Wish Upon a Star (18 page)

“Nothing.” I snatched at the business card.

“‘Nothing’ doesn’t make you blush. What is it?” She glanced at the card. “Timothy Brennan? Is that Timothy, the raspberry guy? You carry his
card
with you?”

I squirmed. “I told you. We were talking about his landlord problems when you called last night. I was frantic, so he gave me his card. He wanted me to let him know what happened with Justin.”

“Erin!” Amy turned my name into a two-act drama of disappointment, disillusionment and family tragedy.

“What?”

“I thought we had an agreement. You told me that you were totally on board with the Master Plan. I conceptualized a whole new future for you!”

“I
am
on board! Just because I talk to a friendly neighbor doesn’t mean he’s my boyfriend!” I heard the shrill note of protest in my voice, and I fought to keep from flashing on the memory of Timothy’s lips on mine, of his gentle hand at the small of my back as he helped me into the taxi. “I’m allowed to talk to a guy, Amy! The Master Plan isn’t the same thing as entering a convent!”

“Fine,” she said, but I knew that look in her eye. I’d seen it for years—whenever she thought that she was gaining the upper hand, that she was right, that she was in charge. In control. She shoved the business card across the table. “Call him.”

“What?”

“If there’s nothing going on between the two of you, then call him. Right now.” And then she warned, “I’ll know if you’re lying!”

I rolled my eyes in exasperation as I glanced at the huge clock on the far wall of the cafeteria. It was ten in the morning. What was the chance that Timothy would even answer his phone? He had to keep late hours, didn’t he? Closing up the restaurant after all his customers had left? His phone had to be safely shut off this early in the morning.

Forcing myself not to flinch under Amy’s watchful gaze, I whipped out my cell and punched in Timothy’s number. I wanted to invent an automatic messaging machine for callers to use, so that they could avoid anyone picking up on the other end of the line.

He answered on the first ring. “Brennan.”

Just my luck.

“Timothy,” I said, trying to mask my surprise. “This is Erin. Hollister. From the restaurant. And the Bentley.”

“You’re the only Erin I know,” he said, and I could picture his easy, feline grin spreading across his unshaven face. “How’s your nephew?”

“He’s fine,” I said. “Better than fine, actually. It’s like nothing ever happened.”

“That’s great!” He sounded truly happy for me, almost like he’d stayed up late, worrying about my family drama. Stayed up late, as I had with Teel.

My lungs suddenly seemed too small to breathe for my body. My palms started sweating, and I flashed again on the feeling of Timothy’s lips against mine. His kiss had been so different from Teel’s. He hadn’t sparked passion, hadn’t set off a chain reaction of desire, of frustration, of Master Plan justification. Instead, his lips had seemed familiar, comfortable, comforting. Now, his voice on the phone was warm as he said, “I know how worried you were.”

Before I was aware that Amy had moved, she snatched the phone out of my hand. I bit off a shriek of protest, but she merely gave me a superior smile as she tapped the device against the table before settling it beside her ear. “Whoops,” she said. “My sister just dropped her phone—sorry about that. Who is this?”

“Amy!” I grabbed for the cell, but my sister leaned back in her chair, effectively keeping it out of reach. She’d won every game of keep-away we’d ever played as kids. I hated the gloating smile that spread across her face—I knew it well, from the days when all my favorite Barbie dolls had been imperiled.

Master Plan,
Amy mouthed at me, before she exclaimed, “Timothy! Erin has told me so much about you!”

“Ame,” I warned. I hated my big sister. I hated the way she ruined everything for me. I hated her stupid Master Plan, and I hated—

“I would
love
to see your restaurant.” Amy smiled the entire time she was talking. “Maybe this weekend? Saturday night? That would be wonderful! Oh, no, I’ll bring Justin along. He’s great. No, there must have been some misunderstanding, or he’s some sort of medical miracle, or—”

“Amy!” I said through gritted teeth as I finally succeeded in prying my phone out of her hand. She was laughing at me as I said to Timothy, “I am so sorry! It’s me again. My sister is insane.” I glared at Amy, who merely widened her eyes into perfect circles of innocence.

He laughed. “It sounds like she’s just blowing off some steam. You both must be exhausted.”

I flashed on the bed in the on-call room, on the feeling of Teel curled up around me. The memory felt like a betrayal, like I was lying to Timothy even as I continued our conversation under my sister’s highly amused gaze.

