Three Girls And A Leading Man (12 page)

“That’s great,” I said. “Thanks
again for doing this, Jen.”

“No problem,” she said. “It’s for a
good cause. Besides, things are a little slow right now.”

I winced. The fall was kind of a
scary season for an event planner. Most of the weddings had tapered off and it
would be a few weeks still before the holiday planning would start. I was so
proud of Jen, leaving her firm to start her own company. It had taken major
guts and I wanted nothing more than for her to be successful.

“Do you want me to see if we can
raise the budget a little?” I asked.

“No, sweetie, we’re fine.
Seriously. Don’t worry about it. We did great with the wedding season; it will
get us through until the holidays pick up. Besides, Kiki’s dad always throws
some big event our way when he’s worried we’re too slow.”

“Ah, the joys of nepotism,” I said.

I was only joking, but Jen sighed.
“It does feel a little shady, to tell you the truth.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I told her
firmly. “Mr. Barker knows how good you are at your job. He loved what you did
for the wedding, remember? I bet he would use you even if you weren’t working
with Kiki.”

“He did give me an amazing
recommendation before I left my old job,” Jen said, her voice brighter.

“You could feel guilty if you took
advantage of him,” I said. “If you took his work and did a half-assed job just
because he’s connected to your partner. But I doubt you would ever do that.”

“Of course I wouldn’t!” she said,
sounding like the very idea offended her. I grinned. I had never met anyone
with a work ethic like Jen’s.

“Then I don’t think you have
anything to worry about,” I told her. “You earn the money for those jobs.”

“Damn right I do,” she said. “Okay,
enough about that. How are you feeling about the rehearsal?”

When I had arrived home from Nate’s
last night and told Jen about my part, she had been ecstatic for me. She had
immediately called Ginny and demanded she come over so the three of us could
celebrate. We drank a bottle of champagne that Jen had been saving for a client
and toasted to the beginning of my long and successful career as a paid
actress.

“I’m excited,” I told her, feeling
a thrill in my stomach at the thought. “But a little nervous, too.”

“You’ll be fine,” she assured me.
“Seriously, you won that part over a ton of actresses. You need to walk in
there with some swagger.”

“Go all diva on them?” I asked,
smiling.

Jen laughed. “No. But be confident
and sure of yourself. You’re going to kick ass.”

“Thanks, hon,” I said.

“Shoot,” she said. “The other line
is beeping. Want me to call you back?”

“No, I have some work I should be doing,”
I said, looking down at the piles of paper on my desk. “I’ll see you after
rehearsal.”

“Okay, hon. Break a leg!”

After we hung up I spent several
minutes staring at my papers, trying to come up with the motivation needed to
get started. It wasn’t going to happen. With a surreptitious look over my
shoulder to ensure that I was still alone in the office, I pulled my audition
materials out of my bag and started reading over the pages I had been given for
the callback. Within minutes, I was happily lost in the world of my play.

Chapter Sixteen

‘It’s very important,
in the early days of your relationship, to keep your options open. I’m not
recommending that you date more than one man at the same time, but I also
wouldn’t recommend that you get so caught up in someone that you close your
eyes to other opportunities. You simply never know when or where your soul-mate
might arrive.’—
The Single Girl’s
Guide to Finding True Love

Pulling up outside of the bar that
would be our rehearsal space for the next week, I tried to remember what Jen
had told me about confidence. It was not something I normally had an issue
with; overbearing was usually a more apt description for me. But this was
different. Inside the private room upstairs that Collins had reserved for us
were serious professional actors. People who had worked in Chicago and New
York. Freaking Jenner Collins, a movie star.

They
wanted you for this part
, I told myself.
Over any other more established actress. They picked you.

The pep talk calmed me down a
little and I got out of the car, determined to show a little of the swagger
that Jen had recommended.

I made my way to the private room
above the bar, hearing a babble of noises already. I straightened my faded old
Ramones t-shirt (a good luck charm I’d had ever since high school), took a deep
breath, and walked in.

