“Can you please keep your voice down?” said a woman who was browsing plays on the other side of the room.
“Sorry,” I said.
“Where are you?” Brice asked.
“The Drama Book Shop. I came in to buy a copy. The clerk wanted me to autograph the book. She thought I’d had it written.”
“I need to get my team together and figure out how we can spin it. I’m going to go out and buy a copy. Well, you know, I will send an intern out to procure a copy. I’ll have the interns break the book up, read different sections, and report back in the morning.”
I stifled a laugh. I couldn’t believe that Brice wouldn’t be bothered to read the book, but he would make sure his interns gave book reports in the morning. I listened to Brice as he chatted away, coming up with new plans about how he could use this book to further my career. I said, “uh-huh,” “wow,” and “great idea” every couple of minutes as he prattled on. Finally, I said, “I need to get home, Brice. Call me tomorrow.”
“Will do,” and he hung up the phone.
I spent the next ten minutes flipping through the book to see what was inside. Toward the end of the book, I found another passage with my name.
“I sat in stunned silence in Radio City Music Hall as they called out Darla Dabbraccio’s name for Best Actress in a Musical. I looked around me and saw a bunch of us from the media world with our jaws dropped open. How could the Tony Award voters give that woman an award? She hadn’t earned it, not really. Everything from the tone of her voice to how she raised her arms in big numbers were imitations of Saunders’ version of the role. If anything, Dabbraccio should have gotten an award for best mimicry or the most likable puppet on Broadway. The woman who deserved that award hadn’t been seen on Broadway since her accident.”
I couldn’t have written this better if I had written it myself. I stood. There was a lighter feeling in me as I walked out of the back room and into the front part of the store. I found the young salesclerk and said, “I’d like to buy this book. Oh, and I’d be happy to autograph your copy,” I added with a wink. “In fact, if you want me to, I’ll autograph any copies you have.”
“Really?” the clerk said. “Let me get my manager.”
They set me up in the back room with a couple of boxes of books, and I signed them all. I also promised that my autograph in the book would be their exclusive. As a reward, they gave me the copy of the book I’d been reading, plus two more. I beamed as I stepped out in the cold evening air. I was floating on air. Nothing could get me down. And I ran smack dab into a man drinking a slushie.Who drinks a slushie when it’s cold outside?I looked down as the blue, syrupy, icy concoction ran down my cream-colored cashmere sweater.
“Watch where you’re going, lady,” the man yelled at me.
He didn’t apologize. He didn’t stop to make sure I was okay. As he walked away, he complained about dumb blondes. He didn’t bother to pick up his empty cup, which laid right at my feet. I tried to wipe slushie off my sweater and onto the street. When the bulk of the mess was either soaked into my sweater or laid on the ground, I turned to walk away.
“Aren’t you going to throw the cup away?” a voice asked. I swiveled my head around, about to bite someone’s head off, and found a homeless teenage girl sitting in a doorway of a closed shop. “I mean, don’t litter. It’s bad for the environment.”
I wanted to clap back, but I stooped, grabbed the empty cup, and walked away. Thankfully, there was a trashcan in the middle of the block, so I deposited the cup there. Somehow, my plastic-wrapped bag stuck in my purse hadn’t been affected by the blue. I shook my head and walked home. I passed a window and thought I looked like I’d been in a brawl with a Smurf—and the Smurf won.
The rest of my trek home wasn’t as exciting. I got a couple of odd stares from people standing in the lobby. Admittedly, one of them held a copy ofBlinded by Faith, so it’s possible the stare wasn’t because I was covered in blue.
As soon as I was in my apartment, I stripped off my clothes and placed the sticky mess in a plastic bag so it wouldn’t make all my dirty clothes tacky. I quickly showered, then threw on some pajama pants and a sweatshirt before curling up on the couch with Bootsy and my new book. The book was a tell-all, and I was the only one who came out ahead. Bouvier went after Asher and Zachary Magnus. The two had been having secret rendezvous behind the scenes since the first day of rehearsals.
I sat in shock to learn how long the affair had been going on. I also learned about the fallout from my accident. No one ever told me about the backstage drama. At one point, the director quit over his objections to Darla Dabbraccio being cast in my role. Unbeknownst to me, Dabbraccio had been having an affair with one of the producers, which is how she got the understudy job in the first place.
“After Saunders’ accident, the producers turned to the only person who knew the role, Darla Dabbraccio. Unfortunately, Dabbraccio didn’t know the first thing about acting or the role. Instead of watching Saunders during rehearsals or previews, she’d been using her dressing room for other things.”
“Eww…” I said out loud. “I could have gone my whole life without knowing that.”
The book then went into a whole chapter about how much Dabbraccio had relied on the stage manager for all her lines because Dabbraccio hadn’t known any of them. Somehow, they had muddled through that first show as Dabbraccio had recited the lines exactly like the stage manager gave them. The stage manager and the producer had then forced Dabbraccio to sit down with a bootleg copy of the show filmed during previews and watch my performance repeatedly. Eventually, the woman acted and sounded like me.Well, that sure explains a lot.
I finally finished the book around 1:00 a.m. As I drifted to sleep, I smiled, thinking about all the people I wanted to send copies to.
I skipped the gym the following day but got myself ready in record time before heading out to work. I opened the door and backed out of my apartment, keeping one eye on Bootsy to make sure he didn’t dart out.
“Ooff,“ I said as I backed into someone. “Sorry about—“
“No biggie,” Carissra said, looking up at me. “You just hit the side of the wheelchair. I’m glad I didn’t run over your foot.”
“I need to stop running into you like this,” I joked. I glanced down at my watch. “Shouldn’t you already be at school?”
“Normally, I would have left about thirty minutes earlier. But with the ice out there today, I’ve been waiting for the van.”
“Van?”
“I have a number I can call that sends a van to pick me up when I need it. I hate using it. The guy who usually shows up gives me the creeps. He’s not handsy or anything, but he smells weird and looks at me strangely.”
