Chapter 16
CLOSING NIGHT
LEAH
The night I ended my run in London as Victoria, I did so with a bang and a few drinks. When I arrived, I stood out front and took one last photo of my name second on the marquee. It wasn’t over. It was just over for now. But in one production, my life was changed for the better.
I did my warmups while my hair was prepped. Then, spotted a face I’d missed desperately for weeks.
“Oh my god!” I screeched. “You made it!”
Lourdes entered, her signature honey-blonde locks long and straight. She was tan. “Barely, with no thanks to the flight into JFK.”
I freed myself from the people prepping me to give her a tight hug. “I’m so happy you made it. LA looks good on you.”
While I’d tacked on another three months to my contract, Lourdes departed to film in LA.
She was halfway to being a bonafide film star.
By the time Victoria moved to Broadway, she’d have filmed not one but two movies.
I’d lost my Alexandra and my best friend.
Seeing her again felt like the best present.
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Lourdes shifted nervously in her heels. “But, I wouldn’t miss this for the world. You are sure the cast doesn’t care?”
“Brian and I are insistent, okay?” I cupped her face in my hands. “We would have it no other way. You are our ride-or-die and you will be here.”
“Where do I go?” Lourdes asked. “I know you still have a lot of prep to do.”
“My parents are downstairs with Charlotte at some reception. Go find them,” I said. “Oh, and Mac and some of my other friends came in from London. Go say hello and try to make them feel at home. I would, but…”
I gestured up and down.
“Okay,” Lou said.
“You need to come backstage at intermission,” I said. “Apart from that, just enjoy watching me run around the stage for three hours.”
She giggled. “Oh, I really do hope your lift during ‘The Empire’ has improved.”
I cringed. “Unfortunately, I think it is still the roughest bit.”
She shook her head. “Well, I will go find your friends and family. Break a leg, my love.”
She left and my heart soared. We went from spending every waking hour together and feeling like one person to two broken halves.
She moved onto LA with a busy shooting schedule.
We saw one another every couple of months, but that was it.
I worried I never fully appreciated the beauty of having her there every day while I had it.
There was no time to think. It was wardrobe, then onto stage.
The crowd was mostly die-hards and family, so the mood was up.
Even though I flagged by this point in the week, I had a burst of energy as the applause continued into the stratosphere.
It was a beautiful show, but I didn’t want it to end.
The curtain calls could have continued until the morning light, and I still would have come back for more.
Afterwards, we had a reception to thank the producers and to celebrate Brian and I moving onto New York.
The cast agreed to perform some numbers from the show, but we had a surprise in store.
Lourdes left with no fanfare. When Brian and I renewed our contracts, the entire world refused to believe she’d go, but she did.
And without a bit of hubbub. Whether it was a lack of planning, or my burying my head in the sand over missing her, nothing was planned.
So, when our schedules aligned with my leaving, I made sure to include her.
“Uh, so…” I began, “Apologies as I am so out of breath still. But… I just wanted to say thank you all for being on this journey with us. My life is forever changed by so many of you in this room. I am not sure how it will work in New York, but I am so grateful that many of you are coming with—especially Brian who is here to rein me in as needed.”
I looked at Brian, then out over the audience as I fought tears.
That was when it hit me that the life I’d felt was so mine was over.
I’d be left to find a new normal in America.
What if I hated it? My whole life, I’d wanted to be on Broadway.
Now, I’d made it. I’d gotten top billing, but what if I flopped?
What if the show didn’t translate to an American audience.
What if without Lou as the foil on opening night, I was left alone singing flatly to an audience that felt I wasn’t worth the ticket price?
As I spiraled internally, Brian jumped in to save me, “But we have a surprise for you—one last one. And… can you all handle a final encore?”
A cheer rang out, but I held my hand up to my ear to get a little more out of them. A louder cheer met my gesture, and I took the mic back.
“So, we’re going to do The Problem with Bertie, but…” My words trailed as I turned to the wings and met Lou’s steady gaze. “We have a special guest here tonight.”
Gasps rang out as Lourdes, emerged in a short, sparkly dress. She looked like a million bucks—with mile-long-legs as she approached. The crowd leapt to its feet cheering as she picked up her mic.
Tossing her hair over her shoulder, she asked, “Did you miss me?”
The crowd lit up. We waited for it to settle.
“So, Lou has been kind enough to stop by to complete the number. Millie invited her, rather.” I cringed at that last bit, knowing no matter what, my accent was all over the place in this weird headspace. “I promise it was Millie’s idea, and I am just along for the ride.”
Millie, our current Alexandra, called back, “It’s gonna be great!”
She was more than generous and idolized Lourdes.
“Shall we?” I turned to Lou.
Lourdes smiled satisfactorily. “We shall.”
The pianist played the song’s sweeping intro.
I geared up to be my most annoying mother-in-law self.
Lourdes played the saintly young daughter-in-law.
Together, our comedic chops soared as much as the note I had to hit in between very funny lines in the first verse.
Despite the weeks we’d been apart, it gelled perfectly once more.
By the time we hit the harmony—in big, beautiful, exhilarating thirds—it was like nothing changed.
I sang to Lourdes. She sang to me. A feeling overcame me—electricity, perhaps? I never wanted this to end. In my head, I thought about what could have been—what if she’d never left or if I insisted she do the show? But that wasn’t real life, was it?
The piano dropped down into the final bars of the last verse, my eyes met hers and I sensed we both wondered the same thing.
After our final note, I hugged Lourdes tight.
She did the same. The standing ovation we received was deafening, but it didn’t matter.
I pulled back, soaking up this feeling. We were both near tears.
No longer mic’d and free to chat, I turned to Lourdes.
“It’s the end of an era, love,” she said, a bit quickly. “Thanks for letting me share it with you.”
Then, she left. I wasn’t sure if it was too painful to talk about the look we just exchanged or if I misread her, but feeling her hand slip from mine felt worse than anything imaginable. It was as if the last ten minutes didn’t even happen. Were we just playing games?