Dear Diary,
Maybe it’s a touch melodramatic, but the part in North and South where Thornton sees Margaret with her brother at the train station and assumes it’s a tryst but decides to keep her secret because he loves her so much kills me. That’s what I call a romantic moment.
Usually it’s the opposite scenario—a secret lover someone tries to pass off as their platonic acquaintance despite the damning circumstances, because people are shameless.
M.P.M.
of auditionees, who were loitering amid the faded grandeur of the Millville College theater lobby. Some were monologuing under their breath, while others stretched or stared at their phones.
“Do you think they think we’re in college?” she asked, barely moving her lips.
“Either that or a gang of jewel thieves.” Lydia smoothed the front of her navy tunic, which she had paired with leggings of the same shade. It had been Arden’s idea for everyone to wear dark colors, the better to blend in with all the thespians.
The doors of the auditorium swung open. A hush fell over the lobby as the twins emerged. Van’s expression was tense and slightly abstracted, as though she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. I put it at about 70 percent genuine, and the rest performative: the great director at work. Behind her, Addie wore a less showy air of preoccupation, which gave way to a smile when she spotted me.
“Mary.” Van waved a peremptory hand, despite the fact that I was already moving in their direction. “We need you.”
“You are such an insider, Lady Mary,” Arden breathed behind me.
“My friends are here with me,” I explained to the twins.
“How can we help?” Lydia’s brisk tone exuded competence.
Van regarded them with new interest. “We can use you at the first checkpoint. I’m not saying actors are like cattle, but they do respond to herding.”
Addie frowned, lips parting as if about to protest, but Van had already marched back into the auditorium, drawing the rest of us in her wake. The heavy doors closed with a whoosh behind us.
Van pointed to a long table leaning against the wall, legs folded. “Check-in is there.” She moved her arm to indicate a spot at the back of the theater, between the last row of seats and the main doors. “We need them to sign in and fill out a contact sheet, and then you can give them a packet with the scenes we’ll be reading from.” Bending, she lifted a box from the floor and passed it to Lydia. “Are we clear?”
“Crystal.” Lydia executed a sharp turn and headed for the table.
“Not you,” Van said, when I took a step in that direction. “Anton needs you backstage.”
“He’s the costume and makeup person,” I explained, in response to Arden’s look of interest.
Addie checked her watch. “You can open the doors in ten minutes,” she instructed my friends. “And thank you,” she added, smiling warmly.
I glanced worriedly over my shoulder as I trailed the twins down the center aisle, wondering if the other three regretted their impulsive decision to accompany me this afternoon. To my relief, they looked more excited than put-upon. Lydia even went so far as to flash me a thumbs-up.
On the other side of the curtain, the first person we encountered was Karen, Baardvaark’s stage manager. As usual, she wore a full headset, despite the fact that there was no one running lights or the sound board with whom she would need to communicate.
“That’s how she gets orders from her alien overlords,” Anton whispered in my ear.
I turned to hug him, the nubby wool of his cardigan a familiar prickle against my cheek. He was by far my favorite member of the company, with the obvious exception of my sisters.
“Be gentle. Uncle Anton is feeling fragile today.” He touched a hand to his temple, in case the sunglasses indoors weren’t enough of a clue.
“They need to see me first,” Karen boomed at us. Anton winced. “I’m taking Polaroids, because you know half of them won’t have headshots. I’ll send them to you after, if there’s time.”
“I live to serve,” Anton said with patently false humility. Turning to me, he raised his travel mug of coffee. “Let’s go to our corner.”
In the costume area, he collapsed into a tattered wingback chair that must have been the remnant of a non-Baardvaark production. Something depressing about family conflict in suburban America, at a guess. “You’re on point today, precious. I love your sisters, truly I do, but why they insist on starting so early is a mystery to me.”
“It’s almost two o’clock,” I pointed out, though I was accustomed to Anton’s nocturnal habits, which went hand in hand with his vampiric pallor.
“Easy for you to say, Baby Fresh Face.” He lowered his glasses, peering at me over the chunky plastic frames. “What is this look?”
I was wearing an old Baardvaark T-shirt (black, from a production of Titus Andronicus) and my darkest jeans. “It’s Saturday, and I’m here to work.”
With a long-suffering harrumph, he heaved himself out of the chair and crossed to a rolling rack of clothing. “Here,” he said, whipping something black from a hanger and holding it out to me.
I slid my arms into the sleeves of the jacket before looking down at myself. “Is this from a tuxedo?”
Anton adjusted the collar of the borrowed coat. “We have a reputation to uphold. Someone on this team has to bring the glam.” He shot a pointed look at Karen before grabbing my ponytail and pulling it over my shoulder for closer inspection.
