Chapter 2 Second Act Romance #2
“Didn’t you do this before?” Dana asked, calling Bex’s attention away from her texts with Esther. “Didn’t you get to kiss Uncle Jesse that one time?”
Bex rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t John Stamos. Grandma, how old are you? It was Colby J. Turner.”
“Yes, Dr. Wes from that one thing.”
“That one thing” was the biggest medical drama of the past seven years.
Colby J. Turner was the breakout star as Dr. Wes Nightingale, the sexy resident with a dark secret.
“Dr. Wes” was as big of a household name as “McDreamy” had been, and Colby J.
Turner had been catapulted into the pop culture zeitgeist. But in the summer of 2018, between the filming of season one and the airing of season one, Colby J.
Turner had done summer stock theater—a season full of sometimes six to eight productions, rehearsing for only two weeks and performing for only a single week.
Colby J. Turner wasn’t a TV star back in 2018.
He was just a really talented singer-actor on the rise, cast in Sacramento’s Music Circus as Curly.
And back in 2018, Bex had just landed her first professional gig as a part of the ensemble for three of the six shows, alternating between rehearsals and performances like clockwork.
But Oklahoma! was not one of them. A stomach bug hit the entire cast of Oklahoma!
, wiping out every soprano in a two-block radius.
They called it the Jilly Bug, in honor of the first girl to have it and bring it to the entire cast. For the final day of the Oklahoma!
week, Bex had been pulled from her rehearsals in Sweeney Todd to be an emergency replacement for Laurey at the Saturday matinee and Saturday evening performances. Opposite Colby J. Turner.
“Yeah, Dr. Wes,” Bex said, pouring Dana more Gatorade. Her cheeks heated at the memory of it all. “That was wild. Nobody knew he was about to pop as the most desirable doctor on TV.”
“Was he a good kisser?”
Bex laughed. “He . . . Yeah.” Her pulse thumped with the memory of how tenderly he’d held her face for the kisses in act 2. “Yeah.”
But it wasn’t just the kiss. Their onstage dynamic had been like nothing Bex had ever felt before, or since. Sure, she’d been twenty-one and in her first professional company, so she didn’t have much experience with costar chemistry other than her handful of college productions.
Bex had never played Laurey in her life, but she’d memorized the part as one of her dream roles. They’d offered to let her go on with script in hand, but it wasn’t the script she needed to know—it was the blocking and choreography.
Bex had walked into the 10:00 a.m. emergency rehearsal to find a really handsome twenty-three-year-old waiting for her with the stage manager.
“Hi, I’m C. J.,” he’d said with a perfectly straight smile.
Emphasis on the “straight,” which was never the assumed stance in theatre.
And even though he’d given her permission in that moment to refer to him as C.
J. instead of his full union name, Bex could never bring herself to call him anything but Colby J.
Turner after she saw his first scene on Hart Hospital, where Dr. Wes was finishing a rather enthusiastic coupling with his attending, standing around with his shirt off for much longer than a normal person would at their place of work.
Music Circus in Sacramento also operated on a “the show must go on” mentality, especially because season ticket holders and the major donors to the company would be in highest attendance on Saturday evening. Losing those subscribers or that support was unthinkable.
They’d given her precisely two hours to learn the entire show.
The stage manager and C. J. walked her through every single scene, song, and dance that Laurey appeared in, while the dance captain worked with the bare-bones ensemble in the other rehearsal room to rearrange the choreography around the four missing women from the cast. Bex still remembered the way Colby J.
Turner had smiled at her halfway through her verse of “People Will Say We’re in Love,” the first love song between their characters.
Like she’d taken him by surprise.
Just as Bex was about to reminisce out loud, Dana announced it was time for her to revisit the toilet.
The company group chat pinged incessantly for the next six hours.
First, Geoff was finally feeling good enough to consider going on.
Then, Parker reported that Geoff had passed out while attempting to rehearse “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’.
” Their Jud Fry was out of the hospital, but it was unclear if he could go on tonight.
And even though Esther was cagey over text about what the plan was, Assad was taking diligent notes of where all the past, present, and future Curlys were at that moment in time.
