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Katherine stared up at the theater, shoulders hunched against the cold. It was a tiny little brick theater in the Upper-West side that had been quickly rising through the entertainment media, and was promising a spectacular Christmas show to its attendees.
And, lucky Kath, she got to review it.
She should be grateful for the story, anything was better than nothing, but she’d been working the entertainment beat for two years. Hadn’t she paid her dues by now?
Sighing, she trudged up to the front door, opening it and stepping into the warm and brightly lit lobby. The kid—had to be a kid, he looked younger than her—behind the counter grinned at her as she approached.
“Hey! Welcome t’ the Irving, how c’n I help ya?” Up close, she could see his nametag read “Charlie”.
Katherine tugged off her gloves. “Uh, I’m Katherine Pulitzer, there should be a ticket set aside from The Sun?”
Charlie sifted through the tickets, before pulling a couple from the pile, paper-clipped together. “Oh, yeah! Looks like ya got a couple, is it just you?”
She nodded. “Yeah, just me.”
“‘Kay, I’ll hold on t’ the other one ‘case ya want it another night,” he said, pulling one ticket from the clip. “You’s in the balcony, so ya take these stairs all the way up to the top, first one on the right. Enjoy the show!”
Katherine couldn’t help but smile back at him. “Thanks.”
She climbed the stairs, finding the private box easily. Sitting in one of the four chairs in the box, Katherine shrugged out of her coat, setting it in the seat next to her. Pulling her notebook out of her purse, she settled in for a long night.
~*~
At intermission, she wandered back down to the lobby for a coffee. She was surprised to find herself actually enjoying the show.
It was...she hadn't figured out how to describe it yet—still had plenty of time to—but instead of being one long pageant, or whatever she had actually expected, it was more like a sketch show, she guessed? There were different acts woven together, some skits, some musical acts, a couple of pretty impressive dancers who, she read in the program, choreographed more than one routine for the show. Even the proprietor herself, Medda Larkin, had kicked off the show with a rendition of "Santa Baby" that had given Katherine actual goosebumps.
She may have been looking for a way off the entertainment beat for the last three months, but it was almost worth the free ticket to see what the second act would bring.
Holding her coffee cup carefully, she climbed the stairs back to the balcony, intent on working out some of her notes from the first act.
Pushing the door to the private box open, Katherine was startled to see another figure in the room. “What are you doing here?”
His head shot up to look at her, brow furrowed. “What’re you doin’ here?” he demanded.
“I asked first,” Katherine said icily. Her eyes were slowly adjusting to the dimmer light of the balcony, and she could make out someone around her age, a hint of a jawline, a flash of green eyes, which narrowed, taking her in.
“Lemme see your ticket," he said instead, standing and dropping something in the seat. He held out a hand expectantly and Katherine realized he was serious.
She recoiled. “No! Why should I show you my ticket?”
“I work here, makin’ sure you’s in the right place.” He flashed an employee badge at her, clipped to the pocket of his black jeans.
“Do you really think I’d just wander in here after intermission?” she asked, even as she reluctantly dug through her purse to find her ticket and hand it over.
“Stranger things’ve happened,” he said absently, peering at the print. “An’ no one gets balcony seats.”
“I did," she said haughtily. "Well, my job did, anyways.”
Still studying her ticket—longer than Katherine thought was necessary—he asked, “Where ya work?”
“The New York Sun. Entertainment. I’m reviewing the show," she rattled off. "Are you done now?”
“Yeah, s’legit,” he said, handing her ticket back and sitting back in the other seat in the balcony, picking up a sketchpad.
Katherine blinked hard, tilting her head at him. “Are you… staying?”
He shrugged. “Why not? Best seats’n the house an’ I always come up here.”
“Shouldn’t you be working?”
“Done ‘til the show’s over. Why?" he asked, looking up and flashing her a crooked smile. "‘m I distractin’ you?”
She didn't see any reason to resist rolling her eyes, so she did. “Hardly," she sniffed, dropping back into her seat with as much dignity as she could, pulling out her own notebook. She still had five minutes of intermission, might as well start her article so she didn't have as much to do after the show.
Katherine had almost forgotten about her unwelcomed guest until suddenly he spoke up, his voice close to her ear. "So, ya got a name, Miss Hotshot Reporter?"
Taking pride in the fact that she didn't jump, she replied coolly, "I'm not in the habit of giving my name to strangers."
Leaning away, he smirked. "Must make for a lousy reporter, then."
Gaping, she dropped her pencil, turning to glare at him, not even noticing the house lights flashing. "You are the most—impossible—person..."
"Hey, quiet down, the show's startin'!"
"I've ever met!" she finished in a loud whisper, as the curtains came up and the orchestra swelled.
She swore she heard him cackle quietly underneath the music, but she refused to dignify him further by even looking at him, keeping her eyes glued to her notebook.
As the show went on, she did forget about...whatever his name was, too absorbed in the show to give him a second thought until he stood suddenly, shuffling past her.
"What are you doing?" she hissed.
"Goin' back to work," he said by way of explanation. "Keep watchin', Miss Medda's 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas'll make ya cry."
Scooting her feet under her chair to let him pass, Katherine glanced over to his chair, where a loose leaf of paper from his sketchbook lay. "Oh, you forgot—"
The door clicked shut behind him.
"Well, then." She didn't give it too much thought. He worked here, after all. He'd find it eventually.
Medda Larkin's "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" didn't necessarily bring tears to Katherine's eyes, but it did bring her to her feet as she applauded for each of the acts, who crowded on stage behind the woman.