But that was absurd. I didn’t owe Timothy anything. I wasn’t involved with him—with him or anyone else. That was the whole beauty of the Plan, wasn’t it? It kept things simple?

I didn’t know what to say, how to answer. I must have stammered out something remotely appropriate, though, because Timothy said, “I’ll let you go. Bring Justin and Amy in on Saturday. I look forward to meeting them.”

“Sure,” I said helplessly. “We’ll be there.”

“Take care,” Timothy said, and something about the way the words resonated made it sound like he was serious, like he meant more than just a platitude.

“You, too,” I said, flashing one last time on the chivalrous way he’d handed me into my cab. Not that I’d needed him to. Not that I’d asked for any man to come rescuing me. I was committed to the Master Plan—a simple fact that I would prove to my doubting, conniving, evil, manipulative sister.

I snapped my phone closed. “You bitch!” I said to Amy.

She laughed. “Come on. It’ll be fun.”

“You’re not really going to come, are you?”

“I’ve run out of ideas for Super Soldier Saturdays. Taking a field trip to the city will be just the thing for Justin.”

“But you’re the one who made me commit to the Master Plan! You’re the one who told me I need to take things slowly!”

“Exactly. And now I’m going to check up on you. Make sure that everything’s on the up-and-up.”

I recognized Amy’s tone of voice. That was the military wife and mother who had decided to go to business school instead of meekly moving to her husband’s base. That was the big sister who knew precisely how hard to yank my chain. Desperate, I reached for the only weapon I could think of. “Aren’t you worried that it might be too much for Justin? I mean, after this whole hospital stay and everything?”

Of course she saw right through me. She always could. “It’s four days away. By Saturday, Justin will be ready to compete in the Olympics.”

Despite myself, I smiled. Amy might be a suspicious, double-crossing shrew of an older sister, but it was much better to see her laughing than to watch the utter despair I’d witnessed the night before. “We should get back up there,” I said. “He’s going to think we’ve abandoned him.”

Amy nodded her agreement, and she led the way back to Justin’s room. We arrived to find my nephew sitting up in bed, pointing at a sheet of paper and ordering Teel, “No! Draw it the right way! Make Soldierman’s cape fly out behind him!” His breakfast tray sat on the nightstand, every bite of pancakes eaten. His orange juice and milk had both been finished, as well.

Teel twisted his handsome features into a grimace as my nephew pounded on the paper. “Justin, I’m a doctor, not an artist!”

Justin giggled. “You can draw it! Draw Soldierman right!”

Amy reached over and ruffled her son’s hair. “What’s the magic word?”

“Please?” Justin whined, spreading the single syllable over his best angelic smile.

Teel rolled his eyes in fake exasperation and started to sketch a flying soldier. Amy nodded at the handiwork. “That’s great, Dr. Teel,” she said. “It’ll be perfect to put into our notebook on Super Soldier Saturday.”

Suddenly, I knew what she was going to say next. I could hear the words spinning through her thoughts before she could voice them. I opened my mouth to protest, ready to explain that Amy was wrong, that Amy was nuts, that Amy was absolutely not to be trusted under any circumstances.

But she spoke before I could. Looking at Teel with perfect mock innocence, she said, “Dr. Teel? Maybe you’ll join us on Saturday. We’re all getting together for dinner at a restaurant in New York, one of Erin’s favorite places.”

Justin’s face lit from within. “Really? We get to visit Aunt Erin in New York City?”

“Really,” Amy said with a broad smile. I barely resisted the urge to glare at her, smothering my annoyance only because Justin would never understand. And Teel might understand too much.

Justin clutched at my genie’s sleeve. “Oh, please? Will you come to New York with us? Please, Dr. Teel? Please?”

Teel laughed at my nephew’s enthusiasm, shaking his coat free as if Justin were an overly exuberant puppy with a chewing problem. The motion made his tattoo flash, but I seemed to be the only person in the room who was aware of the orange-and-black ink. Teel looked from Justin to Amy before settling his gaze on me.

I wasn’t sure what he saw on my face. I didn’t think that he could actually read my mind. I was pretty confident that I’d have to say something out loud if I wanted to derail the looming disaster of his joining us at Garden Variety. I’d have to tell him flat-out “no” in front of Justin, in front of Amy.

