Chapter Twenty-Four
Twenty-Four
“Are we ghosts?”
—“The Song of the Dead,” The Wooden Horse, Act Two
He fucked up. Jonah knew the moment he stepped to the left instead of the right that his chance at playing Bobby Child was
well and truly over. He saw the way the casting director’s smile turned into a deep grimace, and no matter how well he read
his lines later in the day or how brilliantly he sang he couldn’t get the smile to reappear. The hours he spent recording
audition tapes suddenly became futile, because in person he couldn’t remember the difference between left and right, and now
everyone in the room thought he was a complete and utter idiot, and they weren’t wrong in thinking it.
To think he could lose a role because of one little misstep might be verging on dramatic, but Jonah knew how picky casting
teams could be; they had dozens of people lined up for the role, eager to take it, and things like Olivier wins or the theatre
magazine announcing him and Dexter as the West End’s golden couple didn’t matter. They didn’t matter, because Jonah just danced
like someone who didn’t know how their feet worked. A newborn lamb jittering around a field while its mother looked on in
bemusement. Melanie would kill him; she told him time and time again to rehearse the moves until they were burned into the
back of his eyes, and he did, but no one could account for nerves on the day. And he would put it down to nerves to save himself
from admitting he simply blanked and went in a totally different direction than everyone else.
It didn’t help he’d been practicing for the audition and recording his tapes behind Dexter’s back.
He wanted to tell him, he really did, but Melanie swore him to secrecy and made a pointed note that despite his relationship with Dexter flourishing, he was still a rival when it came to jobs in the West End.
For all they knew, Dexter could have been auditioning for the same role; he still vanished on Sundays, and Jonah remained too worried to ask him what he did from Sunday until Tuesday, just in case he admitted to auditioning for all the roles Melanie was throwing Jonah’s way.
He didn’t want to compete with him, and if Melanie’s hunch about Dexter taking over the role of Achilles was correct, he didn’t want there to be any awkwardness between them either.
He needed to be seen as stepping away from the role rather than losing it; that way Dexter could take over with little guilt and they could continue with their domestic bliss bubble Jonah very much didn’t want to pop.
Melanie Agent Extraordinaire: Casting director called. What happened?
Jonah: Already? I only just left.
Melanie Agent Extraordinaire: Call me.
“Jonah.” She answered on the first ring. “They loved your audition tape. What the hell happened?”
“I went left instead of right.”
He heard her exhale a disappointed breath and could picture her pinching the skin between her eyes in frustration. “You’ll
be the death of me. I sent you the choreography tape a month ago to learn.”
“I take it they called to say I didn’t get it.”
“They want you to go back and do the dance part again next week,” she said, much to his surprise. “They really like you but
were worried you hadn’t committed to learning the choreography. They’re willing to give you another shot, so don’t you bloody
well blow it, Jonah.”
“I won’t.”
“And I have another audition lined up for you. Well, I say audition. They called me to see if you might be interested, and
I said I would discuss it with you. They were . . . very keen.”
Jonah dodged pedestrians as he made his way to the tube station, keeping his head down as a sudden downpour of late September
rain erupted from the sky. “Who?”
“Julianna Orwell.”
Upon hearing the name, Jonah stopped and ducked beneath a doorway, sheltering himself while cupping his hand around his phone
to hear better, because he was pretty sure Melanie had just said the name Julianna Orwell, and if it were true, then he needed
to be standing still to take it in.
“Sorry, I didn’t catch that.”
“Julianna Orwell.”
“Julianna Orwell?”
“The one and only.”
Jonah’s mind short-circuited. Julianna Orwell. One of the most esteemed directors, famous for her work on Broadway and in
the West End. Winner of countless Oliviers and Tony Awards, one of the most respected directors in the entire theatre industry.
Holy Jesus Christ on a biscuit.
“You spoke to her?” Jonah asked as he huddled as far beneath the doorway as possible. “Like, actually her?”
Melanie laughed, her beautiful voice rich and lyrical. “Yes. I met her years ago and we’ve stayed in touch. She’s working
on a revival and came to see The Wooden Horse a couple of weeks ago. She was very impressed with you.”
Jonah could feel his hands turning numb, not from the cool chill of the rain but from Julianna Orwell acknowledging he existed.
“Wow. Okay. And she’s considering me for a role?”
