“You think 25,000 is huge?” Katherine asked. Clearly, our brains were on the same wavelengths. “Girl, Manhattan has 1.7 million people alone. You’re looking at 8.8 million when you add in the other boroughs that make up New York City. Can you grasp how much bigger it is here?”
I felt bad for the poor girl who deflated right in front of me. She had no idea what she was in store for in the city. If she didn’t toughen up quickly, this city would eat her alive and spit her out.
“I know Katherine and I are blunt,” I said. “But we’ve both been there.”
“Speak for yourself, Erika. I grew up in Brooklyn.”
“Okay, I’ve been there. I came to the city from Des Moines, Iowa, which had a couple hundred thousand residents. I still couldn’t grasp how large this city was when I first started living here. After a while, you’ll start to get a sense of how large everything is. As for those guys,” I said, glaring toward Caiden and Peeter, “Ignore them. They’re playing games. They probably figured out quickly you were fresh off the bus—“
“I flew here,” she admitted.
“Boat, bus, car, plane, it doesn’t matter. You came from away, and now you’re here. Don’t worry. You’ll become jaded like the rest of us in no time. Living in New York does that to people.”
The poor thing nodded before sauntering off toward the rehearsal room.
“That was a bit harsh,” Katherine said.
“I was harsh? What about you?”
“I’m from Brooklyn. That was our version of showing hospitality,” she said the last word using an overexaggerated Brooklyn accent. “So, what are your thoughts about Peeter Esteban Gaspari?”
“I don’t have any,” I admitted. “I hear he has great comic timing, but his comic antics slip off the stage a little too often for many people.”
“So, he’s funny but obnoxious?”
“Pretty much.” I was about to say something snarky, but I was cut off by my favorite nonbinary intern, who stood and yelled, “Break’s over!”
Katherine and I turned and headed back into the theater. We sat down at our tables. This time, the producer graced us with her presence as we sat down to reread the script. We dove into the script and got about ten minutes into the piece when Maeve McKenna proudly announced, “Time.”
“What do you mean ‘time’?” asked the producer.
“Rebekka,” McKenna said, her green eyes twinkled with mischief. “You know the union rules. We work six days a week for eight hours a day during rehearsals. We’ve been working for eight hours, so it’s time.”
The producer rolled her eyes and said something to San Nicolás. After a brief discussion, Rebekka responded, “I do believe I’m going to have to call the union on this.”
“You do that,” McKenna said with a smile. “They’ll tell you to read the contract. But please, take up some more time to call the union office. While you do that, we’ll be sitting here making overtime pay. Rules are rules.”
Rebekka rolled her eyes. “Whatever. The team has work to do anyway.”
And unceremoniously, like that, the day was over.
Chapter 9
Therestoftheweek was chaotic and crazy. I swear that no one on the creative team knew what anyone else was doing. We’d rehearse songs in the morning that were only tossed out when we got script changes in the afternoon. They hadn’t bothered to change the names of the characters yet. I was still Michael O’Brien.Do I look like a Michael O’Brien?
I slid down the backstage wall and rested my arms on my knees. The show would hit Broadway right after Thanksgiving like the largest turkey this country has ever seen. Thankfully, the producer added an extra week to rehearsals, but that meant our scheduled opening put us right in the tourist season instead of at the beginning of the Christmas season.
“Hey, girl,” Katherine said as she slumped down the wall next to me. “How are you holding up?”
“Currently, I’m holding up this wall. As precarious as this house of cards is built, it wouldn’t surprise me if the whole thing caved in on top of us…literally.”
“I know. They should call the show Hashtag Poo Emoji.”
“It’d be better than the other names I’ve heard tossed around this week. I’ve heard of a show changing names mid-stream, but this is ridiculous. Everything is changing mid-stream. It’s almost like they had no intention of opening the show.”
“You don’t think they’re our very ownThe Producers, do you?”
“Nah, at least the show inThe Producersbecame a hit. This,“ I gestured wildly toward the stage like a plastic blowup doll at a used car lot, “I don’t know what this is.”
