Fame (18 page)

But souvenirs said they wouldn’t give up the far-right third of that space because they need it to sell buttons and Tom Sawyer scrapbooks.” She took a 142

quick breath. “Matt Bellonte from house said he’d scoop the souvenirs up and give ‘em away before he’d turn down a paying customer who could’ve sat in that space. Then Melody Thorpe said she’d guard the area herself if she had to, but she wasn’t giving up souvenir space for a few more folding chairs.”

“Good.” Katy felt her tension build. “One big, happy, Christian family,”

“Another thing,” Rhonda smiled, her voice tentative. “Alice Stryker says we should practice lighting techniques. Apparently Sarah Jo washes out in certain spotlights. Mrs. Stryker doesn’t want that happening, because she’s hiring a professional videographer to capture the best performance of the play and use the film to promote Sarah Jo to the next level.”

“Ugggh!” Katy slid down in her seat and covered her face. She peeked through her fingers, “A professional videographer?”

“Yes.” Rhonda checked a page of notes. “Mrs. Stryker tells me we’ll never know he’s here. But he’ll be interviewing Sarah Jo quite often and maybe me.

Definitely you.”

“And we’ll never know he’s here?” Katy pressed her fingers against her temple.

“Can they do that? Isn’t there something in CKT guidelines against hiring your own videographer?”

“Nope.” Rhonda frowned. “I actually checked. As long as the copyright for the play allows videotaping, then it’s all fair game.” “Amazing.” She still had her eyes sheltered. “Anything else?” “Sound.” Rhonda shook her head, as if even she couldn’t believe the next piece of news. “Mrs. Stryker wants a private sound check for the videographer just before the first show.”

“Sure.” Katy dropped her hands to her sides and sat up straight. “We’ll get right on scheduling that. I suppose she wants the nicest mic too?”

“Preferably nothing that crackles,” Rhonda allowed a giggle. “She told me, ‘Look, I know how these low-budget children’s theater groups work. I can’t have a microphone cutting out on my daughter. The videographer and I want to hear every word.’”

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“You know what I think?” Katy stood, her enthusiasm all but “What’s that?”

“I think we better get the kids onstage before I go home and cry myself to sleep.” They both smiled at the picture, but Rhonda was off right away, zipping up the aisle to the lobby and directing the kids into the sanctuary and onto the stage.

The practice went from bad to worse. When the lead characters took the stage to block out the second scene, Sarah Jo’s voice was all but gone.

Katy walked up and put her hand on the girl’s shoulder. ‘Honey, what happened to your voice?”

“I—” she clutched her throat and massaged it—”practiced too much.”

“Practiced what?” The girl had practiced four hours the night before and now was required to be at the church bright and early four hours. When would she have had time to prac”Practiced for CKT?”

“Yes.” Sarah Jo shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

Her voice was so raspy she was barely understandable. “I practiced solo.

Mama said it had to be better.”

“All right—” Katy worked the muscles in her jaw—”here’re new instructions.”

She looked over her shoulder at the back of the sanctuary. Mrs. Stryker wasn’t in the room. She

her attention to Sarah Jo. “Today I want you to say your lines in your softest voice ever. And when it’s time to sing, just the words, so you’ll be familiar with the song. Okay?” “Okay.” The seriousness in the girl’s eyes lifted a little, and

lips showed the hint of a smile. “Thanks, Katy.”

They were fifteen minutes behind schedule by the time Katy was back at her spot near the table, with the scene under way. It the part in the play where Aunt Polly sits in her rocking g the trouble with Tom Sawyer when a group of 144

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women from church stops in with an invitation. The women’s aid society is throwing a picnic for the townsfolk in a few weeks, and the hope is that Aunt Polly will bake her famous pies. Among the women were the Widow Douglas, Mrs.

Thatcher, and Becky.

“I do say, that Becky of yours sure is a beauty.” Ashley Zarelli, playing Aunt Polly, drew the words out, bringing the perfect mix of Midwestern drawl and anxious gossip to the line. “I dare-say my Tom’s caught a look at her.”

Sarah Jo, meanwhile, was caught in a conversation with Tom’s cousin and wasn’t supposed to hear the remark. Her line was next, and she was right on cue. “Your cousin’s kinda cute.” Her words were barely audible. “Don’t you think?”

