Chapter Twenty-Six
By two in the morning, Zack had written a bawdy, preening show of machismo in lyrics set to Harper’s genius mashup of Chopin and hip hop. By four, in Alex’s studio, Zack had roughly choreographed a piece for the men in the cast, a high-energy fusion of jazz, tap, and contemporary ballet. But it was missing something, something he wasn’t the best at, and he’d need a few hours of sleep before going subway hopping to find it…
Later that morning, he spotted Wilson busking at the Fourteenth Street station in Union Square. Surrounded by morning commuters, Wilson’s gritty rendition of Ray Charles’s “What’d I Say” filled the underground with soul and the rhythmic slapping of his hands.
“Pattin’ juba,” Zack said appreciatively. “Two buckets this time? You’re spoiling people.”
“Ay, man.” Wilson grinned, accepting a few more tips from passersby. “It’s downtown. Gotta bring my A-game.”
“Well, you’ve cleaned up and it’s only…” Zack checked his watch. “Seven fifty-two.”
Stuffing the money into his guitar case, Wilson packed up his guitar and stacked the buckets together. “I ain’t even close to my goal for today, so I hate to be rude but—”
“That’s what I came to talk to you about,” said Zack. “I want you to join my cast.”
Wilson’s laughter was as hard and gritty as his voice. “I’m a solo act, kid.”
“Oh, like you were in San Francisco?”
Wilson froze, angling his head to peer up at Zack. “Whatchu know ‘bout San Francisco?”
“I know you’re Medgar Wilson, and you played the blues circuit for fifteen years before your band ran into financial trouble and split. I know the rents were high, even back then, and New York is friendlier to street performers. I know videos of you online get thousands of hits. And…” Zack leaned against a beam in the walkway, out of the way of people with someplace to be. “I know you’re too damn talented not to be paid for what you do.”
Wilson sat back on his haunches, studying Zack a moment. “Goddamn.”
“Little thing called the internet—Look…” Zack crouched in front of Wilson, needing to look him in the eye. “I respect you, so you know where I’m coming from when I say you deserve better than just getting by. If things go well, you’re guaranteed a steady paycheck for as long as the show runs. After that, who knows? The exposure could get you more work.”
Wilson rubbed his stubbled chin. “It’s a nice offer, but I need to think about it…”
“The kicker is, I need your answer now. We’re in tech week, and previews start next week.”
“Next week? Did I hear that right?”
Pulling a sheet of folded paper from his pocket, Zack offered it to Wilson. “It’s batshit, but that’s showbiz. I know you miss it, and I need you, man. What do you say?”
Wilson opened it up and glanced at it, then back at Zack. “I ain’t shucking ‘n jiving in no frilly blouse and tights. What you see here is what I can do.”
Well, it wasn’t a no, and he’d kept the address to Tetley Theatre…
“That’s what I want, Wilson. This right here. Your hands and feet. Your voice. Your soul. It’s just one number. I’d pay you to teach my guys to pat juba like you, and you’d make a cameo onstage. Play the intro for the song—even record for the studio album.”
“Well, I can’t make ‘em pat juba like me—not in such a short time. Not ever, maybe.”
“Fair enough.”
There was a rumble under their feet as another train approached, coming to rest with a squeak and a hiss of air brakes, the tunnel erupting with the clamor of new foot traffic.
“Fine, I’ll do it.” Wilson lifted his chin. “Under one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“I play my guitar.”
Zack took Wilson’s calloused hand. “I think we can swing that.”
*
Mina stood stupefied in front of Tetley Theatre, gaping at herself on the enormous show poster. On the marquee, surrounded by a cache of lightbulbs not yet lit, was her name spelled in bold, black letters beneath, “Zachary Coen presents Lady in Red.” The sentimental (and very sudden) notion she might tell her children someday that she fell in love with their father while making this show made tears fill her eyes.
“Starting to hit you, huh?” Kyoko smiled. “Come on, let’s get a selfie.”
