When the Lights Go Down. Amy Jo Cousins

      Chapter Three

      A week later, Maxie was up to her ass in script notes and preliminary prop lists. Heitman had been his usual model of efficiency, and she’d delivered a lengthy monologue thanking him for the second chance after their last, cursed show together. She was in love with the play itself—a brutal story about a young South Side Irish man losing his innocence after joining the force in the John Burge years of the Chicago Police Department, when it wasn’t uncommon for cops to torture confessions out of suspects. The Restless Tide was shocking. Controversial. And almost guaranteed to win a slew of Jeff Awards, if she was any judge of talent. Smith himself was a fascinating, unpredictable genius who was barely articulate in person, but he observed rehearsal with laser-like intensity each day and returned the next morning with new pages that shone even brighter, like diamonds.

      She hadn’t seen Nick since their dinner meeting, but at least she’d finally figured out a way to get some sleep. Of course, her solution was one she couldn’t mention in polite company.

      Thank god her sisters had never been polite. The preggos cracked up when she explained how she was managing to deal with her rising tide of sexual frustration, having had no chance to get her hands on the elusive Nick Drake.

      “I’m just saying, I’m gonna have to hit Early to Bed for a replacement vibrator at this rate.” She grinned when they catcalled their approval.

      She pressed a kiss onto the forehead of each giggling, snorting sister before leaving. Since their due dates were imminent, both had recently stopped working and they kept each other entertained during the day, alternating between each other’s homes. At least, as entertained as two women who had to pee constantly and take turns pulling each other off the couch could be. She’d set her phone’s ringtone for both of them and their husbands to Guns and Roses’s “Sweet Child o’ Mine.”

      As she left Addy and Spencer’s castle of a Victorian gingerbread house, the wind blowing from the southwest whipped the loose curls of her hair in her face. Like any true, homegrown Chicago Cubs fan, she knew without thinking that the pennants lining the outfield wall of Wrigley were blowing out.

      A good day for home runs.

      She glanced at her watch—just after noon—and then again at the clear blue sky overhead.

      There was almost always someone in the Tyler family who was willing to catch the 1:20 p.m. start of a weekday-afternoon Cubs game. She was ahead of schedule on the show and could blow off an afternoon if she put in a couple extra hours of paperwork later that night. She calculated her best odds on a Tuesday afternoon and dug out her cell phone.

      By the time her call was answered, she was behind the wheel of her truck, heading to the ballpark.

      “Wanna play hooky with me, Grace?”

      * * *

      A Polish, half a bag of peanuts and two frozen lemonades later, she sighed and rubbed her aching stomach. She passed the rest of the peanuts to the delicate blonde in the expensive suit beside her.

      “This feels a little sacrilegious.”

      Her sister-in-law cracked a peanut shell open with her teeth. The pile of broken shells at her feet had been growing steadily for the first four innings. They’d already sworn to their server that they’d clean up the mess. “I said I’d pick up the peanut shells! Jeez. And it was your idea to play hooky. Who’s up next?” She tossed another husk to the floor.

      “Their cleanup batter. Ten gets you twenty it’s an intentional walk,” she said automatically, shading her eyes with one hand before remembering where she was. “And that’s not it. Look at this place.” She waved a hand at the private box around them. “We’re supposed to be squeezed into bleacher seats between a bunch of rowdy drunks, with some underage kid in front of us losing her lunch all over her shoes. My lemonade should be spiked with cheap vodka from a flask you’re hiding in your purse, and we should both be well on our way to a good sunburn by now. And Sarah and Addy should be here, too. What’s happened to us?” Although she knew her sisters would be with them if they weren’t both past their due dates at this point. They’d responded with total jealousy when Maxie and Grace texted them a selfie from the stadium.

      “Welcome to the world of adulthood.” Grace sat back and propped her bare feet on the coffee table in front of them. She had already kicked her high-heeled, strappy sandals to the side of the sofa. “The company box. God, I’m glad I kept this perk in the budget. Non-alcoholic drinks because we both have to go back to work tonight. And shade.”

      “That’s just what I mean.” Maxie shook her head in disgust and took another sip of her slushy. Let out a little yell as the Mariners’ base runner tried to steal second, only to be tagged out in a rundown between the second and first basemen. “Face it. We’ve lost our youth.”

      Grace snorted as she sucked on the straw in her ice tea and then choked a little. “Come on, girl, it’s not all bad. Remember the vomit.”

      “True. There is that.” Giving in, she propped up her feet on the table beside her sister-in-law’s and graciously accepted the rewards of aging. After all, there was something to be said for getting regular attention from the servers, who poked their heads in every fifteen minutes to see if they needed anything.

      “So,” Grace said after cracking open another few peanuts shells, “we’ve been here for four innings, and you haven’t mentioned Nick Drake once, despite giving me every detail of your script review, your consults with Heitman, the résumé of every man and woman you’re putting on this crew and a fairly detailed rundown of the prop list for the show.” Grace pinned her with a bland look that was somehow also impossible to dodge. “What gives?”

      She’d been holding in the words for a week.

      “I haven’t seen the damn man!”

      Grace tilted her head. “Since when?”

      She bit her lip. “Since I, um, attacked him in a public elevator.”

      “Ahh.”

      Maxie shook her head and clenched her teeth. Kicking the table away, she jumped up and paced over to the plate-glass window. She leaned her forehead against the cool glass for a moment, but it wasn’t as soothing as she’d hoped it would be. After a moment, she laughed and turned to face the sofa again, leaning the back of her head against the glass.

      “When I told him we had to be ‘all business’ after that second incident, I thought he’d try and schedule more of those meetings he’s so fond of.” She sighed and rapped her head lightly against the window, hoping it would help clear her mind. Didn’t work. “I didn’t think he’d up and vanish on me. Not that I care.”

      “Right. You’re the picture of indifference.”

      “Shut up.”

      “Make me.”

      “See, we’ve found our youth again.” Maxie grinned.

      Grace’s next words stopped her cold.

      “You know, he’s got a box here.” Crack, crunch, toss.

      “Who? Nick?”

      “Who else?”

      “How