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  “They might be able to help you today,” he concedes, “since none of the shows are running tonight. But tomorrow will be a problem. There’s no matinees on a Tuesday, but the first show is at seven thirty. The performers would need to be cut loose by late afternoon.”

  “I will make sure they are.” We’ll do split shifts or something and make sure we have enough staff performers for the evening shows. I make a note of it in the JU app, and send it to Dimi’s inbox.

  Toby sighs. What the fuck is it with everyone and sighing? “Okay, I’ll call around.”

  “Great! Thanks, Toby. Tell anyone who’s interested to call Dimi—you got his number, right?”

  “Yeah, I got it. Listen, Derek, don’t get your hopes up, yeah?”

  God, what is with all the Debbie Downers today?

  “I won’t,” I lie. “Hey, just in case, make it quadruple the usual rate, and four lifetime passes each.” It’s gonna cost me a fuckton, but the important part is that guests never know there was a crisis.

  He sounds shocked as he agrees and says goodbye. I look at Dimi as I hang up—he’s just ending a call himself. “You good to manage this?”

  “No problem,” he says confidently. “Sometime this morning, can you come down to the park and meet them? Show them how important they are.”

  See, this is why I happily approve massive bonuses for Dimi every quarter. He thinks three steps ahead, and he’s always on his game. Not like some of the other people I’ve spoken to today. “Sure, good idea. Any luck with the dance studios?”

  He nods. “There are three in town. One woman said her students are all too young and inexperienced, but the other two seemed keen. They promised to call their students now, and if anyone’s interested, I should hear soon.”

  “Good.” I stop and take a deep breath. I do that a lot, you’ll have noticed. It’s because the act of taking in a breath and letting it out gives my mind time to settle and releases tension. Another trick I learned in a management seminar. “So we have a new plan for today. I’m going to call Don”—the Planet Joy park manager—“because he’s been trying to reach me for the last fifteen minutes, probably to freak out, and let him know what’s going on. He can handle the logistics around canceling this morning’s shows. Let’s do a giveaway of some kind to distract people—he can sort that out too, something free to every pass holder.” Dimi and I both make notes, him on his tablet, me on my phone. “Then I’m going to talk to Link and make sure he has everything under control here. I’ll go check in with the cops and call Kim back, see if she has any news for me, check in with legal, and then I’ll run back to the office and see if there’s anything important happening there—and get the team up to date and delegate out the stuff we were supposed to be doing this morning.” More notes. “In the meantime, you get the dancers sorted and follow up with HR and medical about our performers and Maya. I’ll meet you at the park, in the rehearsal studio, at ten forty-five to meet the dancers, and then we should have just enough time to make it to the events and marketing meeting at eleven thirty. I’ll revise the schedule for the afternoon as we go.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Dimi says, and his phone rings.

  Chapter Three

  Trav

  I’M JUST getting back to my room from the resort gym when my phone rings. I answer it quickly, not wanting to wake Kevin, my roommate. Sure, it’s after nine—barely—but when you work in show business, it’s not uncommon to sleep late in the morning. I’m kind of the odd one out that way—I can’t sleep later than seven, no matter what time I go to bed. In my partying days that led to a lot of exhausted mornings.

  “Hello?” Caller ID tells me it’s Rick, our producer.

  “Trav, good morning. I have a proposition for you. Want to earn some extra cash?”

  I raise my eyebrows, even though he can’t see me, and step back out into the hall. Well, it’s actually a covered outdoor walkway. The resort Joy Universe has put us in doesn’t have interior hallways.

  “Sure, as long as it’s legal.” There are some things I won’t do, and dancers get a lot of hinky offers.

  He laughs. “Completely legal. I know you too well to offer anything even slightly shady. There’s been a salmonella outbreak at a festival on the coast—”

  “Yeah, I saw the news headlines.” I’ve had bad sushi before and can commiserate. “But, Rick, gotta be honest, I’m not interested in traveling two hours each way.”