“She’s asked if we can meet for lunch sometime next week. Think you can manage that without getting flustered?” He heard her
typing on her laptop. “She’s proposed next Wednesday at one, over at The Forge in Chelsea.”
“Yes,” Jonah replied, without a single ounce of hesitation. “Yes.”
“You don’t want to know what show she’s going to be directing?”
“It’s Julianna Orwell, she could be directing a silent show all about dogs and I would want to be involved.”
“Okay, well, it’s not a silent show about dogs. It’s Cabaret. I know you’ve done it before, but this will be entirely new staging and a completely different theatrical experience, from
what I gather.”
Cabaret. 1920s Berlin. Sally Bowles. The Kit Kat Club. Frilly knickers and suspenders, gin and gorillas. The leads dancing through
the darkness taking over Germany, hands covering their eyes until they have no choice but to open them or continue to dance
until their feet bleed. And, of course, the Emcee, the center of the show.
“Did she . . . did she say the role she’s interested in me for? Is it Cliff?” He could play Cliff again. Poor gullible Cliff,
who tries to view his life through rose-tinted glasses until they shatter, leaving him with the broken shards he flees with,
away from Sally, away from Berlin, and away from the horrors that inch closer each moment. Jonah could step back into his
shoes, but were Cliff’s shoes more comfortable than Achilles’s?
“Emcee. I know it’s a dream role for you, Jonah. She said your emotional range when performing Achilles really opened her
eyes to just what you can bring to a role. It’s a complex character, and she already has some ideas about how they will be
played in this version she’s putting together, but it would be an excellent move for you.”
“Better than Bobby?”
“It’s certainly different. But given your success in The Wooden Horse, now might be the right time to go after something a little different. Besides, you’ve probably lost Bobby now because you
didn’t practice, practice, practice.” Despite chastising him, her tone remained lighthearted. “Shall I say yes to next Wednesday?”
“Yes. One hundred percent yes.”
“Fantastic, but keep this hush-hush, okay? Oh, and Jonah?”
“Yeah?”
“Go home and practice those bloody moves. The more options we have the better.”
“I promise I will do nothing else in my spare time.”
“Very good.”
When Melanie hung up, Jonah wanted to run into the rain and scream at the top of his lungs.
Julianna Orwell wanted to meet him. She wanted to talk to him about the role he’d dreamed about for God knows how many years, and Jonah felt overcome with the urge to yell about it to everyone who walked past with their heads bowed beneath umbrellas.
Yet somehow he refrained from getting himself arrested for accosting strangers and instead walked with a spring in his step, ignoring the water trickling down the back of his collar.
He hummed “Singin’ in the Rain” and wished he had worn a suit and tap shoes so he could do his best Gene Kelly impression while twirling around lampposts.
Dexter threw his head back with a moan as he threaded his fingers through Jonah’s hair. The sounds coming from his mouth were
downright indecent, and Jonah bloody lived for them. He could feel Dexter’s thighs trembling beneath his palms as he worked
his mouth around his length, and he knew the other man wouldn’t last long, not with the way his grip on his curls tightened
and his jaw slackened with each needy pant. God, Jonah loved seeing him like this, eyes closed, a pink tint swiped across
his cheekbones and body completely prone to every little thing Jonah did. Jonah kissed his thighs afterward, causing Dexter
to twitch slightly as his body worked its way through its intense sensitivity before he reached down to tilt Jonah’s chin
up and guide him to his mouth. They kissed lazily for several minutes, Jonah in Dexter’s lap in his dressing room chair, the
position not entirely comfortable but neither of them cared.
“Bloody hell,” Dexter whispered, his voice sounding wrecked despite needing to be onstage in less than an hour. “I think that
was the most enthusiastic blow job I’ve ever had.”
Jonah laughed and removed himself from Dexter’s lap, scooping his underwear from the floor and chucking it to him playfully.
He could feel how swollen his lips were. They tingled slightly, and he reveled in the sensation. “I’ve had a good day, and
I wanted to show you how much I missed you.” Julianna’s name was on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t tell Dexter about
the earlier call, not yet, not until he had something concrete to tell him. Hush-hush.
“Missed me? You saw me Saturday.”
“Yeah, and then you went off-grid for two days like usual.”
Dexter cleared his throat as he reached for the comb on his dressing table to tidy his hair. “I don’t go off-grid.”