Exit Stage Left Read online

  The director leans forward with a frown. “You’re not Marie St. Claire’s daughter,” he says. I see Bianca’s smile deepen, feel myself shrivel from the association with my mother. “Either audition,” he says, “or get the hell off the stage so someone else can.”

  My feet push me toward the stairs, too fast as I stumble down. I’m already picking up speed, running for the exit, refusing to burst into tears right here, in front of everyone. I manage to hold them in until I hit the street.

  But not before I hear the director calling after me, “Thanks for wasting our time, small town.”

  My hate for Bianca makes me sob into the heat of the New York evening while total strangers step around me, as if afraid my misery is contagious.

  ***

  Chapter Nineteen

  I know I need to stop crying, but I can’t. When I feel hands on my shoulders, I only cry harder. I turn to find Aleah standing there, holding my bag, Miller beside her. They both look so distressed, like this is their fault, I gulp down my tears and shake my head so hard I feel a headache coming on.

  And anger.

  “Screw her.” My voice is louder than I intended. “Screw Bianca and her whole fucking attitude.”

  Aleah’s jaw tightens as she hands me my purse. “I’m sorry, Riley,” she says.

  I shake my head again, light headed from the abruptness of the motion. “Just never mind,” I say. “Never mind any of it.” I back away from them, dashing at the tears on my cheeks with angry fingers. “I let her ruin it, didn’t I? It's my own fault.” I’m such an idiot, a loser. Bianca’s right. No amount of loving the job prepared me for this.

  If I can’t act under pressure, I might as well quit while I’m ahead.

  Miller tries to follow me, but I take another step back, hold out my hand to stave him off. “I just need to go home.” And turn my back on them both. Head down, hands tight around the strap of my purse, I run away like a coward.

  I alternate between hating Bianca and beating the crap out of myself for even trying. In a rush of need, Ian is beside me, my imaginary love keeping pace. I feel his concern for me, his sadness and I embrace it. I just want to crawl into bed next to his phantom and forget the real world even exists.

  By the time my shaking fingers shove my key in the lock, I’m ready to pack my bags and return home to Clifton. Bury myself in Ian’s memory and never surface again. Dad’s right, as much as the truth stabs me in the heart.

  Nothing good can come of this.

  The moment I walk through the door, Aunt Vonda is there, arms open. We hug and I cry on her shoulder. I don’t know how she knows what I need, but she guides me to the kitchen table where a carton of my favorite ice cream and two spoons wait for me.

  I sink into the chair, stuffing in a big mouthful of chocolate and slump over, free hand barely able to hold up my head.

  Aunt Vonda takes her own bite, silent, but so supportive she almost makes things worse.

  “I bombed,” I say at last. Ian’s ghost settles into the chair next to me, silent and watchful. “No, I didn’t even get a chance to bomb. Because I couldn’t get a damned word out of my mouth.”

  Aunt Vonda licks her spoon. “First audition,” she says. “You expected anything else?”

  I stare at her. “What?”

  I wish she wouldn’t laugh. It reminds me of Bianca and her fucking smirk.

  “Darling pet,” Aunt Vonda says. “I remember holding your mother’s hand after her first audition while she sobbed her heart out and drank a pint of scotch to try to make herself forget the disaster.”

  My mother? The director said there was no way I was her daughter. Asshole. What did he know?

  Aunt Vonda sets down her spoon. “Everyone starts somewhere,” she says. “But not everyone keeps going.”

  I nod, wonder at my emotional upheaval, why I’m letting this all hurt me so much. I used to be good at staying level, not showing emotion except with Ian. For Ian. Why is this different? “Because I want it,” I whisper when I understand. Aunt Vonda doesn’t say anything. “I guess I just have to toughen up.” When did I become weak, lost, pathetic?

  Aunt Vonda leans toward me, her hand stopping the spoon from taking another scoop of chocolate to my mouth. “It’s not about being tough,” she says, “or thick skinned. At least, according to your mother.” Mom again. I almost pull free of Aunt Vonda’s grip, but hold still and make myself listen. “It’s about trusting your heart, your passion. And your talent.”

