Screen Play (13 page)

“I’m in a state of shock.”

“All of Broadway’s going to be in shock tomorrow morning when word of this breaks out. Helen is a legend in New York, and she’s just received the best reviews of her career. But Ben’s young enough, and brash enough, that he wasn’t going to bend over backward to acquiesce to the star’s demands.

“Helen and Maureen must have wagered that a sellout meant she was indispensable,” Sydney said. “In fact, just the opposite proved to be true. It’s new school meets old school, but you can bet every New York theater critic will be back out to the Carney tonight to scrutinize your every move.”

“Okay, now I think I’ll sit down,” I said. “Yesterday I was told to become invisible.”

“Take a deep breath, Harper, and try to get a good night’s sleep—if that’s at all possible. I’d expect a phone call from either Ben or Tabby first thing in the morning.”

~
Fourteen
~

Avril and I were drinking coffee when Tabby called from the back of a taxi, somewhere on the upper East Side, if I overheard her giving directions to the cabbie correctly.

“Good morning, Harper. By now you’ve heard the news, Helen’s out and you’re in. Ben and I met for breakfast early this morning to hammer out how we’re going to make this transition. Can you and Avril make a lunch meeting today at noon? We’ll need to go over a few things with you.”

“Sure, of course.”

“Good. Midtown Deli is on Fifty-seventh Street. Ben and I will meet you there. The theater press are going to absolutely have a field day with this.”

I cleaned up the kitchen, rinsing off our breakfast cups and plates while Avril took a shower. She came out of her bedroom thirty minutes later dressed and ready to leave.

“I’m just going to meet Jon for a quick coffee at Cafés. It’s right near his office, not far from Midtown Deli. Do you want to come along?”

“No,” I told her. “I need some quiet time to get ready for tonight.”

Avril came close, a look of optimism and reassurance brushing her cheeks. “Harper, don’t worry. You’re going to be fine.”

“I just want to be prepared,” I said, not mentioning the butterflies gathering in my stomach.

“You will be,” she assured me. “See you at Midtown Deli.”

Avril closed the door behind her, and the apartment fell silent. I spent the next forty-five minutes drinking coffee, reading my Bible in one of the living room’s comfy chairs, and lapsing into still moments of prayer whenever a passage plucked a chord. There was so much for me to be grateful for. Every time I said “thank You,” my soul overflowed like a cup of coffee poured past the brim and onto the saucer. I had endured entire days in Chicago when I didn’t leave my apartment, lying in bed in melancholy silence. I spoke to no one except God and heard no sound other than the ticking clock until … the phone call.
Understudy
. Like Lazarus, I felt called out from a tomb.

How much stillness is really possible when you’re whirling on the Potter’s wheel? I closed my eyes again, attempting to settle the vertigo of accelerating events. I finally gave up and returned to the alcove. I flicked on the computer before heading to the bathroom to brush my teeth, tired of the taste of coffee. When I returned, I pushed the Bookmark button for LoveSetMatch.com and saw one new message awaiting me in my in-box.

PHOTOS FROM ALASKA

I clicked to see three new pictures, beautiful landscapes of Alaska’s wilderness. Five caribou listening at a riverbank, a snowy mountainside behind them. The fog on a lake in the early morning, a lone canoeist paddling across the water. A close-up image of a single yellow wildflower. Inexplicably, the pictures made me feel at peace. A slice of simple life. I scrolled down further.

Hey Harper,

I took these shots with the camera I use to document my work. Maybe you can stick them up on the fridge if you get tired of looking at skyscrapers. : )

–Luke

There was a “PS” at the bottom.

Hey, just a thought. If you ever want to instant message me, my handle is Forestry4B.

A new and sudden rush came over me, like when you stand on a high dive for the first time, staring down into the blue pool from a great height, and realize you’re going to jump. I glided the cursor to LoveSetMatch.com’s main tab page to find the IM button—a green oval the color of sour apple candy. I felt nervous and excited, all my emotions that morning a pulse of high spikes, and clicked on the button. An address window appeared and I entered Luke’s ID,
Forestry4B
, typed
Hello?
and pushed Send.

And then … nothing.

I stared at the computer screen for a few minutes, waiting. When nothing happened, I figured Luke just wasn’t around. Then a communications box appeared in the center of the screen.

Is that you, New York?

I stared at Luke’s message, momentarily confused—as if he’d only been a figment of my overactive imagination until now.

Harper:
Yes, it’s me.

Luke:
I see you got my last message.

Harper:
I was just reading it, enjoying the beautiful pictures you sent me. Thank you.

Luke:
I keep a camera with me in the Jeep. Yesterday, it was unbelievably beautiful up here, I had to share it with somebody.

Harper:
It was nice of you to pick me.

There was a pause. What do you say to someone you’ve never met, and can’t see sitting in front of you?

Luke:
I didn’t know if you’d IM me or not. I thought it would be nice to talk to you. I mean, the emails have been great, but IM makes Manhattan feel a little closer.

Harper
: I didn’t know there was an IM feature until a day ago. This whole LoveSetMatch phenomenon is still new to me. How long have you been subscribing to it?

Luke
: I signed up for three months. This is somewhere in month three for me.

Harper:
Sorry for the cliché, but meet any interesting people?

