Wishing in the Wings (10 page)

“You have got to be kidding.”

“All of this arrived this afternoon. With cards, all delicately phrased. You know: ‘Hoping to ease your loss during this difficult time.’”

“That sounds like someone died!”

She grinned. “It does, doesn’t it?”

“We can’t keep these, Jenn. They’re bribes!”

She shook her head and clicked her tongue. “Now, now… I’m your loyal assistant, and I’ve assisted you out of that problem.”

“What did you do?”

“I threw out all the cards. If you don’t know who sent the gifts, then you can’t reward the givers. You can’t be corrupted.”

Wow. She had a point. “But what about you?” I asked, my sense of professionalism surging reluctantly back to the surface.

“Weeeeeellll…” she sighed. “If you take half the things and leave half for me, without my actually choosing anything…and if I keep my mouth totally, completely, one hundred percent shut about what play should replace Crystal Dreams…. Then I wouldn’t be guilty either.”

“Did you tell Hal about all this?”

She frowned. “He was a little busy today, Bec.”

Yeah. I guess he had been.

So. We had ten playwrights so eager to get their works staged by the Mercer that they were willing to invest in some pretty serious bribes. Ten playwrights who my ethical dramaturg’s heart would immediately strike from the rolls of possible works. If I knew who they were.

But Hal wasn’t going to make a decision about a replacement play based on alcohol, or sugar, or cosmetics. He—and I—would look at the merits of all the possibilities. We’d find something simple, something stable, something we could pull together on our very abbreviated schedule.

The bribes were immaterial.

I darted a glance at Jenn. “How about if I take the wine, the Godiva, the coffee, cashews, and soap?”

“Sounds perfect!” She laughed. “But I’m keeping the box to carry my stash home.”

“Deal,” I said, offering my hand for a quick shake.

“Another drink?” she asked, looking at the lonely ice cubes in my glass.

“Might as well.”

I stared at our loot and shook my head, suddenly overwhelmed with exhaustion from my insane day. And tomorrow was only going to be worse, as we moved full steam ahead to find a replacement for Crystal Dreams. I’d better enjoy tonight—it was likely to be the last break I’d have in a long, long time. I waved my hand to get Jenn’s attention, and then I mouthed clearly, “Make mine a double!” She laughed and nodded and turned to update Pete about his bartending responsibilities.

* * *

In retrospect, I should have stopped at one drink.

The workday had been emotionally exhausting, and I had hardly slept the night before, worrying about Dear Departed Dean. (After a couple of Godmothers, though, Dean’s deserting me was looking a lot less terrible—especially when I silently factored both a magic genie and a new apartment into the deal.)

One drink should have been enough, but I had Jenn sitting beside me—Jenn who was feeling unusually generous. Or maybe just solicitous.

That double drink she retrieved left me pleasantly buzzed. My next one left me feeling loose, extravagant—I almost broke out the box of Godiva, almost shared the chocolates with the ravenous hordes of the Shepard cast. Common sense prevailed (by that point in the evening, no one would have appreciated the treat, at least not as much as I’d appreciate having the chocolates in my otherwise foodless kitchen.)

That same common sense should have kept me from ordering yet another drink. At least it kept me from finishing the damn thing.

By the time I got to my new front door, I was proud just to be able to extricate my keys from my pocket. I tumbled my collection of bribes onto the floor, fully aware that I would need both hands to work the intricate magic of opening my door. I nodded confidently as the upper lock turned precisely. Maybe I wasn’t as drunk as I thought I was. I eased the middle one open with a satisfying click. That left the bottom one.

The key stuttered as I put it in. At first, it wouldn’t turn at all. I tried edging it out just a little, tried twisting it hard enough that I grew afraid it would break off inside the stubborn mechanism. I nudged my bottle of wine with my toe, forcing it to one side so that I could station myself more precisely in front of the lock. I took the key out altogether and started again, trying to find the sweet spot where it would work.

“Need some help?”

I caught a shriek at the back of my throat. I’d been so intent on manipulating the stubborn lock that I hadn’t heard anyone come up behind me. Hadn’t heard a man come up behind me. Hadn’t heard a man who sounded distinctly amused at my predicament come up behind me.

