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I should have been exhausted after filming for months straight. I also should have been going over the screenplays my agent sent me: a female-driven buddy-cop comedy, a heist film, a psychological thriller. But nothing could hold my interest, and really, let's be honest; I was never one to do what I should.
A week had passed since my last exchange with Jaxson at Five Palms. He still hadn’t called me. I knew he was on location in Vancouver and most likely had little reception in the outskirts where they were filming. I’ll admit I was more angry than sad at this new silent treatment. We’d gone longer without a phone call or text many times, but now there was an unspoken division hanging over our heads.
But what most upset me was the outcome of my matchmaking endeavours for Annie. The morning after Annie almost fed the fishes at Five Palms and Randall stood us up, I decided to call him. I didn’t want to disturb Annie in case she was keeping vigil in the loo. Better to let her rest. But I knew Randall woke early most days to take in a morning run. I loved that he was in such fantastic shape. I wish I had that kind of discipline.
But when I called him, he was neither running nor even out of bed yet. He answered with a groggy, waking sort of greeting like he was stretching as he spoke. I could faintly hear the bed sheets rustle over the phone. I inquired briefly about his plumbing issues, not fully believing his story, but willing to brush over it for cordiality’s sake. I was about to suggest another rendezvous in which I could have the opportunity to introduce him to Annie when I heard the shadow of a voice near to him. It was a vague, muffled sound, but unmistakably female. The woman spoke a few whispered words and I heard Randall pause before returning to his conversation with me.
He offered some sort of apology for missing dinner, jesting in a facetious manner that perhaps I was not loath to suffer the company of Jaxson alone, and said his failure to show canceled out the favours I owed him.
Brilliant.
I did not hear much more of what he said after that. All I could think of was Annie, and what a fool I’d been to believe I could wield Cupid’s arrow for her sake. What did I know? How could I have imagined they would make a good match? I was angry. So incredibly angry. But it was toward myself, and no one else that my extreme disappointment was directed.
To own the truth, perhaps I was a little more heartbroken for my pride than for Annie’s feelings. After all, she wasn’t even aware of my intentions. Nobody was except myself, and I had gotten my hopes up. Perhaps I should have made a better effort. Perhaps I should have told Jaxson—he could have helped me. Maybe he already knew. Maybe that’s why he was cross with me—because Randall already had a woman in his life. Then damn him too—he could have warned me.
And now a week of radio silence from him, Randall, and Annie.
I abandoned my vlog and most other social media outlets, but I did rather like Instagram and so I continued to take photos, enjoying the engagement from fans and friends. It became an easy expression through images and concise, cheeky interactions, short and sweet little notes passed over the interwebs. I followed several colleagues in the industry, most of them I knew personally, but some I did not; opera singers and Broadway stars I admired from a distance. I fangirled with more enthusiasm than I care to admit over a like on one of my posts by the incredibly talented Bronson Norris Murphy. It took more willpower than I could muster not to click on that little heart under every single one of the adorable photos on his feed.
I became morbidly aware that this was how I was to slowly become my mother. In protest, I devoured a bag of crisps and ate too much chocolate. It was high time I got off the internet and out of pyjamas. And so I threw on some jeans and took a drive. I didn’t have a destination, really, only to free the dread and hollow wretchedness in the pits of my gut. Now, I realize I am being quite dramatic. In truth, the pits of my gut were rather satisfied after copious amounts of espresso and sugary carbs, but the dread—the dread was still there.
I drove and drove without a thought to where I was going. I hadn’t realized how far south I wandered until the neighbourhoods yielded to quaint colonial houses and adorable manicured lawns. It certainly wasn’t LA.
I came upon the gorgeous campus of a secondary school nestled among the palm trees and storybook homes. A great edifice resembling a bell tower erected high and proud at the end of a grand lawn. It had cream arches with a facade of early twentieth-century architecture. It was as beautiful as a university. Groups of people were making their way across the grass from the street towards the inner quads. If I wasn’t intrigued by the glorious architecture, I was now curious to what purpose hordes of scattered individuals would be attending a school on a Friday night.
