The World is a Stage Read online

  “You’re wrong, you know.” Molly kept her facial movements to a minimum, her voice soft. “Eric is different. You’ll see. He’s coming to the show and to the cast party at Dominic’s tonight. He really wants to meet you.”

  “Good,” Rachel agreed. She turned away so her sister couldn’t see how hard it was for her to keep a smile plastered on her face. “I can’t wait to meet him too.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  They hurried out of the room and to the backstage area, a fairly large extension of the stage that held all their equipment, changes of costume, and one or two weather-beaten couches that were a welcome respite from their dangerously tall heels. The entire female cast hobbled around in said heels and bustiers, the men primarily in pants so tight the little muscular indentation of every one of their butt cheeks within a twenty-foot radius was clearly outlined.

  Another day, another dollar.

  Even though it was obvious Molly wanted to keep talking, Rachel expertly maneuvered them to their spots without once mentioning the tattooed and ineligible man of her sister’s dreams.

  Because Rachel would go ahead and meet this guy, all right.

  And then she’d get rid of him before he got anywhere near her sister’s soft, malleable and completely patchwork heart.

  Chapter Two

  A Freckled Whelp

  Michael didn’t normally favor hats for casual wear. If you asked him, they had a tendency to move a man firmly up the charts of tool-dom. The jauntier the angle, the more likely the guy was to post pictures of his dick on the Internet.

  But if there was one thing he learned in high school, it was that a hat provided the perfect cover for long, boring lectures given by long-faced, boring men. He wasn’t taking any chances on this Shakespeare fellow. A wool fedora went firmly over his head, and just to give Peterson something to bitch about, he cocked the hat so it almost covered one of his eyes.

  He checked his image in the side-view mirror of Peterson’s van. Perfect.

  “You look like an idiot,” Peterson said.

  Michael waggled his eyebrows and tipped the brim. “I feel like an idiot. Why are we doing this again?”

  When Peterson opened his mouth to talk, Michael interrupted. “Oh, yeah. Because you plan on owing me—big-time and for the rest of your pathetic life. I still don’t see why you couldn’t bring someone else in my place, though.”

  Peterson focused his eyes on the road and didn’t offer a response. Michael took a deep breath and prepared for the inevitable.

  “What do you want, Peterson? And what’s it going to cost me?”

  “The thing is, I really like this girl.”

  “Got it.” Michael held up one hand and placed the other reverently over his chest. “I hereby solemnly swear not to hit up your lady friend with my numerable charms.”

  Even though Peterson concentrated on driving, Michael flexed his arms for good effect, doing his best not to notice how much less impressive the results were these days. A few months off from his regular training schedule for the Scottish Highland Games, where both he and Peterson were regular competitors, and he was withering away like an old woman. It was March, so there weren’t any competitions for a while, but they always did a team Top Warrior Race this time of year, to keep the brotherhood and muscles going strong.

  One more month.

  He just needed to give his knee, five months post-surgery and still not fully functional, some time to recuperate before he could get back on his regular track. And then it was back to life. Back to flexing his muscles. Back to being the Michael O’Leary everyone knew and loved.

  “It’s not just that,” Peterson warned. The blur of trees and shopping malls blended into a kind of static as Michael waited to hear the rest. “I need your help.”

  “You don’t have to say anything more,” Michael offered, trying to find his footing in the strangely heavy air between them. “She’s got this friend, and your girl won’t go anywhere without her. You need me, and you need my game. Just say it, bro. You. Need. My. Game.”

  It worked. Peterson grinned.

  “I might have lied some,” he admitted. “It’s not a friend—it’s her sister. Apparently, she can be high-strung, and I want to make a good impression. It’d be awesome if you could unwind her a little.”

  “Unwind? Is that what we’re calling it now?”

  “I’m practically doing you a favor, Mikey.” It was hard to ignore the question in Peterson’s voice. No—not a question. This was out-and-out pleading. “Molly says she’s drop-dead gorgeous.”

