Wishing in the Wings (19 page)

And Barton was rich.

“Come in! Come in!” he boomed. “Have a seat!” After a second’s hesitation, I lowered myself into the yellow plastic chair across from his desk, letting Ryan take the orange one. With my red hair, I was going to look ghastly in either.

Before I could make polite conversation, Barton bellowed, “Now, now, now! Can I get you a snack? We’re testing a new flavor combination this morning—Caramel Cactus!”

I managed to paste a smile on my lips. “Cactus?”

“Caramel corn!” Barton exclaimed. “With chipotle pepper salt!”

My stomach turned at the idea, but I knew I couldn’t refuse. I glanced at Ryan, and he gave me the slightest shrug before saying, “That would be wonderful, Mr. Barton.”

“Ronald! Call me Ronald!” As our host punched an intercom button on his desk console and shot orders at an assistant, I wondered if he ever spoke without an exclamation point.

Well, there was no time like the present, I told myself. Bracing myself, I launched into my by-now familiar pitch. “Ronald, we really appreciate your taking the time to see us. As a long-term advertiser with the Mercer Project, you know—”

I was cut off by something that sounded like a hundred tiny explosions. Startled, I jumped back in my chair. Ronald, though, dove for his bright orange telephone. I realized that the Popcorn King had set his office ringtone to sound like popcorn fluffing to perfection in a stovetop pot.

“Pop off!” our potential sponsor snapped into his phone. Apparently, the person on the other end of the line was used to the greeting—a distorted voice immediately launched into some frantic argument, clearly audible across the desk. “I don’t care what the lease says!” Ronald thundered. “Tell the lawyers they have to work out the language! That’s their job! Call me when the deal is done!” He slammed the phone down and turned back to us with an expectant smile.

Gamely, I launched back into my spiel. “As a long-term advertiser with the Mercer Project you know and appreciate the reach that we have in our community. You understand—”

This time, I didn’t back away when I heard the torrent of popping corn. Nevertheless, I cut off my pitch in response to Ronald’s silencing palm. “Pop off!” he fired into the phone’s mouthpiece. “Health inspectors can’t enter the premises after business hours! They can show up on time or not at all! Tell them that, and don’t take no for an answer!”

The phone slammed down, and I once again had Ronald’s attention. I licked my lips and started anew. “Our theater holds just over a thousand patrons, and we sell out eight shows a week. Every one of those patrons—”

“Pop off!” This time, he’d caught the phone after a split-second of the popping noise, almost as if he’d sensed the call before it arrived. Before I could hear the resolution of the current crisis, a harried-looking woman scampered into the room. She held three miniature boxes of popcorn, each one—no surprise—orange. Her smile was apologetic as she passed one to Ryan and one to me. She placed the third within reach of the Popcorn King himself.

Her lemon-colored dress combined with the dark circles under her eyes made her look like a victim of the plague. Her lips were chapped, probably because she licked them constantly, as nervous as a lizard. She glanced at Ronald and then leaned closer to Ryan and me. “Cut to the chase,” she whispered. “He’ll be like this all day long.”

“Thank you,” I said in a normal voice, as if I’d never been happier to receive a sweet snack drenched in smoked jalapeño powder. She darted a smile toward me and scurried out of the room.

As soon as Ronald set down the phone, Ryan leaned forward. “Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” he said. I gaped at him. The figure was five times greater than we’d ever dreamed of receiving from a sponsor.

“What!” Ronald stopped with his fingers half-buried in his box of caramel-chipotle delight.

“Two hundred and fifty thousand, and you get your message in front of every Mercer patron for two straight months.”

The sound of popping corn filled the office, but Ronald merely reached for his intercom. He pushed a button without looking and snapped, “Take a message!” And then he snapped at Ryan, “What about product! What about moving product!”

Ryan gave no sign that he’d been victorious. Instead, he said, “You can serve free samples during intermission.”

“Advertising! What about advertising!”

I piped up. “Two full-page ads in the program. Four-color.”

“Announcements! At the top of the show!”

Hal wasn’t going to like that one. But we had months to figure out something tasteful. I said, “One prerecorded message.”

“Actors! Appearing in my other ads! Tie-ins!”

