovers fall for each other against all odds. At the end of that play, one of the men was still be-spelled, but everyone was happy.
I just had to treat Drew with dignity. With respect. Teel might have bulldozed my way into Drew’s heart, but now that I was there, I could make things grow between us naturally. Once we’d had a chance to get to know each other in more…conventional ways, everything else would fall into place. It wasn’t like we were total strangers. I’d become attracted to him because of the man I’d seen in rehearsals. Because I could appreciate him as an actor.
Because he was the most spectacular specimen of human male I’d ever laid eyes on.
And he was standing less than a foot away from me. His eyes were locked on my face. His lips quivered, just a little, as he breathed. I could smell his shampoo on his hair, something sharp, clean.
I chickened out, abandoning whatever confession I’d half planned on making.
“Hot water’s ready!” I swept the teakettle from the stovetop, even though it hadn’t yet begun to whistle. I poured into our mugs very carefully, pretending that the operation took the utmost concentration to complete. I unwrapped the tea bags, dipped them simultaneously, precisely, as if I were conducting some exotic type of brain surgery.
“Here you go!” I said brightly. I started to carry his mug to the table in the dining room, but then I realized that I wasn’t sure I wanted him walking behind me, with both hands free—not in his current enchanted state. I shoved his cup into his right hand, then came close to pelting him with the plastic honey bear, just to keep him fully occupied. By the time we sat down at the table, I’d had a chance to form a plan.
“Drew,” I said, pitching my voice to a tone of perfect reason. “It’s really common for people on a play to think they love each other. We spend a lot of time together, every single day. Bill has us working in really close quarters. This production is even worse than usual, because of the way the show’s designed.”
“I love the show,” he said. “I love the show because you’re stage managing it.”
Okay. I knew it was a corny line. I knew that if Maddy were still standing here, she’d roll her eyes, pretend to shove a finger down her throat, probably even snort out loud.
But I had to admit that I was enjoying the attention. Even if this was all because of Teel’s meddling, there was some perverse part of me that enjoyed having a man look at me—me! Kira Franklin!—with a look of perfect adoration.
Drew fiddled with the handle on his mug. “I know this must sound sudden to you. We’ve been working together for weeks, and it probably seems like I haven’t even noticed that you’re alive. I mean, with all the women in the cast, every single one of them there because she’s got a great rack, you know, to make Bill’s point about the sexes…And then, when your intern, when Teel started coming around and showing us what we were supposed to be thinking and feeling, and all that really hot stuff she said about the balcony scene…”
I cleared my throat, trying to get him to the end of his thought. He shook his head, looking utterly perplexed by the path he’d just walked down. “It’s sudden,” he said simply. “And I know I made a fool out of myself tonight.” He nodded toward the window, toward the driveway where his car hulked, mute witness to his impulsivity. “It’s totally like I’m watching myself on stage here. I can see myself doing these things, hear myself saying these lines. But at the same time, I know that they’re real. I know that they’re true. I know that they’re totally how I really feel.”
His eyelashes were still damp from the tears he had shed. He swallowed, and his Adam’s apple bobbed.
“Drew,” I said, hating myself. I had to explain. Even if I couldn’t use the words “genie” or “magic” or “wish,” I had to let him know what was going on. “It’s not that simple. Things aren’t what they seem.”
“Nothing is ever what it seems. Dude, isn’t that what our show is all about? Aren’t we learning to ask ourselves questions, to see beneath the surface?”
I had to nod.
“Oh, Kira,” he said, and the despair in his voice was so real, so tangible, that I thought my heart would break. “I’m not good at this. I’m not good at talking about my feelings.” He closed his eyes, took a deep breath. He exhaled long, slow, as if he were trying to meditate himself onto a different plane. “I woke up from that dream tonight, and everything was different.”
“I know,” I said simply.
“This is going to sound like lines from some bad play, but it’s like I was blind all those years. But now I understand. Now I know. I want to be with you, Kira. I want to be with you more than I’ve ever wanted anything in the world.”
Damn, Teel was good. I plucked at my napkin. “Drew, I—”
“Please,” he said, and his fingers closed over mine. “Please, Kira. Let’s just see what happens.”
His hand was hot from the mug. Carefully, tentatively, as if he were afraid I’d disappear, he leaned toward me. He touched his lips to mine, setting them there like a question, like a hope. I felt the shadow of his breath.
I kissed him back.
At first, it was a frightened kiss, a chaste kiss, the sort of kiss a lonely thirteen-year-old girl shares with the
boy of her dreams. It changed, though. It grew. It deepened into another sort of kiss entirely until it was starvation, thirst, frantic, raving desperation.
