CHAPTER TWELVE
“Alex, congratulations.”
“There’s still an hour until curtain, Maria.” Premature or not, it was nice to have her confidence. She did scrub up nicely in the boyish, slicked-back haircut and bolero jacket she donned for openings.
“I know, I know. But I’ve every confidence in what I saw. I trust rehearsals went well? Smart of you to keep their location a secret, by the way. Where’s your friend?”
Rehearsals? A secret location? Alex wondered what Vis had told her. “Joanna’s backstage. Vicente’s in the booth, getting ready.”
“I mean your other friend. The strange one who wanted one-night-only?” She raised her vermouth and took a long sip. “Handsome, though.”
After returning from four days in San Sebastián, Jago had indeed promised Alex he’d be there for opening night, and each night after that.
Besides this, however, they’d met only twice, for a drink at Angel Sierra and for a stroll through the Prado.
Both had felt shockingly mundane, with Jago deflecting all but the most superficial questions about witchcraft or his trip.
They’d retreated to Jago’s apartment after the night at Angel Sierra where, after several more glasses of wine on the couch, they’d crashed in Jago’s upstairs bed.
Their attempt at drunken lovemaking had ended with them snoozing in each other’s arms. The mutual blowjobs they’d exchanged come morning were a far cry from Alex’s first night in Jago’s quarters.
Jago hadn’t even mentioned his witch’s chamber, and Alex had been too polite to ask for an invitation, much less to try Jago’s levitation trick again.
That had all happened, hadn’t it?
In truth, Alex had been too fixed on tonight to mind.
He’d spent more time with Vicente, who’d become a dance widower as Joanna immersed herself deeper and deeper into preparations.
When she’d finally come out with Vicente at the end of the first week, Alex had asked her how everything was going, a question she’d avoided with that wan smile that had become so familiar to him.
Vicente on the other hand had insisted she was eating well, sleeping well within her typical nocturnal schedule, and had never seemed happier.
Several times, Alex had tried to bring up his strange night at La Otra Cava, but as days passed, this encounter seemed more and more like a distant, macabre dream.
Vicente, for his part, had experienced no more dreams, distracting himself with Alex and football in equal measure, including one tedious afternoon Alex spent watching one of Vicente’s games, confirming his amicable divorce from the nation’s one true religion.
At least Vis had bought him drinks after.
“He is coming, isn’t he?” Maria’s voice snapped Alex out of his musings.
“Yes?” Alex glanced at the doors. Confidence, damn it. “Yes, he is.”
“Can I fetch you a drink?”
“No, I’m fine. He’ll be here soon, Maria, I promise.”
“Promise?” She lifted the lipstick-stained glass to her lips again. “It’s your show, not mine.”
Alex excused himself with a wan smile. No longer able to stand watching the silent doors, he disappeared into the darkened theatre and into the tech box. “How’s it going?”
“Hey,” Vicente murmured without looking up. “I think we’re all good, now. Do you think anyone actually saw Leo’s show, even if they bought tickets? Because they fucked like hell with the lighting presets. I told you we at least needed a tech run.”
“Of what?” Alex asked. “Jago says it’s too dangerous to risk a connection more times than we have to.”
“A connection? Is that what we’re calling it now? Mind orgy has a better ring to it, surely?”
“Near traumatising foursome?”
“Now that would have been a title. Too late now, sadly.”
Alex shrugged. “Maria says the guest list is full. If people show—”
Vicente was on his feet and hugging him before he could finish. “Let’s focus on that first bit, okay? Guest. List. Is. Full. It’s gonna be great, my friend. Si-Man’s psychic advisor promised me that.”
“Si-Man’s psychic…”
Vicente grinned.
“You’re going to Hell.”
“Can’t be hotter than in here. I’m going to get some water. Do you want anything?”
“Have you seen Jago?”
Vicente frowned at him. “You mean you haven’t? He was backstage half an hour ago, talking with Joanna.”
Alex let his jaw go slack before biting his lip.
“Look, umm…” Vicente shuffled his feet. “Maybe we should talk after the show?”
“Vis?”
“I’m sure it’s fine. The guy’s weird, we both know that.”
“A witch? Weird?” Alex smirked. “Yeah, isn’t he?”
They left the booth and went their separate ways, Vicente to the lobby and Alex backstage.
He disappeared behind the flats they’d hastily repainted in the style of what Alex had always thought was one of Cordoba’s prettiest streets.
Blue flower pots dotted whitewashed houses, all standing out against a cloudless sky, a black cat weaving its way along a terrace.
