All At Once Read online

  © 2016 K. P. Ambroziak

  All rights reserved.

  Published by K. P. Ambroziak

  Email: [email protected]

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious.

  Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely accidental.

  No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in

  a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic,

  mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning or other—except for brief quotations in

  critical reviews or articles, without the prior permission of the author.

  Edited by Veronica Murphy

  Cover design by James, GoOnWrite.com

  ALL AT ONCE

  by Vera Mae

  Acknowledgement

  It is most fitting to give thanks to readers and to all those who have supported this writer’s endeavors. I especially want to thank William Bitner, a reader who has encouraged this indie writer more fiercely than she probably merits. He is a generous sort, a stalwart fan of those of us who dare to build castles in the air and paint them on the page.

  For PSS

  Ask yourself my love whether you are not very cruel to have so entrammelled me, so destroyed my freedom. Will you confess this in the Letter you must write immediately, and do all you can to console me in it—make it rich as a draught of poppies to intoxicate me—write the softest words and kiss them that I may at least touch my lips where yours have been. For myself I know not how to express my devotion to so fair a form: I want a brighter word than bright, a fairer word than fair. I almost wish we were butterflies and liv’d but three summer days—three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.

  John Keats to Fanny Brawne, July 3rd 1819.

  CHAPTER ONE

  It’s easy to see New York City as a kettle of strangers scattered across a grid of staggered architecture and heaps of refuse. It’s an unsettling sort of place with a charm that rivals Mephistopheles’s metaphysical hell. A stinky, stuffed playground with people milling about one another, trying hard not to see the link they share. Their humanity is hidden deep, so deep it becomes inconvenient, better left tucked in one’s breast pocket. Being open to feeling is a reckless thing even for the strongest of us. This city rewards the inconspicuous. You can be different here, you can be not you. Still, I guarantee you’ll meet at least one person who’ll uncover your truth and reveal your buried soul. That’s when you know you’ve really beaten the odds, gone off grid and fallen in love.

  Two encounters have changed my life, the second following the first many years later. But the first came sometime after I arrived in New York alone and brave, prepared to embrace the solitude of a city life. It was a simple encounter, really. An elevator ride that lasted a lifetime. We never know which events will change us, which will break us, or which will leave us scarred and schooled and reminded we’re spiritual bundles costumed in flesh and guts, easily hurt. Rumi says the cure for the pain is in the pain, and I tend to agree. The best salve is to live each event, pain and all. Live until our hearts burst and we can live no more. That’s what this story’s about. A love lived to bursting, filled with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.

  * * *

  “Hello, my name is Jayne Ross and I’m with the Artist’s Group.”

  I took a deep breath after slating and waited for at least one of the members sitting behind the long table to look up. I wagered it would be someone on the end first. It’s always someone on the end. Sure enough the curly-haired woman sitting closest to the door glanced up from the picture she held in her hand. My headshot was only a few weeks old but looked nothing like me. I’d cropped off my hair days before they called me in, a whim I regretted sorely as I stood in front of the panel of strangers. The curly-haired woman gave me a once over, from toe to crown, without an ounce of shame. She lingered on my blouse, a top I’d thrown on in haste. My agent had given me what felt like five minutes to get to midtown from the Upper West Side and I splurged for a cab that seemed a good idea at the time. It wasn’t. The back seat smelled thick with cologne, and a little like patchouli, and the driver blasted some kind of funky oriental music. My cabbie got stuck somewhere around Fifty-second Street and I jumped out, mad-dashing it seven blocks down and two avenues over to arrive on time.

  “Sign in here,” the girl at the front desk had said.

  The waiting room was empty but the list of names on the sign-in sheet was long. I glanced at it quickly not realizing it was for something else entirely.

  “Have a seat,” she’d said. “They’ll be with you shortly.”

  I nodded and took the seat farthest from her.

  As she called my name, I noticed the small blue stain on my blouse. How the hell did I get that? It seemed the most important thing on my mind until I walked into the audition room. Once I crossed the threshold and stepped inside the dank studio, the scrutiny of the panel members distracted me. There were seven at the table and for the next three to five minutes, they’d be mine—if I was lucky.

  I nodded and smiled with a big hello, taking a moment to look at each and every one of them. In turn, the eyes of two out of six lit up.

  “You may begin whenever you’re ready,” the man in the middle of the table said. He was the director. My agent told me he’d be there though it was highly irregular. I’d missed the first round of auditions but lucked into this one because the girl they’d originally cast had taken a tumble at a nightclub and twisted her ankle. The director refused to promote her understudy and said they were early enough in production to replace her. At least that’s what my agent told me.

  I indulged in the moment, relishing in the panel’s undivided attention. One of the acting teachers we all loved to hate at the conservatory had taught us this trick. The audition is the job he’d always say. Use those two minutes like they’re the last two minutes on Earth and entertain the crap out of ’em!

