Stage Fright (Bit Parts) (3 page)

“I hope you’ll consider taking a role in
16 Voices
,” she said.  “You’d be a great inspiration to the playwright.”

“Maybe.  But you should really let Cassie audition, too,” Andrew said.  “She’s terrific!  You should have seen her in
King Lear
at the Pinnacle last winter.”

I gave him a grateful smile. 
King Lear
had been a lucky break.  I’d been the understudy for the role of Cordelia and had gotten the part when the actress initially cast had slipped on the ice and broken her ankle.  The run had been very short, only two weeks, but my performance had earned me several great reviews.

Hedda frowned.  “I saw that show, but I don’t remember you.”

“Cassie played Cordelia,” Charles said.  “You and Marcella both told me how much you enjoyed her performance.”

Hedda continued to shake her head.  “No, this is not the same young woman.”

“It is,” Andrew insisted.

Hedda leaned in close, peering at me like I was a specimen in a jar.  I backed away, bumping into Andrew.  “Ah, yes,” she said.  “I suppose there is a little resemblance, but she’s changed since then.”  She treated me to another of her cunning smiles.  “You’ve lost your shine, haven’t you my dear?”

I flushed.  I thought I’d been doing a pretty good job of hiding my mental issues, but Hedda’s expression told me that I didn’t fool
her
at all.

“Such a pity that her talent has wasted away,” she told Charles.

I gaped at her.  Wasted away?  What did she mean
wasted away
?  Seeing my crestfallen expression, Andrew put his arm around my shoulders and guided me out of the parking lot.

Chapter Two

Andrew was in such high spirits that he carried me piggyback most of the way to the bar.  For his sake, I acted happy, but inside I was a mess.  Forget hanging out at the Lamplighter.  I wanted to go home, bury under the covers, and pretend the night hadn’t happened.

I hung on tighter when Andrew jogged past the Cipher Theater.  Well, what used to be the Cipher Theater.  The owners had pulled stakes and moved on months ago.  In fact,
Streetcar
had never made it to the stage.  Although the building sat in the middle of a Renaissance zone – a gentrified section of the city in which investors were dumping money – the place remained vacant.  Faded fliers promising the opening of
Streetcar
were still tacked to its doors.

Andrew and I finally reached the bar and claimed the last empty table.  The Lamplighter was a narrow, windowless dive with walls yellowed from decades of cigarette smoke.  Its single nod to frivolity was a low-tech karaoke machine that slumped in one corner like a hard-drinking customer determined to stay until last call.

Most of the cast and crew were already celebrating.  Andrew ordered a beer, and I went for a cosmopolitan which was sweet enough to make me like it, but not tasty enough to make me want more than two.

In addition to everything else, the letdown of the final night’s performance weighed on me.  All around were conversations about auditions and call backs and other prospects.  Sarah, who had played the maid, was going on the road with a youth theater group, and David, aka Van Helsing, had a small part at the Gem.  In fact, almost everyone had found work.  Everyone, that is, but me.

 “Why so glum?” Andrew asked in his best Dracula voice.

I shrugged.

He dropped the Dracula routine.  “You’re not letting what Hedda Widderstrom said bother you?”

I shrugged again.

He squeezed my hand.  “C’mon, Cassie.  She’s a mental woman who thought
County Dracula
was world-class drama.  Don’t let her inside your head.”

“I know, but…”

“No buts!  You’re an amazing actress.”  He nudged me.  “What would you say to firing up the karaoke machine?”

There was a time when I would have elbowed my way to the front of the line.  Now, I groaned and buried my face in my hands.  “I’d say there aren’t enough cosmopolitans in the world.”

“I accept that challenge.”  He signaled the waitress.  “Can we have another round for the lady?”

I finished my second cosmo before switching to amaretto sours which was not a good idea since I guzzled one before I realized it.  Fuzzily, I remembered that I had to drive home, but decided that was a problem for future Cassie.  Present Cassie was determined to get drunk off her ass.

It took another amaretto sour before Andrew could talk me into a duet of The Time of my Life.  Then one more before I could be persuaded into singing Call Me Maybe.  By the time Andrew and I paired up for Summer Nights, I had to hang onto him to remain upright.  Whenever I drank, my equilibrium was the first thing to go.  I had wanted to drink in order to forget my sadness and jealousy, but it hadn’t worked.  Now I was sad, jealous, and unable to walk a straight line.

