Acting Up

by Adele Buck

  To: Alicia Johnson

  From: Susan Vernon

  Subject: Audition for “The Catalyst”

  Hey girl—did I hear you were up for Molly in that new Talfourd play? So am I! OMG, seeing Paul Mainwaring’s face in an audition room again after all these years…memories. He’s still cute, if you ignore the fungus on top of his head. Which, as you can imagine, I can’t. My standards are too high. He’s done genius stuff in the last few years, though. It would be interesting to work with him.

  Cath D. was still there playing Vestal Virgin to Paul’s High Priest of the Theater. Ugh. You would think she would have become an accountant or a librarian or something more suited to her by now. How can someone so skinny and plain work in the arts? Well, not that stage managers have anything to do with art. But frankly, it makes me sick that she would hang on to him like a lovesick puppy this long. You think he keeps her around to stroke his ego, or is he just blind? She even wears the same style sneakers as he does. It’s ridiculous.

  Anyway, let the best woman win. You’re sure to get it.

  All my love,

  Susan

  To: Susan Vernon

  From: Alicia Johnson

  Subject: RE: Audition for “The Catalyst”

  Hi hon—oh, I had hoped the rumors I heard weren’t true. Now I know I won’t get to play Molly. You’re too good. Not to mention that you have that history with Paul Mainwaring. And I am so sure you’d kick him out of bed for eating crackers, messy hair or no. Not. Methinks you protest too much. Anyway, he’s sure to cast you, you vixen. Better make sure my agent has some other stuff lined up for me.

  Unless…are you really after that untitled movie that has everyone talking? It would be just like you to talk a big game about going to play a role in a new play in Lower Bumblefuck, CT and then end up on a marquee in Los Angeles. You’ll bring me as your plus-one to the premiere, right? We could make quite a splash together on the red carpet, don’t you think?

  Smooches,

  ‘Lis

  Chapter 2

  Cath swiped a lank strand of hair off her sweaty forehead and tapped at the screen of the phone strapped to her arm. Ten miles, and close to her personal best time. Not bad. Getting out of Manhattan had the benefit of improved air quality, and her runs had seemed a touch easier since she had arrived in Connecticut.

  Still breathing heavily, she dug the keys to her home away from home out of the pocket of her shorts. The cast of Hamilton was still apparently expecting cardio from her, belting the final bars of “The Room Where it Happens” through her earbuds. Her heart thumped in time with the number.

  The dark, dingy entryway of the renovated Victorian smelled like dryer sheets and burned garlic. Cath walked past the door to the ground-floor apartment Paul was staying in, the familiar prickle of awareness of his presence behind the closed door making her sigh and rub her eyes. He had told her he was going to spend his morning going over the playwright’s latest changes, his grumbling about the fickle nature of writers belied by an eager gleam in his eye. Paul’s praise of the play hadn’t been hyperbole. She agreed with his belief that it had the potential to change their careers for the better, be a pivot point for both of them. At the same time, he acknowledged that as good as the play had been in its audition draft, the latest revisions made it even better.

  Cath rolled her shoulders and tilted her head to stretch her neck as she headed for the stairs. The final Click, boom! of the song resonated in her ears when a touch on her shoulder made her start violently. Whirling, she yanked the earbuds out by the cords and rested her hand on her chest to slow her thudding heart.

  “Susan.” Closing her eyes, she saw an afterimage of the woman’s impossibly beautiful face imprinted on her retinas. Forcing a smile and willing her leaping heart to return to its usual location, Cath reopened her eyes. “What are you doing here today? I didn’t think the cast was arriving until tomorrow.”

  A broad smile lit Susan’s enormous, tilted amber eyes. Not for the first time, Cath found herself grudgingly admiring the woman’s golden-tan skin, loosely curling black hair, full lips, and those almost feline eyes. Nobody would deny that Susan was gorgeous.

  Too bad about the personality.

  “I decided to come a day early. See what the lay of the land is. I’ve never been to Churchill before. It’s… quaint, isn’t it?” Susan asked. Without waiting for an answer, she went on. “But apparently, the cast housing isn’t ready today. I came to beg for a place to sleep with Paul.”

