Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? (35 page)

The pace picks up and our luck changes. By the second ad break, we’ve won best lighting and costume design, to much whooping from the lot of us. So much so that our host makes some wisecrack along the lines of, ‘You’d certainly know the Irish are in the room, so can someone kindly close off the bar at the interval? Cut off their supplies quick, guys, or they’ll drink the place dry!’

A short commercial break where we all dash to the loo and then on with the show. Liz continues to ignore us all, just sits in her seat ahead of us, staring blankly ahead, not clapping, visibly unsmiling. Most worrying of all though, her head’s now starting to loll a bit from side
to side. I lean forward in my seat and ask her if she’s OK, but surprise surprise, she totally ignores me. So what’s new?

We lose out on best new play, but before I have time to catch my breath, it’s the award for best director. You should hear our host gravely announcing the nominees; it flashes through my mind that he sounds exactly like Charlton Heston reading out the Ten Commandments.

‘And the Tony goes to…’

My whole digestive system seizes up…but astonishingly, the winner isn’t Jack. He doesn’t seem remotely bothered about this though, in fact, he barely breaks a sweat, just sits back as relaxed as you like and claps heartily, genuinely, for the winner.

‘You don’t mind?’ I turn to smile at him.

‘Oh please, gong shows. I’ve got a barrow full of the things at home and frankly, they’re all just dust gatherers.’

‘Really? You’re not even a little bit disappointed?’

Somehow, it doesn’t quite ring true for someone with Jack’s type-A personality not to be insanely competitive about awards.

‘The night is very young,’ he whispers back, evenly holding my gaze. ‘And I love that sexy outfit on you, by the way. Very va va voom. OK, so I’ve just lost a Tony award, but all I can think about is how deliciously easy it would be to slip you out of that dress, so I could get a good look at you in whatever you’re wearing underneath…’

‘Shhhhh!’ I mouth silently.

‘Don’t be so prudish, it doesn’t suit you. So what
are
you wearing underneath?’

His arms are folded, but he looks like he’s enjoying himself.

‘Will you stop it?’

‘Do you want me to?’

‘You know I do,’ I hiss, but unconvincingly.

A lightning quick flash. Last week, when Jules said she could see a whole other parallel life stretching out for me…funny, but for the first time now, I get a quick, sudden glance of that parallel life too. And I don’t know what to think about it. I rummage around my feelings, trying to identify them, and the best description I can come up with is that it’s fear, plain and simple.

But then I let it go. For fuck’s sake I think, suddenly incensed at myself. You are pathetic. Living with Jules has made me every bit as bad as her, it seems. I’ve completely picked up on her habit of taking up ideas and then running wild with them.

Just. Let. It. Go.

I tell myself that over and over and eventually it seems to work.

The night whizzes by and before I know where we all are, it’s time for the award for best actress. Jack leans forward and pats Liz encouragingly on the back, saying something about how she’s got a terrific chance. And I’m not joking, the girl reacts as though she’s just been electrocuted.

Our host introduces a presenter who gravely reads out the nominations, each one greeted with thunderous applause. Liz’s name is last and a camera shot of her appears on the big screen ahead of us, showing her scowling, sulky and with a ‘Can we please just get this over with?’ expression etched on her face.

‘And the Tony goes to….’

Drumroll for dramatic effect.

‘For
Wedding Belles
…Liz Shields!’

We all look at each other in shock and surprise, before the clapping and cheering breaks out; by far the most boisterous we’ve been all night. Liz just won a Tony! I look at Jack in stunned amazement and part of me wonders if maybe this is just the miracle we need to reboot her back into being the old Liz.

She takes the stage and it’s only when she stumbles slightly on her way to the podium that I really start to get concerned. And realise the reason why she arrived late and wouldn’t say two words to any of us earlier.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ she begins, muttering into the microphone and slurring her words, always a disastrous sign with her. Jesus, don’t tell me she’s been drinking on top of whatever else she’s been doing?

‘You know, I’ve sat here all night, mostly bored out of my head…’

Worried looks fly amongst the rest of us. Because this isn’t exactly sounding like your typical thank you speech. Not one bit. Nervous titters from the rest of the audience, wondering where this could possibly be going.