He hesitated before answering, and I couldn’t tell if I thrown him a tough question or if he’d left the computer to go refill his coffee.

Luke:
Some. Most are nice, and almost all live in the lower forty-eight. Friendly, but no love connection so far. How about you?

Harper:
I’m not sure I’m LoveSetMatch material. I prefer to be in the same room with the person I’m falling in love with.

Luke:
Do people still do that? LOL. One day we all woke up to a world that texts, twitters, and emails. I’m not sure it’s progress.

Harper:
Tell me about Alaska. There must be a few real flesh-and-blood people up there who still talk face-to-face
.

Luke:
There are folks up here like that. I see them at the coffee counter where I have my breakfast most mornings, when I’m not out in the Northeast Territory. My family’s in the logging industry and tree-planting business. I work for my uncle Don, as a surveyor, environmentalist, fire preventionalist (yeah, I just made up that word), and tree farmer.

Harper:
And also a pilot?

Luke:
That’s my side job, ministry, my leisure pursuit. There are communities scattered across Alaska with fewer than two hundred residents. Depending on the season, I fly supplies to missionaries serving in remote regions, who are either snowed in or just have cabin fever. You’d be surprised what a few almost-hot Papa John’s pizzas and copies of the latest
People
magazines can do for the morale of families serving in the tundra.

Harper:
I’ll bet you make a lot of friends that way.

Luke:
Let’s just say when the skis of my plane land on a snowfield in a small Alaskan village, I’m a very popular guy
. :)
What about you? Your profile says you’re some kind of entertainer, a singer or something?

Harper
: I’m an actress.

Luke:
An actress in New York. Sounds very glamorous. Have you met anyone famous yet—Kirk Cameron?

Harper:
Sorry, I haven’t met Kirk yet. When I do, I’ll tell him you said hello.

This time it was me who paused. I’d discovered when reading James’s story how quickly I’d been tugged into someone’s life, something I hadn’t expected. Now IM’ing back and forth with Luke, I felt almost the same sensation. Was he stranger or friend? Or more?

Harper:
Until yesterday I was the understudy in a Broadway play that hasn’t been performed in thirty years. Today, I got word I’m now playing the lead in the production, so it’s a day of elation and nail biting.

Luke:
The lead in a Broadway play. I don’t know a thing about show business, but that sounds like a big deal.

Harper:
Maybe. It’s part of a bigger story God’s telling in my life. Sometimes I feel as much a spectator as a participant.
Maybe acting is my sideline, my leisure pursuit. Sometimes I wonder if it might even be a ministry. Today it feels like I’m about to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel, so I’m a little distracted.

Luke:
Let’s call it a day then, shall we? Thanks for IM’ing me. Should I look for you again sometime?

I didn’t know what to tell him. I had no answers and was fairly sure I didn’t even have questions.

Harper:
Let’s just play it by ear, okay?

There was another pause. This time Luke waited so long to reply I thought our Internet service might have failed.

Luke:
Sure, I understand. I’m flying to a settlement near the Canadian border tomorrow anyway, so I’ll be out of touch. But, Harper. I enjoyed talking with you. Truly.

I wrote a line or two of good-byes, polite words like
nice talking to you
and
have a safe flight,
but when I pushed Send this message appeared on the screen:

Luke is no longer online.

It had been a sweet conversation, a respite in my day of jangly nerves, but as Luke and I said good-bye, I questioned whether or not I’d handled it well. How long had it been since I was in a relationship? Or on a date? Or in love?

A year, a year, and maybe never.

I crossed midtown Manhattan by taxicab, a jostling terror ride dodging crater-sized potholes, crisscrossing lanes, and blazing through red lights en route to Midtown Deli. When I wasn’t fearing for my life, I was checking my cell phone for a text message from Avril, hoping to read a simple “On my way!”—but each time I looked my data screen was blank.

When I arrived, Ben and Tabby were already seated in a large dark wood booth inside Midtown Deli. It was the first time I’d seen Ben since he’d fired Helen. He looked disheveled, edgy, like a patient whose doctor has just delivered bad news. Tabby sat across the table from him, bent forward and stage-managing the crisis with animated gestures and movement. Two mugs of steaming coffee sat between them. I slid in next to Ben.

“Hello.”

“Hello,” Ben said. “A lot has changed since our talk backstage yesterday, Harper. I want you to know I hadn’t decided anything up to that point. It would have been easier to keep Helen in the show, obviously, but hour by hour that got harder to do.”

“It was a bold decision,” I said. “But I’ve never known you to be anything but rational in the directions you make.”

Ben’s breathing was labored. He clasped his hands tightly in front of him on the table. I wondered if he’d slept the night before.

“I’m going to confess to you something I told Tabby earlier. My stress levels are through the roof, but it’s not all because of this Helen stuff. I’m going through a tough divorce right now. I’m not sure I’ve done the right thing, and I ping-pong back and forth about it, but we’re not going back.”

“I’m sorry, Ben. I didn’t know.”

“One crisis at a time,” he said, holding up his hand.

I shifted my gaze toward the front door, watching for Avril. I didn’t think she’d miss our meeting, but there was no sign of her, just a heavy, closed door festooned with random event posters and fliers.