I turned around to see Ryan Thompson.

That Ryan Thompson, the guy from Jenn’s stalking list. The playwright who’d been in my office—was it only that morning? It seemed like a lifetime ago.

I glanced at my illicit treasures, spread on the carpet at my feet. Had Ryan sent any of them? Had he tried to bribe me as soon as news of the Mercer’s dilemma hit ShowTalk?

“Hi,” I said, because the silence had stretched so long that even I was uncomfortable. My conversational skills were apparently as much on the blink as my key-turning abilities.

“Rebecca Morris?” He looked as startled as I felt. If possible, his hair was more rumpled than it had been that morning. His coat hung open, barely held in place across his shoulders by a messenger bag that was slung across his chest like a bandolier. The bag’s flap gaped open too, revealing a laptop computer.

“What are you doing here?” I managed to say.

“I live here. With my mother.” He nodded toward Dani’s door, looking down at his shoes like a bashful schoolboy. His eyelashes were long enough—or I was drunk enough—that his admission seemed endearing, not creepy at all. “Just until I get my act together, get settled back here in the States.”

He waited for me to say something, but my mind was as sticky as the Amaretto I’d been downing all night. Ryan Thompson was my neighbor. The guy I’d just met that morning, through a miniature cascade of coincidences—his getting on the stalking list, delivering a play to the office, getting past Jenn’s usually ferocious barriers.

I believed in coincidence as much as the next superstitious theater professional, but this one was a little difficult to accept. Apparently Ryan thought so too. He sounded incredulous as he prompted, “Mom said someone had moved in, but she didn’t tell me your name.”

“It didn’t mean anything to her, I’m sure,” I said.

But what did all this mean to me? What did it mean that my world was spinning in tighter and tighter circles? Or was that just the alcohol making the hallway seem like it tilted on an unreliable axis?

Ryan nodded toward my keys. “Is that lock sticking again? Mr. Greenbaum used to complain to the super about it all the time. Want me to try?”

I shrugged and stepped back, fighting to smother a sudden Godmother-induced yawn. As Ryan leaned over my keys, I closed my eyes, suddenly exhausted by the accumulated weight of my day. I could picture my computer at work, Elaine Harcourt’s e-mail flashing on the screen. I could see the giant stack of scripts on my desk, still waiting for my attention. I could imagine Teel’s lamp, glinting where I’d first dropped it amid the rubble.

Teel. Teel had stood in that same office. She had looked at the same desk. She had seen Ryan’s script, right on top of the stack, where I’d dropped it after the disaster in the conference room.

She must have read Ryan’s address label—the neat, perfectly-centered label that had impressed me that morning. Teel must have somehow used the address label to trigger her magic, to provide a concrete place for me to live. I thought about the genie’s sly smile as she’d left my office. “You ain’t seen nothing yet,” she’d said. Had she known that Ryan lived across the hall? Had she planned our meeting, all along? And what if she had? Why should it make any difference who my neighbors were?

As I speculated furiously, Ryan managed to spring the bottom lock. He extricated my key and handed it over. “There you go,” he said. And then he eyed the ill-gotten booty spread around my feet. “Um, do you need help with that?”

I blushed, guilt speeding blood into my cheeks. “They’re just, um, gifts. From a couple of playwrights.” I said it as a sort of test, to see if he admitted to having sent anything. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, though, I knew I’d made a mistake. I shouldn’t have mentioned the theater at all, shouldn’t have planted even a seed of doubt about bribes. I could have said that they were all birthday presents—he had no way of knowing that my actual birthday was in June. Desperate to say something, anything, to wipe away the disbelief that peaked his eyebrows, I said, “You know. Guerilla dramaturgy.”

I tried to smile as I trilled the “r” in guerilla, but he wasn’t amused. His volume increased with the shock in his expression. “People are actually bribing you to fill in with their plays?”

“Hush!” I said automatically, even though our neighbors were probably sound asleep behind their well-locked doors. Of course Ryan knew about my Crystal Dreams disaster—he had to be plugged into ShowTalk like everyone else in the theater world. I nudged the box of chocolates with my toe. “I promise,” I said. “I don’t even know who sent these!”

“Sure,” he said, but he clearly thought I was lying.