  If that’s the case, I’m totally screwed because I have zippo trust hanging around me at the moment. Only Ian, ready to take me back into our fantasy world and keep me safe.

  I jump when someone knocks on the door, listlessly slurp at a lump of ice cream as Aunt Vonda answers it. I know the sound of his voice, cringing as Aunt Vonda invites Miller inside.

  My eyes won’t lift. I just can’t look at him. Not after I shattered his trust, too. Not with Ian hovering, waiting for me to choose him over a guy who might or might not be in a relationship with the biggest bitch I’ve ever met.

  I know better than to blame Miller. He believed in me and I failed him, failed Aleah.

  I’ll never live this down.

  His hand appears in my vision, taking the ice cream away from me. I look up then, see him turn away from Aunt Vonda and head for the door. After a deep sigh, a quick glance at the chair where Ian’s phantom sits, I follow after Miller, if only for my sugary fix and to say goodbye.

  It’s more than either of those things driving me, but I refuse to listen to the part of me who wants him here.

  The part of me who sends Ian away as I enter the stairwell and climb to the roof.

  We end up perched on the edge of the community picnic table, the heat of the summer night melting the ice cream so fast it’s a mess in short order. Miller takes the spoon from me, helps himself to a part that’s still frozen before handing it back.

  I can handle this silent sitting and eating, allowing the sugar to spark in my veins, his calm, quiet company keeping me from hurling the remains over the ledge in a fit of anger.

  When he finally speaks, he’s the angry one.

  “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised how petty and childish,” for a moment my heart seizes until he finishes the sentence, “Bianca is being.” My pain releases then and I shiver, despite the heat of the air.

  I don’t think I could bear it if Miller thought about me that way.

  “It’s her down to the ground,” he goes on, the spoon making swirls in the remaining slush of the ice cream.

  “Why are you dating her?” I lean forward, elbows on knees, head in my hands. It’s none of my business. I have no right to ask.

  Miller doesn’t answer. I look up, see him scowling, brows drawn together.

  “Who told you Bianca and I were seeing each other?”

  His voice is harsh, angry all over again.

  I kick myself for believing a single word she’s said to me since we met.

  “Bianca did.” I look down again. His heavy sigh tells me I’ve been an idiot about this, too. So what else is new?

  “I’m not even going to deny it,” he says, voice chilly with anger. “Except to say she’s a master manipulator, Riley. I’m only just beginning to see how well she’s played me over the years.”

  “Okay then,” I say, knowing I’m pushing him, but not caring. “Why are you friends, then. Because you are friends, aren’t you?”

  Miller’s tension eases a little, physically settling from tight anger to reluctant acceptance. “The same reason we all are,” he says. I can only see his hands, loose around the spoon and ice cream carton, resting in his lap. “She’s a rising star. And we all want some of what she has.”

  I scowl at the ground. “That’s a horrible reason to be anyone’s friend.”

  Miller’s grunt straightens me up as he sets the carton aside, hands running down his thighs. “You’re right about that,” he says, voice soft and eyes far away.

  All
at once I’m not really upset anymore. Just sad I blew it. Bianca might be a bitch, but this was my failure. So, the question then becomes am I going to let it stop me, or am I going to be the person who keeps going?

  “I don’t know if I can handle this,” I say. “The ups and downs. I’ve cried more the last week than I have since Ian died.” Okay, some of the tears were over Ian, so it’s not fair, really.

  Miller frowns, but doesn’t ask questions. And I realize then I’ve told him nothing of who I was, the girl I left behind in Clifton.

  It’s a natural thing to share with him, then. About how Ian and I were best friends since kindergarten. How I was his only friend through much of his childhood because of the leukemia keeping him out of school. How tough it was for him when his remissions only lasted a few months at a time. When I finally asked him out in grade ten, he wanted to say no, because it wasn’t fair to me.

