Chapter 4
Jill
The next night my roommate Kat swirls her straw in a chocolate milkshake, looking at the drink with disdain. “Not the same. These milkshakes are not the same as they are at Tino’s Diner.”
“I know. But you won’t let me go there anymore.”
“Well, obviously,” she says, and I can’t argue because the last time we went to our favorite diner for chocolate milkshakes and fries the creep who was stalking her and her boyfriend followed her there. Kat was pretty sure he had a knife in his pocket. Honestly, if he’d pulled that thing on me I’d have kneed him in the crotch so fast he’d have crumpled to the floor. I have two older brothers and they beat me up when I was younger then taught me to fight when I started filling out in the boobs and hips department. They didn’t have the chance to beat up too many boys, because I only had eyes for one boy back in high school. Aaron—he was on the swim team, and we were together my entire junior year, and everything was wonderful for a while. But given how it all ended, I would do just about anything to rewind time and change things. To have stayed away. For his sake.
“So we’ll just have to keep experimenting with all the diners in Chelsea and midtown and elsewhere to find a replacement milkshake,” I say to Kat.
“Obviously. Besides, we’re going to be celebrating every day, right, Miss Next Winner of a Best Actress Tony?”
Narrowing my eyes, I brandish a French fry at Kat, pretending I’m ready to chuck it at her. She leans away. “You think I haven’t learned by now how to avoid your projectile French fries?”
I hold up another one for emphasis. “Don’t. Jinx. Me. You know my rules about jinxing.”
“Yeah, you didn’t even tell me you were auditioning until you got the callback because you were so superstitious.” I look away. The truth is, there are a lot of things I don’t tell Kat. A lot of things I don’t tell anyone. A lot of things I make up. It’s a good thing I can act, because sometimes my whole life feels like one. “And now you’ve gone and won a role in a Broadway show.”
“With Patrick Carlson,” I say excitedly.
“And in a Frederick Stillman show, and I know he’s your fave.”
“And let’s not forget Davis Milo is directing,” I add, suddenly feeling the need to point him out too, especially after the drink with him last night. I’m not quite sure what came over me, asking my director to have a drink and then practically daring him to follow me into Sardi’s, but I was pretty much floating on cloud nine last night, and there he was in my vicinity, giving me the best news of my life.
Not to mention, he’s almost too gorgeous for words. I’d never seen him up close and personal before yesterday. Sure, I’ve seen him while watching the Tonys and the Oscars, and I’ve heard other actresses go dreamy-eyed while talking about him. But there in the bar with him last night, I could feel it. I get why women dig him. He has undress me eyes. He looks like the kind of man who doesn’t ever break your gaze. Who walks across the room, all crazy possessive and marks you with a territorial sort of kiss. Pushes you against the wall, cages you in with his arms, and claims you. I wonder what it would be like to be kissed like that.
“I wonder if he’ll bring his Oscar to a rehearsal,” Kat muses, breaking my naughty reverie. I dismiss the thoughts of Davis, since Patrick is the man I plan to focus on. “I love that movie he did where he won it. Ransom.”
“Want me to tell him you’re a fan?”
“Oh, please do. Anyway, I need all the details about the audition scene with Patrick. I want to hear about the kiss with the love of your life.” Her eyes go wide and she motions with her hands for me to spill the details. “Does he know you’re the same gal who once sent flowers to him and asked him out?”
I blush. “No,” I say, red creeping into my cheeks. “I hope to hell he doesn’t remember.”
When I was seventeen, Patrick Carlson took over the starring role in Guys and Dolls at the Gershwin Theater with forty-eight hours notice. The lead actor had laryngitis and the understudy contracted a bronchial infection, causing the producers to cancel four performances. In one of those classic “The Show Must Go On” Broadway moments Patrick was called in, given two full days to rehearse, learn the staging, and the numbers, and take over the role for one week. I’d done the show at my school the year before and we lived in Brooklyn, so I bought one nosebleed ticket. I was on the edge of my balcony seat the entire time, mesmerized. I was sure he locked eyes with me when he sang that gorgeous duet I knew by heart, “I’ve never been in love before.”
Ironic, that it was that song. Ironic because, maybe, if I’d loved enough, things would have been different with Aaron.
