Page 36 of Someone to Have
God, I need to get it together.
I pick up the playbook and put it down again when I realize my hands are trembling, both from how overwhelmedandturned on I feel after listening to her.
An image pops into my head of Taylor with her dark hair spread across a pillow, sheets tangled under those beautiful breasts, sunlight dappled across her face on a lazy Sunday morning as she serenades me between rounds of lovemaking. Talk about taking me to church.
“We’re going to do this,” I tell her, pointing at the playbook even as I stare into her guileless eyes. “We’re going to get you the part, the guy, and the confidence you should have had all along.”
For a brief, terrifying moment, I think she might cry. I can’t take her tears.
“I believe you,” she whispers, and those three words mean more than I can say.
I’m a man who’s used to striving, training, and winning. While I don’t regret putting my life on hold to take care of Rhett, it’s thrown my whole identity into chaos. But it doesn’t need to be chaos, I realize. I just need to shift focus. This break from the everyday is just another kind of season.
I’m going to get my nephew on track, make sure my sister stays well, and help Tinkerbell meet her goals. When each of those things are done, I’ll return to my life in Germany—without regrets. Even if, from where I’m sitting in this small apartment in this small Colorado town, this life feels more real to me than the one I’m used to living.
9
TAYLOR
The next fewdays pass in a whirl of activity, affirmations, and rehearsing. By audition night, I’m confident enough to believe I can do this. Almost.
It’s one hundred percent on me if I can’t because Eric has pulled out every trick in his playbook to make me a success. His methods aren’t exactly what I expected, but they’ve worked. He treated this week like a run-up to game one of the playoffs and me his star athlete.
He showed up at my door after work on Monday and told me I needed a strict routine. Something to help shift into the mindset where my only focus is meeting the goal. For the past three nights, my across-the-hall neighbors have been part of that routine.
Rhett and I work together for an hour before dinner. Then we eat together—some delicious Eric Anderson special recipe. The apartment always smells amazing, the savory scents wrapping around me like a hug I didn’t realize I needed. He also stocked my fridge with healthy breakfasts and balanced lunches to take to work. I’m not sure what feeding me has to do with audition prep, but the care he’s slipped into each detail has lodged itself stubbornly in my chest.
My mom always used to tailor her cooking to Toby and Elise’s various sports seasons, and I was expected to get what I got and not throw a fit about it. Maybe that’s why I never enjoyed cooking or tried very hard to be good at it, even when I started living on my own. I wasn’t in training or doing anything where I needed to treat my body like a temple, so what did it matter if I ate a bowl (or two) of Lucky Charms for dinner several nights a week?
Apparently, it matters to Eric. To be honest, it’s nice having somebody care for me like I’m special. I can already feel myself wanting to lean too hard into it, which makes it more dangerous than nice.
It’s not just the healthy food. He has me on a strict diet of positive thinking and affirmations that he’s recorded and sent to me in a voice note file. I listen to them in the shower, when I’m getting ready in the morning, on my way to both of my jobs, and at night before I go to bed. Eric’s words of encouragement have become the steady beat that drowns out every moment of doubt.
It’s a little disconcerting to have that deep, rumbly voice in my head all day, but I can’t deny the power of his message. Somehow, hearing and saying them along with his voice makes me believe them more than if I were trying to coach myself—which obviously hasn’t worked before now.
He’s also made me sing my audition song for him and Rhett each night, and the way they sit in rapt attention every time is a shot in the arm for my confidence.
I’ve chosen “Send in the Clowns” because it was the song that made me fall in love with musical theater. After I finished my first go at it Monday night, Rhett gave me a wide-eyed nod and a high-five before disappearing into his room. It felt like high praise.
“Clowns are creepy as hell,” Eric told me, “but you almost convinced me to like them. That’s what you need to do. You’re convincing a whole bunch of people in that audience—and limp-dick Bryan Connor—that even if Pennywise and his red balloon came calling, he needs clowns in his life.”
No matter how many times I ask Eric to stop referring to Bryan as “limp-dick,” he refuses, the stubborn glint in his eyes daring me to make him stop. I’m letting that slide because of what he’s done for me.
Even with his coaching and the encouraging texts and calls I’ve gotten from my friends this week, I still find myself sitting in the community theater parking lot with sweaty palms, my heart hammering in my chest. The building looms before me, more intimidating than any Broadway theater.
I try to conjure my inner alter ego. The one who believes I can do this. But now that it’s come down to the wire, even my alter ego doesn’t seem to believe in me.
My phone beeps, and I glance down at the new text.
Sloane: Just told the docs and my brother that I’m getting out of here for your opening night. Can’t wait to watch you shine!
I swallow back tears, because it’s almost impossible to sing and cry simultaneously, but her message humbles me. A knot forms in my throat, thick and heavy. I won’t have my brave friend set a goal and then let her down. At least not without trying.
I walk into the theater and greet the other potential castmates. I know many of them are regulars in the local productions. There’s an easy familiarity among them that reminds me I’m the outsider here, the underdog.
I check in and then head backstage, almost plowing into Bryan as he comes around a corner.
“Oh, Taylor, hey. What are you doing here?”
