Chapter 31 - Nadia

I was sweaty and tired when we eventually finished for the night—all of the numbers we had practiced involved a lot of movement from the backup dancers. Braden looked annoyed when I met him backstage.
“All I’ll say is that you aren’t the problem,” I whispered while collecting my things next to him.
“Right?” he replied. “If I do my normal track, we’ll be off-time and it looks bad. But when I account for Tatiana’s drift, I’m the one who gets yelled at.”
“Preaching to the choir.”
He looked sideways at me. “Got plans tonight? Dorian and I are going to the movies.”
“I’ve got a shift at the bar.”
“Ah, right.” He gave a self-deprecating shake of his head. “Us rich jerks forget that most people have to earn their money.”
I smiled sweetly at him. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re rich, but you’re not a jerk.”
“I’m sure the money I inherited will corrupt me eventually.”
“Not for many more years, I hope.”
“Want someone to walk you to the bar?”
I shook my head. “It’s only a few blocks from here. Sweet of you to offer, though.”
He blushed, then quickly jerked a thumb over his shoulder to distract from it. “I was gonna send Ryan. Rich guys like me don’t risk their own personal safety when they can send someone else.”
“Fucking right,” Ryan said, flexing a bicep. “You change your mind, Nadia, you let me know.”
I gave him a private smile. “You know I will.”
The bar was dead when I arrived. Jack was hunched over his beer at the counter, but aside from him there were maybe half a dozen other customers scattered at tables. Robbie was fiddling on his phone, but perked up when he saw me come in.
“There’s the Harlem harem queen!” he announced.
“Their place isn’t in Harlem,” I said as I removed my coat.
“The alliteration was worth the inaccuracy. How’s the house of love?”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s just fine, thanks.”
“Don’t let this prude tease you,” Jack said gruffly. “You do you, Nadia.”
“Thanks, Jack.” I glared pointedly at Robbie.
“But in all seriousness,” he said. “How’s your quest to win the heart of Mr. Hotpants? Are the other guys getting in your way?”
Even though Robbie was my friend, I still felt weird discussing the arrangement out loud. Like I was literally whoring myself out for a room in a nice neighborhood. Jack’s encouragement helped me get over it, though.
“Honestly? I kind of like all of them.” I spent the next few minutes going over everything that had happened: temp work with Dorian, my date with Andy, and a vague glossing-over of what Ryan and I had been doing. Robbie narrowed his eyes when I skipped over the fuck-buddy details of Ryan, but didn’t push me for juicy details.
“But you’re no closer to figuring out what’s up with Braden?”
I sighed. “I pushed him for an answer last night. He told me that he doesn’t know what he wants.”
“Aside from a fake girlfriend to convince his parents,” Robbie muttered.
“Oh! Speaking of that, I had my first trial run. We had brunch with his sister, Candy.”
“She sounds delightful. How’d it go?”
Jack raised his head. “She sniffed you out almost immediately, didn’t she?”
I whipped my head toward him. “How’d you know?”
The old man grinned widely, which sprouted wrinkles all over his face. “Because it’s a stupid plan that was bound to fail.”
Robbie pointed. “He’s not wrong, honey.”
“It’s not my fault!” I said. “Apparently I’m not the first girl Braden has tried that with. But we’re still going to work on convincing his parents. Braden wrote six pages of backstory for our imaginary relationship.”
Robbie held out his palm. “Well now I have to see that.”
I handed him my phone and we spent the next few minutes laughing about all the little details Braden had written. He went into the minutiae of each date. How many drinks we had, what appetizers we ordered, how often I laughed at his jokes. It was as thorough as a script for a movie.
“Huh,” Jack said when we reached the end of the notes.
“What?”
He shook his head and hunched back over his beer. “Nothing.”
“It doesn’t seem like nothing,” I said.
Robbie snatched Jack’s half-finished beer off the bar counter and held it away. “Tell us, or I’m cutting you off. I don’t care if you are the best customer we have.”
Jack laughed along, and gave me a wry look. “It’s just that—in my broad experience—a guy doesn’t go to that much trouble for something he doesn’t care about.”
“You think the detailed backstory means he does have feelings for me?”
“All I’m saying is he’s put more thought into your fake relationship than a lot of guys put into real relationships. Almost like it’s something he’s been fantasizing about.”
“I doubt he’s fantasized about me…” I began, but he had a point. These date descriptions were unlike anything else I’d ever seen. If they had come from any random guy, they would have been creepy.
