“Give yourself time. I’m sure the right guy is out there for you. Just be open to finding him. When the time is right, he’ll step into your life, and you’ll be amazed that it took that long.”
We spent the next hour talking about everything going on in our lives. By the time Johnny left, I was tipsy. From the wine at the restaurant to the half bottle I drank with Johnny, I was pretty much gone. I made my way into my bedroom and collapsed on the bed.
The alarm woke me the following day at 6:30 a.m. Part of me wanted to throw the blasted thing across the room, but I knew I needed to get up and get my act together. I threw on my workout clothes and headed down to the gym. By the time I finished my morning jog, I was a bit more together. I went back to my apartment and ran through the shower before throwing on my clothes, drinking a protein drink, and leaving for the day.
I made it to the theater at 8:59. I wasn’t the last one there, but I was darn close. The last person strolled in right at 9:00 a.m. on the dot. Unfortunately, the last one who strolled into the theater was Rebekka Eldridge.Oh great, what new, fantastical idea has she come up with now?
“Good morning!” Eldridge said with a giant smile. “I hear things have been progressing amazingly this week, so I’m just an audience member. Pretend like I’m not here.”
“Can we pretend like she disappeared forever?” Peeter whispered next to me, which caused me to stifle a chuckle.
“Okay,” San Nicolás said. “Let’s run the show from the top. Eugene and Tyreek have been working on a few new songs. When we get to those parts, I’ll stop and have them play. Let’s begin.”
Eugene started the intro to the opening number, and we all joined in. The whole show was running around three hours at that point, but there were several starts and stops, so it wasn’t too surprising that things were slower than they should be. When we finished, Eldridge clapped enthusiastically.
“Let’s break for an early lunch,” San Nicolás said. “We’ll see you back in one hour.”
Katherine caught up to me as I tried to leave the theater. I had hoped to avoid her, but I knew that was highly unlikely.
“So, how did it go last night?”
“It was an interesting experience,” I said, attempting to sound noncommittal.
“Uh-oh, what happened?”
I sighed and said, “If you really want to know, I’ll tell you all about it over lunch.”
We walked to a nearby Mediterranean restaurant. Since we were early, the place hadn’t filled with lunchtime crowds yet. We headed to a private table in the corner next to the window. We ordered, and I spent the next fifteen minutes painstakingly describing the date.
“He didn’t?” Kathrine gasped when I told her about his critique session. “I can’t believe he did that. He was always so nice. I’m dumbfounded.”
“Yeah, he’s not what I would call much of a people person, from what I can tell.”
“I thought he was awkward. Now, I’m wondering if there’s something else going on there.”
“Who knows,” I admitted. “Thankfully, that is one experience I’m not going to have again.” I turned my attention to Katherine and asked, “What about you? What’s going on in your dating life?”
Katherine perked up and talked about several guys she’d been casually dating. Unlike me, Katherine had no problem amassing a large number of guys to date. I’m sure I could date as much as she does, but I don’t feel the need to date. I’m looking for quality at this point in my life, not quantity.
After lunch, we headed back to the theater. We hadn’t stepped into the building when Aarya approached us with a clipboard. “The elves are all meeting in room Flying Circle C.”
From previous experience, I knew that the room she was directing us to was on the third floor, so we headed to the escalator, ready to climb. To my surprise, the escalator worked. I hesitantly took one step on it, and it started going right up.
“Wow, this place is feeling like a real theater,” I said.
“Who knows, maybe we’ll have a musical ready to go before opening night,” Kathrine quipped back.
We made our way to the room and found Peeter was already in there with Eugene and Tyreek.
“Nice of you ladies to join us,” Peeter said, looking down at his watch.
“Technically, we still have thirty seconds to spare,” Katherine clapped back.
“Okay, let’s get this show on the road,” Eugene said, clearly wanting to avoid any more tension in the room. “As you know, we have been reworking the script with Mable to update the ‘festiveness’ of the whole show. We did our best to keep a lot of the original material while updating it to reflect the fact that you are now elves and not industrial tycoons.”
We spent the next two hours going over the new material. Thankfully, several songs we’d learned a couple of weeks ago would stick around. They had to rework the lyrics because we were now Santa’s little helpers and not multi-millionaires playing with people’s lives.
Peeter quietly said to Katherine and me during one of our breaks, “I’m not sure if this is an upgrade or a downgrade yet.”
