Chapter 18
Davis
Clay calls as I’m leaving the Times Square subway station, heading up the steps to the street.
“Are you emailing me that new route to work? Because I’m walking precariously close to the Belasco in about thirty seconds when I cross Forty-Fourth Street,” I say, and the funny thing is it wouldn’t bother me if I bumped into Madeline.
“Man, you are just a tough bastard, aren’t you? But that’s not why I’m calling.”
“Ah, you missed me even though I saw you an hour ago at the gym,” I joke, as the smell of pretzels wafts past me from a nearby street vendor.
“Yeah, exactly. So, I’m calling with a heads up.”
I groan. A heads up is never good.
“Don is at the St. James already. He’s got some film producers there to check out Patrick.”
My shoulders tighten. “What? Nobody told me about this.”
“It’s the Pinkertons,” he says, mentioning the names of a pair of British brothers who bankroll films. “For the second picture in Escorted Lives.”
“The first hasn’t even started shooting yet. They’re turning that into a trilogy already?”
“Books were so damn popular, the Pinkertons are doing all three. And there’s a new-guy-in-town role for the second film, so they want to consider Patrick for it. You know his Crash The Moon contract is for ten months, so his agent brought in the producers since they’re in town for a few days.”
“Do they think they’re going to watch the rehearsal? Because that’s not how it works,” I say firmly, my muscles tensing all over. “It’s not a god damn open rehearsal. If the film producers want to see him play Paolo, they buy a ticket to the show when it opens in two weeks.”
“I know,” Clay says, heaving a sigh. “I said the same thing to Don. But you know Don.”
“Yeah, he’s an ass. What’s the deal? Is he in bed with the film producers? Is he getting a cut?”
“I think he’s vying for some small producer credit on the film. That’s why he brought them in. It should only be a few more minutes. He’s got that understudy with him.”
I stop in my tracks. Like I’ve been punched in the ribs. A woman in a suit and heels bumps into me, and I mutter an apology, then step into the doorway of Sardi’s to get out of the way.
“That understudy?” I ask through clenched teeth.
“McCormick? Is that her name?”
“Jill McCormick.” I shut my eyes. My blood feels like it’s boiling and I don’t know what pisses me off more—Don commandeering the stage or Jill not mentioning she’d be doing a scene with Patrick for the producers of a romantic movie.
Rationally, I know she’ll play many romantic roles throughout her career. Logically, I would never do anything to stop her. But seeing as she’s auditioning for all intents and purposes with him I would have appreciated a heads up from her. I don’t know why she wouldn’t tell me she was reading with him, but the omission sends a hot rush of jealousy through my veins.
“Patrick likes working with her, so he wanted to do a scene with her for the producers. Not from Crash the Moon though. Don’t worry about that. They’re just running lines from the next book.”
“Oh great,” I say sarcastically. “That just makes it all f*cking better.”
“Yeah, sorry, man.” But he doesn’t know the half of why I’m angry. “And listen, I know you can’t stand Don. But the show opens in two weeks, so if you could do your best to let it go that would help me a ton as I work on what’s next for you. Got a few possibilities I’m working on. Maybe some Twelfth Night in London. Maybe a film.”
“Let me know what you come up with. I’m always ready for the next challenge.”
I resume my path to the theater. I turn into the alley, and Don is walking towards me with the Pinkertons. Don smiles broadly and I seethe inside, but do my best to follow Clay’s advice. “Davis,” he calls out as if we’re pals happy to see each other. “Have you met Nicholas and Frederick Pinkerton?”
I extend a hand, keeping my anger tightly wrapped inside as I meet the two brothers. “Pleasure to meet you both.”
Frederick Pinkerton shakes my hand enthusiastically, and beams a bright smile that takes me by surprise. “I’m a huge fan of your work,” Frederick says. “I’ve seen all your shows on Broadway. South Pacific, and Anything for You, and The Saying Goes. Loved your film, too. And I also saw World Enough and Time at La Jolla. Thought it was utterly brilliant.”