We didn’t even know who would be cast in the show. “Print ads only.” I said. “One morning of shooting.”

Ronald glared at me. When I didn’t back down, he turned his squint on Ryan. The phone rang again, and the Popcorn King didn’t bother to pick it up, didn’t even order his assistant to act. When silence continued to reign, he filled it with, “Fifty thousand!”

Ryan shook his head. “Two hundred.”

“One hundred! Take it or leave it!”

“One fifty. And you can insert coupons into every program.”

I watched Ronald calculate the value of the package. I could almost see numbers stream across the register tape inside his head, yellow and orange figures drifting into infinity.

“One fifty! Paid in three installments!” he exclaimed at last. “You two drive a hard bargain!”

I extended a hand. Ronald’s was gritty, as he transferred chipotle powder onto my palm. He shook Ryan’s hand as well.

The sound of popping corn flooded the office again. “Talk to my assistant!” he barked at us. “She’ll take care of the details! Pop off!” The last two words were directed into his telephone.

The nameless assistant was waiting outside the office door, a trashcan in her hands, ready to receive our untouched Caramel Cactus.

* * *

“To the Popcorn King!” I said, raising my glass of burgundy toward Ryan’s.

“Pop off!” he said, clinking his goblet gently against mine.

I took a sip of the wine. It was the bottle that Jenn had given me, the one that had been intended to bribe me into choosing someone’s manuscript. Somehow, it seemed like a complete exorcism of theatrical favoritism to share the wine with Ryan, to celebrate our good fortune together.

I sighed contentedly, collapsing back on the couch and watching the symphony of night-time lights blinking on in the cityscape outside my windows. “Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.” I smirked at Ryan over the rim of my glass. “What made you start with that number?”

“I lived in Africa for two years,” he said. “You learn a lot about haggling in the markets over there.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, toasting him again. “What was it like there?” I asked.

“It was beautiful.” He sounded wistful. “The sunlight has a quality that I’ve never seen anywhere else. For months at a time, there’s no rain, and dust gets kicked up along the roads, picked up by the wind. Every sunset is gorgeous.”

“Orange,” I said dryly. “And yellow.”

“Bite your tongue,” he retorted, but he smiled. He took another sip of wine and then set his goblet on the table. “It was terrible, though, too. Entire families live for a year on what we Americans fritter away in a single week. It’s bad for the kids, but the mothers have it worst. They gather whatever food they can, and they try to stretch their money in the marketplace. At home they serve their husband first. After he’s eaten, the kids get what’s left over. A lot of women survive on a handful of porridge a day.”

He fell silent, and I knew that he was remembering specific women who had suffered for those they loved. I’d read his play. It had shown me the power structure, the religious framework, the social construct that forced generations into bittersweet roles.

But reading was one thing. Living was another.

Even though I’d brought up the topic, I wanted a distraction. I stood up from the couch and took my goblet to the window. The panes were well-insulated; I felt only a hint of a chill from the outdoors.

Nevertheless, I reached protectively toward the metal carts that stood next to the glass. Dani had rolled them in the day before, two metal frames, each with a solid shelf at knee height. Our cabbage seeds rested on one; onions waited on the other. I could just make out the tiniest fringe of green on the peat pots that Ryan had helped me to fill.

The tentative new growth made me smile. I had never quite believed that the seeds would germinate, that actual, real vegetables could grow out of anything as tiny as those seeds.

Ryan came to look over my shoulder. “Ah,” he said. “My mother has made another convert.”

I laughed. “I know I shouldn’t be amazed. Seeds, dirt, and water. That’s the way people have been gardening forever, but it’s new to me.”

“That’s how she lures folks in. It’s new to a whole lot of people.”

“But not you.”

“No.” He shook his head. “I’ve had a lifetime of too many cabbages. Just wait until she starts you on the peppers. And the zucchini. Hope that your guerilla plot never gives you space to plant zucchini.” He shuddered in mock terror.

“How bad can it be?”

“Have you ever had zucchini chocolate cake?”

“That bad!” I said.