There were about six or seven
people already gathered inside, making small talk. I recognized a few of them
from my callback. The room was on the small side, paneled in dark wood with
low-hanging beams. It had an old world pub feel to it that I immediately liked.
I made a mental note to bring the girls back here sometime to hang out, before
I turned my attention to the group of people standing in the middle of the
room.

It appeared as if some of the other
actors knew each other, but there were a few people looking about as awkward as
I felt. I approached the group with a smile on my face.

“Hey,” I said, as everyone turned
to look at me. “I’m Annie.”

“Hey, Annie,” said a good-looking
older guy with distinguished graying hair. I immediately recognized him from my
callback, as we had read together several times. “I think you’re my daughter.”

Everyone laughed at this, and I
smiled. “Awesome,” I said.

A very pretty brunette about my age
was glaring at me from the edge of the group. I ignored her, used to this kind
of obvious loathing. Even in college it had been rampant in the theater
department. Actresses were, by nature, jealous beings.

“Hey, Annie,” a voice said from
just next to my ear. “I’m Tyler.”

I looked over and saw a very cute
guy standing right next to me—a little too close, to be honest. He was
tall and somewhat thin, with shaggy dark hair and what Jen would refer to as
‘designer stubble’. He was attractive, in that creative-type way. I remembered
him from my audition as well. This was the guy I had felt such a spark of
chemistry with.

“Hi,” I said, feeling my heart rate
quicken a little. He was giving me a very obvious once over, and the little
smile never left his face.

“I think we fall in love,” he said
softly, his smile turning more smirk-like. I stared at him, not knowing how to
respond. “In the show,” he clarified, grinning bigger. I had the feeling that
he was enjoying making me feel a little uncomfortable.

I grinned back. “Lucky you,” I said
in my most above-it-all voice. Two could play at that game.

Before he could respond, there were
voices on the stairs behind us and everyone turned to look as Jenner Collins
entered the room, followed by the tall skinny man I knew to be Jackson Coles,
and a woman dressed head-to-toe in black, including a flowing cape sweater
thing. From the cape to her severe bun and black rimmed glasses, she had
‘artist’ written all over her.

“Hey!” Jenner said, in his easy,
comfortable way. “I’m so glad you guys are all here!”

Everyone said hello while a few of
the braver (or more conceited) amongst us went over to shake his hand. I
overheard quite a bit of ass-kissing going on over there, and I struggled not
to roll my eyes.

“It’s kind of gross, isn’t it?”
Tyler said, still standing next to me. “Look at how they all throw themselves
at him.”

I shrugged. “I guess it’s part of
the game, isn’t it?”

“True. Don’t think I’m above it.
But I’d rather wait for a more intimate time to make my mark.” His words
dripped with double meaning as his gaze dropped down to my lips, and this time
I did roll my eyes.

“So, let’s get all the actor
measuring-stick bullshit out of the way now,” he said.

“What are you talking about?”

“You know. Every time people like
us get together we follow the same song and dance. One of us casually mentions
a show we worked on and everyone else spends the next ten minutes looking for a
way to nonchalantly one-up each other.”

I had to laugh at that. It was very
true. I couldn’t count the number of times I had sat waiting for an audition
overhearing that exact conversation. The name-dropping and backhanded bragging
that went on when actors got together was a given.

“Not a lot of bragging to do here,”
I said. “Unfortunately I haven’t had many big roles since college.”

“Interesting,” he said. “A modest
one. We don’t see too many of your kind in these places, Annie. Hmm, maybe
you’re waiting to brag about your college experience. Okay, I’ll play along.
Where did you go to school?”

I laughed again, already liking him
a little better than I had a few minutes ago. “I went to Wayne State.”

He raised his eyebrows. “So you
performed at the Bonstelle Theater, huh? Certainly nothing to be ashamed of. So
what shows did you do down there?”