It was idealistic—cartoonish, even. Perhaps some pretentious Madrileno critic would tear him apart for it, but so what?
Once the show started, there would be no argument.
In this house, the dogs from Andalusia did the tearing.
He crossed the space that buffered the sound between the stage and the dressing room, trying to hide his nerves as he rapped on the door.
“Come in!” Joanna sounded positively overjoyed.
When Alex saw her, she looked even better despite her unblended makeup, glowing as if the spirit of the show itself had imbued her.
Sitting next to her with a glass of red wine, Jago looked tired by comparison, sitting low in his seat, his white shirt unbuttoned almost to the navel while—miraculously—not showing a spot of red wine.
He stood up, taking Alex in a warm hug and kissing both his cheeks.
“I’d offer the same,” Joanna said, turning back to the mirror. “But I’m halfway done, and I fear I’d leave your shirt looking like the Shroud of Turin if Jesus was a drag queen.”
“To date, we’ve little evidence that he wasn’t,” said Jago. “How’s it looking out there?”
“Empty so far, but Maria says the guest list is full, so… Where the hell have you been?”
“Here.” Jago stared at him blankly as if this were a complete answer to the world’s most obvious question. “Sorry, I meant to come find you, but by the time you arrived, we were deep into our conversation.”
“Jago’s been telling me marvellous things about his trip.” Joanna grinned, blending her rouge. “Been making me quite homesick, if I’m honest. Have you been to Zugarramurdi, Alex?”
Alex noticed Jago’s face darken, if only for a second. “Never heard of it.”
“We should go, the four of us, together. I’ve heard about the Basque witches, of course, but I’ve always dismissed those stories as the church being the church when it came to opinionated, inconvenient women.”
Jago gave them both a patient nod. “The history’s quite real, I assure you. Most of it, anyway. The fire caves are something to see.”
“Fire caves?”
“Most caves are shaped by water. It’s said that to be imbued with magickal properties, they must then be refined by fire.” Jago turned to Alex with a smirk. “It’s not as if I’ve witnessed the process first-hand.”
“I thought you went to San Sebastián?”
“I did. I hired a car from there. The historic centre of Basque witchcraft isn’t exactly a hot tourist destination, you know? There’s no train.” Jago raised an eyebrow, as if reading every question that passed through Alex’s mind. “I’ll tell you more over a drink.”
“Fine,” Alex conceded, checking the time. Thirty minutes before curtain. “Will you excuse us? I’d like to talk to our star.”
“Our star,” Joanna said, mouth wide, fingers splayed at either side of her face like Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard. “You say the sweetest things, Alex.”
With a polite nod and a kiss on Alex’s cheek, Jago retreated, closing the dressing room door behind him.
“Can you pass me my wig?” Joanna asked, fixing her skull cap as Alex complied. She picked up a brush and went into battle with it. “I don’t know how this thing gets so bloody knotted every time it’s moved. It’s a straight wig.”
“Nothing in Madrid is as straight as you think.”
“Tired, but true.”
Alex took the seat Jago had vacated, moving his unfinished glass of wine out of accident range. “How are you feeling?”
Joanna grinned. “Exhilarated. Aren’t you?”
Alex smiled over a breathy, forced chuckle. “I mean, this is not what any of us signed up for.”
Joanna turned to him over the edge of her chair. “Darling, this is no reflection on you, but what we signed up for was going to suck. I don’t say that lightly, but this?”
“This?”
She shrugged, straightening the last tresses of her wig with obvious satisfaction. “We all saw and felt the same thing. I’m excited to feel that again, aren’t you?”
“Of course. I just wish we knew more about how it worked.”
“Don’t we? It’s witchcraft, isn’t it?”
Alex hadn’t been ready for quite so much frankness. “Umm… is it?”
“Really, Alex? Playing dumb doesn’t suit you. You start dating a witch, he starts coming to rehearsals, and the whole damn show catches fire in the best way, like something I’ve never experienced on stage.”
“I suppose Vis filled you in, then?”
She looked up at him, momentarily hurt. “Vis didn’t say a word. You told him, but not me?”
“I asked him to bring you along.” Alex shrugged, unsure what else to say as Joanna stood up and took her dress off the rack. “Look, it doesn’t matter.”
“Hmmm, you’re forgiven. But the improvisation? No rehearsals? Jago’s trip? It didn’t take much to put the pieces together, though it did spoil the game a bit when Jago told me.”
“He told you?”
She nodded. “To be fair, I asked. He didn’t seem caught off-guard or offended, though. He seemed more impressed, if that doesn’t sound like I’m bragging.”
“And this doesn’t bother or scare you?”