She laughs. “That’s why it’s called previews. By the time critics come for the real opening night, we’ll be ready.”
Will we, though?
“Or as ready as we’ll ever be,” she corrects. “We rehearse andprepare to make our future easier. Yet, things still go wrong. They also go right. You know how the superstition goes: Bad dress rehearsals mean that opening night will be a success.”
“Have you found that to be true over the years?” I ask.
“Yes and no,” Mrs. Walker says, tilting her head in consideration. “Opening nights are never flawless, but never has one crashed and burned so spectacularly that we couldn’t recover from it. There are mistakes that happen onstage and backstage. You know how many people notice? Very few.”
She lets go of my arm, patting my shoulder in thanks. “When I was inCats, I would prowl and leap across the stage. Now I can hardly get out of bed.” She shrugs. “It means I’ve lived an active life, right? I’m glad to still be here.”
“Yeah,” I agree, finding comfort in this familiar, positive territory. “But it also kind of sucks.”
Mrs. Walker laughs. “That it does, Logan. That it does.”
The cast and crew file in for an afternoon of more rehearsals.
I turn to face her and, before we have to get back to work, say, “Can I ask you something? When you gave me a chance all those years ago, why did you do it?”
Mrs. Walker looks surprised. “Why do you think I did it?”
“I was in the right place at the right time,” I say, fidgeting with my hat out of habit. “I got lucky meeting you when I did. You gave me my first break in this industry.”
She huffs through her nose. “Luck will only get you so far.” She peers at me. “You don’t remember all the emails you sent me?”
“I think I recall sending a thank-you email, yes—”
“There was that, yeah,” Mrs. Walker says. “But you also followed up with me every month with theater news you thought I’d be interested in and shows you expressed a desire to be a part of.”
“So you helped me so I would stop annoying you, basically,” I joke.
“Certainly that, but also it was your persistence that got you your first break,” she says. “You not only knew what you wanted but you voiced it. It was like you knew something was going to happen at some point. It was a matter of when, not if.”
“I don’t remember it that way,” I confess.
I don’t remember it taking months for me to finally get to New York with a job. I don’t remember the multiple follow-ups.
The process of getting here felt relatively quick, but maybe that’s my mind smoothing over the bumps. I only remember telling Mrs. Walker what I was passionate about, but that’s how I’ve always been.
“Very rarely do things just happen for people, Logan. We have more control than we think,” she says. “You know what I loved about being an actress in the theater? Each night, everyone gets a chance to do it all over again. Not just the cast. Every single person, on and off the stage. Every show is a new opportunity. So, you, Mr. Wells, need to get back out there and try something you haven’t yet. Your persistence is somewhere in there. Dig deep for it, because I want that moon. And as they say, the show must go on!”
Windfallwas once an idea, and now it’s a world with a set and lines and a cast and music and a whole team of people working invisibly behind the scenes. And isn’t that really what luck is? Invisible, often unacknowledged work that we put in to make things happen for ourselves? Day after day after day.
Sometimes progress happens in big strokes. It also happens in small bursts, over and over again. When something’s not working, we acknowledge it and try something else.
After my accident, I tried something else. I went in a different direction.
From the moment I said no to who I was, to my father, and to the money, I got closer to who I am today. Because I saidno, I could sayyes. Yes to opportunities, yes to this new job.
Yes to the lottery.
Yes to Hazel.
Every show isn’t just a new opportunity.
Every day is.
Up until recently, I’ve said a hell of a lot ofyesses. It’s possible I really have been making a hell of a lot of my own luck, too.
