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  “Avril, you were on TV every week for three years.”

  “Yeah, I know, but you couldn’t really tell it was me in the photo. I wore a large floppy hat. Anyway, Jon was one of the guys I got matched with, and I decided to go out with him.”

  “A TV star?”

  “He only knows I’m an actress in New York, of which there are thousands, and nothing more. It’s actually been nice going out with someone who doesn’t know anything about me. I can be more myself this way. I don’t have to worry Jon’s only interested because he fell in love with the character I played every Tuesday night at nine, or that he wants to break into the business, or see his picture splashed across the front page of a tabloid.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. “What’s the name of the site?”

  “LoveSetMatch.com. And I will so kill you if you tell anyone,” Avril kidded. “But honestly, who cares? It totally worked because Jon is so cool.”

  I raised the white napkin from my lap, erasing any trace of insalata caprese from my lips.

  “So you haven’t told him what you do for a living?”

  “I haven’t exactly been completely up front with him yet. He wasn’t a teeny bopper TV watcher, so he has no clue.”

  “LoveSetMatch.com.”

  Avril stared over the tabletop at me, happy as could be. “So what about you, sister? Anyone fill Sam’s shoes after his infamous disappearing act?”

  Sam’s shoes. I flashed for a moment, remembering his habit of leaving his shoes lined up inside the door of his apartment. His nine-to-five office shoes, his Adidas for basketball league, the tasseled loafers he wore Sunday afternoons on his parents’ boat. He had a pair of shoes for everything important in his world. Maybe his flip-flops best represented us. I wondered which pair he put on the day he decided to walk away.

  I shook my head—“This wasn’t a good year for romance.” A good year for romance? It hadn’t been a good year for getting out of bed in the morning.

  “Harper, it’s a new year in a new city, and that city just happens to be Manhattan. If you have the desire, and you’re willing to fall in love, Cupid will find you with that little arrow of his.”

  I laughed out loud.

  “Wait, you think I’m single because I’m not willing to fall in love? Avril, I’ve been waiting my whole life for a missing person to suddenly make an entrance, to walk on stage left and surprise me with a knock at my door.”

  “So put out an open casting call. There are four million men on the island of Manhattan. If you can’t find someone here, where will you?”

  “I don’t know, but Sam taught me I don’t just want someone, I want the one. Sam was only half there. I tried pretending the missing half didn’t matter, but ultimately that was the half that mattered most.”

  “Finding Mr. Perfect is going to be more of a challenge than just finding someone to love,” Avril said, sounding like one of those “results may vary” disclaimers on TV. “Then again, I found mine.”

  Avril beamed her “life always works out better than expected” smile, the central truism she lived by, and I thought I could see a halo of bliss sparkling around her head. She removed a gold American Express card from her wallet and laid it face up on the table. Our waiter swooped by to pick it up.

  “Lunch is on me today. Now that you’re working in theater again, it’s time to go to work on your love life. Speaking of which, you look terrific. What have you been doing over the past year, starving yourself?”

  ~ Five ~

  Avril and I finished lunch and were back at the Carney Theatre before two thirty. I’d planned to arrive long before Tabby Walker, but waiting in the shadow of the neon marquee was the woman with the blunt-cut raven hair, holding a tall coffee, steam venting through its lid. She wore the same ice sculpture look from earlier on her face, peering down at her watch when she saw us as if we were campers returning to our cabins past curfew.

  “Harper, I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself before. I’m Tabby Walker, Apartment 19’s stage production director and Ben’s P.A. Ben’s asked me to go over the entire show with you this afternoon, so I hope you’re ready.”

  “I think so,” I said, holding out my hand for Tabby to shake. I shouldn’t have bothered; hers wasn’t coming.

  “Okay, follow me.”

  Tabby turned and walked down West Forty-fourth Street without me. Avril and I threw each other looks, and I turned to follow Tabby, leaving Avril standing in front of the Carney.

  “I thought we were going to do a walk-through?” I said, catching up with her.

