“Cal’s hiding on the balcony,” Whitney said, even though I hadn’t asked.
“Why?”
Whitney pointed to Rachel. “Apparently she gets very handsy around him.”
I was confused.
“I’m the buffer,” Whitney said. “Usually she backs off if I’m here, but if she’s drunk enough, she’s been known to corner Cal by the bathrooms.”
“They’re not dating?” I asked.
Whitney looked at me and burst out laughing. Then stopped when she realized I hadn’t been joking.
“Oh. You’re serious,” she said.
I nodded.
“I don’t know where you got that idea, but no, they are not dating,” Whitney said. “But they are.”
She nodded toward the other end of the room, where I saw Rachel interrupt Harriet and Statler/Waldorf’s conversation to plant a kiss on the older man’s cheek.
“Oh my god,” I said.
“I mean, to each their own,” Whitney said, raising her glass. “But yeah.”
I let that information sink in.
Fucking Rachel. She really was devious. If it hadn’t caused me such a headache, I might have even admired her tenacity.
Whitney was right. Cal was hiding on the balcony.
It was a beautiful one, with an incredible view of the city, but it was also freezing. I stood there, silently watching him for a moment, his elbows leaning on the railing, his entire form strong and solid and comforting as he looked out over Manhattan.
I stepped up behind him, lowering my voice to a barely passable imitation of Rachel’s.
“Hey, baby,” I murmured.
Cal jumped about five feet, and I couldn’t help laughing. His head whipped around, and I could see his anxious expression morph into annoyance.
“Kathleen,” he said. “I should have known.”
“Whitney said you were out here,” I said. “Playing keep-away from Rachel.”
Cal let out a groan. “The woman is relentless,” he said. “Whenever her boyfriend throws a dinner party it’s like her hand is magnetized to my thigh.”
I shouldn’t have found it funny. It wasn’t funny.
But even Cal was smiling a little.
“And you let me believe that you were sleeping with her!” I remembered. “What the hell?”
“I did not,” Cal said. “I just didn’t correct you when you made that assumption.”
“Wow,” I said. “That’s some top-shelf mind fuckery right there.”
“It wasn’t your business,” Cal said.
“Oh no?” I raised an eyebrow. “Rachel definitely tried to make it my business.”
“And you took the bait.”
“I—” I opened my mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. “Well. Fuck.”
Cal turned toward me. “What does Rachel have against you anyways?” he asked.
I shrugged. “She thinks I got her kicked out of Camp Curtain Call. Because Harriet and I caught her drinking, she assumed that we told the counselors.”
“Hmmm,” Cal said.
There was something about that “hmmm” that had me giving him a closer look.
“What?” I demanded. “I didn’t tell anyone. Neither did Harriet.”
“I believe you,” he said.
“Yeah, well, Rachel doesn’t,” I said. “And apparently she’s still stuck on getting revenge.”
“Hmmm,” he said again.
“Okay, that is annoying,” I said. “What are you not telling me?”
Cal gave me a sideways glance. “I know you didn’t get her kicked out of camp, because I did.”
I stared at him.
“Excuse me?”
“I told the counselors she was drinking,” he said. “But they totally knew. I mean, she would come to rehearsal practically reeking of vodka. Ms. Spiegel was purposefully looking the other way.”
My eyes were wide. “Seriously?”
“Yep,” Cal said. “I threatened to tell my parents and they finally did something about it.”
“Holy shit,” I said. “This entire time Rachel has blamed me for getting kicked out, it’s really been because of you—the person she keeps trying to play hide the sausage with?”
Cal winced. “Hide the sausage?”
“Sorry,” I said. “You know what I mean.”
“Unfortunately,” he said.
“Statler or Waldorf don’t mind?” I asked. “That she’s after you?”
“Who?” The look Cal gave me was one of incredulous amusement. “Did you just call our producers Muppets?”
I shrugged. “If the Muppet fits…”
Cal laughed. “Oh my god,” he said. “Now I’ll never be able to think of them as anything else.” He shook his head. “You’ve ruined me, Rosenberg.”
“You’re welcome,” I said.
I put my elbows on the railing next to Cal’s. The silence between us was comfortable. Calm.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Why ‘Memory’?” I asked. “At the audition. Why the last-minute request, and why that song?”
“Ah.” Cal glanced back at the party. “Well, I’m sure you’ve surmised that Rachel has been doing everything in her power to get a part in this show.”
“It was a real threat,” I said, feeling somewhat vindicated.
Cal shrugged. “I didn’t take it too seriously. Especially her going after your role,” he said. “But there were…murmurings of finding something for her.”
“So instead of giving me a heads-up, you just surprised me?”
“First of all,” Cal said, “you weren’t exactly trusting me at that point.”
“I wonder why,” I muttered.
He ignored me. “And second of all, the last thing I wanted to do was look like I was giving you preferential treatment. I wanted you to get that role without any help from me.”
“Oh,” I said.
“And I knew you’d probably still know that song, which happens to be one of”—he cleared his throat—“the Muppet’s favorite songs.”