A Rock and a Hard Place

The theatre manager had been on the phone all morning. I could hear her pacing around her office, her voice occasionally rising to an excited pitch only to disappear back to a tantalising murmur.

No one in the scene dock was getting much work done. The stagehands were meant to be repainting the set but there wasn't much progress being made.

Finally the phone calls came to an end. There was a moment of complete silence. I tensed. As the door opened I felt suddenly light-headed, but Clare's overjoyed expression set my heart pumping again.

Cheers and whoops echoed around the basement room. Clare grinned at us all, her fist pumping the air, but came directly to where I was sitting.

"Eve, we did it, I've persuaded them!" It was what we'd been working towards for months - performance rights from a notoriously tight-fisted publisher. The play had never been shown outside of Broadway and by a miracle it was coming to us.

Clare gave a mock swipe of her brow as she slumped down next to me.

"What did you bribe them with?" I joked.

"No bribes, but you don't want to hear how much it cost. We'd better sell out for the next six months is all."

Selling out wasn't all that difficult in our tiny, but all the same it didn't sound good. I tried to look on the bright side. There was no doubt that we would sell out every show when it opened in the spring. We had earmarked the three weeks months ago and it was peak sales time.

"We're going to have to get cracking interviewing directors," Clare said over the hum of activity that had finally begun in the scene dock. "I want a director pronto, it needs to be someone with experience but we can't offer them much, there isn't enough in the budget. Mack's agreed to produce if we can get Dom to assist, which I think will be fine, it's just that he's going off for that holiday right when we'll need to audition so it might be a case of..."

She drifted into a monologue, scribbling notes to herself. I let myself bask in success, until Clare's final words suddenly registered.

"I thought Dom was going on holiday in January?" I asked. He'd been talking about it for months: a three-week tour around Europe calling at all the sights. But January was far too late to start auditioning for a show that opened in March. I looked sharply at Clare.

"Are we still talking about a spring run?" I asked her, watching her closely.

"Well, sort of, I mean, not exactly but it isn't far off, it depends on when you think spring ends, they were very keen that we do things properly..."

"Clare, when exactly did you agree it would run?"

"We agreed... an opening in August, to catch the summer crowds, it's a good idea really..." She trailed off, glancing at me.

"August, Clare, we can't! Half the crew are in Edinburgh and anyway," I thought of something even worse, "we won't have a production manager, Kim will be with them in Edinburgh and Chase is getting married! Please tell me you didn't really agree to August."

Clare sucked her teeth. "I did think of that, honestly, and I've got an idea." She paused, and I had a strange sense of dread.

"I want you to do it. I don't mean just for the show, I mean take Chase's role permanently, start with the show now and just keep going when he leaves. I know it's more work but you can handle it and you've always said you wanted to stay in theatre."

For a moment great vistas of opportunity blossomed before my eyes. But then reality hit me like a tonne of bricks.

"Clare, I'm really sorry but I can't. No. I can't do it."

Clare stared at me in genuine shock. "I can't believe I'm hearing this. It's your show, it's what we've been working on for the last four months, how can you possibly say no? I'm sorry I didn't discuss it with you but there wasn't time, he was on the phone right then and I had to make a decision."

"It isn't that, it's not anything to do with August... well, it actually sort of is, I mean, not because you decided without me but... I just can't, not now. There must be someone else who can do the show and then I'll start afterwards..." This time it was me who trailed off.

Clare's expression hardened. It was a look I had seen when she thought one of the stagehands was bootlegging supplies. I never expected to see it turned on me.

"If you can't do the show, then I can't offer you the position. I need a production manager who I can rely on, not someone who says no to the biggest show in this theatre's history and won't tell me why."

I bit my lip, trying desperately to think of something. I had promised I wouldn't tell anyone yet, but this was my dream job.

"If I tell you, but I still can't do the show, will you consider me for the promotion?" I held my breath while Clare considered.

"No," she eventually pronounced. "I'd love to say yes I can't. Either you take the show and the promotion or you don't take either. Your call."

I shook my head in despair. Clare's unstoppable force had hit the immovable fact of my promise and there was no way out.

She stood up, the elation gone from her face. "I'll leave you to think about it. Let me know tomorrow morning." The door slammed behind her.

My head dropped and my hands moved unconciously to the imperceptable curve of my stomach. "You've caused me a lot of trouble," I whispered to it. "But you're worth it."