The Night Before We Got Married novel · Chapter 22 of 24
Chapter 22: Her Name Above the Door
"The star sister," I said.
"The star sister. Your understudy goes on as Mara. She's been ready for weeks, she's just been too scared of Delphine to say so." The director paused. "Can you learn it in two days?"
Briggs had sat up beside me. He was mouthing, What?
"I already know it," I said. "I've been listening to her say it for a month."
"Then be here at nine. And Ms. Tilney?"
"Yes?"
"Bring Ms. Penney. The board rehired her at midnight. Head of costume. Her contract is in my office, and I'd like to watch her sign it."
I hung up.
Briggs was staring at me.
"Well?"
"I'm the lead," I said.
He put both arms around me and fell back on the pillows, and I landed on his chest laughing.
Goldie signed her contract on the director's desk with her own fountain pen.
Then she went straight down to the shop without taking off her coat.
The star sister's gown was ivory silk, built for Delphine, with long sleeves and a high neck.
Goldie looked at it for about ten seconds.
"No," she said.
By the next morning she'd rebuilt the whole top.
It left my left shoulder bare, all of it, and swept down off my arm. The scars ran out of the silk.
"That's not hiding them," I said, in the mirror.
"No, baby," she said, pins in her mouth. "That's framing them."
On Day 34 I came up out of the subway and looked up.
The man on the ladder was taking down the letters on the marquee one at a time.
DELPHINE SORRELL went into a box on the sidewalk.
R. O. M. Y.
I stood on the corner in the rain and watched him spell all of it.
ROMY TILNEY IN THE GLASS SISTERS.
We reopened on Day 35.
Birdie sat in the front row with Briggs on one side and Goldie on the other. She'd made a new sign. It was bigger. It had more glitter.
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