“Seriously,” I said. Suddenly it was really important that he believe me, the most important thing in the world. I drew myself up to my full height and settled my right hand over the approximate area of my heart, before I enunciated very carefully, “Jenn just passed them on. Anonymously. I have absolutely no idea who sent them. Honest. Cross my heart and hope to die.” I matched action to words, and then I had a brilliant inspiration. “Hey, why don’t you come in? Have a glass of wine!”

He shook his head, easing his hands into his pockets. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?” Belligerence rose inside me, fueled by vodka and amaretto.

“I can think of three good reasons, without even trying.” I glared a challenge, but he kept his voice even. Light. “One, it’s after midnight on a work night. Two, you look like you don’t need a glass of wine, or anything else alcoholic. Three, you don’t know anything about me. I could be an axe murderer.”

“Are you an axe murderer?”

A shadow of a smile flicked across his lips before his earnest expression returned. “No.”

I turned my head at an angle, trying to see Dani’s placid face reflected in his. He had her calm eyes, dark and reassuring. His chin echoed hers, coming to a point. But his flat cheekbones were all his own. And those lips—those masculine lips, dusky in the soft hallway light….

Dean’s lips had always been chapped. He chewed on them whenever he was deep in thought. It was his one failing. Aside from being an embezzler and all.

I blinked hard, hoping that I hadn’t lost too much time responding. Ryan seemed not to have noticed that my attention had strayed. I said, “But an axe murderer would lie to me, wouldn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Ryan said. “He probably would.” He leaned over and collected my treats, passing them to me as if he were an earnest young clerk at an all-night grocery store. “Go to bed, Rebecca Morris. And drink a glass of water before you fall asleep. Take an aspirin or two.”

My fingers brushed against his as I took the golden box of chocolates. His hands were warm, a little rough, like a man who’d done more than sit at a computer for days and weeks and months on end. I wondered how much time he spent working with Dani, helping her with her secret gardening projects. I wanted to ask him how much time he’d invested in Africa, building villages, bringing new life to desperate folks.

As I hesitated, an awkwardness bloomed between us, the sort of gawky uncertainty that I hadn’t felt since my parents were driving me on dates with underage junior high classmates. A part of me thought that I should lean forward and kiss Ryan on the cheek. Another part of me thought that I should juggle my unethical gifts, adjust my grip so that I could shake his hand. An astonishing third part of me considered dragging him into my home, axe murderer or not, luring him across the threshold to test out the new king-size bed that Teel had so thoughtfully provided.

That was the Godmothers talking.

“Good night,” I said.

He met my eyes, as if he’d heard the entire battle that had just raged inside my skull. “Good night.” As I took a single tentative step forward, he smiled again, shook his head just slightly. “Sleep well.” And then he turned back to his own door, working his own three locks with ease.

Safely inside my apartment, I slid to the floor like a melted ice sculpture of the goddess Embarrassment. What had Teel done? How had she placed me in an apartment across the hall from a potential business colleague, from someone who had practically begged me to give him a break in the brutal world of the theater? What had Teel been thinking?

I caught a whiff of the delicate soaps that were balanced in the crook of my arm. What high horse was I sitting on? What right did I have to chastise my genie, when I was clearly not above having some outside communication with playwrights? At least when it benefited me, personally.

Shaking my head, I clambered to my feet. Crossing to the kitchen, I deposited my treasures on the granite counter. I opened the cabinet to the right of the sink, discovering a dazzling array of glasses. Leaning against the counter, I ran the tap for a minute before filling a tumbler with water, drinking it down, filling it again.

As for aspirin, that would have to wait. Unless Teel had filled my medicine chest as well. I shuffled back to the bedroom to find out.

IN THE MIDDLE of the night, I bolted upright in bed.

I didn’t know what had awakened me—one moment, I’d been sound asleep, the next, I was absolutely, completely, one hundred percent awake. I caught my breath, listening for strange noises coming from the front of the apartment.

Nothing.

I winced as I remembered the Godmothers I had consumed. Swallowing hard, I expected to be rewarded with the parched nausea of an incipient hangover. Somehow, though, I’d lucked out. Or else Ryan’s recommended water and aspirin (Teel had, in fact, provided for me) had served me well.