Backstage Romance: An Austen-Inspired Romantic Comedy Box Set Read online

  Copyright © 2021 by Sodasac Press

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Publisher: Sodasac Press

  Cover design: Once Upon a Cover

  Custom Artwork: Megan Shaffer

  Editing: SJS Editorial Services

  Formatting: Christina Butrum

  Dedication

  To my children for whose weirdness I take full responsibility. It couldn't be helped.

  Contents

  LOVE AND LOATHING

  1. The Stanley Sisters

  2. Loathe Pie

  3. Fine Eyes

  4. Spiders, Sharks, and Barnacles, Oh My!

  5. It's Hard to Be the Bard (or MacGyver)

  6. Good Opinion Once Lost

  7. Quetzalcoatl’s Hot Chocolate

  8. How Pitiful His Tale (How Rare His Beauty)

  9. Eggs, Pie, and Cheese Wiz

  10. Any Savage Can Dance

  11. Red and Black

  12. The Yam Incident

  13. Telenovelas and Cap’n Crunch

  14. What Is This Feeling?

  15. He Ran Into My Knife Ten Times

  16. At Common Sense She Gaily Mocks

  17. Twitterpated

  18. Taco Wednesday

  19. Some Disenchanted Evening

  20. Cold Civility

  21. Will with A Quill

  22. The Winter of Our Discontent

  23. The Girl with The Lanyard

  24. The Woman Who Stole My Heart and My Dog

  25. First-Rate Opportunity

  26. Stay

  27. Lights, Cookies, Snoopy

  28. Hold, Monsters!

  29. T Minus One Day

  30. Something Else

  31. Take Heart, Take Mine

  32. Pour, Oh Pour, the Pirate Sherry

  Epilogue

  SECRETS OF A HOLLYWOOD MATCHMAKER

  1. Talk Like A Pirate Day

  2. The Game Is Afoot With Fabulous Shoes

  3. Dog People

  4. Beso De Angel

  5. Extravagant Purchase

  6. Gal Pals

  7. Perpetual State Of Symmetry

  8. Emoji Dating

  9. Spaghetti Face

  10. Monarch Of The Sea

  11. A Disturbance In The Force

  12. Road Trip

  13. All About Tan Lines

  14. Frankfurter Parties

  15. Be More Chill

  16. Don’t Blink

  17. Elephant In The Room

  18. Coffee In Bed

  19. Jazzercize, Don’t Eat Those Fries

  20. Strictly Professional

  21. Shipping

  22. Simple-Minded Creatures

  23. Hurry Up And Wait

  24. Seeing Red On The Red Carpet

  25. Goodbye, Hello

  26. S’more Bad Jokes

  27. Badly Done

  28. We’ll Always Have Paris

  29. Mad World

  30. Lessons From Uncle Hershel

  31. Zip It

  32. Whatever Is True

  Epilogue

  DRIVING MISS DARCY

  1. Georgia

  2. Georgia

  3. Georgia

  4. Wyatt

  5. Georgia

  6. Wyatt

  7. Wyatt

  8. Georgia

  9. Georgia

  10. Georgia

  11. Wyatt

  12. Georgia

  13. Georgia

  14. Wyatt

  15. Wyatt

  16. Wyatt

  17. Georgia

  18. Georgia

  19. Georgia

  20. Wyatt

  21. Georgia

  22. Georgia

  Epilogue

  PITA MY HEART

  1. ROSEMARY

  2. INGRAM

  3. ROSEMARY

  4. INGRAM

  5. ROSEMARY

  6. INGRAM

  7. ROSEMARY

  Epilogue

  Dancing with the Cowboy

  A Note From Gigi

  About the Author

  BOOKS BY GIGI BLUME

  1

  The Stanley Sisters

  Beth

  It is a truth universally acknowledged that a hotshot movie star must be magnanimously bonkers to do regional theatre. Like, crazy of epic proportions. Schizo. Cracked. So what the blazes was he doing here? There were more than enough egomaniacs in my life and I could have done without Mr. Action Flick, thanks.

  Unfortunately, nobody asked my opinion.

  But I’m getting ahead of myself. There was, in fact, some sauce that was fantastically awesome: I landed my first professional gig as a principal cast member in Pirates of Penzance at the Stella Gardiner Theatre. The Stella Freaking Gardiner Theatre, people! Everybody knows The Gardiner’s THE prime regional playhouse in Los Angeles. And after an eternity of paying my dues performing in weird obscure shows in shoddy warehouses, I was finally getting paid.

  I know, right? Sauce. Awesome.

  For about a half-second, I bid a tearful adieu to memories of tap shoes sticking to stage paint still wet on opening night and also the stinky dressing rooms with mysterious carpet stains.

  Or not. Really, there were no tears at all unless you count my stinging, watering eyes from the residual paint thinner lingering on my nose hairs from that time I did Little Women at a condemned train station.

  Ah, what I did for my art.

