Beth started beside him, yawning loudly and sitting up. “It’s over?”
Her voice jerked Preston’s eyes away from the stage, and he stared at her like she’d appeared from out of nowhere.
“Thank God.” She sighed, plucking her tan pashmina wrap from the back of her seat and wrapping it around her shoulders. “Sorry, Pres. I had no idea it would be so…bad.”
He had an overwhelming urge to tell Beth that it wasn’t so bad—even though, by and large, it was—because he’d been riveted by Elise Klassan. He shifted his eyes back up to the stage, focused on the curtain, as if the very force of his longing to see her one more time would be enough to make the edges suddenly part.
“Pres?” nudged Beth, her hand falling lightly over his and squeezing. “Ready to go?”
“Uh…yeah,” he murmured, finally pulling his gaze away from the stage and looking at his date. “Why didn’t they bow?”
“Huh?”
“Don’t actors and actresses usually take a bow after the play’s over?” he asked, gesturing at the stage with annoyance.
Beth raised an eyebrow, then made a big show of looking around the almost-empty off-off-Broadway theater, before catching Preston’s eyes again. “Umm….not if there’s no one to applaud.”
Giving one last troubled glance to the curtain, Preston stood up, pursing his lips. “Well, it doesn’t feel like the show’s over without that part.”
“I doubt it’ll be around for much longer anyway,” she said dismissively, taking her bag from the floor by her seat and rising to her feet. “Really awful stuff.”
“Not really awful,” said Preston thoughtfully.
The material was admittedly bad, but Elise Klassan had done her best and given a performance that was sticking with him, almost like it had hitched a ride on his back and was following him up the aisle and out of the theater. There was something about her. Something…well, he didn’t know. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but suddenly he couldn’t stop thinking about her.
As they neared the exit, Preston was surprised to find one last audience member still sitting in his seat, his expression a mirror of the way Preston felt, staring at the stage thoughtfully, as though waiting for more, and Preston paused beside him in the aisle.
“I’m going to freshen up. Meet you in the lobby?” asked Beth. She kissed his cheek and made her way out the theater door.
The man in the last row looked up at Preston. “Is she dead?”
“Excuse me?”
“Matilda. Is she dead?”
Preston chuckled, but the man didn’t.
“I don’t know,” he replied softly, feeling his smile fade.
“What did you think?” asked the man.
“Not good.”
“Hmm. And yet you were the last to leave,” observed the man.
“Actually,” said Preston, looking down at him, “you’re the only one still sitting.”
“What was ‘not good’? The play itself?”
Preston nodded.
“What about the actors?” The man opened his program. “Mark, uh, Smithson. He played Cyril.”
Preston shrugged. He didn’t have a good opinion about Mark Smithson’s performance and he wasn’t going to make one up for the sake of conversation.
“Paige Rafferty?” He glanced down at the program again. “She played Constance.”
Preston looked out the small window in the door to the lobby, but Beth hadn’t come out of the bathroom yet. Again, he really didn’t have an opinion of Paige Rafferty’s performance other than that was sure he wouldn’t remember it by tomorrow. “She was fine, I guess.”
“But unremarkable.”
Exactly. Preston nodded.
Up until now, the man’s tone had been convivial, almost playful. But now, he fixed his dark eyes on Preston’s, hawk-like and narrowed, and Preston wondered for the first time who he was. A reviewer? The director? Someone else associated with the play?
“And what about…Elise Klassan?”
Preston flinched. He didn’t feel it coming, but he felt it happen. Then he licked his lips, which made his cheeks flush with heat, and he dropped the man’s eyes in embarrassment.
“Mm-hm,” rumbled the man, his voice smooth as warm honey. “Me too.”
“She was good. She was…” Preston’s voice trailed off, and he looked back at the stage for a moment, disappointed that the curtain was still closed and no longer rippled. The theater was so quiet and empty, it almost felt surreal, like there hadn’t been a play at all.