As we reclaimed our seats, I noticed a giant of a man sitting alone at a corner table.  Even though the bar was dimly lit, the man’s stunning looks were evident.  His skin was as dark as the night outside, and his head was crowned with dreadlocks.  Wide shoulders filled out his jacket, and his broad chest tapered to a narrow waist.  A hint of a beard hugged his perfect jaw and set off his luscious lips.  A silver earring winked high up in one ear.

The man wasn’t exactly staring at Andrew, but he was definitely interested in my friend.  “Looks like you’ve got an admirer,” I said sourly.  It figured that Andrew would get the standing O, a personal invitation to audition for Hedda Widderstrom’s new play,
and
the handsome guy.  If Andrew and I weren’t such good friends, I might have hated him.

Andrew glanced over and shook his head.  “He’s not my type.”

“Are you kidding me?  He’s gorgeous!”  I snuck another peek at the hottie.  The man leaned back in his seat, his wrists resting on the table, but tension thrummed beneath his relaxed surface.  He looked both patient and ready to spring, like a cat guarding a mouse hole.

Andrew took another pull from his beer.  “He’s definitely gorgeous.  He’s just not gay.”

 “He’s been checking you out for the past ten minutes,” I argued.

Andrew shrugged.  “I’m telling you, the man’s as straight as Darryl’s acting.”

I was about to fire off Andrew’s least favorite word – gaydar – when his phone rang.  He read the display and immediately answered.  “Hey, love.  What’s up?”  His tone was light, but he frowned, worried.  His right hand wadded up his napkin.  “Yes, I’m still at the bar.”  He laughed nervously.  “One beer.  Just like I promised.”  His hand smoothed out the napkin before wadding it up again.  “Yes, I know I said I’d be home before midnight, but it’s the cast party.”

I turned away from the conversation.  Rolling my eyes and glaring at the phone wouldn’t do anything but start another quarrel.  Andrew already knew how I felt about his boyfriend.  In my opinion, his
bad
boyfriend.  Caleb was a small man with an impressive set of biceps, a permanent sneer, and an aggressively direct stare.  He was at least a dozen years older than Andrew, and I always got this creepy teacher/student vibe whenever I was around the two of them.

My eyes returned to Mr. Mysterious in the corner.  He wore a tailored coat and a gray striped scarf loosely knotted around his neck.  He ignored the drink in front of him and watched Tabitha butcher Dancing Queen.  Maybe he wasn’t gay, but he sure wasn’t interested in me.

Suddenly, Andrew left the table, his phone still pressed against his ear.  His forehead furrowed as he talked.  No doubt Caleb would spend the next twenty minutes giving him crap for staying out too late.

The front door opened, and Charles came into the bar on a blast of frigid air.  As he took Andrew’s vacant seat across from me, he lifted his hand in greetings to several actors who called out his name.  The fug of cigarette smoke surrounding him made me cough.  “Double scotch!” he bellowed to the nearest waitress.

I wondered how many drinks Charles had already knocked back.  He’d never been visibly drunk during rehearsals or performances, but as the pressures of tech week had mounted, he’d started each night with a snort or two from the flask he kept in his desk.

He patted down his pockets until he found his cigarettes.  “You can’t do that in here,” I reminded him.  After two years, Charles still forgot about the state-wide ban on smoking in public places.

Swearing, he put the pack away unopened.  He looked around the bar, his eyes coming to rest on the hottie in the corner booth.  “God.  They’ll serve anyone in here, won’t they?”

“What do you mean by that?” I asked, my hackles rising.  As a kid, I’d suffered a few racial slurs, but after September 11, the occasional insults became much uglier.  “He has as much right to be in here as we do,” I said stiffly.

“Relax, Cassie.  You know me better than that.  I mean that man stirs up trouble wherever he goes.”

“That’s funny.  Because right now, he looks like he’s enjoying a drink in a bar.”

“He never enjoys anything,” Charles muttered scanning the room once more.  “Where’s Andrew?  I thought you two came together.”

I frowned, picturing my best friend arguing with his boyfriend.  “He’ll be back in a minute.”

“He better be.  I need to talk to him.”

“About the new play?  It sounds rather, uh, interesting.”

Charles snorted.  “
Sixteen Actors Talking at the Same Time
?  It’s crap.  Utter crap.”

