Those Who Stare Into the Sun

Chapter Nine: The manager

The review was good. I really couldn't believe it. I took a seat at this diner and I set my nose in it, and read it word by word, two times over.

Geroge Archer keeps surprising his audience, this time by taking on a group of amateur actors...

Okey, I really didn't like that word. But I was still really happy about this. Especially because I would get to do it again. I would get to be on stage again. Three days had gone by since the play, and I was full of energy. Well, except for at work. Work bored me, and I really didn't have any patience for, well... people. But I kept going for the money of course. Even though I had my mind set on the acting-thing right now I really couldn't go around pretending that any of it would actually lead anywhere. I had to have my mind in the real world, even though I didn't want to. I just wanted to loose myself in my daydreams. But at least I had these days off work where I could sit at diners and just look at people or write down my thoughts and drink my coffee.

Acher called me one day and asked if I'd seen the review.

"Of course - I'm so happy!"

"Yeah, me too" he said, a little numb. "So we are performing again. You ready for that?"

He gave me two dates of when he had in mind. So we would do the play at least two more times.

"Hey, I actually spoke to Peter the other day", Archer said. "He sends his regards."

I screamed into the phone. "Really!"

"Yeah, uhm... So I told him you did good. And..." He paused.

"What?"

"Nothing. I'll tell you after the play."

We hung up, and of course my thoughts got stuck on the thing that Archer wouldn't tell me. It had something to do with Peter, but I had no idea what.

~*~

The next few weeks I bonded with Bonnie and Skyler some more, and they said that we really needed to take another night out sometime.

"We can't believe that you left and missed the best thing that night!" Bonnie said. She meant the night at Cirque Le Soir.

"What?" I said. They hadn't told me anything about it, because we hardly ever saw each other with our very different working schedules.

Bonnie and Skye looked at each other and their grin was huge.

"Whaaat?" I said, and put down my cup of tea.

"Remember who was there?"

"Okey, so now I just know that you're talking about Colin Farell", I said. And then I threw my legs up in the sofa och stared at them both.

"Skyler slept with him!" Bonnie yelled out. Skyler hit her in the head, saying she took all the fun away.

"What?!" My eyes went between the two of them like a pinball game. "But he blew you off!"

"Well..." Skyler started. "The twat apparently couldn't find anything better for the night, so..."

My mouth was wide open. "So you slept with Colin Farell?"

Her smile faded. "You think I'm slutty?"

"No!" I screamed out. "That's insane!"

I ran over and hugged her.

"I'm hugging someone who slept with Colin Farell" I yelled out. "I didn't think that these things really happened."

"Sure it does!" Bonnie said. "I slept with Nicholas Hoult last year."