Page 2 of The Dramatic Life of Jonah Penrose
Edward cleared his throat. “Um, yeah, I know, you told me. It’s amazing, Jonah, well done, again.”
Jonah blinked, his brain still not working with the tequila still swimming through his bloodstream. He expected more, a little enthusiasm at least; Edward sounded like he’d rather grate his ears off than talk with him. “I thought you might want to... did you want to get lunch later? To celebrate?”
“Jonah.” Edward sighed. “We talked about this last night.”
They did? Of course they did, or Edward at least spoke to the hyped-up and incoherent Jonah who was definitely not the hungover and filled-with-regret present Jonah. “Yeah, I mean, yeah of course we did.”
“You don’t remember.”
Jonah pinched the skin between his eyes and sucked in a sharp breath. “I do, yeah, of course I do.”
“Then why are you calling asking me to go to lunch?”
Silence.
“Fuck,” Jonah murmured. “I’m sorry. We all went out afterward, and drinking ensued. Last night was a complete blur, and I promise you I’m paying for it now.”
“So, you don’t remember?”
Jonah groaned and flung himself onto the bed, a poor choice given the movement made the taste of tequila work its way up his throat again. “Did you tell me you have a sudden aversion to eating lunch?”
“No,” Edward said, his voice far away again, underwater, out of reach. “Jonah. I’ve met someone else.”
The bed creaked as the ceiling spun above him. Someone else. He must have misheard him.Someone elsedidn’t compute. There could be nobody else.
“What?”
“I’m sorry.”
“No. Wait. What? Someone else? What do you mean bysomeone else? As in, what, a person?”
“Yes, Jonah, a person.”
“When would you... how did you... wait, no, Edward, come on, let’s talk about this. You can’t... we can’t, Edward, please, we can figure this out.”
“There’s nothing to figure out, Jonah.” His voice lacked even an ounce of empathy. “I’ve met someone else. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be, okay? I will come over this afternoon to pick up my stuff and leave my key. Relationships end, Jonah. We had a good run.”
Jonah bit down on his lip, the taste of blood kissing his tongue and mingling with the remnants of alcohol from the night before. Tears caught in his throat, and the only words he could muster were, “But I’m an Olivier Award–winning actor.” The protest came out weak, a pathetic plea mixed with a poor attempt at something resembling indignation. The spring outside the window lost its romance, it lost the taste of bubble gum and lemon curd as the sky turned from powder blue to smoldering ash. Edward said nothing else and hung up the phone, leaving Jonah with a never-ending dead dial tone to haunt him for the rest of the day.
Someone else. It was always someone else.
Two
“In silence we wait, we wait, we wait, for the gates to open and for them to let in their fate.”
—“The Horse,”The Wooden Horse, Act Two
The email came through ten minutes before curtain call. In those precious moments before the theatre turned dark and the audience fell into an excited hush, Jonah usually found himself in the wings just offstage, readying himself for the opening number. However, for the first time since he’d stepped foot in the stunning Persephone Theatre, he didn’t want to leave his dressing room. Flowers were positioned in varying vases on every surface available, interspersed by cards filled with congratulations and the odd box of chocolates. He imagined himself to be a starlet plucked from a film, a bevy of admirers lining up outside his dressing room with gifts. Despite the breakdown of his relationship, he’d never felt so loved, so appreciated. Edward found someone else, he turned his back on Jonah and the romance they’d found with each other, but it didn’t mean the theatre would do the same. He’d glanced at his phone to see another message from his mum, who he eventually spoke to Monday night once he’d successfully nursed his hangover, and three emails waiting to be read.
Jonah’s inbox more often than not became plagued with spam mail and offers from the pizza place down the road from where he lived, a place he frequented far too often but would never admit to. Cheese caused mucus buildup, bad for the vocal cords, apparently, but remarkably good for his soul. Now and then he opened an email from the National Theatre,or an update from one of the many petitions he put his name to when he couldn’t sleep at night. That evening, however, at seven twenty, an email from the producer ofThe Wooden Horse, Colbie Paris, consumed his screen. Colbie, with her frizzy red hair and unnatural height, was considered one of the greatest producers currently working in the West End. Her CPTG—Colbie Paris Theatre Group—had worked on numerous productions, all of them beautiful, her creative vision something to be admired. And it couldn’t be ignored that her money also did a lot of the talking. She sank incomprehensible amounts of money into her shows and expected a return on her investment, which maybe explained the bitter expression always pasted on her face. Colbie seemed to have a rain cloud looming over her at all times, and she wore it like a cloak. Yet, despite her often-frosty demeanor and a pile of awards from her other shows, Jonah assumed her message would contain a plethora of congratulations for the company; seven Olivier Awards were to be celebrated, but so far she had encased herself in silence.
He opened the email and smiled to himself, awaiting the inevitable applause from within. The celebrations never came. Instead, he faced the list of new cast members for the next year, admittedly a small one given most of the company extended their contracts and were staying in their roles. Colbie offered Jonah a contract renewal months ago, his position safe, the rent on his home paid for another year; but knowing auditions took place a few months ago to replace some of the others left him with a deep sense of unease. He ran his finger down the list, pausing on the new names, knowing some of them and recalling their faces, and made a mental note to look up the ones he didn’t recognize. Then he stopped on a name so closely associated with his own he forced himself to read it six times to ensure his brain wasn’t malfunctioning. But no. The name displayed on his screen in miniscule pixels was not a figment of his imagination.
Dexter Ellis.
The heartthrob of the West End. Known for being a super swing before landing his first major role as Fiyero inWicked. He became an overnight star, going from one massive role to the next, until his name was alwayslisted first on show announcements. Some marketing decision saw him named the king of the West End, a pretty big accolade, one Jonah supposed he kind of deserved; the guy seemed to be everywhere. A vocal powerhouse. A dance veteran. He simply oozed talent, and his tireless work ethic clearly paid off with a string of high-profile shows all with his name attached to them. He somehow managed to balance working all hours of the day with a thriving social media career, too, his ridiculous number of followers a testament to his video-editing skills and ability to always look flawless in his photos. But, most importantly, he was the actor who originated the role of Achilles inThe Wooden Horsefour years ago. He took on the role for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and on the pre–West End tour, and for years spouted about how originating Achilles was his proudest achievement. Something tickled the back of Jonah’s throat, the same enclosed feeling he experienced when he discovered his allergy to soy milk during his brief foray into veganism, and he swallowed down the electric ball of anxiety working its way up his esophagus.
He remembered the comments beneath the West End cast-announcement posts forThe Wooden Horseon social media, the ones announcing him as the lead a little over a year ago, and he recalled the rampant assumptions of him tearing the role of Achilles from Dexter’s perfectly formed hands written in screeching capital letters and unhappy emojis. Jonah never stole the role from anyone. If only people knew the string of intense auditions followed by months of silence before finally getting the news he’d been cast, they might understand Dexter bloody Ellis never planned to see the role into the West End.
