“Oh, yeah, I like that. Thanks.” I pulled a pencil from my bag and marked the measure with a clear slash through the text. I tapped the rewind button on his phone until the song was queued up to the beginning of the run and did it again. This time as Charlie sang through the break holding Scrooge’s long note, I grabbed enough air to finish out the line without issue.
“Yes, excellent, so much better,” he remarked through a proud grin.
“Yeah, that felt a lot better,” I said, setting down the music sheets. “If you have some more time, I was hoping we could do a bit of scene work? I could really use a sparring partner in order to get the feel for this character. Plus, I have to start learning my lines. Would you mind?”
“Not at all. I cleared the rest of my evening,” he said, already standing and moving from behind the counter to meet me. He strode over to the stage and hopped up effortlessly, turning around to offer me some help. So, instead of heading to the steps backstage, I took his hand, hoisting myself up, and handed him a copy of the scene.
“Maybe let’s do a read through first, just to get a feel for what we’re dealing with?” I suggested, taking a seat on the stage and crossing my legs underneath me. It’d been a long time since I deconstructed a scene, not since my days at Tisch. But it was an important part of the acting process, and it felt good to be in the throes of my craft in this way again. Charlie lowered himself to the floor as well and sat facing me, the pages of the script in his lap.
Charlie asked, “How much do you know about the show? Anything?”
“Honestly, no, not really. I know it’s been getting raves, and that it’s a take on A Christmas Carol, but that’s about it?” I said, a bit embarrassed by the admission.
“Yeah, I guess you could call it a prequel or maybe more of an origin story? Do you remember Jacob Marley from the original book? He was Scrooge’s equally greedy business partner and the one who forewarns him of the three ghosts that will visit him during the night. He was left to roam the Earth in heavy chains forged from his own sinful past. But in this version, Jacob Marley is now Marley Jacobs, a woman who was once in love with Scrooge, abandoning her own sense of right and wrong, all her life’s ambitions, in her pursuit of him. The show is told from her point of view and is basically a modernized allegory.”
“How do you know so much about it? Have you seen it?” I asked, impressed with his knowledge of the plot.
“Last year, I went over to London to help with the opening of the Mimi’s Shooting Star Diner in Piccadilly Circus. One of the servers there was in the workshop at the Norwich Theatre Playhouse before it moved to the West End. I caught an early version, but I could tell it was gonna be a big hit. The story was fun, but the music was unbelievable.”
“Wow, that’s incredible. Okay, so a modernized allegory. Got it. But then what happens? Same plot as A Christmas Carol? She gets visited by the three ghosts?”
“No, actually, she kinda is the three ghosts. So, what happens is at the opening of the musical, Marley arrives in purgatory and is given one last chance to see if she is worthy of Heaven. She must return to Earth as the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future to confront all the choices in her life that led her to that moment.”
“Whoa, that’s clever. So Scrooge is like a secondary character then?”
“Well, no, he’s a pretty big influence who sort of sets the story in motion, but don’t worry about that now, it’ll all make much more sense once we read through all the scenes.”
Two hours later, we were ready to call it for the night. After a long shift at work and a grinding rehearsal, we were both spent.
Charlie shuffled the script in his hand, rolled up the pages, and shoved them in the back pocket of his dark-washed jeans. “Hey, it’s been a hell of a day. How about a drink?”
I glanced down at my watch. “Sure, yeah that sounds great.”
He hopped off the stage and headed to the back. A few minutes later, he emerged triumphantly clutching a large bottle of Patrón Silver and placed it on the counter before pulling a carafe of fresh-pressed orange juice and some cranberry from the fridge. “Cranberry is going to have to do since we don’t have any grenadine, but here.” He continued to mix up a glassful of this and that, before ceremoniously placing a shiny maraschino cherry on top. “Presenting my version of a tequila sunrise.”
I slapped on an intentionally exaggerated pout and said, “No! This is Mimi’s Shooting Star Diner—where everything is Broadway themed. C’mon, Charlie, you can do better than that . . . ,” I challenged him with a raised brow.
“Hmm . . .” He raised his glass confidently and eyed me to lift my own to meet it. “Oh, I got this. Enjoy your Tequila Sunrise . . . Sunset.”
“Ahhh, so good!” I laughed and mockingly bowed down to him. I clinked my glass to his and exclaimed, “L’chaim!”
“To life,” he answered back without so much as missing a beat. He took a sip of his cocktail and said, “So, how are things going in the new place? Lyla mentioned you’ve been getting along great with the rest of her roommates.”
“I still haven’t actually met one roommate yet. But the rest of them have been really welcoming. It’s been nice to have that kind of sisterhood in my life again.”
“I’m glad it worked out. So . . . same time, same place tomorrow night? We can pick up with act two after we close?”
“Actually, Gabe asked me to be his plus-one at a fundraiser tomorrow night. I was going to see if you minded if I headed out a little early to get ready?”
“Oh, sure. No problem,” he replied. We finished up our drinks and Charlie set them down on the counter to be washed. “You don’t have to stick around. I have a few more things to do before locking up.”
“I’m happy to help . . . you scratch my back, you know?”
“My back’s good,” he joked. “Seriously, don’t worry about it. I’ll just see you for your shift tomorrow.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m good, Avery, I promise.”
“Okay then, ‘So Long, Farewell,’” I sang with a salute and a bow. “And thanks again, really.”
“Auf Wiedersehen, goodbye.” He winked and headed back toward his office.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The next day, after a long shift where I played Elle Woods, Ms. Hannigan, and Annie Oakley, I was beyond exhausted. With my energy rapidly waning, I tossed back a double Starlight Espresso and clocked out of the diner so I could make it to my hair appointment on time.
Gabe’s fundraiser was black tie and being held at the swanky Pierre hotel, and I wanted to step it up a few notches. I settled on my favorite YSL little black dress, one of the few mementos I’d kept from my life with Adam. Sevyn offered to do my makeup, and I decided to splurge on a blowout to pull the whole look together.
One of the salon assistants walked me over to the washing bowl, and I settled back in the chair, my long hair spilling out into the sink. She pumped a few globs of shampoo into her palm and massaged the soap into my scalp until it became a mountain of foamy suds.