  Cath’s stomach lurched, but she willed herself not to react, her facial muscles rigid. Sleep. Right. “And can he…accommodate you?”

  “Says he doesn’t have enough room and has too much work to do to have me ‘underfoot.’” Hooking her fingers in the air beside her face to indicate the quotes, Susan pouted.

  Dread squeezed Cath’s heart. No wonder Susan appeared friendly. She wanted something. Of course she did. “There’s a bed and breakfast in the center of town,” Cath said with a tight smile.

  The pout increased. “Really? I can’t stay with you for just one night?”

  “Susan, my so-called apartment is the size of a large closet.” Cath hadn’t thought she could be grateful that even by Manhattan standards, the place was minuscule. A single long room containing a small table with two chairs, a little kitchenette built into one short wall, and a love seat and tiny coffee table that needed to be shoved away to accommodate the Murphy bed swinging down from the wall when it was time to go to sleep.

  Susan grimaced. “Yeah, I saw Paul’s place. Eensy.”

  “And his place is at least twice the size of mine. Paul has the only one-bedroom in the building. The rest are studios.” And I am sure as hell not sharing a bed with you. “Listen, I have to get a shower and get to the theater.” Cath crossed her arms across her chest, aware of her sticky, clammy body clad in running spandex contrasting with Susan’s clean skin, subtle makeup, and the light summer dress that clung to her body in ways that had nothing to do with sweat or exertion. “I’m sorry the cast housing isn’t ready yet, but you really should have checked before you came all this way. Try the B&B.”

  Ignoring the flat anger flooding Susan’s face, Cath turned and jogged up the stairs to her apartment.

  Paul tugged at his hair and considered the maquette of the set design in front of him. “Karl, I asked for a vertical element on stage left.” Instead of looking at the set designer, he found himself looking at Cath, who had picked up her notebook and was leafing through her notes from the set and costume design meetings. Years of experience told him she would back him up, finding the proof of the conversation in her records and providing it if necessary.

  Karl stuffed one hand into the pocket of his paint-spattered jeans and stroked his ginger beard with the other, considering the meticulous scale model in front of them. “Yeah. But the budget…”

  “I’m not talking about a grand staircase. James Martin is a physical actor. I want to take advantage of that. The theater already has plenty of scaffolding in-house. Make do, but go up. Minimal is fine. Actually…” Paul paced around the table, looking at the maquette from a different angle. “Considering we’re dealing with themes of fantasy vs. reality, sanity and madness, how about taking the design successively more minimal the further you get to stage left? We can incorporate that into the blocking, too. By the time you get to the left wing, the bare scaffold can be all that’s left.”

  Karl considered this, his brawny shoulders hunched and his thick brows drawn together. Paul left him to think and walked over to where Cath was sitting. Her notes unneeded, she was now color-coding her copy of the script.

  Seeming to be unaware of Paul’s scrutiny, she tilted her head and swept her long, straight hair up and over one shoulder, fingertips coming up to rest on the slight widow’s peak that made her face into an elongated heart. Paul had seen her do this dozens of times over the years, snatching moments where she wasn’t needed in early meetings to painstakingly mark the scri
pt with her own colorful, arcane system.

  Cath set down a green pen and picked up a blue one, carefully ticking a line, then scratching her neck with the butt end of the pen, sending a dangling earring swinging. Paul realized he was intently focused on that ear, the silky fall of dark hair behind it, the smooth column of Cath’s neck. He mentally shook himself like a dog emerging from a chilly lake.

  This is Cath, you idiot. Get yourself under control.

  He wasn’t stupid. He realized his best friend and most trusted professional ally was a woman. But…he didn’t normally see her that way. They had the relationship they had: friends and collaborators. It worked. He liked it that way.

