Ms America and the Brouhaha on Broadway Read Online Free PDF Page A

gargantuan dance studio except that it has fewer mirrors and no barres for dancers to hold on to as they practice their pliés. It does have blue tape on the hardwood floor marking where the entrances, exits and curtains would be if this were a stage. I note Kimberly in one corner, her head bent over her cell phone, madly texting away.
    I wonder if she’s texting Jason. Granted, she’d have an excuse: he’s coming to New York Saturday for their photo shoot. It amazes me, but Kimberly convinced the calendar company to do an edition for next year that features my husband and my husband only. I guess Jason has way more star power than I gave him credit for. It makes me feel bad that I underestimated him all these years. I used to think that was my mom’s territory, but I guess it’s mine, too.
    Another thing makes me feel bad: how jealous I get watching Jason and Kimberly work together. It’s sure helped me understand how Jason felt seeing pageant events—and my sleuthing—draw Mario and me closer.
    Unfortunately, any hope I had of making Jason’s New York visit a bit of a romantic getaway is pretty much dashed. Not only will both of us be working most of the time, but my mom is showing up in the Big Apple tomorrow with Bennie Hana, her employer and boyfriend all rolled into one. And where Hazel Przybyszewski goes, drama inevitably follows. Jason and I will be lucky if we get any quality time alone.
    Oliver waves the last stragglers inside the rehearsal room. Maybe it’s just me but I sense a certain tension in the room. We all know Oliver couldn’t stand Lisette. This is like asking one of the Hatfields to say a few nice words about one of the McCoys.
    Oliver squeaks out his opening. “What happened tonight is a huge tragedy for Lisette and her family. It’s a horrible, horrible thing. And there’s no playbook for what to do afterward, either. My father tells me he’s seen it all on Broadway, but he never saw this.”
    Shanelle glances at me and arches her brows. I can guess what she’s thinking. This is the first time we’ve heard Oliver mention his father, the legendary Broadway producer Oliver Tripp Sr. I’m glad I’m not Oliver because it’d be tough to follow in those footsteps. If my dad had been a star crime-solver, or my mom Miss Universe, deep down I know I’d be competing with them.
    “You all know by now,” Oliver says, “that with me, what you see is what you get.”
    Not really. Oliver screamed at Lisette behind closed doors but feigned friendship otherwise.
    “I speak my mind,” he goes on. “Tonight’s not going to change that.”
    I get an even worse feeling. Lisette’s not even cold and Oliver is about to ream her. He’s sure not bothering to put on his timid act for us mere mortals, the cast and crew. Though his voice is as squeaky as ever, he sounds quite self-assured.
    “So if you need to talk about what happened tonight, don’t come to me,” he tells us. “Go to your shrink; go to your rabbi; I don’t care. Because the bottom line for me is that this production is the toughest I’ve ever worked on and that’s because of Lisette Longley. I’m not saying she deserved what happened tonight, but she was hardly a friend of mine. I’m not going to start pretending now that she was.”
    Not a peep comes out of a soul in that rehearsal room.
    “So here’s what we’re going to do.” We might have a corpse one floor below, but Oliver sounds totally matter-of-fact. “We’re going to get back to work. Mourn Lisette on your own time. Come here to work. Opening night is coming up fast and nothing is going to keep me from making Dream Angel the best musical it can be. If you’re not on board with that program, I want you gone.
    “One last thing,” Oliver says into the stunned silence. “What I said to the audience goes double for all of you. If anybody posts or tweets about what happened here tonight, you’re outa here. Period.” He lets that sink in. “I’ve drafted a