a heart's end

Twenty Two

Monty

As I sat in a small circle around the stage I thought to myself: there is no place I'd rather be. The circle contained my cast members. Cast members. What a weird word. I was giddy with excitement. Daisy sat in the center and as she was answering questions I looked around the place. This was the very stage on which I flopped and fumbled with my lines. I completely demolished my first audition, yet Daisy still saw something in me.

My role is Damian, the friend of the wife who travels to France with her. I didn't know anybody else's names or who they played, but I figured that's what tonight was about. Getting to know my cast and hopefully making some new friends.

    Thirty minutes went by and Daisy basically explained everything. The play would open January 5th and run through February 5th, a month. Rehearsals would be 5 days a week until Christmas, after Christmas they should drop to 3-4 days a week. Daisy gave us a list of the rehearsal times and dates. There was no rehearsal any Saturday, and our one other off day could be our choice. Seems pretty fair.

    "Okay everybody!" Daisy said with a smile. "Let's get to introducing ourselves."

Jean-Claire was the lead part, she played Abby, the women in France as well as my stage best friend. She spoke in a light British accent which I thought was cute. She had shoulder length blonde hair and huge blue eyes. She wasn't the skinniest, but that had never affected my ideals of beauty. And she was great in my opinion.

Barnett played the cheating husband, Luke. Barnett looked mean on the outside, but I could tell he wasn't as mean as he appeared to be. He was huge, 6'3 at least and very broad, with brown hair curls that he tousled on top of his head.

And that's all I could really remember about names and people. I know it sounds bad, but I don't care. There were more people, a cast of about 6 total. But Jean-Claire, Barnett, and myself were the three big parts. One girl was named Tameka, the other girl was Lauren. K figured that out. I'll learn them all soon enough.

It was around 9:30 when the cast left. We were off to do our own thing, not meeting again until Monday. Anaelle should have been here 10 minutes ago, but I know with this New York traffic she could be unintentionally be running behind. I sat on the steps and killed time by playing on my phone. Suddenly it started ringing and when my mother's name popped up I couldn't help but smile. I hadn't called her since Halloween night, the first Halloween I spent without my family. Stuff like that hurt the most for a family orientated person like me.

"Hey Ma."

"Monty! Baby I thought I might be calling you too late. I didn't want to wake you up."

"No you're fine, Mama. I'm just sitting here on the steps waiting for my friend to pick me up."

"You're where? On the steps to what? Waiting for who? Oh, I told your dad you needed to find a car before you went up there...."

"It's okay, I've actually been car shopping these past couple of days." I lied. "I'm on the steps of the theatre, we just got through with our first rehearsal. It was awesome, Ma. I'm so happy. Stop worrying."

"Montgomery that is wonderful to hear. My honest thoughts before you went all the way to New York was that you would be so lonely up there by yourself with no family. But I'm glad you are having an easy time making friends. So when does your play start? Can we get some free tickets or do we have to spend hundreds of dollars to see our Monty?" My mom laughed. Of course she would come up to see the show.

"I can't wait for you to see it, Ma. I can't wait for you to see my play and New York. I'll put in a word or two about those tickets."

"Oh Monty, you know I'm playing. I would spend hundreds to see you and you know that."