This move activates the moving floor, which causes Cinny to yelp, lose her footing, and fall flat on her ass, crashing into the leggy redhead in the process. There is a collective gasp from everyone (myself included) as the pianist stops playing, the floor stops moving, and Cinny rolls onto her back.
“This fucking floor!” She groans.
Alan steps forward. “How can we help, Cinny?” He’s calm, as if Cinny’s literal fall from grace hasn’t bothered him in the least.
“One. This floor is a hazard to my life. How do we make it safe so I don’t die?”
Since Robbie is in the back manning the cameras, Alan’s gaze shifts to Elias, who is operating the floor device from the side of the room. Elias sort of tosses up his hands like, Don’t ask me!
“What if we cue the floor after you spin.” Alan asks the question, but it sounds more like a statement. “So it would be...” Alan looks back to Elias. “What would it be?”
Elias stands. “Love,” he says to Cinny. “If you are counting out the move, it would be six counts to get settled with Zeppelin. Everything else would remain the same.”
“Fine,” she mumbles. “Also. The background girl is too close to me.”
The “background girl” spins around to face Elias. She looks like she’s about to speak, but Elias holds up a hand to silence her.
“Her name is Lorin,” Elias says.
“And I’m not a background girl,” Lorin adds. “I’m a swing.”
Cinny shrugs. “Not sure what the difference is but okay.”
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep my jaw from dropping. Of course I know what a swing is. It’s someone in the chorus who learns multiple roles in case an understudy has to fill in for a lead. They’re arguably the hardest workers on Broadway, having to master their role and countless other roles.
Rather than add fuel to the fire of Lorin and Cinny, Alan motions to the pianist and calls out, “From the top please. Lorin and Damon, sit this one out.”
The two move to sit in a corner of the room.
Zeppelin and Cinny start from the beginning. This time, on the spin, even though the floor isn’t moving yet and Lorin is nowhere around, Cinny trips over her own two feet, and she and Zeppelin clunk heads when he reaches to catch her before she falls. It’s a successful (although painful-looking) save, and the two continue their duet on the now-moving walkway.
I know I’m supposed to focus on Cinny, but it’s not easy. Not just because she’s half-assing her way through the number, but also because Zeppelin is distracting. I can’t keep my eyes off him. No wonder they wanna change the choreography. He’s totally upstaging her!
Still, no matter how spectacular he is, he’s essentially a Roman without a Jewel, because Cinny (the Cinny I’m used to seeing) has left the building. She looks bored, she’s sluggish, she’s barely on key. And why is she singing in her head voice when Zeppelin is belting out notes like he’s the reincarnation of Freddie Mercury?
This song is worse than a train wreck. Train’s derailed, on fire, and about to blow up any second. At long last, Zeppelin and Cinny make it through the awkward performance, and I’ve managed to jot down a few pages of notes. I exhale, and I swear everyone else in the room does, too. It’s over. Hallelujah.
“Don’t hate me,” Robbie calls from the back of the room. “But we had a major camera glitch. We need to run it one more time.”
“Fuckin’ kidding me?” Cinny hisses. “Why do y’all care about a dance that’s getting canceled?”
“Just humor us?” Alan asks dryly. “And take it from the top. The sooner we get it over with, the sooner we can move on. We have a lot to do today.”
But instead of getting into position, Cinny strolls back to the window, and the Times Square screams go up to maximum hysteria volume. Whoever is down below must be able to see her, because she waves, and the screams amplify.
“They are all so cute. I gotta go say hello. Wesley?”
Her security guard stands slowly from the chair he’s been sitting on near the door.
“Walk me downstairs so I can sign some autographs for these cute little kids.”
She can’t really think it’s okay to leave rehearsal?
Clearly Alan and I are on the same page, because he says, “Cinny, you can’t possibly think it’s okay to leave. Right now. In the middle of rehearsal.”
“Relax, Alan.” She moves toward the door. “These are the kids who will be buyin’ tickets to the show. Imma sign a few autographs and be right back up. Thank me later.” And with that, she and Wesley exit into the hallway.
Alan looks so mad that I swear I can see steam coming out of his ears.
“We have to move on,” he declares. “We’re already behind schedule. We can’t wait for this again.”
“I didn’t catch much footage,” Robbie says sadly. “There’s almost nothing to present to the producers. Unless you want them to see Cinny falling on her ass, we need to do it again.”
“Jesus Christ, I’m getting too old for this shit,” Alan mumbles.
It sorta feels like I’m intruding on this personal moment of frustration. Since there is no way to give them privacy, I try my hardest to sit as still as a stone and stare at my notes, wishing I could offer them some sort of assistance.
“Last time, she signed autographs for one whole hour,” Elias complains. “Remember that?”
“How can we forget? It was yesterday,” Zeppelin adds.
Hearing his soft voice makes me look up and...whoa...into his eyes. He’s looking right at me. Why is he looking at me? I place my hands over my cheeks to see how warm they are. They tend to turn blazing when I’m nervous. I force my gaze back down to my script.
“How about this?” Elias calls out. “I will be Jewel for the producer video so we can move on.”
I look up again. Zeppelin seems surprised to see Elias moving toward him.
“May I?” Elias asks, batting his eyelashes dramatically. “Be your Jewel?”
“You’re not the Jewel of my dreams.” Zeppelin laughs. “But if you’re my only option—”
“I’m an option!” I stand.
Temporary insanity. I think that’s what happening here. Yes. That’s it exactly. I am unequivocally, without a doubt, one thousand percent, completely out of my damn mind.
Elias gives me a look that seems to say, Who the hell is this girl?
“Am I Jerzie Jhames?” I ask. Wait, why am I asking what my name is? “I mean, reverse that. I am Jerzie Jhames. I’m Cinny’s standby.”