“So why is Hedda backing it?”

“She doesn’t have a choice.  When Victor Stuyvesant tells her to jump, she jumps.”

It was hard to believe that Hedda Widderstrom could be intimidated by anyone.  “Who
is
this guy anyway?”  Even I, someone who religiously read
Backstage
and
IndieStage
, had never heard of him.  “Has he written other plays?”

Charles laughed until he started coughing.  “He’s no playwright.  He’s a lawyer and a financier.  A very powerful one.  He’s also a close associate of Hedda’s ex-husband.”  He gave a sly wink.  “Did you know that Hedda was once married to Bertrand Peabody of the Boston Peabodys?”

“Ah,” I said, pretending the name meant something to me.  “So what’s this guy doing staging a play in Detroit?  It’s not like New York doesn’t have its share of theaters.”

Charles’s expression soured.  “You heard her: it’s not my place to ask questions.  Never mind that I’ve been her constant friend and companion for over forty years.  Never mind that I’ve waited patiently for her to recognize my talent.  Never mind that she plays favorites.”  The waitress brought Charles his scotch.  He immediately downed it and demanded another.  “The fact remains that I’m expected to direct that nightmare.”

“I thought you
wanted
to do it.”

“The only thing worse than having Hedda ask me to direct it would be having her
not
asking me to direct it.”  Suddenly, his smile grew cunning, and he leaned across the table.  “Can I convince you to sign on?”

“Aren’t the auditions closed?”

“I’m not talking about a part.  I’m talking about being my stage manager.”

I tried not to think of that as an insult.  After all, stage manager was probably the most complex job in any given play.  Not only that, Charles was as picky about selecting his crews as he was in selecting his actors, so the offer was a huge compliment.  Still, taking another backstage job felt too much like giving up.  “I don’t know.  I really want to be onstage.”

“Ordinarily, I’d say to thine own self be true, but I desperately need a competent stage manager.  At least think about it.”

I watched Tabitha who was still at the karaoke machine.  “Is Hedda right about me?  Has my talent wasted away?”

“Stop wallowing in self-pity, Cassandra.”

“Says the man who’s turned wallowing into an art form,” I shot back.  “You’ve been nothing but ‘poor me’ since you walked in here.”  Normally, I wouldn’t have challenged him so openly, but the alcohol lent me confidence.

“That’s different!  I’ve spent forty
years
working for a prize only to have it given away to a complete ass!”  He loosened his tie.  “And why?  Not because Luquin Astor is more talented than I.  Not because he’s more passionate about his work.  But because she
trusts
him more?!  As if I’m not trustworthy!”

Darryl, who had been strutting around the bar like a bantam, showing off the
16 Voices
script to everyone he met, staggered over.  “Hey, Charles.  Thanks again for putting in a good word for me with Helga Winderstein.”

“That’s Hedda Widderstrom,” Charles said tightly.

“Right.  Too bad Cassie here won’t get a chance to audition.”  Darryl put his arm around my neck.

I bolted from his touch, shoving his arm away so hard he was forced back a step.

“What’s your damage?” he demanded.

My ‘damage’ was that I couldn’t stand anyone or anything touching my neck.  I no longer wore scarves or high collars, and I had cut my hair shorter so that it wouldn’t brush the skin below my jaw.  Every morning when I showered, I grit my teeth against the feeling of the washcloth on my throat.

Charles frowned.  “Are you alright, Cassie?”

“She’s fine,” Darryl said.  He dragged a chair over to our table and straddled it, sitting close enough for me to smell his beery breath.  “The word is that she had a bad audition a few months ago.”

I tensed.  Andrew no doubt had let my secret slip to another member of the cast who had told Darryl.  “That’s no one’s business,” I said.

He held up his hands.  “Hey, don’t be so defensive.  It happens to everyone.”

“Shut it,” I warned.

Charles raised his voice to lecture-room volume.  “What’s rule number ten in my ‘Ten Rules to a Successful Audition’?”

I tried not to roll my eyes.  “Never let a bad audition prevent you from trying again.”  I’d sat through a number of Charles’s classes when I’d been in the theater arts program at Wayne State University and knew those rules frontwards and backwards.

“That’s right!  Besides, we’ve all had our share of disastrous auditions.”  The waitress brought Charles his drink and, once again, he drank it in one swallow.  “One bad audition is nothing to be ashamed of.”