It’s one of those stagnantly hot days, so I’m already sweating bullets when the security guard in the lobby lazily waves me up, saying “tenth floor” before I even open my mouth. It occurs to me that he must think I’m the “talent,” and that little buzz carries me up all those floors and straight into the waiting room.
For a moment I forget what I’m actually here for, soaking it all in. The plush royal green seats and the blush-pink walls. The gold accents on the round glass table, stacked with Playbills and copies of Variety. The wide windows with an open view of the city below. I’ve never been in this room before, but I’ve seen it a hundred times. It’s all over the Instagram stories of Rob Yaghutiel, Broadway’s current Phantom in The Phantom of the Opera, and Elizabeth Benson, who just took over for the lead in Frozen. You have to be somebody to get in this room.
And right now I’m in it.
“Hi there, how can I help you?”
I suck in a breath of surprise, and there she is, sitting at the front desk in a bright pink dress and a perfectly poised smile: Stephanie Fedotowsky. I recognize her from the Facebook photos Teddy pulled up for me last night, a mix of candids on rooftops sipping wine with her friends and old headshots, all broad laughs and big curls like a model from a vintage ice-cream ad. In person she’s even more arresting, her eyes so wide and blue that they stop me on a dime.
“I…”
Wonder if we have the same color eyes. Wonder if I am going to be that beautiful when I grow up. Wonder if I am quite possibly the kid you ditched at my dad’s front door almost seventeen years ago.
I clear my throat. Stephanie’s smile doesn’t falter in the least bit. There’s this innate warmth in it that I’m sure would make me feel at ease in any situation other than this.
But I came prepared. Well, ish. She’s the executive assistant here on and off when she isn’t acting in theater roles all over the city, so I spent nineteen of the twenty blocks it took to get here deciding that my “in” would be pretending I wanted to interview her for a school thing. I had it all mentally rehearsed, but for the first time in recent memory, I’ve forgotten my lines. In the space where the words should be there’s just this inconveniently enormous cavern filling up with unhelpful things like, Does she recognize me? Does she think I’m cool?
“What are you doing here?”
I stumble back, looking decidedly uncool, my eyes flying to the left of me to meet none other than Oliver’s.
I blink at him, sitting in one of those fancy green chairs, dressed in a perfectly pressed button-down tucked with a belt into a pair of dark-wash jeans with his hair swooped in a way I’ve never seen it. I might concede that it’s a good look for him, if I weren’t so suddenly preoccupied with wanting to murder him for intruding on what just might be the most important moment of my life.
“What are you doing here?” I shoot right back.
He’s clutching a folder like it’s his lifeline. “Don’t tell me you’re—”
“You must be interviewing for the paid summer internship, too,” says Stephanie.
I turn back to her, my cheeks on fire. This is the part where I’m supposed to ask to interview her, so I can go home and figure out a string of totally impersonal but just personal enough questions to gauge whether or not she is, in fact, my mom. I’m counting on the fact that she won’t be able to see through this extremely precarious lie of mine so I can see it through to the end.
But Oliver can smell my bullshit from a mile away. And the last thing I need right now is an audience of one who actively hates me and is a human lie detector to boot.
“I’m Georgie’s assistant, Steph,” she says. “Do you have a résumé I can file for her?”
My brain continues to short-circuit. I am simultaneously aware of Steph’s kind eyes and Oliver’s blazing ones, both waiting for me to formulate some kind of response.
“I…”
The phone at Steph’s desk starts to ring, saving me from verbally face-planting. “Just a sec, honey,” she says, shaking back her curls so she can pick up the phone and press it to her ear. “Check Plus Talent, this is Steph speaking, how can I help you?”
I’m about to let out a breath and try to regroup, but Oliver interrupts.
“You don’t want this internship.”
He says it through his teeth, his expression stiller than a ventriloquist’s. I take a step over to where he’s sitting, putting both hands on my hips.
“Excuse you?”
His eyes flit over to Steph. I can see him calculating the pros and cons of engaging me on this—the biggest con being that unlike him, I have a long history of not being afraid to make a scene.
“It’s all management-focused. You’re, like … completely on the other side of this. You need managing.”
I slide into the seat next to him and hear him take the kind of breath that is clearly intended to become a sigh, one I’ve heard a hundred thousand times before. Like when I have notes about his lighting transitions (in my defense, they were blinding the ensemble on stage) or the timing of the fight calls where we rehearse tricky choreography before each show (he always wants to do them as soon as possible, but you have to do it after warm-ups, or everyone’s going to be all tense and blow it, obviously), or whether we should spring for the expensive face paint for the actors (he has zero appreciation for proper skincare). Oliver has moaned so much about the “time he’ll never get back” that it’s probably only a matter of time before I turn his hair gray.
But for once, I really have no incentive for annoying the daylights out of him. It’s actually oddly calming, having him here. We may be so at odds that fellow theater kids flee for the hills when they spot us in the same room, but at least we know where we stand with each other.
Where I stand with my dad’s beloved “Fedotowsky” is about as clear as the plot of Cats.
“Maybe I want to learn about the business I’m about to commit my entire life to,” I say idly.
“So read a Wikipedia page.”
I scoot closer to him, keeping one eye on Steph, who is thoroughly distracted by whoever is on the phone. “Sounds like someone’s scared I’m going to beat them out,” I say lowly, close to his ear.
Oliver bristles but doesn’t pull away. His eyes meet mine like we’re playing a game of chicken that he’s determined not to lose. “No. I’m obviously more qualified for this than you are.” His fists curl and uncurl over the knees of his pant legs. “But I know you.”
“Do you, now?”
He turns the rest of his body to look directly at me, glowering. “You’re going to pull that stupid Millie charm.”
The edges of my lips tug upward. “Are you calling me charming?”
His scowl deepens. “It’s not going to work. Georgie Check is a total hardass, and she’ll see right through you.”
There are approximately two things in this world I can’t stand: Oliver Yang, and the concept of failure. This rubs both of them so aggressively that for a moment I forget the entire purpose of this little drop-in.
“To what?” I ask.
Oliver is a little too ready to answer that. “To the flighty, overly dramatic, unnecessarily loud—”