‘…and I’ve listened to speech after speech from the other winners, all thanking their fellow cast members, directors, producers, ASMs who make the tea, the stage hands who sweep the stage…you name it. And I really do wish that I could stand here and say the same thing, I really do.’

A murmur sweeps through the packed auditorium, and suddenly it’s like looking at someone who’s brandishing a hand grenade over the lot of us; a grenade with the pin taken out. She’s out of control and dangerous and by now my palms have actually started to sweat, terrified at what’s going to come out of her next.

‘Jesus,’ Jack groans, ‘I don’t believe this. She’s off her head drunk.’

‘I, on the other hand, am grateful to the American Theatre for giving me this award, but I give no thanks to any of my fellow cast members. None. Nothing. Nada. You want to know why? Because I get no support from them whatsoever. Instead, all I get are accusations and threats and people daring to tell me how to live my life. Now, I notice that some of my fellow winners here tonight have thanked their directors too. Well, unfortunately I can’t do that either. I’m sure a lot of you may be familiar with Jack Gordon’s work, the man with the messiah complex; or as I like to call him, Mr Rarely Takes Any Less Than All the Credit He Can Get, but I can tell you right now, he did not in any way contribute to my performance…’

I look over to Jack and he’s seething. Mind you, you’d never know it if you didn’t know Jack, he’s very still. Scarily still. Our host is starting to look panicky now, realising that this is not your typical, gushing acceptance speech, not by the longest of long shots.

I can see him making frantic off-camera gestures to the floor manager who makes a wind it up signal to the orchestra. But they’re not off the mark quite fast enough.

The TV monitors lined throughout the auditorium are showing Liz in glorious close-up and it’s glaringly obvious to anyone watching that she’s completely stocious and most likely high as well.

‘So to everyone here involved with
Wedding Belles
,’ she’s drunkenly ranting, ‘I’d like to tell the lot of you to go and fuck yourselves! Every single, rotting one of you! You’re all jealous of me and have been since day one…so fuck you and fuck off!’

The orchestra drowns her out, we cut to an unexpected ad break and the rest of us all look mutely at each other, utterly horrified by what we’ve just seen.

It’s a disaster. What should have been a night of celebration has now turned into a nightmare that I, for one, feel I’ll be recounting on some psychiatrist’s couch for years to come in all its gory detail. There’s an after show party organised in a private function room above Radio City, but understandably, not one of us is in the mood to go. Then Harvey Shapiro, ever the showman, points out to us that it would only look worse if we
didn’t
, so reluctantly, we all troop up escalators to a private art deco bar, trying not to look like we’ve collectively been punched in the solar plexus.

I haven’t seen Jack; he stormed out after the ceremony and Liz has taken off too, unsurprisingly. But then Blythe comes in, white-faced and stoic and tells us all that the two of them are both outside in a private corner, where I can only guess Jack is tearing strips off her. Next thing, Liz bursts into the bar, screaming, actually yelling drunkenly at the top of her voice.

Jaysus, just what we all needed, another sideshow. Just when you think the night can’t possibly get worse.

‘You think you can threaten to fire me? Well you can fuck right off! I just won a Tony, no one can touch me!’

Of course, everyone turns around to stare and it’s a minor mercy that there aren’t any TV cameras or photographers up here. A small blessing, that at least this isn’t a public hanging.

Jack grips her roughly by the arm and tries to steer her back outside, keeping his voice deliberately low. I don’t hear what he says to her, all I hear is her answer, which is
downright unprintable. Then she swoops up to the bar, orders a double vodka martini, but he follows fast on her heels, barking at the barman to cancel the order.

‘I want to see you tomorrow morning at nine o’clock sharp,’ I can hear him snapping at her, his voice low, menacing, frustrated. It’s that cruel, scary side of him that I haven’t seen in months, not since we were all back in rehearsal.

‘And I mean it, Liz,’ he goes on, icy cold now. ‘If you don’t get help, you’re out of the show, gone. And don’t you dare make the mistake of thinking that you can push me on this. Do you understand? Now apologise to the rest of the cast for insulting them like this, then get the fuck out of my sight.’

With that, Jack stomps out of sight and Liz, now looking more frail and vulnerable than I think I’ve ever seen her, slumps down to the floor.

