“What is the biggest, most important---?”
And as soon as Mick said those words, his heart nearly stopped. “Rosalind,” he said as if he could barely say it, and began running toward the limousine.
“What is it, boss?” Leo asked anxiously, running with him.
“Get every man I have in New York to Rosalind,” Mick said. “I want a fucking army on her!”
And Leo was pulling out his cell phone, gathering that army, while Mick was pulling out his, attempting to phone his lady love, to warn her, as they raced to the limousine.
Because Mick knew it even if they didn’t. Because Mick knew, if they harmed one hair on Rosalind’s head, he was going to live up to his name. Mick the Tick was going to drop the bomb.
CHAPTER ONE
Six Months Earlier
Roz Graham walked around the windowless studio as her students rehearsed in groups of two. With her arms folded, her heels stepping high, and her short, trumpet skirt highlighting her shapely legs, she purposely presented the image of an unapologetic taskmaster rather than a mild-mannered acting coach. But she was their acting teacher, and had been teaching similar groups for years.
“You have to own it,” she said to one of her shyest students when she saw her struggling in her twosome. “Don’t hold back, my darling. Own it. Express yourself.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the student said as she looked at her script, and read the dialogue again. “That’s why I’m crying,” she read.
“But you aren’t crying,” Roz admonished her. “You have a frowned face, and your voice has gone to the next register, but I don’t see a single tear. You’ve got to work this scene, Jennifer. Not think about working it. Work it.”
“I will. I got it, Miss G. I’ll cry.”
“Then cry!”
“I will,” Jennifer assured her. “I’ll cry when it matters, I promise you.”
Roz looked at her as if she had just grown an extra eye. And now it was her time to frown. “When it matters?” she asked. “It always matters! When you’re blessed to act, when somebody gives you an opportunity to show your stuff, you had better bring it. I don’t care if you’re in a Tony award winning musical. I don’t care if you’re in somebody’s living room. It always matters.”
The student exhaled and nodded her head. “You’re right,” she said. “I just have to sit myself down and figure this thing out. I’m going to cry.”
“Then cry! Don’t just say it. Show it. Missouri may be the show me state, but Broadway is the show me capital of the world. You have to be able to express yourself on a dime, darling, or you’re in the wrong profession.”
“Preach!” another one of Roz’s students yelled out, prompting other students to snigger.
“Does it look like I need an amen corner, Terrell? Get back to work,” Roz warned him, and the sniggering ceased.
And Roz kept moving. She had twelve students in her class, which was only half of what she had last year, and only a third of what she had the year before that. It was tough times all around and people couldn’t afford the luxury of acting classes the way they once could. But it was a brutal business too, and many of her previous students simply gave up.
But Roz didn’t let any of that get her down. Her own toughness, her discipline, her refusal to accept mediocrity even in her most mediocre of students, made it imperative to her that she teach a class of twelve just as fervently as she taught a class of fifty. Almost all of her students were young, wide-eyed eighteen, nineteen, twenty-year-olds, but a couple were in their thirties. All of them needed to be ready. Roz had been in the business for a decade. She knew what was required.
She stopped as another twosome, a couple of weaker actors who should never have been paired up in the first place, rehearsed their lines. They were male and female, probably had the hots for each other, Roz figured, and the male was reading his line.
“I lost my shoes,” he read.
“You lost your shoes?” the female responded in a bombastic voice, reading her line. “Oh, no! That’s terrible, Andre!”
“And that’s too damn sympathetic, Karen,” Roz said, prompting “Andre” to laugh. “He didn’t say he lost his mama. He said he lost his shoes. Don’t oversell it now. Overacting is just as bad as underacting. Keep it reasonable.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the actress said.
Just as she said it, the door to the small, upstairs rehearsal studio opened, and a young man, carrying a backpack and sashaying his hips more dramatically than Roz sashayed hers, hurriedly walked in.
“You’re late, Jamal,” Roz said.
“Don’t blame me. Blame the New York Transportation Authority.” Some in the room snickered. “They need to quit making people late like that.”
“And you need to quit lying like that,” Roz responded.
“I’m not lying, Miss Graham! It’s awful out there.”
“Put up your gear and get in a group.”
“As Lead?”
“Hell no. As Understudy.”