Chapter 5
He’d won the lead. Myles was reasonably sure no one was more shocked about it than he was. His whim had just claimed his nights and weekends for the next three months. But given those nights and weekends would be spent playing opposite the lovely Piper Parish, he couldn’t find much reason to complain. He’d wanted to get to know her. Hell, as Bob to her Betty, he’d even get to kiss her. Were stage kisses different from real kisses? He didn’t know. But he looked forward to learning.
The auditorium was full of cast, crew, and musicians, all overflowing with an infectious, effervescent optimism. The general mood made him feel like whistling a tune and executing a little dance step as he strode up the center aisle toward the stage. Not that he really knew any dance steps outside the waltz, foxtrot, cha cha, and swing, and he wasn’t sure how much he’d retained since eighth grade. Cotillion didn’t exactly prepare a guy for this brand of choreography. But as Bob, he didn’t have that much dancing to do. That was all on Tucker McGee. He and Tyler were already executing some kind of complicated dance move on one side of the stage.
Piper strode out from one of the wings. Stage right, Myles reminded himself. Part of doing this was learning the right lingo. He headed up on stage via the orchestra pit stairs, trying to decide whether to shoot for nonchalance or I’m-a-newb-please-help-me-navigate-unfamiliar-waters.
She looked up as he approached and whatever clever thing he might’ve said bled right out of his brain.
“Hi.” Oh brilliant, Stewart. Way to impress the girl.
“So you survived auditions,” she said. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks. It was…unexpected. But I’m excited. Glad to be here. Hopefully you can share your greater experience and keep me from mucking anything up.”
But Piper wasn’t paying attention to him anymore. Silence fell around them. Myles looked around for the reason, thinking maybe Nate had come in and the actors were going automatically silent out of respect or something. Across the stage, Tyler had stopped, having obviously just come out of a turn. She stared at something in the back of the auditorium. As the silence stretched out, more of the cast seemed to follow her example. Myles looked toward the back, seeing a guy standing just inside the lobby doors. He seemed suspended, waiting for something. The waves of tension between the newcomer and Tyler were almost strong enough to push Myles back a step. This had to be the heartbreaker Charlotte told him about.
The floorboards of the stage popped, and the tableau unfroze.
Finding out the details about what the hell was going on seemed like a good excuse to keep talking to Piper. Before he could make an attempt, Nate requested an attention grabber on the piano. The pianist banged out a little riff, calling rehearsal to order.
“…choreographer will be here on Friday, so the name of the game this week is to learn all your music and start learning your lines. The schedule is in your script packets.” Nate picked one up, waved it. “Now, if any of you are familiar with the actual stage production of White Christmas: The Musical, you will know that it bears little resemblance to the movie we all know and love. I chose this show based on nostalgia. White Christmas is my favorite Christmas movie, and it’s incredibly well-known. People hear we’re putting on a production, that’s the story they expect to see. So I contacted the Irving Berlin estate and requested permission to make my own adaptation of the movie script. Given we are a town of less than five thousand, they don’t have a lot of fear this will become a raging success, so they actually said yes. That said, it’s a one-shot deal. We get one three-week run of the show, and that’s that. Permanently retired after that. But at least we’ll be adhering as faithfully as possible to the actual plot and script of the movie, with minor changes to facilitate our set limitations. So come and get ’em, and let’s get started.”
Myles headed to the back of the line, intending to position himself beside Piper, the better to pick her brain.
She stood close to Tucker, her voice low. “We have to do something. We’ll never pull off the show if Tyler isn’t at the top of her game.”
Instead of butting into their conversation, Myles hung back, shamelessly eavesdropping, which was a reporter’s default setting.
“What exactly do you propose we do? Brody’s back after all this time. He’s got as much right to be here as any of us,” Tucker said.
She gave him a withering look. “We’ll agree to disagree on that.”
“It should be fine. He’s just my understudy. I can run interference, keep them separated, if need be.”
“To keep this from being a blood-letting, that might be wise.”
The two of them looked across the stage to where the guy—Brody presumably—was attempting to talk to Tyler where she stood in line. Myles could practically see clouds of condensed air rolling off her for all the luck the guy was having. His writer brain began churning. No question, this was the guy who’d broken Tyler’s heart. And she was all kinds of pissed to be seeing him again.
Potential scenarios flew through his head, how he’d construct the story, what kind of ending he’d expect. Would Wishful be getting a show within a show? Given the way small towns seemed to operate, and the fact that people still remembered what had happened close to a decade later, it seemed like a good possibility. Not that he’d be airing their personal conflicts in the paper—he was a journalist, not a gossip columnist. But he couldn’t stop wondering whether Tyler and Brody would be able to put aside their personal crap in the name of saving the theater, or if Tyler would bail, leaving the role of Judy to her understudy Charlotte.
Time would tell.