Since they were from the guy I was crushing on…
“When do you meet his parents?” Robbie asked.
“They’re on vacation, so in a week or two when they get back.”
“Good.” He handed back my phone with the document on it. “Because you’re going to need time to rehearse that.”
“And we’ll give you a pop-quiz every time you come in!” Jack said cheerfully. Then he reached toward Robbie. “Hey, am I going to get my beer back, or what?”
“Sorry.” Robbie placed it back on the counter.
“Speaking of rehearsing things, how’s The Proposal coming along?” Jack asked.
“The Proposition,” I corrected. “And it’s coming along great, if you ignore the sabotage going on.”
Jack didn’t react to what I had said, but Robbie’s mouth hung open. “Sabotage? Like the fun Beastie Boys kind?”
“Like, the kind where spotlights crash onto the stage and nearly kill the lead female.”
“How many of these have happened?” Jack asked.
“I don’t know. Three or four? There might have been more I haven’t noticed, but it’s always stuff with the lights being tampered with.”
Robbie smacked both of his palms against his cheeks and held them there like Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream. He spoke softly, barely loud enough to hear over the bar music.
“You have a phantom.”
“No.”
“You have a phantom!” he repeated with more dramatic flair. “A phaaaaaaaaaaaaantom of the opera!”
“Shut up. It’s not that exciting.”
But Robbie was already swaying his head back and forth in time with the overture he was humming. “This is exciting. I might actually come to the opening show if there’s a chance something fun will happen!”
“All joking aside, the spotlight literally almost killed the lead,” I said. “So don’t get too excited.”
That deflated Robbie from his enthusiasm.
Jack had a funny look in his wise eyes as he regarded me. “Sounds like someone is trying to get the lead out of the way. Someone who would gain from her injury. Can you think of anyone who would want to do that, Nadia? Anyone at all?”
“Ugh!” I groaned. “Everyone’s been making that joke, some less jokingly than others. Yeah, I know I’m the one who would gain from Tatiana’s injury. But it’s not me.”
Jack held up his palms. “Just pointing out what it looks like…”
“Intrigue!” Robbie said, resting his chin on his hand. “A spat between a lead actor and her understudy is almost as good as a phantom.”
“I didn’t do it!”
“Sure you didn’t.” He turned his head sideways and gave me the most obvious wink in the history of winks. “You’re totally innocent.” Another wink.
I grabbed a fresh glass and turned toward the taps. “I need a beer to deal with you guys.”
“No more teasing, I promise,” Jack said. “It’s that warehouse four blocks from here, right? That place is at least a century old. How do you know the malfunctions aren’t just quirks from an old building?”
“That’s what they thought at first. But there’s been evidence of tampering. Tools missing that were used to loosen the bolts on the spotlight.”
Jack pondered this. “Who do you think would do something like that?”
I took a foamy sip from my beer. “Lots of people would gain from it, honestly. Tatiana is a bad lead. Like, really bad. The show is going to bomb, and it will single-handedly be her fault. So anyone who needs the show to succeed for their career would want her gone.”
“In other words, everyone,” Jack muttered.
Robbie frowned. “If she’s such a bad actor, how did she get the role? Did she screw the producer?”
Jack almost choked on his beer.
“She didn’t screw the producer because he’s actually her grandfather. Which answers your question about how she got the part. The entire show was made to give her a lead role in an off-broadway musical.”
“It’s not what you know in this town,” Jack mumbled, “it’s who you know. Been that way since before I moved here, and it’ll be that way long after I’m gone.”
“Truer words were never spoken,” Robbie agreed. “She must have a rich grandfather to go to those lengths just to give her a single starring role. Buying a theater in New York alone is millions of dollars worth of commitment, not counting all of the expenses for the show itself.”
“Yep,” was all I said. “A shame we’re all not that lucky.”
“Hard work builds better character,” Jack said as he finished his beer and waved for another. “Having everything handed to you in life makes spoiled children and spoiled grandchildren.”
He sounded like he knew that from personal experience. But he also seemed saddened by it, so I didn’t ask.
“That’s why I’m focusing on what I can control,” I said as I refilled his beer. “All I can do is put hard work into my role in the show and hope for the best.”
“You can also pray for more sabotage against Tatiana,” Robbie said with another exaggerated wink. “But it’s totally not you doing it. Definitely someone other than Nadia.” Two more winks.
I rolled my eyes and greeted a trio of customers who came through the door.