  It was actually a mystery how I managed to get the part of Edith in Pirates of Penzance, but there I was on the first day of rehearsal, hoping nobody would notice the fresh meat that I was. I was certain it was some sort of mistake and half-expected the director to kick me out as soon as he noticed me. Can I be honest here? I was mildly disappointed he didn’t. Professional theatre meant they expected professional-level work. And that terrified me. No more performing next to livestock with the errant chicken crossing the stage. Or that one black box theatre where the owner’s dog would wander into the audience and randomly sit on someone’s lap. I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. And by Kansas, I mean community theatre.

  (I’m not from Kansas. I’m from Long Beach.)

  And can we talk about the complete dork I was compared to all the other actors in the rehearsal studio? Everyone was in dancewear, stretching and warming up like a scene out of A Chorus Line. I was in threadbare yoga pants and a Guardians of the Galaxy t-shirt. Way to make an impression on your first day, Beth.

  So, instead of hyperventilating while waiting for rehearsal to start, I decided to sneak to the green room to text my friend Jane who was supposed to be there already.

  Me: ETA? I feel like a Hobbit in a room full of Rivendell Elves. Hurry up.

  No response. Honestly, where was she?

  I marched into the kitchenette for a bottle of water and that’s when I came upon a stunning specimen of a man finishing a phone call. I couldn’t help it. Something about this person stopped me in my tracks. Why though? It’s not like I was boy crazy or anything. He wore a crisp pair of jeans that looked like they were tailored for his tall form, and tucked into those jeans was a black button-down shirt, which reminded me of something Gene Kelly would wear. The short sleeves were cuffed just enough to showcase the long line of muscles and sinews on his arms. Action hero arms—but not too bulky. His hair, a sandy light brown, fell in careless, tousled waves and framed his aristocratic feature
s, dotted with a two-day stubble. But his eyes. That’s probably where I lost my faculties. They were a piercing blue, rimmed with speckles of dark grey. Like the Pacific on a sunny day when there’s a single cloud over the horizon, promising an oncoming storm. And when those eyes fell over me, I suddenly felt freakishly tiny.

  “Hhh-hi,” I stammered. It actually surprised me I even got that word out.

  He didn’t respond with words. He did that chin nod thing that’s the gangster equivalent of ‘Hey, wut up’ even though he clearly was not a gangster. Then he frowned at his phone and tucked it in his messenger bag. Yes, the man carried a messenger bag like a bohemian hipster. It didn’t add up to his Gucci loafers and Bulova watch. (couldn’t help but notice those, too)

  I allowed myself to recover from that somewhat standoffish greeting, giving him a smile anyway. Sometimes people just need a smile. I continued on with the office of hydrating myself with the complimentary water. I noted with a measure of discontent that all the bottles were kept cold. I preferred room temperature water as a rule. Better for the vocal cords. Also, cold water seems to make me pee more. Pretty sure that’s scientifically proven. But I was thirsty, and I’d forgotten to bring my Hydro Flask.

  The hot stranger was scowling at his sheet music by this point. So he was in the show, too? Probably not hiding like I was. But also not in dancewear. I knew exactly what he was thinking as he stared at the score. The music was incredibly hard, operatic in nature with lots and lots of words. Especially the pitter-patter songs.

  I strode towards him, feeling comical and witty. Who knows why, but something inside me emboldened a sudden sauciness. Standing on my tippy toes to glance over his broad arm at the sheet music, I quipped, “Far too many notes for my taste.”

  “What?” He turned his head just enough to glare over me sidelong.

  “Uh… notes?” I forced a laugh, grasping at the hope he’d get my humor. “From Phantom of the Opera. Just a little musical theatre joke.”

  I sang it this time. “Far too many notes for my taste, la la la…”

  He didn’t get my humor. He seemed adamantly opposed to it. There was a definite Ebenezer Scrooge quality to his stare. Next, he would surely say, ‘Every idiot who goes about with musical theatre jokes on her lips should be boiled in her own pudding and buried with a conductor’s baton through her heart.’

  He frowned and those beautiful blue eyes turned to ice. What was with this guy? I was just trying to be friendly.

  His lips drew into a thin line, and his gaze moved over my form in open assessment. I supposed by the way his eyebrows lurched down, he didn’t like what he saw. There wasn’t much to see, really. I was five foot one and a half on a good day and my girls only wished they filled out my fandom t-shirt. This particular day, my hair was fashioned in two loose braids which wasn’t helping me appear at all adultish. And I didn’t even bother with a swipe of mascara. I wasn’t trying to impress anyone when I got dressed in the morning, but maybe I should have put a little more thought into my outfit.

  Not that I cared what anybody thought, mind you. But this guy looked at me like a vegan would look at a plate full of raw bacon. He closed his music binder, turned on his heel, and left the room without so much as a syllable from his lips.

  So much for introductions.

  The one thing that settled my nerves as I took my place among the other cast members in the rehearsal hall was that my friend Jane finally arrived. We shared an apartment but had to take separate cars since she had a photoshoot at the crack of dawn. Something about a sunrise theme for a big name fashion magazine. Her usual gig was modeling wedding dresses, but her love was musical theatre. She landed the lead role of Mabel when we auditioned for Pirates of Penzance together and blew all the other Mabel hopefuls out of the water. Then there was me. Surely they meant to call a different Beth Bennet.

