A Midsummer Night's Fling (Much Ado about Love #1) (17 page)

T
he next day
dawned sunny and warm, the California spring having made an early retreat. The weather forecast said temps would hit the nineties by the weekend. Still, as Nicola sat in the audience chairs of the outdoor theater, it wasn’t the rising temperature that made her sweat.

Judith O’Fallon appeared cool and calm as she addressed the
Midsummer
cast from the stage. A sort of Patrician serenity emanated from her, reminiscent of a marble statue. Her long, sleeveless gray maxi-dress and heavy gold jewelry contributed to this impression.

“I want to say before we start today,” Judith began, “how happy I am to be working with all of you, even though the circumstances are problematic. I know we are all sending our best wishes to Rita, but I also know she wants us to put on the best damn
Midsummer
production we can. That’s my goal, and I want to say that I will be executing
Rita’s
vision of the play. This isn’t my
Midsummer
, it’s hers. So let’s all make it a good one, eh?”

“That was fairly rousing,” Nicola muttered to Lachlan as they sat together in the audience.

“It’s no ‘Once more unto the breach,’ but it’ll serve its purpose, I think,” Lachlan replied.

Judith reclaimed their attention. “I want to work today in blocks, to get a sense of the individual arcs for each set of characters. Can we start with the fairies, please? Going from Puck’s first entrance.”

“Come on, darling,” Lachlan said. “That is literally my cue.” He pushed to his feet and strutted onstage. Nicola trailed reluctantly after him.

Judith had been hypercritical of her performance during their “working sessions.” What would happen with Judith running the whole show? It was too late to recast Titania.

Isn’t it?
Nicola swallowed.

* * *

“
N
o
, I’m sorry, Nicola, but I just wouldn’t go up with the intonation on that line. If you’re going to ignore the verse, my dear, at least do it on purpose…”

“Nicola, no! You’re playing the general emotion of the speech. Go deeper, more specific. Use the language…”

“No, try something different there…”

“No, I think that choice is wrong…”

“No, that doesn’t work…”

“No,
do
something…”

“No…”

And no. And
no
. Nicola’s performance was one big NO to Judith. Everything was wrong, every acting choice, every word. Nicola was going to have nightmares about this rehearsal with Judith’s crisp, cool
“No’s”
ringing in her head like blows. Nicola had moved from performing to simply surviving. Shaky, off-balance, she crossed toward Max to deliver her next line. “‘But she being mortal of that boy did die—’”

“No.” Judith cut her off. Again. “You’re overplaying the emotion here. With Shakespeare, the language can be used to convey the emotions better than all your crying and weeping can.
Use the text
. Start again.” Judith thumped back in her seat, a disgruntled expression on her face.

Nicola’s stomach quivered with nerves. Her hands trembled as she opened her mouth to start.

“I’m sorry, Judith,” the stage manager said. “We need to take at least a ten. The union.”

Judith made an impatient noise, then flipped her hand. “All right. See everybody in ten.”

Nicola seized her chance and bolted offstage, but instead of heading into the greenroom, she climbed into the “forest” behind the stage. She found a shady, screened spot behind a row of small trees. Wanting some privacy for her nervous collapse, she thought she might as well have a pretty view in the meantime.

Why did I take this part?
She fell to her butt in the cool dust and drew up her knees, hugging her legs.

“Nicola.”

She shaded her eyes and glanced at Max. Her gut fired with irritation. She’d promised Max a talk, but one emotional wound for the day was enough. Still, she did owe it to him. With a sigh, she said, “Max, I know we need to have the Talk. We need to discuss things—”

“Fuck the Talk. Nicci, are you okay?”

“What?”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with Judith. She shouldn’t talk to you that way. Rita loved what you’re doing with Titania. So do I.”

Nicola chuckled and patted the dirt next to her. “Cop a squat, friend.” The trees had shaded her cranny, and the air blew at least ten degrees cooler than in the pouring sunlight where Max stood.

He dropped next to her, his broad shoulders rubbing against hers as he squeezed into the remaining smidgeon of shade. He bumped her with his elbow. “Well?”

“Well?”

“Are you okay?”

She hugged her bent legs, and rested her cheek on one knee to stare sideways at him. “Judith’s right. I don’t know how to deal with the verse. It’s been years since grad school, and I’m out of practice. Musical theater is all about the emotions. I don’t know how to do this cerebral, underplaying stuff.”

“You’re overcomplicating things. And Judith isn’t helping.”

“Lachlan either.”

“You asked Lachlan for help?” Max tried, and failed, to hide his bruised ego.

“He’s talented and British. It seemed like a winning combination for Shakespeare.”

“Lach is talented and classically trained, but he’s not patient.”

She grimaced in memory. “I noticed that.”

“Let’s do this in pieces, all right?” Max shifted to face her, crouching beside her with his hands on his knees, as if he were about to launch into some back-breaking dirty work. “We’ll split the part into manageable chunks. What’s giving you the most trouble?”

Nicola pressed her spine against the trunk of her tree and squeezed her eyes closed in frustration. “All of it. I thought I knew how to do this, but Judith—”

“Step by step, Nic.” His voice was low, calm. “Start with one scene, one speech.”

“‘Forgeries of jealousy.’”

“Well, first of all, fuck the verse.”

Nicola laughed, and small cracks started forming in the block of tension inside her.

Max continued, “Yes, you want to be aware of the verse in rehearsal, work on it there, but then you need to internalize the rhythm. You don’t worry about the verse at all in performance. You get it inside you, then you throw it away.”

“Am I doing that?”

“I think you’re doing it more than Judith is giving you credit for. I think at this point Judith is more hung up on the verse than she needs to be.”

