Frederick scanned the screen, reading through the stage directions and other notes at the beginning. "Okay. I think I found it." He read two lines - one from Scrooge and one from Cratchit, who seemed to be leaving the scene.
They went back and forth, one line to the next. Frederick found himself grateful this wasn't a romantic scene. Was there a romance brewing in this show? He tried to remember the full story line but he'd only seen the show once, during a rare trip to New York City several years earlier. There was a kiss at the end, right? Was it between Belle and Scrooge?
It didn't matter. They wouldn't be acting it out if they made it that far into the script.
The reading back and forth didn't take as long as Frederick would have thought. They did skip a number of scenes and without the non-speaking portions of the movie, it went fairly quickly. She stood and wandered back and forth throughout the cabin of the plane as they went through.
They also didn't sing any of the musical numbers.
After giving her last line, Elise gave a dramatic sigh and wilted back into her seat. "I'm in better shape than I expected. I haven't been able to really run the whole thing with anyone."
"You need to know the whole thing before you start?" That surprised Frederick. "I would have thought you'd learn it a scene at a time, for whatever you're working on next."
She gave a shrug. "Sometimes. We'll shoot out of order, though, so I need to have a good idea where I'm coming from in each of them, even if we haven't already filmed an earlier scene."
"Makes sense." Frederick set the tablet on the table again. "It's fascinating to watch."
Elise leaned forward and lowered her voice. "I've seen the musical about a thousand times," she confided. "More than anyone realizes, though everyone knows it's my favorite. That helps with the memorization. It's not the same, but close enough it’s not entirely new."
"I've only seen it once." He felt kind of lame telling her that. "I don't get to shows very often. We get one or two Broadway type shows a year, and I try to go every time one is in the country, but I don't always get to. Just depends on my schedule."
"I go every time I have the chance. If I'm in New York or London for more than a couple of days, I try to see at least one show. If I'm there a week or more, I see at least two or three. If I’m in a city with a touring cast performing, I try to go to most of those." She yawned, a big, unapologetic signal of exhaustion.
He chuckled.
"Sorry." She said the word, but to Frederick, it didn't seem like she meant it.
Flipping the buckle of his seat belt, Frederick stood and went to one of the cabinets hidden in the outer walls of the fuselage. It took four tries to find the right one, but when he did, he pulled a pillow and blanket out. "The chairs lay flat. You can turn them so they make one longer surface." He didn't know if she'd need more than one. She wasn't tall.
He'd probably looked it up or seen it somewhere, but he thought she was just a bit over five foot. Compared to his six-foot-one, she probably looked downright tiny.
Elise laughed, as though she'd had the same thoughts. "I think one chair will be long enough for me. My family nickname has been Short Stuff for most of my life. It’s not used often, but often enough."
"One chair it is, then." He found the mechanism to flatten it out.
She put the pillow on one end and twisted the chair a bit so the head would be closer to the wall. "You probably need two, right?"
Frederick rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. "Uh, I actually have a bedroom in the back of the plane. I'll be headed there for a nap in a few minutes." A look at the screen near the door to the bedroom told him they had several hours left. He could sleep for some of them and still have time to freshen up before deplaning.
With a good-natured eye roll, Elise flipped the blanket out over the chair. "Of course, you do."
Frederick gave her a nod. "Sleep well."
It didn't take long for him to change into a pair of pyjama pants. The dim lighting in main private area of the plane led him to toss his t-shirt on the foot of the bed as he walked down the aisle toward the galley to get something to drink. Purposely, he didn't look toward Elise, preferring to give her privacy.
And that's why it shocked him when the door to the galley opened, and she ran into his chest - then bounced off, knocking her head against the edge of the door.
Elise cried out in pain.
Without taking time to think about it, Frederick picked her up in his arms and carried her back toward the chair where she'd planned to sleep. Laying her down would be awkward around the arms of the chair so he kept going to his room and set her gently on the bed.
Brushing her hair off her forehead, Frederick spoke quietly. "Are you all right?"
How on earthhad her life come to this?
Elise held a hand against the side of her head toward the back. She closed her eyes and leaned the other cheek against the warmth of Frederick's chest as they perched on the edge of the bed.
The throbbing pain seemed to subside in his arms.