It felt good to laugh with him. Good to look at the seedlings we’d created. Good to bask in the glory of a job well done, both the gardening and our successful Popcorn King coup. The Ryan who had sat in that office today was a man I’d only glimpsed before. The Ryan who had confidently asked for thousands of dollars as if he were owed them, as if he deserved them. The Ryan who had bargained with the cool aplomb of a master.

Like a new-sprouted plant seeking out sunshine, I leaned back, feeling the heat of his chest through the back of my Lauren Hansen sweater dress, the latest of my Teel trophies to be worn into battle for the sponsor wars. Ryan’s arms settled around me as if the motion was the most natural thing in the world, folding in the heat of our bodies.

His lips teased at the curve of my ear, nuzzling at my lobe with a delicate pressure that made me gasp in surprise. A laugh blossomed deep inside his chest, and he freed my goblet from my hand, settling it amid the cabbage peat pots, like it belonged there. The city lights danced off wine so dark it seemed black.

With both hands free, Ryan turned me around so that I was facing him. His deft fingers reached for the decorated chopstick I’d used to pin back my unruly hair. I shivered as the strawberry curls tumbled down the back of my neck. His palm cupped my jaw, and he drew me closer.

His lips were firm on mine, more demanding than I’d ever expected from the gawky guy I’d first met in the Mercer’s Bullpen. There was nothing geeky or awkward about this Ryan Thompson, though. This man was supremely confident, absolutely sure of himself. This was the Ryan who had shown me how to plant seeds. This was the Ryan who had faced down the Popcorn King, who had secured a more profitable sponsorship for the Mercer than I’d ever imagined.

I pulled him closer, finally tangling my fingers in the unruly hair that I’d longed to touch since the morning I’d first met him. He made a sound deep in his throat, a harsh sigh that was equal parts need and desire. His lips found the sensitive hollow over the pulse point in my throat, and I clutched at his back as his tongue flicked over my heartbeat again and again.

My hands fisted in the heavy wool of his sweater, and I let myself fall back against the broad hand he’d spread across my back. My legs were trembling as if I’d run a marathon, and I gasped to catch a breath against the pleasure that shuddered down my spine.

He raised his lips from my throat for long enough to whisper, “Can’t take that?”

“Mmm,” I said, unable to remember actual English words. I seized the opportunity to guide him back to the sofa. My dress rode up around my hips as I edged back on the throw pillows. Ryan lay down beside me, returning his attention to my lips with a thoroughness that raised a whine in the back of my throat.

I shifted my weight a little to free my arm, to raise my hand so that I could tug at his clothes where they bunched between us. I wanted him out of his sweater, out of his careful white shirt. Out of whatever pair of anonymous khaki pants he’d worn as his uniform for the day’s meeting.

The day’s meeting. Our meeting with the Popcorn King. To get funding for However Long. For the play that he had written, that I was working on as the dramaturg. The professional dramaturg.

I froze.

He sensed the change immediately. His voice was husky as he whispered against my ear, “What, Becca?”

“I can’t,” I croaked.

He collapsed against me for just a moment, burying his face in the tangle of my hair. I caught my breath. My body wanted me to laugh. It wanted me to tell him I’d been kidding. I was game. I was more than ready.

But my mind knew I couldn’t follow through.

We were professionals. We were working together on his play. On his first play, the first that would ever see production, the one that would cement his reputation forever. I was honor-bound to guide that production, to analyze it, to support it. I had to remain dispassionate. Separate. Apart.

He grunted as he pushed himself up to a sitting position. “What is it, Becca?” He waited as I flailed for an answer. “Is this about Dean? Is it too soon?”

“Yes. No.” I hadn’t thought about Dean romantically in weeks. But this was about him. This was about not wanting to make the same mistakes I’d made in the past. About not wanting to rush into a relationship, just because it felt good to be there. About not wanting to tangle my personal life with my career. “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m sorry. We’re working together, and doing anything else, anything more, it just feels wrong.” To my horror, my throat tightened, and tears burned in the corners of my eyes.

He rubbed one hand across the back of his neck, exhaling deeply. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“I thought we’d agreed not to say that anymore.” I managed to smile, even as a single tear snaked down my cheek.

He reached out with his thumb to wipe it away. Before he could touch me, though, my body flinched. I didn’t intend to move; I didn’t intend to react at all. But I jerked away by reflex.