Just North of Whoville by Turiskylie, Joyce (mobi ebook reader TXT) 📕

“You know what? That was the wrong thing to say there,” and I started to walk out.

“Hey, hey, hey, hey…hey…hey………hey,” he followed me, the “heys” getting slower and more space between them as he caught my arm on the door. “I’m sorry. Just please don’t tell Celia.”

“She asked me to be a bridesmaid! You expect me to stand there and let her marry you? Are you out of your mind?”

“Look, Little Miss Know-It All---I’m trying to break it off with Tanya. But she’s not going to take it easy. I admit, I’ve been a cad and a beast…but I really do love Celia. I know that now. That’s why I proposed. And why I want to spend the rest of my life with her. Nothing happened down there…”

“Really?”

“I swear! Nothing! I… I told her I might have crabs and didn’t want to pass them on.”

“And then you kissed her in the doorway?”

“Well…that was her thanking me for not infecting her.”

To be honest, I only believed about ten percent of what he was saying---the ten percent being that he likely did have crabs. But then he said something I did believe.

“Have you ever told someone that their partner was cheating on them? Have you? I did once. I had this friend and his girlfriend was cheating on him, so I told him. He thanked me, but he never spoke to me again. People always say they want to know. Maybe they do, but they hate the messenger. She’ll hate me. But she’ll hate you, too.”

I knew he was desperate and would say anything, but I’d seen it happen to friends. It was the one thing he’d said that had a ring of truth.

“Look, I swear to you I’m breaking it off with Tanya. I just don’t want her to go crazy and tell Celia. I really do love her.”

I’m not a violent person, but I admit I smacked him in the arm; not once, but three or four times.

“Fuck, you fucking asshole,” I whispered. “You put me in this position and I will never forgive you.”

“So don’t get us a wedding present.”

“Not the time, Alex. Not the time. And what am I going to tell Nate? He thinks we’re breaking up. ‘We’ can’t break up. Where am I supposed to go?”

“If Celia finds out, I’ll have to move out of her place---and, hmmm…where am I going to live?”

“You expect me to sacrifice my best friend’s happiness for a studio apartment?”

“It’s Midtown. Rent stabilized.”

“I have no lease, jackass!”

“I’ll break it off tomorrow. I promise. If nothing else, better she hear it from Tanya than you. Okay?”

I took a very long sigh.

“So, I guess you’re going to have to take me back.”

Oh god. I guess I was.

That night, I crawled into bed wondering why I was doing this to myself? Why was I ruining my life for the perpetual grind of three weeks of rehearsal and a two-week run? A few minutes later, I pulled out Nate’s scripts and began to read. By the end of the first ten-minute play, I had my answer.

This was the reason why.

11

“So, what’s the story to tell Nate? Repeat it back to me,” I tested Steve as we waited to start our first rehearsal.

“You and Alex are patching things up. He’s going to therapy. Oh, and he sent you a dozen roses. Kind of clichéd, don’t you think?”

It was more than clichéd. It was lying and awful and I felt horrible, but I also needed a place to live. So---I would “take Alex back” on a probationary period; a fake relationship that would hopefully continue to grow and prosper until I got my own apartment. God only knows how long that would take. I’d have to get a second job and save every dime over the next few months. This imaginary break-up was going to be expensive. Hopefully the imaginary painters would be union and would drag out the imaginary paint job a few months. After all, I wasn’t the live-in cheated-on girlfriend; I was supposed to have my own place.

After half an hour of waiting for the cast, only three of the six actors had shown up.

“Where is everybody?” Steve began to get nervous.

“They’re not coming,” I replied calmly.

“But….why wouldn’t they come? They auditioned and got the part and everything?”

“It’s the holiday season. I go thru this every year.”

I looked at our three remaining actors sitting in the rehearsal room and whispered to Steve.

“How much you wanna bet that at least one of these three is on the verge of quitting this business?”

Steve was silent; afraid the thespian gods would smite him for even suggesting such a thing.

“Excuse me, guys,” I began to the crowd of three. “Can I ask you all a question? As you can see, we’ve had a few cast members drop out of the show. Before we get into this any further, I just wanted to make sure that there weren’t going to be any more problems. Is everyone here one hundred percent committed to this show?”

The actors all looked at each other, waiting for the first one to crack. Finally, the guy playing Frank Bailey raised his hand.

“Um…are we still doing all the shows Christmas week? Because my Mom offered to buy me a ticket to fly home yesterday. And I haven’t seen my family for over a year…”

“There are no shows Christmas Eve or Christmas day, but all the other shows? Yes.”

“Okay,” he said as he put his hand in his pocket to help him think.

“Um…” the sole female actor raised her hand. What was this? Grade School? “I might be moving back home in January. And, well…if we’re not