  I took a quick and thorough stock of the room, noticing the dark spot of mold in the corner to my left and the long crack in the wall on my right. The door was closed and practically painted shut. Its doorknob was brass and looked loose in its fitting. By some miracle I transformed the cramped space into an expanse of green, a magical forest with moss and knotted pines and oaks that stood twenty feet tall. I smelled the thick air of the sea miles off, somewhere behind the table of seven waiting for me to begin. I looked out at my imaginary horizon and thought of my teacher again. You’ve trained your butterflies to fly in formation, now take your time. These two minutes are yours. Screw ’em!

  David Preston hadn’t been my favorite scene study teacher at the conservatory, but he gave the harshest criticism and the most precise direction, and if you had thick enough skin you could actually learn your craft with him. At least how to walk into an audition looking as though you didn’t give a care.

  “Are you ready, Miss Ross?”

  The voice broke my concentration only a wee bit, and I used it to begin.

  I took a breath and said, “I left no ring with her.” I squashed my urge to step forward a smidge and continued. “What means this lady,” I said, looking at the curly-haired woman on the end. She looked down at the tabletop and I continued with a short giggle, “Fortune forbid my outside hath not charmed her.”

  I was there, in the moment, pleading with my life for the job they had the power to give me. That was me on the inside, anyway. My outward appearance took on a different posture: strong of voice, smooth in movement, and delicate in emotion. David Preston had helped me master that speech more than a year ago and I’d used it since to garner a smaller role a few months after graduation. But that day, in that dank studio, I transcended it.

>   By the time I dropped, “It is too hard a knot for me to untie,” five out of the seven were leaning in with elbows on the table, and the director was sitting back in his chair, his arms folded across his chest with the faintest grin on his face.

  “Thank you,” I said, dropping my chin with a stiff nod.

  “Terrific, Jayne,” the woman sitting next to the director said. “We’ll be in touch with Susan.”

  I smiled for the last time and made for the door.

  “Miss Ross,” a woman’s voice called after me. I twirled to face them once again, holding onto the grace of Shakespeare’s Viola. “Your bag.” She pointed to the sack I’d tossed in the corner when I came into the room.

  “Oh,” I said with a giggle to match the one I’d used to deliver my first line.

  Leave ’em with something to remember you by, David Preston had told us. A laugh, a smile, your bag.

  I can’t say I felt particularly smug once I closed the door behind me, but I was left with the image of the curly-haired woman’s eyebrows rise at the rest of the panel as I walked out. Her look betrayed the joy I’d left her with, the twinkle in her eye undeniable.

  I looked at my watch, more out of habit than to learn the hour. I’d plenty of time before my shift and doubted I’d any other appointments for the day.

  “Have a good afternoon,” I said to the receptionist as I walked through the waiting room.

  I made a quick pit stop to freshen up. The bathroom was empty and I looked in the mirror first. My hair hadn’t moved a bit, even with the kink that had taken to it that morning. I was still getting used to my crop and trying to figure out why the hell I’d done it.

  “Because you’re sick of looking like everybody else,” I whispered. “Right.”

  I dabbed a bit of gloss on my dry lips, foregoing the usual chastisement for their not being lush enough. I had a funny face, and was told as much when I began a perilous, if not unsuccessful, career as a catalogue model at the age of sixteen. I’m scarred for life by the fashion agent who interviewed me for representation, scrutinizing my face with his surly eyes. “I don’t know what it is,” he’d said, “but there’s something about your nose I don’t like. And your cheeks too, there is too much space between your eyes and lips.” A rare duckling, I thought he was saying. I smiled when he mocked me, too young to realize he was uglier than me. The metaphorical scar sits beneath my skin, but I’ve learned to ignore it over the years. Or at least channel it.

  As I stood at the elevator, I watched the numbered lights count down from forty, thinking of nothing and everything at once. I was pleased with myself but also sensed the oncoming crash. The feeling of disappointment was hard to recover from when it came. Not getting a part you know you can do is—well, is probably something likened to a leaky balloon. An object of joy at one point, full and bursting with hope, it quickly becomes a deflated pouch of ridicule.

  I barely heard the ding of the elevator, as the doors bounced open with a snap. The car wasn’t empty and I hesitated. I’d ridden more elevators than I could count since moving to the city, but each time I got on one, a tingle rose up my spine. This one made my shoulders quiver and I almost let the door close without my stepping in.

  When a hand came up to block the door, I sung a thank you as I stepped across the threshold. Without seeing his face, I noticed the man in the elevator was youngish looking, though older than me. Or maybe it was his hunched up posture, hiding his brawny frame, that made him look so. It wasn’t until I stood beside him and glanced up at his, “Which floor?” that I saw his smile.

  I honestly thought I’d fall over. I recognized his face and a blush dashed to my cheeks so quickly the pulse of my heart was felt in the tips of my fingers. There was no ordinary reason for me to experience such a rush of familiarity at the sight of this man. But there was one single, extraordinary one. I’d just seen him the night before in my best friend’s apartment, standing shirtless, candlelight sculpting the most perfect lines of his chest, his golden skin glistening in the light. But not just that, he’d also been dancing with a sword, and crushing his blade into the chest of several men at a time. He even rode a horse through a gulley trimmed with moss and wildflower.