Then I saw the vinyl banner on tent poles near the street. Huntington Beach High School Performing Arts Academy Presents Les Miserables.
My first thought was to get away from the traffic. I wasn’t in the mood to experience the crowding that accompanies event parking. But then, almost miraculously, an open spot on the street appeared before me, just the right size for my little car. On instinct, I manoeuvred along the curb in two swift turns of the wheel of my Fiat. I don’t know why I took the spot. I supposed I needed a moment to add a route to my GPS or floss my teeth. I don’t know. Only that a force beyond me willed me to stop. And so I did. I blame the midichlorians.
I sat in my little car and watched while patrons casually crossed before me and wandered toward the school from various directions having parked along the neighbouring streets. I watched couples, families, and groups of teenage girls, all coming from different cities, different backgrounds, different circumstances. Each individual was unique in dress and social standing, unique in ideas, culture, and taste. Yet here they all were, coming together to experience art. To see a play.
I was drawn to it like a magnet. How long since I’d seen a play? Not a stuffed up spectacle hiding behind the glamour of lights and glistening costumes, but a true labour of love—the intersection where wide-eyed dreams meet with hours of artistic toil. Without another thought, I left the cocoon of my solitude and joined the crowds into the auditorium.
I was pleased to find concessions as I entered the lobby. Peanut M&Ms for myself and roses sent backstage to random chorus members I picked from the playbill and I took my seat with mingled alacrity. But the moment the first notes of the overture reached my ears, I was transported once more to the main stage of Her Majesty’s Dramatic Academy and I was again that little girl with nervous jitters and grand hopes. I pictured myself among the youth, dressed in rags, singing our little hearts out about impoverished circumstances and the dawn of a revolution. I was villager number three. I was Fantine. I was Jean Valjean. And I felt alive—more alive than I’d felt in years. Little gold statues, a star on Hollywood Boulevard, working with beautiful sets with enormous budgets—all of it paled in substance next to the wash of emotion that overcame me in the wake of the extraordinary musical score.
Then I realized what I’d been missing. It wasn’t social proof or even that I had to prove myself worthy of Jaxson’s attention. It wasn’t the pride in which a good love-match is celebrated. I couldn’t begrudge Randall for finding one for himself and I knew one would come eventually for Annie.
It was something deeper. More personal.
Movies were lovely to make, and perhaps I’d lost sight of the magic. Somewhere in the months of creative labours with all the painstaking hours of hurrying to wait, the stops and starts, the machine that consumes the years, I’d lost sight of myself—that little girl on the stage. And I missed it. I missed the theatre.
Intermission arrived in the blink of an eye. I was elevated in song and spectacle and didn’t want to move. And so I remained in my seat while the murmurs and shuffling of people all around me filled the room. I reached for my M&Ms and absentmindedly thumbed through the notifications on my phone. There were too many. I’d have to figure out how to turn them off—later. At present, I resolved to swipe them away individually, but then one in particular caught my attention and I stopped cold.
Randall Weston changed his relationship status.
Already? How long had this been going on? Was I curious? Yes. Did I have a meddling interest in who this woman was? This woman who should have been Annie, but for some reason got there first? Did I want to know what Annie had been up against? Would I find this Jezebel to be plain, beautiful, a right minger . . . slutty? Did I want to console myself that whoever this mystery woman was, I’d find everything wrong with her and be predisposed to hate her? I supposed I did because instead of ignoring that notification like all the others, I clicked on it. I clicked on that puppy and waited for it to load—waited with the poor signal I had in that school auditorium.
And what I saw floored me. It floored me not because the woman was slutty or pretty or plain, or even because she was horrible enough for me to hate her—but because she was a beautiful, badass, pink haired, tattooed pin-up girl. Randall’s mystery woman was Annie!