The good news was that the reviews were stellar. The Boston critics loved it. While the cast and crew gathered at South Station to get on the chartered bus that would take them back to New York, Jeremy read reviews on his phone.
Generally, the critics loved the message behind the show. They loved the songs. They loved that the show made them cry. One review stated, “The plot has more depth and nuance than we usually see in a musical, which makes the second act all the more powerful.” Others praised Jeremy’s acting, the catchiness of the songs, and the fact that the show presented a gay love story in which neither half of the couple died or had AIDS, a relative rarity even for Broadway.
This all boded well headed back to New York, where previews for the show were set to open in the Hammerstein Theater in a few days.
Keenan and Maggie sat together on a huge trunk full of props just beside Jeremy. “You think they would have flown us all back and forth if this were a bigger budget show?” Maggie asked.
“Totally,” Keenan said. “Or maybe. I don’t know. What do you think is normal?”
“Probably the bus,” Maggie said. “Although I doubt Lin-Manuel Miranda or Bernadette Peters rides the bus.”
“This show has a decent budget,” Jeremy pointed out. They weren’t hurting for money. Getting into the theater so early was a coup, even if it was giving the whole cast and crew indigestion. Because, yeah, the Boston previews had gone well, but Broadway was next, and the show still wasn’t quite set in stone.
“I auditioned for Wicked this season,” Maggie said. “I biffed the audition, but man, that would have been fun. Not that this show isn’t! But to be on one of those shows that everyone knows, that would really be something. Being a new show is so nerve-wracking.”
Jeremy and Keenan nodded. Jeremy said, “My friend Max is doing the makeup for a big-budget show based on a fantasy novel, and one of the big Hollywood movie studios is producing it. He says it’s the biggest budget he’s ever worked with.” And, god, there was Max again. It was like he couldn’t not talk about Max. “I can’t even imagine. Probably they’re having us take the bus because they want to cut costs where they can. Can you imagine what a disaster it would be if a big budget musical flopped?”
“Or if it was a wild success,” Maggie dreamily said.
“That’s the dream,” Keenan said. “I played Laurens/Phillip for part of the Hamilton tour, and it was like tasting the most delicious cake you’ve ever had.”
“That is the dream,” Maggie said. “I auditioned for Dear Evan Hansen this season, too. For Zoe, obviously. I thought I was in the running for that, but didn’t even get a callback. But can you imagine being in a show that’s won a Tony? Even if you’re the replacement cast or whatever.”
“What if See the Light wins a Tony?” asked Keenan.
“I would die,” Maggie said.
“What else is coming out this season? Have you heard anything?” Jeremy asked. “Most of the other stuff I auditioned for was revivals.”
“There’s that show about the Titanic,” Keenan said.
“Oh, and the musical based on The Age of Innocence,” Maggie said. “I auditioned for that, too.”
“Me too,” Jeremy said.
They compared notes on the Broadway season. There was another show based on a popular movie that was likely to tank, and a new Disney musical that would do just fine because it was a known property tourists could take their kids to, although the critics weren’t fans of it.
Finally, the bus pulled up. Everyone boarded. This time, Gus sat in the back with a bunch of similarly chatty members of the ensemble and tech crew. Maggie and Keenan, the two people Jeremy felt closest to in the cast—and who were now apparently besties—sat across from each other in the row in front of Jeremy. Maggie had a bulky set of noise-canceling headphones on her lap by the time the bus started up.
“You really think we’ll win a Tony?” Maggie asked, turning toward Jeremy and Keenan.
The answer to that felt like it was on Jeremy’s shoulders. He was so central to the story, and his acting would make a big difference in whether people liked the show or not. The reviews in Boston had been mostly positive, but the New York theater critics were a far tougher audience. Just thinking about how the show might be received made Jeremy feel like he needed to vomit. But he tried to keep it light. “I’ve been practicing my acceptance speech in the shower, not gonna lie.”
Maggie grinned. “I love that.”
“I’ve been practicing my Tony acceptance speech since high school,” Keenan said. “Although then it was an Oscars speech. And in high school, I thanked my parents and my best friend at the time, whom I haven’t spoken to in, like, three years. And my dog, Fifi. She was a cocker spaniel.”
“Aw,” Jeremy said. “That’s cute.” His list of people to thank actually hadn’t changed very much. The most important people in his life were still his parents and Max.
“Now probably I’d have to thank my fiancé,” Keenan said. “I feel like he’d get a little miffed if I left him out.”
Maggie looked between them. “Probably. Do you realize how queer this show is? Cast, crew, everyone.”
