Page 17 of The Dramatic Life of Jonah Penrose
Silence. Jonah waited, not willing to say more, not allowing him to worm his way out of the confrontation by simply not responding. They played phone-chicken with each other, both waiting patiently for the other to make a move until Dexter finally cracked.
“I went to a bar after the show last night and saw one of the guys you talked to on the tube the other week.”
Out of all the responses he could have given, Jonah couldn’t have guessed he would come out with that. “Okay? And you’re telling me that because?”
“He came up to me and just started talking shit about you. Thought you might want to know.”
Jonah paused. Edward surely wouldn’t have anything bad to say about him; Jonah had been a great boyfriend, obviously not great enough to not let Edward’s hands wander, but still pretty good by normal standards.
“What did he say?”
“That you were having an affair with his boyfriend. Apparently, the night you saw them on the tube it all came out. I knew something weird was going on there. Never pegged you as a home-wrecker, though.”
“Wait.” Jonah let out a disbelieving laugh. It couldn’t have been Edward, it must have been Wes who spoke to Dexter. “I wasn’t having an affair with anyone. Edward wasmyboyfriend, that guy was the ‘other man,’ not me.”
“Tomatoes, to-mah-toes.” As he spoke, Jonah could hear another voice in the background, and Dexter gave a laugh. “Anyway, I’ve got to go. Was that all the feedback you had for me? No biting? Nothing about my actual performance?”
“I mean, that technically is a note on your performance, I just—”
“Okay, Jonah, cool, speak to you later.” He hung up. Dexter Ellis hungup on him. Jonah gawped at the phone, his hands trembling. He hated the feelings the man conjured inside of him. Glinda and Elphaba described it best: unadulterated loathing. Only Jonah didn’t know if he was the green witch or the one floating about in a bubble. He wished he could place his anger somewhere other than the center of his chest. Back home when he felt this way he would go to the beach, near the little cove only he seemed to know about, where he could skim rocks and scream at the top of his lungs and it didn’t matter because no one could hear. London couldn’t offer him the privacy he craved. It simply sat back with a bag of popcorn and watched as his personal life went up in flames.
He’d been called in for a meeting with Colbie. The dreaded summons came from Evie asking him to come in an hour early. “An emergency,” she said, “Colbie needs to see you,” the words no actor ever wants to hear about their producer. On his way to the theatre, he convinced himself this was it. He was going to be told his contact wasn’t going to be renewed again; Colbie saw how amazing Dexter performed the night before and now Jonah could kiss Achilles goodbye and go back home to Cornwall next year with his tail between his legs. It didn’t matter how many times he tried to tell himself how ridiculous his prophecy of self-doom seemed, he couldn’t stop the thoughts from growing. As the Northern Line pulled him closer to the theatre, he could feel a weight pushing down on his shoulders. He debated texting Bastien, but his messages to him from the morning still went unanswered, and he guessed Bastien really was as sick as he made out if his phone wasn’t permanently attached to his hand like usual. He could reach out to Omari, but he was likely using his treasured steam-inhaler cup to cleanse his vocal cords somewhere. And Sherrie—well, Sherrie would probably only add fuel to the fire, even if she didn’t mean to.
The Persephone looked glumly at Jonah as he approached. The stage door whined as he opened it, crying out for him to leave, to turn back while his name could still be up in lights and Colbie couldn’t dump a rain shower of bad news onto his parade. Still, his feet moved him forward; he passed his dressing room and walked up the ridiculous numberof stairs all the way to Evie’s office, where Colbie would be lurking. He could feel her presence as he readied himself to knock on the door, hear her voice speaking animatedly as Evie cackled, and he shuddered.
“Come in, come in,” Evie said once he’d worked up the confidence to knock and peeked his head around the door. Colbie sat behind the desk, laptop open in front of her, light illuminating her sharp features and constellation of freckles. She flicked her eyes up to look at him, glasses perched on the end of her nose much like his dad’s used to be when he was completing a crossword. He took the seat on the opposite side of the desk and prepared himself for the bollocking he thought he was going to receive the night before.
“I’m going to start doing the rounds for tonight,” Evie said, swiping her phone from the desk while heading to the door. Jonah wanted to reach for her, to pull on her sleeve and beg her to not leave him alone with possibly the most terrifying person he’d ever encountered, but his hands stayed firmly in his lap and all he could do was listen as she left the room. The door clicked shut behind her.
Colbie tapped her nails on the top of her laptop as she looked at him, a grin on her lips as something devious brewed behind her eyes. “So, last night was rather interesting. Can’t say I was thrilled about the change of blocking in act one, but the risk paid off,” she said. “You know not to do something like that again without running it by someone first, right?”
Jonah nodded. “Sorry.”
Colbie waved the apology away like a cloud of cigarette smoke. “It’s fine, but it is one of the reasons I called you in here. Do you think that choreography would work with you and Bastien? I’ve been keeping a close eye on social media today and people really liked it. They’re excited about coming to see the change.”
“Sure, I think it could work.”
“Great.” She smiled, and for the briefest of moments Jonah allowed himself to relax. “Have you had a look at your socials today? It seems like the whole of the West End is talking about you and Dexter.”
Jonah nodded. “Yeah, I saw some stuff. I try to keep away from it, though.”
“Sensible,” she said with a hum. “But I’m going to capitalize on this. I’m going to introduce you and Dexter to Niamh, she manages our marketing. She thinks we could get you both onto some podcasts and some guest-takeover spots on various social media sites. It will drum up excitement for the cast change and also cash in on this fascination people seem to have with the two of you.”
“The fascination comes from people thinking I stole the role of Achilles from him, nothing more.”
“Maybe at first, but now theyloveyou two together, after only one performance!” She turned the screen of her laptop around to show Jonah some posts she’d bookmarked. “The only issue we have is the fact that you two don’t like each other.”
“Oh,” Jonah said quickly. “No, it’s not—that’s not the case at all.”
“The audience may not notice any animosity between the two of you, but I picked up on it straight away. And here we have people speculating that you two might actually be in love.” She laughed then, a noise not usually associated with Colbie. “A theatre romance is better than a theatre rivalry.”
“Romance?”
“It either ends in blissful marriage or devastating heartbreak, and people love it. It’s good publicity, and I don’t want there to be any whispers of you two not getting along. Dexter will be on for Bastien until he’s better, and it’s the perfect marketing opportunity for us.”
Jonah narrowed his eyes at her. “I’m a bit confused about what you’re wanting me to do here. Pretend we are together?”
“No, Jonah, this isn’t a rom-com. Look, I’m not asking you to suck his dick or anything, that would be totally unethical and clearly the last thing either of you want to do. Just make people think you’re sucking his dick, praise him, and he will praise you. I spoke to Dexter, and he’s fine with it.”
