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

She’d include Xerox copies of her children’s report cards for good measure. It was the competitive nature of their friendship. No biggie. They were the best of friends, but once Mrs. Lucas would go home, the gossip train would pull out of the station.

“It’s a good thing Charlotte has brains,” Mom would say. “Because she won’t get far in life with the way she looks.”

I’m fairly certain Mrs. Lucas had a thing or two to say about me and my sister, but Charlotte never said anything about it. Still, the Lucases were practically family. All us kids grew up together, attended the same church, went to the same elementary school. Mom and Mrs. Lucas would exchange recipes and go to each other’s candle parties while Dad smoked cigars with Mr. Lucas. We were the quintessential American neighbors. That’s why when Mrs. Lucas knocked on the front door later in the evening while we were having our pumpkin pie, nobody thought anything of it.

Trailing behind her as she walked into the dining room, was the doleful Mr. Lucas. His head bowed low, we could tell he’d been the recipient of his wife’s tongue lashing.

“Say what you came here to say, Bill.”

The tone Mrs. Lucas employed with her husband was more toddler scolding than wifely. It was clearly evident who wore the pants in that family.

Mr. Lucas hunched his shoulders and sighed and with a roll of his eyes to the ceiling, reluctantly admitted, “I may have overreacted today.”

This wasn’t sufficient enough for his wife, and she prompted him further. “Aaaand?” Her voice was severe.

Mr. Lucas slowly lifted his eyes to meet mine. “And I apologize.”

“Aaaand?”

“And I’d like you to come back to work at the lodge,” he said. And then through gritted teeth, added, “Please.”

I wondered how much resistance Mr. Lucas gave his wife in agreeing to leave his cozy armchair on Thanksgiving to beg me to return to work. What did that woman have hanging over his head? I could imagine Mrs. Lucas holding the spiced cider ransom until he gave in. It occurred to me Lucas Lodge was his version of a man cave, and the Sir William Lucas persona was the lord of that domain.

“Where’s Charlotte?” I asked.

“She stayed back at the house with that boy,” Mrs. Lucas said, waving her hand around dismissively.

This piqued my mother’s interest. “What boy?”

Mrs. Lucas gestured over her face and batted her eyes dramatically. “The Boy George.”

“Colin?” My brows raised so high, they practically meshed with my hairline.

“Lizzie,” said Dad in his calm dad voice. “Do you mind telling us what in the Sam Hill is going on?”

“That’s what I want to know,” chimed in my mother. My sister, however, gave me a wide-eyed glare—the kind siblings gave one another when one of them was in trouble. She grinned and quietly took small bites from her pie, enjoying the entertainment. I had to explain, briefly, about the unfortunate events earlier in the day, how that ‘Boy George fellow’ stalked me at work, caused a scene, (well, caused me to cause a scene) and I was subsequently fired. Mrs. Lucas completed the story by telling us her dear Charlotte took pity on the poor man with his soiled suit and no one to spend the holiday with and invited him to celebrate Thanksgiving with them. Mrs. Lucas also informed us that Colin held no grudges whatsoever and in fact, felt responsible for my present unemployment.

No kidding.

And so, here was Mr. Lucas in my house, asking me to come back to work at the lodge while we ate pie. The sad part about the whole situation was that holiday fiascos were a regular occurrence at my house. There was that one time my cousin went vegan, and my grandma freaked out. Or the time my uncle brought his own frozen dinner because he was afraid of my mother’s cooking. (I actually didn’t blame him there.)

We were all beginning to wonder if we could pull this Thanksgiving off without an incident. But, no. We were cursed. The usual dose of drama descended upon the Bennet household, and everything was right in the world.

I accepted Mr. Lucas’ offer, and he relaxed, grateful to get the whole ordeal behind him. He and his wife stayed for coffee, and I quietly excused myself to play Scrabble with Mary in the den. Of course, I lost spectacularly. It was a metaphor for my life.

13

Telenovelas and Cap’n Crunch

Beth

Awkward didn’t even begin to describe rehearsal on Monday. When did my life become a vaudeville show for psychopaths? I was already accustomed to the dread of working with Will. Now I gotta add Colin to my list of people to avoid.

We were finally out of the rehearsal studio and blocking on the main stage. The novelty of it alone put everyone in a state of awe. The set was far from being finished, but what work Jorge and crew had done was magnificent. The pirate ship nearly rivaled the one used in the Fantasmic show at Disneyland. There was rigging for acrobatics to be performed from the masts and several platforms and ropes for the actors to swing from bow to stern. A stunt choreographer was due to arrive Wednesday to work intensely with the pirates until Friday. So basically, I’d have three days off for the second week in a row.

Jorge had returned from his no cell service jaunt and displayed the many awesome features of the pirate ship. He was almost immediately mauled by a flock of chorus girls led by Lydia and Mariah. They were of course enamored by him and the infuriatingly beautiful shoulder muscles taunting us all from beneath his Billabong surfer tank. I wanted to shoot a round of shells out of my eyes at the girls and watch them flap away like a gaggle of geese so Jorge would notice I still existed. But alas, he seemed to bask in the attention. Once Will arrived, Jorge disappeared backstage, and I didn’t catch