Wishing in the Wings (21 page)

Hal looked at me. “What do you think, Becca? Could Sheryl work?”

Great.

There I was, caught between my boss and my— What? Lover? Definitely not. Crush? I couldn’t be certain. Neighbor? Yeah, but…

Oh. Playwright. That’s what Ryan was to me. That’s all that he could be, while we stood here in the darkened Mercer theater, trying to figure out who would embody his vision of Africa.

I braced myself and cast my professional lot with the man who knew the material best. “We shouldn’t make a decision out of desperation, Hal. If we know that Sheryl’s not right now, we can’t count on her changing enough in just six weeks. The part’s too important for us to hope she can get to where we need her to be.”

Ryan flashed me a quick smile of gratitude. For just an instant, I felt like we were working together again, driving his vision forward, as we had done so successfully in the yellow-and-orange land of the Popcorn King. A sliver of heat uncurled in my belly, and I smiled without meaning to.

But that smile must have said too much. Must have reminded Ryan of how we’d celebrated our past alliance. Or not quite celebrated, as the awkward case might be. He glanced away, scrambling for one of Kira’s needle-sharp pencils. As he bounced its perfect pink eraser against the table, doubt drowned whatever flicker of passion had considered awakening inside me.

Maybe that hadn’t even been passion after all. Maybe I was just hungry, after the long hours of auditions.

“What about Maria Rodriguez?” I asked, less because I thought the actress would work as Anana and more because I needed to cover up the strange moment, needed to erase the bizarre tension between Ryan and me.

“Maria?” Ryan asked carefully.

Hal glanced at his pad of paper. “She’s probably got the vocal range. She could age her voice. But I really see Maria as Lehana.”

He had a point. Lehana was an auntie, an older woman who had power and control within the complicated family structure that Ryan had crafted. But Lehana was no grandmother, no matriarch for the ages. And neither was Maria. I sighed in frustration.

“Excuse me?” The voice came from behind us, from the back of the theater. A woman was speaking loudly, clearly, with just a hint of apology underneath her words. Hal was already facing the back doors, but Ryan and I turned at the same time to see the newcomer.

Kira spoke from the stage, keeping her voice polite as she shaded her eyes for a better view. “May I help you?”

The woman stepped into the theater, letting the lobby door close behind her. She blinked in the relatively dim light as she pulled herself to her full height—which wasn’t much. I figured she was about a foot shorter than I was.

But she had me outpaced by a mile when it came to dignity.

As the newcomer approached us, she carried herself with a regal solemnity. Her spine was straight, rigid with a precision that spoke of a lifetime of pride. I could picture her raising her arm, waving to a crowd of onlookers, the Queen of England at a parade.

If the Queen of England just happened to be an elderly black woman.

She stopped halfway down the aisle, pausing to eye us with the patience and grace of an ancient lioness. “I apologize,” she said, and the words flowed toward us like a stream of melted caramel. “I intended to be here at the start of auditions, but I was unavoidably detained.” The woman offered up some papers—a resume and a headshot. “I beg your pardon. Is it possible for me to read for the part of Anana?”

Hal’s excitement shimmered like a coil of heated wire. I followed his blue topaz gaze as he took in the new arrival’s serious expression, as he measured the corona of tight gray curls that framed her earnest face. Ryan was staring at the woman as well, his expression so rapt that I wondered if he’d even heard a single word she’d said. The pencil that he’d clutched as a defense against awkwardness, against me, clattered onto the table like a tree trunk toppling in a forest.

The woman spoke again. “I can assure you that my delay this afternoon is a complete anomaly. I’ll not be late again. I know how important your time is, and I understand the demands of a theatrical production in a house as professional as the Mercer. May I read?”

Hal gestured toward the stage, his arm trembling as if he were King Lear. “Please,” he said, and I think he just stopped himself from bowing. He and Ryan sank into their seats at the same time, excitement driving them to lean forward, as if they could pull perfect words out of the woman by force of will alone. I only barely kept myself from moving in the same inexorable pattern.

Kira jumped down to join us as the woman proclaimed, “I’m Felicia Halliday. My monologue is from Richard III.”

She paused for a moment, her head bowed as if she were in some secret church. Her fingers curled into loose fists, and I could feel the energy that radiated out from her, pulsing across the theater.

