Chapter Fifteen
Twenty days till the show
“Line!” Annie’s voice shot upward, pinging off the chandelier overhead.
Lola suppressed a groan as a ripple of irritation flickered through the cast, watching from the house seats.
Jazz strode onstage, muumuu flapping. “Annie, you knew this yesterday.”
“Sorry!” Annie flipped frantically through her script. “What’s the—what’s the line?”
“I remember when there were no questions,” Lola recited softly.
Annie’s eyes snapped to her.
“That’s the line.” Lola hesitated, then added, “Maybe try it a little wistful.”
“Wistful?”
Lola nodded. “Nostalgic. Like…when we were younger, and there weren’t as many questions.” When adulthood was a distant irrelevance and they’d never, ever get old.
Annie stared back with an expression as layered as the line itself—understanding mixed with something more vulnerable. “Okay. Thank you.”
Lola warmed with pleasure. Jazz had told her she was free to jump in with performance notes—and it felt surprisingly good, this balancing act of playing a role and shaping one. As challenging as this whole process was, as stilted as things were with Annie, directing gave Lola a sense of purpose.
Jazz clapped her hands. “Okay, five-minute break. Remember what I keep saying, kids. Use your lived experience. Keep it real.”
The chatter in the theater rose, but Annie was still looking at Lola. She licked her lips, like she was steeling herself. “Hey…do you have plans tonight?”
Tonight, Vicky was staying at her condo in Midtown for a doctor’s appointment first thing tomorrow. Dylan had plans to whip up a test batch of a new flavor for Marlowe in Jazz’s kitchen. Lola shrugged, curious. “Not really.”
Annie’s gaze flicked down, then, cautiously, back up. “Come over for dinner.” She lowered her voice, so only Lola could hear. “There’s something we really need to talk about.”
Annie asking to talk could mean only one thing: The tension between them was about to be named, dissected, discussed.
It was both a relief and unbearably nerve-racking.
For the rest of rehearsal, Lola could barely focus.
Her mind kept spiraling ahead to dinner—imagining every version of how it might go, from awkward to intimate to catastrophic.
She wanted clarity. She also wasn’t sure she could handle it.
Back at Jazz’s, Lola tried on five different outfits before deciding on tan trousers, a simple black tank, sneakers.
Something she felt good in, without feeling overdressed or overly feminine.
It was unnerving to think she didn’t fully know her own style.
That, at thirty-six and possessing so many trappings of external success, she was still figuring out who Lola Wilson actually was.
· · ·
Rain began to drizzle as Lola parked her rental car out front of the Groom Room. Even though it was closed and empty, the cozy, colorful interior felt instantly familiar as an extension of Annie herself.
On a humid Sunday evening, Henry Street was quiet, with just a few people under umbrellas walking their dogs.
Lola flipped down the sun visor mirror to diligently dab on some lipstick before reconsidering.
She didn’t really like wearing it; it’d only end up all over the wineglass.
She’d skip lipstick tonight. Annie knew what her face looked like.
She had ten minutes to kill. She tapped over to Instagram on her phone.
The first post on her feed was from Clay Russo, the actor playing Robin Hood in the reboot Lola hadn’t gotten, whom Lola had followed after meeting him in the last audition.
In the candid snap, handsome Clay grinned next to a curvy redhead in a quasi-medieval dress.
Sabina Waters, the actor playing Maid Marian.
The photo inspired no emotion—no jealousy that Sabina had won the role over her, no regret that Lola was here and not there.
Odd.
The next few photos were of Clay enjoying a sunny day by the Thames, a raised pint at an outdoor pub, a decadent high tea at the Ritz. Lola smiled, feeling faintly nostalgic for the magic of London in full bloom.
The last picture was of the film’s director, Kris Mack, a veteran action filmmaker who she’d also met in that final audition. Kris wasn’t posing; he was working, examining a monitor, brows furrowed in concentration. A few crew members hovered in the background, ready to obey his next command.
Something cracked open inside Lola: a bruised, breathless thing made of jealousy, wonder, and a longing to be someone else. A marrow-deep hunger to redraw the map of her own life.
Acting on sheer instinct, Lola called her agent.
Kevin picked up. “Wilson, hey. How’s the play?” A hint of condescension, which she ignored.
“Fine.” Lola licked her lips. She hadn’t planned this. “Look, I’ve been thinking.” Her heartbeat picked up, anxious. “What if—I mean, is there any world where I can…It’s just, I’ve been thinking about my career, and…”
“You’ve been thinking about your career and…?” Kevin prompted.
