Showbiz, A Novel Read online

  He was saved from revealing anything further by the bartender, who, probably having heard the potential for good gossip about the previous night’s suicide, broke with tradition and came out from behind the bar to refill their glasses.

  Reilly raised his newly filled glass to Scarlett. “Here’s to drinking in the afternoon.”

  They clinked glasses and their eyes met.

  “So,” Reilly changed the subject, “Are you celebrating or drowning your sorrows this afternoon?”

  “A little of both, I guess. But I like the sound of celebrating better. I’m working on a new musical.”

  “Congratulations. You’re an actress?”

  “Producer, actually.”

  “Aren’t you a little young to be a producer?”

  “Aren’t you a little old to be New York’s premier investigative journalist?” She said those last two words with more than a little sarcasm.

  “Touché,” he said and raised his glass for another toast, to which she acquiesced. “But if you’re a producer, why haven’t we met before? I make it my business to know the movers and shakers around town.”

  “Then it’s a good thing we’ve finally met,” she said, meeting his eyes. “Are you going to investigate me now and uncover dark deeds and scandal around my new musical endeavors?”

  “But of course,” he responded with a playful glint in his eye. “I’m writing the article in my head right now. ‘Beautiful young producer has passionate affair with New York’s premiere investigative journalist.’”

  That got the laugh he was going for and an encouraging comment from her: “No such thing as bad publicity.”

  The wine was clearly beginning to loosen her up, and they were both having a good time. People were starting to filter into the bar. A few of the new arrivals recognized Reilly but also who knew enough not to interrupt his conversation with a beautiful woman. There’ll be time to catch up with them later, thought Reilly, unless I can talk Scarlett into dinner. He might have been moving fast, even for him, but it had been a while since he had found a woman who really caught his eye. So many women he met rolled over at the first hint of his charm and celebrity, or they occasionally tried to work him for a positive mention in his column. At thirty-five, he was beginning to give up on the idea of finding his match, although looking had proven to have its own rewards, if the beautiful if sometimes vapid women on his speed dial were any indication.

  Having finished his second glass of wine, he decided to be bold.

  “What do you say we go grab dinner somewhere we can talk a little more freely?” he asked, glancing over to the bartender, who had clearly been keeping one ear on whatever he could catch of their conversation over the rising din as the bar continued to fill up.

  “Wish I could.” She sounded sincere. “But I actually have to check in at the office. I’ve stayed too long as it is.” She dug in her purse for her wallet.

  “This one’s on me,” Reilly said. “Where do you work?”

  She left $20 on the table as she got up.

  “Upstairs,” she said, glancing up at the ceiling. “Pleasure to meet you, Reilly Mitchell.”

  With a smile, she turned on the heel of her black boots. The last he saw was her black and white zebra coat as she headed downstairs to the street and into the corporate office entrance, leaving Reilly to wonder if she was being elusive on purpose or just in a hurry to get back. Upstairs? That narrowed it down to several dozen possible offices. Did she work in one of the major producing offices? That seemed like the kind of thing she would have bragged about. Well, he was an investigative journalist, after all—he’d just have to find her.

  Until then, he turned his attention to the bar. Inevitably someone would be there to supply him with a healthy dose of gossip for a future column. It would only be a matter of minutes before one colleague or other would fill the now-vacant stool across from him.

  Minutes later, as Scarlett made her way back up to her office, she caught herself smiling. She had to admit that she felt flattered by Reilly Mitchell’s attention. Despite his much-maligned column, he was a key part of the fabric of Broadway. She was glad she hadn’t let it slip that, in fact, she had been reading his column since before she had even moved to New York, eagerly devouring his insider views on everything from which shows would make it to which producers and stars were misbehaving in the boardrooms or the bedrooms.

  Though she didn’t really trust a man who made a living divulging the deepest and darkest secrets of her colleagues and, on more than one occasion, her boss, she found him to be surprisingly nice and refreshingly fun to talk to.