As the house lights came up and Katherine began to gather her things, the paper caught her eye once again. Flipping her hair out from under her collar, she bent slightly to pick it up. Maybe she could give it to Charlie down at the box office.
Flipping the paper over, her eyes widened at the drawing she found on the other side.
It was definitely rough—it had to be, it had to be, they'd been sitting in the dark the whole time, but it was also definitely, inexplicably, her.
"What the hell?" she asked no one. This whole time she was watching the show, he was watching her? And sketched her? And had the audacity to just leave?
Tucking it among the pages of her program, Katherine started down the stairs, wondering if there was a chance she could catch up.
Down in the lobby, she scanned the crowd, searching for a sign of her mystery visitor from the balcony. She didn't have much to go on, really, just dark hair, green eyes, and that he'd been wearing all black.
She didn't see him, but she saw that Charlie was still in the box office, so she made her way over to him.
"Hi...Charlie, right?" she asked, leaning her arms against the counter.
He looked up from his phone. "Yeah! You're from the paper right? C'n I help you with somethin'?"
"Right, Katherine. Listen, there's an employee here, little taller than me, dark hair, likes to hang out in the balcony. Sound familiar?"
Charlie nodded in recognition. "Oh, yeah, that's Jack. Sorry, there's us'lly no one in the balcony. I forgot t' tell him, did he come up an' bother you—?"
"No, no," she said, shaking her head, "It wasn't any problem. Just never caught his name, is all. Have a good night, Charlie."
"You too, Katherine."
~*~
She waited a full week after her article ran before she went back to the Irving Theater, curious to see if Charlie had kept his promise to hold on to the other ticket under her name.
Approaching the box office window, brushing off the snowflakes from her coat, Katherine said, "Hi, Charlie, I don't know if you remember me. I'm..." Something caught her attention out of the corner of her eye, and she trailed off.
Taped to the box office window, for everyone to see, was her article of the show.
"That's...my article," she finished lamely.
"Yeah!" Charlie said, grinning. "First article we ever got about the place. Miss Medda thinks it's silly, but she's been tryin' to get this place up an' runnin' for three years now, an' any news is good news, you know? So me an' Jack've been puttin' it up everywhere. S'really nice, what you said."
She still couldn't really believe it. Katherine couldn't remember the last time someone actually cut out one of her articles. When your father was Joseph Pulitzer, being an entertainment reviewer was small potatoes. She'd never wanted the handout The World could offer her, so she'd struck out on her own.
She didn't even think anyone in her family read The Sun.
"Uh, well, I just wrote the truth," Katherine said, still not sure what to say. "It's a great show. That's why I'm back, actually, I wanted to see if you still had that other ticket—I'll pay for it this time, of course! Since I'm not working, it's only fair."
Charlie was shaking his head before she could finish her sentence. "Miss Medda'd kill me if I let you pay after all the business you helped bring in. We've been sellin' out almost ev'ry night!"
Shit, every night? It wasn't exactly the impact she expected to have as a journalist, but that...felt nice.
Really nice.
"Are you sure?" she protested weakly, even as Charlie pushed the ticket across the counter to her.
He waved away her protests. "Sure I'm sure! Remember where the balcony is?"
Katherine would still feel better if he'd let her pay, but figured technically the paper paid for them before. She nodded. "Yeah. Thanks, Charlie."
She trekked up the stairs to the balcony, unbuttoning her coat.
Opening the door to the box, she didn't even pretend to be surprised to see another figure in one of the chairs, leg propped up on the railing in front of him.
"Jack Kelly," she said, closing the door behind her.
He didn't look surprised that she knew his name. She was a reporter, after all, and had done her research on Medda Larkin's stage manager, set designer, and proverbial—and, she supposed, literal—jack-of-all-trades. Jack simply looked up from his pad and replied, "Katherine Pulitzer."
That shouldn't have surprised her as much as it did. According to Charlie, he and Jack had put up the article everywhere, so he must have read it. It just never really occurred to her that he'd actually remember her.
Dropping into the seat next to him, she said, "I just want to say, if you're going to stare at me all night again, you could try talking to me."
He let out a surprised laugh at that, even as she winced at her own bluntness. "An' what makes ya think I was starin' at you?"
"Uhm, maybe because you drew a whole picture of me last show?" she shot back, unearthing the sketch from her purse, realizing too late that she was revealing her hand a little too much, showing that she'd been carrying the picture around since she last saw him.
Jack nodded seriously. "Mm-hmm. Hate to break it t' ya, sweetheart, but that's just a profile. I charge extra f'r a 'whole picture'."
Flushing a bit at the "sweetheart" comment, and praying he couldn't tell, Katherine opted for haughtiness. "Don't you have work to do besides staking out balconies?"
"Actually," he said, looking at his phone and standing. "I do. Gotta make sure Racer don't fuck up his ankles showing off before the show again. Lemme see that," he added, holding out his hand for the drawing.
Her stomach dropped, and she didn't want to think too hard about whether or not it had to do with his sudden departure or the fact that he wanted his picture back—which, of course he did, why had she even taken it in the first place? It'd been stupid to pick it up in the first place, let alone hold on to it.
Handing it over wordlessly, Katherine was surprised when, instead of simply taking it and leaving, Jack pulled a pencil from his pocket and scribbled something in a corner before handing it back to her.
"There," he said, with that same smirk she'd been thinking about for the past week and a half. "Now ya don't gotta hunt me down at the theater no more."
Before she could retort, he ducked out the door.
In the corner of the sketch, he'd scrawled his phone number.
"Cocky little son of a bitch."