Page 1 of Somebody To Love

Chapter One

“What in the hell are we looking at?” Dana asked me. She was clearly bewildered by the billow of fog in front of us courtesy of the fog machines placed strategically around the small, darkened theatre. And then there were the pyrotechnics that scared me every time a flame flared up a bit too close for my comfort. I kept patting my hair and sniffing the air, hoping a strand or two hadn’t caught on fire. And of course, there were the stage performers who went from sprouting poetry to doing back flips across the stage. Frankly, I didn’t know what was going on.

“Clearly, it’s art, Dana,” I said, hiding a smile

She frowned while her eyes stayed glued on a performer who was now stripping off his clothes in the middle of the stage while doing some sort of odd interpretative dance.

“Art? It looks like someone tried to recreate a Circque de Soleil performance but hired a bunch of high street artists.”

That’s exactly what it looked like as I watched one of the performers belly crawl his way across the stage. That performer was my boyfriend, Jerry. I had no idea why he was crawling across the stage, but I hoped it was part of the performance otherwise it would just be weird. Who was I kidding? ALL of this was weird.

“It’s all very theatrical.” I paused trying to come up with the right words. “It’s supposed to be confusing… you know? Because it’s so profound.”

“It’s not profound. It’s dumb.”

She was right. I smothered a giggle as I looked at Dana, my best friend since college. She was right, it was stupid, but I was trying to do my best to be supportive of Jerry.

He was an acrobat. A freelance acrobat he told me, and this was his first starring role in a theatre company which he co-owned with his best friend. I didn’t know if acrobats had “roles” per se, but I knew this was really important to Jerry. And there was that little known fact that I had invested in his theatre company which was strangely doing really well. Before becoming a freelance acrobat, Jerry had been an accountant. I was pretty proud of him for pursuing his passion instead of doing the basic nine to five grind. I liked men who were different and as I watched Jerry, now wearing only his undies dancing across the stage like a Vegas stage girl, I couldn’t have been prouder.

There must have been a look of pride on my face because I caught Dana staring at me with a look of bewilderment on hers.

“What?” I said even though I knew where this conversation was headed.

“I just don’t understand your taste in dudes, Piper.” She shook her head and then gestured at Jerry who was now doing handstands which wasn’t very flattering given that all his goodies kind of fell down south in that position.

“Can’t you just date an accountant or a school teacher?”

I made a face. “Jerry was an accountant. Operative word: was. He was bored to death. And a school teacher? Please.”

I realized I shouldn’t have been so dismissive in my reply once Dana shot me an annoyed look.

“Carter’s a school teacher, well at least he was. Remember? So, you’re saying your other best friend is boring?”

Carter was Dana’s husband. The three of us had gone to college together and had been best friends all four years. Carter and Dana had always had a crush on each other, but they hadn’t gotten together until years after college. And now they were happily married and had a total of three kids. One set of twins, who I think were toddlers or preschoolers now. I couldn’t really tell—all kids looked alike to me. I could never tell one age from another. I frequently mistook six-year-olds for three-year-olds and vice versa.

And then there was my niece, Meredith, Dana’s oldest daughter from her first marriage to my brother. Meredith was an absolute delight. I had loved that kid since I’d first laid eyes on her. They were just one big happy family: Dana, Carter, Meredith, and the twins. When I say that Dana and Carter were happy, I mean ecstatically happy. Dana was like a new person in comparison to who she’d been while married to my brother, Tom. The only good thing that had come from my best friend marrying my brother was my niece Meredith, otherwise her marriage to Tom had been a waste of Dana’s youth.

I felt that Dana had finally found herself and I was so proud of her for following her heart instead of her head. I never followed my head when it came to romance and I was fine. Just fine.

Finally, the lights came on and sporadic, hesitant applause sounded across the theatre as the audience exchanged confused looks. I owned one of those confused looks because I wasn’t sure if the show was over or if this was some sort of intermission. They had an intermission earlier which had caught all of us by surprise because it included someone reciting poetry on stage which was part of, but not really part of the act. To be honest, it has just been weird. The show had only been interesting because we had no clue what was going to happen from one scene to the next.

Dana, upon noticing that the show was indeed done, stood up happily and made her way to the exit. I trailed behind her trying to keep up. A group near me murmured in excitement about how much energy and pizazz the show had. I figured they were art critics because, to be honest, the show kind of sucked to everyone but art critics.

When I caught up to Dana, she was shaking her head as if she couldn’t believe what she had just seen. “Maybe I’m a cultureless soul but give me Netflix over that any day.”

“Dana, come on. You have to admit it was interesting.” I had to defend my boyfriend, right? Even though it sucked?

“Interesting in the way that decaying vegetables are interesting. Like when you find a rogue decaying vegetable in your refrigerator and you say to yourself, ‘Is that a furry carrot or just a new form of mold?’”

“Are you comparing my boyfriend’s show to mold?”

She thought about it and then said decisively, “Yep, I guess I am.”

I reached out and tossed an arm around her shoulder. “That’s why you’re my best friend. I can always count on you to be painfully honest.”

“I do my best.”

“Don’t I know it. Let’s get a drink.”