Who Needs Decaf?. Tanya Michaels

when Sheryl told her she’d gone back.

      The Backstage Pass specialized in bizarre, experimental performances, and while Sheryl wasn’t a regular theater buff, she also wasn’t a total neophyte to the Seattle arts scene. She’d seen a couple of truly wonderful alternative pieces in this city, but not at the Backstage Pass. The play she’d seen in college—billed as a “romance” —consisted of a man and woman standing on stage for a solid hour quoting verses from obscure poems on love while playing Ping-Pong. In the nude.

      The program explained that the nudity represented men’s and women’s desire for true intimacy and no barriers, while the indoor tennis table was a metaphor for the games that people play anyway, preventing that very intimacy. Sheryl got all that, but she figured that if you had to explain the symbolism, it probably wasn’t working very well. Besides, though there was nothing at all vulgar about the tedious, vaguely pretentious one-act, some people just weren’t meant to be naked in front of an audience. Particularly if they were going to dive energetically to the left to volley an opponent’s serve.

      The second time she’d gone—to support Tameka and watch the boyfriend who’d generously and inaccurately called himself an actor—the play hadn’t even aspired to something as lofty as symbolism. It had been simple shock theater, designed to offend audiences, and, if failing to raise that level of emotion, then at least gross them out.

      What was a place like that doing with a traditional holiday ballet like Nutcracker?

      “Anything wrong?” Jonathan asked, snapping her back to the present.

      “Um…” He already seemed nervous about tonight; she didn’t want to say anything that might be construed as a complaint this early in the evening.

      Maybe it won’t be so bad.

      For all she knew, the place was under new management. The show’s title was at least the same, a good sign. If they were doing some sort of revisionist adaptation, didn’t they normally alter the name? The Wiz, for example, had been a jazzed-up version of The Wizard of Oz. If Jonathan had said the show was called Crackin’ The Nut, then she’d have reason to worry.

      She kicked her smile up another notch, hoping she didn’t look like some phony, cheerful early-morning news anchor. “Nope, everything is just fine.”

      Of course, two hours later, she wished that instead of being polite she’d advised Jonathan that they run, not walk, in the opposite direction of the theater to seek out other entertainment. Because “entertaining” certainly didn’t describe the evening she was being subjected to.

      When they’d arrived, Sheryl had noticed that she and Jonathan seemed overdressed compared to most of the other patrons. But it wasn’t until they reached the ushers at the front of the auditorium that she noticed the billboard: Nutcracker! and then in much smaller print underneath, “A dark, urbanized retelling of the original tale.” Oh, good, just what Christmas needed—dark urbanization.

      As Jonathan followed her gaze, he began to look nervous—even more so than before—and immediately retrieved the tickets from his pocket, squinting at the small print. “I had no idea,” he stammered. “A client gave…I saw the first word and just assumed…”

      “It’s all right,” she told him, feeling guilty now for not having shared her misgivings about the Backstage. “Maybe it’ll be…” She hadn’t been able to think of a word, but it hadn’t mattered because then it was their turn to hand over their tickets and find their seats.

      Now, it was intermission, and Sheryl didn’t know how much more she could take. The play had begun with slightly altered characters Claire and Franz giving disturbed soliloquies on their relationships with their parents. Due to a dysfunctional home life, they joined a gang led by an underworld figure known as the Rat King. Then followed several violent, badly choreographed street-fight/dance numbers accompanied by an overpowering electric guitar. The program promised that in the next half of the show, the traditional dance of sweets was being replaced by Claire hallucinating that different narcotics had come to life.

      As soon as the lights went up in the auditorium, Sheryl bolted for the main lobby, a dazed Jonathan following behind. Was there a polite way to ask him if they could just cut their losses and leave? He’d been the one to invite her, and if she suggested going now, she might make him feel worse. Please, get us out of here, she willed him, feeling the bright red walls around them closing in on her.

      He shoved his hands in his trouser pockets. “Um, Sheryl, I was wondering if—”

      “Yes?” she prompted, trying not to sound too eager while fighting the urge to shout, “Race you to the car!”

      “—you’d like a drink?”

      Damn. So close. “Yes, please. A drink sounds…” Necessary. “Refreshing.”

      He told her he’d see if they served any white wines and shuffled off through the crowd of theater-goers, some of whom looked appalled, some of whom were raving about the “bold, new vision,” and some of whom were laughing hysterically and cracking jokes about how the play should end. Finding a few of the alternate endings humorous, Sheryl stood near the top of a stairwell and shamelessly eavesdropped, occasionally scooting over to make room for someone to get by, but not really paying attention to her surroundings until she experienced a little jolt. It felt like a mild, but not unpleasant, electric shock.

      Glancing around to make sure there were no exposed wires anywhere near her, she caught the dark-roast gaze of Nathan Hall. The fact that his mere presence had given her a warm tingle was more disturbing than the on-stage spectacle.

      Now what? She didn’t particularly want to speak to him, but since he was standing only yards away and they were staring into each other’s eyes…She blinked purposefully.

      Nathan walked around the people surrounding him and strode toward her. Not as dressed up as she in her velvet or Jonathan in his suit, Nathan looked great in a long-sleeved graphite shirt and black pants that were mercifully baggier than the jeans she’d last seen him in.

      Of course, instead of evaluating his sartorial choices, she should have been working on an opening line, because when he stopped directly in front of her, what she unthinkingly blurted was, “What are you doing here?”

      His eyes narrowed as he scowled, and she immediately regretted her words. She shouldn’t further antagonize the very columnist Brad aspired to win over.

      Before Nathan could retort to her rudeness, she hastily amended, “I didn’t mean that personally, it was more a what-would-any-right-thinking-person-be-doing-here kind of question.”

      Oh, hell, had she just insinuated he wasn’t right-thinking? Worse, what if he actually liked this type of theater? How had she landed a job in public relations, anyway, if her communication skills were this bad?

      But Nathan smiled at her comment, though unintentionally by the looks of it. His quick, genuine grin gave way to a slightly startled expression, then a carefully neutral mask. “You aren’t enjoying the ballet?”

      She shuddered. “It’s awful.”

      “I know. Kaylee’s gonna owe me big time for this.”

      “Kaylee?” Maybe he had a sister, she thought hopefully. Annoyed for caring, she mollified herself with the rationalization that she had kind of flirted with him the other day and she would feel bad about flirting with another woman’s boyfriend.

      “My date,” he said. “She writes for the Arts section and was sent to cover this nightmare. You can read all about it in the Sojourner.”

      “As it happens, I don’t spend my money on that publication.” Too late, she bit her tongue, wondering what had happened to her resolve not to antagonize.

      But he made the switch to antagonism without missing a beat. “I understand I have an appointment with you next week. I appreciate your going through conventional channels, but if you’re coming to grovel, I should tell you now your time would be better off picking out a Christmas tree or something.