Page 55 of Footlights and Forever

Dylan tugged at my sleeve gently. “Hey listen, I’m going to go get myself another drink and then maybe go mingle. You talk with these guys and come find me later?”

I really hadn’t planned on leaving his side at all tonight, but this seemed important and something I definitely wanted to hear, considering the wide smiles plastered on the faces of my castmates.

“Are you sure?” I asked him,. pulling him slightly out of earshot of the others.

“Yes, I’m sure, now go be a big star.” He smiled, pulling me down to kiss him. I watched as he disappeared into the growing crowd, my eyes darting to the empty spaces to try and catch a final glimpse, but to no avail. The venue must now have been at max capacity, with music throbbing from speakers on the far walls and right in front of the DJ booth giving an almost heart-pounding sensation in my chest.

“See, he is fine.” Marge waved as I turned back to the group. “Now Mitchell, why don’t you tell our Austin here the big news.”

“Well,” Mitchell clasped his hands together excitedly and rubbed them together, “opening night was more of a successthan we ever could have imagined.” His wide grin grew impossibly wider by the second, giving him an almost vampiric quality in the strobe lights emanating from the back of the booth.

“How so?” I saw Lisa almost dancing on the spot as Teddy threw an arm over my shoulder.

“Well, the bigwigs over at Filmflix came to see your performance tonight, and they were very impressed.” Marge squealed and covered her mouth with her hands. “So much so that they want to fund the rest of the run.”

“No way!” I gasped. I turned to Christina, who nodded excitedly.

“Not only that, my boy,” Mitchell leaned forward and rested a hand on my shoulder, “but as soon as the run is over, they want to turn our little play into a Filmflix movie!”

“Holy shit,” I smiled at Lisa, pulling her into a tight hug, “I need to go tell…”

Madge laid a hand on my shoulder. “Austin, we have a town car waiting just outside the back.” She gestured to the door just off to the left. “They want to see you all now.”

“What like now, now?”

“Yes Austin,” Mitchell laughed, “right now. The executives over at Filmflix are having some kind of function at The Rainbow Room and sent word that they wanted to meet with you all right away.”

The Rainbow Room was a private function event at the Rockefeller Plaza which, from the venue we were currently at, would only take about ten minutes to get to, eight if the driver knew what he was doing and what roads to avoid. I looked across the room to see whether I could spot Dylan, the sea of bodies now obscuring anyone more than a few feet away. “Okay I just need to go tell…”

“Dylan?” Marge waved dismissively at me. “He will be fine, I’m sure he will understand.”

“I’m not leaving my boyfriend in the city alone, Marge.” I left no room for discussion as she rolled her eyes so hard I was worried they might roll out the back of her head. She started to say something else when Mitchell rested a hand on her forearm.

“Of course you are right, Austin.” He put himself between me and Madge, throwing a warning look over his shoulder. “I would never expect you to just abandon him, but we have no time to waste here.”

I shrugged my shoulders and refused to move until I had Dylan with me. “Well, I’m not just going to leave.”

“Austin, we need you in that car right away.” Mitchell’s voice warranted no discussion either. “But we will make sure that Dylan is told what’s going on and gets home safe.”

“But…”

“I’m sure he wouldn’t want you to miss out on another opportunity, Austin.” Madge muttered pointedly.

There was a familiar tug in my gut as I watched Teddy and the girls move to the back of the club towards the exit. Madge might be a total bitch, but a small part of me agreed with her that if there were no Dylan, it would have been me leading this play and it would be me going to meet with studio executives about leading a show on the leading streaming platform in the world, rather than just being a supporting actor. I pushed down the resentment and nodded my head quickly at Mitchell.

“Make sure he knows I had no choice.” I cast one last look across the room to see if I could spot him, again to no avail. Mitchell assured me once more, before ushering me to the back of the room and into the car that whisked me and the others into the New York City night.

Chapter 19

“Truth is everybody is going to hurt you: you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for.” – Bob Marley

Dylan

This motherfucker, I thought to myself as I stood in what I suspected had to be the longest queue for the bathroom in human history. I was standing behind four people who were also waiting impatiently in the queue, for one of only two bathroom stalls in the whole building. One had been occupied forever, it seemed, While the remaining bathroom that had been keeping the queue moving previously was now inhabited by a twenty-something blonde girl who seemed to believe that the bathroom stall was now hers alone. She had been calling her friend, who was standing at the front of the queue, in and out of the bathroom for the past ten minutes to scream about how ‘wicked hot’ the venue was, while simultaneously shouting in an aggressively Bostonian accent about her boyfriend Ricky, who by all accounts was a ‘fucking bastard and he can jump off the pier if he thinks he is getting any more of this pussy, no suh!’.

To distract myself from pissing my pants, I pulled my phone out of my phone and scrolled down my contacts to type out a message.

Me: I’m standing alone in line waiting for a bathroom in the city at some actors’ party. Is it okay if I tit punch the drunk woman currently making it a home away from home?

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