Once Upon A Dream

Chapter 4 - Red Eyes

Ch. 4 

Another show came went, as they do. I was working on getting my wig off and wiping off as much make-up as I could on my way to my dressing room. When I pulled back the curtain, Lea, Mandy, Tara, and Brad stood there chatting as they waited for me. Brad was checking out a bouquet of blue, red, and gold flowers, and he was pouting. 

Still pouting when Brad turned to face me, he said, "Why no card?" 

"Secret admirer, you lucky girl," murmured Lea teasingly. 

Mandy turned red, either out of embarrassment for me or trying so hard to smother laughter; I couldn't tell. 

"Insecure?" offered up Tara. "Maybe he's not too hot?" 

"Who cares?" exclaimed Brad. "Have you seen this bouquet?! Girl, you must have hit it rich!" 

"Uhhh," I finally managed to spit out. "Never met him-or her...wouldn't know." 

Brad pouted again. "They're so gorgeous! I wish I had a secret admirer." 

"They're not from a secret admirer," I denied. "I mean, come on..." 

"Uh-huh," grunted Tara incredulously. 

"I repeat: Have you seen this bouquet?" declared Brad. "Dear, please do compare these to the other flowers you or any other actress or actor receives! They're so much...more!" 

"More elegant, much brighter, more beautiful, more amount of flowers in the bouquet," Mandy began listing, "More-" 

"All right, all right, all right!" I cried out. 

"Well, we just wanted to come back here and say 'Hi' after the show and give you some more congrats," stated Lea as she gave me a tight hug. 

"We have to go to class now," said Mandy with a grin. We hugged after Lea let go. "See later, Katie." 

"Bye, guys. See you around," I said. 

"And I'm going to go off," said Tara coyly. "Not far or anything, just, uh, one thing...Where's Patrick?" 

I chuckled. Tara always had a thing for Patrick with his immaturity and all. The only thing I saw in the boy was his strong, selfless heart. Either that was all Tara needed to fall for someone, or she saw something more than I did. 

"Probably in his dressing room, which you know where that is," I told her, and Brad snickered. 

On her way out, Tara gave Brad a hard slap to his arm, making him yipe. "Bye, Katie, Brad!" She tugged the curtain back. 

"Suppose you're going to flirt too?" I turned to Brad. 

"Well..." Brad said. "The dancers, quite a few are-" He let out a low whistle and then smiled. "You did do a great job out there, though." After wrapping his arms around me for a long moment, Brad pulled away, waved, and left. 

I shut the curtains and changed out of my costume. I pulled my orange hair back into a high ponytail, and touched up my face with a little bit of make-up. I wore tight Levi's, an off-white tank top with the face of a black panther on the front, and tennis shoes. 

"Knock, knock," came a sing-song voice from the opposite side of the curtain. 

"Come in, Lance," I said, and he heeded my words. "I was just about to leave. What do you need?" 

Lance's green eyes traveled past me. "Uh, nice flowers." His brow furrowed. "Have any idea who those bad boys are from?" 

"Don't be jealous," I teased, and he chuckled.