The sun filtering through the leaves gilded his hair, turning the straw color to a beautiful gold. She laughed, and he glanced over at her, his eyes bright blue, and he raised one eyebrow in question.

“You’re different,” she told him. This was, she realized, a truth which had been building inside her for weeks. Something about sitting with Max in this quiet corner of the theater under the trees had hammered the point home. She could never imagine the younger Max taking time to sit thoughtfully and parse a speech, figure things out. He’d always jumped in headfirst and pulled her along behind him, and they’d usually both ended up smashed on the pavement.

“Different?”

“More methodical. Thoughtful. Careful.” She frowned, thinking. “Centered.” Yes, exactly that. Old Max had seemed to careen along off-balance, out of tune, but now he’d grown into himself. He knew who he was, what he wanted, how to get it.

Max gave a small, bitter laugh. “I was a thoughtless, careless, selfish bastard before. It wouldn’t take much to make an improvement on that.”

“You weren’t.”

“Thoughtless, careless, or selfish?” He laughed, trying to make it into a joke, but his eyes were bleak.

“A bastard. You did love me. I know you did. And I know I hurt you too.”

He studied her for one long heartbeat before he glanced away. “Why did we break up?”

“You know why.”

“I think I know why. Give me your perspective.”

She smoothed her clammy palms over her knees. “You partied so much. Your drinking. The smoking. The fighting. I thought you were gonna get yourself killed.” She sucked in a deep breath, then let it out, staring through the screen of trees. “And…”

The stage was barely visible, a few wooden boards glimpsed between two tree trunks. How easy to pretend they were alone. They had been transported to some magical fairyland where it was only the two of them.
And if you can’t tell the truth in fairyland
…

“I didn’t trust you,” she murmured. “I held on to you so tight because I was scared you’d leave me. Cheat on me. Like my dad did to my mom.”

“I’d never have done that.” He grabbed her wrist and leaned over to see her face. “I would
never
have done that to you.”

She stared into his eyes. “I know that. I do. This was all me. I was so sure you’d break my heart somehow, but I thought I could hold the crash off if I kept you in my sight, kept you away from other people.” She raked her fingers into her hair, loosening her ponytail. Her stomach was in about six different knots right now. “I got so scared after Dad split. I thought it was a matter of time before you wanted out too. So I smothered you instead.”

He reached up, smoothing his hand through her hair. He tucked a strand behind her ear. “You rarely smothered me. And I put you through a lot of shit too. I don’t know why you even wanted me. I was such a fuckup.”

She bumped his shoulder with hers. “A beautiful fuckup. A marvelous wreck.”

“We were so damn young when we met. I always thought I found you too soon. If we’d been older, more mature when we started…” His thumb tickled beneath her chin as he stared into her eyes. When he’d fixed her hair, his hand had lingered on the side of her neck. Nicola became intensely aware of the weight of his palm as her skin fired with sensation, a match struck to life. “Nic…” He leaned toward her.

She wet her lips, a craving for him starting low in her gut. “Max.” She covered his hand and lifted his palm from her skin. She needed to know
what
she was doing with Max before she
did
anything else with Max.

Trying to reclaim their earlier camaraderie, she adopted a chipper tone—which sounded grating even to her own ears. “So, the ‘forgeries of jealousy’ speech. How would you handle that?”

A muscle ticked in his jaw, but he gave a little nod. He shifted his butt over so he sat farther from her and their arms and sides no longer touched. With an effort that was obvious by his furrowed forehead, Max wrenched his focus back toward work. “The thing with long speeches like ‘forgeries of jealousy’ is you don’t want to approach them as a big block of text you have to get through. Break the speeches into distinct parts. They usually are anyway.”

“How so?”

He held up three fingers, then lowered one of them as he made his first point. “Number one, the speech starts because the character is responding to something that just happened, right? Oberon is accusing Titania of adultery so she fires back at him.”

“Right.”

“The second part of a speech”—he ticked off a second finger—“is the character articulating the situation, exploring the problem. In your speech, that’s all the middle bit where she’s talking about the weather going screwy.”

Nicola drew herself up and projected out, using her queen voice. “‘Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain, as in revenge, have suck’d up from the sea contagious fogs. Have every pelting river made so proud’…yada, yada.”

“Right. The last part in a long speech”—he held his remaining finger up, drawing special emphasis—“the character usually comes to some sort of realization or solution. Or they’ve realized there
is
no solution. That’s the end where Titania tells Oberon the screwy weather is their fault because they’ve been fighting. Take the audience on that journey with you. Show them the thought process and the forward momentum.”

Nicola blinked, processing this, reviewing the speech in this new light. It did seem clearer, more manageable. “
Thank you
, Max.”

He beamed at her, laugh lines crinkling. Something inside her, her heart, her soul maybe—corny as
that
thought was—stretched, her very self reaching toward him even though she kept her arms pinned against her sides.

“They’re calling for you two,” Isabelle said from behind them.

Nicola jumped, twitching with guilt even though she hadn’t been doing anything wrong. Only
thinking
wrong things.

“What are you doing at rehearsal, Isa?” Max asked.

“I’m recruiting for the school program we’re putting on next week at that performing arts high school. I need actors to do demonstrations.”

Max rolled to his feet, then held his hand out to Nicola. “Count me in. School demos are always fun.”

“Me too.” Nicola slid her hand into his, taking a secret thrill in the slide of palm against palm as she let him pull her to her feet. As she stood, she dusted off her butt, then offered Isabelle an apologetic look. “I’m sorry if we held rehearsal up. Max was helping me with Titania.”

Isabelle folded her arms, lips pursed. “I saw that.”

Nicola braced herself for the storm, but Isabelle merely cocked her head to the side and said, “Where did you learn to do that, Max?”