A new chapter! Heh heh. *grin* :)

A tall, slender woman with reddish hair and sparkling eyes enters the bar and everyone falls silent. She snaps her fingers and the men's chorus jumps up. She snaps them again and Cecil reaches over and places a quarter in the jukebox. Wesley stands at rapt attention, infatuated by the stranger before she even opens her mouth. Toni is clearly not pleased. The woman continues to snap her fingers as the first strains of the song waft into the air.

Ingrid [singing]: "Downstairs at Danny's all-star joint they got a juke box that goes doyt-doyt; the vice is nice, they stay in the back all day, but when the nighttime comes, hey-hey..."

--Ingrid's Funeral, Act I, Scene 3

"Okay, people!" Marie clapped her hands and the chatter died down immediately. She surveyed the array of actors spread out across the stage. They were a motley group, but she would whip them into shape soon enough. "Let's introduce everyone. You know me, Marie Gilkey, I gave you all your jobs. And yes, Christian Gilkey is my grandson. Any problems so far?"

The cast had none. Marie continued. "You will all have to meet with Ms. Greene, the costumer, to get measurements by the end of the day. Over there is Erik on the piano. Dr. Dan is around here somewhere... And of course our house crew, whom you will meet later on, I am sure. Let's meet the cast. Nathaniel, why don't we start with you?"

Nathaniel puffed out his chest and bowed grandly. "Of course, darling Marie. My name is Nathaniel Argentine, and I will be portraying Wesley, the penniless poet." He turned to Satine and took her hand to kiss it. Satine blushed. "Wesley will woo Ingrid, the young songbird, who will fall madly--"

"Okay, next!" cried Christian, who watched Nathaniel carefully as he dropped Satine's hand and winked slyly at her. Damn actors.

"Um, I'm Satine Withe," she said, "and like he said, I'll be playing Ingrid."

Another man immediately swept up next to her, bowing as well. "And I, Sir Harold Zidler, will portray the villain of the piece, the terrible Mr. Irving."

"Yes, try to be less jovial at that, Zidler," snapped Marie. "He's the villain, after all."

"Touchy, touchy," murmured Harold Zidler, and Christian had a flashback to the seventies. Harold Zidler, then 25, and Marie Gilkey, then 49, People Magazine's "It" Couple... God, this was going to be a nightmare. Why on earth had Marie cast her old flame, of all people?

"Ray Lautrec," the next actor volunteered. He stood under five feet tall, Christian knew, but could out-shout all of them, and do it while juggling flaming swords and reciting Shakespeare. Christian's college roommate was, in Christian's opinion, rather of a genius onstage. "I've been cast as Boone Beauregard, the traveling salesman," continued Ray. "And I for one am loving the wonderful family atmosphere we've got going around here..."

"Shut up, Lautrec," said Marie, and turned at the noise of a slamming auditorium door. "Ah, our very own Antonia Araceli. So good of you to join us, Nicolette. You missed warm-ups."

The woman did not even offer an excuse, just sauntered calmly onto the stage and joined the other actors. Christian sunk down in his seat, recognizing her. What a small world. Of all the things he needed right now, having Marie cast the Barbie Doll from the bar as the local reporter was not one of them. Hopefully she wouldn't recognize him--that green stuff had been pretty strong.

Marie quickly ran through the names of the men's and women's choruses, then banished them all from the stage. "We're starting with scene 5 because of certain people's schedules," she said with a pointed look at Satine. "And if any of you care, our lead actress will be at the Three Windmills when she's not here."

"Sorry," Satine whispered, and not for the first time Christian wanted to jump up and defend her--she had another job, so what?-- but that wouldn't be decorous, not now.

They spent the afternoon blocking the 'declaration-of-love' scene, as Christian liked to call it, with Erik sighing and moaning at every turn while the actors tried to sing the unfamiliar lines. It was a Dave Matthews Band medley, and one of Christian's better ideas, he thought. He was being paid to use other artist's music, then he might as well add a little flair of his own, right?

