“…choreographer will be here on Friday, so the name of the game this week is to learn all your music and start learning your lines. The schedule is in your script packets.” Nate picked one up, waved it. “Now, if any of you are familiar with the actual stage production of White Christmas The Musical, you will know that it bears little resemblance to the movie we all know and love. I chose this show based on nostalgia. White Christmas is my favorite Christmas movie, and it’s incredibly well-known. People hear we’re putting on a production, that’s the story they expect to see. So I contacted the Irving Berlin estate and requested permission to make my own adaptation of the movie script. Given we are a town of less than five thousand, they don’t have a lot of fear this will become a raging success, so they actually said yes. That said, it’s a one shot deal. We get one three week run of the show, and that’s that. Permanently retired after that. But at least we’ll be adhering as faithfully as possible to the actual plot and script of the movie, with minor changes to facilitate our set limitations. So come and get ’em and let’s get started.”
Myles headed to the back of the line, intending to position himself beside Piper, the better to pick her brain.
She stood close to Tucker, her voice low. “We have to do something. We’ll never pull off the show if Tyler isn’t at the top of her game.”
Instead of butting into their conversation, Myles hung back, shamelessly eavesdropping, which was a reporter’s default setting.
?
??What exactly do you propose we do? Brody’s back after all this time. He’s got as much right to be here as any of us,” Tucker said.
She gave him a withering look. “We’ll agree to disagree on that.”
“It should be fine. He’s just my understudy. I can run interference, keep them separated, if need be.”
“To keep this from being a blood-letting, that might be wise.”
The two of them looked across the stage to where the guy—Brody presumably—was attempting to talk to Tyler in the line. Myles could practically see clouds of condensed air rolling off her for all the luck the guy was having. His writer brain began churning. No question, this was the guy who’d broken Tyler’s heart. And she was all kinds of pissed to be seeing him again.
Potential scenarios flew through his head, how he’d construct the story, what kind of ending he’d expect. Would Wishful be getting a show within a show? Given the way small towns seemed to operate and the fact that people still remembered what had happened close to a decade later, it seemed like a good possibility. Not that he’d be airing their personal conflicts in the paper—he was a journalist, not a gossip columnist. But he couldn’t stop wondering whether Tyler and Brody would be able to put aside their personal crap in the name of saving the theater, or if Tyler would bail, leaving the role of Judy to her understudy Charlotte.
Time would tell.
~*~
In all her years living in Wishful, Piper had never actually been to the offices of The Wishful Observer. She’d seen the doors, of course, facing Oxford Street, but she’d never had reason to go inside or even much wonder about the people who worked there. She read the paper like everybody else and just kind of accepted that it would come out when it came out—which, the last few years, was three times a week. But now she had a face attached to to the paper. A very nice face she’d been running lines with for two weeks now. And she was curious. She was also on a mission.
An older woman looked up as Piper stepped inside. “Can I help you?”
“I’m looking for Myles.”
“He’s on the phone just now, but if you want to take a seat just over there, you’ll be able to see him when he gets off.” She gestured to a small waiting area across from a glass wall.
Piper thanked her and sat. Myles moved beyond the glass, pacing around his desk with some kind of headset on, a Slinky rolling from hand to hand as he talked. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected the office of a newspaper editor to look like, but his wasn’t it. A variety of toys sat around the room. More things like the Slinky that he could play with while he thought. Framed posters of comic book women lined one wall. Not the over-sexed, busty kind she’d seen in her cousin’s comic books, but sharp, smart-looking women. She wondered who they were.
Myles himself was a strange contradiction, in an untucked, French-cuffed button down and jeans. Deliberate or the product of a failure to do laundry? God, he was adorkable. He put her in mind of a much younger, much sexier Perry White. Not that she needed to find her costar sexy. Sexy absolutely wasn’t the name of the game with Betty and Bob. They were wholesome. But as she watched, he leaned over to look at something on a computer screen, slipping a pair of horn-rimmed reading glasses on. Piper’s mouth watered. Oh, she had a real soft spot for the sexy geek look. Very Jude law from The Holiday.
Myles finished his call and removed the headset and glasses, tossing both in the midst of the piles of paper on his desk and running a hand through his thick, dark hair. Catching sight of her, his serious expression shifted to a smile, and he crossed to open the door. “Well this is a pleasant surprise. Come on in.”
“Thanks. I read your article in the paper this morning. The interview with Barbara Monahan. It was really poignant.”
“I’m working on a series of interviews with various members of the cast. I want to really bring home to the community how much the Madrigal means to people.”
“I think it’s a great idea.” She dropped into a chair opposite his desk as he leaned back against the front of it. “I really appreciate what you’re trying to do here. Especially since you’re new to Wishful.”
“Good journalism is about people, about community, and I took over the paper here because I wanted to be at the heart of a good one.”
Dozens of questions rolled through her brain. Personal stuff better suited to a date than a business meeting. But she wasn’t quite ready to get down to business. Instead she smiled and jerked her head toward the posters on the wall. “Who are they?”
“My inspirations. That’s Lois Lane, Brenda Starr, and Vicki Vale.”
“Okay, Lois Lane I know. Who are the other two?”
“They’re all kick ass female reporters from the comic world. Lois from Superman, obviously. Brenda had her own comic series, and Vicki is from Batman.”
Piper angled her head. “Why them instead of, say, Perry White or that editor guy from Spiderman? The one with the mustache?”
Myles grinned. Damn but he had a great smile. “J. Jonah Jameson. Well, for one, the ladies are more fun to look at. And for another, they were the ones who put their butts on the line to get out there and report the truth. I find that more appealing than just sitting behind a desk.”