“Take a deep breath, Erika. It will all work out.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure. I’m grateful this week is almost over. I really need some me-time.”
“Any plans for your day off?”
“Sleep,” I said. “Maybe do laundry. I hate doing laundry. I’d much rather buy new clothes.”
“I’ve totally done that before. It’s too easy to have Amazon deliver new panties than trudging down to the local laundromat some days.”
I let out a sigh of agreement. “But I have a date tonight.”
“With a real live boy?”
“Yes,” I said with a smile.
“Please tell me he’s not in the business.”
“Not like we are,” I admitted. “He’s a publicist.”
“Is this a date or a reinvention of your social media presence?”
“My social media presence isn’t that bad.”
“Sure thing, Ms. Queen of the I Hate Men Club.”
“I don’t hate men.” I crossed my arms and put on my best pouty face. “I don’t like specific men. And…they tend to be the men I like to date.”
“Scumbags, you mean. I think the term is scumbags. You date scumbags.”
“Wow, you’re blunter than my therapist is.”
“I thought about becoming a therapist as a day job years ago. If nothing else, it would make my Japanese parents get off my case about ‘finding a real job’ or ‘when are you going to get married,’” she mimicked in a stereotypically Asian-sounding accent.
“George Melton, Allan Chadwick, and Michael O’Brien, you’re needed by wardrobe for a fitting,” a voice in the back of the theater yelled.
“I guess that’s our cue,” I said as I pushed myself into a standing position, using the wall to help me up. We broke into “The Ladies Who Lunch,” garnering only a couple of odd looks from people around us.
I let out a quick giggle as we left backstage through a side door and into the lobby where the wardrobe had set up temporarily.
“Where have you two been hiding?” Peeter asked as we approached. One of the wardrobe people had already pulled him aside and was measuring him—and I mean all of him—from the head to the wrist to the ankle and everything in between. The seamster whipped the tape measure around like a needle ninja with sewing thread.
“Oh, there you are,” a voice said off to my right. I looked over to see Aarya walking toward us. “I was standing in the back waiting for you to come my way.”
“Sorry about that,” Katherine said. “We knew a secret passageway that got us here faster.” The poor intern gave us a blank stare. “Backstage, we were backstage. It was faster to use the side door than walk through the middle of rehearsal.”
“Oh, that makes sense,” Aarya said flatly.
“Who are these two?” a man’s voice asked. “I thought I called for the three ghosts.”
“These are the three ghosts,” Aarya said, gesturing to Katherine, Peeter, and me.
“They are listed as men.” The older gentleman pulled out a notebook, flipped to a page, pointed at it, and said, “See, right there. The ghosts are supposed to be George, Allan, and Michael.”
“Yes, sir,” Aarya said, clearly doing their best to pacify the guy. “There was a change during casting.”
“And no one thought to call me?” He turned in a huff and started away as he yelled, “Lucinda!”
“What was that about?” Katherine asked, watching the man leave.