The good thing about being a national touring company of a recent Broadway show was that the production was touring.
That meant that the choreography, vocal lines, staging, and even the acting choices were consistent between the Broadway production and the tour.
Even someone who had left their cast a year ago would know exactly where to go and what to do with only a small refresher.
But unfortunately, according to Assad’s sleuthing, most actors who had recently played Curly were gainfully employed at the moment. There was a guy Victor knew from school who had played Curly in a regional theatre production, but he didn’t know their production.
One of Assad’s messages made Bex jump.
Dr. Wes from Hart Hospital knows the track. Sucks that he’s filming season 8 right now.
Bex had almost forgotten about Colby J. Turner’s recent six-week run on Broadway as Curly.
It was two years ago, before she’d begun this national tour.
She’d been living in New York and had hesitated over going to see him.
In hindsight, she should have gone. It was that same production—with only minor changes—that she was touring right now.
All the reviews said he was incredible. He’d reminded everyone in those six weeks that he was theatre-trained first, Dr. Wes second.
Bex had thought for a moment—only one moment—about contacting him to see if he remembered her. He could have put her on the list to avoid standing at the stage door for an autograph with the two hundred Hart Hospital fans that pitched up every night for him.
But ultimately it wasn’t worth the potential humiliation.
She thought he’d probably remember her—the adrenaline of those two shows in Sacramento had built an indefinable type of camaraderie—but unfortunately, eight years ago, when the stage manager had introduced her to Colby J.
Turner in that brief two-hour rehearsal, he’d called her “Beth.” And because Bex had been overwhelmed already and too grateful for the opportunity, she’d allowed it.
Which meant that Colby J. Turner had called her Beth all day.
So, if Bex reached out on Instagram to say, “Hey, remember me from that really stressful day and also those incredible stage kisses we shared?”—Colby J.
Turner might not even place her correctly when her Instagram name read “Rebecca Hardgrave.” She hadn’t even started paying for her blue check mark back then.
And it wasn’t just the possibility of him not remembering her. There were . . . other humiliations that Bex didn’t want to think about. Humiliations that had kept her from reaching out to C. J. before he became Colby J. Turner to her.
Because truly, she should have reached out. There had been something there.
Show-mances were a real thing. Actors developed feelings for their scene partners all the time.
And Bex really thought there was something sparking between them during those two shows.
They barely had a chance to catch their breath until the curtain call of the matinee, and they’d spent the break between the afternoon show and the evening show chatting while reviewing the small mistakes she’d made with the stage manager—one of which mortified her to this day.
During Laurey and Curly’s first kiss, Bex had aimed to throw her arms around his waist but, due to his height, had grabbed his ass onstage in front of two thousand people.
She’d moved her hands quickly, but as the kiss lingered, C.
J. had reached back, taken her wrists, and lowered her hands to his ass again—to the delight of the entire audience.
She’d felt him smile against her mouth, and they’d broken away from the kiss, laughing.
The stage manager listed it as one of his corrections for their notes session between performances, but when C.
J. and Bex left to get into costume for the next performance, he’d whispered to her, “We should do it again. They loved it.”
So they did. And the audience was in the palm of their hand.
By the second performance, the seven kisses that Laurey and Curly shared lacked any of the anxiety of under-rehearsal and unknown bodies. They were open-mouthed, time period inappropriate, and prolonged.
Normally Bex wasn’t one to sit back and let the man come to her. She flirted and she chased. And she enjoyed it.
But the Jilly Bug struck again that night.
Bex started to feel a little lightheaded during act 2 of the evening show, assuming it was dehydration and the only seven hundred calories’ worth of protein bars she’d eaten that day.
After bows, she’d thanked everyone for their time and support that day, and once she was in the dressing room, she’d started projectile vomiting.
There were several people in the cast of Sweeney Todd who had gotten it from their friends in Oklahoma!, and apparently it had come to claim Bex.
She’d hugged the toilet through every knock on the dressing room door, asking if she wanted to go for a drink, if she wanted someone to walk out with her, if she was going to appear at the stage door for autographs.