  The last two years with him, some days good, most of them bad, while he fought with the disease and tried to live his life as if he was healthy. The moment he passed into his last coma. The day he died.

  “This is Ian’s fault,” I say at last. “He made me promise to chase my dream. He loved to watch me on stage. But, Miller, this is so different from what I know. What I did before, it was easy. I never had to audition, not really. It was one show to the next, because we had so few actors in town to draw from. There, I’m a big fish. Here, I’m barely a guppy.” I hug myself. “And my mother, she wanted me to do this, too.” I sink into the scary question rising from my confession. “So, is this what I really want, or am I doing it because of them? To piss off my dad?” I finally admit it. “It used to be fun. It’s not anymore, not the real parts of it. The audition parts and the people I need to impress. Maybe I’m meant to be an amateur after all.”

  Miller doesn’t say anything as I go on, processing my thoughts out loud, something I used to only do with Ian. The reality of it isn’t lost on me as I forge on anyway.

  “Ian was the star,” I say. “Everyone loved him.” I lean back, look at my hands in my lap, picture his in mine, how he would hold on no matter how much pain he was in, how weak he was, just wanting the connection. But my memory doesn’t manifest a full version of Ian and, in a moment or so, my hands are alone. “Ian was so positive, no matter how sick he became. He said I was his star, and loved I found joy in acting.” I feel a hiccup of a sob rising. “But my mother cheated on my father and now I know my dad lied to me about how she died. He’s been an asshole to me my whole life because he’s been trying to punish my mother. It's tainted my love for acting, too.” Why am I letting all of this out in front of him? I’m making no sense, rambling on about things Miller hasn’t a clue about, and yet I can’t stop. “I don’t want to be my mother.” The woman who says she loves you and then runs off with someone else. Dies with that someone else so your father will hate you forever. “And I don’t want to be Bianca.” My gut clenches. “If that’s where acting is taking me, I’m done right now.”

  I’ve run out of things to say, falling into confusion and the multiple broken hearts I’ve suffered in the last little while.

  Miller seems to sense I’m finished because he finally takes my hand, thumb running over the back, resting in my lap as his long fingers curl around mine.

  “The very fact you’re worried,” he says, “is your answer.”

  I look up, frowning. “Because I’m aware of it?”

  He nods, smiles kindly, sadly. “I’m sorry about Ian,” he says. “But he was right. You’re meant to be on stage. Still, you can’t do it for him or your mother.” Miller looks away, but his hand remains in mine. “Thing is, girls like Bianca, they are like that from day one. Start out a bitch, you know?” He shrugs. “And as for your mother, why does her infidelity have to be about being wrong and not about her wanting to be happy?”

  I chew my bottom lip. When I think about it that way, I feel the beginning of forgiveness for my mother.

  “We all have the right to be happy,” Miller says. “Even if it hurts the ones who love us. Because we’re the only ones who matter, Rye.”

  I squeeze his hand. “I put Ian first for so long,” I say, “I’m having a hard time believing that.”

  Miller tugs on my hand, turns me to face him. “I get it now,” he says. “But it’s time for Riley to decide if this is what she wants. To ignore the voices in her head and trust her instincts. Her heart.”

  My instincts want me to hug him. So I do. Miller holds me, cheek against my hair.

  While I struggle to figure out if I even know who I am anymore.

  ***

  Chapter Twenty

  Miller finally releases me. But he’s not done.

  “The first time I saw you,” he says, eyes lighting up as the last of the sun fades behind him, “that night in class. I knew you were a star in the making, Riley.” His lips lift into a smile. “And when you performed, you blew me away. The street scene?” He lets out a rush of air, laughs, brows arching toward his hairline. “I’ve never been part of anything like it in my life. It’s what every actor dreams of.”

  I’m trembling, remembering it, too. “It was awesome,” I say. “But it was one moment.”

  He nods. “That’s all life is,” he says. “Moments strung together. And hopefully more of them are great than shitty.” Miller sits back, resting his weight on his hands, looking out over the city. “I just think it would be a shame to quit before you know if you can find your voice more often than not.” He meets my eyes, his gaze calm and steady. “Bianca may have been born a bitch, but you were born to act, Riley James.”