  “That’s fine,” he assures me. “You wouldn’t have to. Turns out, a lot of the performers here at Joy Universe went to the festival last night, and now they’re scrambling to find enough people to keep their shows going today at Planet Joy.”

  I sit on one of the steps leading down into the perfectly manicured garden. Perform in a hokey stage show probably based on a cartoon aimed at kids? Not exactly my dream job.

  “I don’t know, Rick—”

  “Look, there’s no obligation—they’ve asked us to spread the word, and that’s what I’m doing. But they’re offering a decent pay packet, lifetime passes to the parks, and the work’s not hard, man. The way it was explained to me, the shows are thirty minutes each and run every hour and a half. They’ve canceled this morning’s shows and have agreed that anyone who helps out will be cut loose in plenty of time for tomorrow night’s shows at Joy Village, so it’s like six hours’ actual performing over thirty hours, plus some rehearsal time this morning. And I’ve been assured that you can have the easiest roles—who knows, you might just have to wear a mushroom costume and do the cancan.”

  I laugh, because, come on, mushrooms doing the cancan? That’s funny. “How much are they offering?”

  He tells me, and my heart speeds up. Seriously? That’s a nice chunk of change for relatively little work. In fact, I would almost feel guilty accepting that.

  No, I wouldn’t.

  Yeah, okay, I wouldn’t. And lifetime park passes? Those would make great Christmas gifts for my sister’s family. Joy Universe is not cheap, but they could stay at the campground, or if they want to splash out, at the resort I’m at—it’s supposedly only three-star, but it’s the nicest three-star I’ve ever seen.

  I must’ve hesitated too long, because Rick starts talking again.

  “Don’t worry about it, Trav; there’s no pressure here. I’m calling through the cast list, but if you see anyone, mention it, yeah? These guys are pretty desperate, and this is their Hail Mary.”

  I’m curious. “Why are they so desperate? I mean, it can’t be the end of the world to cancel the shows for a couple days.”

  Rick snorts. “That’s what I figure, and so does Toby in events planning who called me, but the guy in charge of the park is adamant. Toby says he’s all about the guests getting what they pay for, and part of that is live shows, blah blah blah.”

  Aww. Now that I can get behind. This guy must be a real sweetheart, to prioritize all the potentially disappointed little kids over his bottom line, because the pay he’s offering is going to cost a mint.

  “Okay, sure. I can do it. I didn’t have other plans for the day anyway. Might be fun.”

  “Really? Great!” Rick sounds surprised, but quickly gives me the details of who to call and tells me they need me ASAP—which I’d kind of guessed. I end the call and head back into my room to wake Kevin before I call this Dimi guy. Kev’s always strapped for cash, so once he’s awake enough to understand what I’m telling him, he’ll jump at this chance.

  TURNS OUT Dimi is one of those superorganized people who plans the life out of everything, down to the last detail. I call him while Kevin is waking himself up in a cold shower, and after he thanks me profusely, he tells me he’s sending a car to pick us up in ten minutes, and what shoe sizes do we wear, because while the costumes are designed to be adjustable, the shoes aren’t.

  I drag Kevin out of the shower and jump in myself to wash the gym sweat off, and then we scramble to get to the front of the resort, where sure enough, a couple of black cars are waiting.
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  “Are you here for us?” Kev asks one of the drivers, who is kitted out in slacks and a Joy Universe polo shirt.

  “Are you the dancers for Planet Joy?” the driver counters.

  “Yep,” I announce.

  He nods. “We just have to wait for a couple more. There are eight of you coming all up, so I gotta fill the car. But you can get in, enjoy the air-conditioning.”

  Kev and I slide into the back seat. I have no idea what kind of car this is—should have checked the badge—but it’s surprisingly roomy. I wasn’t looking forward to being crammed in the back seat, but three of us will be comfortable back here.