After six selfies, Kyoko tugged Mina’s arm. “I’m dying to see the inside.”
They spent thirty minutes getting lost in all its blue velvet and gold-trimmed glory, joining the other awe-struck people gawking about the incredible space. They traced their fingers over the ornate carvings in the walls and columns and tested the comfort of the new seats filling the house; posed for photos and teased a couple of actors they’d caught kissing in the dressing room. Larger than their previous ones, the dressing rooms were already bursting with boxes of costumes and props. In the luxurious Beaux-Art style bathrooms, they discovered the acoustics were excellent for vocal warmups.
“Missed you over the weekend,” Kyoko said when they’d finished making noise. “But I get it, strep throat’s a bitch.”
Right. Faye had told everyone she and Zack were out sick. Hazards of having to kiss your costar for a living. Apparently, everyone had enjoyed a laugh at their expense, thankful for not catching it themselves, and their stand-ins had a chance to shine.
“Merci.” Mina met Kyoko’s gaze in the mirror, hoping she looked casual. “I feel much better now.”
“Good to know.” Kyoko started fussing with her perfect shiny hair. “Especially since I went by your apartment Monday to check on you and no one answered the door. Neighbor said she hadn’t seen you in days.”
Merde.
“And Mister ‘For the record’ is a slave driver,” she continued, washing her hands. “I’m pretty sure he’d have just slapped on a surgical mask and been business as usual, but no one saw him around, either. Not once all weekend—the weekend before tech week, no less.”
“Kyoko…”
“No one else suspects a thing, by the way—You two bump heads all the time, and you’re never seen alone. You make sure not to show up or leave together.” Turning and leaning against the vanity, Kyoko studied Mina’s face. “But you also touch a lot, when you’re not rehearsing. When he gives me notes, he doesn’t have his hand on my back, damn-near-on-my-ass. Generally, when I want to get someone’s attention, I just call out a name. I don’t need to touch their arm, or their shoulder…or—”
“Arrêtes.” Mina’s sweat glands were seeping. “You’ve made your point.”
Kyoko nudged Mina’s chin up with her index finger. “Hey, I’m not judging, okay? I lock lips with Riha every chance I get. And this company is like a family, always in your business. I wouldn’t want to advertise anything, either. He seems great when he isn’t yelling. I just…want to make sure you know what you’re doing. That he isn’t taking advantage of you.”
“Non, it’s not like that.” Mina shook her head adamantly. “Nothing happened that I did not want. That I don’t want. We’re in love, but we’re being discreet until after the show opens—after people see for themselves I didn’t get this role for any reason other than…than—”
“Your legs?” Kyoko grinned.
Mina smacked her hand. “Oui, my legs. I’m famous for my extension, you know.”
Laughing, Kyoko started for the door. “Yeah, I know. Move those sexy legs, or no amount of love in the world is gonna keep Coen from yelling at the both of us.”
“It’s tech week.” Mina shrugged. “He’s going to yell anyway.”
“Fair point.”
Tech week turned out to be just three days. Three twelve-hour days spent fine-tuning, shaping the look and feel of the show, growing the piece throughout. Musicians filled the orchestra pit, playing Harper’s beautiful haunting score for the transitions, and his brilliantly remastered internal pieces for the scenes. There were at least double the crew backstage than actors onstage, swarming all over like worker ants carrying twice their weight in set equipment.
Costumes were altered.
Sound and lighting cues were layered in.
Quick changes and props were worked out.
Mina left the theater at dusk on day two with a dozen new scene changes to remember, feeling like she’d been stuffed into a time capsule and shot from a canon. At least her quick change before the party scene was a lot smoother. She was still handled like a rag doll, held up by two people as Amy stuffed her into her beaded ballgown and slipped on her shoes, but they’d got it down to two minutes. In bed that night, she felt more exhausted than she could ever remember being, yet there was a cauldron of energy, anxiety and excitement brewing inside her that made it difficult to sleep.