“Are you checking for split ends?”
“I’m thinking about making a hairpiece. You have enough for both of us.” One of the great sorrows of Anton’s life was his hairline, which he monitored obsessively for signs of thinning. “You’ve been conditioning,” he said approvingly, running the ends of my hair against his palm.
A floorboard creaked. “Time to work,” Anton said, releasing my hair. He pressed a tape measure into my unresisting hand before spinning me around.
I froze, staring at the new arrival. “What are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here?” Alex Ritter countered.
I opened my mouth to protest before remembering that he knew I was here to help my sisters; he’d heard Cam asking me about auditions last night. And I’d stupidly announced they were happening today, which meant his presence was my fault.
“Did you sign in?” I was hoping for some clue as to whether he’d already spotted Terry. I assumed she was his main reason for being here. Unless he intended to flirt and try out for the play, so as to wreak maximum havoc. The twins did occasionally cast upper-level students from Millville High, though surely they’d learned their lesson in his case.
“Darling, let’s do our job. He can worry about the paperwork later.” Anton had resumed his seat, leaning back at an angle with his long legs crossed in front of him. He picked up a notebook and pencil from an adjacent side table. “Ready when you are.”
I took a deep breath. Just because Alex Ritter was an agent of chaos didn’t mean I had to let him throw me off my stride. “Hold your arms out,” I instructed. “Like a scarecrow.”
The request seemed to take him by surprise, but after a moment’s hesitation he complied. I stepped closer, wishing for the first time that I had opted to assist Karen. Pictures could be taken from a safe distance. Getting someone’s measurements was a different story.
Holding my breath, I reached around him with the tape measure in one hand. My goal had been to minimize physical contact, but the plan backfired when I left too large a space between us, causing me to stumble forward as I tried to wrap the tape around his waist.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, removing my face from the pocket of his shirt before calling out the number for Anton to write down.
“It’s my cologne,” Alex Ritter replied. “It has that effect on people.”
It’s a well-known fact that as soon as someone mentions a smell, it’s impossible not to sniff. I thought I’d inhaled stealthily, until Anton weighed in.
“How is it, Mary? Spicy? Piquant? More of a musk?”
“He smells like syrup,” I said tightly.
“Pancake Saturday,” Alex confirmed. “Best day of the week.” He sniffed the back of his hand, hmming appreciatively. “My blood is probably twenty percent Log Cabin right now.”
I cleared my throat. “Where was I?”
“You’re just getting warmed up,” Anton quipped from the comfort of his chair. “Better double-check that chest measurement. Once more unto the breach, and all that. Let me know if you need an extra pair of hands.”
I reached around Alex again, careful to keep my balance this time. This was a job, no different from painting scenery—although plywood and canvas didn’t give off body heat or stare back at you when you were doing your very best to avoid eye contact.
“I’m flexing,” he said, as I brought the ends of the tape measure together over the buttons of his shirt. “Can you tell?”
I shook my head, meaning I’m not going to answer that.
“Ouch,” said Alex. “Stone cold.”
“Bulging pecs are overrated,” Anton volunteered.
Ignoring both of them, I wrapped the tape measure around Alex’s neck. He shivered when my fingers brushed his nape. “That tickles.”
My embarrassment was now at such a critical level that my body seemed to move independently of my mind. Shoulder to wrist. Armpit to hip. The length of his back. Even so, the part of me watching the scene from the outside couldn’t help noting how often it looked as though we were caught in a torrid embrace.
“I do remember you,” he whispered, during one such moment.
“From last night? Impressive.”
He shook his head. “Before that.”
I gave a skeptical humph. It landed somewhere between his shoulder blades. Maybe his memory extended as far as the first day of school, but I doubted it. Before he could speak again, I stepped back to call a number to Anton.
“What if the other leg is longer?” Alex asked, when I moved to one side of him to measure the distance from his waist to the floor.
“Then you have bigger problems than your costume,” I answered shortly. We had reached the most intimate stage of the process, and my mind was scrambling for a way to avoid what came next. “Do you happen to know your inseam—like in pants?”
Alex crossed his arms, tapping his bottom lip with one finger. “Thirty-two? No, maybe it’s thirty-four.”
I frowned at him. “You’re not that tall.”
“You give me life, Mary!” Anton called. “So much sass behind that sweet face.”
Alex glanced from Anton to me, and I felt heat suffuse my cheeks.
“There you are,” said a sultry voice.
I took a quick step back. Although the person who’d spoken sounded like a nightclub singer, she had the cascading ringlets of a pre-Raphaelite painting, and the body-conscious clothing of a yoga instructor. She sidled up to Alex, her delicate shoulder giving him a playful nudge. “I thought you came to hang out with me.”
