Chapter Five

Jenna sat on a bench beneath an old payphone near the entrance of Don’s studio. She dropped in another quarter, grateful Don insisted the old phone stay in his lobby for use by those few people, like Jenna, who refused to get a cell. She was waiting for Don’s seven p.m. class to end—even though it wasn’t her class, she had become a regular. Jenna rubbed the throbbing pain in her temple as she spoke to her sister, Olivia.

“When do you have time for homework, then?”

“I get it done.” Olivia’s voice was strong and confident.

“When? In between folding loads? After you fix a broken machine? I don’t want you tied up there forever, Olivia.”

“Mom needs help.” She didn’t mean them in a passive-aggressive way, but when laced with the power of Jenna’s own guilt, Olivia’s words were like poisonous daggers plunged deep into Jenna’s belly.

“I know that.” Jenna’s voice was soft. “That’s why I send her enough money to pay for someone else’s salary…”

“But she needs help beyond that. I promise I’m getting my homework done. My grades haven’t dropped a bit.”

Jenna exhaled. She glanced away from the phone and toward the tattered black curtains leading to Don’s rehearsal studio. She loved it here. She loved everything about New York and the acting business. God, how she didn’t want to have to go back home.

“Okay.” Jenna gripped the receiver tighter, her knuckles whitening. “But if it gets to be too much, please, Olivia. Tell me.”

“And risk you walking out on Caspian Locke? No way.” Olivia giggled. “It’s all anybody at school can talk about.”

“His name is Trevor. Trevor Hughes.”

“He can call himself anything he wants as long as he keeps his shirt off.”

“Olivia.” Jenna’s word was more of a scold.

“What?”

People were moving behind the curtain. It was time to go.

“He’s a person, too.” Jenna could practically hear her sister’s smirk. “What?”

“You’ve sure changed your tune from the woman who hated Trevor Hughes, because he no-showed on some charity you were supporting.”

“It wasn’t just some charity; it was the charity Dad supported.” Jenna pressed against her temples, trying to dull the ache. She sighed. “Olivia, please, just please promise me you’ll put school first.”

“I promise.”

An unease swirled through her belly as Jenna hung up the phone.

****

“How’d it go today?” It was after class, and Don had just polished off Jenna’s homemade vegetable lasagna.

She smiled, glad to see the nagging cough wasn’t spoiling his appetite.

“Let’s see…” Jenna counted on her fingers as she listed things off. “I thought I was going to get fired. Then I told off my understudy, nasty Maggie, who just happens to be Trevor’s girlfriend. Then the director told me something was missing in my part, so I told him I thought the whole performance was too slick and lacking substance. Thennnn…I did my best to talk Trevor into moving rehearsals into a decrepit theatre in the hopes of finding the show’s soul.” Jenna slumped back in her chair, overwhelmed.

“Did he agree?”

“Amazingly so. We rehearse there tomorrow.”

“Sounds to me like you had a very productive rehearsal. Are you ready to commit now?”

Jenna sat up, nodding. She handed Don a napkin and grinned at him.

“Good. Let’s get to work.”

****

Walking into the old theatre the next day, Jenna couldn’t think of a time she’d been more nervous. The plate of chocolate chip cookies she carried wobbled in her shaky hands and she said a silent prayer, hoping chocolate would work its magic on these potentially angry actors just as it always did on her. She knew all of them were used to working with real money and here she was, demanding they strip themselves down to the bare minimum and build from there. Who was she to suggest such a thing? It was like she had been drunk the day before, making rash and illogical choices. But the strange thing was, Trevor was right there making them with her.

Still holding the cookies, Jenna ambled down the audience aisle and toward the stage. She glanced at Larry, sitting front and center, scribbling furiously in his notes. Jenna peered about as actors made their way around the new stage, reading their lines as if nothing had happened. She placed the cookies on a seat in the front row of the audience. Before she could remove her hat and coat and slide on her rehearsal skirt, Christina made her way from behind the curtain.

Christina’s gaze locked on Jenna’s. “Are you responsible for this?”

Jenna bit the inside corner of her cheek. What could she say except the truth? “Yes, I am.”

There were no excuses to be made. She was the most insignificant person here, yet last night, she had wielded the greatest amount of power. This was her doing, and she would have to take the flack for it. Out of the corner of her eye, Jenna spotted Trevor watching them. For a moment she was sorry she had pushed him into making this decision. She could walk away from this show virtually unscathed, but it was his reputation and his friends’ reputations on the line here.

“Marvelous,” Christina announced, clapping her hands together.

“E-excuse me?”

“It’s marvelous.” Christina walked to Jenna. “May I take your hands, dear?”

Jenna nodded, certain Trevor must have shared the gory details of her audition, and how she freaked when Trevor touched her. Jenna squeezed her eyes shut for a moment and the other woman reached out and grasped Jenna’s hands. Christina’s touch was warm and soft, making Jenna long for her mother.

“Excuse the sweaty palms, my dear.” Christina tossed her head gracefully. “I’m afraid it’s time for ‘the change.’”

Jenna giggled, caught off guard by the candor.

Christina smiled again. “This was the answer we needed. We all”—she turned and faced Maggie as she said this—“all of us, need a little more reality in our lives.” Christina released Jenna’s hands and spun in a large, dramatic circle. “This is theatre, people. Let’s make some magic.”