  “We are. Just not at the theater. We’re going to be working on the second floor of a dance studio we’ve reserved a half block down West Forty-fourth.”

  At a nondescript metal door, Tabby jangled a ring of keys from her pocket and, finding the one she wanted from the ring of twenty, drove it into the doorknob. She turned it counterclockwise, and the door scraped open on its hinges.

  Above the doorway hung a small sign that read “A Chorus Line Dance Studio.” Judging from the boxy sign’s cracked face, exposed wiring, and missing light bulbs, I guessed it had been a while since A Chorus Line had dazzled anybody with its own marquee. Tabby halted before going inside.

  “Harper, it’s critical that you have all the stage blocking and script memorized by day’s end. You can do that, can’t you?”

  She moved ahead without waiting for my answer. I felt an uneasy feeling rise up like a ringing warning alarm. We stepped onto the landing inside the doorway, little more than a cramped two-by-two space, and I followed Tabby up a narrow slat-board staircase that led to the second floor. The not-for-the-claustrophobic stairwell grew colder, darker as we climbed, and I listened to the reverberation of our shoes.

  Tabby flipped on a bank of ceiling lights when we arrived on the second floor, bringing the dance studio more or less to life.

  The studio was a grand, simple room—a rectangular matchbox with a well-worn, once-beautiful hardwood floor dark as burnt gold. Around the edges, time had shadowed its original stain, making the border of the floor look like a giant picture frame. The floor revealed its scars, a million scuff marks from rhythmic tap dancers, strictly ballroom beginners, and modern jazz stylists.

  Tabby attempted to turn on the heat by adjusting an ancient thermostat bracketed to the wall just above an old upright piano. She unbuttoned her coat, unwinding the dark scarf she had wrapped around her neck, and hung it on a hook in the corner.

  A shaft of light poured in from a row of windows where the wall met the high ceiling, and sunlight painted a foursquare court in the center of the dance floor.

  I removed my own hat, coat, and gloves. From behind me, I could hear Tabby muttering, saying something garbled underneath her breath, and I turned to see her shake her head in disgust.

  “Is anything wrong?” I asked. Tabby pursed her lips.

  “Molly put us in a real bind. I don’t have time to start from scratch, walking the new understudy through basic blocking for the show. Sorry, I just don’t.”

  I looked up at a round schoolhouse clock with black casing hanging above the door. Its loud ticking filled the space. Two forty. This was going to be a very long day.

  “And don’t take it the wrong way,” Tabby continued, “but I don’t think you were the best choice for understudy. I want to be up front about that. I know twenty actresses in New York who could walk in off the street and nail this role. But I wasn’t there when Ben made the call. Avril was. I was putting out production fires somewhere else when she got him all excited, and you got your lucky break.”

  Tabby rubbed her hands together, stepping away from me as if brushing off one order of business before moving on to the next.

  Inside me, something snapped. Maybe a year spent languishing in Chicago had scraped my emotions raw, but Tabb
y’s words struck. Had she confined her slander to me, I might have just let it go, but she didn’t and now I couldn’t. I walked across the battered dance studio until Tabby was in arms’ reach. She turned, caught off guard by my confrontation, reading anger in my face.

  “I was hired by the show’s director, Tabby, so my being here is legit whether you see it that way or not. You can judge my ability against twenty or two hundred actresses if you want, but until you’ve seen me act, frankly, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I stepped in closer, close enough to see Tabby’s eyes widen and her nerves flinch beneath porous skin. She crossed her arms, involuntarily shielding herself like I’d seen her do with the clipboard.

  “But what I really want you to remember, Tabby,” I said, “is that Avril is like a sister to me, and I would seriously go after anyone who tried to hurt her or tarnish her reputation. Likewise, my respect for Ben is huge, and I stick up for my friends. You can say whatever you want about me, but you’re going to regret it if you make even one more snide remark about Ben or Avril.”