And I just wasn’t up for the fight. Not with my sister looking on, measuring me closely to see if I truly was committed to the Master Plan. Not with Justin pleading for a trip that had more subtext than his prepubescent brain could ever imagine.

Teel clearly interpreted my silence as permission. He turned to Justin and said gravely, “Sure, Justin. I’ll come to New York.”

I gave Amy a saccharine-sweet smile. “I can’t wait,” I said.

Her beaming response nearly blinded all of us. “You’ll see, Erin. This is going to be a classic win-win. We’re all going to have a wonderful time!”

She waited until Teel bent back over Justin’s drawing before she mouthed a secret message at me:
The Master Plan! You’ll be fine!

THREE HOURS LATER, I stumbled into rehearsal, feeling completely hungover. It wasn’t just because of my scant sleep the night before. It wasn’t just that I had eaten a bunch of hospital food for breakfast. It wasn’t even the thought that my sister was doing her best to test my commitment to the life reorganization plan I’d voluntarily agreed to implement, even though it went against every fiber of my character.

It was the combination of all those things, steeped in the low-grade, recurrent misery of knowing that I should be the person standing front and center at rehearsal. I should be performing the role of Laura Wingfield, using my new-wished skills of singing and dancing to evoke all of the passion, all of the drama, that
Menagerie!
could bring to satisfied Broadway audiences.

Instead, I was stuck at the back of the rehearsal room, my feet up on the seats in front of me, my script tucked in by my side as I leaned over and exchanged snarky comments with Shawn.

A week into rehearsal, Martina Block still hadn’t caught on to the key concept of our show. She continued to insist that Laura should be Big! And Dramatic! And Exciting! Every Single Moment She Was Onstage! Martina refused to accept that the brilliance behind Ken Durbin’s concept was the
transition,
the way that Laura changed from a shy little mouse in the spoken-word scenes into a fully realized, completely emotionally mature woman in the show’s musical numbers.

Martina’s self-centered reading consistently failed to capture the meaning behind a single line of the classic script that Tennessee Williams had crafted. She utterly ignored the traditional Laura, the retiring young woman who was so incapacitated by her anxiety that she could not work in a traditional office. Instead, over and over again, Martina burst into scenes with all the energy and confidence of a reality TV star.

Which, truth be told, she was.

“There we go,” Shawn whispered to me after Martina had growled spiky defiance at her mother throughout her first two scenes. “I think she’s ready for her close-up.”

I choked back a laugh, recognizing the allusion to
Sunset Boulevard
. Shawn had captured the problem with Martina Block in a nutshell. She pictured herself as a big-time Movie Star; she bulldozed her way through scenes, set on one single emotion, as if close-up cameras were waiting to capture her perfectly composed, oh-so-fake facial expressions: Suffering! Angst! Drama!

Shawn started to goad me into another laugh, but I whispered, “Hush!” I barely made my rebuke audible. We were exposed there, in the back of the room. It wasn’t like we could hide in a darkened theater. Not yet. The show wouldn’t move from rehearsal space to the stage for another two weeks.

Fortunately, Ken hadn’t heard Shawn’s snarking or my strangled reaction. Our director paced across the front of the room, the picture of unbridled enthusiasm. His every step bounced, as if he were a barely tethered balloon tumbling in a cross breeze. “Okay, Martina,” he said, his voice surging with excitement. “Let’s go back to the beginning of the scene. I want you to focus on the
atmosphere,
on the mood. Tom is out on the landing, sneaking in late. He’s washed in moonlight. You appear, like a Civil War ghost, pale in your nightgown—”

Martina snapped her script closed, as if she had just won an argument. “About that nightgown,” she said, tossing back the curtain of her luxuriant blue-black hair. “Don’t you think it would work better if Laura wore something short? A baby doll? With maybe some fur along the bottom hem? You know, to make her…what’s the word? Vulnerable?”

Ken barely let Martina finish before he shook his head. “This isn’t the
musical
scene,” he clarified. “This is still the straight dialog.” He sounded like a man explaining basic addition to a first-grader.

But Martina wasn’t six years old. And Ken had already told her precisely the same thing four other times that afternoon.

“I
know
that.” Martina’s voice turned icy. I sat up a little straighter in my chair, waving my hand to silence yet another snide remark that Shawn was about to whisper. This confrontation was going to be good. Martina went on: “I am
suggesting
that we take some
risks
in the straight play. That we lay some
groundwork
for the changes that come out in the musical
numbers
.”