Chapter Seven
Six weeks till show day
The next weekend, Annie took Socks for a walk past the open auditions for the remaining roles in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
She expected a modest turnout. To her surprise—and a guilty dash of dismay—the line ribboned all the way up Myrtle Street, ending outside the empty shop front formerly known as Once Upon a Time.
Folks of all ages stood in groups or alone, studying script pages.
The prospect of the play being revealed as an elaborate practical joke was rapidly diminishing.
Saying yes was easier than disappointing Jazz, who’d been thrilled—though not remotely surprised—when Annie called.
(“I had a feeling,” she’d said, maddeningly smug.) And saying yes meant doing something good—for the town, for Jazz, for the version of herself that still craved a bigger, bolder life.
Sure, a one-night-only production wasn’t going to single-handedly save Rhodes.
But if it sold out, if they got good press, if the next show did just as well…
it could spark something. Jazz’s plan might work.
It’d take some time, but Annie could see how Rhodes could become an actual destination, known for being queer-friendly, artsy, a little weird.
Visitors could become regulars. Word would spread.
People might even move here, looking for what she’d found: A slower pace of life and meaningful work. A community. A home.
Saying yes was also about pride. Annie didn’t want to look like a coward in front of Lola or the others. She wanted to prove that she could be brave—not just to them, but to herself.
But now? She was regretting it in high-definition, surround sound, possibly smell-o-vision.
“Annie! Annie!” Deborah Buttrose waved her down. The nail salon matriarch was sporting frosted pistachio eye shadow and the confidence of someone who’d seen Cabaret on Broadway while wearing a top hat. “Are you sitting in on auditions? Ooh, can you put in a good word for me with Jazz?”
“You’re trying out?” Annie couldn’t keep the surprise out of her voice. “Which part?”
“Polonius,” Deborah replied, making a vampy cat-claw motion. Her nail art was tiny comedy-tragedy masks. “Adviser to the King.”
“Certainly the sexiest one in the cast,” Annie noted, as Socks sniffed the overgrown front lawn. “If you like conniving bad dads with control issues.”
“I keep an open mind,” Deborah said. “My husband and I used to swing, before he died.”
Annie’s mouth fell open. “Oh, I—didn’t know…”
“Tractor accident,” Deborah said. “Years ago.”
“I knew he’d passed—I meant the swinging,” Annie said. “Not that I want any details or future acknowledgment of this conversation.”
“Lube is key,” Deborah said firmly, before swiveling to address those waiting behind her in the line. “Folks, this is Annie Lightfoot! She’s playing one of the leads. Opposite Lola Wilson!”
The small group animated, appraising Annie with fascination and respect. “Lola Wilson?” an older woman asked, awestruck. “Tom Hanks’s wife?”
“No, Mom, that’s Rita Wilson.” A genderqueer teenager with a white-blond shag and double eyebrow piercings didn’t look up from their phone.
In their baggy streetwear and scuffed Doc Martens, they were the human equivalent of an eye roll.
“Lola Wilson’s a B-list actress who’s in movies no one watches.
No offense,” they added, flicking Annie an unapologetic side-eye.
“I think some people watch her movies…” Annie hedged, already regretting engaging a terrifying teen. “I didn’t know you were a performer, Deb.”
“Neither did I!” Deborah beamed, her oversize rhinestone clip-ons glinting in the morning light.
“But then I saw the audition flyer in your window, and thought, why not? We all have the capacity to surprise ourselves. It’s never too late to try something new.
” Then, dropping her voice to a stage whisper, “I should know—I was forty when I discovered I’m into butt stuff. ”
Annie wished briefly for death. Any death, really, just a fast and immediate one. She wasn’t a prude—butt stuff for prez, vote one butt stuff—but the minor luxury of her occasional gel manicure didn’t include imagining the person buffing her nails biting the pillow.
Deborah went on, “I can tell you that because you’re a performer, an artist. You’re open-minded.”
“To play devil’s advocate, maybe not all artists are open-minded,” Annie suggested. “Maybe that’s like saying all lesbians like, I dunno, Birkenstocks and carabiners.”
Deborah looked pointedly at Annie’s bright blue Birkenstocks. And then at her carabiner key ring attached to her belt loop.
The line inched forward. Annie let Socks tug her along, struggling to stay ahead of a growing sense of panic. The play was really happening. With Vicky, and Dylan, and Lola.
Who was a glamorous, successful movie star, and to whom, twenty years ago, Annie had told a life-altering lie.
A lie that had broken both of their hearts.
