Like a Star, page 24
Hazel, on the other hand, took after her dad. She had a shield around her. And just as with James, Stella craved to be close to her. At least James had Teressa, his nana, to turn to. Hazel, Stella feared, didn’t have that kind of love. The war between Frank and James has kept Stella away from the twins.
She was a teacher for a long time, and she secretly wanted to help Hazel. She thought that with her and Nathan’s support, Hazel would become the greatest Warner. But it was Owen Lee who took her under his wings. Stella had never liked Owen. His method didn’t suit Hazel. He and Stella had been at each other’s throats since they studied under Konstantin. Hazel’s choice hurt her to the point that made her quit teaching.
But then Frank brought her Joe Starlex. Little Joe who looked so much like Frank when he was a kid. But the boy was hiding more potential than the Sun producer. The gleam of his metallic eyes filled her with hope and joy.
She was away from the acting world again. Not an actress anymore, not mentoring anyone, but she remained like a grandmother to him and that was enough for her. Joe loved her deeply and that would never change.
“Would you do me a favor, my fair lady?” Joe asked Stella when she called. He was already on the plane.
“I think I know where you are going…” Stella, like a good mother, knew everything about her son. She knew him maybe even better than he knew himself.
Joe chuckled, picturing her I-know-it-all face by the sound of her voice. “Would you check on the girl I’m sponsoring?”
He knew she knew more about Summer than what she let on. Not only because he’d personally told her about his protégé, but because she talked to Frank. Stella had always supported all of Frank’s crazy ideas. And the Sun sponsoring an aspiring actress… Well, Joe was sure Stella knew about that way before him. After all, there was a time when she had a sponsor too.
“I’ll consider it,” she said. “I have some free time anyway. And now that you’re gone, I’m definitely going to be bored.”
With that in mind, Joe left his country at ease as he embarked on his new adventure of a war film. Something he’d been wanting to do for a long time.
Oh, how he loved his job.
* * *
Summer was thinking exactly the same thing. Oh, how she loved her job. And she could actually say that because she was getting paid for acting! Money had never even crossed her mind when she was cast as Jane.
“You are called a professional actress because you are getting paid to act,” said Mr. Brown, still laughing at her face when she read how much she was going to be paid weekly when the show hit Broadway in September.
“There’s too many zeros…”
She was still recovering from the shock. She was even going to be paid for the practice sessions! As normal as that sounded to Mr. Brown, for Summer it was a very big deal. She was going to be paid to do what she loved most in the world. How couldn’t she be overjoyed?
Mr. Brown also couldn’t contain his happiness. He was the proudest of fathers. His gut was right when it told him to bet on Summer. She truly was becoming a professional artist. Looking back to the day they met, she had changed so much. She was finally the girl she was supposed to be from the start—a strong, independent conqueror. He made sure to invite Olga and Gary, Summer’s ex-bosses, to her Broadway debut.
The next two days before starting rehearsals felt like an eternity. She devoured the script the way Neverland told her to when she was reading Don Quixote. She couldn’t get enough of it. Everything the script said, she believed. But she needed more—she needed a vivid image in her mind, she needed to see wolves. Wild wolves. But where could she find wolves in NLA?
She asked Mr. Brown. He was a great detective, so his knowledge was vaster than most. Lenin was happy to help her with her first job, so he took her on a four-hour drive to a wolf sanctuary in California. They stayed the night nearby so Summer could spend the whole next day watching wolves. The detective was amazed by her natural instincts. But that girl was no stranger to wolves. She liked them so much that her knowledge of them was superior to his. The sanctuary was home of the Rising Wolves, a pack of eighteen gray wolves led by their alpha couple, Orion and Star. The alphas were very protective of their pack, especially because Star had just birthed seven pups.
Orion’s caretaker was the only human that could approach the alphas during that time. Summer first looked at the betas, but her prey was Star. After all, Jane was adopted by the female alpha and accepted in the pack by the alpha male. And Jane was still a pup in her wolf’s mind. The caretaker was very impressed with Summer too; he told Mr. Brown that after six hours of nonstop observation of the grown wolves, Summer moved closer to observe the pups. The pups were two months old, and they were very playful, always fighting among themselves and sticking close to their mom. Lenin asked Summer what she thought about them when he came to give her some food. She hadn’t stopped looking at them with intense concentration the whole day, so clearly she’d forgotten to eat.
“Jane is a pup too,” she replied. “Imagine how lonely she must feel without her siblings and her mother.”
They arrived home late that night. Summer didn’t want to leave until the pack recognized her howling. The moment she saw that the alpha started looking for her howl, she felt a little satisfied. Neither Lenin nor the caretaker could understand what was going on inside her mind. Probably not even her. It was hard to explain how she knew what she was doing, she was just following her instincts.
She spent the whole night trying to copy the wolves’ movements she’d observed in the sanctuary. Especially the female alpha. Summer decided if Jane had grown up in her pack, she would have become the female alpha.
At rehearsal, it was scary how easy she made it look. She moved naturally into a wolf’s pose in a matter of seconds. The cast got chills from the intensity of her character. It wasn’t her fault. Jane spent most of the play being on guard. But J.K. needed to direct the Stage Storm of Summer before she drowned his other actors.