Lola forced herself to speak. “Is there any way I can…direct?”
“Direct?” Kevin asked. “Direct what?”
“Films. Stories. Actually, I’d love to direct theater,” Lola admitted.
There was a supremely awkward pause. “I’m sorry—you’re asking me, your film agent, if there’s any way you can go back to theater. As a director? Dude, are you on shrooms?”
“Sadly not,” Lola said wryly. “It’s just…I’m not sure if I’m on the right path, Kev. I was just on Instagram and—” She cut herself off. The details didn’t matter. “Should I—could I—pivot to directing?”
“Instagram.” Kevin said this as if now everything made sense. “The source of everyone’s existential dread. Look, Wilson, I get it. You want to move to Hawaii.”
Lola felt very unsure about who she was and what she wanted but relocating to Honolulu was not on the list. “I—what?”
“You’re on vacation,” Kevin emphasized. “Doing some no-stakes community theater, with your old pal Chazz—”
“Jazz.”
“—and you’re like, This is fun. This is easy. Maybe I could live here forever. But you don’t move to Hawaii, Wilson. You drink a few mai tais, you get a tan, and then you come back to real life.”
Was her agent right? Was all this just vacation goggles?
Or was she finally seeing things clearly?
“This isn’t just a vacation. It’s the first time I’ve felt like an artist in years.” Lola made her voice firm. “What does a move into directing look like?”
Kevin hissed out a breath. “Well, Kris made his first short at age seven, went to the best film school in the country, then worked every job in the camera department for two decades. Oh, and he has family money. So, unless you want to pivot to being a camera assistant making twenty bucks an hour, we continue to build you as an actress—which is what you’re known for and good at—until you’re landing things like Hood, then try to parlay that into something.
But I’m telling you now, that path won’t be easy or quick. ”
Kevin continued, listing obstacles and warnings. Lola peppered in thoughtful mmm noises, her mind wandering.
It was one thing to know your life had to change—that walls needed to be torn down and rebuilt from scratch. It was another to figure out exactly how to do that. Exactly what to build.
Still, the impulse for rebirth lingered. She remembered standing onstage, gazing out into the dark, knowing the audience was with her, completely still, completely hers. Not because of how she looked or who she was. Because the story was good, and it was hers to tell.
No two shows were ever the same. That’s what made them feel so alive. Theater had never been glamorous. But it had always felt like home.
Thunder rumbled overhead. The call dropped out. Some things never changed, like Rhodes’s lack of cell service at the suggestion of a storm. Lola put her phone away, gazing out onto rainy Henry Street.
Still no script. Still no blocking. But for the first time in a long time, Lola felt the stir of a curtain ready to rise.
· · ·
Annie’s home was as colorful and charming as the woman who lived in it.
Unlike Lola’s blank, white-washed Tribeca loft, Annie’s cozy apartment felt like a home.
The two-bedroom was spread out over the top floor of the building, with large windows in every room.
A cute, open-plan kitchen looked over a living room with a plush deep blue L-shaped sofa and a pale pink love seat.
The hardwood floors were softened by a patchwork rug.
A candle flickered on the coffee table. Most of the furniture looked thrifted, and Lola got the sense that every object had a story, down to the resin fruit-slice coasters and hand-knitted rug.
And everywhere, on shelves and sills and hanging from the ceiling: plants.
Healthy and green. Succulents, ferns, a fiddle-leaf fig.
A vine trailed gracefully along the windowsill, beyond which rain pattered against the glass.
It reminded Lola of Jazz’s house, but neater, simpler, less chaotic, more contained.
Lola wanted to curl up on the sofa and never leave.
A tiny black-and-tan Yorkie trotted in, nose twitching.
“Is this the famous Socks?” Lola asked, kneeling down to scratch his chin.
Annie, who was in the kitchen opening the wine Lola brought, called back, “Yup. He’s pretty cute, right?”
“As adorable as your place.” Lola gave Socks one more pat before he trotted off to a dog bed in the corner.
“Thanks.” Annie came over, handing Lola a glass of white wine.
She was wearing a simple slip dress the color of the gray-lavender dusk outside.
“I really like it, but one day I’d love to have an actual house.
Big backyard, rambling garden, guest bedrooms galore.
But home ownership seems as likely as finding vintage jeans that fit. ”
Lola chuckled while mentally tucking away Annie’s ideal.