A wrong she had never, could never, right.
· · ·
Annie had always had a skill for memorizing lines—it was one of the talents that made doing community theater possible.
And her role of Rosencrantz was the one she’d understudied as a teen.
She meant to reread the play. But every time she got more than a few pages in, she suddenly remembered something she needed to do for someone else.
Get ahead with bookkeeping so Sal wouldn’t have to.
Send personalized emails to each regular explaining she was taking August off.
Bake a month’s worth of peanut butter treats.
She didn’t mean not to read the play. But all at once it was the first Saturday in August, the day of the table read, and Annie hadn’t made it past page four.
Reading it meant thinking about it. And thinking about it was panic-inducing.
“What if I fake a seizure?” Annie trailed Sal around the Groom Room. “I don’t think I’m that far off.” She paused, feeling her pulse. Bouncing like a kid on a goddamn trampoline. “Why do I smell toast? Isn’t that a sign of a stroke?”
“It’s your toast,” Sal said, pointing to the plate she’d forgotten she’d brought down from her apartment upstairs.
“Oh. Phew.” Annie took a bite. “Okay, scrap the seizure. I’ll just tell Jazz that while I love her to bits, this whole idea is on par with green-lighting The Apprentice or bringing back the dinosaurs.
” She flapped her hands, quoting Jurassic Park, their shared fave.
“We were so preoccupied with whether or not we could, that we didn’t stop to think if we should. And we should not!”
Sal tapped on the salon’s iPad, confirming the day’s three appointments. “Jeff Goldblum is such a zaddy.”
“I worship at the altar of Laura Dern’s legs.” Annie glanced around for something to do. “Maybe I can come up with some wacky new summer specials.”
“What’s wacky,” Sal said, looking at her over his glasses, “is how nervous you are.”
He was right. Despite the fact it was only community theater, her insides felt like they were being tossed around by an amateur juggler. “Honestly?” Annie admitted. “It’s Lola.”
“Why, because she’s a movie star?” Sal vamped, fluttering his eyelashes.
“Not just that.” Annie blew out a breath, double-checking the sign on the salon door was still flipped to Closed—But Still Open to Compliments. “When we were kids, Lola and I were…together. Scene partners, with benefits.”
Sal’s deep brown eyes widened, his lips curling up in charmed delight. “You were? Baby gays?”
Annie nodded, her cheeks warming. “Big time. We were in love. Or, thought we were, at sixteen.” Annie allowed herself the forbidden pleasure of remembering what it felt like to fall for Lola Wilson.
“I’d never met a girl like her, ever. She knew all about film.
Had big dreams of being onstage. Everyone else was gravel; Lola was rose quartz.
She made me feel so alive, like I was seeing clearly for the first time.
And when we kissed…” Annie’s entire body shivered.
She could still recall, with delicious, painful clarity, the feel of Lola’s mouth on hers.
“I’d never felt that way about anyone. In a way, I haven’t since.
Do you ever love as hard as you do at sixteen? ”
Sal nodded in understanding. “Robbie Brayer broke my heart with his faux-hawk.” He poked his glasses up his nose, intrigued. “So, what happened?”
Annie was in no way ready to tell Sal about the lie she’d told. Even though he’d never explicitly said it, Sal thought Annie was a good person. He’d be horrified if he knew the ugly truth.
“She got a role in a touring show and left,” Annie abridged. “I stayed with Gran to finish high school.”
Pearl’s health declined gradually. She refused to leave her house, so Annie stayed living with her during her last years—helping with day-to-day things while nurses handled medical care.
Sal came by for weekly home visits in that final year, always managing to get Pearl laughing when nothing else could.
Pearl died from heart failure when Annie was twenty-two.
“Seeing Lola again makes me feel weirdly insecure,” Annie went on. “I didn’t let her drop me home because she’d see the salon, and the size of my apartment. Things I’m usually so proud of.”
“Because she’s a massive snob now?” Sal asked, ready to hate Lola on principle.
“Maybe?” Annie guessed. “But I don’t think so. It’s me, it’s all in my head.”
Sal hooked an eyebrow, somehow looking both empathetic and judgy.
“You have nothing to be insecure about, Annie. Twenty years is a long time, babe. Even if it was a bad breakup: you were just kids. I’m sure Lola has forgiven you.
” He grasped her shoulders, speaking with atypical earnestness.
“You’ve created a beautiful life in Rhodes and you’re gonna crush it today.
The Annie I know isn’t afraid to take a risk or show up for the people she loves. ”
“She sounds amazing. When do I get to meet her?”