“Vzzzzzzt…vzzzzzzzt…vzzzzzzt…”
Mina reached blindly for her cell on the nightstand. “Allô?”
“Are visiting hours over? If so, I can scale the wall outside and climb through the window.”
She threw her covers off with a squeal and climbed from the bed. After a cursory look through the peephole, she opened her apartment door to Zack’s slowly widening grin.
“Hey Frenchie.” His voice was honey on gravel, and he looked like he’d collapse into a heap in the hallway. “Figured you might have trouble sleeping without someone to twist your limbs around like choking vines.”
“Oh Dieu.” She slipped her hand into his free one. “Come in, sleepy lion.”
“I like when you call me that.”
“Allez.” She pulled him inside, locking the door behind them. “You look like a corpse.”
“You look hot.” His eyes trailed her body before shutting tightly closed. “I hope you never discover flannel.”
Ignoring that, she cupped his cheek. “When is the last time you slept?”
He swallowed hard. “We talking more than three hours, consecutively?”
“Zachary…”
“I seem to remember a castle. And a ghost. Lots and lots of sex.”
“Enfin, there will be none of that tonight.” The microwave clock read half past eleven. “You need to rest.”
“I’ll be fine so long as we stay in the same time zone longer than two days.”
Wordlessly, she helped him undress and slip into bed. Curled over his chest beneath the covers, she was glad to have stayed in rather than gone out with some of the cast.
“Mmm,” he moaned as her fingers played in his hair. “This is the only kind of all-nighter I need from now on.”
“I missed you, too—the not-yelling you. I think I will hear you and Chuck yelling in my dreams. How do you feel?”
“Disoriented, honestly. All this time, Lady in Red has been growing in this hermetically sealed environment, and now I’m about to blow the lid off so strangers can judge it. It’s exciting, but it’s also nerve wracking as hell.”
“Oui, but I know you, mamour…” Moving her hand from his hair to his forehead, she smoothed his worry wrinkles. “You feel personally responsible for all of us, and you’re afraid of what might happen if the show doesn’t succeed.”
Heavily, his chest rose and fell against hers, his breath tickling her face.
“You have to let go,” she murmured. “Trust the process. Trust that, no matter what happens, no one else can interpret this story the same as you, and that alone makes it special.” Cupping his face in both hands, she kissed him. “Slow down. Stay a little while in the moment. Joie de vivre. I’m proud of you, you’ve worked so hard. Now it’s time to enjoy it.”
The philharmonic of late night New York City filtered through the walls. Never sleeping. Awake and dreaming. Alive.
“You give good pep talk, Yoda.” He rubbed her back, then tightened his arms around her. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
Kissing his neck, she rested her cheek on his chest again. “You just did, mamour. Now go to sleep.”
When she woke up in the morning, he was already gone. There was a note stuck to her bedside lamp, written on a pink Post-It:
No act will ever be better than the one we got together.
Love,
Z
Kissing the note, she slipped it into the drawer. She had an hour and a half until her ten o’clock call time, so after a good, long stretch, she went to take a shower. It still smelled like him.
*
Onstage, Mina slapped the shit out of Sebastian.
“Jesus Christ.” Zack massaged between his eyebrows. Every cast and crew member within earshot stopped to gawk toward the stage. “Stay on script, Mina.”
“Enfin…” If elegance had an attitude, it looked like her stance. “Tell that to l‘idiote!”
“I-I don’t know what happened.” Sebastian sputtered, hand to his face. “What did I say?”
“Faye,” Mina said saccharinely, tapping her foot. “S’il vous plait, would you Google the difference between ‘baiser’ and ‘un baiser’?”
“For fuck’s sake,” Zack muttered under his breath but didn’t protest otherwise. Mina looked like she’d skin him with her teeth. Plus, he was curious to know himself.
“Uh-kay,” said Faye, swiping and tapping at her phone screen a moment. “Oh…crap.”
“Precisely.” Mina glared at Sebastian, then stormed off stage left.