“I know. Bound to happen one of these days,” Jeremy said.
“What do you mean by that?” Maggie asked.
Keenan chuckled. “Jeremy has a larger governing theory on how queer the acting community is. Hollywood is full of closeted homosexuals, if you subscribe to this theory.”
Maggie laughed. “That’s insane.”
“Is it?” Jeremy asked. “You were in your high school’s drama club, right?”
“Yeah,” Maggie said.
“And who was in drama club with you? Who was in your acting classes in college? Women and gay men, yeah?”
Maggie narrowed her eyes at Jeremy. “That’s...a really good point, actually.”
“My high school drama club had one straight guy,” Keenan said. “He was so hot. He’s on a soap now.”
“Really?” said Jeremy.
“Yup. But Broadway. That was always what I wanted,” Keenan said. “I did a couple of commercials when I first moved to the city because I needed rent money, but I always wanted to sing on a stage.”
“Yeah, me too,” Jeremy said. “Well, I haven’t done commercials. I had a bit part on that show Prospect Park West. I played the love interest for the teenage daughter of one of the leads. My star turn lasted two whole episodes.”
“You played a straight guy?” Keenan asked.
“It is, in fact, possible to tone all this down.” Jeremy gestured at himself. He was wearing a T-shirt that said, Some people are gay. “But otherwise, I’ve only done theater. And some of it was pretty dumb.”
Maggie and Keenan both nodded knowingly. “They should really tell you that in school,” Maggie said. “Well, kids, sometimes you will take a small part in a mediocre play in order to pay your electricity bill. Or get a gig as Woman Number Three in a Jennifer Lawrence vehicle, which was my star turn on film.”
“Or do community theater in Queens,” Keenan said, “because at least it’s still in the city.”
“I once did a play in Brooklyn for which one performance had an audience of twelve whole people,” Jeremy said.
Keenan nodded. “I’d be pissed if you hadn’t paid your dues,” he said to Jeremy. “You’re stupid talented and handsome to boot.”
Jeremy rolled his eyes. “So is half of New York. And if you think I haven’t been to castings where they told me I was too tall or too thin or my nose was too big or whatever the fuck else, you are sadly mistaken, my friend.”
“This industry, man,” Maggie said. She took a deep breath. “Less than a week until previews start. Is your heart palpitating?”
“Constantly,” Jeremy said.
“Maybe we should try to get some shut eye. I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t sleep well in hotels and I’m wiped out.” She shook her head. “I thought it’d be nice to get away from my boyfriend for a few weeks. Have the whole bed to myself, you know? But, no, I missed the bastard. I called him every night we were here in Boston. Is that lame?”
“It’s cute,” Jeremy said. He would have called Max every night if he’d thought Max would answer.
“Totally normal.” Keenan held up his phone. “My fiancé and I have kept up a steady stream of texts the whole time.”
All these good couples were making Jeremy feel more jealousy than he had any right to. “I slept okay,” he said, trying to change the subject, “but doing the show is a lot. I could use the sleep, too.”
Maggie fell asleep before Jeremy did, whatever she played in her big headphones luring her into dreams. Keenan was quiet, too, so Jeremy made himself comfortable. Once they were on a highway, the little TVs started playing a movie. Someone must have put in their own DVDs, because first, it was the cast recording documentary of Company, something Jeremy had always loved. His favorite part was toward the end, when Elaine Stritch biffed “Ladies Who Lunch” but then tried it again the next day. The little dance of triumph she did when Sondheim told her it was a good take was one of Jeremy’s favorite things ever.
Would they eventually make a cast recording for See the Light? Seemed likely, unless the show completely bombed. Jeremy had plenty of original Broadway cast recordings among his CDs in storage for shows that had only lasted a season. Which certainly still seemed like a possibility for See the Light, but if Jeremy embraced the possibility of success, well, he could see himself standing in a studio just like in this documentary.
Next, someone put on a staged production of Into the Woods, so whoever had control of the DVD player was clearly a Sondheim fan. That was just fine; Jeremy loved Sondheim and knew every word of Into the Woods from the opening notes of the show until the end. Max loved this one, too; they’d watched this very production together dozens of times.
He finally fell asleep as “I Wish” played.
Max worked late on the day Jeremy was scheduled to come home from Boston, both because he had a ton of work and because he wasn’t eager to face Jeremy.
And yet he kept checking the clock. Every time his phone buzzed, he thought it might be a text from Jeremy announcing his arrival, though it never was.