And today was just the first day of rehearsals.
As the days went by, the Stage Storm was getting stronger and harder to contain. One could even feel a little sorry for the actors sharing scenes with Jane. It was like having a wild animal in the theater. J.K. could barely control her. Summer was always waiting for his approval but the cast were scared of her, especially the ones playing her pack. They were trying to copy her movements as a wolf pup, but she was too natural and that made them self-conscious. The only one who wasn’t bothered by her was Hazel.
Hazel Warner and her very delicate, subtle kind of acting. She understood how to express herself so well that many considered her beyond needing direction.
But skillful acting was not enough to beat a girl with a thousand masks. And it was because Hazel was used to competing against geniuses, so her dignity would never allow her to lose against raw talent.
Hazel’s Mary was the cast’s lifeboat against the feral Jane. Her performance inspired the other actors, and J.K. made use of that. In the eyes of her comrades, she looked superior to the newbie. But Nathan knew, and that bothered her. Nathan knew that when Hazel was thinking, “I’m not going to let you upstage me,” Summer was only thinking about how much Jane was starting to love Mary.
The newcomer actress didn’t totally understand why the cast didn’t like her. Hazel was nice to her and Summer had nothing more than deep admiration for the Princess. She’d become the leader of the troupe. A perfect example of how a lead actress should be.
“Stage acting is a unique art,” Nathan told her when they were having lunch. In the weeks she’d been coming to Milky Way, Nathan had become her closest friend. “It pursues the truth. You haven’t done a movie yet, but you’ll see there is no other performing art more real than theater. But the reality it pursues, most actors find it when the curtains rise.”
Summer was starting to get his point. She remembered Joe Starlex at the rehearsals of Don Quixote. When she thought he was doing his best, it happened that he wasn’t even trying. He was suppressing his acting—that’s how his colleagues referred to it. The closer it got to opening night, the truest his performance became. And on the opening night, the cast was reborn into their real characters.
“Rehearsals are meant to find that truth. To discover it together as a cast. In other words…”
“You upstage the other artists!” a woman interrupted Nathan. “Have some consideration for other rising stars and their careers!”
Nathan smirked. “I knew you were close by, Your Highness. I have seen you sneaking around these past few days.”
“Your eyes never disappoint me, little Nate.” She looked at him proudly.
“As if you could hide your wings from me.” Nathan smiled wide with confidence. For a moment, they just stared at each other. Summer could tell there was complicity between them. It gave her a nice vibe about their relationship.
She recognized that woman, of course. She was trying to hide herself, but she took out her glasses to talk to Nathan and that gave her up. She was the lady who came with Joe Starlex to the SAG Awards, First Moon Stella Clarke. Summer stood up unconsciously; it was her instinct to show respect. Stella Clarke studied the girl from head to toe.
“It’s been only a week, and the storm is threatening to destroy your play, little Nate,” said the Moon to Nathan without looking away from Summer.
“And who says I want to repress the storm?” he replied. Stella smirked, then sighed.
“You people have no consideration for the other actors. And…” She turned to Summer. “You and I have a friend in common, little girl.”
The First Moon had spoken to Summer. She couldn’t believe it. Her eyes must be deceiving her. She was the legendary actress she’d been studying since she decided to pursue acting as her career. Stella Clarke, Neverland’s favorite artist. And she was standing right in front of her.
“We do?” she asked, confused. Summer wasn’t thinking straight. The realization hit her when she saw Stella walk away. If it wasn’t Joe Starlex she was referring to, it must be Neverland. Only her benefactor could have made the First Moon come to her.
“You sure are well connected, Summer Lee Taylor,” said Nathan in a gloomy tone. She looked at him, still confused. “You are close to the Young Sun, and now my grandfather’s widow is watching you.”
She was about to ask about that, but she remembered what Mr. Brown once told her about the First Moon. She’d been married to Keith Warner, and rumor said he died in her arms. Keith Warner, Summer realized, was actually Nathan’s grandfather. She was beginning to understand just how important the guy sitting next to her was.
J.K. called her. He wanted to talk with Summer and Hazel. Starting next week, they would be focusing on their scenes. So far Hazel had been the only one capable of working with Summer. A remarkable feat, J.K. must admit, but he didn’t expect less from the Princess. He knew Summer was not conscious of her own acting, and that made Hazel Warner face her with pure technique. She was, without question, Owen Lee’s pupil.
That weekend, Summer returned to the wolf sanctuary. She went by herself and stayed in the same hotel as last time. She was determined to interact with the wolves, but the caretaker wouldn’t let her. So, he, being an expert in wolves, became like a sort of coach to her. She kept on observing the alpha couple and the pups. But the more she observed them, the more she absorbed from them, and that made it harder to break her own spell. She dreamed of wolves when she came back home. Her dream was so vivid that she woke up on the floor.
Summer’s energy was too great in the opening scene. Although it was true the first scene was a cruel one where she loses her pack, her energy was above everyone else. Even higher than usual. Every day she resembled a pup wolf more and more, to the point where she didn’t seem human anymore and J.K. was forced to make her sit down and watch the play for the sake of the rest of his cast.