Chapter Fourteen

It becomes a hot story in no time. Headlines the next day, the talk of all the breakfast TV shows and worst of all, apparently Liz’s outburst at the Tony’s is now well on its way to garnering a million plus hits on YouTube. Christ Almighty, more than Susan Boyle on
Britain’s Got Talent.
I’m in my apartment the following morning, frantically trying to get Jules organised for the airport, while fending off phone calls at the same time.

The phone’s practically been hopping off the receiver since first light; it seems the news has even reached as far as Dublin, because Fag Ash Hil, my agent, calls too. In her growly croak says she has five Irish journalists all wanting to talk to me and what’s more, she excitedly stresses, not only would I be able to put across the truth about Liz, but they’re willing to pay me for my story too, like this is something I should be grateful for. Hil, it seems, utterly blinded by the commission she’d make blissfully unaware that this is something I’d never in a million years contemplate.

I say no to each and every one of them. Fecking vultures.

The number one priority in all this is Liz and only Liz and for all of us somehow to get her the help she so
desperately needs. Because the more I think about it, the more I think that’s what last night was for her; a big, deafening cry for help, so loud that the whole of America seems to have heard her.

I get a brisk, business-like phone call from Jack early in the morning to let me know that he and Harvey are personally taking Liz to one of the top drink and drug rehabilitation clinics in the city today, with the added threat that if she refuses to go, she’s out of the show he tells me. Simple as that.

I offer to go along with them…best not, he says. Because she may try to act out on you. But she’s more likely to do as she’s told if her director and producer are strong-arming her there. Let me know how it goes, I say and he promises to call later on in the day with an update.

‘Who was that?’ asks Jules, dragging her second overstuffed suitcase out into the hall, ready to load up the taxi for the trip to the airport.

‘Jack.’

She goes back into the bedroom, singing the words to ‘Torn Between Two Lovers’, on purpose, just to annoy me.

Then about an hour later, just as I’m about to leave for the airport with Jules, I get a call from the stage director at the Shubert. Liz has been hospitalised and for the foreseeable future, her understudy will take over her role. Starting tomorrow night, Tuesday, as the theatre traditionally goes dark on a Monday night. But we’re all to be at the theatre later on this afternoon for a full rehearsal with Liz’s understudy, followed by a dress rehearsal tonight.

Just hearing the word hospitalised sends me into a blind panic, so I ring Chris to let her know. In the meantime, it seems that somehow she’d managed to get a hold of Harvey,
who gave her the latest news bulletin: Liz has been admitted under the care of a Dr Goldman to the Eleanor Young drug rehabilitation clinic in Albany, upstate from here. I immediately chime in that I want to go and see her right away, but Chris bossily shuts me up. Apparently the first step in her recovery is for her to get clean and part of that involves not having visitors until the medical team there are satisfied that she’s in a place where she can handle it. They’re very strict about that, apparently.

It’s like I feel torn in two. Half of me is devastated for Liz; bright, fun, wild, exuberant, mega-talented Liz being in hospital. The other half thinks…well, at least she’s getting help now, which can only be a good thing.

An urgent tug at my arm from Jules reminds me that we’re already running late, so I give her a hand lugging the suitcases downstairs and outside to a waiting taxi.

Jules sniffs and stares morosely out the window the whole way to JFK.

‘Come on, don’t worry about Liz, she’ll pull through.’

‘I know, that’s not what’s upsetting me.’

‘What is it then, love?’ I say, taking her hand.

‘Suppose you never come home? Suppose you choose your parallel life instead? Suppose the only way I ever get to see you in future is by coming over here? To see you living here, with Jack?’

‘Jules,’ I sigh in exasperation. Because frankly this feels like about the fortieth time we’ve had this conversation. ‘You have got to let this go. What have I told you?’

‘I know he was really amazing when I was here, with all the trips and treats and everything, but still…. Annie, I wouldn’t be a proper pal to you if I didn’t tell you the truth. Thing is…there’s just something about him that I can’t
warm to. Behind all his smoothness and flashiness and the fecking teeth that would nearly blind you, take it from me – that guy is one ruthless git. Didn’t you notice it after the show last night?’