Switcheroo

You guys, I am so livid. Things at work have gone totally downhill. The director we were going to have for our next show had to suddenly drop out. His mother had a stroke and he needed to go back home and deal with family stuff, which I completely understand. It’s WHO they replaced him with that I am mad about…

I walked into work today to discuss our options with the board members since we hadn’t started rehearsals for the new show yet because of this, we decided to put them on hold until we made a decision. The longer we waited, though, the harder it would be to find someone. The show had already been cast which added yet another hurdle since a new director may not want to work with a cast they didn’t choose.

“This is a disaster!” Zeke said as we all sat around the table.

“Even if we could find someone, they may not want to even do the show we’ve planned. We can’t change it now, we’ve already started making the set and costumes.” Riley said.

Riley was the Artistic Director for The Glass Penny and a member of the board. His job is to choose what our shows will be every season and I suspect that he was more worried that any new director we’d bring on wouldn’t want to do the show because he simply didn’t like the show Riley chose (The Diary of Anne Frank) but I kept my mouth shut.

“Well, what if you direct it?” I suggested to Riley.

“I can’t, I’m currently directing over at The Rose and I can’t be in two places at once.”

Riley, like all of us, had a condition in his contract that allowed him to work at other theatres a certain number of times per season so this was not out of the ordinary.

“What if we can’t find someone?” Ashley said with dismay.

“Well…I know someone who will take it.” Nick said, “He’d potentially bring in a lot of donors but I don’t know how excited you guys are going to be about it…”

“Who?” Molly asked.

Nick gave Zeke a very pointed look.

“No, man. Come on! No!” Zeke said.

“He’s the only one I know who would take it AND keep the cast.” Nick said, “And we could use him to drum up a lot of PR and, more importantly donors. You know we need to keep up with the donor base we have…”

“Guys, who are you talking about?” I asked.

Zeke sighed and looked at Nick.

“Tucker.”

I stared at Zeke and then back to Nick.

“No way.” I shook my head, “Absolutely not! I won’t be his stage manager again.”

Tucker worked with me at Ed’s theatre and he was so difficult to work with, not to mention a huge skeevy pervert who only ever seemed to have a conversation with my breasts, rather than me.

“Faith, he’s the only one.” Nick said.

“There HAS to be someone else!” I said, “ANYONE ELSE!”

Zeke sighed.

“Nick is right. I know you don’t want to work with him, Faith, but the bottom line is that hiring him to do this would be really great for the theatre as a whole.”

I looked at him and then I looked at Molly with a “help me out here” look.

“Zeke, what about Kim?”

“I already asked, she just had a baby and isn’t ready to come back to work.”

Molly gave me a helpless shrug and I realized the decision was down to me.

“Hiring Tucker could put us up for a sexual harassment lawsuit.” I said in a last ditch effort, “On the last show I worked with him, he slept with half the female cast members by the time the show closed.”

“We can make him sign a contract forbidding relationships between the cast members and any other members of production.” Nick said.

“Maybe it won’t be that bad, Faith?” Ashley suggested.

“Yeah, for you guys! None of you will be working with him as closely as I will.”

“He is the ONLY one we can get on such short notice, Faith.” Riley said tiredly.

I crossed my arms and sat back in my chair. I had nothing else to say.

“So it’s settled. We’re going to hire Tucker?” Zeke asked.

It was put up to a board vote and I lost. Molly and I were outnumbered, we voted no.

I am SO angry. Tucker was SUCH a skeeze and he caused more problems with the cast than I have ever experienced before because he could keep it in his pants. The rest of the board had an easy decision as most of them won’t be directly working with him like I will. It’s so unfair.

I plopped on Adam’s couch and told him all about what had happened after I got back from the meeting (we don’t have performances on Mondays).

“So, that’s it? They voted and now you have to do it?” Adam asked.

He handed me a pint of ice cream with two spoons.

“I…yeah. I can’t believe this!”

“Wait, so they think he’ll bring in a lot of good publicity? Does he really have that great of a reputation?”

“I guess? I don’t think he does but our theatre is so new that we will take anyone who has any clout at all. In the actual business, though? His reputation is that he’s a pervert and is difficult to work with. It doesn’t matter anymore, though, he’s already been offered the job and he took it on the spot. Nick sent me a text during the show to let me know. We start rehearsals tomorrow.”

I ate a giant spoon of ice cream and pouted.

“Well…I have something that might cheer you up?” Popping a spoonful of ice cream into his mouth.

He grabbed my hand and walked me into his bedroom.

“No offence, Adam, but I am SO not in the mood t-”

He stopped me in front of his dresser, one of the drawers had a bright green gift bow on it.

“You got me a drawer.” I said touched.

“You did ask for one.” He pointed out.

“I didn’t think you’d do it so quickly.”

I actually choked up a little and felt embarrassed for it. What is wrong with me!?

“Are…are you crying?” Adam asked with confusion.

“Shut up.” I said hugging him.

“Oh, but wait. There’s MORE.” Adam said pulling me out of his bedroom.

He walked me to his bathroom and flung the door open. It looked like it always does.

“Open the medicine cabinet.” Adam crossed his arms and leaned against the door jamb to watch me.

I opened it and there was a double toothbrush stand instead of a single toothbrush stand in it.

“You got me a place for my toothbrush.” I said choking up again.

“Look behind you.” He said.

I turned around and noticed that he had cleared off half of his towel bar.

“And a place for a towel. I didn’t even ask you for that!” I said breaking into a sob.

“You’re so weird.” Adam said pulling me in for a kiss.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Maybe I’m about to start my period or something.” I said, “I’ll need a spot for my tampons, too.”

We both laughed.

Even though it was a pretty terrible day today, it ended on a really great note.