Follow My Lead: A Joy Universe Novel Read online

  I smile. “Sure, yeah. Let’s go to the conference room.” It’s set up with a screen I can cast to with my tablet, so they’ll be able to see all the info I have. And we can look up anything they need to support their suggestions, I guess.

  We settle around the table and then just look at each other for a second. It’s very clear that we’ve never worked together before, because none of us wants to go first, even though none of us is known for being reticent or shy.

  “I was just telling Dimi,” Jason says to Trav, “I have a list of shows that would work well for an inexperienced cast.” He pulls a phone from his pocket—his personal phone, not the JU one I gave him earlier. “Do you want to take notes or something and then look them up?”

  Trav laughs, because over the last few months he’s seen what a tech geek I am. Jason looks confused, and I say, “If you unlock your phone, I can fix it so we see what you see on that screen.” I don’t want to be a douche, but I feel like he won’t know what I mean if I say I’m going to cast it. He still looks a little abashed as he hands over his phone. It takes me about thirty seconds to do what’s needed, and then we see his home screen on the big TV.

  “Oh. Wow. I guess I need to get used to working with this kind of tech.”

  I make a mental note to make sure he’s shown how to use the company app properly. It’s pretty amazing, and I could probably run half the world from it if I needed to, but if you’re not used to using technology on a regular basis, I guess it could be daunting at first. I hand him back his phone and he goes into the notes app and brings up a list.

  My stomach sinks as I scan it. There’s nothing wrong with the shows on the list. Some of them are excellent. Some of them we’ll definitely want to do at some point. But none of them are inspired. None of them are fresh and exciting. They’ve all been done to death by a million companies the world over and feature heavily on the drama schedules of high schools around the country.

  They’re all so safe.

  I look at Trav. He’s considering the list with a thoughtful expression on his face, really thinking about the options, and I know he’s taking into account the relative inexperience of our performers, our crew…, and me. Because the truth is, while I could organize any event in the known universe with my eyes closed and one hand tied behind my back, my experience producing theater is limited to local amateur productions. I know I can do this. But I guess I might have to prove myself.

  “This is a great list.” I seize the initiative. If I speak first, retain control of this meeting, I might be able to get what I want. “I wonder, though, if for our first production, we should look at making a splash. Grab some attention with something a little less well-known. Three of the shows on this list have been through the Village with other companies in the past few years.” That, at least, is true, and cuts his list almost in half.

  “Which ones? We’ll take them off,” Jason says immediately, and I’m glad he’s at least listening to me. I tell him, and sure enough, he deletes them. I try not to be impatient about the fact that it takes him about five times longer than it would have taken me. We study the remaining titles on the screen, and then he asks, “What did you have in mind?”

  I want to take a deep breath, but I don’t. It would show my nerves. I don’t need to look nervous right now. I need to be in control. Confident. Calm. I project assurance and say, “I thought Walk of Life might be a good idea.”

  “Oh.” The word seems to burst out of Trav unbidden, he looks so surprised. Jason’s face is carefully blank, and I know I’m losing him. I forge on.

  “It’s new enough to be exciting—a lot of visitors won’t have seen it. It has a lot of action and some really great musical numbers. And the combination of drama and humor means it appeals to a wide audience. I really don’t think we can go wrong. It will premiere the Joy Village Theater Company with a bang.”

  “A loud, terrible bang if it flops,” Jason points out. “It’s a great show, and I agree with everything you said, but it’s not an easy show. Is it really something we can pull off at the same time as dealing with teething issues?”

  I hate him because he’s not wrong. It would be a stretch. It would be a challenge. And there’s a strong possibility that we would open with a flop. But I won’t let that happen. This is a dream job for me, an amazing new career path, and I am determined that it’s going to be a success. JVTC has been allocated a healthy budget for its first year, but it could be better. We have one theater, one production to begin with. Ultimately, I want six of the seven theaters in the Village to be running JVTC shows. We should only need to bring in touring shows if they’re really special—crowd magnets.

  And I want it to happen sooner rather than later. Which means we need to have a strong first season, a better budget next year, and the higher-ups willing to allocate me a second theater and show at the end of our first season.

  A debut show that’s been done a million times before and that people will only go to see because it’s on and they couldn’t get last-minute tickets to anything else isn’t going to get me that.

  “I think it’s worth a try,” I counter. “There’s no point beginning this with a defeatist attitude.”

  Was that too aggressive? From the look on Trav’s face, I think it might have been.

  Jason’s face is still carefully blank. I want to smack it just so it’ll show a reaction.

  “Dimi, as much as I’d love to play Cameron,” Trav says carefully, “I think it might be pushing our luck to start with Walk of Life. It’s a really complex and energetic show. There are a lot of details and complicated dance numbers.”

  Fuck.

  “That’s not too big a deal,” Jason interjects, surprising the ever-loving crap out of me. “We can choreograph to suit the performers. I guess it depends on whether you want a watered-down version of Walk of Life or a really strong version of something more classic.”

  Oho.

  Was that a challenge?

  It sounded like a challenge to me.

