But if this reflection on our past might have led us down any slightly more peaceful roads, all that is out the window within thirty minutes, when I am actively plotting Oliver’s murder. Fun Fur All Daycare is not at Eighty-Fourth and Lex. Only after an SOS text to Teddy that leads to him sending out a blast to his army of GeoTeens do I find out that it is a full twenty blocks south of that, which means I’ve wasted time on both ends of this trip.
Bless ur ridiculously dorky soul, I text back to Teddy, alongside an indiscriminate mess of praise hands, magnifying glass, and clown emoji.
Don’t bless me. Bless ParticularlyGoodFinders, he texts back, referencing the girl on the GeoTeens app I have teased him for having a digital crush on for weeks. She’s the one who knew where it was.
By the grace of my only acknowledged god Patti LuPone and the GeoTeens, I have one tiny elderly Maltese named The Artful Dodger (“Dodge” for short) tucked into my tote bag and smuggled onto the Q train to get us back down to the Broadhurst Theatre. He asserts himself every few stops by licking my elbow, which is the only thing keeping me from pulling up Oliver’s contact information in my phone so I can either deafen or psychologically scar him with my rage.
Except it’s not rage, really. It’s something ickier than that. I reluctantly recognize it as embarrassment. As hard as I’ve tried to make sure that particular feeling on the spectrum of emotion can’t affect me anymore, there it is anyway: I trusted him. I did him a favor, thinking he’d done me one too. But he’d really just taken the very first and brutal opportunity to screw me over faster than that rampant case of mono that shut down our unrepentantly horny band section in Cabaret two years back.
“How should I get my revenge?” I ask the very crusty Artful Dodger as we clamber into the oppressive heat of Times Square.
Dodge answers by lolling his tongue out at me, then trying to make a snack out of the emergency Nutri-Grain bar in my bag.
“Hey, no stealing,” I say, pulling it out of his teeth. “Except…”
Dodge is a genius. Theft it is.
I’m still so peeved at Oliver that it sucks half the magic out of doing something I never imagined I’d get to do this soon: walk backstage in the actual Broadhurst Theatre, to meet a legitimate Broadway star I’ve been stalking since before I got my first zit.
“Thank you, thank you,” says Baron when security leads me over to the open door of his dressing room. Dodge clambers sloppily out of my arms and into his, immediately licking the bejeezus out of him. “Nice to see you too, you rascal.”
He’s so handsome in real life that even the fact that he’s clad in mismatched denim and enough hair gel to be a one-man Slip ’n Slide can’t detract from it. Tonight’s his last night playing Sky in Mamma Mia before his replacement takes over for the last month of the run. I’d be lying if I said I haven’t been manically refreshing Playbill’s site in an effort to figure out what exactly he’s leaving the show for, but whatever it is, it’s intense enough that he had to board his dog for the rehearsals leading up to it.
“You’re Georgie’s new intern?” he asks, flashing me that same broad “leading man” smile that landed him a stint as Fiyero two years ago.
“Millie Price.” I extend my hand out to him. “You were phenomenal in The Playhouse’s Little Shop of Horrors.”
He raises an eyebrow, taking my hand with a firm shake. “That’s a deep cut.”
I know. It’s not even mentioned in his Playbill bio. “I swear I’m not a stalker,” I tell him candidly. “I just go to every show I can. Best way to learn is to watch the experts.”
He smiles appreciatively as Dodge wriggles in his arms, his tongue still lolling out and making him look more like a sock puppet than a dog. “Well, you’ve got a name with some star power, so you’re halfway there.”
It’s a good thing I have an urgent revenge plan to hatch right now, because it’s the only thing keeping me from spontaneously combusting from joy. I clear my throat.
“Well, it’s no Artful Dodger, but I guess it’ll do.”
Dodge’s ears perk up despite being conveniently out of commission when I asked him to stop gnawing the handles of my bag earlier.
“Maybe we’ll see you here in a few years, then,” says Baron. It’s enough to make my ego swell like I swallowed the sun—that is, until he adds, “If you survive Georgie, of course.”
“Right. I better get going.” I blow Dodge a kiss on my way out the door, and Baron calls after me, “Godspeed!”
I thought it might be difficult to pull off my revenge, but once I get back to the office I see Oliver made it too easy. His bike is propped next to the building—unlocked, which is a true testament to how distracted he must be right now—but I don’t need to steal the whole bike. If I’ve got the helmet, I’m golden. Oliver is obsessed with road safety. Not only did he bully our principal into letting him be ten minutes late to homeroom so he could be a volunteer crossing guard, but I’ve seen him yell “Wear a helmet!” at strangers in the bike lane outside our school more times than I can count.
I pluck the helmet off his bike seat, carefully placing it behind a dumpster in the alley by Check Plus Talent. A rat immediately scurries out of the trash, squeaking indignantly.
“Don’t judge me,” I tell it. “He started it.”
I race back up to the office and get Steph to sign off on my Check List, and barely get two words in with her edgewise before I have to sprint down to Sweetgreen to get Georgie’s Guacamole Greens salad off the preorder shelf. Oliver isn’t back by then, so I guiltily ask Steph what he’s up to and she tells me he’s picking up a client’s dry cleaning across town and dropping it off at a rehearsal space.
Okay. That’s like, a solid two miles round trip, which means we’re about neck and neck. I head downstairs and pull his helmet out from the alley, intending to put it back on his bike, when instead I am accosted by none other than Oliver himself.
“You stole my bike helmet?”
Oliver’s shirtsleeves are hiked up to his elbows, his once-slick hair now dripping with sweat.
“I had to hand Gloria freaking Dearheart an updated contract looking like this because you stole my helmet?”
For a moment I forget to be mad altogether. Gloria is in a tier above regular humans. One of her shows at the Public was about a bunch of reincarnated Greek gods living in the same coed college dorm (Dot, a.k.a. Aphrodite, is obviously one of my dream roles), and it was so phenomenal I not only dragged half the theater department to see it, but also my dad and Teddy, whose interest in live theater of any kind is approximately none. Anybody who knows anything in the theater world is teeming with excitement over the show’s move to Broadway next week, especially since they’ll be debuting three entirely new songs.
Naturally, Georgie sent Oliver, whose acting aspirations are on par with a sponge.
Oliver moves to yank the helmet from my grasp, but I shove it at him before he can. “You sent me on a wild goose chase through the Upper East Side,” I shoot right back. “Do you know how many old people and strollers I had to dodge sprinting down Lex?”
“Do you know how many insufferable hipsters on their phones I just had to dodge sprinting through the East Village?” he snaps, looping his helmet strap back onto his bike handlebar.