Chapter 2 Second Act Romance #6
When he finally stepped around the back of Laurey’s house and onto the stage, assessing the Oklahoma morning sunlight, the crowd screamed. Everyone who doubted that the Colby J. Turner was about to walk onto that stage finally relaxed into eager interest.
Bex smiled. C. J. would have them in the palm of his hand for the entire show. It didn’t matter what happened on this stage over the next three hours. Every little thing he’d say, do, or sing was going to be eaten up with a spoon.
When Bex finally entered with her laundry basket ten minutes later and gave her first comedic line of the evening, the audience hollered with joy.
The energetic connection between the stage and the crowd was as tight as a guitar string, and as long as they could ground themselves and focus, the show would go on.
They slipped through the first few scenes and songs of act 1 like practiced dance partners, zipping around each other, flirting in character, flirting out of character.
C. J. didn’t miss a single line. But what surprised Bex the most was how familiar it was.
The blocking was different, the set was different, the costumes were different, but if she closed her eyes and let her heartbeat lead her, she could have been back at Music Circus, her Laurey and his Curly teasing each other, joking about hired surreys with fringe, and eyes dipping to mouths before pulling away—before remembering what was “proper” for 1906 Oklahoma.
Bex exited for the first time after fifteen minutes of being onstage with a grin on her face.
It was quickly wiped away by the chaos she found.
Tiffanie, the dance captain, was speaking quickly with Nicole, one of the female swings, as wardrobe dressed Nicole in a men’s costume she’d never worn before. Her hair was being tucked up under a cap, and a mustache was being stuck to her face. Tiffanie wore a beard and chaps as well.
“What’s happening?” Bex asked one of the ensemble girls, who was anxiously swaying from side to side.
The girl floundered for a second before saying, “Tony’s throwing up.”
“That’s not all he’s doing,” Whitney said under her breath.
“Well, I was trying to be kind—”
“He’s in the toilet, let’s say,” Whitney clarified. “He won’t be going on for ‘Kansas City.’”
Bex stared at Nicole as she stood stock-still, listening intently as Tiffanie gave her blocking on the fly.
There were two people at Nicole’s feet hand-hemming the men’s jeans to fall at her ankles instead of six inches lower.
A third person was stuffing newspaper into the toes of men’s cowboy boots to make them fit Nicole’s dainty feet.
She’d seen Dana do something like this in an emergency—go on for a male role—but Dana had had the half hour of time before the show to run blocking and make sure she wouldn’t be kicked in the face. Nicole didn’t have that.
“Can’t they just cut the back row of dancers?” Bex said, knowing she wasn’t in a place to make suggestions, but still voicing her thoughts out loud.
“They already cut the back row,” Whitney said, turning to her in confusion. “You didn’t hear about Evan?”
“What? Evan wasn’t even at shrimp tacos!” Bex squawked, earning her a shush from the stage crew.
“He’s an empath. He got sick when Tony got sick.”
The music for “Kansas City” began. Aside from the dream ballet, it was the most strenuous dance piece in the entire show, but it only featured men. They had about a minute and a half of the supporting male character, Will, singing alone before the ensemble men started dancing with him.
Tiffanie helped Nicole balance on one foot as the wardrobe girl shoved one cowboy boot on, then the other. The people sewing her jeans tied off their threads and snipped the needle off.
Tiffanie turned to the group and said in her most authoritative voice, “I need ten feet.”
The group dispersed, and even the grouchy stage crew moved back.
Nicole and Tiffanie ran a complex dance move where Tiffanie braced on Nicole’s thighs to do a cartwheel, they gave each other a thumbs-up, and they walked onstage.
The entire cast pressed at the edge of the curtain, watching a dance number that usually featured eight men, dwindled down to two men and two women.
Tiffanie’s “man swagger” was hilarious but effective, and even though Nicole’s mustache fell off, she stuck it back on and hit every step.
There was a collective sigh from the cast at the end of the number. Tiffanie and Nicole ran offstage and quickly started shedding their makeshift costumes. They had to go on in thirty seconds with the female ensemble.
“This is a fucking train wreck,” Whitney whispered to her.
“It feels that way back here,” Bex said, “but the audience doesn’t know it.”
Before long, it was time for Bex to see C. J. onstage again, this time singing the love song. Bex sang her verse, and for the first time on that stage, C. J. lost his place in the blocking while he listened to her.
