The Understudy

Camille can't stop counting through the stage kiss, and ten times now the director has noticed. So after the show, alone under the ghost light, she runs the love scene again, and her understudy walks down the aisle. Vivienne knows every line Camille breathes and every mark she hits, and offers to run the scene, just as a rehearsal exercise. Eleven hundred empty seats, a chaise built for one, and a line that isn't in the script: this is the part where you kiss me.