But I could love Patrick in a pure sort of way that wouldn’t hurt either of us.
At the end of Guys and Dolls, I clapped and cheered and shouted “Bravo” during the curtain call, then hung out by the stage door along with other fans. I joined the crowd, waiting patiently in a sky blue dress that matched my eyes, and strappy sandals. When the group of men and women asking him to sign Playbills thinned and it was only me, I said hello.
He flashed me a smile, the warmest, kindest smile I’d ever seen. “Hi. I wanted to say you were amazing. I’m so impressed with how you pulled off this performance in two days. You were simply breathtaking.”
“That’s very kind of you to say.”
His hair was slightly damp, and his cheeks were red, and there was this glow about him. I knew that glow. I’d felt that glow. It was the mark of a job well done.
I held out a hand to shake. “I’m Jill. I’m an actress, too.” Then I waved a hand as if to dismiss the comparison. He was a Broadway star; I was merely a theater student with only a few high school productions to my name.
He shook my hand, clasping it in his. I wanted to carve that moment into relief, to hold onto the perfection forever. My hand in his. Him touching me. “Jill, I think that’s fantastic. How is it going? Tell me about some of the roles you’ve played.”
My eyes lit up. My insides fluttered as he leaned against the stage door of the Gershwin Theater, looking so relaxed in his jeans and a gray V-neck t-shirt.
“As a matter of fact, I played Sarah in Guys and Dolls last year in school.”
He smiled so brightly, then launched into the opening notes of “I’ve Never Been in Love Before,” inviting me with his warm brown eyes to join in. There we were, outside the theater, singing together. I’m not exaggerating when I say it was the best night of my life.
Soon, he said he needed to get some rest since he had a matinee and an evening show the next day, but he walked me to the subway stop and I thanked him profusely, and he said he’d had a grand time.
Grand. Yes, grand.
I sent him flowers to the stage door a day later. I ordered them online, using money from my job at a bookstore, taking a particular delight in addressing them simply to “Patrick Carlson/Stage Door/Gershwin Theater.”
Then I wrote a note. “Hi. It was so fun meeting you. Would you like to get coffee sometime?”
Nerves aflutter, I hit send on the online order.
And I never heard back.
Maybe he thought I was a stalker. Maybe I was.
I suppose in some world, I wanted to believe the flowers had never arrived.
That’s what I tell myself. Because Patrick—my Patrick—would never have ignored me like that. He loved me like I loved him, right? He just didn’t know me yet, but when he got to he’d have to realize we were meant to be together, just as I knew he was the answer to all my problems. That when my world went to hell, he’d step in. The possibility of Patrick got me through so many nights and days when I was wrecked.
“What if he does remember?” Kat asks, bringing me back to the present.
I shrug. “I’ll improvise. I am a Broadway actress, after all.” Then I wink at her, hoping I’m doing a great job of acting confident.
But acting is really all I’ve ever done. Acting like I’m fine. Acting like what happened back then with Aaron wasn’t all my fault. I suppose now, six years later, I’m mostly okay. People who know me say I’m carefree, laidback, happy-go-lucky. Sometimes I truly am. Other times, I’ve become so damn good at the appearance of moving on that even I believe the illusion. Fake it ‘til you make it, right?
* * *
When I wake up before the sun has risen the next morning, and pull on a fleece jacket and yank my hair into a ponytail and head for the West Side bike path, I do what I have always done. I run off my regret. I picture it unspooling behind me, like a snake shedding, leaving the old behind. All the layers of remorse that I peel away. Someday, maybe even soon, I’ll have let go of them all.
I meet up with Reeve after a few miles.
“Try to keep up,” I shout at him, as he joins me mid-stride.
He rolls his eyes at me and keeps a perfect pace. I like running with Reeve because he is the only one who runs like I do. Full tilt. Nothing held back.
“Can I say I told you so?” he says after the first half mile.
“About not being able to keep up?”
“No, idiot. About the show.”
“By all means. Say it all day long.”
“Get me good seats for opening night.”
“I’ll do my best,” I say, and I smile. I am happy to see my friend. Happy because I am out of my own head for a while. I can escape from my thoughts.
I am happy, I am happy, I am happy. The more I say it the more I believe it. Rinse, lather, repeat.
