Page 58 of Cleats and Pumps

My phone pinged me a moment later, and I read the transcribed voicemail.

Hello, this message is for Tommy Sanders. I’m Indi Freemont, agent to Amos Clark. He is asking for you to be in charge of an interview about him and a new position he has taken. If you can give me a call back, I’d like to discuss this with you.

I called my voicemail and listened to it, almost not believing what I’d read. Amos had a new position and an agent I’d never heard of, and he wanted me to interview him for his job?

I quickly called the agent back, but it rolled to voicemail. “Um, this is Tommy Sanders, I just got your message. Let me know when and where.”

I had to wait on pins and needles for over an hour before the agent returned my call. When he did, he was in a hurry. “Hey, I’m in a bit of a rush… but Amos Clark wants you to interview him. Can you come to a rehearsal performance next week? I’ll have my assistant send you the details.”

“Um… I think so… sure,” I said, and before I could say anything else, he thanked me and hung up. What the hell was going on? A rehearsal? What was Amos up to? Oh no, was he doing drag again? Surely not… God, he was really going to throw everything away.

My phone pinged again, letting me know I’d just received an email, I assumed from Amos’s agent. I sighed. Regardless of what he was doing, I owed it to him to be there. Fuck me… That’s the least I could do.

I met Indi, Amos’s new agent, outside of the Majestic Theatre. “Oh, Amos is so excited for you to be here,” he said and shook my hand.

“Um, so what is this all about?” I asked, and Indi shook his head.

“Amos wants it to be a surprise, but he said he’d see you after.”

I sighed. Knowing Amos, this was going to be embarrassing. I had looked up the event, a private showing, most likely for investors and high rollers. Indi had warned me to wear a nice suit or even a tux as it was a fundraiser for some show.

What the hell had he gotten into? All I knew was it was no regular interview. Of course, I was anticipating the man to be decked out in drag. I mean, he did love it, and now that my book was out there waiting to be thrust into the public eye, and he’d been outed as a drag queen anyway, maybe he’d decided to throw caution to the wind.

I walked in and gave my ticket to the usher, who led me all the way down to the front row. I hated the front row. I hated having to look up at the actors and I couldn’t get the entire perspective of the audience’s reactions.

Amos had dragged me to enough Broadway shows when we’d been in college that I’d have thought he would know that. Oh well, it’d been a while since we’d gone to a show together. I smiled at the young man who dropped me off at my seat, then looked around to see if I recognized anyone and did a double take when I noticed the row was full of famous stars.

One or two of them winked at me, and then I realized I was up shit’s creek. “Fucking Amos,” I muttered. What did he have under his belt?

I didn’t have much time to think about it because three guys from the musicalBook of Mormonjumped up on stage and began singing. The audience settled as the three began singing “Hello.”

Despite my nerves, I relaxed enough to enjoy the three of them. They really were amazing. Next, a man and woman came on stage. I hadn’t seen them in the latest version ofLes Misérables,but they were outstanding.

I watched as one amazing performer after another jumped up on stage. Then, an older man came out, to an intense round of applause. “Thanks, all of you, for coming out,” he said to even greater applause.

I was beginning to settle a bit, thinking maybe this was Amos’s way of just making me feel special. This was too much of a big deal for him to try to embarrass me. And these bigwigs would never tolerate him pulling me on stage either. Thank God for small miracles.

I leaned back in my seat and clapped along with the audience as the man talked about the musicals that would be coming back next season. He introduced each of the stars who’d just performed, then told us the ones who were about to come on. “However, we have a special surprise for you tonight. As you’ve all heard already, we’ve decided to introduce you to one of our favorite shows this coming season. We’re not disclosing whatthat musical is until the end of the show, but we have a special performer who’ll be taking the star role, Amos—”

The second the music started, I realized the game he was playing. Amos and I had seen Aaron Tveit and Galvin Greel sing “Take me or Leave Me” on YouTube several years ago, and Amos became obsessed with it. We’d performed it at a talent show and then several times after that people would talk us into performing it impromptu. Hell, it got to where DJs would just start playing, and Amos and I would pretend to be Idina Menzel and Tracie Thoms, especially if there were stairs and a table to climb on.

It was goofy, but we’d had fun with it. Surely he didn’t expect me to perform this with him now though, not in front of this audience. I mean, I sung okay, but I was no Broadway star.

I was relieved when a man accompanied him onto the stage. “Thank God,” I whispered.

The audience screamed when they recognized him. I was shocked such a reserved-looking crowd would even know him, but apparently, these did. Amos started singing and smiled at the guy, then turned toward me.

“Shit…” I heard the woman sitting next to me chuckle. “He’s doing this, isn’t he?” I asked, and she shrugged but smiled.

The guy who was with him walked down off the stage and handed me the microphone. I just sighed. There was no way out of this now. I was too far from the exit to run…

I took the microphone and gestured toward my chair for the dude to sit down, which he did with a smile.

Meanwhile, Amos continued to sing as I climbed up onto the stage and checked my fingernails like I usually did when we came to this part of the song. I did our old routine, just like we’d done in the frat house, not even thinking twice about the audience.

It’d been a long time since I’d done this with Amos, and it brought back good memories… so I didn’t worry so much about whom we were performing this for, mostly letting myself simply enjoy singing with him.

I waved my free hand toward the stage, getting some laughter from the audience as I sang about how I was Amos’s opposite. Not only was this song amazing, and one of my favorite songs inRent, it rang true for us on so many levels.

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