  I turned and walked back to my corner, wiping away the spontaneous tears that came with my sudden eruption of emotions. I could feel my heart throbbing in my chest, banging away like it was trying to pound its way out. I felt the sharp sting of remorse because I was suppose to be different now, a Christian, a follower of the Prince of Peace. What had gotten into me?

  Instantly, His Spirit nudged and I squinted my eyes to listen. He’d given me His forgiveness, so shouldn’t I be willing to extend some to Tabby?

  The thought sickened me. Chewing Tabby out one minute, only to turn around the next and tell her how sorry I was. But I did turn around. Tabby hadn’t budged. Her cold, emotionless face, however, was finally showing some color: red. Her eyes had thinned, narrowing to a steely squint, and I lost the words to my apology.

  “I doubt you’ll be around long enough to make me regret anything,” she said. “Ben’s under the impression you have your lines memorized. I happen to know your script wasn’t even delivered until yesterday.”

  Tabby collected herself. She ambled over to a stack of folding chairs leaning against the wall, clasping onto one and dragging it back across the dance floor. I moved a few feet closer, certain my window for apology had closed. Tabby removed the copy of the director’s script from her shoulder bag and opened it before sitting.

  “So, we’re going to have you read through the whole script, Scene 1 until the finale, and you can show Broadway how you memorized an entire play in twenty-four hours while you boxed up all your belongings, said good-bye to friends, and moved yourself cross-country to New York. This should be easy for a talented actor like you.”

  As promised, Ben released the cast and crew to enjoy the New Year’s Eve festivities just before six. Avril’s idea of celebrating began with a shopping spree, all part of her plan to roll out the red carpet and welcome me to New York.

  She knew all the pricey Manhattan boutiques and jewelry stores, including a small clothing emporium on the Upper West Side called Odessa that resembled a silk merchant’s shop and smelled like patchouli.

  Avril insisted on buying me something “New Yorkish” to wear to rehearsals and chose a black fitted chemise. I tried it on in one of Odessa’s two fitting rooms, a space smaller than an airplane bathroom. Its only privacy came from a paisley pull curtain that, even when closed, still exposed me from the knee down. I peeked at the price tag: $185. Avril insisted we get it, and after a few minutes in an argument I knew I would lose, I left Odessa with the black chemise.

  We walked along crowded streets back toward Times Square, our stomachs full of pepper chicken, veggies, and brown rice from an upscale Cuban Chinese restaurant on upper Broadway. I was tired from my ordeal at the airport, two exhausting hours spent in the company of Tabby Walker, and the late hour. Times Square was jam-packed with New Year’s Eve revelers and heavily garbed tourists standing behind blue police barriers. Over the sound of noisemakers, we could hear music from a rock band playing further down in the square, and see the sparkling ball Dick Clark planned to drop at the stroke of midnight.

  “Let’s get a closer look!”

  Avril took my hand, one mittened glove clutching another, and led us careening through the raucous crowd. We stopped beneath a lamppost on the corner of Forty-fourth and Broadway. I could see fogging breath escape from every face into the bitterly cold night. The rocking of the mass made me dizzy, and I tipped backward only to be held up by the throng.

  A digital countdown clock in Times Square ticked down, and for the first time I noticed how truly late it was. The strangest feeling hit me at one minute to midnight: the sensation that we were all gathering on a street corner in New York to watch the death of one year and the birth of another. The last seconds of my terrible year were passing away, and a new year was beginning. A new beginning. The ball started its slow decent, the crowd chanted the countdown. They might as well have been counting down the end of the old me and the rebirth of the new.

  The idea revived me, like cold wind in my face. It was symbolic, ceremonial. God had taken me from one world, Chicago, and placed me here in another, New York. From friendless to reunion with Avril, from jobless to work, from faithless to belief, and from lifeless to life.

  The frantic crowd noise splashed in my ears. Above us, brilliant and beautiful fireworks went off in the skies over Manhattan. Revelers shouted with holiday cheers as tears streamed down my face. Next to me Avril stood laughing and happy as she’d been a year ago.