* * *
After we finish the run, I head back to my apartment. As I walk up the steps to the second floor, my phone rings. I dig around in the side pocket of my fleece jacket and pull it out. My agent’s name is flashing across the screen, and my heart gallops with a fleeting fear that I’m about to lose the job. That it was all an error.
“Don’t tell me Davis Milo changed his mind,” I say, stopping on the stairwell.
She laughs. “No, darling. Don’t ever worry about that. The producers sent me the contract already and I’m working on it.”
I breathe again and walk up the rest of the steps.
“But that’s not why I’m calling,” M.J. continues. “I just got off the phone with Milo. He wants to meet with you before rehearsals start.”
“Oh. Why?”
“He likes to meet with understudies to set their expectations. So you and I will go together to his office on Friday at ten in the morning. Does that work?”
“Yeah, I’ll see if my schedule is clear, M.J.”
Another laugh. “I’ll email you the address.”
After we hang up I unlock the door to my apartment, pour a glass of water, and sink down onto my couch with my laptop and everyone’s best friend in the world—Google.
I quickly cycle through his resume, though I know it by heart. The South Pacific revival he won his first Tony for, then an original production called Anything for You, followed by the play The Saying Goes. He’s worked on the West Coast too, and directed a production in San Diego at the La Jolla Playhouse three years ago that earned all sorts of accolades. Called World Enough and Time, the play was inspired by a line from an Andrew Marvelle poem, and there have long been rumors that it would one day become a movie. I find a photo of him with Madeline Blaine, the young actress who played the lead and then rocketed to show biz success, landing a starring role in a romantic comedy movie that made millions at the box office. She’s been on Maxim’s Hot List and now commands top dollar for her roles. Once I go down that photographic rabbit hole, I can’t resist looking up more pictures of him.
Because it’s hard to look away. It’s hard not to stare at his face with those eyes that seem to know you, and that hair that seems to beg for hands to be run through it. I click on a picture of him at last year’s Tony Awards with his arm draped around a stunning redhead. I zero in on the caption. Award-winning director Davis Milo and publicist Amber Surratt. Then, one from the year before, where his hand is clasped protectively around the waist of a black-haired beauty in a slinky gold dress. She’s a talent agent and she represents many of Broadway’s top stars. At a Broadway Cares event last year he’s seen with a well-known choreographer, who’s no doubt as flexible as she is gorgeous. His hand looks to be on her back. I touch my lower back briefly, as if I can recall the sensations I’d felt when he laid his hand there as he caught up with me in Sardi’s.
I lean into my couch pillow and arrive at two conclusions: one, besides the lone photo of him and Madeline Blaine, he seems to prefer the company of the women who work behind the scenes in the business. And two, he’s tailor-made for tuxes. The man just looks at home in a suit. He’s effortless, every bit of him completely effortless in black and white, with an easy and understated elegance. He wears the tux, rather than the tux wearing him. I run my index finger across a photo of him, tracing his outline absently, arriving at a third conclusion: I bet he looks best in a tux if you’re the one next to him when he’s wearing it.
I close my laptop and head to my bedroom, opening my tiny closet. I pick out something classy for my meeting, a pencil skirt and my favorite emerald green sweater.
Then I knock on Kat’s door.
“Come in,” she says, sleepily.
“Rise and shine.”
“Some of us don’t wake up at the crack of dawn, you know,” she says, and rolls onto her side, bringing her purple comforter snug around her neck.
“Hate to break it to you, but it’s almost ten. Well past the crack of dawn. Anyway, can I borrow your black pumps for a meeting later this week?”
“You know I have huge feet.”
I laugh. “You’re an eight. I’m a seven and a half. I’d hardly call that huge.”
“Bottom shelf in my shoe rack. But be careful. They’re true to size and I don’t want you to stumble.”
“Ha. I’m like a cat. I always land on my feet.”
“Then my Louboutins are your Louboutins.”
“One of the many reasons why I love you so much.”
I find the black beauties and return to my room, placing them next to the skirt and sweater. There. It’s the perfect ensemble.
Then I find myself wishing it were Friday.
Which makes no sense to me whatsoever. Except on a professional level. Because I want to impress him as an actress. That’s all.