  Scarlett knew that a friendship with Reilly would be a bad idea, yet she found herself wondering if she’d see him again. Both Margolies’ personal antics and his productions were a frequent topic of Reilly’s column—and often presented in a less-than-flattering light. Even if she could keep her mouth shut around Reilly, it wouldn’t look good. She’d be smart to keep her distance, if she valued her job.

  Maybe it was the two glasses of wine or the fact that he was a celebrity, but she couldn’t ignore the unmistakable spark she’d felt with him. As the elevator doors opened and she headed back to her desk, she replayed their conversation in her head. She felt herself blushing, remembering how forward she’d been with him. What gave me so much nerve, she thought. She didn’t even know the guy, and yet something about his snarky column made her feel comfortable being a tad snarky herself.

  As she sat back down at her computer to finish typing up the notes from the morning meeting, she had trouble keeping her mind on the job. Note to self, she thought: Two glasses of wine in the afternoon, mixed with the company of a cute columnist, is a bad idea. And yet, overall, she thought, it was not an unwelcome turn of events.

  Scene 7

  Scarlett slid into the cracked vinyl booth at the little diner on 9th that served as the favored breakfast place for theater folks when they were meeting and didn’t need to impress each other. The waiter barely slowed down as he plunked three cups of coffee on the table in front of Scarlett and her breakfast companions, Jeremy and Jeremy.

  “Cheers.” Jeremy raised his coffee cup for a toast. “To a bright future for our collective baby, Swan Song, The Musical.”

  They clinked coffee cups, and Scarlett smiled warmly at the up-and-coming composer and lyricist of her first solo producing project.

  “I want to hear everything about your experience at Pinter. I love the new draft of the Swan Song script and score, obviously. I know you’re sick of hearing it, but you two are brilliant,” Scarlett said.

  “Oh, stop,” Jeremy replied, preening himself in mock modesty.

  “What would you like to know, Miss Producer?” teased the other Jeremy.

  Knowing that she’d need to develop some musicals of her own if she ever wanted to be a true producer, Scarlett had Margolies’ blessing to maintain her very own pet producing project, as long as it didn’t keep her from doing her job. She was thrilled to have come across the Jeremys and their concept for an original musical based on Swan Lake. It hit the sweet spot for original musical theater, since it had the Swan Lake branding, which was vital in a day and age where audiences needed name recognition before they’d buy a ticket. But it was also a completely new and original retelling, similar to what West Side Story did so successfully with Romeo and Juliet or My Fair Lady did for Pygmalion.

  “What kind of feedback did you get from the dramaturges on the final draft?” asked Scarlett. “I’m feeling like we have something solid.”

  Jeremy and Jeremy were writing partners and life partners with the unfortunate coincidence of sharing the same name. Pity the soul who tried to convince either of them to change their name to cut down on the constant confusion.

  They had just spent two weeks developing their new musical at the prestigious Pinter Theater Center in
Connecticut, away from the distractions of real life. Jeremy and Jeremy had been thrilled to have Swan Song chosen by the discerning selection committee for this opportunity. Getting selected was not only key for the writing of the show but also gave them cache in the industry.

  Jeremy considered her question. “I think we finally solved the second act.”

  “We sure did. Jeremy wrote a kick-ass duet for the white and black ‘swans.’ You’re going to die when you hear it!” bragged Jeremy.

  Scarlett had mentally renamed Jeremy and Jeremy for her own convenience.

  “Jersey Jeremy” was the composer of the couple. Though claiming to be a native Manhattanite, he was actually from New Jersey. He had been a gawky carrot-topped band geek in high school. Fortunately, he moved into the city to go to grad school at NYU Tisch for musical theater writing, and there reinvented himself as a musical genius whose smile and proclivity for writing beautiful love songs on the piano had transformed him from geek to god among his classmates. By graduation, however, he was writing love songs for only one person...