One of Jeremy’s first big starring roles had been in a revival touring cast of Rent, where he’d played Mark. It was one of those odd serendipitous things; Rent had always been one of Max’s favorite shows. They’d seen it on Broadway when they were in high school, and though Jeremy commented that parts of it felt dated, Max thought the music held up. But more than that, Max knew Jeremy could sing most of that show from memory. They’d spent hours in the basement at Jeremy’s house singing along with the soundtrack. Max sang along badly, but Jeremy never cared.
Landing a part in Rent had been a dream come true for Jeremy, even if it was the tour. And he’d been instrumental in getting Max a job on the tour, too, mostly handling the makeup for the actor who played Angel. But he often did the makeup for the rest of the cast as needed, too, which meant he did Jeremy’s makeup for a few shows a week.
It had been a blast working together. They’d gotten to travel to a ton of cool cities, which, granted, they only saw in snatches of a couple of hours here and there. And Max had loved the job; painting Angel’s face was his first real experience with drag makeup. The actor had dared Max to try new things, and he had until one of the producers told him to tone it down.
And then there were the nights he did Jeremy’s makeup. Although Max often viewed faces like canvasses, there was something intimate about painting the faces of people he knew. It was how he and Anthony had come to hook up the first time. Max had been doing Anthony’s makeup one moment, and the next they’d been kissing. So doing Jeremy’s makeup for those shows had been a little intense. He’d spent a lot of the time staring at Jeremy’s eyes. And he’d seen affection there, but perhaps not the love he craved. Plus, Jeremy had the unfortunate habit of wanting to chat while his makeup was being done, so he kept moving his face, and he kept talking about boys he had crushes on. That run of Rent, he’d had a terrible crush on the straight actor playing Roger.
Back in the present day, Regina Morris had asked Max to do the makeup for the first few Broadway previews of See the Light, and Max didn’t think he could do it. He couldn’t stand in front of Jeremy and touch his face—even just to paint it—when things between them were this awkward. Max had tasted what he could have had, and even though it was delicious, he’d thrown it away.
Anthony’s “fear of success” speech rang through his head. He really just had thrown a grenade into the middle of their relationship, and why? Because he was worried about losing Jeremy, but hadn’t the outcome been effectively the same? If he was this reluctant to go home, did they really have any hope at all?
He sucked it up, took a deep breath, and shut down the studio for the night.
When he got home, Jeremy was indeed there, wearing old sweats and lounging on the couch. He jerked upright when Max walked in; Max caught the motion as he pulled his key out of the lock.
“Hi,” Jeremy said.
“Hi. How were previews?”
“Amazing. Considering how fast this show came together...really, it couldn’t have been better.” He looked up at Max and gave him a once over. “You changed your hair.”
Max touched his hair, which was now a deep bluish purple. “Yeah. I got tired of the pink. My hairdresser says it’ll fade to be brighter purple, but apparently I have to turn the floor of the shower blue a few more times before that happens. You look...good.”
“Thanks. I’m tired. But I like the hair. Makes you look a little gothy when it’s that dark.” Jeremy ran a hand through his own hair. He must have been napping, because it was askew on one side, sticking out in a weird direction. He had on a faded T-shirt from an AIDS Walk they’d done together six years ago.
And that was the thing. Max and Jeremy had history. Years and years of history.
“For what it’s worth,” Max said. “I’m sorry. I hope we can figure out a way to be around each other without things getting too weird.”
“Yeah. Same for me.” Jeremy yawned. “I’ve been practicing sleeping on the couch again.”
“I think that’s for the best.” It hurt to say that, though. Jeremy should have been spending his nights in Max’s bed. That was where he belonged. Because they belonged together.
And Max was an idiot.
“I’m, uh, pretty tired from the day so...” Max gestured toward his bedroom.
“Is that really how this is going to be?” Jeremy asked.
Max walked closer to the sofa. “I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing. I appreciate that you’re sorry, but for me the real issue is that I miss you. I miss my friend. Things didn’t work out between us romantically, but we agreed to stay friends. No?”
“We did. I guess I just need some more time.”
Jeremy pressed his lips together and looked at the TV. “Take the time you need, but given that I’m about to star in a Broadway play, I could really use my friend right now. And don’t apologize to me. Be here for me.”
The expression on Jeremy’s face broke Max’s heart all over again. “I want to be.”
“But not right now.”
Max huffed out a breath. It was too painful to be around Jeremy. Mostly, it was a reminder of just how much Max had fucked all this up. “I’m tired,” he said, instead of apologizing again. “Tomorrow, though.”
Jeremy’s expression was sad. But he nodded. “Yeah. Tomorrow.”