Backstage Romance: An Austen-Inspired Romantic Comedy Box Set by Gigi Blume (ebook reader with highlighter txt) 📕

incredulously stared at the door as though staring at it with a Jedi mind trick, it would open and grant us passage. Then the same four sets of eyes turned to Caroline, and I don’t know about the others, but mine were set on kill mode. I might have strangled her if Beth hadn’t spoken up.

“Dddd-did you just…” she stuttered. “Did you just… slam the door to keep a spider out?

Caroline didn’t respond.

“You slammed the door to keep a SPIDER out?” she repeated with more of an edge.

“Yeah. So?” Caroline looked around at all the incriminating faces burning holes into her skull.

“It wasn’t a big spider,” said Bing in a stoic fashion. “He can get back in through the crack.”

“She,” corrected Jane.

“What?” he asked, turning his gaze to her.

“She,” Jane repeated. “It was probably a female spider.”

“Well, he or she is dead,” said Caroline, “So you’re welcome.”

“Then why shut the Thenardier door?” cried Beth.

“Thenardier?” said Bing.

“From Les Mis,” touted Jane matter-of-factly.

“There might be more spiders,” exclaimed Caroline.

“Can we drop the issue with the spider?” I bellowed. Why was I the only sane person in the room? “We’re trapped in here now.”

Caroline laughed, evidently not believing me and jiggled the doorknob. Then she jiggled it again. It wouldn’t budge.

“There must be some other way out of here,” she said. “Or another way to open the door.”

I pressed my lips in a thin line, keeping any profanity at bay and slowly shook my head. For good measure, I crossed my arms over my chest, so they wouldn’t decide to commit homicide on their own accord. Caroline tried the knob again. Yep. Still locked.

“We’ll just wait until someone comes down to let us out,” she said.

“It’s the weekend, Caroline,” I growled. “No one will be back until Monday.”

“Does anyone have Ari’s phone number? Or anyone with a key?” asked Beth optimistically.

I immediately took the phone out of my back pocket. “I have Stella’s number.”

I quickly found her contact image and tapped the screen. A red ‘X’ appeared where the signal icon should have been. No service. I moved around the room, trying to get reception from different areas. I tried standing on the sofa, pointing the phone towards the ceiling, walking around that confined space like a Ghostbuster trying to detect psycho-kinetic energy, but nothing I tried was successful. We were too far below ground. In a fruitless endeavor, Bing did the same with his phone. We looked like a couple of interpretive dancers offering our smartphones to the ceiling gods. This lasted a good five minutes before frustration got the better of me, and I lashed out on the one person I believed was responsible: Bing.

It was he who stole away with Jane to hide from the rest of us for a kiss fest, he who I went in search of followed by the door-slamming, spider-kicking Caroline. I surmised Beth was down there because she had likewise searched for Jane and found the lovers climbing on each other right before I arrived, hence the scream I’d heard earlier. All this could have been avoided if Bing had taken my advice. Therefore, in a not-so-articulate display of anger, I barked. All at once, everyone in the room pointed fingers at one another, placing the blame on Caroline for having shut the door, on Beth for creeping up on them and screaming, on Jane for being so beautiful, and on myself, according to Beth, for something akin to sharks. It was a very messy and poor rendition of It’s Your Fault from Into the Woods, except with no music and no Bernadette Peters. I didn’t approve.

I had to do something. I couldn’t stand still, and I certainly couldn’t wait until Ari came to work on Monday only to find four corpses and one crazed and homicidal Will Darcy. I went in search of something, anything that I might use to get that door open. Tools, perhaps.

“What are you doing now?” Beth crossed her arms and glared at me.

“I have to get that door open.”

“With what?” she said sarcastically. “A seam ripper?”

I pretended to ignore her, but I was hyper aware of her scathing glower as if she willed me to fail. She wouldn’t be the victor. Not today, pixie girl. Determination under my wings, I searched harder and finally came upon some paper clips, corset boning, knitting needles, and a butter knife. I immediately set to work on the door, jamming the knife in the frame and poking around with the paper clips. I thought for a minute I felt it give, but then I lost it. Surely, it couldn’t be that difficult.

“Are you picking the lock?” asked Caroline.

“Yes.”

She hovered over me, blocking my light. It took all my willpower not to bite her head off. Maybe that was what Beth meant when she called me a shark. I sighed and counted to ten. Maybe Caroline got the hint or maybe she just got distracted by something shiny, but when she moved to the other side of the room, I was hyper aware of Beth sneering somewhere behind me.

“Do you mind?” I said, turning my head just enough to see her crossing her arms. “I’m trying to concentrate.”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t mind me, MacGyver. Would you like some bubble gum and a wire hanger? You could build a bomb.”

“I’ve done this before, you know.”

“Oh? And then did the director call ‘cut?’”

I feigned a laugh. “Har har! Actually, a wire hanger would be great. Thank you.”

Caroline was at my side in seconds with the hanger and said quite seriously, “I have faith in you, Will.”

It was too much pressure. At one point, Bing tried to help me, using his flashlight app to illuminate the doorjamb. One thing I could say for those old industrial steel doors—the craftsmanship was far from shoddy. That was one sturdy mother-lovin’ door. After about a half hour, I took a break, not conceding to defeat, but to rest for a time. By then, Caroline amused herself by stacking spools