"When the world ends..." crooned Nathaniel near the end of the medley, and Satine answered sweetly from the other side of the stage.

"I'm gonna walk you through the pathless roads..."

"I'm gonna take you to the top of a mountain that's no longer there..."

"I'm going crazy and it's all 'cause of you..."

"It's all 'cause of you..."

Under Marie's watchful eye the pair traversed the stage, drawing closer to each other as the finale neared.

"I'm going under, over you..."

"Over you..."

"Oh so beautiful, and so strange..." sang Satine, and the every male in the place fell in love with her.

"Oh, it was empty until you came..." Nathaniel drew Satine into his arms, and Marie called, "Cut!"

Satine drew away from the leading man immediately, Christian noted with some satisfaction. She was a professional.

"That's enough for tonight," said Marie, dismissing the cast with a wave of her hand. "I'll see you all bright and early tomorrow. Christian." She beckoned her grandson as the cast packed their things and began to escape the rehearsal. "Are you all right?"

Had he been that obvious? "What do you mean?"

Marie Gilkey knew everything, but she didn't often admit it. "Whatever. Go home. Alone, mind you."

"Why would you think otherwise?"

Christian kissed her cheek and fled before she could answer.

"All right, how about this?" Satine asked. She and Christian were on their way up the stairs of their building, she riding piggy-back on his shoulders. Her feet hurt so badly after waitressing and then rehearsal on top of that, she had whimpered, and he'd immediately devised the plan to carry her upstairs without killing himself in the process. "We knock a hole in the adjoining wall," she continued, "and when management asks, we can pretend the doorway was always there."

"I love it!" cried Christian, attempting to unlock his door. "I'll get the sledgehammer!"

She laughed, as she usually found herself doing around him. "Your enthusiasm is infectious, Mr. Gilkey."

"Happy to amuse you as always," he murmured, finally getting the door unlocked. "I live to serve your every need."

Satine observed Christian's apartment from her higher vantage point. "Why do you have a typewriter? Why not get a computer?"

He shrugged, and consequently she fell off his shoulders. "I guess I like how it feels. It's not just an antique, it's...a part of the past. I feel like a real writer when I'm using it."

"Speaking of writing, I meant to ask you..." She was embarrassed to bring it up, but decided to plunge ahead anyway. "I was wondering why the songs in the play aren't original. I mean, I've heard your work and it's amazing, so I just wondered..."

"It's okay." He didn't seem offended as she had feared, only resigned. "The guy who hired me to write the play specified it. They wanted something different--"

"So they decided to recycle?" supplied Satine, and they both laughed. "There's so many questions I want to ask you!" she cried, peeking into the kitchen. "What's your favorite crayon color?"

"Burnt sienna," he replied. "Although I do enjoy orange-red, as well. That was easy. I thought it was going to be a hard question, like what do you want to do with your life."

"What do you want to do with your life?"

"I want to write something that matters to someone. I want to change someone's life with my writing."

"Just one person?" Satine resisted the urge to look through the drawers and turned back to Christian. He stood in the kitchen doorway, watching her. "Not the masses?"

A small smile crept onto his face, and Satine knew somehow that the smile was just for her. "One person would be enough for me."

An awkward moment inevitably followed, in which neither knew quite what to say, though a million things occurred to them. "So, what's your favorite crayon color?" asked Christian.

She grinned, the moment passed. "Cerulean!" she cried. "The blues are the best ones. You can draw everything with blue--the ocean, the sky..."

"Why is the ocean blue?"

"Because it reflects the sky."

"Then why is the sky blue?"

"Because it reflects the ocean."

The conversation dissolved at that point, though the dialogue in Satine's head kept running along the lines of kiss me! Christian approached her rather shyly. "This could get awkward," he said. "The playwright sleeping with the lead actress. Scandals, you know."

"Marie is the one who gave me the job," she replied. "Besides, isn't she your grandmother? And didn't she also hire her ex-lover and your college roommate? You really think we're going to be the problem?"

"Problem?" he asked, gathering her in his arms as Wesley had done to Ingrid. "What problem?"

~*~*~*~