A Midsummer Night's Fling (Much Ado about Love #1) (19 page)

Max touched her shoulder. “Isa, what’s wrong?”

But before she could so much as open her mouth to reply, Judith was there, slinging an arm around Isabelle’s shoulders and reeling her in for a half hug. “You came!” Judith cried, her speech slurred.

Max eased back to give the friends privacy, but Judith released Isabelle and moved on to him. Judith caught his wrist and squeezed, beaming. “I’m glad you came too, Max. I thought you were wonderful in rehearsal today. You’re right on track with Oberon.”

“Thank you, Judith.”

Judith crinkled her eyes at him, happily buzzed.

Max bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.

Someone else came through the doors, and Judith let out a happy cry and careened off to greet them, abandoning Isabelle and Max.

“Good ol’ Jude,” Isabelle murmured, taking a sip of her dirty martini. Her face was stiff, tension quivering in her muscles. Isabelle had been this way for months, like a rope unraveling, each thread in her coming loose with a
twang
which seemed to reverberate through the whole company.
Twang
. Judith’s the co-artistic director.
Twang
. Judith’s running
Midsummer
.

What was next? And could Max make it to minimum safe distance before Isabelle’s cord snapped all the way?

She polished half her drink in one swallow, then smacked her lips, her black-cherry eyes flicking over to him. “I’m glad I gave you a shot all those years ago, kid. You done good.”

A grin blossomed on his face, and he bumped her shoulder with his. “I’m glad you trusted me. I don’t know where I’d be if I wasn’t in the RSF.”

“Me either.” She scoffed out a bitter laugh and polished off her martini.

“What’s bugging you?” There were plenty of morose drunks around—this was a bar for actors, after all—but Isabelle wasn’t usually one of them.

Isabelle’s next drink arrived, and she stared at the glass for a second, then took another gulp.

Max frowned, really worried. “Isabelle?”

She set the drink down, her eyes bleak. “I don’t know where I’d be without the RSF.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Where
would
I be? Broadway? The Oscars? I was thirty when Mama died and left me the company. I had offers for Broadway, TV shows, films. I was at my peak. I could have done anything. Instead I stayed here. And now I’m old.”

“Isabelle, you’re what? Thirty-nine?” In the interests of diplomacy, he low-balled her age by about five years. “You are not old.”

Isabelle jiggled her head in denial, the mass of her curling hair quivering with the motion. “Stuck. I am
stuck
, Maxim. All those auditions I’ve been going on? Nada. Zip.” She hit the “p” sound hard, smacking her lips. “I’m over the hill. I can’t even get a part in my
own
shows anymore. Rita wouldn’t let me play Titania.”

Max squeezed her arm. “You played Cleopatra in the fall. You were nominated for an Ovation award.”

She flapped her hand. “Shakespeare. I am so
sick
of Shakespeare.” Isabelle drained her second martini and signaled the bartender. Fortunately, the bartender was still occupied at the other end of the bar serving Abe and his cronies. Isabelle seemed to be doing fine on two martinis. Max would do what he could to stop her from having three.

Isabelle slapped the counter and sighed. “That’s why I brought Judith on. She’s over the hill too. Scared of it. Which is why she’s so awful to Nic.” Isabelle chuckled and shot him a sideways glance. “And why Judith’s all over you. She wants to prove she’s still got it. Seems like it’ll backfire to me, though. Don’t date someone younger than you if you’re trying to feel less old.
I
learned that the hard way.”

Max restrained a groan. And he’d thought
Nicola
was a lightweight when it came to drinking. He craned around, wondering where Tierney had gone.

“Judith wants to take over the entire company,” Isabelle muttered wistfully. “Make it her own. Then I could be free to do whatever. I could start singing again. Musicals. Broadway. I was
made
for musicals. Mama didn’t like them much. She was all about Shake-speah.”

A horrible constricting sensation filled his chest. Isabelle gone? Judith running the RSF?
Fuck
. “Isabelle, tell me you said no. Tell me you aren’t considering that.”

Isabelle shot him a grimace and sank her chin into her hand. “Oh, I thought about it, Maxim. Save myself
and
my kid.”

“Your kid?”

“Yeah. Tierney shouldn’t be lassoed to this sinking leviathan any more than I am.”

“Tierney loves the company. She
wants
more responsibility. There are days when I swear she’s planning a bloody coup d’état just so she can take over the RSF.”