  I smile. It feels more like a smirk on my face. “Why don’t you watch some of our performers in action before you pass judgment on how much we’d need to ‘water down’ the choreography?”

  We stare each other down across the table. Silence reigns, neither of us willing to give in.

  Finally, Trav clears his throat. “That’s a great idea, Dimi. Why don’t we head over to the parks? I know which of the performers are most experienced and best equipped to handle a full show, and we can track them down and see what Jason thinks.”

  I break our stare-down, deliberately looking away from Jason to Trav. “Sounds good to me.”

  Chapter Four

  Jason

  I can’t believe I’m walking through a theme park in a shirt and tie. Isn’t there a rule that you have to wear shorts in these places? To be honest, it’s been so long since I’ve been—twenty, maybe twenty-five years—that I’m not sure. Dimi and Trav don’t seem to care that we stick out like sore thumbs, although Trav less so than Dimi and me, since he’s wearing jeans. I guess they’re used to visiting theme parks in a business capacity.

  We’ve already been to one park, where we watched two cheesy stage shows and a few of those “spontaneous” encounters that happen “randomly” in the public part of the park. Trav quietly pointed out to us which performers he thought would be ready for something a little more involved. We won’t be selecting them this way—the guidelines established for the company require the performers to audition, the same as they’d have to if this was any other show—but it’s good to see them perform in their “natural habitat,” so to speak. Actors who are inexperienced with the audition process often freeze up, so this gives me a better idea of their capabilities.

  And they are capable. The shows they’re performing in really don’t stretch some of them at all. I can see a lot of promise. Dimi’s idea for our opening
show isn’t a bad one—for a couple of years from now, when the company’s found its feet and the performers are more seasoned.

  I mention this quietly to Trav when Dimi’s distracted by a call, and he bites his lip.

  “Yeah, but the thing is, we may not keep these performers for years,” he points out. “As soon as they get a little more stage experience, they’re likely to move on to a city with more options for them.”

  Fuck. I knew that, of course, but I hadn’t thought of it in context of what it would mean for us. If we’re constantly working with inexperienced performers, the quality of our shows is never going to mature. Trav’s brilliant, but he can’t carry every show on his own.

  “What about bringing in guest performers?” I could probably convince a couple of people to come down to sunny Georgia for a season, and if we start receiving some recognition, subsequent seasons won’t be a problem.

  Trav shakes his head. “All casting comes from the existing pool of performers,” he reminds me. “JU has to hire some more people to cover the number we’ll need, so we can probably wrangle some input there, but we can’t hire specifically for the company—they have to be willing to take a turn in the parks too.”

  “You being the only exception.” I sigh. “Trav, you gotta help me out here. Some of these people are good. There’s a lot of raw talent here. But if we’re only ever using raw talent, I don’t know that we’ll be able to pull off a show like Walk of Life. Not without turning it into a high school drama club version.”

  Dimi comes back to join us before Trav can reply. I don’t want to piss him off more than I have already, especially since it seemed like we might be getting close to being able to work amicably together, if nothing else, but I really, really think Walk of Life is not a viable option.

  The fact is, right now I’m thinking with my dick. I’m not known for being a friendly, touchy-feely director. There are a lot of people who’ve worked with me who’ve called me a dictator. Autocratic. Inflexible and demanding. And those are the nicer things. I’ve never had a problem with telling it like it is, and I’ve never been hesitant to impose my will at work. I’ve been in this business for a long time. I’m a Tony award-winning director. Where a lot of directors bow to pressure from their backers, I haven’t done that in twenty years—I just tell them where to go and find a new backer. Because I can. So me dithering about how to tell Dimi that Walk of Life is not going to happen is not because I’m worried about friction in the workplace. He might technically be head of the production company and my boss, but the company needs me more than it needs him—I’m the one with experience. Plus, my contract has a lot of stipulations in it that would make it easier for JU to move him to a different job than to get rid of me. Even if that wasn’t the case, I expected that he and I would butt heads occasionally, even before I met him. That’s what directors and producers do. I’ve worked with producers that I absolutely couldn’t stand, and we managed just fine—that’s where one of my Tonys came from.

  There’s really no reason for me to be hesitating—except that I’m insanely attracted to Dimi and I don’t want him to hate me. Part of me is still hoping that maybe one day we can get something going. Sure, I’m probably nearly thirty years older than him, I have minimal flirting skills, and I insulted him before we were even introduced. But those might be things we can overcome, right? So my dick is voting to be nice to Dimi and let him have anything he wants so he’ll like us.

  Which is not just unprofessional, it’s insulting to Dimi. And to me. And to everyone we’re going to work with.

  I sigh again. “Dimi, there are a lot of talented performers working here, but I don’t think they have the experience to put on Walk of Life at a good standard.”

  There.

  I said it.

  Fuck, I really wish I hadn’t.

  No. No, I don’t. I did the right thing.

  Dimi’s face is expressionless, his eyes fixed on my face. Trav is standing motionless beside me, seemingly anxious to hear what Dimi has to say. Not as anxious as me, I’ll bet.

  Finally, he turns to Trav. “Is that your opinion too?”

