Chapter 2 Second Act Romance #5
C. J. was standing next to Esther, already mic’d and in his cobbled-together act 1 costume. His eyes found her as soon as she entered the circle. The hum of the early audience members just beyond the curtain was like an approaching swarm of hornets.
“As we all know, tonight is going to be tricky, but this cast can handle it, okay?” Esther said. “I’d like to introduce you to Colby J. Turner—yes, that’s Dr. Wes.”
The group laughed, and C. J. waved sheepishly.
“Holy shit,” Whitney whispered next to Bex.
“If you try to ask for an autograph before we have pulled off a successful performance, I will force-feed you shrimp tacos,” Esther said.
Bex could tell from the stilted reactions and twitching eyes exactly which people were at Murray’s last night and were here to make a valiant effort.
“Speaking of,” Esther continued. “Richard is out. He relapsed about ten minutes ago.”
Gasps shuddered through the cast. Bex’s jaw dropped open, realizing just then that Richard was not in the circle. He’d been doing okay during their rehearsal, aside from . . . the retching.
“Geoff agreed to come in. He will be here by eight, so as soon as he’s here, I want safety call with Colby and Bex.”
Bex glanced at Parker. His lips were pressed in a tight line, like he wished his husband didn’t have to do this. Bex remembered what it was like to be a swing. When you got a chance to go on, you went on.
“We can hold the show until eight ten to give Geoff time. Tiffanie and I are going to give you a very quick rundown of the changes we’re making, and then I need you in costume.”
Tiffanie stepped forward, in full dance captain mode. She listed out what was to be cut from group numbers with the lack of men and how the women would fill in the gaps.
Bex’s gaze drifted to C. J. He grinned at her, and Bex realized someone had already been through his hair with a curling iron to give him some of Curly’s signature hair.
When Tiffanie was done, Esther called out, “Okay, everyone. It’s seven forty. Just remember—with so many people stepping into new tracks, do your best, safety first, and if someone can’t find their light or is about to get hit by a set piece, we—what?”
“We shove with love,” the entire cast chorused.
“Yes, we do!” Esther clapped her hands. “Back to dressing rooms, please.”
When Geoff arrived, he looked like he’d been hit by a truck. Bex ran a hand over his shoulder. “You okay?”
“I . . . I need to not be asked that, if that’s okay,” Geoff said.
Bex winced, watching him concentrate heavily on controlling his gag reflex.
There were only a handful of things Laurey and Jud did onstage that needed safety rehearsal. When Geoff and C. J. rehearsed their fight in act 2, Geoff took a break afterward to sit with his head between his knees.
Bex turned to C. J. “I promise you, we’re usually a good time.”
C. J. laughed. “Don’t worry. I remember this well. Not food poisoning necessarily, but I got hit with the stomach flu the day after our performances in Sacramento. I don’t know if you remember, but we called it—”
“The Jilly Bug. Yeah.” Bex nodded. “You probably got it from me. I had it too. Like, immediately after bows.”
She flushed, remembering how she’d had the wardrobe girls lie to him, sending him away.
C. J. stared at her as if he was solving a riddle that had plagued him. “Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. Did you get to do Sweeney Todd?”
She shook her head. “I had to skip the first two performances.”
C. J. hummed. “Right. I came to opening night.”
She blinked in surprise. “Oh. You came? I thought you had to get back to LA for work.” Bex flushed, embarrassed that she remembered every moment of every conversation she’d had with him eight years ago.
His eyes danced over her face. “I changed my flight. To see Sweeney Todd.”
Bex nodded. There was something in his expression, in his words. Like “Sweeney Todd” was not really what he was saying.
“All good over here?” Esther said, appearing at C. J.’s elbow, making Bex jump and realize that Geoff was still sitting on the ground next to them. “Geoff, are you gonna make it?”
He lifted a thumbs-up, but continued staring at the floor.
Wig pinned, makeup on, costume buttoned.
Bex waited backstage near the set piece of Laurey’s house. She bit her nail, a habit she’d broken years ago, but the unknowns of this evening had her on edge.
A few ensemble women were waiting in the wings, even though their entrance wasn’t for thirty minutes or so. There was a sincere support and camaraderie that wound through the cast whenever someone made their debut, and Colby J. Turner was no exception.
He stood a curtain away from her. She couldn’t see him, but she could hear him humming the first note of his song, testing his pitch, making sure he would start the a cappella number in the right key.