  I want to believe him. It’s such a crappy moment to doubt myself while he gazes at me with such kindness.

  “Hardship happens,” he says. “Everyone has a story. But how we face what we’ve lived dictates our fate, if we let it.”

  I suddenly realize I have no idea what his story is. I’ve gushed all over him, dumped Ian and Mom and Dad on him and never once asked, though I’ve assumed. Rich kid, from New York, I’ve guessed. And though I know Bianca lied about everything else, I think about what she said about him having a breakdown, drug problem.

  And I want to know more.

  “How did you get into acting?” It seems a safer question than, “What’s your hardship?” or “Are you still a drug addict?” Because I fear one will come across as a challenge and the other an accusation. As if I’m asking him what he could have possibly gone through that was harder than what I went through.

  Miller surprises me with his shrug, the tilt of his head. And his words. “It’s a long story,” he says. “Parents died when I was six. Dumped in foster care.” I stare, heart already hurting for him. “Got into trouble when I was thirteen, jacking stereos from cars, running drugs for local gangs.” Now I’m gaping, shocked. He grins at me. “You don’t have to look so shocked."

  But I am. I really am. Only because now I’m thinking Bianca’s little drug story might be true.

  “Me and three others were tossed in a do-gooder program, dumped into a theater class with a bunch of rich kids.” He sits forward again, stretches out his shoulders, graceful and nonchalant. “Bianca was one of them.”

  Now I’m really floored. “I take it you enjoyed yourself,” I say.

  His teeth flash in the fading light. “The best,” he says.

  Wait, I thought—

  “But, you’re rich,” I blurt before I can censor myself.

  Miller nods like me asking this way is no big deal. “I wasn’t just drawn to acting,” he says. “I loved everything about it. Wrote my first show at sixteen. Sold one at twenty.” He grins. “And another. And another.”

  I ask him for names, and he rattles off three that make me tremble. One of them is a huge Broadway hit.

  He’s like, what. Twenty-four? And he’s already a massive success.

  And yet. I have to ask. “I know she’s a liar,” I say, “but Bianca said you…” How do I come out and say it? “You had a drug problem.
”

  The hurt on his face makes me wince. I reach for his hand, squeezing it as he nods.

  “That part of my life is over,” he says. “Next time, ask her if she ever really knew me at all.”

  That sounds like a strange thing to do, but Miller is moving on and I’m not about to push him.

  “I got tired,” he says. “Stopped writing.” His hands turn around themselves. “I wanted to act again, instead of being pressured to write.” Miller grins at me. “Until I met you. You inspired me to tell stories again.” That’s the second time I’ve heard someone say I’ve been their inspiration in the last two days. It makes me blush. “I’m taking my time,” he says. “But I’m loving writing again. Because of you.”

  I don’t know what to say. He doesn’t give me the chance to talk anyway.

  “Here’s my point,” he says. “If I’d let my fears about pursuing my dreams to act stop me, I wouldn’t have been doing something as benign as ‘going home to Clifton.’” I shudder, nod. “I’d be in a gang, or strung out on drugs or dead. Instead, despite the hate from the rich kids, the fights I went through to break out of the life I was living, I kept going. And I’m alive, well, and on this rooftop tonight.” He leans toward me. “With you.”

  I kiss his cheek on impulse, the rough stubble prickly on my skin.

  “So I’m being a total idiot,” I say.

  Miller shakes his head. “No, Riley,” he says. “You’re being human. If this was supposed to be easy, more people would do it.”

  “Thank you for being honest,” I say. “For sharing your story.”

  “You, too.” He bumps my shoulder with his. “But the only person you should really be grateful to is you.”

  My heart is swelling open. I feel the draw of him. My need to kiss him, not just on the cheek, while my guilt over Ian fades. Now I know Bianca was never in the picture, my desire to be more than just friends returns with so much attraction behind it I feel myself flush.