Sebastian jogged after her, presumably to apologize. Everyone with a smartphone had obviously looked it up, too, because gasps and muffled laughter filled the air.
“Everyone take ten,” Zack said irritably. To Faye, he asked. “Do I even wanna know?”
Faye’s brow answered before she did. “Let’s just say it might be time to re-up that sexual harassment email.”
“Fantastic.”
“Hey, Sebastian can handle himself, okay? He was in Macbeth last year. Kid knows how to take a slap.”
“I wasn’t concerned, but for the sake of neutrality, maybe it won’t hurt to re-up the ‘How to Keep Your Cool at Work’ email, too.”
“We don’t have a—oh, right, pull Mina aside and ask her to use her words? Will-do.”
“No one betas my brain like you,” he crooned. “We got enough comp tickets for friends and family?”
Faye looked insulted. “I ticked that box a week ago, I’ll have you know. Even bumped into the deputy general manager this morning. We’re sold out tonight, and tomorrow, and every tomorrow clear through next week.”
“No shit?”
“This is a shit-free zone, my friend.”
“God, you’re an angel.” This time his tone wasn’t mocking at all, and he swept a hand through his hair. “I’ve been a lunatic, haven’t I?”
“It’s just jitters. Don’t worry. Everyone’s looking sharp, and all that excitement is infectious. It’s gonna spread through the audience tomorrow night like an apocalyptic plague, you’ll see.”
“I hope so.”
It did.
The show wasn’t perfect, but it was remarkable.
For two weeks, the cast gave their all, maintaining a dazzling, fast-paced energy, building tension, imparting the more emotional scenes with raw honesty and compassion, and recovering beautifully the few times moments went askew. It was easier than Zack thought it would be to relinquish control, to let the performance spread its wings and take flight. Because he was in it with his flock. Onstage, he wasn’t the leader, the point bird. Onstage, they were fluid, taking turns at the front, soaring on the energy of an audience fully-engaged and invested in the story they were telling.
With each performance, moments shifted, and intentions changed. They’d rehearse any adjustments in the afternoon and perform them at night, until audience reactions to the variations implemented felt palpable, and excitement for the show mounted.
The bawdy number with Wilson garnered more laughter than Zack could have hoped for, Wilson’s hard, gritty vocals blending with the crisp voices of Zack and the cast’s principal males in a hilarious, blatantly arrogant song:
They say that Pah-ree is a den of debauchery,
seething with all manner of erotic immorality!
When really,
Really,
Really,
Those puritans take offense
At any kind of decadence.
Fun-hating henchmen!
jealous of us Frenchmen!
Yes, a den of debauchery,
Seething with immorality.
But really,
Really,
Really,
We’re not godless, we swear it. Quite the contrary.
We like charity and verity and even missionary.
And truly,
Truly,
Truly,
They should be praising our largess,
For in Pah-ree, we find glee in both wife and mistress!
…
The choreography was short and explosive; they used their hands and bodies as instruments to communicate. Stomping, slapping and patting their arms, legs, chest, and cheeks in an exuberant pattin’ juba, they had the audience in an uproar before intermission.
When it was time for Mina’s solo, Zack watched from the wings, almost lightheaded with anticipation. Walking onstage in her simple red dress and pointe shoes, her hair loose and makeup toned down, she took her mark and faced the curtain. Turning her face toward him, she met his eyes briefly, and he sensed her fear-laced excitement.
You’ve got this, he telepathed as the mirror mosaics descended all around her. Just breathe.
She did, two great big calming breaths, and then Chuck made the lighting calls. Overhead, the chandelier shimmered, and her skin sparkled like diamonds.
“House lights off,” came the cue from Chuck.
A hush fell over the audience.
“Curtain…”
The curtain went up, and Harper’s “Song for Camille” floated from the orchestra pit. Mina launched into her freestyle with a painfully slow développé. Supporting herself on her right leg, she lifted her left leg and both arms until they were extended high above her head. She held her pose for several seconds in a gorgeous display of strength and control, then moved seamlessly into a promenade, lowering her leg to waist-level and turning a perfect circle on one foot.