  “Buff Jeremy,” was a lyricist extraordinaire. His words had been a perfect fit for Jersey Jeremy's music, for the past five years. Buff Jeremy did his best brainstorming at the gym. Upon first glance, he looked like he might be more at home on a fashion runway than huddled over sheet music in a black box theater.

  Scarlett had discovered Swan Song and its creators several months earlier at a reading at a tiny theater near Union Square, where actors had read and sung through the show standing on stage with their scripts and scores in hand. Scarlett had been there since part of her job was scoping out future Margolies projects by attending readings like those.

  Of the several new musical readings she went to in a week, the vast majority failed to impress her. Writing a musical was deceptively easy, and very few did it well. However, Swan Song appealed to her instantly. If she’d learned anything from Margolies about picking a show, it was that you had to go with your gut. If a show grabbed you the first time, even if it was just a musical reading, then there was something there that would also grab your audience. If you didn’t have a visceral reaction to at least some aspect of the material that first time, it was unlikely you or your future audiences would ever fall in the love with the show. Producing 101.

  Scarlett had had to offer the piece to Margolies first, since she had been scouting shows on his dime when she discovered it. But with unknown writers and the particular subject matter, he wasn’t interested.

  “I’ve been laying the groundwork with some of my non-profit theater contacts here in the city. I think you’re right—we’re ready for a production,” Scarlett said.

  “We could easily do any final tweaks during a rehearsal process; otherwise, it’s ready for an audience,” Jersey Jeremy said.

  “Well, then, I’ll start making some calls. Rumor has it that the Manhattan Theatre Workshop may lose their next show if Neil Patrick Harris isn’t available to star in it…” Scarlett said.

  “Isn’t that show supposed to be happening like next month?” asked Buff Jeremy.

  “I’ll admit, it would be a little insane to pull our show together to go into rehearsals that quickly, but someone’s going to get that spot if it opens up. Why not us? We know they loved Swan Song when they saw the reading.”

  “I never thought I’d actually be praying that Neil Patrick Harris not come to New York for a show,” Jersey Jeremy said with a laugh.

  “Don’t get your hopes up, guys,” Scarlett said. “It’s still a long shot, and for all we know they may already have a back up show lined up. But it’s definitely worth a try. It would certainly be the perfect next step for the show. High profile but downtown.”

  Scarlett’s role as producer was to continue to find next steps for the development of the show. Musicals could take years to develop. Each reading, workshop, and production that had to happen to make a perfect show took time and money. Scarlett was hoping to get this one produced at a non-profit theater company. At the right theater, it could get both the exposure it needed and the benefit of the theater’s own production budget. The alternative—namely, Scarlett producing it by herself—would be a several hundred-thousand-dollar endeavor. That was a less-ideal alternative, considering the producer didn’t make a penny until, and unless, the show found success.

  “Speaking of which,” Buff Jeremy said. “Any news you’re at liberty to share about the Olympus extravaganza? I read in the paper that the show got a theater.”

  If there was anything harder on Broadway than raising the many millions of dollars needed for a Broadway show, it was getting a theater.

  “And not just any theater,” Jersey Jeremy added. “The Jackman, no less. Have you mopped the blood off the floor from the Thelma & Louise debacle?” Quintessential theater nerds, Jeremy and Jeremy were always well informed on the latest gossip and rarely able to restrain their cattiness around Scarlett, who loved them just as they were.

  Buff Jeremy jumped in. “That reminds me, what’s the deal with the Kanter suicide? Do you think he left a suicide note written in letters from cut-up playbills?”

  “That’s ice cold,” Jersey Jeremy said. “More important, do you think Liza Minnelli will be at the funeral?”

  “Oooh, or Stephen Sondheim?” Buff Jeremy said. He started singing, “Every day a little death...”

  “More like ‘He had it comin’, he had it comin’...’” sang Jersey Jeremy from the “Cell Block Tango.” “Though I suppose that would have been more appropriate if someone had killed him.”