There was no danger of being hit by a set piece—no stepping out of his light—but she had to reach for him, pulling him downstage when he forgot he was supposed to cross there first.
There was barely a flicker of recognition on C.
J.’s face that he’d missed the cue, and he caught on to the rest quickly.
It made Bex think of how, five minutes into their first meeting, he’d smiled at her when she sang this exact verse next to the rehearsal piano.
She’d been twenty-one with zero professional credits under her belt, ready for Sacramento Music Circus to be her first. He’d been twenty-three with a Broadway run of West Side Story, four guest-starring TV roles, and season one of Hart Hospital filmed.
And still that soft smile had told her she belonged there.
And god, he was funny onstage. Bex laughed out of character one time during the love song, covering it well. He oozed charisma and talent.
She couldn’t concentrate on anything but the sound of their voices complementing each other. The rich tenor of his voice against the rounded vowels of her soprano—it spun through the air, pinging in the rafters, making her wonder if they even needed microphones to be heard in the back of the house.
Curly and Laurey fought at the end of the song, and Bex exited. Geoff was waiting to go on for his scenes with C. J. He was sweating through his costume—which was actually rather on point for Jud Fry.
Bex couldn’t do more than squeeze his arm.
She had a costume change and a wig change to do upstairs in her dressing room.
She listened to Geoff and C. J. over the dressing room monitor, and when it was time for Geoff alone onstage, singing his solo, she held her breath, crossing all her fingers for him.
He nailed it.
When she arrived downstairs again, Geoff was throwing up in a trash can.
She couldn’t stop to check on him. She was onstage next with the female ensemble.
She had to believe that in seven minutes, when he was supposed to enter for the dream ballet, he would not only be there but be strong enough to do all the lifts they’d rehearsed.
Geoff was nothing if not a professional.
Laurey had to make a decision. That was the premise of the dream ballet. Jud or Curly. Fear or love. Laurey took an elixir to help her make up her mind and woke up in a dance number that expressed her doubts, her fears, and her inner dilemma—without dialogue.
She hoped it wouldn’t be too strange for the audience that Parker was taking over for C. J. as Dream Curly. She’d find out in a handful of minutes. She could always hear the whispering from the front few rows, even if they thought they were being quiet.
Bex woke up onstage to a purple haze, created by LED lights and theatrical fog.
Her body began to move gracefully, her costume made to swing with her, adding a dreamy quality to her movement.
The ballet began with Laurey, on her own, a carefree girl with life ahead of her.
Curly would enter, and hesitantly they would come together, waltzing, choosing to be together.
Laurey would envision a wedding, speaking to her desire to be with him, but the dream would turn into a nightmare as lecherous Jud would be revealed as the groom.
By the end of the nightmare, Jud would have killed Curly, and when Laurey woke up, her love for Curly would make her choose Jud to be her escort that evening for a box social, to keep Curly safe from Jud’s knife.
In the corner of her eye as she piquéd and pirouetted around the stage in Laurey’s dream, Bex spotted C.
J. standing in the stage left wing, watching her float across the stage.
He stood in the exact area she used as a visual anchor to keep herself from getting dizzy during her spins.
She watched him wink at her during her turns.
Bex was halfway through her solo dance, about a minute from Parker’s entrance as Dream Curly, when she heard it.
There was a gasp from offstage right. A flutter of motion too.
Bex’s smile remained firm. She danced facing the audience for several measures, unable to turn to look offstage, but when she did, she almost tumbled out of her piqué turns.
Parker was on the floor. There were six people around him, fanning him, holding his head from where he’d almost hit it as he’d fainted.
Bex pressed her lips together, eye twitching as she leaped and twirled.
There were thirty seconds left of her solo. And then Parker’s entrance.
Bex’s mind did the math that she was sure Esther’s mind had already completed.
Geoff knew the dream ballet choreography as Curly, but he was playing Jud tonight.
Anyone else who knew the Curly choreography had been at shrimp tacos last night.
Which was how they’d ended up in this mess to begin with.
Bex knew Esther could do this. Esther could bring the curtain down early, Esther could call down to the conductor of the orchestra mid-number and ask her to skip to the end. Esther had trained her entire life for this moment, and Bex had too.