Beautiful Monster 2(26)

 
Just then, a knock came at the door and my secretary appeared.
 
“Cast list is up.”#p#分页标题#e#
 
I had never seen Amy move so fast. For someone who had spent the summer in a major production, she seemed overly excited about finding out what part she got in a school play. Mind you, her Gatsby closing night would be nowhere near as spectacular as the closing night of Phantom if all went well.
 
Seconds later, a shriek came from outside and she came hurtling back into my office. I laughed, despite the tension.
 
“Well?”
 
“Meg Giry!” she said, and then stopped as my face contorted. “What?”
 
“They didn’t give you the lead,” I replied, shaking my head. “I would have thought for sure they’d give you the lead.”
 
“The lead spends half the play singing at the top of her operatic lungs.” Amy perched on my desk, looking adorable.
 
I raised an eyebrow, reading her mind. “They cast Sarah, didn’t they?”
 
“Yep!” She had such a grin on her face that I couldn’t help but smile. “You don’t understand, Liam. It’s perfect. My dream has been to act with Sarah since we met. And she’ll be a much better Christine than me. On top of that, that’s perfect for the plan. Christine is on stage almost the whole time, so anything Selene tries, Sarah will be there to stop her. It’s much better this way.”
 
“Still.” I wrapped my arms around Amy and kissed her head, running my hands through her hair. “I would have cast you in a heartbeat.”
 
“Mmm.” She leaned against my chest. “But you’re biased.”
 
“I am… a bit,” I admitted, closing my eyes and just enjoying the feeling of her wrapped in my arms.
 
I never got tired of Amy, never felt annoyed by her presence, never felt like I needed time apart from her. If I could spend the rest of my life just here, with her in my arms, I wouldn’t think it would be such a terrible thing at all.
 
“Who’s the Phantom?” I asked, after a moment of silence.
 
“Charlie,” she said, looking up at me.
 
I raised my eyebrows in surprise. Charlie, a grade 10 student, and not the best actor, was the last person I would have cast for the Phantom. But Charlie was also ignorant and gullible and desperate to pass the semester. While he could act well enough, he seemed to be an idiot when it came to the rest of his subjects. So, likely, he would go along with whatever seemingly stupid thing we had him do in order to make our plan a success.
 
“Hmm,” I said, finally letting her go, so she could hop down. I took her hand though, not quite willing to be separated from her. “Should we find the others so we can celebrate?”
 
She looked at the clock and then out the window. “Do you have time?”
 
I shrugged, squeezing her hand three times in our secret sign for I-Love-You. “For you, I have at least an hour.”
 
Amy grinned, pulling me out the door. “Then I know just the place.”
 
 
 
*************
 
 
 
“Alright, guys, that’s it for today, except for the Stage Hand party scene. So if you’re not in that, you can go.”
 
The rest of the cast gathered their belongings and began to head out. The Stage Hand party scene was a scene I had concocted, a code for the fact that the vampires and the girls and I needed to be alone in the theater. Katya had nearly punched me when I had told her I thought this scene would be a great addition. I listened to her rant and rave for nearly an hour about how it wasn’t in the original book or show, and how I couldn’t just go making up scenes. Eventually, I pulled rank on her, although I hated to do it.
 
The premise of the scene was this: the vampires would play attendees in a peasant party and then two girls would stumble into the party. Charlie would swoop down at the end of it to ‘kill’ someone, selected from the audience to join the party. It was genius if we orchestrated it right. But done badly, Selene would figure it out in a moment and so I needed it to be perfect. Which was hard to do when working with mostly a cast of non-performers.
 
Once the theater was clear, the rest of them came in closer to listen to me.
 
“Alright, so this scene has to go off perfectly when we bring Selene up on stage,” I reminded them. “You all got my email with the choreography for it?”
 
“But it made little sense,” Connor said.
 
I nodded. “I know, it always makes little sense until you see it done. So what we’re going to do right now is run through it a few times. I’ll play Selene…”