“Tom?” The cousin gave Sarah Jo a strange look. “Becky Thatcher, you must be wacky in the head to think anything good could ever come from that ol’ Tom Sawyer.”

The line was supposed to be Tim Reed’s cue. By the time he heard the part “wacky in the head,” he was supposed to creep along behind what would eventually be part of the set—a white picket fence at the center of the stage. Then he was supposed to run smack into Aunt Polly.

Instead he was nowhere to be seen.

“Tim.” Katy allowed frustration in her tone. She glanced around the sanctuary.

“Anyone seen Tim?”

The other kids looked around, but no one had an answer.

“Tim?” She shouted his name this time. Calm down, she told herself. They’re just kids. “Tim, you with us?”

At that moment he darted through the back sanctuary doors and flew up the aisle onto the stage, scrambling to a stop just as he crashed into Aunt Polly. The force dropped him onto his bottom and left his eyes wide. “Aunt Polly… what a surprise.”

A wave of hushed giggles sounded from across the stage and the sanctuary.

Katy stood and walked closer to the action. She looked 145

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straight at Tim. “Is that something new you’ve added?” She ‘ waved toward the back of the room. “You know, proving to the audience how bad Tom Sawyer really is?”

Tim stood and dusted off the backside of his jeans. “Sorry, Katy.”

“Okay.” She gave him a pointed look. “Let’s get serious about this. We open in seven weeks.” Rhonda met her eyes as Katy returned to the table. “Want me to take the liberty dancers out in the foyer and work with them?”

“Definitely. That’s better than having them sit around giggling at Tim Reed.”

She looked at the back of the church one

more time, and there by the doors where Tim had come running through was Bailey Flanigan. Katy hesitated. Was Bailey the reason Tim was too busy to make it onstage for his line? She raised one eyebrow at Bailey, but it went unnoticed.

The girl was too busy watching Tim.

Rhonda made her way out of the sanctuary, eight girls trailing her. Katy made a mental note to talk to Bailey later. Whatever drama was going on behind the scenes would have to take place outside of practice time. She turned back to the actors onstage, every one of them still watching her, waiting for her to resume.

“Okay, take it from Tim’s entrance.”

This time Tim crept across the stage the way he was supposed to and banged softly into Ashley Zarelli. “Aunt Polly… what a surprise.”

Katy searched the script. That wasn’t the line, was it? She found where they were, and not only was Tim off base, but he had more lines. She looked at him, summoning the strictest look she could come up with. “Tim Reed, do you know your lines?” He straightened and scratched his head, his face lined with resignation. “Not exactly.”

“Tim . .” She gritted her teeth. Somehow she kept from screaming at him. “I expect more from you. You’re one of the

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oldest kids in CKT, and when you have a lead part I need you to know your lines.”

‘Yes, Katy. I’m sorry.” His expression was humble, honest. No question he felt bad about his performance that day. “Can someone prompt me?”

“Nancy.” Katy pointed to the edge of the stage. “Can you sit there and help Tim with whatever he needs?”

“That’s what the creative team’s for!” Nancy Helmes saluted and did as she was asked.

When Nancy was set up, Katy held up her hands. “Listen, guys, let’s take this seriously. Please. This is your show. It’s up to you whether you feel proud of the final product or embarrassed for not trying harder.” She pointed at Sarah Jo. “All except you, Becky Thatcher. You need to try a little less hard.”

The next three hours were as painful and tedious as the first. The only actor who shone onstage was Ashley Zarelli. In fact, her first performance was so strong, Katy worried about another possibility—because she was both talented and prepared, Ash might upstage everyone in the scene.

Sarah Jo was another worry. Though Katy did her best to avoid the girl’s mother, Sarah Jo seemed less than enthusiastic as Becky. By the end of practice, Katy began to wonder. Had she made the wrong choice? Maybe she should’ve given the part to Bailey Flanigan. She never wanted anyone to accuse her of favoritism where the Flanigans were concerned, but maybe in the process of being fair, she’d gone too far.