Isabelle waved this away, nearly smacking Max in the face with her hand. “She’s a kid. She doesn’t know what she wants yet. And I’m gonna make sure she doesn’t get near the artistic director job. She’s not gonna get stuck like me.”

Max gritted his teeth.
Tierney wants to be stuck
. He didn’t bother saying that. Isabelle was in her rut, and she would stick to it until she’d dug all the way to China, it seemed. The guts and determination that had made Isabelle a star and a world-class talent were also what made her such a stubborn ass at times. “So, what are you going to do?” he said, fighting to keep his voice even. “About the RSF? There are options besides Judith. Or Tierney.”

I
wouldn’t mind more responsibility
, but he didn’t say that out loud. He
did
want more, but he wasn’t sure he could handle it.

Max with no formal training? Max who’d never directed? Max who still, years later, couldn’t get a job outside the RSF? Max the reformed drunkard? Max the Fuckup, the Marvelous Wreck, as Co-Artistic Director?

Ha. It is to laugh
. He sipped his iced tea, the sweet sticky booze smell of the bar burning his nostrils like a bad memory. He had a new sympathy for Isabelle, though. Being stuck, wanting things she couldn’t have, wasn’t suited for anymore.

Isabelle clicked her empty drink against the bar surface like a glass drum. “Oh, don’t worry, Maxim. I’m stuck and stuck good. Judith’s not working out quite the way I’d hoped. She didn’t used to be such a bitch to the actors.”

“She’s not Rita.”

“Ha. No. I’m also a little worried she’ll get up to her old tricks again. Do you know she used to—” As if realizing who she was talking to, Isabelle broke off and shot him a shifty glance.

Forgetting her martini was all gone, she tried to take a drink, then stared at her empty glass as if it had betrayed her.

“Hi, Ma!” Tierney said, slinging an arm around Max’s and Isabelle’s shoulders. “You’ve brushed off the mothballs, I see. But aren’t you scared you’ll turn to dust in the sunlight?”

Isabelle spun on her bar stool, tottering a little. “Honey lamb! Baby doll!”

Tierney reared back and stared at Max. “How many has she had?”

“Two.”

“Huh. Usually takes four before the endearments start.”

Judith appeared, her cheeks shinning, a broad grin on her face. She rounded on Isabelle and gripped her by both shoulders. “Isa, they have a piano here. We must sing together. We must. It’s been
ages
.”

Isabelle’s eyes went wide, and she flapped her hands in a gesture of negation. But Judith locked her arm through Isabelle’s and towed her to the piano. Max covered his mouth with his hand, hiding a laugh at Isabelle’s horrified expression.

Tierney jabbed him in the back. “Any good dirt from Ma?”

“Nope.” He didn’t think Tierney would react well if she found out how close her mother had come to selling off her birthright. Besides, Isabelle seemed to have abandoned that notion.
Thank God
.

The smell of cigarettes coming from Tierney’s hair grew stronger as she leaned around him to reach the bar, and Max perked up. If Tierney had just been outside for a smoke break, then where might Nicola have wandered off to in the meantime? Max stretched his neck, craning around, scanning the crowd. No sign of Nicola.
Damn
.

“I can’t believe Judith got Ma to sing.” Tierney slapped the bar to order a drink. “A screwdriver, my good man!”

A tinkling flourish on the piano made Max peer over to see Judith and Isabelle arrayed together on the piano bench about to launch into “Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better.”

Max stifled a groan. “Tee, I’m out until the show tunes are done.”

She was busy taking a long swallow of her doctored orange juice, but she waved her understanding. Max plunged into the crowd as Judith and Isabelle sang—and he collided with Nicola, who’d come up behind him when he wasn’t paying attention.

Max caught her arm to keep her from tripping, and she grinned. Her mouth moved, but Isabelle and Judith had launched into a dueling chorus of “No, you can’t!” and “Yes, I can!”

Max leaned closer to hear Nicola over the music.

“—would be so crowded!” Her lips brushed the skin of his ear as she said it, and he had a sudden visceral memory of her teeth biting his earlobe, her breath hot in his ear.

He swallowed and leaned nearer to her, pitching his voice so she could hear over the singing and the crowd without him yelling. “The power of free drinks.”

Nicola grabbed his shoulder to bring him to her level. “The need for some brown-nosing.”