  I lifted my binder of sheet music over my face and whispered in her ear. “I’m just going to hide under your rehearsal skirt like a woodland animal for the next few weeks. Okay?”

  She grinned, regarding me with amusement, her perfect teeth and flawless skin just another modus to render me invisible to anyone with a pulse. Who would pay any attention to little ‘ol Pluto when the very sun shone upon them? I winced and figured I’d bask in the shadow of her glory for the unforeseeable future. I was perfectly content being the less pretty friend. Maybe, with Jane in the room, the hot stranger would forget about our awkward encounter—wherever he was.

  “You’ll be brilliant, Beth,” she said sweetly. “You’re the most talented person I know.”

  I snorted. “Yeah right. Have you met yourself?”

  Poor Jane. She had to put up with my loud shower singing through the thin walls of our apartment. Between a full time job waiting tables and rehearsals for whatever show I was in at the time, the shower was where I did most of my memorizing. Pro tip: Laminated sheet music suctioned to the shower walls. You’re welcome. If only I could figure out a way to get a waterproof piano in there to work on my high notes because, let’s face it, everything sounds better in the shower. Amiright?

  “I’m actually surprised none of our neighbors has complained yet,” I said, more to myself.

  A squeal behind me shook me from my imposter syndrome.

  “Did you hear? The guy cast as Frederic is coming right from a national tour.”

  The squeal belonged to Lydia, a girl I knew from a previous show. The Little Women show. The paint thinner one. She leaned in between Jane and me and propped her chin on my shoulder, bouncing her eyes around the room at the twenty or so male cast members. “Which one do you think he is? I hear he’s eye candy.”

  Please let it not be the jerk from the green room. Please!

  Lydia tilted her face towards Jane like a little bird and smiled. “Oh, hello. My name is Lettuce Stanley. What’s your name?”

  I raised my eyes to the ceiling because I knew this bit. Lydia liked to make up names for her characters when she was in the ensemble. She insisted everyone call her by that name... All. The. Time.

  So, since she wasn’t interested in Jane’s real name, I answered on her behalf, “This is Jane... er… Mabel Stanley.”

  This little tidbit of information lit up Lydia’s (Lettuce’s) face, and she squeezed Jane’s arms, snapping a selfie.

  “Hashtag Stanley Sisters.”

  She posted the photo immediately with the addition of #piratebootycall.

  A hush came over the cast as the director entered the room. We all clung to our sheet music with rapt attention. Cole Forster preceded his reputation as one of the toughest directors in Los Angeles theatre. He semi-retired from his Broadway career and when he came to Los Angeles he worked almost exclusively at the Gardiner, where he would direct one show a year. Every single one of them won awards. No pressure. He was also a silver fox.

  He cleared his throat and scanned the room. I wasn’t sure if the scowl he wore was attributed to his displeasure at such a ragtag cast, or if that was a permanent fixture on his face. I pushed the thought aside for later, because ya know… grumpy silver fox.

  He addressed the thirty-five or so performers thus.

  “I want to start by congratulating all of you for your display of talent and skill that has brought you here today. The audition process was rigorous, and the elimination rounds were especially difficult for Fitz and me.”

  He gestured to Fitz Hanlon, the music director standing by the piano with his music stand at the ready. Fitz nodded gravely.

  Cole Forster continued, “As some of you may be aware, we pre-cast some of our principal players which I don’t see here at present, but I do have a surprise which I think you’ll consider a real treat.”

  Everyone in the room straightened at attention a little bit more, if that was at all possible, but Lydia slumped in her chair, almost pouting that Mr. National Tour had yet to enter the building.

  And then, like a tropical storm, the woman of the hour swept into the room. The legend. The queen
of theatre for whom the place we were sitting in was named. Audible gasps waved through the cast. A faint smile cracked across Cole Forster’s face as he introduced the elderly but spry woman entering with a flourish in a black leotard and a flowing paisley kimono. “Our very own Dame Stella Gardiner will play the part of Ruth.”

  The room filled with thunderous applause. Scripts hit the floor, and everyone was on their feet, the applause growing in intensity as Stella made several large, sweeping bows.

  It was a beautiful moment. This woman was so celebrated, she didn’t even have to open her mouth with one line of dialogue to get a standing ovation. In my opinion, she deserved it. Black and white photos of Ms. Gardiner in various productions over the years lined the foyer and hallways of the theatre. Dramatic images taken candidly upon the stage of her playing Lady Macbeth, Evita and Maria von Trapp were the whispers of antiquity that gave the theatre its character. Her legacy was set upon the long and notable career she built for herself. She was nominated for seven Tony awards and won three, had an Oscar under her belt, and her countless film and television appearances were probably just another day in the life of the great Dame Stella. Yep. Definitely not in Kansas anymore.