His hands tangled in my hair, pulling me closer. I laughed, and he pushed back his chair, grating its legs across the dining room floor, somehow managing to tug me with him. I opened my eyes just in time to catch the wild look on his face; he’d already pulled his arm back, ready to sweep the kitchen table clear, to create a horizontal surface that I was almost certain—with my years of stage-manager expertise—would collapse like matchsticks beneath us.
“No!” I whispered urgently, knowing that Maddy and Jules would be out here in a heartbeat if they heard anything crash to the floor. I clutched his hand to reinforce my message, and then I pulled him down the hallway, through the door of my bedroom. Even as the latch snicked closed, his arms were tight around me, supporting me, consuming me. We staggered to the bed, toppled onto the comforter. He continued to kiss me, to tease me, to make me writhe.
After a lifetime, I caught enough breath to put my hands on his chest, to push him away for long enough that I could speak. “Just a minute,” I said. “I just need to get—”
We were both panting as I wriggled out from underneath him. My backpack was sprawled across my desk where I’d left it. The first aid kit was snug in the front pocket. My fingers shook as I worked the plastic hasp; I’d never in my life been so grateful that I was a stage manager, that I was the queen of preparedness personified.
The foil packets were folded into the bottom of the plastic box. When I’d assembled the kit, I’d laughed at myself, wondering when I’d ever need them, when a cast member would require my foresight, would have the nerve to ask me for condoms. The absurdity of that imagined scene, though, hadn’t kept me from adding them to my professional stash of emergency goods.
As I clutched my prize, Drew’s hands closed around my waist, and he pulled me back to the bed.
By morning, I was glad I’d bought a three-pack.
CHAPTER 12
THERE WAS SOMETHING TO BE SAID FOR EARLY-MORNING rehearsals, at least when I got to wake up next to the leading man. Leading woman. Whatever.
Drew and I were jarred back to consciousness by my screeching alarm clock; I had purposely set it for 7:00 a.m., so that we’d have time to get ready before our nine o’clock cast call. We’d have to take a side trip to Drew’s house, so that he could find some slightly more appropriate clothing than pajama bottoms and mismatched shoes.
I rolled out of bed and tugged on my bathrobe. Drew burrowed deeper into my sheets as I went out to start a pot of coffee. My sheets…The man I had lusted after for nearly six weeks was burrowing into my sheets.
Before closing the door to my bedroom, I glanced at the bed skirt. Teel’s lantern was still shoved under there. What were people going to say, when my so-called theater intern didn’t show up at rehearsal anymore? How could I account for the absent sexpot?
I wasn’t complaining, I reminded myself. Teel had served her function. We were all better off without her, going forward.
And it wasn’t like we needed any sexual interpretation for the day’s work. Mercutio was going to die today, and I had to make sure that we had appropriate iron pipes ready. Not that anyone was actually going to beat Stephanie senseless. But I could dream about a little staged violence against TEWSBU’s current girlfriend, couldn’t I? Nobody would blame me for that.
Actually, I thought, as I breathed in the aroma of brewing double-strength coffee, Stephanie didn’t bother me nearly as much as she had. I caught myself actually wishing that TEWSBU would drop by one of our rehearsals, wishing that he could see me now. See me in my dream theater job with my dream body, hanging out with my dream boyfriend.
My boyfriend.
That had been one hell of a third wish.
I poured a cup of coffee for me, then one for Drew, taking care to add a healthy splash of Jules’s milk to his, along with a generous spoonful of sugar. I’d only seen him drinking lattes at Club Joe, and I had yet to encounter anyone who could match me, cup for cup, on the mud that I brewed.
Before I could sneak back into my bedroom, Maddy shuffled into the kitchen. She took one look at the two mugs in my hand and raised her eyebrows.
“What?” I said defensively.
“Company?” she asked, as if I regularly hosted overnight visitors.
I couldn’t swallow my smile. “Yeah,” I said. “Drew stayed over.”
Maddy rustled in the freezer for a box of frozen waffles. “You go, girl. He is a damned good-looking guy. But what’s the deal? You go for a year without dating anyone, and then Romeo himself comes beating down the door?”
“Juliet,” I said, frowning. “Look, Maddy, just because it’s taken me a while to get back on my feet—”
Maddy must have heard the defensiveness in my voice, because she shook her head. “I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with it. It was just a surprise, that’s all. I would have expected you to tell Jules and me more about him, you know, when you saw that things were heading…in that direction.” She set her jaw and nailed me with a direct gaze. “I’m a little worried that you felt you couldn’t share with us, couldn’t tell us what was happening in your life.”
