Page 3 of Rebel Romeo

“Shit,” I say and silence it once more.

Senator Dorsey points to the door. “Go,” he snaps. “Take it outside.”

Not wanting to argue or cause more of a scene, I slip out the door and answer my sister’s second call. “Mallory, this a really bad time,” I say as I shut the door behind me.

“Dad’s in the hospital,” Mallory says, cutting me off.

My heart turns to ice in my chest. “What?” I gasp. “What happened?”

I suddenly feel like I’m standing at the top of a mountain, with high altitude and very little oxygen. I gulp in as deep a breath as I can, but I can’t seem to fill my lungs.

In the background, my niece, Avery, cries and my sister shushes her. I can almost picture her, baby bouncing on her hip, pacing in the lobby of our small emergency room in Indiana.

“He’s had this cough for a long time,” she says. “Like, a really long time. Mom’s been badgering him to get it looked at. Late last night, he started coughing up rust-colored blood. They admitted him really late and found a spot on his lungs.” Mallory’s voice trembles and I hear the faint sounds of sniffling as she pauses.

“Cancer,” I whisper.

Those fucking cigarettes.

I begged him to quit smoking. For years. Decades even. Mom banned smoking from the house. Forced him to only smoke out in his shed.

“And even then, I’d better not smell a damn trace of nicotine on you when you come inside!” she’d yell. He even bought himself a smoking jacket. Like some sort of villain from the 1800s.

“We don’t know that yet,” Mallory cried. “We don’t know it’s cancer.”

“Like hell we don’t. It’s fucking cancer, Mallory. The sooner we all admit it, the sooner?—”

“We?” Her laugh was a bitter cackle. “In order for this to be a ‘we’ situation, you’d need to actually be here.”

“That’s not fair,” I whisper. “He’s still my dad, too. Even if I’m halfway across the country.”

“Yeah. Well, he’s having a lung biopsy this week, if you want to actually be here for your family.”

This week.

I have rehearsals almost every day. I’m working equity hours, for equity pay now and I don’t have an understudy yet. I didn’t even know if I could take the time off. New shows like this were volatile, even with an ironclad contract, which mine was certainly not considering I’d signed it on a whim without having a lawyer look over it.

Which means I’m pretty sure that if they found a good reason to, they could still replace me. That’s how Sutton Foster got her start. She was the understudy who filled in on a preview night. And she was so good, the original lead got the boot and no one ever looked back.

“When is the surgery?” I ask.

“We don’t know. He’s on some list for the next available surgeon, but they want to do it as soon as possible. Maybe later today or tomorrow.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose and try to think. I could at least afford the plane ticket home now that the show covered my rent for the year.

It’s simply a matter of whether or not Holden will give me a couple days off. “I just—I have to talk to my boss and see if I can take a couple days off.”

“I’m sure the coffee shop can manage without you.”

My heart bottoms out to my stomach. “Mom didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“I’m in a show. A big show. It opens on Broadway in a few weeks.”

The line goes silent for a few breaths and if it hadn’t been for the sounds of Avery playing in the background, I would have thought our line disconnected.

After another second, Mallory finally says, “I didn’t know that was… still happening.”

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