“If ancient sorrow be most reverent, give mine the benefit of seniory and let my griefs frown on the upper hand.”

The familiar lines of mournful Queen Margaret rolled over the seats. Felicia kept her voice low, but she spoke from her diaphragm, pulling every one of us to the literal edge of our seats. We could hear every single syllable that she pronounced, almost as if a cone of power magnified the force of her speech.

She set each word into the charged air of the theater, nestling her terrible images of death and loss into the air around us, as if every phrase were a delicate glass ornament. Every sentence settled into place with perfection, with the gravitas of a matriarch, with a terrifying hint of frailty, of vulnerability, of age. Felicia found Hal’s eyes as she spoke, pinning him with her speech, pouring her emotion into his ears.

Despite my determination to avoid Ryan, to set myself apart from him, I heard him catch his breath. I saw him clutch his pencil. I watched him lean forward, drawn to Felicia like a thirsty man desperate for a fountain.

I felt the pull myself, a tug as urgent as undertow at the beach. I wanted to go with the actress. I wanted to travel wherever she would take me. I wanted to see her, to be with her, to stay forever in her presence.

She recited the last line of her speech, settled the last word into the theater’s perfect silence. Her right hand relaxed by her side, loosening from the tight fist that had fueled her theatrical storm.

And that’s when I saw it—the tiny hint of flame.

The tattoo was etched into her obsidian skin, woven into her midnight flesh so expertly that I nearly missed it entirely. But my fingers were attuned to that mark. My thumb and forefinger greeted “Felicia” with the slightest tingle, with the barest apprehension of power.

Teel, I wanted to shout.

Before I could say anything, though, Hal collapsed back in his chair, clearly overcome by the mastery we all had witnessed. He turned to Ryan, leaning close, but I heard his gleeful whisper clearly. “She’s our Anana. She’s perfect.”

Before Ryan could agree, I sprang to my feet, brandishing my bottle of water like a woman bearing the Olympic torch through a crowd. “Thank you, Ms. Halliday,” I said, and my voice sounded as false and hearty as a pitchman in a late night infomercial. “Thank you very much for that reading!”

I leaped onto the stage, shoving my water into Teel’s hand, as if the old woman had been threatening to collapse. I stepped in front of her to shield our conversation from everyone else, and then I hissed, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Teel looked up at me with ancient eyes, with eyes that knew a thousand ways to lie. “What do you mean?”

I glanced at her wrist, at the cuff that obscured all but a tiny flash of golden ink. “You can’t do this! You can’t be in our play!”

She turned her head to one side, a wise and curious raven. “Why not? I’ll be available to you, whenever you’re ready to make your last wishes. You won’t forget about me, this way. You won’t delay in making your wishes.”

I wasn’t about to apologize. I had every right to hold my two wishes in abeyance.

Teel grinned wickedly and twisted her rhetorical knife. “And this way, I’ll stay out of trouble.”

I bit my lip, struggling to superimpose the image of bubble-headed Marilyn Monroe over the diminutive but majestic creature who stood before me. I was only too certain that Teel could invent all new meanings for the word trouble—every day and in a million different ways. I seized her arm, hoping that no one else could see how tightly I was clutching her flesh. “You cannot ruin this show, Teel. It’s too important. It means too much to Ryan. And to the Mercer. And—and to me.”

She nodded toward the men and Kira, who were gathered into a tight knot. “They seem to think that I’d be perfect.”

Of course, a little Marilyn Monroe flirtation wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to Ryan’s play. Losing its key actor in the middle of the run would be the greatest disaster. Realizing that I had one last big gun for the battle at hand, I hissed, “So help me, Teel, if you insist on being part of this cast, I won’t make my final wish until the show is over.”

“So you say,” she said, apparently the voice of reason. “But if you found something worth wishing for, I’m sure you’d come around….”

“I wouldn’t,” I said, making my voice as firm as I could.

Before Teel could reply, Hal said, “Felicia?”

Teel stepped to one side, so that she could look at my boss directly. Her imperious shrug reminded me to release her arm. “Yes, Mr. Bernson?”

“I notice that you don’t have an address on your papers. Are you living here in New York?”

