She looked over to the side of the stage where the group awaited.
“In fact, I wouldn’t be standing up here if not for these people. I make my living as a writer because I want to be heard without being seen. As I’m sure you can tell”—she pointed at her twitching nose—“I have Tourette’s, which makes my face do this when I’m nervous.” She leaned closer to the mic. “Don’t tell. But y’all make me a little nervous.”
She caught Cal’s gaze in the front row, the lights revealing the shine in his teary eyes.
“But someone in this group taught me that we’re all human and that we shouldn’t have to hide that. It’s okay to be seen. It’s important. Improv is about working with the happy accidents, the unplanned mistakes, and the drunk heckler in your life.”
“I love you, Miz Poppy!” the guy yelled again, perfectly on cue.
The audience laughed.
She smiled and pointed his way. “Give that guy a free beer for helping with my metaphor.”
He gave her a devil horn’s rock-and-roll hand signal.
“So,” she said, “if you’re sitting here right now, afraid to do something in your life, know that I’m calling you out to change that. Because if this chick with the tics can get up here and make a fool of herself with the improv pros, then I bet you can do just about anything.” She tipped a pretend hat. “And thus concludes my motivational speech for the night and also my disclaimer that if I suck, it’s not on these guys.”
The audience’s clapping filled her ears, and she pressed her lips together, taking it in. She’d done it. She’d gotten onstage as Miz Poppy and hadn’t lost it. Regardless of what happened the rest of the night, she’d won.
Monique joined her onstage and gave Hollyn a side hug. When the crowd settled down, Monique addressed everyone without the need for the mic. She gave them the speech about how their improv worked and then they were off and running.
The group handled the first game where they got an audience suggestion without her. They’d planned that so she could have a moment to recover in case she’d had a rough time during her intro. But by the time the first scene ended, they were already calling her back onstage.
Leah had the mic, and Barry led Hollyn over to one of four chairs they’d dragged onto the stage. Hollyn sat, and Antonio, Church, and Barry took the other three chairs.
“For this game,” Leah started. “We’re going to make Miz Poppy go on the Hail Yes dating show.”
Hollyn groaned, and Andi grinned at her from the audience.
“You guys,” Leah went on, “are going to be able to read what role each potential suitor has been assigned. But dear Miz Poppy won’t be able to see what’s happening because…”
Danica and Monique lifted up a sheet, separating Hollyn from the three guys.
“She’s behind the magic dating wall,” Leah said. “Her job will be to ask them questions and then try to guess who or what they are.”
Hollyn scanned the audience, searching for the investors, but she couldn’t pick them out. Everyone was focused on Leah, most were smiling, and the whole place seemed fully engaged. Jasper would’ve loved to have seen this. Hollyn shook off the wistful thought. Stop thinking about Jasper. If he had wanted to be here, he would’ve made it happen. She was mourning the loss of the person she thought Jasper was, not the real one who’d bailed on her and his friends tonight.
Leah walked over and handed Hollyn her index cards, which held the prepared questions. They’d practiced this game in rehearsal, but the guys would be different characters this time and she didn’t know what the questions were. However, she had the easy part. Jasper had made sure her parts in the games were as straightforward as possible.
The game began, the spotlight hit her, and she picked the first card. “Bachelor Number One, if you were to take me out on a date where cost wasn’t an issue, what would we do?”
“Well,” Barry said in a deep, serious voice. “First, I would take you to my laboratory and show you my big…beakers. And then we’d do experiments on each other all night long.”
Hollyn lifted her eyebrows. “That sounds…interesting.”
“It would be, my little Bunsen burner. Then we would—” He started to scream. “No! You can’t be alive. What are you doing? Put that down. No, no—” He made a choking sound.
“Bachelor Number One, are you okay?” she asked.
A deep grunting sound was the response. He repeated it a few times. The audience was laughing so she suspected Barry was doing crazy movements on the other side of the sheet.
Hollyn feigned a worried face and flipped to the next index card. “Okay, then, so since Bachelor Number One is Dr. Frankenstein who just got killed by his monster, why don’t we move on to the next.”
The audience clapped at her apparently correct answer.
“So, um, Bachelor Number Two…”
She went through the routine with Church, who seemed to be a Broadway singer who was unable to speak in anything but song. Church had some of the front row in tears with laughter by the end of his performance.
“Okay, Bachelor Number Two, I’m not sure I could date a guy who has to say everything in song.” Finally, she moved on to Antonio. “Bachelor Number Three, tell me why I should pick you over the other two bachelors.”
“Because I’m already in love with you,” he answered in a deep, affected voice that was without his normal accent.
She tilted her head. “But you don’t know me.”
“Don’t I? I know that you like sappy romantic comedies and watch them late into the night. I know that you dot your i’s with little circles. I know that you always smell like berry-burst body wash.”
Hollyn frowned, the observations true. “Uh, Bachelor Number Three, are you my stalker?”
The crowed laughed, and she noticed most were looking at her now, not at the other side of the curtain. Andi’s head was on a swivel, looking back and forth between both sides. Cal was staring hard toward Antonio. She shifted in her chair.
“I know you like spicy food and you have a wicked sense of humor,” Bachelor Three went on. “I know you’re a badass and a talented writer and superhot.”
Hollyn swallowed hard, the voice shifting in her ears and making the hair on her arms prickle. “You seem kind of sure of yourself, Bachelor Three.”
“True.” The voice was closer, just on the other side of the sheet. “Some have called me a narcissist. And selfish. And really, really stupid for walking away from the best thing that’s come into my life in a long damn time.”