  Michael pulled the hat down lower over his head and braced himself for the worst.

  That’s what they always said.

  “You’ve got to be shitting me.”

  A woman seated behind them in the darkened theater shushed loudly. Michael lowered his voice a few notches and tried again. “Seriously? The woman in red? That’s the sister?”

  Michael considered himself a lover of women—all women, really. Skinny, curvy, tall, short, smart, dumb… There was ample place in his heart and arms for each one. It was a credo that had turned him into a semipermanent wingman for his friends, and that was fine. He was more than happy to take on the role. After all, someone had to placate the flesh that others left behind.

  But that up there on the stage hardly qualified as flesh at all. It was as though someone had sucked all the life and vibrancy out of a human being and replaced it with a zombie.

  A creepy Shakespearean zombie in negligee.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Peterson protested. “I think she looks nice. Check out those legs.”

  “Dude. That woman is fifty, if not more. You’ve got to have the wrong one.”

  Peterson leaned forward in his chair, a fluffy velvet thing too narrow to accommodate the breadth of him. “I’m pretty sure that’s her. Molly said her sister was the queen, and she’s the only one wearing that crown thing. Besides, you’ve got to admit, Mikey—if you squint a little, she’s pretty hot.”

  Michael squinted, and it did, in fact, help.

  Like most of the other actors and actresses on the stage, the supposed sister wore an almost nonexistent dress, stockings that reached to the middle of her thighs, and a corset that made the most out of an already buxom form. There was a definite appeal to that kind of getup, and Michael was trying his best to enjoy it.

  Every woman had value. He firmly believed that.

  “Maybe it’s just the stage makeup?” Michael finally offered.

  “I bet that’s it!” Peterson shouted, happy to latch on to an excuse.

  “You’re being rude,” the woman behind them hissed. “I can’t hear what they’re saying.”

  Michael shot an apologetic look over his shoulder before pulling his attention back to the stage. He had to admit, it was a pretty good production, and the theater was nice enough. It was small and dark and decorated mostly in the deep red draperies whorehouses in Wild West movies always had. Besides, whoever had thought to put all that antiquated dialogue into the mouths of a young, vibrant and scantily clad cast was a genius.

  Boobs made everything better. True fact.

  But it was damnably hard to follow what the actors were saying—especially every time that Gertrude character came on stage and stabbed her freakishly high eyebrows right into her hairline. With a little color in her, she wouldn’t be ugly, exactly. Sour was a better word for it, like a schoolteacher bent on punishing him—and not in the good way. Michael didn’t think he’d ever seen a more unhappy person in his entire life.

  Wooing a shady sex-show actress should have been something a man looked forward to, like a sailor’s first port call. Maybe some intensive tongue-and-voice lessons to start. A whole closet full of those costumes and wild, kinky role-playing later on. He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes a little. Maybe that teacher thing wasn’t out of the question.

  “I’ll say this, Peterson. You’re one lucky bastard to have me for a friend.
I’ve never been a man to back down from a challenge. In fact, my motto’s always been the bigger, the better.” He chuckled. “Let’s just hope she feels the same way.”

  “Will you please be quiet and watch your language?” The woman kicked his seat this time. “This is a family show.”

  On stage, a pair of men without any shirts on started talking to a human skull. Michael turned and grinned.

  “Lady, if you bring your kids to something like this, you’re seriously demented.”

  When he turned back around, it was to face a pair of ushers who had materialized in front of him. Based on the lack of musculature on display, it was obvious they were in their current positions due to an inability to look good without a shirt on. Both men took one look at Michael and Peterson and lost all the blood in their faces—and he sincerely doubted it was pooling anywhere a man liked his blood to go every now and then.

  “Sir—” one of them began.

  “Um, we’re so sorry, but the noise—”

  Peterson, who split his time between being a concert security guard and a bouncer at a nightclub, swallowed a laugh. He could have booted this pair with a single glance. “We’ll keep it down, boys. We promise. No need to get rough.”