  “How about ‘There’s a grief that can’t be spoken...empty chairs and empty tables, now the-critic-we-hated is dead and gone…’” sang Buff Jeremy. “I guess that doesn’t really work, either.”

  They both turned to Scarlett at that moment, and Jersey Jeremy said, “If you get invited you have to take us with you! Pretty please?”

  Scarlett pursed her lips. “So you two can serenade the mourners with you musical-theater funeral medley? No, thank you! Anyway, there isn’t going to be a funeral, according to the paper. And is it too much to ask that you guys show a little respect?”

  “Moi? Respect?” Jersey Jeremy said with a dramatic gesture to himself. “I’m sorry, my name is Jeremy, have we met?”

  “He’s hopeless. You should know better than to try and make him behave,” Buff Jeremy said, rolling his eyes at his boyfriend. “But you know how personally he took it, each time Kanter panned any new musical he actually liked.”

  “Did you read Reilly Mitchell’s piece on Kanter this morning?” Jersey Jeremy asked gleefully.

  At the mention of Reilly’s name, Scarlett felt her cheeks flushing. She hadn’t quite been able to get him out of her mind. She knew she was being silly but supposed a little celebrity crush was harmless.

  “Well, no point in reveling in Kanter’s demise. I’m sure someone just as unpleasant is waiting in line to take Kanter’s place. Fortunately, that’s not my problem.” Scarlett was eager to change the subject away from Reilly’s column before they noticed anything unusual. She fished in her purse for her wallet. “Speaking of which, some of us have to get to work.”

  “And some of us have to finish re-painting the bathroom today...” Buff Jeremy said mock-glaring at Jersey Jeremy. They shared a cute apartment in Chelsea that Jersey Jeremy’s father had bought for him in an overboard effort to prove that he loved his musical-theater-inclined gay son. Scarlett often wondered which aspect of Jersey Jeremy caused his father more consternation: the fact that his son was gay or that he had chosen musical theatre as his profession.

  “It’s not my fault that there was a Desperate Housewives marathon last weekend. You couldn’t possibly expect me to paint under those circumstances.”

  “…While I was working my fingers to the bone at the office,” Buff Jeremy said in his best woe-is-me voice. He contribute
d to their finances by working part-time as a dog walker, so he could make money and contribute to his physique.

  “Same time and place next week?” Scarlett had to be aggressive to get a word in when those two got started.

  “We’ll be here with bells on,” Jersey Jeremy said.

  “Speak for yourself. I’ll be here sans bells,” Buff Jeremy said.

  Scarlett made her escape as their banter started up again. It was a pleasant start to her Friday.

  Scene 8

  Candace ascended the steps to the unmarked door on 46th and entered the elite hot spot that was Bar Centrale. The bar was already crowded, but Candace wasn’t looking to rub shoulders. Tonight, her mind was on work.

  Her managing editor, Tom, hadn’t arrived yet, so she grabbed the last two stools at the bar. A booth would have been better, but on a Friday night at 7:00 p.m., that wasn’t going to happen. As she ordered her usual Manhattan, Candace glanced at the young woman on her other side. She didn’t particularly want an audience for her upcoming conversation. Luckily her bar neighbor, from the looks of her, was just another pretty enough, dime-a-dozen wannabe actress in a zebra coat. The girl practically blended in with the zebra-print bar stools. How tacky, thought Candace, uncharitably. She caught the eye of her editor and waved him over as he came in through the heavy velvet curtains at the door.

  While he ordered a glass of wine, Candace took a few unladylike gulps of her Manhattan.

  “Nice to get out of the office. What a week,” her editor said as his wine arrived. “Shall we toast our fallen comrade? To Ken Kanter, may he be wielding his poison pen wherever he is.”

  “Tragic,” Candace said, forcing her face into a grim mask as they clinked glasses. She polished off her drink with a nod to the bartender for another.

  “So, Candace, you wanted to talk to me about something.”