Playing With Her Heart (Caught Up In Love #4)(3)
Author: Lauren Blakely

He makes a face as if I just breathed last night’s onions on him. “Wait. Don’t tell me. Ava has an evil twin sister and they want Alexis for that role?”

“Ha. I wish,” I say and let my shoulders sag. I guess the effect of the stage kiss is wearing off. “But you know it’s going to be her. She has an insane following. Her fans love her and would line up for blocks to see her.”

“Yeah, but look, sometimes it’s the new kid who gets cast. You never know,” Reeve says, and I know he’s trying to be encouraging, to buoy me up.

But already I feel a hitch in my throat, and I fight back a tear. I don’t want to cry over a role, but at the same time I worked so hard on this audition and it felt like the chance of a lifetime. The chance that seemed as if it could truly be mine. “I felt so thoroughly Ava, almost as if the character had possessed me. I swear I could read it on the director’s face too. The way he stood up after I sang, like I was his Ava. I could have sworn it was my role just from the way he looked at me. And then she walked in.”

“Hey,” he says, and pulls me in for a quick hug. I let one more tear fall against his shirt, as he pets my hair. “Sometimes you nail an audition and lose out. Sometimes you flub one and still get a role. And sometimes you do your damn best, and you beat out a star. You never know. The only thing you can do is leave it all on the stage, and I’m sure you did. I know you. You’ve never given less than 100 percent of your heart and soul in any rehearsal, let alone a performance.”

I breathe deeply and nod, then grab a tissue from my purse and swipe the errant tear from my cheek.

“C’mon. I’m a big-time film actor now,” he jokes, but there’s some truth to it since he landed a starring role in Escorted Lives. “Let me buy you a coffee.”

He leashes up the dog and we wander over to a pretzel vendor who’s now hawking espressos, lattes and coffees too, and order some hot beverages to stay warm on this chilly day. I do my best to seem upbeat, even though I know my phone will soon be ringing with the ‘Better luck next time’ call from my agent.

Reeve breaks off a piece of the pretzel to give to the tiny dog, who stands on his little back legs to snag the bite.

“Are you a full-time dog nanny for The Artful Dodger now?”

Reeve laughs. “What can I say? He’s kind of an awesome dog, so I like hanging out with him. And it makes Sutton happy to know he’s with me.”

“You’re so in love with her, it makes me sick,” I tease, even though I think it’s awesome that Reeve and Sutton are now officially together. I look at my watch, knowing I should head home. “We’re still running tomorrow, right?”

“Of course. I have to kick your ass.”

“You wish.”

I walk away, thinking of Reeve paired up with Sutton, and my roomie Kat now happily engaged to her long-time love, Bryan. Funny, how it’s been so long since I’ve even been with anyone—long as in years. Way longer than anyone thinks. Much longer than I let on. Acting isn’t just my job. It’s my whole damn life.

It’s the way I’ve learned to live with all my regrets from long ago.

Chapter 2

Davis

“She was brilliant, but it’s largely irrelevant.”

I press my thumb and forefinger against the bridge of my nose. I cannot believe I am having this debate. I cannot believe this suit is being such a…suit. It’s as if this production is run by accountants who don’t have a clue.

“Irrelevant?”

I look up, and direct the question to my executive producer, Don Kraftig, who’s sitting across the aisle from me in a pinstriped, double-breasted number that looks like he rented it from a Good Fellas close-out sale, a contrast to my jeans and long-sleeve button down. We’re in the St. James, the three of us: Don, Stillman and me. “How could it possibly be irrelevant? She’s tailor–fucking-made for this part. She’s Ava. Is there actually any question?”

My voice echoes around the cavernous auditorium that will be filled shortly with spectators for the final performances of The King and I, playing here before we take over. For now, the red chairs that become home at eight o’clock six nights a week to the buzz and hum of an audience are empty, except for us. The auditions are over. The callbacks are done. Patrick Carlson has left for the day, and we are sliding into the early evening with this debate.

My executive producer shrugs, an admission, or as much of one as I’ll ever get. “She was amazing,” he concedes, and his voice—it sounds like a tin can and I wish I could shake him, or really, shake some sense into him. “But she’s not Alexis Carbone.”

“That’s the point, Don. I don’t want Alexis Carbone. Alexis Carbone is a grade-A classic diva and a half. Not to mention she misses shows if she has so much as a sniffle.”

“All the better. She should rest her voice if she’s ill,” he says, and now he sounds prissy, and I would have half a mind to laugh if I wasn’t so damn angry.

Instead, I choose a different tactic. I try to speak in Don’s native tongue—dollars. “You know how she is. She missed one-third of her performances in Fate Can Wait. The running joke of the show was that it should be called Alexis Can Wait. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten how many times theatergoers called the Logan Theater Company asking for refunds when she wasn’t performing,” I say, hoping that the reminder of how much money his competitors lost on Alexis’ last role will do the trick.

“We are not the Logans,” he says, folding his arms imperiously, as if that action can somehow distance himself from Alexis’ one Broadway flop. “That show was a mess. It had an awful title.”

“Yeah. It had a hideous title. But the point is we have a show that’s not a mess. Thanks to the incomparable Frederick Stillman—” I pause to gesture, dramatically, of course, to the bald, bespectacled theatrical genius next to me who has barely said a word because Stillman doesn’t have to speak, his work does the talking, “—and a show with a fantastic title, and score, and a sexy-as-hell storyline about love and loss and sex and art, the likes of which New York City hasn’t seen in years. Not since Rent. And you want to throw in a wild card? An actress who misses a performance if her cat has a hangnail?”

“She can open a show,” Don insists, and he might as well be digging his heels into the ground. He doesn’t get it. I’m ready to stalk on over to the stage and bang my head against the damn floor boards. Because that’s what talking to him’s like. But he doesn’t stop speaking. “She has her own album, her solo concerts sell out, she was on that TV show about a Broadway musical, and she’s still regarded as the best damn Galinda in the last five years.”