I’m taken aback. I didn’t expect Pinkerton to be anything but a dick but then, that’s because he’s guilty by association with Don in my book. “Thank you very much.”
“I’ve often thought that play would make a wonderful film adaptation,” he says, glancing up pensively at the gray February sky. Then he begins reciting lines from the Andrew Marvelle poem. “Had we but world enough, and time. This coyness, Lady, were no crime. We would sit down and think which way to walk and pass our long love’s day.”
I flash back to the play. To Madeline playing the lead role. To the days and nights when those lines and many others from the play were all I lived and breathed. When I felt that way for her. Now, three years later, the lines are only lines, the memory just that. Only a memory, and it doesn’t hurt anymore.
“Helluva poem,” I say, because it’s true, and because that’s all the poem is anymore.
Frederick gives me a serious look. “You know, Mr. Milo. We should talk about you turning that into a film quite soon. Shall we set up a meeting for later this week?”
“Absolutely,” I say, and I’m honestly not sure how the morning is working itself into such a strange turn of events. I’ve gone from being blindsided, to being offered a possible next job. But the fact is, I need to think about what I want to do next. The work of a director is done once the show opens. The actors keep it going, and I move on to the next job.
Don and the Pinkertons walk away, and I head inside the theater as Patrick and Jill leave the stage. She hangs her head low, and the guilty look in her eyes makes my heart stop. But she’s desperately trying to make eye contact with me, and she’s mouthing the words I didn’t know under her breath.
Patrick calls out to me. “Milo!”
He has such a bright smile on his face that he makes it nearly impossible to dislike him. Especially when I can’t let my professional side pander to my personal one. “Hey! That was totally last minute. Agent called late last night since the Pinkertons were in town, and Don okayed it. Hope you don’t mind us using the stage for it.”
“Of course not, Patrick,” I say, in my best calm voice because the last thing I need is for Patrick to be less than happy. He’s a linchpin in this show, and if I want it to be the hit it can be, I have to make sure the leading man has no clue I’ve dreamed of all the ways I can take him out of the running with Jill. “The stage is always available for you.”
“You’re the best, man.”
Then he bounds down the hall to his dressing room, singing a cappella to a Jack Johnson tune that must be playing in his head and reminding him of beaches and sunny skies. I turn around to see Jill standing in the hallway. “I tried to call you this morning to tell you,” she says quietly so no one else can hear.
“You did?”
“Yeah. About thirty minutes ago. I got a crazy call this morning from my agent to be here so I rushed to get ready, and I called you when I was in a cab. But you didn’t pick up.”
“Must have been on the subway.”
“I would have told you. You have to know that, Davis,” she says and there’s real worry in her voice that she might have crossed some sort of line. The look in her eyes is one of genuine concern, and it erases all my irritation from before. Then it hits me, like a blow I didn’t see coming, that she can do this to me. That she has this power over me. That she alone has a direct line to my heart. Where I was jealous and angry minutes ago, now I am reduced once more to this all too familiar feeling when I’m with her.
The feeling of not wanting to be without her.
I press a hand against the wall, and curse under my breath.
“Are you okay?” She lays a hand on my arm.
No. I’m totally screwed.
“Yeah. Just need to get started. That little stunt cut into the day,” I say, pushing all my frustration onto Don, even though it’s with me. It’s with how I feel for her. I head for the stage, leaving her behind. I need to focus on getting this show ready, because that’s why I’m here. Not for any other reason.
* * *
Everyone is gone now. I’m sitting on the edge of the stage, and Jill’s walking down the aisle of the theater for one of our last private rehearsals.
“Are you still mad at me?” she asks in a small, nervous voice when she reaches me. It’s the first time we’ve been alone today. The theater is quiet and her footsteps echo.
“I was never really mad at you.”
She holds up her thumb and forefinger. “Just a tiny bit?”
I run a hand through my hair. “Just annoyed. In general,” I admit. “But I’m not anymore.” I pat the edge of the stage. “Come here.”