I wasn’t about to tell her that Drew’s declaration of love had been a complete surprise to me, as well. Better that she think I’d been hiding the growth of a true, meaningful relationship, than she think that I’d tumbled into bed with the first guy in a year who’d swung from our street lamp and serenaded me by moonlight.
Which, come to think of it, I had. But this was different. This was safer. This was engineered by Teel. Even if Maddy didn’t know that. She didn’t know that everything was going to be all right. She was worried about me. In fact, from her perspective, she had every reason to be worried about me.
In a rush of sudden understanding, I set down the coffee mugs and gave her a quick hug. “I haven’t seen much of you in the past few weeks,” I said, letting some real remorse flavor the confession that I hoped would distract her, just a little bit. “Between my show and yours, and Jules being out in California, it’s just been crazy around here.”
“It’s always crazy around here,” Maddy said as her waffles popped up from the toaster. She nodded grudgingly, though, apparently accepting my explanation. She glanced at the whiteboard. “Jules is already gone this morning, and I’m heading out in half an hour.”
I recognized the question she hadn’t asked, the practical roommate concern. “Don’t worry,” I said. “Drew and I can wait to shower until after you leave.” I blushed as I realized that sounded like we’d be showering together. Well, maybe we would be. Teel’s little magic trick had certainly inspired other amorous excesses in the past few hours. “I’ll see you tonight?”
“Nope,” Maddy said as she finished dousing her waffles with syrup. “Gunther and I are going out to dinner. He wants to celebrate our three-week anniversary.” It was my turn to raise surprised eyebrows. Maddy wasn’t usually the sentimental type. Of course, she’d usually dumped her men before they had anything approaching an anniversary to celebrate. “What?” she asked. “It’s a sweet gesture!”
“Yeah,” I said. “Very sweet.” An adjective I never thought I would apply to Maddy’s love life—or to Maddy at all—in a million years. “We’ll catch up soon.”
“Yep,” she said, catching a drip of maple syrup on one finger. “I want to hear all about what’s new.”
I blushed and snagged my cups of coffee before they could get even colder. Catching my breath, I ducked back into my bedroom.
Drew was lying facedown on my bed, his head buried in my pillow. I put the coffee on my nightstand and sat beside him, reaching out one tentative hand to his bare shoulders. Was this what I was supposed to do? How we were supposed to act? What if I had somehow miscommunicated my wish to Teel, managed to screw things up despite my most frantic attempts to provide clarifying details? What if Drew and I had shared some one-nigh
t special, and things were back to normal this morning? Back to horrible, awkward, no self-confidence normal this morning?
“Good morning, Gorgeous.” Drew looked positively wicked, squinting through sleepy eyelids.
Well, I guess my wish was lasting for longer than one sheet-tangled night. “Hi,” I said, and then because I didn’t really know how I was supposed to respond to his apparent pet name for me, I said, “I brought some coffee.”
He rolled over and sat up, letting the sheet bunch around his waist like the bed linens in some carefully scripted television show. I passed his coffee to him, and we clinked mugs together. Our eyes met over the rims of our cups. Once again, I marveled at the color of his, at the ordinary brown, made extraordinary by flecks of gold and emerald. He grinned as he took a sip.
He almost spit his coffee out; I watched him fight to swallow what he had in his mouth.
“You drink this stuff?” he yelped.
I swooped in to keep him from spilling across the sheets. “I added milk and sugar to yours! I like it strong,” I said defensively.
“Dude, that’s not strong. That’s lethal. You could strip paint with that stuff.”
“Sorry.”
He reached across me to deposit his mug on my nightstand. “Besides,” he said, and his crafty smile proved that it wasn’t an accident when his fingers snaked into the loops of my bathrobe belt. “There are better ways to wake up than with coffee.”
I thought of Maddy, taking her shower before she rushed out of the house. I had an obligation to my housemate, a duty to keep Drew engaged while she went about her busy morning routine. With a proud sense of honor, I succumbed to Drew’s distraction. I never even heard Maddy close the front door when she left.
In the end, Drew and I were both pretty rushed, getting showered, pulling on clothes, slamming down some semblance of breakfast. He was thrilled by my Cap’n Crunch. (Read: He was thrilled by anything about me—except my coffee.) I borrowed another one of Jules’s yogurts, savoring the peaches and cream as if it were a delectable dessert.