  Trav hesitates, then blows out a breath. “I really want to say no, but yeah. It is. As much as I’d love to do Walk of Life, and as great as I think some of these guys could be in it, I just don’t think we can pull it off across the board. Not yet.”

  Dimi’s silent for another long minute. I’m sweating—and not just because the sun is warm today.

  “Okay.”

  What?

  “I’m not happy about it,” he continues with blunt honesty, “but you two have a lot of experience, and I’d be an idiot if I didn’t listen.”

  Wow.

  Okay.

  Maybe he won’t hate me after all.

  “But,” he continues, and I brace myself, “I’m sorry, Jason, I didn’t like anything on your list. They were all really safe choices, and some of them will definitely be in the plans for the future, when we’re running more than one show at a time, but I feel strongly that we need to begin with something a little more unique rather than a show that’s been interpreted a million times before.”

  Okay. This, I can work with.

  “Fair enough,” I agree. “I’m sure between us we can come up with something that falls somewhere in the middle. Let’s keep on with our tour of performers.” I’d much rather be back in my office, getting myself sorted, but “The two of you are familiar with them and their capabilities, but I’m not. I’d like to sit down to brainstorm with a better idea of what I have to work with.” I barely stop myself from wincing. Dehumanizing the performers like that is probably not going to win me any popularity contests, but to my surprise, Dimi just nods, no judgment on his face.

  ***

  It’s hours and a theme park fast food lunch—which is not sitting well—later before we get back to the office. My dress shoes are not made for walking, so my feet are sore, and I’m sweaty and a little rumpled. That’s okay, though, because I feel like we made some progress. And no, I’m not just talking about my quest to get Dimi to see me as someone he wants to date—or even as someone he could be friends with. I have a much better grasp now of the JU performers, and I’ve been thinking about some shows that might both be within their capabilities and make Dimi happy.

  His plan to kick off the company with a bang is a good one. If we had access to a bigger budget and experienced performers, I’d be backing him all the way. But we want that bang to be because the show is amazing, not because it was a big fat flop. Finding some middle ground is achievable, even if it means we may need to push harder for a good performance than we would have with an easier show. I like to push, so I guess it’s not a terrible thing to begin as I mean to go on, rather than easing everyone into things slowly.

  We’re back in the conference room. Trav grabs some bottled water from a mini fridge I hadn’t even noticed and passes it around, while Dimi taps on his tablet and somehow manages to get the screen on the wall to show what he’s looking at. I’m going to have to take a crash course in using technology, I think. I can handle email, web browsing, and basic—very basic—social media, but the stuff I’ve seen Dimi doing today with the JU app is probably beyond me. And I definitely don’t have a clue how to get my phone or tablet to sync with the wall screen.

  I drink deeply from the water bottle, feeling a little dehydrated. It’s warmer here than in New York, and while I used to walk everywhere the subway couldn’t take me when I was younger, for the last decade or so I’ve been dependent on cabs. I try to keep fit by going to the gym, but it’s a different kind of exercise to walking around for hours.

  Man, I’m getting old.

  Pushing the thought aside—I am not old—I focus on the website Dimi’s brought up. It’s a directory of musical theater, from the looks of it, and he’s scrolling slowly down a list of shows, pausing every now and then to flip
screens and make a note.

  “Let me know when you see something that might work,” he says, and Trav makes an absent noise of agreement.

  Fifteen minutes later, we have a shortlist of about two dozen shows. Dimi’s picks are all a little on the ambitious side, but nowhere near as much as Walk of Life was. I’m not ashamed to admit, part of me feels a little pang of regret not to be doing Walk of Life. It’s a brilliant show, and since it’s unlikely I’ll be able to direct the debut of a completely new production while working for JU, it would be a lot of fun to work on. But I’m not prepared to do a shitty job of it, so it can wait until we’re ready.

  Wait…

  I hadn’t realized, but all day I’ve been thinking like I’m here for good. The truth is, I have a twelve-month contract with JVTC. I wasn’t ready to commit to more. If this first season bombs, I can start making inquiries back in New York and walk away by the end of the second season—or sooner.

  Does that make me more willing to cave to Dimi’s ambitious desires?

  Hell, no. I might not be here long, but JVTC will not have a bad season because I didn’t push hard enough.

  With that in mind, I push hard as we go through the list one show at a time. I make Dimi justify each and every one of his choices, roping Trav in to discuss possible choreography choices. We’ll use a professional choreographer to handle that properly, but I’ve worked with Trav enough to know that he’s got some interest and talent in that area—plus he knows a lot of the performers and what they can stretch to. Budget is another consideration—that’s Dimi’s department, and I know we have a relatively healthy amount of money to work with, but I’ve actually directed some of the shows he wants, and I know where the secret money pitfalls are.

  By the time we get to the end of the list, I’m both exhausted and exhilarated. Debating with Dimi really gave my brain a workout, and from the color in his cheeks and glint in his eye, I’m pretty sure he feels the same. Trav just looks worn out from mediating all afternoon. He’ll probably go home to Derek and complain about the lunatics he’s working with.