Her hands lingered on his shoulders, and the touch triggered another gut punch of a memory: her hands grasping his shoulders, her nails raking over his skin.

And him deep inside her, pushing in, filling her. Hot. Wet. He held up his finger for her to wait, then reached back and took a slug of his iced tea, even as he wished for something so very much stronger.

Nicola tilted her head to the side, her pale brown eyes narrowed in question.

“Thir-stee.” He over-enunciated the word so she could read his lips over another rousing chorus of
can’t/can
from Isabelle and Judith.

Nicola gazed at her feet. As he was beginning to writhe in unease, she opened her mouth to speak.

Her timing sucked, though. Judith and Isabelle were wrapping up their song, belting out the final chorus in their dueling number. They finished, and everyone applauded uproariously. They were the two artistic directors, so what else was a bar full of actors going to do?

Isabelle waved everyone to silence, then grinned, her cheeks glowing. “Thank you, thank you. But let’s keep the entertainment going.”

A cheer went up, signaling the affirmative. She was the artistic director, they were all her actors: what else were they going to do?

Max indulged in another long swallow of tea, finishing the drink. He signaled the bartender to pour him another. Nicola raised her eyebrow but said nothing. Then her eyebrows climbed into her hairline as she saw the bartender was pouring him iced tea.

Max shot her an annoyed glance. “I told you, Nic. I don’t drink anymore.”

“Now,” Isabelle said, shifting her eyes back and forth, her mouth curving with mischief. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but
I
think it’s been far too long since we had a Sonnet Faceoff.”

“Oh shit.” Max slammed his tea down and dropped his head to the bar.

“What?” Nicola asked, shaking his shoulder.

Isabelle said, “Abe, Lachlan,
Max
. Get your asses up here!”

“What’s a Sonnet Faceoff?” Nicola asked, her breasts pressing against his body as she leaned on him.

To keep his incipient boner from making an appearance, and to get away from the sticky surface of the bar, Max straightened. “It’s something we got into during
King Lear
. Abe played Lach’s and my father. We three all had a lot of scenes together. Abe told us a story he heard about JFK and Richard Burton having a contest, trying to see who could recite more sonnets. In our boredom, we three wanted to see if we could do it. It was just a way to pass time between breaks. But then other people joined in, watching. You know how this shit starts when you get bored backstage. And now it’s my go-to stupid human trick. Whether I like it or not.”

“Max, up here!
Now
.” Isabelle bellowed, pointing to him with an accusatory finger, then turning her hand over to make a
come-along
gesture with that same finger. “Bring the book with you.”

“Fuck my life.” Max turned and received the thick blue book of
Shakespeare’s Complete Works
the bartender handed him.

“They keep that behind the bar?” Nicola asked.

“It’s a bar for actors. What makes you think having
The Complete Works
is optional?”

Nicola laughed, and he carried that happy sound along with him in his heart as he made his way toward the stage.

“I’m already pissed, Isa! This isn’t fair,” Lachlan protested, sounding extra British. He swaggered onstage nonetheless, his trademark smirk wide enough to split his face. He sat on the stool Judith set out for him and shot Max a quick wink.

Abe staggered onstage too, wiping his bulbous nose on one sleeve. The character actor tilted sideways, nearly falling from his stool when he sat.

Max reached out and caught Abe by the sleeve, righting the older man and keeping him from falling. Abe nodded his thanks, but his eyes were heavy-lidded. His head seemed to keep right on nodding even after Abe glanced away from Max.

Max sucked in a breath through his teeth.
Shit
. Abe was drunk already. This contest was going to be between Max and Lachlan, then.

Judith sat dead center at the foot of the small stage, smirking at him from one of the tables. The Sonnet Faceoff was supposed to be a silly trick, a rehearsal pastime, a drinking game, but with a sick sense of dread, he realized
everything
counted with Judith.

He hadn’t planned on auditioning for
Henry V
tonight, but if he blew this, if he choked, then he could probably kiss Henry good-bye. And, dammit, he had yet to beat Lachlan in a Sonnet Faceoff.
Ever
.

Isabelle joined Judith at her table in front of the stage and gave Max a little finger wave. Then she licked her thumb and opened to the sonnet section of
The Complete Works
. She paused, deciding, then said with her crisp, carrying soprano, “Please finish this sonnet. ‘Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck…’”