  “It’s not that. We, uh, need to escort you out.”

  Michael sat up and crossed his arms. “My friend here wants to see the show.”

  “But we’ve had several complaints, sir. You’re disrupting the patrons.”

  The shorter of the two ushers, who was clad in an oversized dress shirt and blue cummerbund, swallowed heavily. “Due to the nature of the content, it’s the theater’s policy to provide an escort to the lobby in the event of inappropriate behavior.”

  “If you want us out, you’re going to have to physically remove us.” Michael slapped on his biggest scowl. Between his face and the several hundred pounds of muscle he and Peterson shared, it should have been enough to scare away a whole fleet of knobby-kneed ushers.

  Unfortunately, Michael made the mistake of using the usher’s scared pause to look up toward the stage, where the woman—the harpy with the eyebrows of death—was glaring at them.

  That was the problem with front-row seats, whether in a theater like this or at a rock concert that was actually worth a damn. It was close enough to see the blood, sweat and tears. And that woman… Well, Michael saw blood reflecting in her eyes. His own blood. Lots of it.

  He gulped. “Let’s go, Peterson. I think I’ve had all the culture I can stand for one night.”

  “You’re worse than my kids, Mikey,” he muttered. The two of them ducked out of the aisle and headed toward the bright green sign of the exit, unable to resist a quick jump at the ushers, who may or may not have loosened their bowels in the process.

  “I think it was just about to get good,” Peterson added, leading the way out.

  “I’ll buy you the Blu-Ray version,” Michael promised.

  “Dude—there is no Blu-Ray version. It’s slutty Shakespeare.”

  As soon as they were back in the lights of the faded art-deco lobby, away from the eyes of the zombie actress, Michael relaxed. With a hearty slap on Peterson’s back, he directed them both toward the wine and cocktail bar, which was small but lit up with a welcoming red glow. He met the bartender’s eyes and flicked two fingers up.

  “Slutty Shakespeare?” Michael shook his head. “Fifty bucks says there is a Blu-Ray version. With deleted scenes.”

  “Aren’t you going to change out of your costume?” Molly’s voice was small as she came up behind Rachel.

  The backstage area had cleared for the night, most of the crew already out the doors and headed toward the cast party, a celebration they had every few months when rehearsals for the next show were about to begin. Work hard, play hard—it was Dominic’s way of filling his production with highly trained and talented actors.

  Well, that and a decent salary—at least in terms of stage work. Rachel had earned only half as much last year, when she’d toured with a small but prestigious troupe doing Arsenic and Old Lace to a much older and more sedate crowd. That in itself wasn’t surprising; in the world of entertainment, pay was directly proportionate to the amount of skin showing.

  Even though Rachel loved this time of night, when the theater seemed to pulse with abated activity and there was an almost quiet reverence to the place, she missed the sense of euphoria that followed on the heels of a great performance. In all her time on this production, she’d never been able to duplicate the soaring sense of satisfaction that had made her get into the field in the first place.

  But what did she expect? Sullying literary genius with fishnet stockings had a tendency to deflate the ego.

  She sighed. So it wasn’t exactly what she’d dreamed of as a little girl, but it was Shakespeare. Technically, there was a stage and an audience and a regular paycheck too.

  And Molly.

  Molly counted for a lot, even if Rachel was tempted to lock her in a chastity belt and swallow the key. For as long as she could remember, they’d only had each other, two lives so intertwined it was impossible not to do or think anything without her sister playing a role.

  Rachel turned to face Molly, who had changed into her off-stage outfit—a small skirt and even smaller shirt that might as well have been her Ophelia pasties.

  She bit back a caustic remark. For a classically trained actress, Molly had serious issues with her personal wardrobe.

  “Everyone else is already at the party,” Molly said. “Looking, you know, like human beings. You can’t show up wearing that.”