I arranged my features in the faux-modest
expression I had seen on countless girls in this situation. “My two most
challenging roles were Celia in
As You
Like It
and Alma Rose in Arthur Miller’s
Playing for Time
.”

“I am duly impressed. Now I’ll tell
you that I went to Northwestern and got my MFA and was slogging away in the
pitiless Chicago scene until I was accepted as an intern at the Purple Rose.”

“Wow,” I said. “That’s pretty
amazing.” I was being totally honest with him: not only was Northwestern a
really great school, but interning at the Purple Rose Theater was a seriously
big deal. It was a small company located in Chelsea, which was pretty far out
from the city. But it had been started by another local actor turned Hollywood
star. They were constantly putting up amazing new shows and their reputation
was top-notch. I would kill to work at a theater like that.

“Thank you,” Tyler replied. “Now
we’ve got all that bragging out of our system, we can just relax and have fun.
Sound good?”

I laughed. “Sounds perfect.”

Before we could say more, Jenner
Collins was calling for our attention. Jackson was walking around, handing out
full scripts, and I felt a thrill of excitement. There were few things in the
world I loved more than reading a new play.

“So tonight we’re just going to do
a pretty basic read-through,” Jenner was saying. “We’ll also be talking about
your characterizations as we go through. I’d like everyone to be off-book as
soon as humanly possible; we’re on a short schedule and we don’t have much time
to mess around.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, if you could
grab a seat,” the cape-lady called out, gesturing to the table in the center of
the room.

Tyler followed me over and took the
seat to my left. The brunette I had noticed earlier was hovering around near
Jenner, clearly waiting to see where he would sit before choosing her own
place.

Once we were all settled, Jenner
smiled at us. “I’m so excited to get started on this show,” he said. “It means
a lot to me. A good friend of mine wrote the script, and I can’t wait to bring
it to life with your help.”

It was pretty standard director
stuff, but he seemed genuine enough. The brunette was absolutely simpering over
him.

“Now, there’s some pretty exciting
news I need to share with you all. We have an opportunity with this show, and
while it might not pan out, I still think it’s important to mention it.”

You could have heard a pin drop
around that table. Every single one of us was leaning towards Jenner slightly,
eager to hear what he was going to say.

“There’s been some initial interest
in taking this show to an off-Broadway run.”

If it wouldn’t be considered so
uncool, I bet every single person at that table would have been screaming and
jumping up and down. An off-Broadway run was a huge, huge deal. I knew that a
few of Jenner’s other shows had made similar jumps, but it was still a very
rare thing for any production.

“There are some investors
interested in working with us,” Jenner said. “The plan, for now, is to run the
show in Detroit through Christmas then take it to Chicago early in the New
Year.”

This made sense. For a regional
show to make it to New York it needed support and a lot of good buzz. Chicago
was a bigger market then Detroit. If we could get some good reviews there…

“Obviously, no casting decisions
beyond the Detroit run have been made,” the cape-lady said, reminding us all
that there were no guarantees in this business. As if any of us didn’t realize
that.

“Regardless,” Jenner said, “the
best thing any of us can do is to work really hard and ensure that this Detroit
run is as successful as possible. Now, let me introduce my associates. You may
have met them during your various auditions. This—” he gestured to cape
lady—“is Tabitha Washington, my associate director. Tabitha will be
stepping in on those occasions when I can’t be at rehearsal. She might also do
some one-on-one character work with you. She’s highly regarded in our field and
you should consider it a great opportunity to work with her.”

Tabitha merely nodded imperiously
at us all, and I warded off a little shiver. No matter what Jenner said, this
lady looked scary as hell. No way was I looking forward to working with her,
one-on-one or otherwise.

“This gentlemen here,” Jenner
continued, pointing to the skinny guy who had run the callback, “is Jackson, my
personal assistant. He’ll be helping us with any number of issues during the
run of the show. So be nice to him.” We all chuckled politely, while Jackson
glared around at us, probably thinking of all the additional work we were going
to be creating in his life.