My mind skittered from one revelation to the next: He’s here with her—a College Student. Which means he didn’t come to woo Terry. Unless he’s really, really debauched.
“There was a door propped open, so I walked in and these two grabbed me.” Alex made it sound as though Anton and I had wrestled him to the ground like a pair of thugs, when all that really happened was that—I squeezed my eyes shut, striving in vain to suppress the memory of draping a tape measure around every section of his body.
“I figured they were going to shake me down for my lunch money,” Alex added.
Anton ignored this exchange, tipping his sunglasses up to stare at the new arrival. “Do you model?”
She flashed a coquettish grin, all lowered chin and fluttering lashes. “A little.”
“Let’s see the walk.” Anton all but rubbed his hands together in anticipation, headache temporarily forgotten.
The girl—or rather, woman—threw her shoulders back and shook out her hair. She stomped a straight line from where she was standing to Anton’s chair.
“So you’re not auditioning?” I hissed at Alex while his special friend spun around to begin high-stepping back our way.
“I never said I was.”
I ground my teeth, annoyance twisting the knife of my embarrassment. His significant other rejoined us.
“Hold this, will you?” She handed her bag to Alex, then used both hands to coil her long hair into a magazine-worthy bun. Not even with a wall of mirrors, oceans of hairspray, and battalion of bobby pins could I hope to replicate such a feat.
Pressing both hands to her abdomen, she inhaled deeply through her nose, lips puckering on the long, slow exhale. “Are you going to watch?” she asked Alex, before commencing the next round of exaggerated breaths.
“I’ll be in the front row,” he assured her, laying on the supportive boyfriend act with a shovel.
“Then you’ll be staring at her feet.” I hadn’t intended the words to carry, but Anton licked his finger and made a sizzling sound.
Alex favored me with a slow grin. It seemed highly inappropriate for him to look at anyone that way with his girlfriend standing right there. “Where are you sitting?”
“I’m not. I’ll be running around. Doing things.”
“No rest for the wicked,” Anton quipped.
Belatedly I realized that if I set Alex loose in the auditorium, he would almost certainly run into Terry. “You can watch from the wings.” Feeling the need to sell the idea, I added, “It’s a really cool view.”
“So cool,” said Anton. “The coolest.” For someone who claimed to be on the brink of death, he was remarkably quick with the commentary.
“Which way?” Alex asked me.
I pointed.
He turned to the Older Woman. “Ready, Phoebe?”
She rolled her head in a half circle, stretching her neck muscles, before resuming her perfect posture. “Okay.”
“I’ll see you later.” Anton blew her a kiss.
We watched the two of them saunter out of sight, Alex’s arm draped across her shoulders. Crossing to Anton’s chair, I slumped onto the armrest.
“You really think she’ll get a part?” I asked.
“Oh yeah. But that’s not what we need to talk about.” He gave my knee an encouraging pat. “Tell Uncle Anton everything.”
“What do you mean?”
Anton tipped his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose. “What’s the story with you and that boy?”
I shrugged. “He’s the school Don Juan.”
“And?”
“There’s no story.” It would have been too complicated to explain the Vronsky intervention, so I opted for a change of subject. “How’s your head?”
“Terrible.”
“Want me to ask Karen for aspirin?”
“You’d do that for me?” He pretended to wipe away a tear. “Back to the issue at hand. You’re holding out on me. I may not be in peak form, but I saw the way he looked at you.”
“He looks at everyone that way. It’s his nature.”
“Hmm.” He did not sound convinced. “Someday Uncle Anton is going to explain the difference between good-bad and bad-bad when it comes to boys.”
“I think I’ll stick to good-good.”
Anton feigned a yawn. “Sounds a little dull—which that one definitely was not.”
Usually I enjoyed his teasing, but on this subject, Anton had pushed far enough. “You know he has a girlfriend,” I admonished. “At least one.”
“Does he?” Anton sounded surprised, which made me want to check his forehead for fever. He really was out of it if he’d failed to register what was going on with Phoebe.
The scuff of footsteps drew our attention to a stocky young man with a stubby ponytail. “Hi,” he said, shuffling to a stop. “Is this where you get measured for a costume?”
Anton held up a hand. “Wait there.” To me, he said, “If that’s the case, I revoke my approval. You let Uncle Anton know if he tries to toy with your emotions again.”
Tape measure in hand, I stood. Perhaps I lacked the elegant posture and charming first name of a Phoebe, but my sense of self-preservation was fully functional. “Trust me. That’s not going to be a problem.”