Off Limit: Claimed by My Ex-Fiancé's Stepdad novel · Chapter 3 of 32

Chapter 3: The Desk

Cleo runs the first day of tech and puts Jude's understudy in his light until Jude gives in, and then Lenore tells her Ward knew about the affair.

Nobody in the hallway moved.

Forty people held their coffee cups and looked at me.

The swing from Baltimore had her hand over her mouth. The head flyman set his thermos down on the radiator very carefully.

I finished my initials on the call sheet and capped the pen.

"Good morning, Jude," I said. "You're signed in. Thank you."

"Did you hear me?"

"Everybody heard you. You project beautifully. That's why you're the lead."

Somebody in the ensemble snorted. Jude's jaw went tight.

"I mean it, Cleo."

"I know you do," I said. "Company, we start at the top of act one in ten minutes. Bring your water. It's going to be a long day."

I walked to my desk.

Behind me I heard Jude say, "She's out of her mind."

And the flyman said, "No, son. She's at work."

My desk sits in the stage-left wings, a slab of black plywood with three monitors, a cue light panel and my script in a binder as thick as a phone book.

My father built the shelf under it. His initials are scratched in the corner.

I put on my headset.

"Good morning, everybody," I said into it. "Welcome to tech."

"Morning, boss," Joanie said from the booth. "Quick question. Are we calling him the leading man or the cheating piece of shit today? For paperwork."

"Leading man, Joanie."

"Copy. Leading piece of shit."

"Standby lights one through four," I said. "Standby fly cue one."

The house went dark. The ferry deck glowed blue.

"Lights one, go."

The first cue was Jude's. The commuter runs up the gangplank as the ferry horn blows and the boat pulls out.

"Sound A, go," I said.

The ferry horn bellowed through the theater.

Jude stood in the wings with his arms folded.

"Jude," the director called from the production table out in the house. "That's you."

"I'm aware," Jude said. "I'm waiting for someone qualified to call it."

The horn faded. The deck sat empty in its blue light.

I looked out at the house.

Jude's understudy was in row J with his script open on his knees. Twenty-nine, from Ohio, the quietest man in the building. He'd been to every rehearsal for six weeks.

"Hold, please," I said into the god mic, so the whole building heard me. "Jude's understudy, please come up to the deck. Bring your script. You're walking his track for the light."

The understudy stood up so fast he dropped his pencil.

"Excuse me?" Jude said.

"Lights need to see the track," I said. "You're welcome to stand wherever you like."

The understudy came up the side stairs onto the deck. He looked at Jude once.

"Go from the gangplank," I told him. "Lights one, go again. Sound A, go."

The horn blew. The understudy ran up the gangplank.

He hit Jude's mark dead center, and the special came up on his face.

It was a good face. It was a good light.

Jude stood at the edge of the deck in the dark, in his own costume, while another man stood where he should be.

We worked through the first scene. Then the second.

The understudy knew every mark. He knew the blocking better than Jude did, because Jude had been at lunch for most of it.

Halfway through the third scene, I heard footsteps in the wing behind me.

Jude walked out into the light and stood on his mark, right next to his understudy.

"Fine," he said. "Call it."

The understudy stepped back into the dark without a word.

"Thank you," I said to him over the god mic. "Beautiful work. Please go back to the house."

Then, to Jude, in the same voice: "Thank you, Jude. Back to the top of scene three. Lights forty-two, go."

He went.

He took every cue after that. He hated every one of them, and he took them.

At two o'clock I looked up and Ward was standing at the back of the house by the sound booth.

I didn't know how long he'd been there.

He had his coat over his arm and his glasses pushed up into his hair.

He looked at the deck. He looked at Jude on his mark. He looked at me.

He didn't come down the aisle. He didn't send a note to the production table. He didn't say a word.

He just nodded once, and sat down in the last row, and stayed there for an hour.

"Your landlord's here," Joanie said in my ear.

"He's the producer, Joanie."

"Right. Your landlord's the producer. Dollar a night, I heard."

"Who told you?"

"The house has walls, babe. They're all mine."

At six we broke for dinner.

The company scattered for the stage door. I stayed at the desk with a granola bar and a page of notes.

Somebody stopped beside the desk. I smelled her perfume before I saw her.

Lenore had her mic pack in one hand and her phone in the other.

Her red lipstick was perfect again. Yesterday it had been on Jude.

"You looked really good up here today," she said. "Very in charge."

"Thank you. Dinner's an hour."

"I just wanted to ask you something." She tilted her head. "Did Ward tell you he walked in on us?"

I kept writing.

"Three weeks ago," Lenore said. "In a fitting room upstairs. He saw everything."

My pencil stopped.

She leaned close to my ear.

"Ask Ward when he found out," she said, and walked away.

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