The Show Goes On by Lois Breedlove

Author:Lois Breedlove
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Marine veteran, forbidden romance, older woman, younger man, professor romance, small town romance, slow burn
Publisher: L.J. Breedlove
Published: 2023-02-21T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

The play was scheduled for its dress rehearsal for the first Friday in November. It would open the next week on Thursday. Then the schedule was Thursday, Friday, and Saturday until Thanksgiving break. Two Saturday matinees were also on the calendar. All of that had been on the calendar for two years. In fact, little had changed since Gail began teaching at the university. The scheduling gods of the university liked things that repeated themselves.

The Thursday before dress rehearsal, Gail was drinking her morning coffee, and going over her checklist. They were on track, she thought. There was going to be quite the audience for this dress rehearsal. So far. they had RSVPs from nearly 100 veterans across the Palouse who would attend and then discuss the play with the cast and crew afterwards. She was excited for that.

And then her phone rang. It was 7 a.m. She glared at it, because to her knowledge no good thing came by phone at 7 a.m. She grabbed it glanced at the number and frowned. Richard Raven?

“Hi,” she said. “What’s going on?”

“Have you seen the newspaper this morning?” he asked with no preamble. He sounded stressed.

“No,” she said, glancing at the time. “It should be getting here any minute. Why?”

“Look at the entertainment guide and call me back.” He hung up.

Gail closed her eyes. Here it comes, she thought. No, now it starts, she amended.

She went out and got the newspaper. The carrier never got it all the way up to her front porch, so she had to pad down to the street barefoot to get it. She picked up a couple she hadn’t bothered to go after. She got it delivered, but truthfully, she usually read the department’s copy when she got to the office. And in November it was dang frosty to be headed out for the newspaper in her sweats and bare feet.

She opened it up and glanced inside as she walked back to the house. There, taking up the full front of the tabloid-sized entertainment section pullout, was a photo of Andrew Blake. He was talking about something, gesturing wildly. He was a photogenic, charismatic man, exactly the kind of man you’d cast for New York playwright, she acknowledged. She read the headline: “Visiting New York Playwright says UI’s New Show Shouldn’t Go On.”

She straightened her shoulders, folded the paper back together, and went inside. Reading this would require more coffee. She sent a text to Ron Carroll and Angie Gregory. And then she settled in to read the piece. Angie was pounding on her door while she was reading it a second time.

“Cook breakfast,” Angie ordered. “I called in the team.”

Obediently, Gail assembled the ingredients for omelets. She heard vehicles pull in. First Ron Carroll, his solid gruff presence was comforting. Then a car of students: Richard Raven, the lanky young man who would be a name one day if this play didn’t haunt him forever. Becca Stanford, who was quieter than Gail had ever seen her.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.