  I swallowed hard and returned his smile, pleased to find myself sharing the elevator with Lyel Baird.

  Hi, his eyes seemed to say.

  “Um, lobby please.” I looked away as soon as I realized my lips were parted. I closed my mouth and bit the inside of my cheek. Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.

  He looked away too, probably realizing I recognized him. It was a regular Tuesday and I was riding in the elevator with one of the sexiest men on TV. I’d seen more than a few celebrities, living in New York for several years now. I’d shared an elevator with Matthew Broderick and Yoko Ono, not at the same time mind you, but this seemed entirely different and I can’t say why. It was almost as if the Mother of Fates had slid in the car with us.

  I can’t recall if I held my breath as the elevator rode downward, or if I only quit breathing when the car suddenly lurched to a hard stop.

  “Oh,” I exhaled.

  We both stood still for a moment, and looked at each other again. He shrugged and I giggled.

  “Well, shite,” he said in a low voice. It was barely perceptible, but I could tell he had to work at his refined Londoner accent.

  “That’s spooky,” I whispered.

  His eyes grew wide and he smiled again. He moved toward the panel of buttons and pressed the one marked lobby but the panel didn’t respond. The silence of the car was evident from the hum in the walls around us.

  “You think it’s the entire building, then,” he said looking up.

  My stomach grumbled and I clutched my arms against my sides. Thank goodness the lights had dimmed enough to hide my embarrassment.

  “Do you have a mobile?” He turned to look at me and I dropped my gaze to root through my bag, pulling my phone out with a bit of trouble.

  “That’s hardly accessible,” he said with a smile. “Most people have them locked in their hands, like they’d kark it without them.”

  “Oh,” I said again.

  He was witty, I was not.

  I lit the screen on the phone, but had no reception, which was one of the reasons I left it at the bottom of my bag. Despite current trends, I wasn’t attached to my cell phone. I kept it on for my agent of course, and carried it everywhere, but otherwise I longed for the days before we became mobile. I missed the rotary phone that sat on the wall of my nan’s kitchen.

  “May I see,” he said, holding his hand out.

  “Sure,” I said, handing it to him with unsteady fingers.

  For the briefest span we both held the phone and he seemed to notice my shaking. I didn’t have time to be embarrassed since he said, “Nup, don’t be frightened. It’s nothing. We’ll be out of here in a tick.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said looking around at the enclosing walls.

  He stepped forward and tossed his head up. “See that hatch up there,” he said. “If I have to, I’ll crawl out and get us some help.”

  I nodded, thinking he was as brave as the character he played on television. Or at least he pretended to be.

  He tinkered with my phone, holding it up high and down low, squatting by the door. “No signal.”

  “There’s a button on the panel,” I said.

  He looked up and moved toward it, examining it. “At the bottom,” I said.

  He pressed the one with the bell icon, and we waited.

  “I suppose we’re on our own,” he said after about a minute.

  I never liked getting into elevators, and took the stairs whenever I could, though climbing up or down twenty floors isn’t appealing no matter the fears.

  “I’m Lyel,” he said, reaching out his hand.

  “Jayne,” I said, my voice thinning by the moment.

  “Well, Jayne, I suppose we should get comfortable.”

  “I suppose.”

  “I like your
cut.” he said, gesturing to my hair. It sounded more like c-ah-t with his slipping out of the more refined accent once again.

  I blushed, as my hand flew up to touch the ends of cropped hair at the back of my head. How did he know I’d gotten a haircut?

  “Your headshot,” he said, as though reading my mind. The pocket on the side of my oversized bag was transparent and I often kept an extra headshot ready when auditioning, but I’d forgotten to turn it face down and I felt foolish. What an ego maniac, he must think.

  “Embarrassing,” I said, as I struggled to pull it out and turn it over. I dropped my bag to the floor and crouched down.

  “No worries,” he said. “I’ve got a pocket-sized one of myself right here.” He reached for his back pocket.

  “Really?” I looked up at him waiting for him to produce his miniature.

  He laughed with a deep roar. “Not really,” he said.

  “Oh,” I smiled and stood up again, leaving my bag on the floor. I suddenly felt queasy.

  “So you’re an actress,” he said.

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “You?”

  He smirked. “Nup, I’m not an actress.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “I’m just having a laugh,” he said. “I’m an actor, too.”

  I wondered when I should mention I knew very well he was an actor, and my best friend and I had indulged in his romancing things up on television on more than a few occasions. “Oh,” I said, instead. “In New York?”

  “Nup,” he said. “UK television.”

  I blushed and dropped my chin.

  “I’m here for a meeting, though,” he said. “But I live in London at the moment.”

  “Ah,” I said. “I should’ve gathered from the accent.”

  “Aussie, actually,” he said. “Born near Melbourne.”

  “Oh, whereabouts?” I sounded foolish. I knew little about Australia, despite their recent invasion of the film industry. I’d never been and sounded about as interested in it as I was in him. Who said I wasn’t a good actress?