  Within a couple minutes, a guy and a girl join us. I don’t know them personally, but I recognize them as performers from one of the other shows currently at Joy Village. We share pleasantries on the fifteen-minute drive to Planet Joy, where we’re whisked in through a back entrance and ushered to a rehearsal studio.

  Dimi is waiting for us there, along with another thirteen dancers from the shows at Joy Village—I wave at the ones I know—and six nervous-looking teenagers.

  “Thanks for coming, everyone. You’re real life savers, and because of your assistance, thousands of little kids aren’t going to be disappointed today.” He hands out forms for us to fill in so we can get paid, and then another one so we’re covered by insurance, and we take five minutes to complete them before he hands us over to the entertainment staff. “You’ve all got my number—feel free to use it anytime. I’m going to make sure payroll do a special run so you get paid by Thursday instead of having to wait for the regular pay cycle next week. If you need anything this morning, I’ll be in that office”—he points—“making calls, and our assistant director, Derek Bryer, will be in later to thank you personally. He was determined that the show go on, and that’s only happening because of you.”

  Wow, talk about laying it on thick. Still, he’s not wrong—we are all here to do them a favor, and there are thousands of little kids who would be disappointed if the shows needed to be canceled. My parents brought my sister and me to Joy Universe when we were kids, and although the rides were fun, we could have just gone to the Six Flags that was literally eleven hours of driving closer to our house for those. What we actually came for was the experience of seeing our favorite characters up close and personal.

  Dimi disappears into the office, and we’re quickly assessed by the park’s entertainment supervisor, who luckily didn’t go to the sushi festival. I’m still not sure how so many performers were taken down by food poisoning—that’s a long way to go for sushi, when Joy Village has three sushi places open past midnight just a ten-minute drive away.

  It turns out the teenagers are students from local dance schools, and while they’re actually pretty good, it’s clear they don’t have a lot of performance experience. Even though we professionals were promised the easy roles, none of us complains when the very easiest are assigned to the kids. Nobody wants an accident on stage due to inexperience. We’re all soon sorted into roles—I’ll be playing the wisecracking, badass (in a G-rated way) sidekick in a thirty-minute adaptation of the animated feature film Space Reivers. It could be a lot worse—Kev will be wearing a mouse costume for his Planet Joy dancing debut.

  We’re shuffled off for costume fittings so the seamstresses can make emergency alterations while we rehearse. A lot of performers hate being fitted, but it’s one of my favorite things to do. What most people don’t realize is that the person kneeling at your hem with a mouth full of pins is listening to everything you say. If there are two people being fitted at once and chatting, or if you’re on the phone, they hear it all—and like everyone in show business, even the modified kind here at Joy Universe, they like to gossip.

  So do I.

  While Laura, my new best friend, is pinning me into a pirate costume, I spend the next ten minutes or so subtly grilling her for information. The other seamstress, who’s working on one of the still-terrified teenage girls, chimes in periodically. I quickly find out exactly how the whole salmonella shambles occurred, along with the fact that most of the dancers here today are actually supposed to be working at the other three parks (which means the food-poisoning fallout is much worse than I thought), but because Joy Universe policy is to rotate dancers around the parks instead of permanently assigning them to one, and the last rotation was only a few weeks ago, most of them are familiar with the shows we need to perform.

  Then I steer the conversation to the boss, the guy who is so adamant the show “go on.” I mentally roll my eyes every time I hear that, by the way. It’s way overused.

  “Derek?” Laura says, sitting back to critically study my pants. “Derek’s awesome, as long as you follow the rules.”

  “Oh?” I aim for casual. A rule follower, eh? I like this guy already, especially since he also seems to care about the people visiting the park, and not just profit. Although I suppose happy visitors lead to better long-term profit….

  “Yeah. He likes things done a certain way, and he has really high standards. He’s always open to suggestions and ideas, but he doesn’t like people to get creative in front of the guests unless he’s approved it first. Can’t really blame him for that—the last time it happened, we got sued.”

  Hmm.