  His brain, traitor that it was, flew back to college instead of coming obediently to heel. That one night in senior year with the too many beers—well, one of many nights with too many beers, but this one had been different. He had been at Cath’s apartment, sitting with her on her tiny sofa. They had been playing one of their silly word games, and Cath had gone helpless with laughter at something he had said. She had leaned over, clutching her stomach, howling. When she looked up, dashing her hair off her forehead, eyes bright with mirth, Paul had been struck. Nobody could deny that Cath had beautiful eyes, large and green and fringed with long, dark lashes. But in that moment, all of Cath’s features had suddenly looked like the most harmonious whole to Paul. The long, sensitive face. The pointed chin. The wide, laughing mouth.

  Paul had almost leaned in and kissed her at that moment.

  Which would have been a mistake.

  And he should forget all about it.

  But that moment had a way of intruding at inopportune times.

  Like now.

  Paul took a deep breath and turned back to the set designer. “So, Karl. What do you think? The erection?”

  Cath and Karl looked at him and Paul froze for a moment, then waved at the maquette, trying to ignore the heat that flooded over his face.

  “The vertical element. Christ, people. Are we all twelve?”

  Erection? Cath sat, paralyzed, as Paul started talking and gesturing at the maquette.

  Good grief. If he’s thinking about…Did Susan manage to get in his pants that fast? She glanced at Karl, who was staring at her, a question in his dark brown eyes. He mouthed the word at her for good measure, and she felt her own eyes widen and one shoulder rose in a helpless shrug, misery souring her stomach and blood heating her face. Karl shook his head and dug his fingers into his beard, returning his attention to Paul who was leafing through costume design drawings and holding them up to gauge the colors against the set.

  Biting her lip, Cath realized her thighs were squeezed together, intensifying the heat pooling there. She took a careful breath in and tried to relax, covertly watching as Paul and Karl started to argue. Paul’s blue eyes were glittering with challenge and intelligence, and Cath took advantage of his preoccupation just to watch him make his passionate case. In all their years together she hadn’t yet tired of watching him work. She wondered if she ever would.

  That’s enough of that. Back to work yourself. Looking down at her script, Cath realized she had marked one of Molly’s lines with green ink.

  “Dammit.” She leaned over to dig in her shoulder bag for a pad of sticky notes. She would have to reprint this page. Starting rehearsals with a clean script, marked perfectly with the system that seemed so clear to her but apparently baffled everyone else, was one of her rituals. It grounded her and helped her feel prepared for the long process of rehearsals and meetings that were part of the mundane alchemy that created the magic of live theater out of nothing.

  Flagging the page and turning to the next, she muttered, “Stupid superstitions. I might as well be an actor at this rate.”

  “Don’t quit your day job.” Susan’s all-too-familiar voice sounded behind Cath. “You didn’t seem to enjoy scene study classes in college. That’s why you switched majors, right?”

  Cath’s jaw clenched and she looked up to see Karl staring, apparently unimpressed, at Susan’s entry. Paul showed no signs of noticing, still intent on how the costumes would work with the set design. Turning to look over her shoulder, Cath saw that Susan still sported the light summer dress she had worn earlier in the day. How bored and needy does she have to be to come prowling around here now? Design meetings were anathema to many, if not most actors. They wanted the set created, but usually had little interest in how it actually got from design to stage. The same with costumes, props, and lighting.

  Cath took a deep breath and forced herself to speak calmly. “Actually, Susan, I always wanted to be a stage manager. I had to take the one acting class as a graduation requirement. Same as you had to take a class in the trades.”

  “Oh, God.” Susan rolled her eyes. “That. I had blocked that out. Sewing costumes. Painting sets. The worst.” Spotting Karl, her eyes lit up and she marched toward him, hand extended. “Hi. I’m Susan Vernon. I’ll be playing Molly. And you are?” Her eyes traveled up and down his body, taking in the shaggy red hair, scruffy beard, and powerful build.

  Karl, still nonplussed, shook Susan’s hand, his large paw engulfing her slim, elegant fingers. “Karl MacInnes. Set designer.”

  Susan laughed, a light, insincere tinkling sound. “And here I am being tactless about scene painting. Bad Susan.” She pulled away from Karl and mimed slapping her own hand. “Is this a model of the design?” Prowling around the maquette, she traced the outline with a gentle fingertip. “Very nice.” She directed a luminous smile at the set designer.