Summer concentrated on Mary, Hazel’s character. She noticed all the other actors loved sharing scenes with her. She made them better. They responded to her in the exact way the script asked them to. She also noticed that actors who usually lost their character acting with her, found their best performance when acting with Hazel.
Nathan came to sit with her. He told her to appreciate the growth of the cast. They were better than when they’d started because, little by little, they were entering into their roles.
“Not all actors are like my sister, who can empathize with any character really fast,” he told Summer, looking at Mary on the stage. “And definitely not all actors are like you, who can become the character on their first try.” He looked deeply at her, with no malice or fear. On the contrary, it was a look of admiration. “I think what you have is wonderful. And I think you are closer to being the actress I need. But you lack something and, curiously, there is someone right here who can guide you better than me.”
Nathan nodded toward the balcony seats where a lone woman was sitting. It was Stella Clarke without a doubt. She had been here every day this week, but she hadn’t talked to anybody. Nathan was lying, though; he could have directed all that energy and implanted it into the cast, that was his talent. But that had never been his intention. He was only here to closely observe Summer’s talent, without interfering. He needed to see it raw. It was a necessity if he wanted to work with her in the future.
Summer followed Nathan’s gaze and went to meet Stella Clarke. The view from the balcony made her smile. She’d never been on the balcony before, never seen how beautiful the stage looked from above.
“I’ve always loved the view from up here,” said the First Moon.
“You can see the whole stage… It’s beautiful,” exclaimed Summer.
The pure wonder in her eyes touched the veteran actress. It made her remember when she used to bring Joe to the theater. He was a theater freak, and so was she. She could still remember the first time she entered a beautiful theater with her mentor, Konstantin Vasiliev. She was a little seven-year-old girl when he took her from the streets and became his first pupil.
The gleam in this girl’s eyes reminded her of her love for the stage. She understood why Joe hadn’t been able to ignore her. The honesty emanating from this girl was the reason her acting was always true.
“Can you see talent, Summer?” asked Stella.
“What do you mean?” she asked, a little confused.
“It’s okay if you can’t see it. Most people can’t. I, myself, am not able to see it all the time. Only when I’m beholding extraordinary talent.” She stepped back from the balcony, moving closer to the aspiring actress. “You must feel it however. The goosebumps on your skin, the chill running down your spine, your heart beating faster. It happens when art becomes real.”
The legendary actress was now standing next to her, looking straight into her eyes. Summer knew what she was talking about. She couldn’t see the cast now, but she could feel their talent. The unity of the stage that belonged to J.K. He harmonized the energy of the actors and the result was a truthful act. They were all talented, she observed. The most talented was unquestionably Hazel Warner, but the strongest energy came without doubt from the veteran actress, and she wasn’t acting.
“Have you seen them, Summer?” continued Stella. “Have you seen them on the Moon when she acted in Feline? Have you seen them on Joe’s back when he was Don Quixote? Can you see them now, as I stand in front of you?”
Oddly, Summer understood her. Her words compelled her, for she knew what she meant. The first time Summer thought she saw them was when she saw the Captain’s storytelling abilities in Chicago. They were so beautiful she thought he was an angel. And then she saw them so many times on his back that she came to the conclusion that he was the real Peter Pan. But that was when she was an innocent child.
The second time she saw them was on Matt’s back. As hard as it was to admit it, that obnoxious brat was musically gifted. She’d seen his wings spreading across his back when he was songwriting. When he poured all his soul into his lyrics and the music embraced him. And she grew so used to seeing them on Matt that she started doubting her eyes and thinking of them as just her imagination.
But then she saw them that night in Feline. She saw Shonny Faith’s wings covering the whole stage with her presence. They were huge and eerily beautiful. They set her apart from the rest. On that stage, she was art itself. And that miracle happened again on the opening night of Don Quixote. Joe Starlex’s overwhelming wings could compare to the Moon’s. And that power was under his control, for Summer had seen his wings many times during rehearsals. They were always so controlled that she couldn’t believe her eyes, until the opening night when his wings were allowed to devour the stage. And it was impossible to deny them.
Now she was looking at the First Moon. She was not playing any character. She was just being her exceptional self. And her own presence was enough to have her pair of wings coming from her back. Summer felt her own presence diminishing. She forgot to breathe and her whole body trembled. She never noticed that below the play had stopped, and all eyes were on them. Stella’s presence got control over the place. There wasn’t a single person inside the theater that could not feel her intoxicating aura. But J.K. could see them clearly, and so did the Warner twins. They saw the First Moon showing her mighty wings to Summer Lee Taylor.
And although Summer was afraid, she didn’t yield. She beheld the actress and reached out her hand to touch her wings. It felt like trying to touch the light. They burned but they weren’t solid, for they belonged to the world of instinct. And her instincts were telling her that she wanted them too.
“I see them,” replied Summer. Stella’s lips curved.
“You see that boy who is looking at us?” Stella pointed at Nathan. He was sitting right where Summer was before.