She moved again, like water, and Zack felt the stage fall away…and the ceiling and the walls, and earth and matter. Only his soul was left, suspended in midair. Weightless. He sensed the thirteen hundred patrons of Tetley Theatre sharing the moment with him, witnessing France’s Étoile become an American star.
At the end of the show on Saturday, the audience leapt to its feet, and Zack’s heart left his chest to levitate somewhere over their heads. The sound of it beating seemed to drown out the crowd calls and mass of applause as the cast took their bows.
Lady in Red was locked and ready to face the press on Sunday.
*
Hours before the final preview performance, Mina joined the company in the theater for Zack’s champagne toast. Standing center stage and looking ten feet tall with obvious pride, he thanked the crew for bringing his dream to life, the cast for supplying bodies for the voices in his head, and the entire company for delivering a classical story with the vivacity it needed to feel accessible to anyone who saw it.
Enfin, he sounded a little…touched, but she knew he was having a vulnerable moment, and it made her sniffle.
“I think this is the part where I’m supposed to say, ‘ignore the critics.’” He scratched his forehead. “Personally, I recommend pretending they’re Statler and Waldorf from The Muppets, heckling us from their balcony seats. —They’re gonna hate it, no matter what we do…” He cracked a crooked smile, waiting for the laughter to subside. “So let’s have fun tonight.” Lifting his glass, his eyes lingered for a split second on Mina’s then moved over the rest of the group. “Joie de vivre.”
“Joie de vivre!” they shouted in unison, and Mina laugh-sobbed.
The noise outside her dressing room permeated the thin walls and the delicate layers of her skin, tightening into knots of nervous energy in her stomach. Inside, the room looked and smelled like un fleuriste, her own secret garden reflected in the vanity mirror. Her father’s parents sent blue orchids in their stead, and a card expressing their excitement to see her on opening night. There was a bowl of pink water lilies from Sophie, and an arrangement of jasmine and lilies from her mother. Mémé and pépé had stopped by an hour earlier to gift her with chocolate, and Vera sent the entire cast white roses. But nothing yet from Zack…
Carefully, she put on her elaborate Victorian wig. Her own hair was blown straight, pin curled and tucked under a stocking for the first half of the show. Later, for her bedroom pas de deux with Zack, Amy would help remove the wig and pins, fluffing it out into soft waves. It had taken longer than usual to apply the heavy-handed makeup for Camille, but she managed not to look like a clown when she put the finishing touches on her deep red lip. In fact, she admitted, she looked transformed.
“Merde!” She jumped at the loud knock on her door, stabbing herself in the eye with false lashes.
Étienne popped his head in with a single rose between his teeth, a bottle of wine in hand. Instantly, his face fell, and he plucked the bud from his mouth. “Is it safe, bichette? Or am I in danger of falling victim to your homicidal pre-show jitters?”
“Don’t tease me, I’m terrified!” she cried, furiously blinking away the sting in her eye. “We’ve been doing this for weeks! I wake myself talking in my sleep, running lines…I don’t understand why I’m so nervous now.”
“Allez.” He closed the door against the ruckus in the hall, then came over to kiss her cheek. Setting his spoils on the vanity, he leaned back against it in a suit tailored to him like a second skin. “Everything about you was made for high drama—your temper, your voice, your excellente genetics, even your little ogre feet…”
“Ah!”
He ducked the mascara she threw at him smoothly and laughed, which further irritated her, and his expression softened. “The stakes are higher tonight, but you’ve spent most of your life being judged by scarier people than the ones waiting out there. What’s the worst that could happen?”
“Someone steps on my dress, and I’m naked in front of thousands of people?” Folding her arms across her silk-robed chest, she sighed. “Don’t bother telling me to imagine them all naked. It won’t work, and I can’t see them anyway because of the stage lights.”
