Page 50 of Big Sexy Love
Menace? He’s calling me amenace?Rude.
The cop looks up and down the street, assuming I’ve run far away. I feel a dart of cleverness at my decision to hide unexpectedlynearby.
As the grumpy besuited man walks off shaking his head, and the cop heads to his car, I take the opportunity to run away, as fast asIcan.
Running away from the law twice intwodays.
I think technically that makes me afugitive.
HolyFuck.
* * *
I’m intermittently lookingat my Citymapper app and walking quickly through the streets of NYC. Damn that Seth Hartman. If I hadn’t been so focused on calling him out on his awful behaviour, I wouldn’t have been distracted enough to post Birdie’s letter along with Mrs Ramirez’s postcards and had to run away from the mailbox to avoid gettingarrested!
‘Riverside Theatre,’ I mutter to myself. He got me into this mess and he can bloody well get me out of it. I bet he’s in the theatre right now having a ball, while I’m out here on the run from the NYPD. I bet he’s with all his thespian mates and they’re congratulating him on his sketch comedy glory. I wonder if they know that it didn’t even come from his own brain, but from a real person. Me! I wonder if he’s even allowed to impersonate a real person so closely on a TV show. I mean, of course he is,Sunday Night Liveis full of celebrity impressions and such. But I’m not a celebrity. I’m a sweet and innocent person who didn’t ask to be in thepubliceye.
I follow my travel app map towards the Riverside Theatre, and as I do, the streets become less and less desirable. Where previously there were trees and fancy buildings, there is now graffiti and boardedwindows.
A group of teenagers on the corner stare at me as Iwalkpast.
‘Hey look, it’s Samuel L Jackson!’ one of them shouts and they all startlaughing.
I speed up my walk and turn the corner, finally reaching the theatre. Although it doesn’t look like the upmarket theatre I was expecting. It’s an unattractive concrete building with a big green door, the paint a scuffed off to reveal splintered wood beneath. There’s a ramp leading up to the door and the metal bar at each side is rusty and covered with splats ofbirdturd.
I spot a small rusted, dull plaque above the door.Riverside Community Theatre. Oh! I expected something with nice lights on the façade and posters of musical theatre stars looking dramatically into thedistance.
Hmmm. Seth is a comedy writer for a huge TV Show. What is he doing in a run-down theatrelikethis?
I take down my umbrella and shake the rain off heartily onto the pavement. I prop it up against the door, step inside and wander through a quiet lobby. The right wall is plastered in notices and leaflets. Over-60s Zumba classes, bridge club, and an am-dram production ofCats). I wonder what Seth is here for. Is he inCats? I bet he’s playing Macavity the sneaky, villainous cat. That would suit himperfectly.
I hear joyful voices from a room down the hall. I go and look through a little window inthedoor.
There he is. His too-long hair still damp from the rain. He’s not wearing the button down shirt he had on before though. He’s wearing a white T-shirt imprinted with the words West SideKnitters.
Huh.
I notice that everyone else in the room is aged between about thirteen and sixteen and they’re all listening to Seth talk, wide-eyed, like is he is telling them the guaranteed secret to acne-freeskin.
I stop nosying, remember why I’m here and gently push open the door. Ordinarily I would wait politely outside until whatever it is that’s going on is finished. But I haven’t exactly got a great deal of time, and whateverisgoing on in here can’t be as important as Birdie’s lostletter.
I check that my beret is securely on. I can’t have all these teenagers recognising me too. I try to enter the room without drawing too much attention but my trainers are wet and they squeak on the gym floor obnoxiously. Seth and about twenty teenagers stop what they’re doing and spin around to lookatme.
Eek.
‘Sorry! Really sorry!’ I say, holding my hands up as I creep past. But then, remembering that it was my Mancunian accent that got me recognised in the deli this morning I decide to change it into something less recognisable. ‘Sorry!’ I say again in an Australian accent. ‘I’m sorry to interrupt, I just need a quick wordwithSeth?’
Seth comes outasSith.
Why did you choose an Australian accent,Olive?
I mentally berate myself.Australian is definitely the hardest accent! And I have tried every accent out in the mirror at one point oranother.
At my terrible Australian impression, Seth’s eyes widen, his brows dipping and creating a mini crevice in his forehead. He glares at me in disbelief, like I’m a hallucination. Like he cannot believe I have tracked him down to a tiny community theatre on the outer fringes of the Upper West Side. Like a crazystalker.
‘Just a second, guys,’ Seth says, walking across the halltowardsme.
‘Oooooooh!’ some of the teens shout. ‘It’s your girlfriend! Youlooooooveher!’