“Oh, yes,” Teel said. Standing this close to her, I could feel the spell that she cast through her tattoo, the ensnaring magic that she wafted toward the trio in the center of the theater. Kira frowned slightly; she must have sensed the genie magic, having been the beneficiary of Teel’s spells in the past. Ryan looked disoriented as well, uncertain. Or maybe I was just displacing some of my own feelings onto him.

Hal, though, was immediately ensnared by Teel’s magic. He…settled into his place. I couldn’t think of another word for it. He didn’t move, not precisely. He didn’t step out of the row of theater seats; his feet didn’t shift at all. Rather, the set of his shoulders eased. Subtle lines on his face relaxed. He was comfortable. He was content. He was home.

Teel continued, as if there hadn’t been a pause in her reply. “I was in transition, but I’m settled in the city now. I can give my address to your fine dramaturg here. Or to your stage manager, if you’d prefer.”

I saw Kira wake up, shudder to attention as she realized exactly what was going on. I recognized the instant that she shook free from Teel’s spell, the second that she pulled loose from our genie’s hypnotic suggestion. She stared at the two of us in shock. I couldn’t say if her expression was meant more for my benefit, or for the benefit of the creature at my side.

“Hal,” she said, never taking her eyes from Teel. I watched her chase a half dozen arguments to ground, fruitlessly. Neither one of us would be able to explain the full truth. Neither one of us could say the word “genie.”

As if to prove that Kira was no match for her, Teel boosted her magic, the wave of her hypnotic control sparkling even higher. I found myself wondering why I was worried about having her join However Long. Why did I have any fear at all? Teel was a genie, after all. Teel was my genie. What could possibly go wrong, if she were cast as Anana? Who could ever make a better Anana than Teel?

I dug my fingers into the palms of my hands, forcing myself to toss off Teel’s spell, just as Hal said, “We’d be pleased to have you join our production, Felicia.”

Ryan spoke, as if someone had elbowed him in the ribs. “Yes,” he said. “Pleased.”

“Hal—” Kira started to say again, and I could read the struggle on her face, the pitched battle to remember why it was so important to warn him.

I shook my head in annoyance, fighting to clear my own thoughts so that I could bolster Kira’s argument. Before I could speak, though, Teel coughed. The motion was enough to make me turn to face her. She reached out her knotted old-lady hands, folded them around my own fingers, clasping my water bottle between us. “Thank you, dear,” she said, pitching her words just loud enough that the others could hear. As I let her take the bottle, she added something meant only for me. “Five out of ten public appearances by genies go exactly as expected. But you don’t have to play the odds. You can just make your last two wishes. Now. Then, we’d all be happy.”

Five out of ten. Fifty, fifty—if I believed a single statistic my genie had flung my way. I bit my lip and reached a decision. “Not now. I’m not ready to wish now.”

“Then relax.” Teel smiled serenely. “What could possibly go wrong?”

Even as she asked the question, I realized that Hal and Ryan had come on stage. Both men were eager to greet our newest actress, to welcome her into the production. As Ryan shuffled in front of Teel, I turned and gazed out at the audience seats. Kira had collapsed beside the worktable, sinking into a chair and stretching out her legs, as if she were trying to melt into the floor. She stared at me, shaking her head slowly. I shrugged and mouthed, “What could I do?”

She rolled her eyes and sighed. I only hoped that we could work together to control our headstrong genie.

ALL TOLD, THE auditions had gone better than I ever would have predicted.

Sure, I was worried about Teel being in the cast. I knew, firsthand, how destructive she could be. Moreover, I was concerned about what would happen to the show if I did make my last wish before the end of the play’s run, as I had threatened to do in my panic to keep Teel off the stage. Teel would go off to wherever genies go, and the Mercer would be left high and dry.

But I had seen the sheer emotional strength behind her audition monologue. I understood the acting ability that she broadcast every day, every second that she skated through the ordinary human world. I had no doubt that Teel was our Anana.

The rest of the cast had fallen into place as well. The talent we’d accrued that Saturday morning had been stunning. However Long would be everything Hal and I had dreamed of; it would make the Mercer’s reputation as a company that asked serious questions, posited real debates. We’d accomplish more with Ryan’s work than we ever could have done with Crystal Dreams.