  “What’s not going to be nice is Laurie’s reaction to Paul’s request that I alter the color scheme.” Karl’s glance shifted to Paul, who was oblivious to the entire interchange, scowling from costume drawing to maquette and back again. “It’s going to mean changes in the lighting design as well, and that’s going to cause problems at home.”

  “Oh, is Laurie the lighting designer? Should I be jealous of her?” Susan teased, poking a finger into one of Karl’s massive shoulders. Cath sat back and crossed her arms, suppressing a smile and watching the scene unfold in front of her. This was bold, even for Susan.

  Karl glanced at Susan, tugging at his beard, his expression uncertain. A predatory smile spread across Susan’s face. Cath decided to take pity on the poor man.

  “Karl, when are you going to make an honest man out of Laurie, anyway?”

  Susan’s relaxed, seductive demeanor went instantly rigid and she darted a furious glance at Cath. In contrast, Karl’s discomfort seemed to ease, his features relaxing from tense worry into something that was almost a smile. He stopped tugging on his beard, one finger moving to cover his lips and he winked so fast Cath wasn’t quite sure she saw it.

  “You dog.” Cath chuckled and looked over to see if Paul had caught the interchange.

  Nope.

  Paul squinted at the costume sketch in his hand, holding the image in his head as he peered at the set, trying to marry the two, setting the scene in his mind. A form moving between him and the maquette irritated him and he focused.

  Susan. What was she doing here? Paul blinked, trying to think. He hadn’t asked her to come, had he? No. The last time he’d seen Susan was when he had escorted her out of his apartment earlier today.

  Watching the actress as she circled the table that held the maquette, he frowned. “Susan? Did you need something?”

  Susan looked at him and smiled. “No, I just wanted to come by and get a sense of the space. This is so exciting. I haven’t done regional theater in years.”

  Paul thought for a moment, trying to trace the significance of this. He couldn’t come up with a reason. “Okay. That’s fine. But we really need to hash this out. I’ll see you at the table read the day after tomorrow.” Susan didn’t move to leave, and Paul dragged his attention away from the set design. Her face was stormy, eyes narrowing in pettish anger.

  Crap. Paul wasn’t in the frame of mind to deal with any actor shenanigans now. He was in pre-production mode: focused
on the big picture, ready for frank discussions with pragmatic designers, not prepared to deal with the sensitive and fragile bits and pieces that so many actors brought to the process.

  He forced himself to smile and reached out to grip Susan’s shoulders with both hands, forcing down his mounting irritation and trying for the diplomacy he brought to rehearsals. “I’m sorry. I’m busy right now. We can talk later. You found a place to stay until tomorrow?”

  “Sure.” Susan seemed mollified and for some reason darted a glance at Cath. “I got a room for the night at the B&B. The owner is a theater fan. She’s excited to have me.” Susan looked at Cath again, her eyes dark with some sort of message, and Paul turned to look as well.

  Cath was leaned back in her chair, arms folded across her chest. Belatedly, Paul realized that her gaze was fixed on his hands, which were still on Susan’s shoulders. When he dropped his grip, Cath returned to her script marking. Susan, eyebrows lifted, walked past Cath and out of the room.

  Paul coughed and turned to Karl. “So. I don’t want to cause trouble in paradise, Karl. How many kittens will Laurie have if we warm up the color scheme on the set just a trifle?”

  To: Alicia Johnson

  From: Susan Vernon

  Subject: Theater in the Sticks

  Hey sweetie — Churchill is as cute as I hoped it would be, but arriving a day early had its drawbacks. (Cath positively refused to put me up when I asked, since the actors’ housing isn’t ready yet. There is, thankfully, a more or less civilized bed and breakfast.) But there is at least a decent coffee shop and the theater itself looks like a good space. The rest of the cast arrives tomorrow and the table read is the day after.

  I met the set designer today—big ginger guy. Totally attractive in that lumberjack way. And you know what Cath did? She made me believe he was straight. But he’s not. So I wasted a decent flirt. I don’t know why she hates me, but she does, that’s clear.