  “Yes, I can.” Rachel extended her leg behind her and examined a run beginning to form along her calf. “Public humiliation seems to be all the rage. I figure it’s my turn to have a go.”

  Molly caught her meaning and wrinkled her nose. “It’s not as bad as you think it is. It was just a misunderstanding, I’m sure.”

  Misunderstanding? It was a misunderstanding to show up for an appointment an hour late. It was a misunderstanding to bring home rice cakes when a woman clearly said chocolate ice cream. It was not a misunderstanding to place a pair of thugs in the best seats in the house. Thugs, thank you very much, who not only had no necks to speak of, but who’d dared to heckle them.

  Dominic had one rule—staff was not to be harassed. As far as Rachel was concerned, that was something you rarely got in stage work these days. Some of those ladies at the Arsenic and Old Lace productions had been brutal.

  “They’ll be here any minute,” Molly pleaded. “Look—you don’t have to like Eric. You don’t even have to be nice to him. But please, just put on some normal clothes and try to act like a human being. Try to act like my sister.”

  “Unfortunately, this is how your sister acts,” Rachel warned. She knew what Molly was doing—the girl was as easy to see through as her Ophelia costume. Molly thought if Rachel would just play nice for a few days, she would fall in love with the tattooed behemoth and give her blessing to the mismatched pair.

  Not in a million years. Not even if he had a million dollars.

  Clenching her jaw, Rachel added, “And I’ll tell you right now, if this boyfriend of yours so much as tries to get his overgrown mule of a friend in here tonight—”

  “Eric!” Molly squealed. She almost launched herself over Rachel in her hurry to get to the doorway, a blur of miniskirt and tube top that didn’t stop until it hit the wall of man that had somehow found a way through the back entrance.

  Rachel turned away and examined her nails, unwilling—and unable—to stomach the sights and sounds of so much exuberant saliva making its way into the room.

  “You must be the sister,” a pleasant voice called, followed by another wall of man.

  Rachel toyed with the idea of ignoring the guy and hoping he’d eventually disappear, but he was very much in the present, gaping at her like she was a giant sandwich or something.

  What a charmer. He probably chewed and made love like that too.

  She scowled, so
rry she hadn’t followed Molly’s advice and changed, but glad she hadn’t yet started chipping away at her stage makeup. The greasepaint might not cover her chest any, but it was an effective layer of protection just the same.

  And if there was one thing she’d learned from her family history, it was that it wasn’t good to let men like this get too close.

  “You,” she said slowly, rolling her mouth around each word, “have the manners of a pig.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I completely forgot.” He extended his hand, a huge, meaty paw of an appendage, coming so close he could have twitched a finger and flicked her nipple. “The name’s Michael. Michael O’Leary. The overgrown mule. Or pig. I’m having a hard time keeping track.”

  Rachel blinked, looking down at his arm—which contained the image of a tattooed pinup girl dancing brazenly across it—and back up at his face. His smile was wide, bland and unwavering. It suited him, the inanity of it all. Like he was a bull out to pasture, bemused by the glare of the sun.

  He had light hair, a little too long and too wavy to look the least bit attractive on anyone with a Y chromosome, and blue eyes that crinkled at the edges. And Lord, was he big. She was a tall woman, much more so than her sister, and she liked to think she was built on queenly lines. But she had to look up to meet his expression, and if he put his arms around her, he could have swallowed her whole.

  He had to be a bodybuilder or something. Maybe ex-military. Possibly a steroid addict looking to sell her sister’s organs for cash.

  Since his hand wasn’t moving, Rachel took a slight step back and shook it—firmly, with resolution. She did not pay any attention to how warm his grasp was, or how he didn’t shrink at all when she squeezed hard enough to give her pinky finger a cramp. And although she did give a second glance to his attire, which was some sort of strange Macbeth-Braveheart montage, she most certainly didn’t notice the legs peeking out from beneath his skirt.

  Thick, chiseled legs that made no apologies for their presence right there in her dressing room.