“What’s the deal with all the blow job jokes?” I asked. “And calling Brad an asshole and Janet a slut?”
Cal glanced over at me. “It’s part of the show,” he said.
“But why?”
Cal thought about it for a moment.
“That’s above my pay grade,” he said. “It’s just the way it is.”
I supposed that was the “cult” part of “cult classic.” But though I didn’t understand the origin of or meaning behind most of the jokes, it didn’t matter. I was still having a blast, and participating whenever I could.
“This is awesome,” I said.
“I thought you’d like it,” Cal said.
“Did you ever perform?”
Cal’s expression was one of adorable embarrassment.
“Oh my god, you did!” I gave him a gentle punch in the arm. “Who were you? Frank-N-Furter? Brad? Meat Loaf?”
He said something, but I couldn’t hear over the audience’s chant of “Say it! Say it! Say it!” or rather, “Dis-le! Dis-le! Dis-le!” as Tim Curry spent three years saying the word “anticipation.”
“What?”
“I might have been Rocky,” Cal said.
I turned my entire body toward him.
“Excuse me?”
He was looking at the floor. Very much not looking at me.
“You were Rocky?” I asked.
He nodded.
“In the…?”
He nodded again.
“And nothing else?”
One more nod.
“Wow,” I said.
Because now all I could think about was Cal onstage, wearing a tiny, shiny gold Speedo.
“That’s…well…good for you,” I said.
When I was really thinking: Do you have any pictures?
His costume had been unraveling—literally—throughout the evening. Now, it was mostly around his shoulders and his waist, his face free. Someone had given him the appearance of sunken eyes by smearing dark eyeliner beneath them, his face paler than usual with the help of powder.
He was really cute, especially when he was embarrassed. As if he could tell I was imagining him in his Rocky costume.
“It’s not a big deal,” he said.
“Oh sure,” I said. “Not a big deal at all.”
“Shut up,” he said.
I stuck my tongue out at him. He did the same to me.
I was about to say something else, but the screen—or rather, the faux redhead in front of the screen—grabbed his attention, and he gave my leg a squeeze before turning back to the show.
The warmth of his hand and that smile of his stayed with me through the rest of the evening, even after he and Elizabeth dropped Harriet and me off at the hotel before disappearing into the night to have their own fun.
CHAPTER 12
I hated this stupid number. It had too many kicks, too many turns, too many fancy fucking steps.
And that wasn’t the worst of it.
If the workshop went well, and we moved to out-of-town tryouts, we’d be doing all that damned choreography on a moving conveyor belt. Because Cal was a sadist.
At least I wasn’t the only one struggling with it.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Melissa said.
We were both bent over, hands on our knees, wheezing like a pair of broken bagpipes.
“Is he insane?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
We’d been working on the number all day and had yet to get through it without a mistake.
“I mean, I’d been warned that he had high standards but whew,” Melissa said.
“He’s a monster,” I said.
“Yeah,” Melissa said, but the look she gave him wasn’t one you’d give a monster. There was no loathing, just admiration. “It’s going to be great, though.”
“If we get it,” I said.
“You’ll get it,” Cal said.
I hadn’t noticed him come up behind us.
“Shall we go over it again?” he asked. “Slower this time?”
“Yes, please,” Melissa said.
“We’re fine,” I said.
“It’s okay to ask for help, Kathleen,” Cal said.
“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind,” I said. “When I need help.”
I was being stubborn and ridiculous, but I couldn’t bear the thought of Cal pitying me. Of him thinking I needed special treatment. Because the truth was, I knew I could do this number. It was complicated and it was exhausting but it wasn’t impossible. I’d done far more intricate choreography as Katee Rose, and I’d done it under less encouraging circumstances.
“Let’s take a break, then,” Cal said.
“Fine,” I said.
I went to get some water from my bag. He followed me.
“Remember the ‘Give It to Me’ video?” he asked.
He’d lowered his voice, leaning up against the mirrored wall but not looking at me. Instead he watched the rest of the cast and team take a break—stretch, get water, check their phones.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I asked.
“Give It to Me” had been my biggest hit, and the music video had won countless awards and played almost nonstop for weeks. Everyone had seen it.
I’d like to think it was because of the complicated choreography, but I knew it was really because I’d been doing all of it underneath a waterfall in a white dress. I’d practiced that number for days, intent on making it perfect, only to spend the day soaking wet and shivering while the director ordered the camera operator to get enough close-ups of my tits and ass.
That’s what people remembered about that video. All the wet jiggling my body had done.
“That choreography was twice as hard as this,” Cal said. “And you get to do it in dry clothes.”
“I’d rather re-create ‘Give It to Me’ naked in the middle of Times Square than do this number one more time,” I said.
The look Cal gave me indicated that he was imagining it. I told myself the shiver I got was unrelated.
“You still remember it?” Cal asked.