  We stood in the din of a whirling moment, the wind blushing Avril’s cheeks scarlet. Then the New York sky opened up and all around us fell the graceful, dreamlike snow of angels. A billion specks of ashen ticker tape fluttered into Times Square. Twirling and tumbling, they landed on our coat sleeves in icy white dots. Snowfall speckled Avril’s red wool cap and the tips of her blonde hair. She screamed something to me, but the words were lost in the noise of the celebrating crowd.

  “Happy new year,” she shouted again, closer to my ear, and I wondered if the moment was as surreal to her.

  “It’s time to go,” I shouted.

  “Wait, wait. Let me take your picture!” Avril lifted her cell phone, excited by the moment. I turned my back to Times Square and smiled a sleepy, long-day smile, and Avril clicked the shutter, giggling.

  “Okay, I’m sending this to your cell phone,” she said, using her thumbs to text into her phone. “You can show all the folks back home you’ve finally made it in New York.”

  Past the stroke of midnight, we were off to find a taxi, running like Cinderella afraid the spell would break. We hailed a cab two blocks from the square and climbed into the heated back seat where I collapsed from exhaustion.

  Riding in the cozy darkness of a heated New York City cab, I watched out the window as we wove through Midtown South to Greenwich Village. New York’s neon lights rolled past us in a blur of blue and orange and purple. I realized then that I was a survivor, pulled from the icy waters by the mysterious hand of a stranger, my gown still dripping, my open mouth taking in a deep, rich, life-saving breaths.

  “Thank You,” I whispered to the Lord. Avril rested her arm across my shoulders, and I could feel sleep wrapping around me like a coil. My final thought … a shapeless, silent gratitude for the miraculous appearing in my life.

  ~ Six ~

  Avril brushed a fallen lock of blonde hair back in place as she stepped into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door. Inside, she found a green and silver foil bag of gourmet coffee that looked like a Christmas present and proceeded to pour a heap of the dark brown coffee beans into a Braun grinder sitting next to an automatic espresso machine.

  “Get any sleep last night?” she asked.

  “I would have loved getting nine hours instead of six, but I’m more or less recharged to go another round with Tabb
y. Yesterday was brutal.”

  Avril pressed the button on the coffee grinder, drowning out all hope of further conversation. I picked myself up from the bar stool at the kitchen island and walked into the living room as she tap-tap-tapped, grinding the beans to a perfect consistency.

  It was a small apartment, less than eight hundred square feet, but the morning sunlight filled it with the optimism of a new year. The tones were cool and brown; they reminded me of the sands of Malibu. On one wall were bookshelves filled with a brainy collection of hardcover classics, silver-framed photographs of Avril and her parents, and Chinese pottery. A small blue water globe no larger than a baseball caught my eye. I touched it with my fingers, causing the earth to bobble slightly on its stand. When it settled, I could see the United States, from New York to California, making the country look small from sea to shining sea.

  I watched Avril pour a bottle of Evian water into the coffeemaker and flip the switch to brew. She joined me in the living room, where I was sitting in a comfy brown chair facing the bookshelves and a fireplace with white painted bricks. A moment later the sound of percolating coffee filled the apartment like a relaxing fountain. The aroma of French roast soon followed, and we soaked it up like the meditational comfort of a weekend spa.

  “As soon as I heard Molly was leaving, I thought how perfect you’d be in this role,” said Avril, dovetailing one conversation into another. “Ben’s choice of Helen is obvious because she’s box-office gold on Broadway, and the character of Audrey Bradford has always been played by an older woman. But his casting choice of Molly as a younger Audrey Bradford was kind of interesting, don’t you think? Ben told me he believes there could be an even greater potential for drama if Audrey is played by a younger actress. Of course, he’d never say that around Helen. You should have seen her face the day Molly was introduced as her understudy. Well, I guess you didn’t have to—you caught some of that vibe yesterday.”