She hops up on the stage and sits next to me. She fidgets with the cuffs on her sweater. Rolling them up. Pushing them down. “I was worried all day.”
“You were?” There’s a part of me that’s glad she felt that way, though I know that makes me seem cruel. But it gives me a flicker of hope that maybe this isn’t a one-way street.
“I don’t want you to be mad at me and think things with Patrick…” she says, but she doesn’t finish the thought.
I want to ask if she’s still in love with him. I want to know if he’s still on her mind all the time. But I also know I can’t handle the answer if it’s yes. I can’t keep going there.
“Jill, if you have a chance to act in a film when your contract is up, and that’s what you want, you should pursue it. Even if it’s with him,” I say, focusing on the professional side of things, though it takes every ounce of my strength to get those words out without sounding like a jerk.
“Can I ask you a question? Why are you so nice to him? I know how you really feel about him. But you’re always so nice to him, like this morning in the hallway.”
“Because that’s what he needs to perform,” I say, as if the answer is obvious. But it’s only obvious to me, because this is the way I work. This is the way I manage actors to get the best from them. “I know Patrick. I’ve worked with him. He’s one of those people who was born skipping, and he’s an amazing talent, and he needs to be happy all the time. That’s what he needs to give the best performances. And that’s what I want.”
“The best performance?” She raises an eyebrow, as if she’s considering this for the first time.
“Yes. Of course I want the best performance. Nothing less.”
“So why did you tell Alexis that day at the studio that she was your Ava?”
“You heard me say that?”
She nods.
“Because that’s what she needs.” I run my index finger along her face. Her skin is so soft, and it’s impossible not to touch her. A soft sigh escapes her lips.
“So you give her what she needs?”
“Look,” I say firmly. “Alexis needs to feel as if she’s the center of the universe. That’s how she gives the best performance that her fans love. But even though I told her she was meant to play Ava, that doesn’t change that you’re the one I wanted more for the part. But that’s what I had to tell her to get her to deliver for me.”
“So you play us all?”
I give her a look as if she can’t be serious. “Is that what you think I’m doing to you?”
Jill
I shake my head. Because I don’t want to think he’d do that. I can’t even contemplate that he’d toy with me. So I won’t believe it.
“Jill, you have to know I’m not playing you,” he says in his cool and controlled voice. He’s the consummate pro now. The man who wins awards, and rains money down on the show’s backers. He’s not talking to me as a lover. He’s talking to me as a director. “But this is how I work, and every actor needs something different.”
“What do I need then? As an actress?” I want to know how he categorizes me. He’s brilliant at his job, and I want to understand how he does it. How he knows what we need. How he makes us give it to him. How he drives us to work harder for him.
“You,” he says, and he stares out at the audience, as if he’s finding the answer there in the vast expanse of empty chairs. In the row after row of red upholstered seats that will creak and groan with theatergoers in two more weeks. With patrons who will never know the blood, sweat and tears that were shed on the path to opening night, but will hopefully fall in love with the artifice that seems real. “You need someone to see you. To know you. To understand you. That’s what makes you so good in this role. Ava needs so many of the same things, and that’s why you connect with her character.”
I am reminded of the day he told me the news. Of the time we had drinks and talked about what he saw in me when I played Eponine. Maybe it sounds vain, maybe it sounds egotistical, but it thrills me deep in my heart and soul to know that he admires my talent. That he thinks I have talent. That he thinks I’m more than good enough. This is what I’ve always wanted, to be able to move people with a performance. I want him to know that. I swivel around so I’m sitting cross-legged and I take his hand in mine. “It means the world to me that you gave me this chance. You know that right?”
“Of course I know that,” he says in a calloused voice that surprises me. Maybe he’d rather not hear how much I admire his work. Maybe what he wants from me right now is something I’m not sure how to give.
“Now let’s get to work because if I spend all night talking to you, we’ll never get this show ready. I want to work on the scene where Paolo finally breaks down Ava. Where he gets her to open up to him and admit all her truths about being alone her whole life and he helps her make the best art.”
