Madly Yours novel · Chapter 15 of 32

Chapter 15: Cut Strings

I started at the hall on Monday.

By Monday lunch, the whole stage crew believed I was deaf.

By Tuesday, they talked in front of me.

It was the best education I'd ever had.

I learned the lighting chief was sleeping with the second oboe.

I learned the new conductor wore a hairpiece and the crew had a betting pool on when it would fall off.

I learned the stage manager, a big bearded man with a soft voice, cried at every performance of the Brahms requiem and pretended it was allergies.

On Wednesday a young stagehand with a buzz cut stopped me by the loading dock.

He'd written something on his palm in pen.

He looked at it, then lifted his flat hand from his chin toward me, slow and careful.

Thank you.

I signed it back, and then, you're welcome.

He went red to the ears.

"She got it," he said to the crew. "She actually got it."

By Thursday four of them could say good morning.

My old boss watched all of this from the wings with his arms crossed and his pencils behind his ears.

When a board member called me "the charity hire" within my earshot, my old boss offered him the tuning hammer.

The man left.

Every night at six, the black car was at the stage door.

Leland waited in the back seat with two coffees and a crossword he never finished.

On Monday I'd written him a new rule on the back of a set list.

The hall is mine. You wait at the door.

He'd read it three times.

"Term five," he'd said. "I'm in the room."

Term three. My job comes first.

He'd looked at me for a long time, and then folded the set list into his wallet.

"The door," he'd agreed. "Not one step farther."

I slept in my own room that week.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Madly Yours from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.