Katy stared at her tennis shoes. It was too late now. She couldn’t take the part away from Sarah Jo. Her only choice was to make the part more fun for the girl, help her see that acting in children’s theater was never meant to be a practice ground for bigger and better roles, but rather a place where friendships were forged and the dream of acting could grow and breathe and become.

She crossed her arms and pressed them to her middle.

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and the Helmes had notes to go over as the kids left the theater, and Jenny Flanigan mentioned she had something to

talk to Katy about.

Before any of it could take place, Katy went into the women’s restroom, took the farthest stall, shut the door, and leaned back against it.

Why did everything feel so out of control? Her parent committees were fighting, Mrs. Stryker had a professional videographer, and her most reliable student didn’t have a clue about his lines. She was broke until the end of the month with no money to buy a new pair of jeans, and her run-down Nissan had ‘little more than fumes in the gas tank.

Had she left Chicago for this? walked away from acting for a life of lonely chaos and poverty?

Katy knew the answer. Her reason for leaving acting had nothing to do with kids theater or noble causes, not at the beginning. She’d taken the job with Chicago’s CKT as a way to run as

far away from the other side of acting as possible, to escape the ‘Nnd of film career that had cost her everything that mattered back then.

She closed her eyes and rested her head against the cool stall door. His name was Tad Thompson, and the two of them had been friends since high school drama class their junior year. Love didn’t find them until their first year of college, and by then : they were both going to auditions and getting small parts in Commercials and films.

His first big part came before hers—a supporting role in a film alongsite one of the biggest names in Hollywood. “Nothing will change,” he had promised her.

“I’ll be gone for a while, but I’ll come back. Things will be just like they were.” But the film crew was a wild one, and Tad had been sucked into a lifestyle he wasn’t prepared for. Katy did everything she could to keep him grounded, but in the end holding on to him {had been like holding the string of a kite caught in a hurricane.

In the midst of it all, she got the break she’d dreamed of back :

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then—a series pilot, a two-hour TV movie that would showcase her acting ability and maybe open the door for more auditions, more films.

Tad died the week before her movie aired on CBS.

The loss had knocked her to her knees, sent her reeling, not sure how she would survive one breath to the next. Three months passed in a blur, but every audition felt flat, her dreams ugly and tarnished. Eventually she stopped taking calls from her agent.

Her mother got it right. She found Katy in her room one night a few months after Tad’s death and softly closed the door behind her. “It died, didn’t it?” She sat on the bed beside Katy and

brushed her thumb along her brow.

“What?”

“Your dream of acting. It died just like Tad. And now you’re afraid to go anywhere near that world.”

Katy’s eyes had filled, but she didn’t speak, couldn’t speak. “It’s okay to be afraid, Katy.” Her mother gave her a sad smile. “God’s the giver of life. For every dream that dies, a new one takes root.”

A lump settled in Katy’s throat.

She and Tad were going to marry and buy a condominium in Chicago. They had plans to be onstage, and together they would avoid the mistakes so many other people in show business made. They were going to raise a family, and even though faith had never come easily for Tad, they planned to teach their children about God.

Katy opened her eyes and stared at the bare wall above the toilet. She had missed Tad so much back then, missed him with an ache that for months sent her to bed early. But slowly, like the dawn, the pain lifted enough to allow her to look outside herself. What she found proved that her mother had been right about something else too: Hope lived.

The mere act of breathing, of getting out of bed and facing the 149

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gave her hope, and hope breathed new dreams into existence.

The answer was obvious, from the moment she and her mother attended a local CKT

performance. Children’s theater was

the answer, the antidote for her lonely days and nights. She breezed into an assistant position and was named director at the end of her first year.

With the children of CKT, acting no longer represented the world that had taken Tad from her. Instead it was a creative

….. ” of the heart, an extension of the soul, one that cOUld God, the giver of creativity.

Her feelings hadn’t veered from that, not once. She believed and everything it attempted to do. So why was she now in a bathroom stall trying not to cry? Why had the parent committees and Alice Stryker and Tim’s missed cues sent her

for cover?

Katy had no answers for herself. She drew a full breath and the cramped space. As she passed the mirror she caught a glimpse of her reflection, and suddenly she knew why things felt and chaotic, why the job she loved so much felt more than blessing. It was because of the audition.