The cue-to-cue is killing Adrian. Standing onstage for hours, not even acting, while the designers run around and make tiny changes? It’s a waste of his time.
“Hold!” the stage manager yells, and the actors freeze. Zara’s hands are stuck to his chest.
The designers run around while the actors stay in place. “Why does it take so long for them to fix every single thing?” Adrian asks.
Zara’s eyes flick around. Talking is against the rules. (But the rules are different for Adrian, and everybody knows it.) “This is the only time the designers have to make their ideas work,” Zara whispers. “We had six weeks.” She looks up at the lighting booth and then back at Adrian.
He nods like he gets it, but secretly he can’t figure out why Zara would side with the crew.
Down in the orchestra pit, Leopold is talking to Barrett, the oil slick of a props guy. “That can’t possibly be the right sword.” Adrian waits for Leopold to rip into him, but Barrett just rolls his eyes and spends twenty minutes finding another rapier.
“See, he gives that guy special treatment,” Adrian whispers to the top of Zara’s head. “I mean, have you ever seen Barrett do something right? He’s terrible with the props. Plus I heard him talking about one of his hookups in the dressing room the other day. It was bad, Z. Really bad. A page out of the creeper manual.”
Zara makes a yes-Barrett-is-disgusting face.
Leopold turns away from the props master, and Adrian tries to catch his attention from across the room. But the director just keeps moving, looking for someone other than him.
Lately, Adrian has been feeling a little overlooked. (And that’s not a feeling he’s used to.) He shows up, does his scenes, leaves. He’s not really part of what’s happening at the Aurelia.
He can hold on to the words, even the long-ass monologues, thanks to Zara and her special technique. Adrian can get the words out now, but he can’t really act. (Or maybe he can. Maybe he’s better than he thinks he is. But then why hasn’t Leopold told him so? Why hasn’t Leopold told him anything?)
The director starts to shout from his table out there in the middle of the house. Zara tenses at Adrian’s side.
But the anger isn’t for her. Not this time.
The lights go from blue to some other shade of blue. Leopold spins around and shouts up at the lighting booth, “That can’t possibly be the right cue. You can fix it, or you can leave.”
Adrian feels bad for the lighting girl. Eli. Her boss just died, and she’s got a pretty intense job at the moment. Leopold could cut her a break. “I guess that’s not special treatment,” Adrian mutters to Zara.
She looks bad all of a sudden. Paler than pale. Like she wants to break off the stage and run — where? Away from Adrian? Then he would be completely alone.
“Keep moving!” the stage manager yells. Zara gets out one line before the dreaded “Hold!”
The second Adrian has his lines down, they absolutely forbid him to speak.
It figures.
In Hollywood they do this stuff before he even steps onto the set. He has people to stand in place for him. An army of not-quite-Adrians. They go out for drinks sometimes and after a few rounds they let girls at the bar guess which one is the real Adrian Ward. He misses those guys. He misses those girls.
All he has right now is Zara — and he doesn’t even have her. Not really. They kiss every day, but that’s just onstage. There was that one time in the studio, but Adrian stopped it, stepped back right when things were heating up. He couldn’t get Kerry out of his head. “Hey, Z,” he whispers. “Maybe we should run away together at the next break. Ariston would love that, right? It’s his sort of thing.”
Zara whispers back. “I think I used up my running away on the Aurelia.”
“Hey,” Adrian says. “Me, too.” He didn’t even know that was true until it came out of his mouth.
He came here to get away from what happened with Kerry.
With the blond in her red hair, the sweet, scratchy voice, those thighs. Kerry, so pretty and not at all famous. The famous ones fall for Adrian, too, but they go back to their actor and director and music-producer boyfriends as soon as the movies wrap. Kerry was different. Adrian called her his Indie Darling, and she liked it. (Most of the time.)
He wishes she were here right now and then wipes the thought clean. Kerry was the one who said she couldn’t be seen on his arm — couldn’t just be Adrian Ward’s Girlfriend. Adrian didn’t get it. He knows his fans can be intense and his fame can feel like too much, but why should that stop them from being in love? Was that a bargain he made when he started acting — get too big and lose the person you want to be with? He doesn’t remember signing that contract.
“Are you okay?” Zara asks.
Now he must be the one looking sickly.
The stage manager calls a break, and Adrian hops off the stage and walks right up to Leopold.
“I’m here to act,” he says. “Not just, you know, stand. I was wondering if you have any notes for me.” Adrian needs to know there’s something he can do to be a better Ariston. He’s supposed to be giving the performance of a lifetime. If he can pull that off, it means he didn’t come all this way just to avoid an ex-girlfriend.
Leopold waves him away. “Nothing at the moment.”
“I just need to know, if there’s anything I can be doing . . .”
Leopold takes Adrian by both shoulders. He’s stronger than he looks. “Don’t worry. The press will be gentle with you. They love you. And the public? They go to sleep at night hoping to dream about you. It’s Echo I’m worried about.” They both look to Zara on the stage. She looks small up there, stranded. “I wish my reputation could protect her, but you must know that casting someone as your love interest is a high-stakes game. She must be perfect. If not . . .”
Adrian knows what he’s talking about. It’s happened before. Even to famous girls. If his fans think that someone isn’t good enough for him, even in a costar capacity, she’ll get eviscerated. He’s been around long enough to notice that people can be seriously nasty when it comes to actresses.
“Zara is a good actress,” Adrian says. And it’s true. She gets nervous sometimes, but when she’s on, she’s very, very good. She blazes through their scenes.
She makes him feel so much.
But Leopold is looking at Zara Evans like she was a mistake. “This girl has never been in the public eye. Never touched a real stage before. She’s never been in love. She’s far too innocent.”
Adrian claps his hands together. “Right.” He turns back down the aisle and strides toward Zara. She helped him once, and it’s time to pay that back. Maybe Adrian’s not the world’s best actor, but there are things he can do to help this production. Whether Leopold knows it or not, he just gave Adrian a brilliant idea.