“Non, you need something more pragmatic than that.” He rubbed his smooth chin a moment, then lifted a dark brow. “Pragmatically speaking, your boobs are high and perky, and you’ve been waxed within an inch of your life. If you do end up teaching us all an anatomy lesson, this show’s run will be solidified faster than you can pull your dress back up. So you see, it’s win-win.”
Laughing despite her nerves, she pinched his slim waist.
He caught her attacking hand in both of his. “You are living art, bichette. No one expects you to be perfect. It’s more important that you—”
“Never be dishonest,” they said at the same time.
“I…merci, ma moitié.” She squeezed his hand, thanking her lucky stars again to see him alive and well. “You always know exactly what to say.”
The thirty-minute call sounded, and after a quick knock, Amy slipped in. “Hope I’m not interrupting…”
“Of course not.” Étienne pressed a kiss to the back of Mina’s hand and released it, then paralyzed poor Amy with his magnetic smile on his way to the door. “Break a leg, as they say. It’s an utterly ridiculous sentiment, but, alors, breaking a leg is worse than exposing yourself, is it not? And when in Rome…” With a wink, he left her to finish dressing.
*
No one was more useless on press night than the director. The work was already done, and if Zack weren’t in the show himself, he’d simply wish everyone well, humor Vera with some harmless flirting up in her balcony where she sat in her dress with the enormous train, then wring his hands for two hours and try not to sweat through his suit. He had Manny to thank for not letting the women in his life turn the backstage area into a block party. They’d visited him in his dressing room for five minutes, wished him luck, and gone to find their seats, leaving Zack with six shades of lipstick smudges on his face.
He washed it off and suited up as Armand, then went in search of Mina. Her dressing room was a bust, and shortly after the twenty-minute call, Jamal stopped him near the narrow iron steps to the fly tower.
“Ay, boss man…” Jamal leaned in conspiratorially. “Your girl’s up there on the bridge psyching herself up. I can keep it clear for five minutes, tops.”
“Ah, that’d be great. Thanks, man.”
Zack took the steps two at a time, crossing two very narrow platforms to a wider one forty feet above the house and spanning the width of the theater. He found her at its center looking nineteenth-century regal, gripping the iron rail and looking over the edge. He knew she felt his approach, his steps shaking the catwalk. Turning in his direction, her eyes widened, and she offered him a tremulous little smile.
“There you are,” he said. “Been looking all over for you.” Tempted as he was to touch her, he didn’t dare. He was sure Jamal was doing his due diligence, but there were just too many people seated below them and rushing all around. Instead, he stood about two feet away, admiring her transformation. “You look amazing, petite. Interesting place for a repose, though…”
“So do you.” Her eyes flashed her appreciation, then she pressed a hand to her abdomen, her chest heaving with deep, measured breaths. “I needed a minute. It’s just occurred to me how different this is than anything I’ve ever done. I was looking in the mirror and I couldn’t see myself anymore. I couldn’t think, and I…I…”
“There was a chink in your armor,” he said softly. “You needed some air.”
She gasped at the words, and he knew she was remembering the night they met, too.
“I want you to have something.” He slipped his hand into the inside pocket of his tailcoat and removed a small wooden figurine. Allowing himself to touch her for just a second, he reached for her wrist, turning it palm-up, and settled the little swan into her hand. “I thought of a million things I could give you, but none of them felt big enough, important enough. Then I thought, maybe it’s the smallest things that create the biggest memories.”
Her fingers traced over the detailing on one of the swan’s wings, then she turned it over, and her eyes filled with tears. Underneath, a single word was carved:
Petite.
“It’s perfect,” she whispered. “Merci, mamour. You’re right—I won’t forget this.”
Staring at the stunning incarnation of his dream, his chest aching from wanting to hold her, and her artful stage makeup under threat of ruination, he couldn’t think of a finer moment. The ten-minute call sounded, and Mina sniffed.
“I didn’t get you anything,” she said like an apology.
Shaking his head, he smiled. “You’ve already given me everything.”
♥ FIN. ♥