AllFreeNovel
Share Us
On April Fool’s Day, Kissy landed the plum role of Maggie in a workshop production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. She danced around their apartment as she broke the news to Fleur. “I’d given up! Then this girl who was in a couple of my acting classes called. She remembered this scene I’d done…I can’t believe it! We start rehearsals next week. There’s no money, and it’s not a big enough production to attract anybody important, but at least I’ll be acting again.”
Once rehearsals began, Fleur didn’t see Kissy for days at a time, and when she did, Kissy was distracted. Not a single hunk passed through their apartment, and Fleur finally accused her of celibacy.
“I’m storing up my sexual energy,” Kissy replied.
The day of the production, Fleur was so nervous she couldn’t eat. She didn’t want to see Kissy humiliated, and there was no way her little fluff ball of a roommate could take command of a heavyweight part like Maggie. Kissy belonged in sitcoms, exactly where she didn’t want to be.
A freight elevator took Fleur up to a chilly Soho loft with clanging pipes and peeling paint. The small stage at one end held nothing except a big brass bed. Fleur tried to convince herself the bed was a good omen where Kissy was concerned.
The audience was made up of other unemployed actors and starving artists, without a casting agent in sight. A bearded guy who smelled like linseed oil leaned forward from the row of chairs behind her. “So, are you a friend of the bride or the groom?”
“Uh—the bride,” she replied.
“Yeah, I thought so. Hey, I dig your hair.”
“Thanks.” Her hair brushed her shoulders now and attracted more attention than she liked, but cutting it felt like a weakness.
“You want to go out sometime?”
“No, thanks.”
“That’s cool.”
Fortunately the play started right then. Fleur took a deep breath and mentally crossed her fingers. The audience heard the sound of a shower running offstage, and Kissy made her entrance in an antique lace dress. Her accent was as thick as summer jasmine. She stripped off the dress and stretched. Her fingers formed tiny claws in the air. The man sitting next to Fleur shifted in his seat.
For two hours the audience sat spellbound as Kissy prowled and hissed and scratched her way across the stage. With dark, desperate eroticism and a voice like dime-store talcum powder, she radiated Maggie the Cat?
??s sexual frustration. It was one of the most riveting performances Fleur had ever seen, and it came straight from the soul of Kissy Sue Christie.
By the time the play was over, Fleur was drained. Now she understood Kissy’s problem in a way she couldn’t have before. If Fleur, Kissy’s best friend, hadn’t believed she could be a serious dramatic actress, how could Kissy hope to convince a director?
Fleur pushed her way through the crowd. “You were incredible!” she exclaimed, when she reached Kissy’s side. “I’ve never seen anything like it!”
“I know,” Kissy replied with a giggle. “Come tell me how wonderful I was while I change out of costume.”
Fleur followed her to the makeshift dressing room where Kissy introduced her to the other female cast members. She chatted with all of them, then perched on a chair next to Kissy’s dressing table and told her another dozen times how wonderful she’d been.
“Everybody decent?” a masculine voice inquired from the other side of the door. “I need to pick up the costumes.”
“I’m the only one left, Michael,” Kissy called out. “Come on in. I have somebody I want you to meet.”
The door opened. Fleur turned.
“Fleurinda, you’ve heard me talk about our brilliant costume designer and the future dressmaker to the Beautiful People. Fleur Savagar meet Michael Anton.”
Everything stopped like a damaged frame of film frozen in a movie projector. He wore an antique purple satin bowling shirt and a pair of loosely cut wool trousers held up by suspenders. At twenty-three, he wasn’t much taller than he’d been the last time she’d seen him, maybe five feet, seven inches. He had shiny blond hair that fell in long waves level with his chin, a set of narrow shoulders, a small chest, and delicately carved features.
Gradually Kissy realized that something was wrong. “Do you two know each other?”
Michael Anton nodded. Fleur reached deep inside her. “This is one of your better moments, Kissy,” she said, as lightly as she could manage. “Michael is my brother Michel.”
“Oh boy.” Kissy’s gaze flicked from one to the other. “Should I play some organ music or something?”
Michel shoved one hand into the pocket of his trousers and leaned against the door. “How about a few notes on the kazoo?”
He carried himself with the languid grace of old money and the assurance of someone born with an aristocratic bloodline. Just like Alexi. But as he gazed at her, she saw eyes as blue as spring hyacinths.
She curled stiff fingers around her purse. “Did you know I was in New York?”