Trevor applauded and Christina took a tiny bow, smiling. She blew a kiss at Trevor and curtseyed to Jenna.

“Let’s go, folks.” Larry stood up and walked forward, shoving a cookie into his mouth absentmindedly. “Jenna, these are delicious.”

Jenna smiled, her tense shoulders relaxing for the first time all day.

“All right, people. Act three, scene two. Places.”

****

Two freaking weeks. Every night after rehearsal, for two solid weeks, Jenna ducked out of the theatre and ran down the street. Where the hell was she heading? Probably running to a boyfriend. Time and again Trevor wanted to ask her for coffee, no big deal, just to bond as cast mates. If they could find some ease and relaxation together in their real life then maybe they could find it onstage too. At least that’s what he told himself.

Why was it so difficult to ask her for coffee? It wasn’t like he was asking her on a date—there was no way in hell he could do that. He just wanted to take her for coffee at the little diner next door. He wanted to pick her brain, to surround himself with her realness and grit. All his years on the soap wedged a very tall, solid gold wall between his life and reality and he wanted to remember, to know what realness looked like and sounded like…and felt like.

Gazing at her packing up her messenger bag, his body ached with a longing he’d never before experienced. He wanted to pick up their conversation from the night when she showed him the theatre. He wanted to know more about her father, her life, and her. But every night she disappeared as soon as the last words were spoken. Sometimes Trevor was quick enough to catch a glimpse of her running down the street but often she was gone before he’d even collected his script.

Tonight, he decided, would be different. Tonight he would not let anyone or anything get in his way. He was Trevor Hughes, damn it, Prince of Denmark, and he wanted coffee—with Jenna Joyce.

“Jenna?”

She jumped. “Yeah?” She placed her hand on her heart, turning to him.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to make you jump.”

“Okay. What’s going on?” Jenna peeked at her watch and slid into her army jacket.

“You in a rush?”

“A bit. Can I help you?”

Those words inspired Trevor. “Actually, you can. I would like your insight on our nunnery scene.”

“I know, it’s flat for me, too.”

This would be so much easier than Trevor ever imagined. “So why don’t we talk about it. Over coffee.”

Jenna shrugged. “Okay.” She threw the strap of her messenger bag over her shoulder.

“Okay?” Trevor ran his hand across the scruff on his chin.

Jenna’s gaze darted up to him. She cleared her throat. “Yeah. Coffee. Talk. Okay.”

“Now good for you?” Trevor’s heart raced as he asked the question.

Jenna looked at her watch again. “No. I have to run now.”

Trevor nodded, disappointment aching in his gut. He was obviously being turned down because of another man and that just didn’t happen to him. He stretched his arms overhead, letting them fall to his sides.

Jenna looked up at him with her giant hazel eyes. “How ’bout later?”

“Later? When?”

“No rehearsals tomorrow, so why don’t you come by my place around nine tonight? Is that okay?”

“Uh, sure.” Trevor tilted his head. He never expected Jenna to ask him to her apartment.

“Oh, but it’s Friday night.” Jenna chewed the corner of her lip. She looked away, like she was pondering a complex math equation and then gazed up at him again. “Don’t you have a date or something?”

She asked the question with no subtext whatsoever, and Trevor shook his head, perplexed.

“No. Don’t you?”

“Yeah, right.” Jenna scoffed. “So my place, then?”

He nodded.

“Great. I’m expecting a call. I need to be home.” Jenna headed for the theatre door, and Trevor followed after her.

“Should I bring coffee?”

“That’d be great.”

“Black?”

Jenna paused and turned back, pulling on those freaking adorable mittens. “Excuse me?”

“Your coffee, black?”

“Oh, yuck, no. Extra cream and four sugars, please.”

“Four sugars?”

“You asked.” Jenna shrugged, making her way up the steps onto the street.

Trevor followed close behind. Jenna shivered in the cold New York air, and Trevor fought his impulse to give her his jacket to bundle over hers.

“You want to text me your address?”

“Un-uh.” She shook her head. “No cell.”

“You have no cell phone?” Trevor narrowed his eyes, leaning forward when he asked, his body instinctually wanting to protect her.

“You sound like my agent. Nope.”

“What if it’s an emergency?”

That wave of misplaced concern washed over Trevor as Jenna shrugged again.

“Look, I really have to go.” She pointed at her watch and just then, the first few snowflakes started to fall. “Huh…snow.”

Jenna spoke with such girlish enthusiasm, Trevor had to smile.

She turned her soft beautiful face up to the sky and then back to Trevor. “Oh, uh, here.”

Just as Trevor reached into his pocket for his cell to input the information, Jenna yanked off her mittens and dug into her bag, fishing out a pen. She took Trevor’s hand and he tightened with her touch. Her tiny hand opened his and she lifted her pen, grabbing the cap in her teeth, scrawling her address across his palm. She dropped his hand, pushed the pen back into its cap, and plopped it into her bag.

Trevor cleared his throat as she began to walk away. “See you at nine,” he called after her. Despite the strange excitement brewing inside him, he tried to sound relaxed.

“Extra cream, four sugars,” she yelled over her shoulder as she sped away.