Sandcastle Beach (Matchmaker Bay #3) - Jenny Holiday Page 0,64
fundraising program for the theater,” she said quickly.
“No, hang on. You’re thinking of closing the theater?” His brow knit. “But you love the theater.”
As if that made any difference when it came to the bottom line. “Yes? And?”
“Why do you love the theater?” he asked, startling her a bit.
“That’s a big question.”
“Don’t overthink it. Answer it in a couple sentences.”
“Well, when you go to a play, there’s this moment where the lights go down, just before anything starts, when it’s silent and dark. It’s only a few seconds, usually, but it’s enough for you to think, Wow, this is a total blank slate. Anything can happen. And you buckle up and let it happen.” She smiled. “That moment is the best feeling in the world.”
He nodded as if he’d asked an exam question and she’d answered correctly. “Right. So you can’t quit.”
“Well, as much as I love the theater, I’m not sure it loves me back.”
“Is it really that bad?” he asked quietly.
Yes, it was really that bad. But he didn’t need to know that. She had said too much already. She must be drunk on mashed potatoes.
“You want me to take a look at your grant application?” he asked when she didn’t answer his question.
Okay, whoa. She had been lulled by too much amazing food. She’d let her guard down and allowed herself to consider that maybe, just maybe, Benjamin wasn’t a total jerk. But here he was, being all paternalistic and condescending. Still feeling decidedly blimp-like, she struggled to her feet. “I have written dozens of grants in my time. Why would I need help from you?” Her voice had gone a little shrill.
He blinked rapidly, tilting his head back to look up at her—he was still sitting on the sand.
“Also.” She paused and ordered herself to speak in a lower register. She wanted to convey disgust, not hysteria. “Dude, I am your main competition. You think I’m going to let you see my application?” She scoffed. “Get up. Dinner’s over.”
Chapter Twelve
Rehearsal was going…not super well. They were a week and a half in, and Maya was starting to wonder if they’d be ready for their late-August opening.
“Are you okay?” Maya called when Claudio tripped over his own feet and landed face-first in a box of plastic swords during what was supposed to be a serious funeral procession.
Claudio, who was turning out to be not a bad actor if not the sharpest sword in the arsenal—there was a reason he was doing summer school, she suspected—waved and said, “Yeah, sorry.” But when he stood up, he had a cut on his face, causing Hero to gasp.
“Okay, you need to go clean that up. Everyone take thirty.” She pointed at Holden. “Except you.” He looked up from the phone he already had out. “Let’s you and I work on Beatrice and Benedick’s first scene.” Holden was having trouble getting off book. She wasn’t officially requiring it until next week, but most of the others were doing chunks of some scenes without the script. She was trying to cut Holden some slack. He was new to acting, and even newer to the language of Shakespeare.
They installed themselves in a corner backstage, and she said, “I think you should concentrate your energies right now on a couple pivotal scenes, and this is one of them. This is the first time we see Benedick and Beatrice sparring, and it will set the tone for the rest of their interactions, which are really the heart of the play. The comic relief, too. I’ll start. You ready?” He nodded, and she took a quick, cleansing breath to shift into character. “‘I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick: nobody marks you.’”
He delivered his next line from memory, so that was some progress, though he sounded rather mechanical reciting it.
On they went, wobbly but off book, until he said, “‘It is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you…’”
“‘Excepted…,’” she prompted.
“‘Excepted,’” he echoed, and it took him a while, but he came up with the rest of the line. “‘And I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart: for truly, I love none.’” It started out with the same woodenness, but he got so excited when he realized he was going to make it to the end of the line that he started “acting.” The problem was he was interpreting the line as an angry one. He was yelling at her, which wasn’t right.