Page 114 of Positively, Penelope

“Do you think he changed the time on my phone?” She gasped, a sudden burst of fire rising in her cheeks. “What a villain move!”

“And deleted any messages, I’d say, because I’d sent a few.”

“What?” She opened up her recent missed notifications. “Oh my goodness, Matthias. I had three calls from Case Townley.” She looked back at him, the warmth in her cheeks draining just as quickly. “He’s the manager for the touring company.”

“That’s the other thing, Penelope.”

Her nose started to tingle with the hint of tears, even before he spoke.

“When I spoke to Niles—”

“No!” The word erupted from her. “No, he didn’t.”

“They bought out the touring company.”

The words hit like a bullet to her chest. She gripped the door for something to hold on to.

“I’m so sorry.” She barely heard him, her brain still trying to comprehend the horribleness. “Niles took advantage of the fact that the company hadn’t mailed in the contract yet, and since Alec knew exactly how to contact them...”

“Emblem outbid us.” The words raked over her tightening throat. “But the verbal agreement should have held them. Ohh. And they couldn’t get in touch with me to confirm because I was out of service on Skree. How could Alec do this?” She shook her fist. “This makes me so mad. Business is business. They should have honored their commitment, no matter what Nasty Niles dangled in front of them.” She turned to him. “How horrible! Not only did they steal a production from us, but the whole ordeal will overshadowPeter Pan.”

She pressed her head back against the seat and closed her eyes to try to keep the tears from coming. What were they going to do? Even if sales were up, this kind of hit could follow them for a while. Damage future sales. Hurt their fragile reputation.

“The Darling House can’t keep their word” kind of thing.

And word of mouth made a difference in this business.

Matthias dropped her off at the cottage, his somber mood a mirror image of her own. But he’d tried to encourage her to rest for the night, saying they’d work things out tomorrow. That something could be done. That it would all be fine.

But she wasn’t fine. And she barely made it into the cottage before all the tears broke free.

She stumbled to the couch, pulling the blanket up against her chest as a sob heaved through her.

After all their hard work? After building up all the community support and hype, to have someone from the inside mess so many things up all at once?

Text from Penelope to Luke:I need to talk to you. It’s important.

Luke:How important?

Penelope:Like the time John Crestwell tried to kiss me important.

And her phone immediately came to life. She brought it to her ear and dropped onto the couch.

“Okay, sis,” came her brother’s familiar, grumpy voice. “What’s going on?”

***

Talking to Luke had helped.

At least enough to get her through a crying fit so she could think clearly and breathe without shaking all over. And she’d prayed, too, since if past experience proved true, God didn’t mind snotty faces and partial-syllable blubbering. He was supposed to understand things like that.

Matthias had called her later to check on her, the sadness in his voice nearly causing her to start crying all over again. And the whole Alec part of it all weighed everyone down. It was one thing to have a jerk in the family, but it was quite another thing to have something really horrible happen to said jerk. At least in Alec’s most recent communication with Grandpa Gray, he’d offered to meet with him.

And when she’d told Matt about the conversation she’d had with Alec, more of the why behind all he’d done seemed to come to light.

Sleep hadn’t come for hours, and when her alarm sounded, she hit Snooze and stared at her ceiling.

Peter Panstill opened in a few days. The centennial celebration of it. And she needed to assess the damage to the museum. She groaned and rolled over to face the window. She couldn’t just lie here all day and cry about things. The best actors knew that the show must go on. Life still moved forward. With or withoutThe Sound of Music.

---