  “Anyway, he’s the best AD JU has. If you follow the rules and meet his standards, he always signs off on bonuses at the highest percentage. That’s why everyone loves rotating through Planet Joy. He’s tough, but super fair.”

  “Did you know,” the other seamstress—I didn’t catch her name—chimes in, “I called Maylee before to see how she was feeling, and she said Derek authorized HR to pay the insurance co-pay for anyone who had to be admitted to hospital with this food poisoning.”

  Wow. That’s pretty generous, considering how much this puts him out. It’s actually too generous, really. What’s the guy’s angle?

  “That’s nice of him, and must have cost a lot,” I venture.

  Laura shrugs. “He’s always doing stuff like that. It’s not easy to keep talented performers, to be honest. There’s not much night life in town, and it’s a pain in the ass to get anywhere interesting or exciting from here. Staff turnover among the actors and dancers is pretty high—they come to gain experience and some résumé fodder, and then move on. Derek is all about keeping people here so we don’t have to spend money training new ones.” She gets to her feet. “You’re all done, hon. Let me help you out of that, and you can head back out and learn your choreography.”

  The shows are pretty simple, relying more on the characters and the narrative to wow the kids than anything too fancy in the way of choreography and acrobatics, and I have it mostly down when there’s a stir near the entrance. The group I’m rehearsing with stops, and we all turn to see what’s going on.

  Dimi is by the door, talking to a man. The man is tall, built, blond, and it looks like he has light eyes, though I’m too far away to really tell. His skin is tanned; his smile is white and blinding. He’s bold, brash, vibrant, his energy filling the massive rehearsal studio, and the way people turn toward him, orbiting in the force of his charisma, makes me envision him as a sun.

  I dislike him on sight.

  “Oh, Derek’s here!” one of the staff performers says, her face lighting up in a smile.

  Derek? This is Derek, the assistant director everyone has been talking about all morning? The man who insisted on finding extra dancers so none of the shows would be canceled, and then paying us a mint? Who is paying his staff’s medical bills? Who is apparently loved by all?

  I sigh.

  If Derek were an actor in a teen flick, he’d be the high school jock hero. In a college flick, the frat boy hero. It’s wrong to typecast people by how they look, I know this, but it’s not just his physical characteristics—he has the aura. The “center of the universe” aura. Although his looks aren’t exactly anything to sneeze at, all boy-next-door action-hero perfect. For fuck’s sake, he even has a square jaw and cheekbones
you could cut glass with.

  Why do I care? He reminds me of every jock who made my life miserable in high school, every fraternity guy who made me feel like a loser in college. Because I was the shy, nerdy gay boy who was into musical theater, and that made me a target.

  So I get nervous around popular men with head-turning charisma.

  I brace myself because Dimi is bringing the man around, introducing him to those of us who don’t normally work here, and soon I’ll have to meet him and pretend shaking his hand doesn’t give me flashbacks.

  That’s not fair, because seemingly he’s a good guy who does good things. But emotion isn’t logical, and in my experience when a universally liked, charismatic guy is nice to me, he’s working an angle for self-gain.

  Finally they reach me. “And this is Trav,” Dimi says. I’m actually pretty impressed that he remembers all our names. We met once, for like five minutes, and there were more than twenty of us. Dimi seems like a pretty cool guy—good-looking too, and only a couple years younger than me from the looks of it. Not like a certain unnamed person who is clearly much older than me.

  I ignore the voice in my head that says Golden Boy looks to be early thirties, max, and smile at Dimi, then turn to Golden Boy. If the smile turns slightly forced, nobody seems to notice. “Trav Jones,” I say, offering a hand.

  “Derek Bryer. Thank you so much for doing this, you’re really saving our bacon. If there’s anything you need while you’re here, give Dimi a call and we’ll take care of it. Not just today and tomorrow, but the whole time your show is running.” He gives me a megawatt smile, and the knot in my stomach tightens.

  “Thanks.” I’m pretty sure he notices now that my smile is pasted on, because he blinks and the blinding smile dims a little.