The announcement to turn off cell phones began, and it was strange to hear not the prerecorded voice of the past 350 performances but Esther’s voice, speaking clear and sharp into a microphone from the tech booth.
“Oh, god,” one of the ensemble women behind her whispered. “This is going to be painful.”
“There was no time for inserts? Really?” another said.
By union law, whenever an understudy went on for an actor, there needed to either be a slip in the program noting it or an announcement preshow.
The only time she’d heard that the actor’s union had made an exception was when Lin-Manuel Miranda wanted to sing an offstage role in Les Misérables, completely by surprise.
There were people to this day that probably didn’t know they’d heard Hamilton singing to the men at the barricade.
Bex had even been in circumstances where an injury happened mid-performance, and at intermission, there needed to be a “the role of so-and-so will now be played by” moment.
The show must go on.
But Bex knew what the women meant. Even Esther’s no-nonsense tone couldn’t distract from the sheer number of understudies on tonight.
“Thank you for joining us for our very special Valentine’s Day performance of Oklahoma!
At tonight’s performance, the roles usually played by Victor Lee will be played by Parker Robinson.
The roles usually played by Miranda Fairchild will be played by Tiffanie Martin. The roles usually played by . . .”
Bex winced, hearing the audience start shuffling through their programs, seeking out the names and hoping they weren’t seeing an understudy for “an important role,” as Bex had many times heard it said.
“Jesus Christ,” one of the ensemble women said. “This is a buzzkill.”
“Why is she doing it this way? Why not start at the top of the list and work down to the swings?”
Bex turned back to them, lifting her voice to be heard. “Because now she gets to do this.” She grinned at them as Esther’s voice continued.
“The role of Jud Fry will be played by Geoffrey Maxwell.” The quality of her voice changed, as if bringing an elephant balancing on a ball into a circus ring.
“And finally, at tonight’s performance of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!
, the role of Curly will be played by Colby J. Turner, star of ABC’s Hart Hospital.”
The crowd tittered. Some young girl screamed in shock. Bex smiled, and the audience started cheering just as the orchestra began the overture, drowning them out.
Bex peeked around the curtain that separated her and C. J. to see his reaction, but he was staring at the floor, muttering to himself as he ran his lines. He’d missed the whole thing.
She waited for the final minute of the overture, the moment C. J. looked up and adjusted his collar, finally staring out into a stage of amber light that was supposed to be morning on the plains of Oklahoma.
“Hey,” she whispered. “C. J.”
He looked over at her, and the tension between his brows disappeared. “Hey.” A smile curled his lips.
She held the curtain barely open, just enough for him to see her face.
“Not a single person out there wants you to fail,” she said to him.
She could see the moment the words landed on him, the memory of eight years ago, of how he’d said the same to her.
God, he was handsome. And not just TV star handsome. But intimately handsome—as if having his attention directed at you was a ray of sun from the sky on a rainy day.
She blushed and began to let the curtain drop away.
“Bex.”
His hand appeared next to hers, pulling the black fabric back. The orchestra was almost done. Whatever he said needed to be quick, because they would turn his microphone on in a moment.
“Did you know Sacramento Music Circus doesn’t print headshots of the ensemble members in the programs, only the main actors?”
She blinked at him, waiting for the words to take meaning. Waiting for him to continue.
He smiled—almost a smirk—and let the curtain fall between them.
She stared at the black velour as the orchestra finished triumphantly, and the audience applauded.
Bex did know that about Music Circus. It was common to only put pictures of the leads in the audience programs. Her picture hadn’t been in the Sweeney Todd program eight years ago, but when she’d come back the following summer for a speaking role, she’d been on the headshot page with the other leads.
It was quiet backstage, but Bex’s mind was racing to catch up—because was that what he meant? That her picture wasn’t in the program eight years ago?
That he’d had her name wrong too? That Rebecca Hardgrave would have been impossible to find if you were looking for a Beth or Elizabeth—if you didn’t even have headshots to look through?
At that moment, Colby J. Turner’s bright tenor voice pierced through the theater, beginning his a cappella entrance.
Bex listened with her hand over her pounding heart, taking in the subtle changes to his voice over eight years.
A bit of maturity, yes, but confidence and rounded fullness that many stage actors didn’t lean into anymore in the age of pop musicals.