Breaks down Ava. Those words reverberate in my head. Paolo breaks down Ava, and there’s a voice inside me, a quiet little voice that’s asking if Davis is doing the same to me. If that’s how he’s getting what he needs from this actress.
But maybe I want to be broken down too.
* * *
We are oddly silent as we pack up three hours later. I grab my coat and my purse and he gathers his phone and his notes, and the silence between us is full of unsaid things. As if neither one of us knows what happens next. Do we go our separate ways or do we find a way to reconnect when we leave the theater together? I want to say something, to ask a question, to make a joke. But I don’t know where to start. I don’t know what’s happening with us.
Then my stomach growls loudly as if it’s an ornery creature begging for food, and he laughs deeply. It’s the first time I’ve heard him laugh like this, the kind of laugh that takes over your body.
“Do I need to feed you?” he says in that playful way he has, and I can’t help but smile and crack up too.
“Evidently, I could really go for a burger and fries. Would you care to take me out on another date?”
His eyes light up, and whatever sadness filled the day is wiped out in that grumbling sound. I’d like to send a thank you note to my hungry belly for giving me a reason to spend more time with him. Time away from the play. “Yes.”
At the diner, we talk more and I ask him questions about all the shows he’s done and he tells me about his productions, sharing stories and anecdotes. I love hearing him talk about what he loves, and as he does, I realize I haven’t thought about Patrick in a long, long time. Not the way I used to. I haven’t lingered on images of Patrick’s face. I haven’t sought him out like he’s the balm for my strung-out heart. I haven’t needed him as a drug anymore.
A wave of understanding smacks me hard. That’s what Patrick has been. A drug. A good drug, a gentle drug. But a drug nonetheless.
And I hardly need my fix anymore. Because of this man here with me. This man is changing me.
And I don’t know what the hell to do next.
“What are you thinking?” he asks, as he bends his head to kiss my neck. A soft kiss. A sweet kiss.
That you make me feel all sorts of things. That everything with you scares the hell out of me. That I don’t know how to hide or pretend this isn’t happening anymore.
“That these fries are awesome. Did you know they’re my favorite food?”
“Ah. You say that as if you let me in on your darkest secret. But I suspect that’s not what you were thinking.”
“Chinese food is actually my favorite. Cold sesame noodles,” I say, then I look away and he pets my hair. “But, that’s not what I was thinking.”
“What were you thinking about?”
I can’t tell him my darkest secret. I can’t tell him all that I’m feeling. I’m not even sure what this is, or what it could be. But I manage one small step.
“You,” I whisper, and he leans his forehead against mine, sighing deeply as I trace the ends of his hair with my fingers. “I was thinking about you. I think about you all the time,” I say, and the admission terrifies me, but it also makes me feel lighter. Like I can start to have all the things I’ve denied myself. All the real things.
“You do?”
“Yes. So much it scares me,” I say, and my throat hitches, but I keep it together.
“It’s okay to be scared. It’s okay to feel,” he says in a soft, tender voice. It’s such a contrast to how he spoke to me back at the theater.
I pull back and look at him, seeing him in a newer light than I always have. He’s always been heart-stoppingly gorgeous with his dark hair, ink blue eyes, and strong jawline. But he’s beautiful in a different way now. Because I know who he is, beyond the man in the second row of the St. James Theater who called me in for the chance of a lifetime. That chance still exists though, and I need to protect it. “We still have to be careful at the event this weekend, okay? I don’t want people to talk about me. We can’t arrive together, and we can’t leave together.”
“Can I get you a dress though?” He looks so hopeful, like he’s been dying to do this for me.
“You don’t have to do that. I can find something to wear.”
“I know you can, Jill. I know you’re perfectly capable of doing everything on your own. And I know I don’t have to. But I want to do something special for you.”
“Then I would love to see what you choose for me. But there’s something I have to do first before I go with you.”
“What’s that?”
I tell him what I need to do, and I think I might have made him the happiest I’ve ever seen him. Then he smothers me in a kiss that makes me forget we are in a public place. But there’s a part of me that no longer cares.