hand through her hair, feeling the grease coat her fingers. “A week. A week, Cass.”
“You backpacked the Appalachian Trail for three months. I’m not understanding the problem here.”
Bree clenched her fist. “I chose to, yes. But right now I’m going through three cans of hair spray a week and tubs of green foundation for this role. Do you know how hard it is to get hair spray and foundation off without water? Do you know how hard it is to get dog drool off without water?” She was starting to pinch her words. Was she on the verge of losing her mind? “That dog’s started following me. He waits for me by the front door. Every day. Like a serial killer.”
“Can we go back to the part where you called this guy handsome?”
Bree kicked at the gravel. “You know who he’s like? Jesse. You remember Jesse.”
Cassie’s sigh was audible above the chopping. “Jesse Hicks? From elementary school?”
“You remember him in music class. The one with all the recorders. And the way he walked around, humblebragging to everyone when he was voted Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.” Bree started to kick at the gravel again but turned at the sound of tires crunching. A Lincoln Town Car was pulling into the lot, and Bree quickened her steps toward the warehouse door.
“In our mock vote during history class?” Cassie continued.
Bree could practically hear Cassie setting the knife down with the delicate touch of a psychiatrist about to explain things to her patient. “Unfortunately, Bree, I don’t recall the fifth grader taunting you with recorders and imaginary careers from twenty years ago. You’ll have to remind me.”
“Don’t you dare pretend you don’t remember,” Bree whispered, quietly slipping through the door. “Okay, Cass. Gotta go.”
She slipped the phone into the hip of her fairy costume as she entered the dark warehouse, her eyes adjusting to the dim lighting. The only brightness came from the makeshift stage in the center of the open floor, where the restless cast fidgeted. Pole-mounted lighting and curtains hanging from portable rods surrounded the stage, making it seem small in the vast space. The warehouse ceiling was at least forty feet high, covered in the kind of material even cell phone signals had trouble penetrating. Though the ceiling was high and vast, the floor was covered. Abandoned props and old sets lay in shadowed corners: racks of armor and medieval frocks, bedazzled flapper dresses, the drooping form of a human-size candlestick. Dozens of costumes lay around one entire section of the building, tulle and lace and polyester strewn about.
In the middle of it all, Evie held pins between pursed lips as she tucked and fitted a glittering skirt around one of the fairies. Evie was a short woman, but her hair alone was a foot tall—a style somewhere between a 1950s twist and an owl’s natural habitat. Her horn-rimmed glasses (without prescription lenses) tipped the picture more toward the owl side of the scale.
Bree paused for a moment to enjoy the view.
“And what are we looking at now?” came a whisper at her side.
She grinned at Theo’s presence but didn’t move.
“Oh, I’m just enjoying watching my roommate turn into a tree,” Bree replied, keeping her position with crossed arms.
He crossed his arms too, a cuff link glinting beneath the low lights.
Together they watched as Evie rose on the tiptoes of her tan ballet flats, in her tan tights, to pin together the extra fabric on the fairy’s shoulder.
Theodore nodded toward the set. “Aren’t you in this scene?”
Bree shrugged. “I’d rather wait for the owl to pop out of her hair.”
For several more seconds they watched.
Disappointed when no nocturnal birds materialized, Bree turned to face him. “What are you doing here anyway? Don’t you have a job to get to?”
By the stage, Stephen tapped on his clipboard with his pen. “Come on, someone work with me. Has anyone seen Mustardseed? I don’t want to move on from this scene until it’s ab-so-lute-ly perfect.”
Theodore’s brows rose with a challenging twinkle in his eye. “Don’t you? Mustardseed?”
Bree met his challenge with a smile, but after several seconds, the pressure became too much. She waved a hand in the air. “Fine. Fine. I don’t see how they could possibly go on without me, but fine.”
She moved around a rack of Elvis and Johnny Cash costumes, popped into Stephen’s view, and hopped onstage. Bree nudged Birdie a few inches over and slipped into her lounging position by a mossy tree.