Chapter 1 #3
“How many variety show numbers do you need?”
“Three to five minutes each . . . one hour . . .” She gasped. “Twelve.”
“What if . . . ?”
“Each number inspired by one of the days of Christmas.”
“Nine ladies dancing.”
“Ten lords a-leaping.” Maggie’s laugh broke free. “I can see it. As Duke Orsino says in Twelfth Night, ‘If music be the food of love, play on.’”
It was brilliant. And Prescott hadn’t had such an enjoyable conversation in almost two years.
“Miss Oliver? Mr. Duke?” Sebastian beckoned.
They’d fallen behind. Prescott and Maggie grinned at each other and rushed to catch up.
“It’s perfect.” Maggie splayed one hand like a sunburst. “I asked your agent for nine more men to complete the cast of Twelfth Night. There are three female parts in the play, but I asked for nine ladies, plus a starlet. He’s sending Lola Lockhart—you starred with her in one of the Hollywood Harmonies. ”
“Yes, 1939.” He’d hoped never to see Lola again, but he kept his expression neutral. If she was volunteering for USO shows, perhaps she’d changed her selfish ways.
In a few minutes, Frank ushered them into the circular Globe Theatre.
Maggie stopped at the top of the center aisle. “Don’t you love performing in a theater?”
“I never did.” Prescott rested his hands on a wooden seat back. “Straight to the movies.”
“Is it true what the movie magazines said? Raised on the tough streets of Chicago, discovered in a boxing ring?”
He gave her a look equal parts scoffing and teasing. “You don’t read those rags, do you?”
“I do. I take them with a grain of salt, but salt is rather tasty.”
Footsteps thumped into the back of the theater, and a sailor waved at Sebastian. “Frank? Lieutenant Jeffers needs to see you on the double.”
Sebastian winced. “He knows I’m with the USO people.”
“He says it won’t take long.”
“Stay here.” Sebastian held up one hand to Prescott and Maggie. “I’ll be back.”
“Yes, sir.” Maggie raised a playful salute. “We’ll wait for our chaperone.”
After Sebastian followed his colleague outside, Maggie sauntered down the aisle toward the stage. “So, the magazines—truth or Hollywood hokum?”
Prescott sauntered after her. “Both. Mean streets of Chicago and boxing ring—true. But they glossed over anything that clashed with the studio’s image. Nothing sophisticated about a school dropout at twelve or a hoodlum at fourteen or a hobo in a rescue mission at twenty-two.”
At the base of the stage, Maggie turned to him, eyebrows high and drawn together. “How awful. I never would have guessed.”
“When Melvin discovered me, he sent me for lessons in diction and etiquette, as well as singing and dancing.” Prescott owed Melvin everything.
Maggie’s red lips rolled in, and concern grew in her gaze. “Shakespeare—will you be able? I could help.”
“I should be fine. I was a good student, loved reading. Still do.”
“Why did you drop out?”
The pain of the years after his father’s death and his mother’s remarriage threatened to swamp him, but he wrestled up a wry smile. “Education is a luxury I couldn’t afford.”
Maggie huffed. “I’m sorry. You’d think I’d know better after the Depression. I’m so spoiled. My father’s a lawyer.”
“Never apologize for the blessings in your life.”
A grateful smile dimpled her cheek. “I have so many blessings. For one thing, my big brother also became a lawyer, freeing me to disappoint the family by going to Hollywood.” Humor glinted in her eyes.
Prescott couldn’t imagine her disappointing anyone. “Why did you leave Hollywood?”
“Oh, I dance well, sing well, act well—but not well enough to break out. The only reason I could afford food was because I typed scripts for the studio. Then when I turned thirty, I realized I was never getting my big break. So I joined the USO. One story ended, and a new one began.”
Prescott sank into a seat in the front row. His story had ended, but he saw nothing ahead. Nothing.
“What’s the matter?” Maggie asked.
The silence of the theater. The emptiness of the stage. “You moved on after Hollywood. I wish I could.”
“Of course you can.” Confidence shone in her lovely face.
“Do you always see the bright side?”
She shrugged. “If I can’t, I make a bright side.”
How was that even possible? And why did he feel comfortable confiding in this woman, practically a stranger? “Since the accident, my life has been a blank page. Nothing but endless blank pages ahead of me.”
“Then write on them.”
“Write on them?”
“Yes.” Maggie dashed up the steps onto the stage, then posed with her arms spread wide. “Write a new script for your life.”
A new script? So many blank pages, riffling before him. Could he write on them? What would it look like?
“Not now, Prescott.” With a mock stern look, Maggie wagged a finger at him. “For the next two months, you’re under the heels of a cruel USO director.” She performed a cramp roll—toe, toe, heel, heel.
Prescott rose from his seat, and with his gaze planted on that USO director, mimicked the tap-dancing step.
Perhaps over the next two months, he could mimic her bright-side-making, new-script-writing ways.